Go the Distance

 

I understand now how Hercules felt when he sang the famous tune. He was willing to do whatever it took to finally get to the place he needed to be physically and mentally. That's exactly how our friend Ken is doing. He is a great example of faith as he endures to the end and eagerly awaits news from the first presidency of the church concerning his baptism. He is willing to go the distance and do whatever he needs to in order to be baptized.

 

I want to start by saying that where I'm at there is insane variety of cars as well as some wild drivers. It seems like it's 33% trucks, 33% American muscle, and 34% everything in between. I can't tell you how many Chargers, Challengers, Camaros, Corvettes, or Mustangs I've seen here used as daily driving cars. It's pretty normal spotting a Porsche, Tesla, or Ferrari here. There's crazy colors and customizations all around. The funniest things are the swingers, swangers, or swungers, whatever the massive spikes coming out of the rims are called. They are so common up in sunnyside it's so funny seeing it all over the place. The drivers do a "texas dive" where they'll cut across all lanes of the freeway without any warning lights or indicators just to barely make their exits. They also like to have their headlights on no matter the time of day or current weather. Very very different from anywhere I've driven.

 

This week we had the privilege of having Elder Giuffra and Elder Pieper of the seventy take a mission tour of the Texas Houston South Mission. We got to shake their hands and introduce ourselves to them before hearing them teach us many things about finding and teaching people as missionaries. We took what we learned from them to hear and applied those teachings throughout the week in our work.

 

On Thursday, Elder Nichols from the Manvel Ward and I were put in an unexpected pickle as Elder Seal and Elder Farris went on surprise and unauthorized exchanges. Although we are both new to the mission, we had faith to work through the trial of not having a car (trainees don't have ID cards for the car monitoring system and aren't allowed to drive until after training) as well as not having a daily schedule to work with. With the 3 months mission experience I've had a long while a go, I decided how our day would turn out and we set out with a positive mindset. We contacted a member to give us a ride to our lesson, and then went with Elder Nichols to do good ol' fashion tracting at the apartment complex right next to ours. I know we were blessed because of our faith, because Elder Nichols was able to hand out El Libro de Mormon using his broken Spanish and we were able to find 3 other people and give them English BoMs as well!!!

 

The next day I went to Alvin for exchanges with Elder Dafoe, one of the two zone leaders. We had a good long day of contacting people and meeting new ones to teach or for the Spanish missionaries to teach! Elder Dafoe didn't seem to like the amount of work and stress a zone leader has but the more he talked about it the greater desire I have to be in some sort of mission leadership role.

 

My favorite experience this week was having a lunch before church at the Lauritzen's house. They invited Kiosha and Ken over so we could teach them a little bit after we ate and before church. This experience was a wonderful blessing for me as Kiosha asked me to be the one to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost upon her this upcoming Sunday after she is baptized! We love her so much and are so excited for her to follow in Christ's footsteps and be baptized like he was a and receive the many blessings that come from that sacred ordinance.

 

This has been a truly exceptional week and I'm excited for the many more to come. I know the Lord can bless each and every one of us as we ask humbly and fervently for His hand in our life and as we strive to do as he asks. 

 

-Elder Thompson

 

P.S. I have a bunch of random photos attached that have some form of significance or importance, I just don't know if I could tell y'all what the reasons are because I honestly forgot.