Mission Weeks 39 & 40- Servicio

Ok so I totally wrote an email last week, just forgot to send it. Guess I'll just do the mega email. 

Week 39

Que tal buenos días, ya mero que voy a recordar lo que pasó esta semana...pues ni modo

Ok ok so this week we did a ton of service. We had a whole day of service and it was pretty fun. We woke up and played soccer first, then at 9 we went and helped this lady clear her yard. She had a bunch of junk and a shed that the city tore down. And loooots of weeds. Me and Elder Schmitt ate some suuuuper spicy Chile's from this lady's garden haha. She had a bunch of tires so we moved them and we found a praying mantis that we put in an arena with a bunch of other bugs. Nothing happened tho. After that we went to this lady's sisters house and she fed us some carne asada tacos that were soooo good. Maria is her name and she is honestly crazy haha. It was super funny because she kept trying to teach us self defence with these weird moves she learned online. Also she gave us a bunch of 'tips' for cooking. It was like classic Hispanic superstition combined with a ton of questionable knowledge from the internet. She showed us how her dog talks and it was freaky, it sounded like a baby.

After that we went and sorted food for 'second harvest' and I think we ended up doing 6000 lbs of apples or something like that.

We had lessons with a few people this week which was awesome. We taught Miguel and his wife about the God head since they had a ton of questions. I dont think they really got what's we were saying so we might have to come back to that topic.

We had a lesson with Rosie while I was on exchanges with Elder Reyes. While we were waiting for her to get out of the shower we played soccer with Julio and Aliyah which was pretty fun. Jesse is recovering from getting shot and she showed is his scars. It was pretty gnarly, it went from his neck all the way down the middle of his body to the stomach. We had a quick lesson and checked that they were still going to come to church. They didn't end up coming for some reason... idk why we haven't been able to contact em.

We had interviews with President and Sister Rasmussen this week. It was really good! They are super awesome. I think they are really going to have a positive impact on the mission. We have been helping them set up lots of stuff for their house and their phones. I've been to the mission home a ton now, not many missionaries go more than two times their mission (arriving and leaving). 

Time is still flying! I'm about at 9 months now. It's been great to hear about all the people I know who are leaving on missions! It's cool to see how the Gospel really is being taken to all nations in todos lados del Mundo! 

Week 40

This week we had a lot of office stuff to do so I don't have a ton of interesting stuff haha. 

We did service for the same lady we did like 2 weeks ago. We weeded for a while and unloaded a trailer. Then she invited all 12 of us to eat some weird beans and stuff. We went back out to start working and she told us to go do something with her chickens. I think she has almost like 50 chickens, 10 geese, and a bunch of ducks. Elder Reyes apparently knows how to hypnotize chickens so we ran around and caught a bunch of them. It was so weird, you put them on the ground and with a stick draw lines starting from their beak. After that you let go and they just lay on the ground for a few seconds then hop up like normal!

This weekend we taught a lot of lessons which was super nice since people haven't really been letting us in lately. We found like 5 new people and have a few new potentials. Rosie's family has kinda disappeared and we don't know why.... :/ They won't answer their phone and haven't been answering the door. Pray that we can find them again!

¡Los amo a todos ustedes! 

-Elder Thompson 

Que creencia - Mission Week 38

Buenas Días! Que tal?

Pues, esta semana fue un poco difícil, me puse malito el martes y no podía trabajar mucho. No quería que mis personas que enseño se enojen de mi a causa de traer la gripa dentro de sus casas. Y porque no hay mal que por bien no venga, hicimos muchas cosas buenas en la officina que habíamos estado evitando.

Estoy escribiendo temprano de la mañana, y no se exactamente por que, pero me parece que mi cerebro le gusta más el español por la mañana. Pues, ni modo. Bamos a echar un intento de inglés.

Hey normally I'd re write that stuff in English but I forget that Google translate exists. It won't be perfect but you'll get the gist.

Like I said above, I was sick most of this week :/ we grinded out some office work we had been putting off. A bit ago Sister Rasmussen showed us a logo her son-in-law made for the mission. It was OK but it needed a couple changes so I re made it and showed it to them. They loved it and now it's officially the logo of the WKM! Eventually we are going to make T-shirts and things like that.

Update on that cool miracle from a few weeks ago, we had a lesson or two with that family we found from Walla Walla. Rosie (the mom) told us a little more about why they moved and it's a craaazy story. Her son got shot 2 times and one of the bullets nearly pierced all of his organs due to the angle of the shot. He was life-flighted in a jet to Seattle in 30 minutes and over the next 6 months had 18 surgeries. Doctors kept telling Rosie that each surgery there was a high chance that he might die, but miracle after miracle happened and he survived. They were planning on amputation for both of his legs. He lost 80% of the blood from his body so his legs had essentially died. Another miracle, and now he is walking. Also they would be like $2.5 mil down in bills but he qualified for a lot of financial help. Rosie told us all of this and a lot of prayers and wrestling with God that she had. Suuuuper crazy stuff.

We brought a member of the Obispado to a lesson with them and Miracle number 164235..... she knew him already! Apparently his wife and Rosie were good friends years ago in Spokane. It was a super awesome lesson and we made plans for her to return to church and for her daughter to get baptized! Aug 3 is what we are working towards.

The day I started prosyliting again, the first contact we had was with a cheap-grace Baptist lady so that was fun. Part of me doesn't like when people try and anti us, but usually what ends up happening is we correct some things they 'heard' or 'researched' about the Church. It's amazing how many people think we don't belive in Christ. Even more people think that we don't believe in his grace. The thing I took from this encounter was that I'm so grateful for 1. a living Prophet and 2. the book of mormon. This lady believes the Bible is the infallible, final word of God and that nothing else will ever come after it. 

I love the Bible, I love that many great things were preserved for hundreds of years. I also love that we have the Book of Mormon to clarify simple truths that were lost in the apostacy. God loves us today as much as he loved the people in the New Testament. He will always call a new Prophet to lead us and guide us. 

There are always people that try to tear down the Book of Mormon and prophets but they can't. You'd think if this whole thing were a hoax it would have been exposed by one of the thousands of people attacking the church over the past 200 years. It hasn't happened because it can't happen. The Book of Mormon is true! 

Sorry for getting preachy, expect for not really cuz that's literally my job :) Read the Book of Mormon and if you want to know if it is really true, pray and ask God. Study it out in your mind and in your heart. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! It's pretty nice weather here in Washington lately. Just hot enough to make me drink a toooon of water. 

Los amo a ustedes muchísimo!

- Elder Thompson

Fotos:

Here's the logo 

Holy HANNAH! - Mission Week 37

This was an awesome week! President and Sister Rasmussen came and have been in the mission for a whole week now. We've been able to interact with them a ton. I think when I sent my last email they were on their way to the mission office. We met them there will all the senior couples and they had a little meeting. It was pretty quick, but they bore their testimonies and did a little introduction of themselves. After that Elder Ward and I started to help them set up their mission phones, laptop, and iPad. Some stuff we couldn't do so we said we would come back later and do it.

The next day was MLC so all the Zone Leaders and STLs got together to meet Pres. and Sis Rasmussen. It was super good, they have so much faith and are soooo excited to be here. Pres Rasmussen is for sure a spiritual giant and told us some craaaazy stories about promptings he has had as a bishop and stake president. He makes a lot of funny noises when he talks to haha. He will just stop in his sentence and say 'Waah' or 'Mmmmh' and hold up his arms. idk how to describe it but it's hilarious. Also he says 'holy Hannah!' a lot. After that meeting we went to the mission home for like 4 hours and set up the rest of their stuff. 

The next day we had Zone Conference which was also super good. We got to hear President introduce himself 3 times in three days but he changed it up a bit so that was good. They have a lot of good plans for the mission.

We had the 4th of course and it was alright haha. We are told that holidays are a great time to find people since people are with their families, but every major holiday since I have been a missionary have been soooo slow. Like seriously people just disappear, we hardly found anyone to talk to. We came in at 6 and I got to call home for a bit which was fun.

We found like 5 new people which is suuuuper good since we had like 0 people when this area opened. They are pretty cool and we are excited to work with them. Mini miracles every day :)

We did some service for a nice family in the ward. They were excited us to have us and fed us some weird cheese taco things. It was like nacho cheese, eggs, potatoes, and a tortilla. I dunno what it was but it was pretty good. We pulled a ton of giant weeds for them and found a bunch of praying mantis. Also 2 dead ducks.

That's pretty much all I can remember of this week. Overall a solid week of a solid mission. It seems like time is flying but I'm loving it. 

Los amo 

Elder Thompson 

Fotos:

1. made a meme about Pres. Rasmussen

Richland, WA - Mission Week 36

Bueno aqui estoy, tu misionero favorito ;) Esta semana fue locisimo!

Well, as I mentioned last week, I'm in a new area. Elder Ward and I are pretty much opening this area for Spanish work so that's fun. Richland is (in general) a pretty high income area so it's a little bit harder to find the Hispanics. Downtown Pasco is legitimately 97-100% Hispanic so this is quite the shift. It's good though, we had a solid week.

We weren't able to go out in our area much until Friday since we were moving and helping with transfers. One thing we have noticed pretty quick is that in general, the places in Richland where there are Hispanics, there are twice as many crazy white people haha. We have had a few interesting encounters with people. One family talked to us f o r e v e r about all their knowledge of the church, most of which was hilariously incorrect. They told us about 'their' religion which is that they believe in everything. Now, I've heard before the whole 'oh its the same God, it doesn't matter what church you go to' but this was different. These people believe in everything haha. Conspiracies to religion to mythology. It was a crazy convo about a lot of crazy stuff. They were nice though and gave us some reusable water bottles. 

We had a few encounters of people that were moving so that was good to have some service. All the people we helped turned out to be members actually but they didn't tell us at first so that was awkward. (Just say, 'Hey Elders!' then we don't have to ask if you have ever talked to missionaries before. it saves the awkwardness :) ) 

Oh I forgot we also met all the new missionaries this transfer. It was a huge group of almost all sisters. There was one Elder sitting in the back haha. They were quite the rowdy group but I think our presentation went well. Someone I went to elementary/middle school with was in this group (Sister George for all the Layton folk) . It was kinda weird haha but funny too I guess. 

We had a sweet miracle this week! We were walking around this apartment complex and started talking to this kid in a car. soon enough, his mom came out and we started talking to her in Spanish (mini miracle 1 that's she was Hispanic). It turns out she just moved here from Walla Walla and she is apparently a member! She said her daughter was talking the Missionary lessons in Walla and only got about halfway through the lessons before they moved. She asked us to come back and teach her the rest so she can get baptized! We will keep ya updated but we are pretty pumped about that. Apparently this lady asked her Branch President to send the missionaries to her house but we didn't hear anything. we just ran into her! 

Today we have been pretty busy, I swear I've said my final 'Goodbye' to President White like 4-5 times now, and he called us into the office again to help him clear off his phone and get it ready for President Rasmussen. He should have landed by now and we are going to meet him this afternoon! Loco 

I think that's about it... I got some pictures this week since Sister White shared all the pictures she has taken recently :) 

Los amamos a ustedes! La iglesia es verdadera y Jesucristo vive! 

-Elder Thompson 

Fotos:

1. Final ZC pic with President and Sister White

2. Cool street name I guess

3. 14 missionaries in one ward squad

4. I spun a pass along card into the ceiling

5. Elder "Alpha Dog" Harmon giving no cares

6. The old ship Zion