Happy Mission Split Time

July 3, 2013

 

Hello Hello

Yes ,I'm still alive and kicking! :) things are going really well. To make things clear, I am serving in the Australia Sydney South Mission now. It is a new mission. New mission president, new mission office, new mission home, new everything. The new mission president is President Lew from Lehi, Utah. He is chinese. President and Sister Lew are here and they are AWESOME! I know that they were meant to be my mission parents for sure. President Lew is very very loving and also very on top of things. I was amazed at how when he first got here he knew all the right questions to ask, like things about how the mission is organized and stuff. Things I wouldn't have thought to ask, but which are really important. I feel good because Elder Hoer and I are able to answer about 95% of his questions and have already made some big decisions in the mission. I can really feel the Holy Ghost help me as I perform this very hard task. I have prayed so much for the ability to take on this special assignment and I have definitely felt an in-human source of support. Every night I thank Heavenly Father for helping me do something that I otherwise would not be able to do without his help. It's incredible how much I have grown in just the past few days with all the responsibility. I have felt a new found sense of motivation since he has been here too. He is very fundamental in his teaching and in his vision which is exactly what I think the mission needs. His personality is very personal, he listens very intently and he is fun too. If I could try to describe his personality, the best way would be to compare him to Elder Bednar. That's kind of his style.  And sister Lew is really awesome!! She is very very very short! haha and she is also a marathon runner. She is really fun and loving and innocent and ALL the missionaries love her to death. She almost reminds me of Mary Lou Jewett. President and Sister Lew after our first Zone Conference yesterday took some time afterwards and went out for a few hours with the missionaries to do proselyting with them. That is something neither one of my old mission  Presidents ever did. I though that was really neat of them, they really enjoyed their time doing that too. 

That really freaked me out when you said you were having the Independence day party! It didn't even occur to me that that holiday was coming up. I just about screamed and looked at my watch in a panic! Time is going by so fast!!! If you wouldn't have said anything, I would have gone the rest of the year without realizing that holiday even happened. Wow! That's good to hear about the missionary mall clothes by the way.

Thanks for your comments on my future, means a lot that you support me in whatever I do. There are so many options it's ridiculous! Guess I can pray about it when the time is right and if I don't get a clear answer then I'll take a step down a path and see what he has to say about it :)

Yeah the new announcements on the Work of Salvation broadcast were really cool! Did they show that in your church meetings? Things like using facebook and iPads are being piloted in the states right now and will start going out to other areas.  Uisng facebook and stuff won't reach this mission anytime this year, so it looks like I will never see that stuff used in my mission life but it doesn't mean that I can't use it to share the gospel the minute I get home :) haha that's the great thing! 

Alright I love you guys! Til next week! 

Love, Elder Thompson

 

 

Elder Thompson is now serving in the Australian Sydney South Mission.

He has a new address:

Please send all letters to:

Elder Kuyler Thompson
Australian Sydney South Mission
PO Box 456
Mortdale, NSW 2223
Australia

Happy Winters Day

June 26, 2013

 

So as you know, my email didn't get to you last week until now, things have been great though. This week we are doing a couple of last zone conferences for all the south mission so that Pres. and Sis. Howes could say goodbye. President Howes is giving every missionary a blessing while Elder Hoer and I do a training. It's pretty cool. That takes a lot of energy. Pretty much everything is set to go for the mission split. We're just kinda playing the waiting game for Pres. Lew to get here so we can really take off. He should get here 30 June. Sunday morning. Then we will get really busy again. Right now we live almost an hour away from the mission office.. but when the split happens we will be able to use our new office which is only 5 minutes away from our place. I am really looking forward to the great things that are about to happen in the Australia Sydney South Mission. 

That's awesome to hear about Logan being home!  Derek emailed me and wondered if I would be keen to team up with him and go to USU and get housing together and stuff. We are working a few things out right now. Figuring out the realism of that happening. Praying about it and stuff. I know I won't have enough money to start school straight away though so I will need to work A LOT before I can get back in to studies. I also want to try and apply for federal aid and see what I can get. I'm still planning on studying art education as a major. I also am really thinking of doing photography as a minor and doing wedding photos and stuff on the side one day to make a little extra cash and also maybe make a career out of it or something. It would just give me more options and stuff. What do you think? 

Good luck on City Council! Am I able to vote for that one? I would like to if I can. I will be praying for you. I think it's about time you brought some brains into the City Circus. 

Haven't heard anything about the moon stuff but it really makes sense because last night the moon was HUGE!!! It lit up all the clouds and stuff and looked really cool. It was almost like a sunrise but way different haha 

Well, til next week I hope this thing actually gets to you! :) 

Love, Elder Thompson

How are you?

June 10, 2013

 

Hey there!

Sorry I didn't get an email off last week! :( we didn't get to email Monday night like we usually find time to do, like right now. Then we had zome conferences all week!  8 hr training to about 30-50 missionaries at a time. It was a great experience though. I got to meet ALL the missionaries, it was really exciting. Then the church websites haven't been working for some reason so that's been a little annoying. BUT... I am doing fantastic! Things are quickly heading toward the mission split. Things are getting pretty real and lots of progress is being made. The new mission office and home are all prepared and ready to go. This week we will be planning the upcoming transfers. This transfer will be a very important one because we have to create 3 new zones, decide who will be North and South, and also decide who will be all the new trainers and things like that. It's nearly mind blowing! hahah

We do a lot of driving. In the 5 weeks that I've been here We have probably driven about 6000 kilometers! that's no good for getting excercise :) hahaha 

Tonight we had leavers dinner for two missionaries from Tonga and Samoa who's visa's are expiring. They will stay with us tonight which will put 8 of us in one flat.  There's 3 assistants, 3 fleet missionaries(the ones who take care of temporal needs in the mission ex. cars, flats, vacuums etc..) and those 2. It should be a fun night :)

Lets see.. oh today was fun, we actually got a P-Day kinda! We brought a bunch of missionaries from a few zones into a central chapel and had a big basketball day! There was probably about 40ish people there so we had some good games going on! 

Fun fact, a missionary who served here, Elder Ford, was waiting for his visa to go to his actual mission which happens to be the Utah Ogden mission! He just left a few weeks ago and we saw him off. I got an email from Elder Russell and he said Elder Ford called him up and came over to his house. Apparently he is getting trained in our area! How crazy is that? hahaha If you see him you'll have to tell him that I say hi!

Things are great here! There is a lot of excitement and a buzz among the missionaries as we prepare for the split! I will be busy, busy, busy but I should be able to find time to email. No excuses:)

Til Next time!

Love, Elder Thompson

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