Herm-Town - Mission Week 25

Hey so I'm in Hermiston, Oregon now! "Land of the Strange, Home of the Watermelon" according to a missionary here. A lot of things about day to day life are different and so far it has been super great. We don't really have as much access to computers as we did in Basin City so for the most part, I'll be doing this from my phone. If it looks a little different or there are typos, that's why :)

The week was kinda crazy. 

I packed all day Tuesday and we went around and said goodbye to a lot of the members and people we were teaching in Basin City. It was pretty sad to say bye to them, but it was good to go around and see them all one more time. I got some chocolate covered cherries from one of the farmers we were pretty close with :) They are suuuuper good.

Wednesday was transfer day so bright and squirrly Elder Harmon and I headed into Pasco. The Hermanas that we worked with in Basin City were also affected by transfers and they put our area 'catch phrase' on their car and drove the whole way to town. apparently people were looking and waving and stuff as they drove. (pic included). We piled in a 12 man van and made the rounds around the mission. 2.5hr later we made it to Hermiston! 

Elder Cogswell is my new companion and he is freaking great. I can tell we are gonna get along and have a blast in Herm Town. he's a really good singer and I'm already learning some accompaniment for a song he's gonna sing in sacrament! E. Cogswell was in Umatilla doing English and Spanish work last transfer, and because the Stake got reorganized here the mission's areas changed too. E. Cogswell left English work in Umatilla but still covered Spanish and then we gained half of Hermiston for Spanish only. We're the first missionaries in this new area so we are doubled-in and we have a completely fresh start. 

We live in an apartment with 2 other elders, E. Nordin and E. Skinner. They are the English elders of one of the wards in Hermiston. I've only lived with my companions up to this point and with 4 of us here it's a party. We also have a nice kitchen! I haven't had a kitchen or even a sink in 5 months and it's super great. In our apartment, everyone is from Texas, except for me... I've already heard about why Texas is the best state multiple times haha :) 

The first two days were mostly moving/setting up stuff. Since we were new to this area and apartment we had to move beds and other furniture into the new apartment. Problem was, we were also getting new flooring in our bedroom so we had to do some crazy stuff to get 4 peoples stuff and beds into one room so the floor was clear. It was kinda annoying not being able to unpack for 2.5 days but it turned out alright. Thursday afternoon we were able to start setting up the apartment and now we're all settled in. 

We had 0 information about our area for the first 4 days so we mostly just visited people tjay E. Cogswell already knew about and also all the apartment setup stuff. I won't go into it but basically because of some weird stuff with the app we use for keeping track of our area, 4 areas in the mission ended up not having any info, but it's fixed now :) 

It's really exciting to be in this area at this time because they just announced that there will be a Spanish congregation soon in Hermiston. Currently, the missionaries have to translate in the English sacrament meeting, and it's pretty rough to live-translate a meeting. 

We are pretty busy today, getting haircuts, cleaning, sports, stuff like that. 

Thats pretty much it for this week, we're going to go hard this week and find some people to teach! I'm really excited about this transfer, everything is different, but it's going well. 

Love y'all! 

- Elder Thompson 

Lentisimo (Also transfers upcoming) - Mission Week 24

"Time is running out." 

- Gods Current Prophet on the Earth President Nelson 

Holy frijole It's a good thing conference was good. We had a really slow week. 

If you would have told me 2 years ago that I would be wanted to talk to more people in a week I would call you crazy. This week, Basin City was dead. It was spring break so all the English people were gone and it's warm here now so all the farmers are playing catch-up from the bad weather we had earlier. This means that all the Spanish people are working longer hours in the fields. Suuuper frustrating. 

As a cherry-on-top we had a Branch Activity that we planned that literally n o   o n e   c a m e    t o. Ok rant is over haha. Without the downs, the up's wouldn't seem nearly as good I guess :) 

General Conference was super awesome. I hope everyone's minds are sufficiently blown from the Prophet telling us that "Time is running out." All the talks were super good, my companion has a pretty good idea of taking all the invitations from General Conference and making a list of them so we remember what our leaders have counseled us to do. 

Of course there were all sorts of rumors as usual haha. There been a little thing going on called "Mish Twit' Or "Mission Twitter" were a bunch of missionaries are just posting comments on this app like it's twitter and everyone was predicting a time change for missionaries. I think no changes or adjustments came during conference because they are trying to set an example for Bishops and other leaders around the world. 

Elder Holland's talk was super awesome (as usual). I think it would be appropriate to assume that anything that could be announced during general conference that would distract from the spirit we feel, should be announced outside of conference, just like we should do in our wards. 

Well we just got our transfer call and looks like I'm headed to...... *drum roll* 

Hermiston, Oregon! I'll be serving with Elder Cogswell who is actually my 'brother' in missionary relationships. (We were trained by the same person)

I'm pretty pumped! Hermiston is SUPER big compared to Basin City. It will be completely different, but change is good. 

I realized the other day that I forgot to send a pic a couple weeks ago so I'll include it now. 

Love ya'll! 

- Elder Thompson

Washington Kennewick Mission

8202 W. Quinault Ave, Ste D

Kennewick, WA 99336

Fotos: 

1. Super fuzzy pic of our district at that pizza place. From left to right: Me, E. Escandon, E. Harmon, Hna. McDermott, Hna. Davidson, E. Norman, E. Farmer (behind the head of..), E. Wood. 

So much fooood... also memes - Mission Week 23

"Happiness does not depend on what happens outside of you but what happens inside of you"

- Harold B. Lee 

Buenos Dias and all that, this week was... a week that existed. 

Something I've quickly learned about farm life is that when spring hits, everyone is super busy. It was a struggle to find anyone to talk to this week because Basin City was just a ghost town. 

Earlier last week I had exchanges to Connell again! It's been a while since I've been there but it was pretty sweet as always. They have a man who's on date for baptism and he super cool. He used to be a chef in Mexico, then he moved here and just works in the fields. Kinda a sad story because he's got a lot of talent. He fed us enchiladas and they were bien rico. 

We had a branch party planned for last Saturday (Apparently). No one told us about it until the day before it happened so we didn't have any time to invite the people we were teaching. It was kinda frustrating but some random guy ended up coming and we talked to him, we'll probably start teaching him this week if we can. That was my first experience having real carne asada tho so that was good. 

We had a linger-longer after church and Edgar showed up! He explicitly told us he wasn't going to come to church anymore so that was a super nice surprise to see him there. 

Also, we got to teach a guy behind the counter of a convenience store haha. It was kinda funny because we were in the middle of this lesson and a member walks in and just buys some chicken tenders and walks out without saying a word... I think he was kinda confused but I guess he was hungry enough to interrupt our lesson.

Other than that, it was kinda a slow week. Spring here is super pretty, though. We saw the best rainbow I've ever seen in my life here (got a pic too). General Conference HYPE is real! I hope everyone is excited to get blasted by revelation! Come to General Conference with a question, pray about that question, and you will receive personal revelation as you sincerely watch/listen to General Conference. 

Love y'all thanks for your support! 

- Elder Thompson 

Fotos: 

1. #GenConfHype meme
2. Awesome rainbow
3. Terrible picture of a hawk (we see like 30 a day, there are so many birds here) 

Ups and Downs - Mission Week 22

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: 

1. Our new car just hit 1k miles
2. 2 Mexicans about to get wet and wild with a momma ram
3. & 4. Spanish Conference

Poppin Week - Mission Week 21

"Our daily discipleship will determine our eternal destiny.

Kevin W. Pearson 

Heyo this week was poppin as the title suggests. Where do I start.....

Awesome Thing 1 -

On Monday, we had an appointment with a Less Active family that I've been trying to get in with for casi 3 months. Every time we have had a "lesson" with them the house is crazy. There's like 5 kids running around holding tablets and phones and each one has a different show playing at full volume. Just about the worst environment to feel the spirit. We have been trying to teach this family's 9/yo kid because he hasn't been baptized. When we got into the house for this appointment, it was like a completely different house. The 9y/o was listening, the Dad was listening, the other kids were just quietly playing... it was amazing. We ended up giving the kid a "Book of Mormon Stories" book and he was super excited! He is now preparing to be baptized in April. His dad hasn't been to Church in years and committed to us that he would make whatever changes necessary so he can come back and eventually baptize his son. 

Awesome Thing 2 - 

A member told us he saw a Mexican walking around a pond and so we went to go check it out. Turns our there was some temporary housing where people who come here to work during harvest live. We got let inside and ended up teaching 5 of them about the Restoration and gave away the copies of the BoM we had. We ran out to our car to grab more and when we came back they were all reading it already! It was super awesome. We went back yesterday and taught 1 more person so if you are keeping track that's 7 new people to teach this week! That's a pretty unheard-of number for Basin City so we are stoked. 

Awesome Thing 3 - 

Zone Conference in Pasco was Wednesday! Car inspections happened and we get to keep our Car :) We talked about finding a lot and then President White taught us about repentance. It was really a great time. 

Awesome Thing 4 - 

Edgar is still on date for baptism! Please pray for him, he's so ready. He just needs to make the final decision and commit.

Awesome Thing 5 - 

This super nice little puppy followed us across town and so we had to drive all the way back and drop it off where we found it. (Pic included) 

Welp nothing else is coming to me right now. Time is flying, I can't believe this transfer is basically halfway through. I'm pretty sure this is the last of my time in Basin City so I've gotta make it count! Thank you for all the prayers on my behalf! 

- Elder Thompson 

Washington Kennewick Mission

8202 W. Quinault Ave, Ste D

Kennewick, WA 99336

Fotos: 

1. Facebook Profile Pic attempt
2. Nice view
3. This is Elder Harmon. Idk how/when this got on my phone. 
4. The aforementioned perrito

El carro más elegante - Mission Week 20

 "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" 

Matthew 6:21

¡Buuuuenos Dias! ¡Que semana tan padre! 

This week started out with a call from our Mission Driving Coordinator that we should drive all the way to Kennewick on Tuesday to pick up a new car! We had one of the oldest cars in the whole mission and it honestly didn't suit our area. That poor little Corolla got so beat up because someone *cough cough* E. Barlow  didn't clean the nice Nissan Rogue that was in Basin City before I got here; so they took it away. But anyways, we went into town and 5 hours later after some confusion and paperwork we drove a schnazzy 2019 Chevy Equinox home. It had like 80 miles on it when we got it! It'll probs be a while before I drive another car as new as this one. I'm the designated driver even though E. Harmon is the Sr. Comp. his vision is too bad to drive. We're still trying to figure out all the features and functions it has but we love it so far! 

We had 3 lessons with the main person we are teaching, Edgar. We're very hopeful he will get baptized this month, he just needs to recognize the miracles that have happened in his life and take that leap of faith! Please pray for him! 

We also spent some time this week knocking some random doors which doesn't happen too often in this area. There so few houses and people here, there are very few people that I haven't met. But we did manage to talk to 6 people I'd never met before this week so that was good. 

I'm sure some of you saw the new thing about the safety videos that we have to watch. Honestly they're super entertaining. We're allowed to watch videos on Gospel Library and LDS.org during dinner and stuff. Basically The Safety Zone is a gold mine, we watched it all this week. I kinda wish all the episodes were available to everyone, but at the same time I see why they didn't do that. They talk about some pretty serious situations. 

Funny story this week (hopefully...I thought it was hilarious but it might not make sense)

We went by a Less Active's house and for some reason there were just Chickens, Goats and Pigs everywhere. Now, those things aren't uncommon in Basin City...but they were just wandering around and in trees and stuff. I have some pics. Anyway we didn't know if this was normal or not so we texted the owner just to let him know. We sent a very detailed text just letting him know about what was going on, to let us know if he needs help, etc. After about 3 hours we got a response from him that just said, "Asi se ponen en la tarde." Now, roughly that translates to "That's how they get in the afternoon" We happened to be telling this story to the other Spanish Missionaries around and it was just super funny. It was probably a combination of how useless of an answer it was from our original text and as well that it just sounds funny in spanish. I dunno if that makes any sense or not but "Asi se ponen en la tarde" is the new phrase is North Pasco now :) 

 We got to visit with a bunch of active members this week. One of them in particular shared his conversion story of how he was so depressed for 3 years that he didn't talk to anyone. This was serious enough to the point that people thought he was autistic because he didn't talk to people. He didn't have direction or meaning to life. Then he found the missionaries and felt like he should talk to them! Fast forward 30 years and he's a happy business owner with a wonderful, eternal family. This story really touched me because it made me realize that when we truly understand the message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it does give us a sense of direction. It leads us to true happiness. 

If you want to learn more about this, or need to remind yourself of why this is important, head to ComeUntoChrist.org :) Or email me, I'd love to talk about it!

Les amo muchisimo! 

- Elder Thompson

Fotos(I know they're bad): 

1. Like 40 chickens in a tree
2. Cerdo
3. Elder Thompson and Elder Harmon (some local members texted this to E. Thompson's mom)

Trespassing - Mission Week 19

I'm gonna start doing a quote at the beginning of each email

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably...He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of....You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

C. S. Lewis

Welp, transfers are complete and Elder Harmon, my new companion, is getting settled in to Basin City. He came from a much more populated area so he's kinda been in shock how we do anything around here without endless doors to knock. He's from Riverton, UT (probs like 10 mins away from my house) so that was a cool connection. 

We had a very eventful week. As missionaries we keep track of all the people we talk to each week and this week we talked to 11 which is pretty crazy. Our average is like 2 conversations per week. Other areas you get >11 per day sometimes haha.

Back to the beginning of this week when Elder Barlow was still here, we went around and said goodbye to a bunch of families. That picture that my mom sent last week is of the Shaw family and they always like to take pictures with every Elder that comes to BC. They're pretty great! We also said goodbye to the Holst family and devised a little plan to spook E. Harmon when he came. 

The whole first day E. Harmon was here I was planting seeds of doubt that our visit with the Holsts might fall through because 'they're very busy people' and 'we scheduled it a long time ago so maybe they forgot.' We get up to there house at 8pm and go knock on the door a few times. No answer, the house is dark. 

E. Harmon says, "Well looks like they aren't home" 

I just say, "yeah. They're super nice though and probably wouldn't mind if we grab a snack" then I just open the door and walk into the completely dark house. 

E. Harmon was pretty shocked and just timidly followed me in saying things like, "Uhhh Elder are we actually doing this." "What are you doing?" "We are literally tresspassing right now and we just taught a lesson about Sustaining and Upholding the Law!!" Then as soon as we got to the fridge all the lights turn on and the entire Holst family came out and spooked him. 

It was pretty great, we had it all planned 2 days in advance. We had a few ways to check with them before hand that they would actually be home. The Holsts are all just so funny and love doing that kind of stuff with the missionaries. We had a great visit afterwards too :) 

Other stuff, 

• Because of transfers I got the good bed and the good desk at home :)
• We had a really good lesson with Edgar this week and we're pretty sure he's going to get baptized this month :) 
• We got in with an unusual amount of Less Actives. Most of them I have only seen once in 3 months :) 
• New Pizza place opened in Connell :) 
• E. Harmon kicked the meanest dog in our area and earned the nickname Elder "Alpha Dog" Harmon :)
• I spoke so much Spanish this week, it was crazy :)

Alrighty well I think that's about it, sorry no pics I'll try to remember to grab one with E. Harmon but as for now I'll just send a meme that was made with E. Barlow's face.. Fellow Spanish missionaries will appreciate :)