Buenos días amigos,
I made it to Kennewick safe and sound with my new
companion Elder Jones! A little about him, he's a convert of about 2.5 years
and the only member in his family! His conversion story is pretty crazy and is
a testimony to how a good friend who lives the Gospel can change the lives of
others for the better. We live in an apartment with 2 other Elders, E. Jacobsen
and E. O'Donnal.
Our apartment is not nearly as nice as my last one but it's
not too bad. The weirdest thing about this apartment is our downstairs
neighbor, Moe. Now, that's not actually his name, just what the missionaries
call him. He and missionaries have been neighbors for years and every time that
a missionary stomps a little too hard on the floor, he responds with a hit to
his ceiling to let us know he's mad. There has been an ongoing battle for a
while now; him complaining to the office, missionaries complaining to the
office.. etc. Management got so sick of complaints that they said if they get
one more complaint from either of us, both of us are getting evicted haha. So
now Moe is way more aggressive and sometimes he will just bang on his ceiling
for minutes at a time. Honestly it's super funny, especially since I've never
actually met him.
Our area is pretty cool, it reminds me of Basin City a lot.
Super rural, slight cow smell all the time. Good stuff. This area has like 0
faith from the rest of the mission tho. It's always been pretty dead and low
faith. I was pretty mad on transfer day when I looked at our area book because
it was EMPTY. There was one eternigator family being taught and 2 other people,
absolutely no notes about lessons they had with these people, they hadn't daily
planned in Months....it was ridiculous. Like, I get it if an area is rough and
not a lot happens, but when you don't plan or report what DID happen, that's
just not cool. Anyway, our first day of proselytizing after 2 days of office
work to fix the mission after transfers, we found 2 new people to teach (double
what they found last transfer). The English Elders, Elder Jones, and I can see
a lot of potential here, so we are excited for this transfer.
Like I mentioned earlier, we worked in the office a lot
right after transfers, our mission created a new zone so that completely
destroyed a lot of stuff haha. We also presented to the group of new
missionaries which is always fun. A lot of Elders that I'm really tight with
are training this transfer and it was awesome to see them. Elder Jones is doing
pretty good with all our extra responsibilities, slowly but surely he will pick
it up.
We had English Classes and correlation so we have met a few
members already. We also visited our Branch mission leader and his wife and had
dinner with a family in our area. The dinner was suuuuper good. She loves to
cook for the missionaries and I swear it was like and 11 course meal or
something crazy like that. Corn on the cob, salad, potatoes, a different salad,
fresh tomatoes, apples, roast beef, roasted veggies, soda, and creme puffs. Soo
much food but it was so good. Definitely not the Hispanic meal I was expecting
but I can't complain. She also has a home spa with all sorts of massage
machines, so my favorite moment of the night was I was sitting in this machine
that massaged my legs and feet while eating cream puffs.... in a trailer home..
in the middle of nowhere 20 mins from the nearest town. haha I dunno I just
thought it was funny.
Oh yeah I forgot, before I got transferred we went around
and said bye to a few people we were working with. Got some good pics with
them. Also I got flat tire #2 on the mission.... Somewhere in the week we went
to the temple as well.
On Sunday church was really good, the speakers were a family
that just moved from Pasco which was pretty funny since I just moved from Pasco
too! They did a really good job on their talks. In Sunday school we talked
about how trials can turn into blessings which is something I've really come to
know while being on my mission. I know that every hard thing we have to do,
will teach us some lesson that we can use later in our life. Sometimes they are
for us, but sometimes we gain the ability to empathize with others!
Los amo, la iglesia es verdadera :)
-Elder Thompson
Oh yeah how could I forget! Edgar got baptized this
weekend!!! I was teaching him in Basin City and he got soooo close when I was
working with him. He is going to the YSA now! I was so happy when I heard that
:)
Fotos:
1. La familia Casteñeda
2. José Acosta from Uruguay
3. Temple day
4. Elder Harmon in the Foot massager
5. Flat tire :(
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