Bring a humongous cord, Ma'aki will pray, 80 makes a party!‏

When our kids were little (especially Katie), whenever we would ask them to do something, our requests were usually met with a "Why?" As young parents we had ALL the answers (LOL!), so we would put forth our best efforts to explain the "Why." This normally was met with another "Why?" and then another, and another. You've been there. This game continues until your ears fall right off the sides of your head and roll into the mud to plug themselves up from hearing one more "why?" We are not sure this is what the scriptures mean “to become as a little child” is it?

Mike: “Ummh, Jen when we leave to go on our mission let’s bring: scriptures, maybe some pass along cards, our MTC material, and oh, let’s not forget to pack a ridiculously large power cord.” (How big you may ask? A world-record Anaconda would pale in comparison to its 150 feet of length, its massive weight and its multiple-outlet head.)

Jenny: “We probably own 6 other power cords. All, much more reasonable in size.” Rolling her eyes, “Why bring THAT heavy old thing?”

Mike: “I have NO idea. But I am learning to quit asking ‘why.’”

Jenny: “What? That doesn't make any sense. But, okay then if you can bring that, I get to bring my big crock pot and my . . .”

And now you know the rest of the story of how we managed to fill a U-haul trailer when packing for Seattle.

As earlier reported, we did make it all the way to Seattle (humongous cord, crock pot and all.) Here is a map showing the exact location of the Institute at the University of Washington where we spend much of our waking hours:

Here also is a picture of the Institute faculty:

Left to right, Randy White, Debbie Williams, Todd Knowles, “Elder” & “Sister” Thornton

Those who went to Lone Peak High School or Pleasant Grove High School may recognize Brother White who taught at those seminaries before coming to the Institute. (He says a big hello to Ben Wade and Rhett Wimmer!) The director, Bro. Knowles, wrote a lot of the Church Institute curriculum. Sister Williams is just the best office manager you could ever find. Additionally, there are several other brothers and sisters who teach an evening class or two.

To understand a little better what our CES mission entails, you must understand a little about the environment LDS students face living in the Seattle area. The U-dub LDS students LOVE their school as much as BYU students love BYU (Go Huskies! – unless they are playing BYU of course.) Seattle is a mecca for a wide variety of interests. They love their Huskies, they love their art, food, pets, literature & world travel.

An “I-5” freeway shot of the University of Washington Campus:

The area, however, is not without its challenges. In the U.S., Seattle ranks #2 (just behind San Francisco) in having the least amount of people who believe in God. Also, Seattle has the same #2 ranking in people choosing to live alternative life styles (again, just behind San Francisco.) In a nutshell, if an LDS single adult so chooses, Seattle seems to be an area of choice to “lose” oneself and create distance from family and LDS acquaintances. As a result, even though a large number of single LDS adults live in the Seattle area, a large number of them do not consider themselves “active” LDS members.

Also, with the expansion of BYU-Idaho, statistics show a large number of the “active” LDS undergraduate students are now enrolling in BYU-Idaho. This, of course, is not a bad thing, but simply is another reason why the number of “active” LDS single adults in the area has decreased. As a result, many of the Institute single adults are graduate students.

So there lies the Institute’s challenge. Provide interesting classes for busy graduate students while fostering programs which assist both “less active” LDS students and non-members alike who are facing difficult and sensitive social issues.

Anyway, as a result of the above, the number of students enrolled in the Institute hit an all-time low about 3 years ago. On the brighter side, these numbers are now improving and are actually higher than they were 5 years ago. But they represent only about 20% of the LDS student population, so we have a lot of work to do just here on campus. Other campuses are in need of even more work.

Okay, okay, enough with the statistics, and on with this week’s email. In order to reach more students, the Institute is attempting to bring classes closer to where the students reside. As a result, on Tuesday evenings, we teach students who primarily attend colleges in the southern parts of Seattle (such as Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University.) Since we don’t have an Institute building on these campuses, we offer the classes at a nearby chapel. The chapel is primarily used by two Polynesian branches (one Tongan, one Samoan.) We love teaching there because a few of the kids who attend these “Poly” branches also make it a point to attend our evening institute class.

One such person is Ma’aki. Ma’aki came for the first time to our class this past Tuesday. We were teaching the epistles of Paul, and just happened to be discussing 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 (Paul’s writings on charity.) That chapter is so GREAT, and most of the class participated with good input. But getting Ma’aki to participate in any way was just not happening. We were afraid his first trip to our class was going to be his last. Then at the end of the class, Elder Thornton - right out of the blue, as ever you could do - asked, “Ma’aki, would you say our closing prayer?” The entire class went deafly silent. After what seemed like “minutes,” Ma’aki replied, “I don’t know how.” Ouch. Yet Elder Thornton broke the silence with a smile and said “It's really quite simple, Ma’aki.” He then outlined the 4 simple steps of prayer and asked “Ma’aki, would you like to give it a go?” Ma’aki stood up as if to simply leave; However, he took down his hood, pulled off his cap and folded his huge arms and said, “Sure, I’ll try.” Ma’aki then gave one of the most-heart felt, simple prayers we have heard in a long time. Afterwards, everybody thanked Ma’aki for his prayer. He sat back down and started having a discussion about charity with Don, a fellow student (and also a great return-missionary.) Ma’aki asked Don, “If a person does not have charity, can he get it?” [an interesting assessment of oneself isn’t it?] Anyway, Don assured Ma’aki that is exactly what the “good news” of the gospel is all about. Ma’aki smiled and they had a conversation about charity that went on for a good while. Ma’aki was apparently listening to the class discussion fairly intently after all. On the drive back to north Seattle, Sister Thornton asked Elder Thornton, “Did you think asking Ma’aki to give the closing prayer was the right thing to do to get him to warm up the way he did?” Elder Thornton replied “I had NO idea. But I am learning to quit asking ‘why,’ – because asking the ‘why’ always leads to talking myself out of it in favor of the ‘rational’ thing to do, rather than what felt like the ‘inspired’ thing to do.”

Wednesday and Thursday classes came and went [more on them perhaps in a future email.] But what we want to get to is FRIDAYS!!!

Each Friday a “time-honored” historical event takes place. It is called “Friday Friendship Feast.” Basically, for $2 bucks you can come and eat a “Feast” at the Institute which is sponsored and cooked by the missionary couple. In the past, long, long ago, the “Friendship Feast” was exactly that. Everyone did their best to try to invite a friend and it was a great way to end your week with friends in a friendly, somewhat party type of atmosphere. Hundreds would attend. However, when we arrived, we noticed only about 40 institute kids attended the “Feast.” We inquired as to the numbers. We were told that basically, this was about the number of kids we could expect to attend each week, and they were basically the exact same kids who attended every week. This seemed a little odd to us. Don’t get us wrong, the kids that were attending are the BEST!!! We know they were attempting to invite others. However, we knew that at least 250 had signed up for institute. And if the "young" missionaries were to attend, they were supposed to bring investigators. So we figured, if this “Feast” was truly a “Friendship” feast, we would like to see if we could change things up a little bit.

However, when we hinted at changing things up a bit, we were basically told, “We have had GREAT missionary couples in the past. They have tried everything, but nothing has worked. The Institute Council has a "set" menu of meals that the kids like and any deviation usually leads to lower attendance.”

Admittedly, as we learned about their efforts and as we learned about the wonderful couples who had served before us, we were perplexed. But, it just didn’t seem right to be sponsoring a “Friendship Feast” without their being any new friendships being spawned. It just seemed like it had somehow turned into a quick meal that the most faithful of the Institute students were simply attending out of a sense of duty.

Mike asked Jen, "What are we to do? How do we get the FUN and FRIENDSHIP back into a $2 Feast?"

Jen, "I have NO idea. We need to stay within budget and do what the Council has asked. But, we may just 'tweak' a few things here and there - I'm not sure what, but let’s just do whatever it is we do.”

With that in mind, the "new” missionary couple went shopping for their 1st friendship feast.

One the best kept secrets in Seattle, is a Target store on the north end. What is so great about this Target you may ask? Well, it is a multiple level store and it has an escalator which is better than riding the Space Needle! And it’s FREE!

Just look! Here is “Sister” Thornton putting her shopping cart onto the escalator:

Then, she gets on and follows her cart down! It is just amazing thing for two small-town missionaries!

(And if you look closely enough, "No" Mike is NOT in the cart - BUT he thinks Target could sell tickets if they let kids ride!)

Anyway, we held our 1st Friday Feast and the numbers were as predicted (about 40'ish.) But, we tried our very best to tweak things just a little. For example, since it was "barbeque hamburger day" instead of grilling outside, somewhere in the back - out of the way, where no one could see, - Elder Thornton brought the grill right out in front of the Institute - almost right in the middle of the front sidewalk and started grilling. This caused a bit of a stir. One friendly bus driver jokingly opened up his door while waiting for the light to change green and yelled "Hey, that sure smells good! Can I park the bus and bring everyone inside?" Then he just laughed and the light turned green. But, between the tweaking and Sister Thornton’s wonton salad, the attending Institute students were apparently impressed enough to give it one more college try to invite more friends to the next Friday's Friendship Feast.

We then held our 2nd Friday Feast, Sister Thornton once again tweaked the menu. Low and behold, we started to see a miracle. As the kids were eating dessert, Tres Leche Cake (Thanks Katie!) they were actually texting their friends to come over and check out the new Feast. As a result, we hit 60+ students. Now the kids were catching the Friendship spirit and told us they would put out an extra effort to get even more there. We in turned promised a "Feast" they would never forget. What had we just promised? We weren't exactly sure, but we just knew we had to do something.

Well, yesterday was our 3rd Friday Feast. We knew there was only so much we knew how to do with food [Where is Jerry Bauer when you need him? Oh ya, serving a mission!] So we went a little different direction. In addition to introducing new food like “Cluff” rolls, Elder Thornton brought in the humongous cord. Why? Well, you see, the Institute building was built in 1959 without many electrical outlets and what outlets there are around the kitchen and multi-purpose room get blown if you hook too many things to them. One crock pot can do it sometimes – two – forget it. Anyway, we thought the food would simply taste better if it stayed warm, so to have them in heated crock pots and trays seemed to be the way to go.

Also we wanted to give a big boost to the ambiance by bringing in a speaker system to play Italian music in the background and a projector system to show Italian slides and pictures projected up on the big screen. (We were serving pasta and having gelato for dessert.) However, there was no way of supplying that many things with electrical power WITHOUT a big “humongous” cord to bring power from another part of the building.

Once again, it seemed to work! The numbers increased to 80+. The missionaries themselves brought 10+ investigators! The only bad thing was, we didn’t quite anticipate that many people and we ran out of food or we might have perhaps hit 100+. (Hey, but try stretching a $2 buck meal planned for 50 into 100 – we worked miracles, but we apparently weren’t up the “dividing of the fish” type yet.)

Well, going from 40 to 80, it’s a start! The area director, Brother Fowler, came down out of his office and commented, “It looks like we have the ‘party’ back in the Friday Feast.” Of course, that is exactly what we were looking for! We feel like we still have a LONG way to go, but hopefully we are back on the right track with the purpose of this Friday “Friendship” Feast.

Thinking back now to our children's "Why" questions, it seems like they would continue to ask "why" until finally we would say something like "Because I told you." For some reason, that apparently was what they wanted to hear. Only then would they go on their merry way and do whatever was normally asked. Perhaps this is the part of "becoming like little children" our Heavenly Father is trying to teach two missionaries. Maybe He just wants us to go on our merry way and DO for no other reason than "Because I said." Then afterwards the "Why" or the "How" quietly presents itself doesn't it? "Take no thought, , ," That has always been a bit scary to some of us who have to plan and think every little detail out.

Well, this week is "Stir Fry" week. Once again we have promised a GREAT feast. We NEED help! Any GREAT recipe for a meal or a dessert to keep this Party going would be GREATLY appreciated!

Any ideas on creating a PARTY atmosphere "Asian style" is GREATLY appreciated! Recipes, pictures and music are all needed!! We’re EXPECTING you to come through for us. Thanks in advance.

Love,
Elder “Mike” & “Sister” Thornton

P.S. We want to extend our “Happenchances” to both the Mathesons and the Turleys. Sister Thornton was fortunate enough to run into Marcia Matheson and we have both run into Carol Turley a couple of times. They are doing just great and we love conversing and seeing their warm and friendly faces!