Mission Timeline

July 1, 2018 - Received Mission Call

September 13, 2018 - Received Endowment at the Jordan River Temple

October 21, 2018 - "Farewell" talk in the River 7th Ward

October 23, 2018 - Set apart as an Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

October 24, 2018 - Entered the Provo MTC. Companion: Elder Justin Freeman from Santaquin, UT

December 4, 2018 - Left the MTC and arrived in Kennewick, Washington. Mission President: President Doneal L. White & Sister Claudia Esplin White. First area: Basin City, WA. Companion: Elder Barlow from Logandale, NV.

February 25, 2019 - Companion: Elder Harmon from Riverton, UT

April 10, 2019 - Transferred to Hermiston, Oregon. Companion: Elder Cogswell from Dallas, TX.

May 1, 2019 - Another companion added: Elder Webb from Highland, UT

May 22, 2019 - Assigned as Technology Assistant and transferred to Pasco, WA. Companion: Elder Ward from New Mexico, Italy & Hawaii (military family)

July 2019 - New Mission President: President Edward R. Rasmussen & Sister Carolyn Rasmussen

Aug. 12, 2019 - Transferred to Kennewick, WA Spanish Branch. Companion: Elder David Jones from Austin, TX

Dec. 16, 2019 - Transferred to Prosser, WA. Made Trainer and Zone Leader. Companion: Elder Jaxon McBride from South Jordan, UT (River 7th Ward friend!)

Mar. 9, 2020 - Transferred to Kennewick, WA - Kennewick Stake, English Speaking Zone Leader. Companion: Elder Averett from Bluffdale, UT

Apr. 10, 2020 - Assigned as Social Media Specialist

Apr. 20, 2020 - Companion: Elder Newton from Bountiful, UT

June 8, 2020 - Companion: Elder Faleuma from Oceanside, CA

July 13, 2020 - Trio Companionship: Elder Pierce from Spanish Fork, UT

Aug. 26, 2020 - Transferred to Kennewick Spanish Ward as a District Leader and Trainer in a trio: Elder Pan from Sandy, UT and Elder Rogers from SoCal

Oct. 6, 2020 - Arrived home. Mission Complete.

Welcome Home!

Chayse returned home on October 6, 2020. With Covid restrictions at the airport we couldn't go in to greet him, so we hung out in the parking lot, very unsure of which way he would come in. We made posters and had a big banner waiting at home along with yellow ribbons. Since we got to video call often while he was gone, we weren't quite sure how we would feel seeing him in person. It wasn't the huge wait and 'big reveal' that missions had previously been when communication was so limited. But it really was thrilling and such a happy experience to see him in person and hug him. Everyone had tears and big smiles and laughter. Chayse was eager to share his happiness, his confidence and his talents he had worked on developing. He played piano and ukulele songs and sang and it was just an awesome feeling having everyone home together again. It was so nice to welcome him home and see what a great man he was becoming.

Ya casi - Mission Weeks 100 & 101

 

Hola yep it's me. Don't worry you only have to endure maybe 2 more of these...se está acabando el tiempo.

Well from last week, it started out interesting when we were headed to a lesson with this guy named Juve. He had been to comeuntochrist.org and requested a Book from us so we're going to meet up with him and have a lesson. On our way, we were in a right turn lane just chillin and suddenly this lady tries to change lanes and bumps us on the left side of our car. So we pull over and do the whole thing...you know. Everybody was totally fine, it just took forever and we missed our lesson.

A few days later we have rescheduled with Juve and we are pumped to meet with him but he didn't show up! The next day we got a text from him and he said thay HE was in a car accident (a lot worse than ours) so that's why he didn't show up. Hes doing ok his arm is just really bruised up. We were able to meet with him a few days later and hes super cool!

One of my roommates, Elder Schiess went home this past week. Since he's a Marshallese missionary he went home in the middle of the transfer, which is kinda weird for me cuz we did a lot of the "Going home" stuff already and I just get to do it again this week. We went out to a really nice restaurant here called Proof and dang was it good. It was sad to see him go! He was really fun to live with. I played the Uke for a goodbye song he wrote in Marshallese for all of the members here.

With E Schiess gone, we got 2 new Marshallese trainees in the apartment. Elder Wood is from Farmingon and E Shackleford is from Tennesee. They've been chill so far, I'll only live with em for one more week so I wont get to know them super well.

We got to go to Hermiston this week for a Baptism! Elder Pan taught this girl down there so it was a way cool opportunity to go visit and see it. She seemed super awesome and is about to move away to school in Oregon. 

This week we also got pictures as a district (well most of the district haha. One companionship was waiting on some corona results and had to stay inside). We also did a free carwash for the community! Lots of fun stuff haha never a dull moment. 

Of course I've got mixed feelings about coming home next week. I'm half excited, half sad. I've learned so much being here & I love being able to speak spanish and meet people, so I'll miss those things a lot. I know I can continue to learn and grow while I'm home tho so it will be ok :) 

I'm not sure if I will send an email next week, kinda depends on how busy I am but if not I'm sure I'll be seeing/hearing from many of you soon! I get back to Utah on Tuesday the 6th. 

Les quiero 

- Elder Thompson 

Fotografías: 

1. Pensando en Jesus

2. RIP E Schiess

3. Carwash

4. Proof Burger 

5. El compañerismo 

Mucho Fumo - Mission Week 99

 

Hola Hola 

Sooo you've probably heard about the fires in California, Oregon, and Washington. There have only been a few near the tri-cities, nothing bad, but we did get caught in the giant smoke cloud that's covering the state... It's been pretty bad honestly in the last 4 days. Our whole apartment got hit by the smoke pretty bad, it's made us all fairly sick but we're surviving haha. We did just get permission to do lessons in houses now though, so that is definitely a miracle. 

Some cool stuff that happened this week, we are still geting a ton of referrals. We got some more english class referras from our local facebook page here and we also got a BoM delivery referral from ComeUntoChrist.org! The guy we took it too is super chill and aparently he's talked with the missionaries for awhile now, but the last time he did was when he lived in Mexico. 

Church started up again this week for our Ward and it was suuuuper good!!!!! We only had about 40 people there and obviouslly everyone was disitanced and wearing masks but I was very gratefull I got to go one last time as a missionary. They'll only do in person meetings once a month but that's better than nothing. 

Because of church opening everywhere in our mission we made a video for our local facebook Page! It's too big to attach, so here is the link you may have to resquest access but I'll accept it if so. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wCrNeBLnBQNwNv2U8gkCzhO2qaF0T6d4/view?usp=drivesdk

We got to do some construction with some members of our Ward! It was super fun! There is an older lady in our ward whose house was terribly vandalized & destroyed, to the point where they had to tear out all the walls. So we spend a few hours putting up some sheetrock and listening to Banda with our Ward friends :)

We also had an awesome mission conference where Elder & Sister Neilson spoke to us over zoom. He taught us about how we need to be always learning and growing and trying to be more like Christ. He also told us some cool things about missionary work and how the changes that have been going on are very inspired. 

Aside from that stuff kinda a slower week. Being sick kinda just puts us all in a weird funk so pray that we get a random giant storm to blow all the smoke away haha that would be awesome. 

Los quiero mucho, sigan adelante

- Elder Thompson

Kennewick Spanish Round 2 - Mission Weeks 97 & 98

Buenos dias!!! Ya estoy en Kennewick otra vez!! Es muy extraño estar aquí de nuevo porque cada día hay cosas que me recuerdan de la primera vez, pero a la vez hay cosas nuevas y... no sé jaja

So on transfer day I picked up my new companions Elder Pan and Elder Rogers! Elder Pan is from Sandy, UT and Elder Rogers is from SoCal. We've had a blast so far! The Elder I replaced in the area crashed our car right before I got here so we had to walk for the first week. Normally it wouldn't be a problem but our area is massive haha. We live with the Marshallese Elders (they work with people from the Marshall Islands, there is a small group of 50 or so members here). We didn't have a ton of people to teach when I got here but the Lord blessed us with 3 referrals from our mission Facebook page! 

Our district is super fun, it's hard to keep up with everyone though haha most of the Hermanas are super hyper all the time 😂 they love playing Pickleball which has been way fun. There are a few parks around here that have courts so we go like 3 times a week in the mornings. We also played some sports with some members week and while we were playing volleyball one of the Hermanas swung her arms and hit the ball right into my eye haha. It hit my glasses right at the top of my eye socket and gave me a lil black eye. It doesn't hurt too bad luckily! Worth it haha it was super funny when it happened. 

We did some service for Hna DeHaan, one of the members and then after we painted some rocks for her. Shes like the sweetest old lady ever haha but she was roasting people that have bad Spanish. 

I got to eat carne asada like legit 4 times this week haha.  I had a district dinner, a Elders-only dinner, a leftover Marshallese barbeque dinner, and then dinner with Antonio (one of our new people we are teaching). Honestly I had hoped to get some going back into spanish work so my dreams came true! 

We got together as a zone and had a good meeting where we set some expectations for the transfer and made some plans to work with the members. We have been doing a lot in our ward trying to make it more organized and improve the communication between the Missioaries and the leadership. 

We met a new family, the Woolstenhulmes, that had moved into the ward from Idaho. Their whole family speaks spanish, and only the dad served a mission which is pretty impressive. They got a prompting a few years ago that they needed to help out in the Spanish wards wherever they live.

So yeah there is a little update! God is good! He loves everyone so much and it's always there for us. 

Les quiero 

Elder Thompson 

 

1. The 3 of us at the Woolstenhulmes
2. Black eye
3. Pickleball squad
4. Painting rocks
5. Zone dinner meeting
6. District dinner @ the flat
7. The compañerismo 

One More Transfer - Mission Weeks 95 & 96

 

Buenos dias a todos! Mucho ha pasado desde el correo pasado jaja. 

Good morning everyone! A lot has happened since the last email. 

We've been doing a bunch of service still, it's a lot of fun. It seems like we end up doing 3 or 4 service projects a week. We have done lots of weeding lately, especially pulling out sagebrush and tumbleweeds which is kinda the worst. The always make our arms itchy and everyone leaves sneezing a bunch haha. We also have been working on taking out a stump for this lady and we had 0 power tools. After working on it three separate times we finally got it out! 

We had a fun surprise to be able to go to Pendleton, Oregon with the Assistants. They were doing a 'finding party' with a district down there and they had been struggling with some of the Facebook stuff so we went down as well to help. They had a fire going and some hotdogs and it was super fun! We called a bunch of people and got some return appointments set up. 

A sad thing that happened last week was Sis Jensen went home! Her whole group went home a week and a half early so they could start school on time, but it was sad as always to see people leave the mission. We did a little zone dinner in our backyard with Hawaiian haystacks and some teriyaki kebabs. We got to play tennis some more with Diane and got a picture of all of us before sis Jensen left. 

This past week we had zone conferences. We got to go on another little road trip to Walla walla! They are in phase 2 of our state's re-opening thing (everyone else is still in phase 1) so the whole mission traveled there over 4 days for 4 sessions of Zone conference. It was cool to see lots of people again, even though we were wearing masks and social distancing. It was pretty funny cuz me and my companions were in 2 different videos that were shown! We're basically famous 😎

The last thing I'll write about is transfers. We got the call yesterday and I'm getting transferred for my last 6 weeks haha. I was kinda annoyed at first since I only have a little bit left I wanted to stay...but I'm super excited now for what is to come. I'm actually going back to a ward I served in previously, the Kennewick Spanish ward, but I'll have a different area and I'll be a district leader and trainer. 

I have really loved Meadow Springs ward, it really helped me to be in a place where lots of members have super strong testimonies and desires to do missionary work. I'm gonna miss all the people here for sure. 

It's kinda weird knowing this is my last 6 weeks as a full time missionary...I'm excited to go to an area where I can just work hard. I've had leadership opportunities for a while now, but now that I'm released as a ZL and Social Media Specialist I'll have way fewer administrative things to worry about. The Good Lord is good and I have no doubt that I will see miracles and have a blast in my new area! 

Les quiero mucho, cuidense. 

- Élder Thompson 

 

Tengo muchas fotos: 

1. The Homer Family 
2. Zone Pic 
3. We got some peel off facemasks from some Sisters 
4. Top of Badger Mountain 
5. Bye bye sister Jensen group pic 
6. Tennis with Diane 
7. BBQing 
8. Stump Service 
9. Pendleton Trip 

 

Hot Hot Hot - Mission Weeks 92 & 93

Hey how's it going! 

Sorry If this email double sends, I had some internet issues. 

It's been a toasty few weeks for us here in the Tri Cities, most days over 100 degrees. We had MLC this past week outside then a group finding activity so we were outside for like 8 hours on the hottest day of the year so far. 

Other stuff we've been up to: 

• We played tennis with Diane this lady we are trying to teach
• We taught suzanne the word of wisdom (She didn't like it at all) 
• We made fried chicken
• The finding activity I mentioned was super good, our district set up 16 return appointments in 2 hours
• We did Chicken Nugget Friday 3.0 (or it might be like 8.0 at this point I don't remember how many times I've done it on my mission now
• We had interviews with President a minute ago, super awesome as always
• We had what seemed like 25 different Facebook Meetings
• Our zone has seen a ton of miracles (Like 6 new people to teach!!) 
• We had a dope member dinner with bleu cheese burgers that were super good
• Elder Faleumu prayed with a nigerian man over Video Chat

Welp that's about all the email energy I have for this week lo siento. 

Les quiero, Elder Thompson

Fotos de esta semana: 

1. Member dinner with the Larsons
2. Chicken Nugget Friday
3. Los Élderes