Cumpleaños - Mission Week 83

Hola Hola

This week was super awesome :) I'll start with the Birthday highlights!

Saturday morning we went to go do some yard work and also to help someone move. As we went out to the car, we saw that someone had put a bunch of streamers and stickynotes alllll over it. The inside had a ton of balloons as well! It was pretty cool, the sisters in my district were the ones that did it but they enlisted the help of the Elders to distract me and to grab the keys. 

During the move they had a couch with a hide-away bed thing that folds out and as 2 members were pushing it out of a room the bed sprung out and absolutely destroyed my toes haha. It's all swollen and it hurts a bunch now but definitely not broken. That was the worst part of the day haha.

Later E Skinner took me out to lunch at Zips a super good burger place then I went to talk to my parents on the phone for a bit and that was great! Normally we can't call home on our birthdays but because of the corona we are allowed to once during the week. Then, we got some sushi and headed back to the apartment. When we got back I started to eat and then the rest of the zone started singing happy birthday! They were all hiding in our backyard waiting :) it was super fun they gave me a few funny little presents.

Overall it was a super awesome birthday, I'm grateful for the missionaries I get to serve around and that they wanted to make my day special. 

We had a mission conference this week with Elder Whiting from the 70 and it was way awesome. He talked about how we need to use this time of isolation to deepen our conversion and develop Christ like attributes. He explained a method of studying the Book of Mormon where you only focus on one Christ like attribute and you study on a copy you have never marked before. The cool thing was about a week ago I started doing that exact thing! 

For the rest of the week

- we did a ton of video calls

- a district council about how to slay dragons

- the Williams bought us groceries!!!

- Sis Langford's birthday was the 22nd so there was another party

- we did service for a lady named Julie and she was super nice. She needs prayers though she is going through a really tough time.

Anyways that's it! God lives! He is good! He loves you so much! 

- Elder Thompson

Pics are from my B day 

Servicio y Abuelas - Mission Week 82

This week was great I think I read the Come Follow Me chapters like 20 times this week in various member lessons. There was a ton of super applicable counsel for this time in history.

We did some service for Sister Mann in the ward, her son Garth is super funny he has autism and the whole time he was showing us his power rangers movies haha. He's a great guy. We cleaned up her garden and she gave us some pretty good curry afterwards :)

The most unexpected part of this week was when my parents told me that my Grandparents were driving through my mission to go to Seattle for a day. I asked if they could come pick up a box of stuff to take home and they said sure! They stopped by Sunday morning and we chatted for about 5 minutes. It was pretty fun but a little weird haha. 

This week flew by I honestly can't remember anything else.

Les quiero, 

Elder Thompson

Operation Dedication - Mission weeks 80 & 81

Yiiiikes those are some big numbers... Week 80 and 81...oof.

I think I'll just make a quick bullet list of some of the stuff we have done.

- Made pretzels with one of our DLs

- Learned how to forehand throw a Frisbee 

- Started writing another song 

- Hiked to the top of the tallest 'mountain' in the world that has no trees. (at least that's what we are told) 

- Watched Saturdays Warrior for the 145726194th time (the pickings are slim here) 

- Got carne asada y chorizo from a member in our ward (it was soooo good. Gave me flashbacks to pasco)

- Discovered Sonic cream slushys 

- We did the potatoes again and oh boy were we sore 

- Did another presentation at Zone conferences 

Now for the important stuff, all the missions in our area (North West) got invited to repent by the area authorities and an apostle or two. They want us all to refocus on the work because some have gotten very distracted. After the MLC where we got that instruction, Elder Newton and I started a new thing in our Zone called Operation Dedication. 

Basically this thing includes: a weekly proselyting hour goal, better planning, more zone unity, and doing things to raise our faith. 

To kick it off we did a training for the Zone then we asked a member in our ward to help make little breakfast bags for the whole zone. Then last Monday morning we visited every apartment and kicked off operation Dedication! 

It went super well, we are so proud of everyone in our zone for working super hard even though the sircumstances aren't ideal. 

Happy mothers day to all the moms out there. Especially my grandmas and my mom ❤️ I'm grateful for all the things that my mom has taught me about life. On the mission I've been able to appreciate the importance of having a mom that is able to teach her children. Some people I have met haven't been as fortunate.

Les quiero, 

Elder Thompson

Fotos:

1. All the breakfast bags. The STLs painted everyone's bag

2. Potatoes round 2

3. Date night (but during the day) with the boys

4. Date night (x2) with the boys

5. Sisters Winward, Jensen, Bogle, and Langford

6. E Skinner

7. Sis Jackson & Choate 

8. My bag 

9. Zone Conference intro