Elder Thornton Version 2.0 (in Puerto Rico!)

Hermanos y hermanas, What a great time I have had here at the MTC, so much that this goodbye is almost as hard as when I left home. It has been so bittersweet (and nerve-wracking). I leave at 4:30 tomorrow morning (in less than 9 hours as I write this) and arrive at the beautiful island of Puerto Rico around 9. I am so excited. This week a surprising amount of exciting things happened despite being locked up in the MTC for our final week. The rain here has been crazy, and while we didn't get any hurricanes we got some beautiful rainy weather. At least, it's only beautiful when you are looking out the window, or playing volleyball with your district -- it's basically like swimming when it rains as heavy as it did this week. We got to go out into the field again to do transfers with missionaries in Santo Domingo. I had the privilege of joining Elder Hawkins -- who celebrated his 6 months Friday -- and Elder Hamblin -- who left the MTC only 3 weeks ago. I feel rea

Hola amigos! What a crazy week! I wish I could tell about everything that happened to me this week, but it seems that I won't have quite enough time to tell everything, so I'll just share some highlights. All last week we were dreading going out into the field (probably because surprisingly none of us are quite fluent after 4-5ish weeks of training), so when we arrived at the chapel where we were meeting I was stressing out of my mind. However, after I met my temporary comp, Elder Gividen, I was eased a little bit. As a fellow Utahn and being out in the field for almost exactly a year he is quite fluent in English and Spanish. I was very happy to be able to communicate with him, whereas many of the missionaries did exchanges with natives who had little English-speaking abilities. Most of the time (2-8 pm) was spend travelling as the area we were going to was pretty far away, but we got to take the really-nice metro and then a couple of junky Guaguas (busses where everyone j

Hola! I am happy to report to y'all that all is well at the MTC and I am not feeling sick this week! Unfortunately I have to report that the new arrivals are going through the EXACT same thing all of us did 3 weeks ago. What a great tradition!😂  This week was full of excitement. We prepped a lot for President Nelson's arrival including a one-hour training session on how to shake a 93-year-old's hand. Unfortunately that meeting did not pay off, because even with shaking almost 500 missionaries hands... the prophet didn't go for the fish flop hand shake that we were informed we would be receiving. He is still an extremely healthy old man. What a guy! On Saturday morning we boarded a bus with all 80 missionaries - some 50 of them had just arrived only days before - and arrived minutes later to a gated chapel where we could barely fit all us MTC missionaries, and the East and West Santo Domingo missions around 450ish missionaries. Before the meeting began, all of us missio

Buenos Tardes! Well, folks. I've made it halfway through the MTC! Spanish is coming along better and from what the older missionaries said when they departed, the tail end is apparently a lot easier... Except for the exchanges we get (read: "have") to do with the missionaries out in the field. We said goodbye to all the missionaries going out into the field yesterday - the north americans (and one british Elder) heading to the East and West San Domingo Missions, the Latinos serving all over and the Haitians that are headed back to Haiti, to Jamaica or the Ivory Coast. It was bittersweet as we got to be good friends with all of them (even those that don't speak much English). This week we have two arrivals (of different kinds). We have about 50ish missionaries who will be coming mostly from North America, but also some Latinos as well. The major difference about this group compared to ours is the language. We have a few North Americans who are assi

Buenas Tardes, hermanos y hermanas! I've made it all the way to week number 2! It seems like its been forever since I left from the airport, and I think I've (mostly) adjusted to missionary life.  Last week I informed you all that the food wasn't sitting well under the impression that we'd all soon be adjusting and after a week everything would be fine and dandy. However I was dead wrong. We are all still having indigestion - most everyone has officially given up eating the eggs for breakfast. :) My mother asked about my duties as a district leader, and luckily, I don't do quite as much as a district leader does out in the field (probably because everyone in my district is located in the same area and we all have the same schedule). But it's pretty similar to what I did as a 1st assistant in the Priest's Quorum. I attend weekly leadership councils with Pres. Gulbrandsen, conduct district meetings, organize lessons for Sunday School an

Hola mis amigos! This first week in the Dominican Republic MTC (CCM) has been absolutely crazy, and it feels like its been a couple of months since I've talked to all of you! It's crazy how long it feels I've been here; the first couple of days felt especially long, but I think I'm fully adjusted and if the rest of my mission flies by as fast as yesterday did, I'll be home in absolutely no time at all! Flying to the MTC was quite the experience! We had approximately 20 elders and hermanas fly in from the SLC airport and we met 10 more at Atlanta before we flew into Santo Domingo. It was particularly frustrating attempting to learn everyone's names though especially because none of us had any nametags... I sat next to strangers on the airplanes but they were a little bit too preoccupied with sleeping so I was unable to talk to anyone on the flight and with no movies and little entertainment there was little to take my mind off of the nerves and the massi