Tri-Cities Mission: Ups and Downs

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

2 Nephi 2: 27

What a week :)

Well some sad news to get it out of the way, the person that we had on date for baptism this week ended up deciding to not get baptized. It was super sad, we had a really good lesson with him where he said he was ready to commit. The next day It was like he was a different person. Complete 180, and now feels like he has to see God to be baptized and that the Scriptures are just middle-men between him and God. We're not sure exactly what happened, but we warned him that things would happen that would try to prevent his baptism. We're super bummed because he'd made such good progress and we truly felt like he was ready. Once he's a little more humble I'm sure he will get baptized.

But, asi es la vida de un misionero. Agency is rough sometimes.

Alright back to the good stuff! We had a ton of meetings this week. (Good stuff.. I know :) ) We drove to Pasco 3 times in 3 days for various things. One of those things was Spanish Conference! All the Spanish Missionaries got to get together for a few hours to receive some training on working with the Hispanic People. It was really good and I got to see my Trainer, Elder Barlow, again! Everyone that had been in Basin City was excited to hear about the people we are teaching.

We also had interviews this week. I know I haven't been here super long but it's weird to think that Pres. and Sister White will be leaving in 2 transfers! Super crazy, I'll be at like 9 months when that happens..... Tooo fast.

We talked to this crazy dude named Edwin this week! We'd met him in passing a few times but we talked to him for a minute and he's a character. He loves to talk about how smart he is and how he used to be studying to be a Pastor. My favorite quote from him thus far is, "I'm a good person. I have the mental capacity to understand anything. I have faith in God. I've never ever been to prison, never EVER have I smoked even ONE cigar.........I do drink beer though...I do.... BUT I recognize that it's bad and that's what matters." Maybe it was just funnier in Spanish but... you get the idea.

We went exploring this week to see if we could find a place that I hadn't already been and it was interesting! Basin City is so small, we run out of things to do sometimes since there are so few people here. We saw a road on the map that skirts the edge of our area and follows the Columbia river so we decided to check it out since I'd never been there. We didn't see a single house! Now we know, haha. (40 miles later)

Ok one more story, sorry I know this Email is long. We went to a persons house to try and teach their family and the Dad pulls up in this dinky little green pickup full of hay. He gets out, says hi to us and tells us to come with him. We follow him around the corner and he puts on 2 full length arm gloves, walks into a pen with a bunch of rams, and starts chasing one. We're super confused at this point. Finally he gets a hold of one and suddenly 2 other mexicans pop out of a shack and tackle the same ram. One of them shouts something about "the baby" and... well to be brief, they were apparently helping one give birth. I won't go into too much detail...but ya know it was messy. #farmlife

The funniest part was afterwards (the baby didn't actually come out, idk why) he said, "Oh we do this at the dairy all the time with cows. I've never done it with a ram but it's probably the same thing."

Ok welp that's pretty much it. We're going to this new pizza place today as a District and I'm super pumped because I haven't had pizza in a hot minute and it's apparently reaaallly good.

Les amo a todos ustedes!

- Elder Thompson

Washington Kennewick Mission

8202 W. Quinault Ave, Ste D

Kennewick, WA 99336

Fotos: