Última Navidad - Mission Week 62

Ayyy Feliz Navidad (ya que no lo pude decir a tiempo) 

This week was pretty weird honestly. Pday was on Monday, Christmas Eve was Tuesday, and Christmas was Wednesday so it almost felt like a 3 day weekend. A lot of our plans for christmas didn't end up happening so we were pretty much just winging it. 

Christmas Eve was good, we started it off with a Zone Breakfast! Pancakes, and Ham it was super good actually. We made a massive table too so all 26 of us were sitting around the same table. Then, we went caroling in Benton City. The Hermanas there have a lot of cool people they teach that we got to meet and sing to! We had a pretty good group too so the singing didn't sound terrible. Later, the Peña's invited us to dinner at their house and so we had some suuuuper good pazole and ham. They had a new stereo too so they showed it off with some.... Not missionary songs haha. We had to be in after 6 so we just chilled in the Apt with the Elders and had some good deep conversations. 

Christmas we got up and did 'Boonie Sports' for like 3 hours. (all the missionaries in the boonies get together idk if I already have explained this). We didn't really have anything set the rest of the day but we last minute got invited to this dinner where like 10 missionaries and 20 members ended up being there. The food was pretty solid but the highlight was the homemade eggnog and playing Chess with this old dude that completely and utterly destroyed me haha. Later all the boonie missionaries got together for the rest of the evening and some members bought us some treats and stuff. Overall, super chill. 

After that, we got back to work! We had some sweet lessons with Efren, the peña family and a few others. We ended up walking a lot since the other elders needed the car to get to a person they are teaching. My brain is having trouble remembering everything since it went by so quick but we had this super rough lesson Sunday night. It wasn't a bad lesson, it was just all over the place. We talked about everything from polygamy to sabbath day worship to prophets. It was a really good test of my Spanish since I had to explain some complicated stuff. They were super nice tho and invited us back next week for another lesson. 

Elder McBride is doing way good his Spanish has improved soooo much. We are still working on it but he's getting there. 

Sadly no one came to church, we are gonna do a better job of reminding people (Like go knock their door at 10am to wake them up haha) but we taught the fifth Sunday lesson and it went pretty well. We did our best to excite the branch about missionary work! They are still figuring everything out with the new branch and pretty much no one knows anything so that's fun. We'll get there though! 

Los quiero, hasta la próxima semana 

- Elder Thompson  

Prosser - Mission Week 61

Que tal?! Ya estoy aquí in Prosser y santa vaca dios esta dándonos un montón de milagros! 

Well it seems like a month has passed since my last weekly email haha. Sooo much has happened this will probably be a super fat email. It'll be worth a read, I promise :) There's some funny stuff and lots of miracles! 

So Last Monday and Tuesday was packing. E. Escandon was headed home so we took him around a little bit to say goodbye to some missionaries and then we dropped him off at the Mission home, said our final goodbyes and left. I included pics of this is the last email I think. Anyways, we headed home and continued packing. The next day it was Me, E. Jones, and E. Carr in the tripan until transfers so we did some cleaning and headed to the office to do some last minute work. When we got to the office E. Thaler our vehicle coordinator said, "Hey Elders did you hear about E. Escandon?" We said, "Uhh like how he's going home? Like, he's done with his mission." Then E. Thaler said, "No, how he is in the hospital. He jumped off a railing and has a compound fracture in his ankle" 

We started freaking out because he was supposed to fly home at 11 that day and we were worried to see what happened and how bad it was so we made some calls to find out where he was. We found out he was 'resting' at the AP's apartment so we drove there to see what was happening. When we get there, E. Escandon is playing mini golf in the living room and when he sees us we all just start laughing so hard. Apparently what happened is that morning, he got ready for the day, and kinda swung himself around the railing of the stairs and landed on his foot wrong and it dislocated his toe super bad and like broke the skin. He was fine though, he could walk on it with a little boot thing. He got caught at the insta care for just a little too long and so he missed his flight home and ended up having to stay in the mission an extra day. The whole situation was super funny. (And don't worry we went  back and corrected E. Thaler's lack of information) We got to say goodbye to E. Escandon one more time before he actually went home :) 

We visited some members, Hno. Ramos and Hno Aballay to say goodbye and that was good. They're the best! 

Wednesday was Transfer day so we got up early, pack all my stuff to the transfer site and got picked up in an RV to go to the new missionary meeting to meet my trainee! I kinda had a sneaking suspicion that this would happen, but I ended up getting Elder McBride who is from my home ward in South Jordan! It's super crazy that we are in the same mission, let alone companions, let alone Trainer & Trainee. Suuuuper weird but super awesome haha. We've been having a blast in Prosser so far. We finished up that meeting then shopped and drove to our new area! 

Prosser is an awesome area it's gonna be sweet! We share a car with the English Elders here so 1/2 of the time we are a walking area. I've enjoyed it more that I thought I would, it's kinda fun to just walk around and talk. We are talking only in Spanish while we walk which is good practice for E. McBride. In our area we have some super prepared people. La familia Peña is a family we are teaching. The daughter got baptized about 4 months ago and now pretty much the rest of the family wants to get baptized too! We just have to get them married and teach them the rest but they are super excited about joining the church! 

Gerardo is a man that I actually used to teach in my first area in Basin City and He now is staying in Prosser so we are teaching him here now! He knows the church is true, he just feels like he can't get baptized because he has made too many mistakes in his life....we're working on that haha. 

God also blessed us with 4 new people to teach this week and 3 of the people we are teaching came to church! Our branch alone had 14 investigators at church! It's been super fun to be District Leader too, I really enjoy getting to know everyone in the district and helping them achieve their goals as missionaries. 

We did the special Christmas meeting yesterday and it was really successful. We had a lot of sweet, spiritual musical numbers and we also had a linger longer to help people build friendships in the Branch. 

Anyways, there was a lot of stuff in this email but it's been a jam packed week haha. I'm exceedingly (I know I say 'super' too much haha) excited for this Transfer, for my district, and for my companion! I've had the opportunity to testify to many people this week that God has restored his church on the earth and I feel that testimony deepening and strengthening every day! Los quiero, me encanta ser Misionero aquí en el WKM y me encanta predicar en español! Oren que sigamos viendo milagros! 

- Elder Thompson

Estoy Embarazado - Mission Week 60

Hey ya'll que tal

Sooooo to start with the good stuff... It's Transfer week! I am getting transferred to Prosser as a District Leader, Trainer, and still a tech missionary haha. I was expecting to get released as a tech but since we had a few people go home early this Transfer they weren't able to keep the area open and had to combine it with another. Basically elder Jones and I will just be "on-call" to fix people's phone problems in our own areas. It's suuuuper weird. Elder Jones is going to a walking area in Pasco (it's my old area which is cool) as a trio. Anyways I'm suuuuper excited for this next transfer its gonna be sweet. I'm gonna have a son!! 

This week we had zone conference which went pretty well! The only sad thing that happened was due to some miscommunication one of the zones from our conference had to go to a different one so our talent show was smaller. Everyone loved our video, though, and we still had some solid talents. I'm just glad it's over I'm not a huge performer haha but it was fun 

This was Elder Escandon's last week as a missionary and it's super weird since I've served around him for like more than half my mission now.  Because of that we've been pretty busy packing, cleaning, and visiting members and people we are teaching since we are leaving the area as well. *Live update* we just dropped E. Escandon off at the mission home. Super sad haha I'm not looking forward to doing that lol. I got to see Elder Ward tho and say bye so that was lit. 

We had our branch Christmas party and it turned out well! They decorated a lot and it almost looked like a wedding or sometjing haha. There was a little program of the nativity and we had Mexican and Peruvian food. Suuuuper tasty. They called up all the missionaries at the end to give us a Christmas gift which was super nice of them. I honestly love Kennewick a ton I'm pretty sad to be leaving. 

We had one final lesson with Tom & Grace which was good but a little frustrating... I won't go into it but basically Tom is just a very intelectual person haha. Apparently he stopped reading the BoM because he found some 'critical flaws but it's still overall a good book'. Anyway it was super sad to say bye to them and Valentina and I hope that some day he will open his heart and read the Book. 

We had one last dinner at Hna Valdivia house and it was super sad. She loves E. Jones and I so much she was bawling. Honestly, she does so much service for so many people not including the missionaries and is a real example of Christlike service. I'm going to miss her a ton but I'm also kinda glad to leave her because now it will be possible for me to lose weight haha she feeds us so much delicious food :) 

There were so many awesome spiritual experiences in Kennewick, honestly some of these days have just been filled with miracles and spiritual experiences I'm super bummed to leave but super excited for the future. I was able to see a lot of the missionaries in my future district today and everyone is pumped to work super hard! 

Anyways that's all I can think of haha we are kinda rushing so hopefully I didn't miss anything important. 

Los quiero 

- Elder Thompson 

Fotos: 

- RIP Elder Ward

- RIP Elder Escandon

- RIP Kennewick SP District & Hna Valdivia 

- RIP Tom & Grace & Valentina

Videos - Mission Week 59

Buenas noches, I promise I'm not being apostate, we helped our mission president out with something for like an hour and a half today and he said I have to communicate with home so here I am :) 

This week was a blur. We have been preparing for zone conference. I'm not sure if I mentioned this already but we got asked to MC for our Christmas Zone Conference. Sooooo basically we are in charge of organizing the whole thing. It's been a little stressful too cuz this is like the ONE 'fun' thing we do as a whole mission all year so people have some high expectations. We decided to do an entrance video and it turned out super good. It took us sooooo many nights in the study room just thinking of ideas till we landed on one we liked. We also spent a lot of the week collecting the different talents and things that will be happening in the zone conference. It looks like a decent lineup, we have a lot of singing, a few skits, and then a few other random acts. I'll letcha know how it turns out. 

We FINALLY had another lesson with Tom and Grace and Valentina. It was pretty good overall, we talked about commandments. We found out that the Velez (the family they live with) got called to serve a mission in McAllen Texas and they leave in February. We also found out that they are going to go their old English ward until then soooo we have to pass them off to the English Elders. It's kinda sad but I think it will be better in the long run since Tom & Valentina don't really speak Spanish so they can get some better fellowship in that ward. 

We tried by our golden fam this week but they didn't answer the door. Holidays are busy times :/ 

I don't think I've talked about "The Christ Child" yet..... And I'm not sure why cuz it's pretty much just the best thing ever!! If you haven't seen it yet go to www.lighttheworld.org right the heck now and watch it. It's a 18 minute video of the nativity but it's accurate to the Scriptures and to history! I've seen it literally 50 times at this point and every time I have new thoughts and feelings about it (I even cried once :) ). We've had an awesome opportunity to visit a bunch of members and show them this video and It has been AWESOME. They all love it. Honestly I'll probably watch this video every year for Christmas till I die. 

We went to the temple this week and that was awesome as well. They did a cool remodel on the inside in some parts so that was cool to see. Afterwards we went to the distribution center and I got this cool Book of Mormon that is organized and edited like a play so it says Who is speaking, where they are saying it, and what time. It doesn't add or subtract anything from the Original words so it's just a different way to study it. Pretty excited to use it with Come follow me 2020. 

Today for P-Day we did a white elephant gift exchange and it turned out super good. Highlight gifts: Haunted clown doll, a potato and Dijon mustard, coffee maker, and a dove decoy. Then we played some mafia and I got picked to be mafia which never happens so I got wrecked. My partner in crime and I 

Anyways that's how things are going!

Los quiero

- Elder Thompson 

No hay mal que por bien no venga - Mission Week 58

 Buenas tardes familia, amigos, hermanos, hermanas, etc

This week was awesome! 

The last couple weeks (as I have mentioned) have been kinda slow and hard but this week was like a straight 180. We were super busy and had some awesome miracles happen! It was an awesome testimony that sometimes the Lord allows us to go through hard times to test our faith and see if we are really committed to following him. 

Miracle 1: 

We met these two dudes that live super close to each other. One dude is Jorge, the other one is Alejandro. We felt like we should stop by them. We got into Jorge's house and he had 2 other friends there. As we started to talk to them and teach them it got super frustrating super quick. I don't really know how to describe it but they were just kinda unresponsive.... We would ask a question and they would just sit there and stare at us and say "pues no se... Pues es que pues........." And then the ONE guy of the three was not understandable... Like I've been speaking Spanish for a year now I have a pretty solid handle on understanding but this dude was impossible to understand. Anyway it was just lame. Sooo after we went to Alejandro and had the best lesson of my mission so far!

He let us right in and we started the Restoration with him and his wife Silvia. We seemed to say all the right things, and they answered in all the right ways. The spirit was super strong and as we were leaving Alejandro said something along the lines of "Yeah we can tell you bring a good feeling into our house, and we also know that what you are telling us doesn't go against anything we already believe in." It was super awesome and we came back 2 days later and they were there again! We read 3 Nephi 11 and same thing, a picturesque lesson. We are super excited for them!! 

Miracle 2: 

Thanksgiving :) 

Thanksgiving was super awesome, we got invited over for dinner with Hna. Valdivia as usual and she was super stoked to cook us a real American Thanksgiving. There were 6 missionaries, 5 members, and 2 investigators there so it was a party. It was honestly really good probably better than most Thanksgivings I've had in my life (sorry fam jaja this lady just knows how to cook!) We spent the rest of the evening singing our musical number that we perform in 2 weeks. 

Miracle 3: 

Media referral! I honestly never thought I'd get a media referral in my life as a missionary. Media referrals are the kind where someone goes on comeuntochrist.org and fills out a form to get a BoM, Bible, or just a visit with the missionaries. They are pretty rare, and when they come they usually go to the English Missionaries. Elder Jones and I were super surprised when we got one in our area since 1. Our area is super small and 2. She actually spoke Spanish haha. We messaged her to set up a time and Maria was there waiting for us and her new BoM! Apparently she has gone to lots of churches over the years, but hasn't liked any of them except for ours. We had a brief visit and then she gave us some Tamales to go :) 

Miracle 4: 

OUR BRANCH IS BECOMING A WARD!!!! It's super crazy Y'all this branch has been teetering on the edge of becoming a ward for sooooooooo long. It is gonna be really good for the work because there will be a change of leadership up top. Our current branch presidency is kinda burnt out and have some beef with a lot of the members so there is a bit of a toxic environment right now. Anyways, they announced that on the 29th they will form the Kennewick Spanish Ward. This will be the second ward in our mission so it was super big news. 

Anyways, I feel like this email is super long haha. If you made it this far congrats. 

Los amo, estén bien! 

Fotos: 

1. Elder Jones happy as a clam on his birthday when it snowed

2. We wrapped BoM's for a thing we are doing soon. Some people wanted to do mugshot faces apparently but only 1/2 the people knew haha