Next Month...

So, there is another elder in the district who goes home the same time I do, and he has been so kind as to frequently remind me how many days we have left... It's all just numbers though, so I haven't really paid much attention to it. Until yesterday, when he said, "hey, we go home next month."

Ya. That's not okay.

March, go home.

Anyway, not a whole lot has happened since last Tuesday. We are continually battling the weird weather, we had freezing rain on Sunday. I always think freezing rain is really pretty, although it did make things more difficult for us, and the YSA ended church right after sacrament meeting. So, that wasn't the most fun.

However, I did get another plant... I know I was trying to stop, but it's so difficult! They just grow out of the earth like it's nobody's business! This one I got from a very nice member family. His name is Chai, since this family also answered my prayer and helped me out with some lemon ginger tea because my throat was trying to kill me.

We have been experiencing awesome miracles, and all the best of everything (despite the weather), and have rescheduled the temple trip for April, except this time we'll be going to the Manhattan, New York temple! If I don't get transferred, that is (fingers crossed).

And just for an awesome quote because it's awesome: "Pure Christlike love flowing from true righteousness can change the world." Elder Holland

Love,
Elder Horne

"White As Snow"

And I thought I had a lot of pictures last week...

SO, this week was slightly different than expected, but still tremendously awesome and great.

Destiney's baptism was Tuesday, and it was such a wonderful experience!! There were so many people there, and everything went perfectly. Except that Elder Lake forgot to bring a change of shirt, so I had to mummy wrap his sleeves in paper towels before he would put his suit jacket back on. Other than that, it was perfect.

Than, we were preparing to go to the temple with them on Saturday, and we had found 47 names for baptisms from their family! We were so excited! Everything was ready and perfect and happy! Until they cancelled the trip due to snow and rescheduled for September... immediate sadness. We'll figure something out so we can go soon.

We also had a mission conference yesterday! This is the first time our mission has all met together in at least 5 years! Elder Evans of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy, and Elder Allen of the 5th Quorum of the Seventy came and presented training to us on using our digital devices! We will be getting new iPads next week (maybe later) and they'll be rolling out all these new updates in stages. It's exciting stuff. They were awesome.

And... I took a lot of pictures... this is only like, 10%.

Destiney's baptism!!! 

So... we never take selfies, and so when the roads are bad and I'm sliding the car everywhere,

that is when we take seflies. 

And even when I'm taking distracted photos I still manage to be super squinty...

Yay, driving in the snow! 

I made a little snowman outside our apartment! Finally!

I also finally made these cupcakes that my family sent me mix for. 

They turned out pretty good, I messed up the frosting, so it was a little runny...

...as you can probably tell.

Driving past Philly on our way to the Mission Conference!

My "daughter" Sister Johnstone and "grand-daughter" Sister Gomm!

Elder Hunsaker was my zone leader in Downingtown, and then also here in Jersey

Now he is in Linwood!

TEAM SEAATTTLLLLE!!!!

Oh, and someone gave us a painting of the Last Supper,

so that was pretty sweet.

Love,

Elder Horne

Snowy Valentines

I have pictures.

This week was a lot different than I thought it would be! That's one way to put it. It's been really cold, and we went on exchanges, and just lots of things to keep us busy.

Valentines weekend was great! Just before Valentines day, we decided to go to the college campus and hand out a ton of pass-along card valentines! We basically just wrote on a ton of pass-along cards, and tied some ribbon and a Dum-Dum to each one and walked around campus passing them out. It was a lot of fun! We met some awesome people, most of whom wanted us to learn that it was singles-awareness day and tell us their sad story of being single of Valentines Day, but it was still great!

The family sent me this awesome awesome package. I was blown away to see something incredible. An orchid!!! It still doesn't have a name yet, but we're getting there. We've had a busy week okay.

She makes our bathroom look prettier, that's for sure. 

Also in the package was some mix for Red Velvet Pancakes. So, for breakfast we made those. I promise that they were actually really good, but in this picture they kind of look like beef patties... The eggs also look awful (they had red food coloring in them). I thought about taking a picture with different lighting to make the food look good, but I thought it was fun how unappetizing they look in this picture!

Yum.... 

Oh, and in this picture the pancakes might look slightly burnt, I don't know why that is.

They were perfect.

The bacon on the other hand, ya that got a little burnt...

Most of Valentines day we went and stopped by a lot of the widows in our ward and gave them some Valentines cards, which was a lot of fun. I don't know if it's because I'm a missionary, or what, but all these older ladies in the ward just love it when we stop by. Especially when we have cards and candy! Well, who wouldn't want that???

The night of the 14th however, things took a turn. We walked outside of the church before heading home, and we stumbled upon this. (Note: everything was clear an hour beforehand) 

We were so surprised! All this snow just came from nowhere, and it was falling fast and heavy. I had the enjoyment of driving home through all the snow (none of the roads were plowed by this point), which hasn't happened in a long time because we either are told not to drive, or the roads are clear. We made it home safe though, so all is well.

Until...

Both of our church meetings are cancelled for Sunday and the baptism is rescheduled. Come on snow! That wasn't too fun, I'll be honest. The snow wasn't too bad in the morning when we woke up, it had stopped overnight. It was really really windy though, and cold.

See? Not bad.

Now it is still really cold, and we are waiting for more snow this week. Hurray for hot chocolate!! The baptism will be on Tuesday, and we'll be going to the temple on Saturday, so be prepared for even GREATER pictures next week! Happinesss!!!

On random notes: I had a service for my dead plants. Luke has been dead for awhile now, Leia followed soon after (twins!), Bonsly had been struggling, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was doing just fine until recently! He still looked okay, but his roots failed and he fell over... Meg is fading fast, so you might see her soon...

Buried in their own dirt... 

"dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Genesis 3:19)

On another random note! I rearranged my desk. I wish I took a 'before' before. It was messy, and I had all my stuff up here, but I decided I wanted to go for a more concise, sophisticated desk. Minimalist.

There is still quite a bit of stuff, I know, but at least it is slightly more organized and clean!

That's all.

Love,

Elder Horne

. 

Family History Missionary Work

This past week was fantastic!

We are so excited for the baptism this coming Sunday, and then going to the temple the following Saturday with their family.

Awesome miracle. Our mission president told us that we needed 10 male names from this recent converts family history for us to take to the temple, if we wanted to go. The only people this family knew were the parents, and the grandmother. That's all we had to work with. We were wondering how we would be able to find 10 male names to take to the temple, when we could barely get started finding information! Well, after a couple hours, finding more information on the parents, we finally figured out one of the grandfathers names. As we were cross-checking things on Ancestry.com, we found something that almost made me fall out of my seat. Some kind soul had made a public family history of this family, going back 5 generations, and it started with the grandfather!!! This family went from having almost no idea about where their family was from, who they were or where they lived, to having dozens of documents linked together, providing invaluable information. So exciting!!!! It was such a miracle, we had been praying that we would have a breakthrough somewhere, and decided to turn to Ancestry.com even though we weren't familiar with it, and the Lord provided. We had hit a roadblock, and the Lord led us where we needed to go, so we could help this family.

Family history work is so exciting, and so thrilling! It's incredible.

We've been keeping busy preparing for the baptism, and doing all we can to make that the best experience, and then also helping to prepare for the temple trip, so we can make that the best experience for them as well. Happiness happiness happiness.

We will make sure we take pictures, because I have been slacking on that lately. So, brace yourselves.

Love,
Elder Horne

PS All my plants are dying, so that's not happy...

Cheesecake + Temples

Sometimes when you're waiting to Face Time you're Zone Leaders, you take a few selfies... in the high council room, on the nice swively chairs. Because yes. 

And sometimes I have this for my breakfast... 

(That would be caramel hot chocolate, by the way)

So, pretty much living the life over here. 

This week starts another transfer. Elder Lake and I are staying together (thank goodness), but the rest of the district is changing, so that'll be fun to either meet some new missionaries, or be reunited with friends. 

About that snow storm that never was... ya... I would have taken some pictures to post, but there wasn't really anything that happened. So, that was a fun false alarm I guess. Apparently it hit further north, but we were fine. The weather has been fine. Winter hasn't been nearly as merciless as last year was. I'll count my blessings and not my snowmen.

We have an investigator who is planning to get baptized on February 15, so we are working really hard to make sure everything is planned and perfect. She'll be going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead shortly afterwards, so that will be incredibly fantastic! Plus we'll be there, so I will be so happy I might explode. All the happiness, all at once. Look out. The temple is the best. Everyone should just go to the temple and be happy. 

Cheesecake + Temples = Happiness

So, naturally, there is a lot of happiness going on over here. Always all the time. And now you have the formula, so go and be happy too!

Growing Fast, Growing Up

Because I only ever talk about my plants...

Man, Meg is growing up way too fast! I am worried that she won't last until the end! I'm not sure how long flowers live, but this is how much she's grown already.

This is where she was at earlier this week.

Here she is this morning.

They grow up too soon. All my summer plants are pretty much dead, which is unfortunate.

For everyone who looks at this blog, they probably think that missionaries are just weird botanists. So much plants...

Anyway. This week was really really full, and I'm having a hard time remembering anything. We had another meeting in Broomall (3 weeks in a row we've had to drive back to PA) for all the goldens and their trainers. That was awesome. Elder Lake is growing up fast too! Before I know it, he'll be off in the mission doing grown up missionary work all on his own!

Going out into the storm. Speaking of which, we're supposed to be snowed under this week. So, if you don't hear from me next week, start shoveling. We haven't experienced any of the snow or wind yet, but I guess it's supposed to hit later tonight. We'll see what happens. I'll take pictures (hopefully) and post those next week. 

Also, ever since a member of the ward out here was called to serve in the Thailand Bangkok Mission, I keep hearing about it everywhere. So, here is an awesome video that the Church shared on Facebook that other day that I thought was awesome. Probably because I'm a missionary, but maybe other people will think it's awesome too.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1617604625134387

Love you all!

Elder Horne 

Omega Ekato

100 Days.

...

Whelp, that's weird.

I decided I would do something minimalist and undistinguished, just so that nobody else would realize that today is my 100 day mark. So, obviously, I bought myself a plant.

Her name is Omega Ekato. I originally had just named her Omega, because she is the last plant that I plan to get while I'm on my mission (I think that caps me off at 10). She's a paper white lily. Then, when I realized that today was my 100 day mark, she became Omega Ekato - "last hundred" - in Greek. Rough translation, but we'll roll with it. 

"Meg" for short.

This past week was extraordinary.

We had the longest zone conference of my life. Seriously. Usually they go from about 9-1. We didn't leave this one until 6:30. They had told us it would be going from 9-5, instead of 9-1, but obviously we went a little over on top of that. Also, half of the mission was there. 6 zones. 

Needless to say, probably the best meeting that I have ever been to my entire mission.

All the feels.

Mainly, my heart was just really, really, full. The spirit was just filling me to the brim. And then some. I was able to see so many missionaries that I love, listen to wonderfully prepared talks and training, sing hymns, and just bask in the Lord's love. All day. Especially at the end of the meeting, when all the departing missionaries were bearing their testimonies, and I realized, next zone conference, I will be up there. Then all of us singing the mission hymn. Too much.

All of it, all of it was just so so good. 

I also learned that Jonathan (remember him? He was baptized in the beginning of November when I was in Downingtown), baptized his daughter the other week.

So much happiness. 

"Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel... my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God." (Alma 26: 11,16)

Elder Horne