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 

¡Traslados y nuevo presidente! - Mission Week 35

¡Buenos días! Como andan?

Well here we are again. Transfer week! It came super fast since this transfer is a short one so president can do one last transfer planning here. President Rasmussen and his wife are in the MTC right now and we got to text him this week. He seems super awesome we are all excited!

Elder Ward and I are staying in Pasco.... kinda. Our area is changing within the zone so we will cover the city of Richland in Spanish work but our congregation is still in Pasco. It's kinda confusing since we are "in" one zone and covering another one but it's OK. We are getting a m a j o r upgrade in apartment. We live in some pretty nasty ones right now and we are moving to the newest and nicest in the mission!

This upcoming week we are getting a new group of missionaries so we will do a presentation on their first day. It will probably be a little awkward since President White will be there to greet them and then he leaves 4 days later haha.

This week had some ups and downs for sure. Miguel was going to get baptized on Wednesday. We had the Baptism all set up, we invited a bunch of people from the Ward, had talks, prayers.... the whole thing. Miguel ended up getting held late at work so he got back about 10 minutes before the Baptism and we told him to come ASAP. He and his friend just kept sending super vague texts that sounded like he was coming.... then we didn't know..... then he Isn't coming.... then he Is. Super frustrating haha. Long story short he didn't end up coming for a few (not great) reasons. It was super sad.

The story isn't over yet though. We were at his house teaching his friend Veronica when his roommate comes out of the house and says something like "I saw Miguel's car parked on the side of the highway on my way home from work. I'll go check it out and make sure he's OK." We continued with our lesson and then Veronica gets a call. It turned out that Miguel got pulled over and since he doesn't have lisence or papers he went to jail! This was like 2 days after his baptism.

He ended up getting bailed out the next day and then he came to church which was good. His friend Veronica keeps roasting him and saying things like "If you had gone to your baptism you wouldn't have gotten punished by God" and stuff like that. On Sunday he definitely looked like he felt a little rebuked by the spirit so hopefully the new Hermanas in our area can help him make it to baptism again.

Other stuff this week, we had a fun ward activity with carne and fútbol that was successful. A recent convert, Gregorio, in our area came and he brought his son Artemio. Artemio is 26 and has down syndrome, he's pretty much the funniest person ever. Love his guts haha. I played goalie and didn't do too great. We play soccer every morning and I usually do alright but I guess playing with a bunch of Hispanics messed me up. 

Pretty busy day today so I'll have to cut it here, love you all and thanks for your support and prayers! 

- Elder Thompson 

Teaching like crazy! - Mission Week 34

Buenas Tardes!

Obligatory, "This week flew by pretty quick." phrase... 

We had a lot more time to get in our area and work which was nice. This week we found a bunch of people and it felt like we were constantly in with people teaching them.

We are working with a part member family and we invited them to our Ward barbeque and they came! They were a little late and ended up being surrounded by missionaries since we were moving tables and ended up being the last ones to get food. It was kinda unfortunate that the members didn't make much of an effort to get to know them, but they also came to church for a bit and they made a connect or two with some people.

We went and did some service at this place called 'second harvest' and that was pretty fun. Basically they get giant loads of less-than-store-quality food and we sort through it all. Throw away the bad stuff and box the good stuff. It was good fun and we sorted a few tons of food which equated to a few thousand meals. 

Soo Miguel was supposed to get baptized this last Friday but scheduling issues made us push it back to this Wednesday. Pray for him and for his work so that he can have time to come!! He didn't come to church this week for a dumb reason so we went over and had a good talk with him about why it's important to go and why he can't just bail on plans after he has committed to do something. 

Obispo (Bishop) Landin apparently called president white and somehow got permission for all 12 missionaries in the ward to meet him for lunch at a restaurant. Normally this is not allowed at all, especially since there were both sisters and Elders but with Presidents word of approval we all went. It was kinda weird for everyone the whole time but that made it funny haha. Pics included. 

Funny story for this week, we met this old Vet out walking his dog and he was telling us this craaaazy story about this dog. First of all it was a massive dog, probably like 200 lbs, pure muscle and when it stood on its back it was as tall as me. Anyway he said this dog had been all around Africa and that the Military had specially created this dog to kill cheetahs and crocodiles. It was super freaky because it was so massive and this dude was a little crazy probably. While we were talking, the dog reared up and tried to lean on me and it totally caught me off guard haha. Thought I was dead for a sec, but the dog was actually really nice and apparently most of it's past owners have been about my size. Anyway this dude talked for a while about this dog and some crazy stuff that it had killed, who knows how much was true but it was memorable haha. 

The Church is True! We talked to so many people this week that have nearly given up on God because of problems in their churches with abuse and greed. We are seeing more and more people who have lost their faith and that is why I'm super grateful for The Book of Mormon. I'm grateful that it is hard evidence of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that everyone had the chance to find out for themselves if they belive the Book of Mormon is true. I'm grateful for prophets and that we have them as guides for us. Jesus Christ is the head of the Church and when human beings make mistakes it doesn't take that fact away! 

That's pretty much it! Love yall! 

E. Thompson 

Fotos:

1. Pasco 5th Dinner with Obispo

2. Goofy District council pic

3. Recording a rendition of Be Still My Soul on the recorder with our roommates (file included in email) 

4. Helping Elder Calvin make a motivational video for his district 

Tech Time - Mission Week 33

¡Oiga, que tal!

Time is flying, wow. A lot of stuff is changing in the mission right now, it's pretty exciting. We had our last interviews with President White this week. It was really good! Sister White is a quilter and so we all signed a square of fabric and she's going to make a huge quilt out of it! They have officially moved out of the mission home and sent most of their stuff back to Utah.

We spent a lot of time this week making a video. My companion, Elder Ward, has been working on this new spreadsheet thing for the mission and we are finally ready to release it to the mission. My job was to make a video describing how to use it so all of the District Leaders would know what to do. I had to dig up some of my editing skills from high school haha. It was pretty fun but it took a long time. The Tech Elders in the past here have made a video series called "Tech Time" so this was kinda a continuation of that series. There is usually some element of the video that is funny, (just so people don't hate us for making boring tutorial videos). I'll send a link to the last few minutes of the video. It's a spoof of the church video "Treasure in Heaven" about John Tanner. (Its on ChurchofJesusChrist.org if you haven't seen it.)

We named the system LUKIS which stands for Live Update Key Indicator System. Hopefully it helps the mission be a little more efficient when it comes to reporting numbers each day. 

As for regular missionary stuff....We had a hard time contacting our On Date since he got a job as like an assistant DJ or something. We thought his baptism might have to be pushed back but we called and talked to him for like an hour and right now it's looking like he will get baptized this Friday!! We super excited, hopefully everything works out. If it's not this Friday it will be soon, though so I'm not worried. 

We had a few awesome lessons with the people we are teaching. One family came to church too! They cancelled on us in the morning but they ended up coming anyway. Olga is the mom and she has a really good friend in the ward and afterwards she texted us and basically said, "push her into the font, she is ready." We had a super awesome Lesson with them and they definitely felt the spirit. 

There is a part member family that we are starting to work with and they are super excited to learn. The one member in the family wants to re learn why she joined the church. She has some issued with substance abuse and so she pretty much forgot her whole experience of taking with the missionaries. She remembers doing baptisms in the temple though so that is cool. 

Well that's probably it for this week! It's been crazy to hear about some of the people that graduated this year and already have their mission calls! Suerte to all of them! 

Los amo! 

Elder Thompson 

Video Link: 

https://drive.google.com/a/missionary.org/file/d/1aI_BgIg-qIumKXivL9_e6wPXwp0EA-6H/view?usp=drivesdk

Fotos:

1. Funny birthday wish I got from a Recent Convert in Umatilla 

Short Update - Week 32

So it's been like 5 days since last P-day which feels super fast so I don't have a ton to talk about but here is a little bit :) 

On Thursday last week we went to Connell to do a Phone Audit of a District there and it was pretty fun to go there again. I went on like 15 exchanges to Connell in my first few months and some of the missionaries were still there! We had a good drive listening to some talks about the Atonement. 

This whole last week we were preparing a big presentation for MLC (Missionary Leadership Conference). It went pretty well, we were able to clear up a lot of confusion for some of the rules in the mission and hopefully set some people on the right track. It went waaay longer than it should have though, between questions, discussion, and President cutting in a few times :) It was a good experience, though. 

Today we spent some time playing volleyball and basketball which I've missed since we didn't have time to do it last week. Our zone is soooo big. There are 12 missionaries in the Spanish ward here and in the zone there are like 26-28 missionaries. IDK if that is big for other missions but for the WKM that is super big. I haven't even met everyone in the zone yet! 

That's pretty much it for this week! Next week probably won't be too interesting to write about because we are working on a big spreadsheet project for President White. I'll try and keep track of the fun stuff so my Emails don't start to stink :) 

Los amo, 

- Elder Thompson