Memorial Day

May 27, 2013

 

Dear Mom and Dad

Yes you are right, it is a whole new world! haha The trip down the south coast was incredible. I never realized how beautiful Australia is.... it is amazing!!!! There are a lot of kangaroos down there.. just hopping around town and neighborhoods and stuff, silly creatures! 

We had the opportunity to go on a lot of exchanges with the Elders down there too, which was nice to get out there and do some teaching and finding and missionary work. I missed bearing my testimony to people and inviting them to change. The church really is everywhere, it's incredible, tiny little middle of no-where towns have a branch where people can worship! We took a lot of really awesome pictures too, they are on Elder Shim's camera though so I am going to have to steal them all some time :) Oh yeah and we got chased by a dog!! haha It was just like a scene out of a movie or something, funniest thing ever!!!  

Canberra was pretty cool! Really cold!!! like -5 degrees celcius! I wish we could have gone to visit Aunt Carol but I didn't have her address on me or phone number or anything. I will be going down there a fair bit now though so I should have more chances to visit her :)

That's great news about the temple work, I'm sure many more tears will freely flow when other ordinances are performed. I'm jealous that I'm missing out on all this temple action. My favorite!! 

So I did buy a GPS, I got it half off and spent about $125, it works well & I am satisfied. It has successfully and safely taken us on about 3,000 km worth of driving already so it's a good purchase. Oh and I'll have to send you a picture of a pair of my shoes, the inside part of my right one is falling apart so I'll need some new ones sent over, time is almost up! 

Have a great visit to Tanners yard tomorrow and to Grandma Sherman's grave.

Love, Elder Thompson

May flowers are blooming

May 20, 2013

 

Dear Mom and Dad

Glad I got this opportunity to have a few minutes to email tonight! I really enjoyed the call as well! I can't believe it's my last one! Glad everyone else enjoyed it too! Next time we talk it will be in person :) Wow Jordan Lee is home time flies, feels like just yesterday we both got our calls on the same day! Cool experience he had with the kid, I wonder if the kid realizes the significance of that. 

Being assistant to the president is a very very different thing. A lot of the mission rules don't really apply to us.. bed time, internet, driving, calling, area, schedule.. it's all different. we have a lot of privileges that help up to be able to do our work more effectively. We basically help make all the decisions in the mission, transfers, and policies and stuff. We are constantly driving to the airport to pick people up and drop others off.  We give trainings, go on exchanges with missionaries all over the mission, and who knows what else, the responsibilities are endless but so fun! I get to know every missionary pretty well and work with all sorts of people. Last week we went on a tour of the orange district which included areas called: Mudgee, Dubbo, Orange, Cowra, and Bathurst and other areas in between. Look some of those up on google maps, they are bush as! Cowra was my favorite place though.. I think I might request to finish my mission there :) This week, starting tomorrow morning to Friday night we are going on a tour of the south coast of NSW! We'll be going to areas like: Wollongong, Nowra, Ulladulla, Narooma, Merimbula and also Canberra. checking out the chapels and going on exchanges with the missionaries there.  

Today we got to go to a big zone P-day back at Dee Why beach in my old area Manly :) we played on the beach and stuff, it was really fun! After that we went to the family home evening in the City YSA branch, it was really fun. We had missionaries act out the plan of salvation and we also learned about the life of Sister Monson in wake of her passing away. After, we played charades and had pancakes and ice cream! I got to meet this girl named Gyin from Taiwan, she is getting baptized on 8 June and she doesn't think she is ready. Some missionaries were talking to her and encouraging her and I was there as well. I got the chance to talk to her one on one for like 20 minutes and went over some of the baptism interview questions with her and also taught her about the covenant of baptism very very simply because her english is not very great. I think her teaching process had somewhat lacked simplicity so she may seem overwhelmed. I invited her to make a few commitments that will help her reach baptism and afterward she thanked me with a big smile saying that she had been helped a lot by that conversation. I really felt the spirit as I talked with her and knew that it had brought comfort and peace to her heart and understanding to her mind. She said she is going to go ponder about it all. I know that as she ponders, her seed of faith is going to grow :) it's amazing how far a good ponder session can take you. I'm grateful for the spirit guiding me, helping me know what to say and do in order to help her tonight. I love teaching, it's my favorite thing about my mission. teaching, teaching, teaching! I love it! 

Hey, now that I think of it.. why don't you just include that little experience that I just shared as my part in the newsletter! :) That'll work quite nicely! And make my picture one of the ones with the waterfall! 

Anyway! If there's anything I missed, let me know! I gotta go for now. Love you guys!!! 

Love, Elder Thompson

May Day

May 7, 2013

Hey! Sorry I'm getting to you guys so late, just wanted to let you know what's up. I don't have time to read your whole email right now or write a long one back, unfortunately. Well, unexpectedly I got transfered after only 1 transfer in Penrith ZL. President Howes called me to be his assistant so I'm working in the office and stuff now. We are planning for all the new missionaries coming in tomorrow and it is really busy haha :) I love this new assignment though! For reference I can email you whenever I want (or have time to) so I'll get back with more details of what we can do for Mother's Day phone call! :) Love you all!!!!

Pictures from April 21 and 28th

 

 

April 28, 2013

 

Dear Makayla,

I'm glad you like Kannon's girlfriend, Randi Ann. If you approve then that means she is really great :) Make sure you make them play lot's of games with you! hahah I'll see what kind of kangaroo stuff I can bring home for you.

Love, Uncle Elder

Dear Mom and Dad,

This week was REALLY slow for the first part, lot's of cancelled appointments and rejection but it finished off strong. We ended up having a really solid week, set a baptismal date, added a few new investigators and did a lot of service for people! :) On Wednesday our whole zone went to the Blue mountains to do service for a disability center. It is a monthly thing. The next morning, because we had some extra kilometers that we could burn on the car this month, we woke up early and drove to the Blue mountains and hiked to a waterfall called Minni-ha-ha falls. It was really beautiful. The falls were probably about 30-40 meters tall and had this really nice pool at the bottom. We were pretty secluded and did our personal and companionship study right there at the base of the waterfall. Did it all in full pross clothes! We have really amazing pictures, I'll send some in another email! :) 

Recently a 23 year old guy named Meki moved in from New Zealand and lives with his cousin. He's only been a member about 2 years and is looking for a fresh start over here. Our goal is to get him on a mission. He wasn't too sure about that idea before, didn't think he knows enough about the gospel but we have been taking him out with us to fellowship and teach people. The ward has really taken him in and he loves it. He is already talking about places he could get sent on a mission if he were to go! I reckon he'll be wearing a name tag shortly :)

So I think I have everything I need for the visa now. Took passport photos and stuff so we're good to go!  I was right about everyone's birthdays and stuff! Just wasn't sure about where everyone was born. Layton is easy enough to remember though! I even knew where both of you guys were born! That's pretty good, I'm proud of myself!  So Dec. 3 as my realease date is just a way rough estimate that just got thrown out the window. We just found out that when the mission splits, the north mission will have a 4 week transfer which will send me home either like half way through November or just after Christmas.. that's if I stay in the north mission. If I go to the south then... I would GUESS maybe getting home 17 December because the new mission is formed on 1 July and if that is also the start of their transfer cycles then that's when I would end up going home, 4 transfers later. Its confusing but at least it makes my going home time a grey area that seems less like a finish line! 

I'm glad to hear the twins had a good homecoming, I got an email from Tanner:)  Thanks for the package number, it would be a bad thing if I got package 1052 or 1222. Yes everything survived really well! For the mother's day phone call I'm not sure about details yet. Maybe we'll talk about it today at zone leader council. I don't predict us getting to skype this time.. we'll see. 

Oh yeah.. Mom I need a favor. We have been asked to give a spiritual thought at the upcoming ward Mother's day party. I want to know what direction we should go with it if we really want to make it an impacting message! Just throw out some ideas and we'll see what we can do :) Thanks! Enjoy your sabbath!!! :)

Love, Elder Thompson

 

Keep on Keeping on

April 21, 2013

 

Dear Mom and Dad,

Sounds like a pretty eventfull week for you guys! That's good that Tanner got over. I didn't get his email though! It is so weird that they are home now. I am not looking forward to the day my name tag comes off..or at least not looking forward to the feeling. I can't remember when Aaron Hill left exactly. I think he might be home now or getting home in the next week or two. I've been thinking about that. I heard his family moved to Logan. That stinks :( I am starting to kinda get fat. It's just been a bad week though. Not all weeks are like this (food wise). We had KFC like 3 times plus a few other huge feeds. I should be able to lose it playing basketball though, I just turn into a sweat machine. 

That's great to hear about Tia and Daniels farm. Sounds like things are up and moving. I might have to go help out on the farm sometime just to give me something to do! Have they started to build the new house yet?  Yeah I did hear about the thing in Boston. That's really scary. The Syarcuse distance running coach and also a girl that was on my track team were both running in that marathon, Coach Buhrley sent an email saying that they were both ok. One of them was only about .3 miles away from the finish line when it happened. Good to hear they are ok. Hopefully things don't continue to build up there. I haven't heard anything about Korea in a while either, wonder what's going on there. Times are gettting crazy!

Had a few really cool things happen this week that I want to share. We had another baptism this weekend. A young man named Blake. He is 12 and his mom was less active. She was active younger then got pregnant with him at 18 and the guy she married turned out to be a total jerk and she ended up on the do not visit list for years and then they separated a while ago and now her new husband is supportive and really nice. He even came to the baptism.  The missionaries visited that name on the list and boom, she was really awesome. She got work off to come to Blakes confirmation yesterday. First time at church in probably about 13 years and she really enjoyed it! :) 

The other really cool thing was a visit we had with a less active family. They are Maori and the mom gets really nervous to meet new people and has pretty bad anxiety when it comes to social things. She just had dinner with our ward mission leader which was really great and was going to come to a missionary fireside last night but I think her husband had to work. Anyway the miracle was a few days before all of this we went to visit them and had a lesson where they opened up and committed to make some changes. We found out that the dad had been out of work for about 2 weeks and they were struggling. After the lesson we were playing with little a basket of baby kittens and I didn't notice but the dad got a call and went in the house to talk privately. Then as we were leaving they told us that phone call was for him to start work that coming monday (which I just realized is today! haha).  That's not coincidental! As we left we asked them if there was anything we could do and found out that they needed food. so we came back later that night with 3 huge bags of food and other things provided by the Lord. That's the best way I can explain it. 

There are miracles everywhere! There is nothing that can beat the feeling of helping someone. Nothing even comes close!!

I did get my birthday package! I only have a few graham crackers left :) put them with milk in a bowl and ate them! :) I have the card too so you can activate it. I also used my umbrella already to stand in the rain and watch Blakes footy game the morning before his baptism. Everything is used well, even the preserved Sunday comics wrapping paper!! hahaha Thanks heaps!  I look forward as well to the phone call home. My last one, just a few weeks! 

Glad to hear you are all doing well! Hope to hear more good news next week! 

'Til then

Love Elder Thompson!

April news from home

April 14, 2013

Dear Mom and Dad,

Hmm where to start?  This week started off pretty good then got really slow and then it was conference so we didn't get up to much and then we finished really strong Sunday night! I really liked conference though. I think my two favorite talks were President Monson's Sunday morning talk and also the talk by Elder Hales. I usually get put to sleep by him but this time it caught my attention! Thanks for the encouragement to be a zone leader. I really need that. I'm just starting to get melancholy and apathetic toward other missionaries but that helps me realize that I just need to do my best. Oh I figured my kangaroo case would get taken. I'll see if I can find another one maybe,  it will be all good as long as I get to pet it every once in a while. It is so soft :) Ha ha!!

I got to talk on the phone with Tanner (wow that's weird I haven't been able to call him that for the last more than a year!) the night before he left. He was pretty excited :)  thats understandable. I am trying not to get trunky! I have only 7 1/2 months left. Can you believe that? I prepared a few questions to be answered by conference and a few were about guidance for the future at home and I got answered on them, but I try not to think about it too much. The mothers day phone call is soon! That will be my last one! Which reminds me I still need to finish my visa papers. What I need you guys to do for me is scan my mission call and send me the digital copy of it. I need it for my visa extension. 

One thing I've always been impressed with you guys and the whole family is every week I hear about some kind of service that you give. That is so awesome! There is no other way to be more Christlike than serving others. Two of the best ways I think to strengthen a testimony of the Savior is to do missionary work and to serve the needs of other people. The good feeling you get from selflessly serving someone is irreplaceable by anything! I especially want to express my gratitude to you mom and dad for raising me and also providing for me to serve a mission. I am also grateful for Grandpa & Sheila for their sacrifice in helping support me on my mission.  Grandpa & Sheila are always helping others as is Uncle John.  I have heard about and seen the many people they serve and some of those people have been us.  Good on them! The people I help everyday are only being served because of your selflessness and the examples I have seen and heard about. That's a big deal. Thank you so much for what you do. Me, the Lord and his children are very thankful for it! 

I should be getting my package tomorrow at zone conference. I'm really looking forward to it :) Oh yeah we did do lazer tag last week and I smashed everyone! We are going today but to a different place where it is $15 for unlimited bowling and lazer tag! booyeah! Wish me luck!

Love, Elder Thompson