The Gambler 11/30/2021

 If playing sports or games for money was encouraged in the church I would be a billionaire by now. This week I've had too many opportunities to play games and kind of destroyed everyone else, whether it be football, Monopoly, Ticket to Ride, Poker, etc. Its also pretty easy to predict which people we try to visit will be available or not so I think right now would be the best time for me to go to Vegas and try my luck. I'm super grateful though for the opportunity to grow friendships with members and missionaries by playing games and the frustrating experience of people not responding to us.

 

We met a super cool lady named Carolyn and her two sons this week who loved hearing our message and even committed to coming to church either this week or next. I was super grateful to find our first person in quite some time.

 

Thanksgiving was a blast, I didn't think I could enjoy it as much as I did away from home. It was pouring rain in the morning, and even though it was super wet and slippery, we enjoyed a fantastic game of football with our district. Afterward, we had a potluck with them as well at the church. I made some raspberry and pumpkin pie which turned out fantastic. We went to the Jones family along with Sis. Loyd for Thanksgiving dinner and it was super fun. I'm grateful for all the missionaries I get to serve around and the wonderful members that help us out so much.

 

The next day Elder Nawahine and I were on exchanges in his area, and we managed to find a new lady who speaks English very well, and got her super close to committing to baptism on the first lesson. I was grateful for the opportunity to meet her and her son and teach a fire lesson that helped fill her home with the spirit. 

 

The Roundys invited us over the next day for service. We were there for 4 and a half hours helping put wood panels up in theor attic, then eating dinner, then playing a game. If there's one thing y'all should take note of, missionaries love games. A short one right after dinner before a spiritual thought helps us connect better especially to younger kids and it helps us to get to know everyone.

 

Transfers were this week and it's sad having two missionaries in our district go home but exciting to get to know the new ones coming in. I'm grateful we have the opportunity as missionaries to meet so many new faces.

 

I'm grateful for all the experiences and opportunities I've had here so far and I'm grateful for all my friends and family back home who've helped me and supported me any way possible. 

 

-Elder Thompson

Life In the Fast Lane 11/23/2021

It seems like we were traveling a billion miles an hour this week. There was so much to do and it all went by super fast. Our car monitoring device was also broken for most of the week so I may or may not have been driving faster than usual as well.

 

On Tuesday, I was on exchanges with Elder Johnson in the Missouri City area. It was real weird going to a dinner appointment and trying to communicate with them since they spoke Spanish, and since I know absolutely zero words and Elder Johnson hasn't quite got a hold of the language either. They were kind enough to use Google translate with us which helped immensely. Through the whole experience though we could definitely feel the Spirit which was awesome because I learned afterward one was an inactive member and the other was a nonmember, so we got to share an awesome lesson with them.

 

Wednesday is when our ward holds mutual for the youth, so we decided to join them this week. We learned about indexing for a little bit, then were going to okay volleyball with them but instead met up with our whole district who happened to be at the church at the same time and planned Thanksgiving. We then spent some time with the Missouri City ward after their activity then played basketball with some of their youth. This is super helpful for us since our goal is to get the youth involved in and excited about missionary work.

 

Elder Zabel had some family friends in the area, so we got to go out to Big Horn Barbeque with them on Saturday. I don't think I can ever get sick of the BBQ here or Tex-Mex. 

 

Sunday I got to speak in sacrament meeting, and I mentioned playing volleyball in high school. We went to the Johnstuns for dinner, and spent practically the whole time talking volleyball and they all ended up playing volleyball at the church with our whole district on pday. It was the last pday for Elder Mortenson and Hermana Swapp, so we went to Tornado Burger and Elder Mortenson and I went on a quick exchange to a super cool comic book store. Needless to say, the weekend was super fun.

 

I spoke on Bradley R. Wilcox's talk "Worthiness is not Flawlessness" I love this talk for the inspiring words it gives to everyone who struggles through repentance. We can all count on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and His guidance and support through trying times, and none of us are too far gone to receive of His mercy. During the Thanksgiving season I'm especially grateful for Christ and His Atonement and the way He's provided for each and everyone of us to return to live with Him again.

 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

 

-Elder Thompson

 

Closing Time 11/16/2021

 It's crazy to think there's only a couple short weeks left in the transfer, it's gone by way too fast. I can't believe I've already been in Shadow Creek a whole month. Our focus is to keep up the hard work and hopefully commit someone to baptism by the end of the year.

 

This week we did a lot of work with our members. We had opportunities to do service for them and help them fellowship their friends who may be struggling a bit in their lives. We've been able to build our relationship with the ward members and then been able to have them help us out in our missionary work. 

 

We had a pretty cool miracle happen at the store with the other missionaries the other day. As we were walking around trying to talk to people and doing our own browsing,  a guy came up to us and said he knew who we were. He had said his name was Arthur, and that he'd met the brothers while living in Sacramento and showed us pictures he'd gotten all over the place with missionaries. He said he'd love to play basketball with us sometime and for us to share a spiritual message. Then, the worker he asked to take a picture for us said that she may be interested in learning more about Christ exchanged phone numbers with us and hopefully we can teach her at some point.

 

Another pretty sweet part of my week was getting to see Ken a couple of times. We saw him at his new care facility and he seemed to be doing alright. Sadly, he'll have to go back to his group home in his old area but at least I got to check up and see how he's been. I know he was struggling a bit not talking with us for a while so I'm sure we were able to bless him just a little bit with our visits.

 

I'm excited to see what other tender mercies and miracles the Lord has for us the next couple weeks as we finish the work needed to be done this transfer and get ready for the work ahead afterward.

 

-Elder Thompson