I love to see the Temple!

I love to see the Temple! 

I went inside today!

It was really super awesome! 

I don't know what else to say!

:D

Today was our Temple P-day which means.... you guessed it! We got to go to the Temple! It also means that we have about 2 hours less to get everything done that we need to accomplish, so forgive me if this letter is slightly more rushed or shorter than usual.

In other news:

I've had a Birthday shout 'hooray'...

I'm really, Really, REALLY old today.

One year older and wider (yes. I am.) too!

Happy Birthday to... me. :P

 

I am 20. I don't like it. It's a terrible age to be. Now I feel old, I'm starting to fall apart. I'm getting fat. I'm going grey. Woe is me.

But thank you all for all the wonderful Birthday wishes and love and presents and object lesson ideas and food to make me fat with. I really do appreciate it.

This past week has been really good. We worked really hard and have been focused a lot on going through all of the Potential Investigators, Former Investigators, and Less Active (or in most cases Inactive) Members, in search of everyone and anyone that will sit down and talk with us. We are having the hardest time finding anyone to teach, but working with all of the Potential Investigators seems like it might start to yield some fruit. We had a pretty good lesson yesterday (Monday) morning when we stopped by a potential investigator we had left to us by some earlier Missionaries. His name is S. We stopped by and it went fairly well, he became a new investigator (or so we thought) until we talked to the YSA Elders later that afternoon and we found out that he was actually one of their former investigators. Which makes sense because he seemed to be fairly familiar with the church, but we thought it was just because he had friends that were members. So it looks like we will be turning him back over to those Elders, but we were able to set up an appointment for them. So that's good.

Working with Less Active members and former investigators hasn't yielded any fruit (or even a bud) yet, but we are trying to make contact with everyone and see if there is anyone we can help. We'll keep working at it and hope (and pray) that we will start seeing some of the results of our efforts in this coming week.

This morning since it was all the Missionaries at the Temple the Temple President bore his testimony to us all of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of the Restoration of the gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith and of the Restoration of the Priesthood and Temple ordinances. It was a really powerful experience and it makes me want to shout (in a good way), so that everybody can hear what I know is true. God and Heaven are very, very real, and in the Temple they are very, very close. Jesus Christ is Gods only Begotten Son, our Eldest Brother and our Savior and Redeemer. The Holy Ghost is the Witness and Spirit of Truth and it is by His power that we can know the truthfulness of this message of the Restoration of the Gospel and the truth of all things. If we ask, we will receive. If we seek, we shall find. If we knock, the Heavens will open, and powers of darkness and the hosts of this world will flee away, for with God on our side, who can stand against us?  

This is my testimony and love for you.

Love, 

Elder Thomson

This Week

Unfortunately there is all that much to report this week, what with it being transfer week and all. The early part of the week was almost entirely consumed with Elder W frantically packing. I was able to make the best of it though and seized that opportunity to do some of the deeper cleaning jobs that normally seem to be ignored due to a shortage of time. I also went through the Area book and Ward list to make sure I knew everyone. Sadly, I don't. While most of the names are familiar, I cannot seem to put faces to an awful lot of them. There are so many more people to keep track of in a Ward than in a Branch, and I feel terrible that I've been here for 6 weeks now and I still can’t remember the names of some of the people I see at church. I'll keep working on it though, I guess if I can’t remember someone’s name then that's probably a good indication that we aren't working with that person as much as we should be. I'll do better.

Transfer meeting was really good. I especially enjoyed a talk President Tilleman shared about a nonmember man who tried to translated the Book of Mormon back into one of the Semitic languages to prove that it couldn't possibly have come for a branch of people from that area. Turns out, some of the clunky grammar we end up with is essential to the meanings in those languages. It’s too bad I don't have a copy to send you guys, but maybe you can look it up and find it online. It’s really good. 

Oh yeah! New companion! His name is Elder A. I've been serving around him pretty much my whole mission so far. He was serving in Terrace as my Zone Leader when I first came out to the field, and then when I left Prince Rupert to go to Clearwater he left Terrace to go to Merritt (which is in the same District as Clearwater. Elder A also trained Elder M who was my companion in Clearwater), then when I left Clearwater to come here for one transfer and he stayed in Merritt, so we were apart for a transfer but now we are companions to make up for it. ;) I am super excited to be serving with Elder A. He is a great missionary and an awesome tool in the Lord’s hands. He and Elder G (my current District Leader and Elder A’s companion for two transfers whilst he was in Merritt) witnessed miracles in Merritt. I have enjoyed serving around him in the past and am excited to be able to learn from him as well.

We had a really good Weekly Planning session and are very excited for this next transfer. We both feel that the groundwork is being laid for miracles to happen here in the Ward. We had a kind of Missionary Correlation Meeting with two of our Ward Missionaries the Bishop and the Sister Missionaries (We don't have a Ward Mission Leader right now because the last one got poached for a Stake calling and we haven't had time to call a new one). We talked about implementing a "Thirty Day Challenge" idea (basically when we go over to a family’s house for dinner or whatever we invite them to have someone that we can teach in their home in the next 30 days, and we follow up with them roughly every 10 days until they get us somebody to teach or the 30 days are up) and we decided on a way that the Sisters and ourselves could alternate following up with members and keep track of who has been committed. 

We also talked about where the area should be divided between ourselves and the Sisters. We decided that their area would be the western side and we would keep the eastern portion. That puts the temple in their area, which I'm a little bummed about, but the Bishop and our Ward missionaries seemed to think it sounded a fair divide. Everyone seemed pleased.

Oh, yeah we got Sister Missionaries. Everyone likes them better than us. They stole half our area, the temple and everyone’s hearts and minds. I don't like it. :  )  But it’s going to be good; they should help the work move forward here.

In summation: I have a good feeling about this transfer. Good things are going to happen, and in some cases have already begun.

Love you all so very much. Thank everyone for the Birthday wishes. I did in fact get my package in time, and have been fighting hard not to open any of my presents yet. I'll keep fighting, but just know it’s not easy.

Love,

Elder Thomson

Lots of Opportunities to Serve

This week we had the opportunity to do a lot of catching up on service opportunities. I know we are supposed to have planned service opportunities each week, but it seems like everyone’s needs all come at once, and then we will have a couple of weeks each transfer where we get to do a lot of service and then other times there will be weeks where nobody seems to need (or want) our help. This week was one of those where we have been able to find lots of opportunities to serve. The good news is that from what I've seen in the past; in the weeks following weeks where we are able to serve lots temporally, we are able to find lots of opportunities to serve spiritually as well.

Last Sunday we got a call that a family in our Ward needed some help moving some furniture the next day. They had also enlisted the help of our Bishop and his oldest son, our High Priest Group Leader and another family in the Ward. We ended up having two trucks there and were able to get the things moved without taking too many trips. Which in turn saved time AND effort. We also used that opportunity to set up a time to visit with the Bishop and his family as neither Elder W nor I has gotten to know them very well in our time here. Bishops schedule was pretty open so we were able to meet with him and his family the next evening.

We were able to visit them Tuesday evening and did get to know them a lot better. It would seem that their trust in us has increased as well as the ended up giving us a couple of referrals, and we arranged to take their oldest son out with us to do some Missionary work later in the week. Speaking of member trust, we accidentally (or perhaps we were unknowingly guided by the spirit) tracted into a family in our Ward who told us that they had just been looking for our phone number so that they could call us and ask us to do them a favor, they needed us to fill the baptismal font for their eight year old sons baptism this next Friday (the 19th), they were also telling us about how the have invited a bunch of their nonmember friends to attend their sons Baptism by telling them about what a special day it is for him. We have been teaching their son for a while now and we have been meeting at his grandfather's (who is not a member) house and been trying to use that as an opportunity to involve the grandfather in the lessons as well. We talked to the family and they said it would be okay for us to invite the grandfather to officially take the lessons at their sons’ baptism.

Wednesday we had a wonderful District Meeting with Elder M who shared with us what he had learned from District Leader Council. Our afternoon was filled with personal finding, and in the evening we had dinner with a Part Member Family. The mom is a member and several of their sons have served missions, although the youngest son is lest-active. The father is the nonmember. I was able to meet him for the first time (Elder W has met him before), and he did seem to be pretty friendly and open. We hope to be working with him a lot more in the near future.

Thursday we did our Weekly Planning in the morning. In the early evening we helped our upstairs neighbors move, they are moving back to Washington, and so the upstairs is empty for now. We'll be sure to keep you posted if anything changes there. In the evening we once again had an opportunity to meet with R, our less active member with a sprouting testimony of Jesus Christ. It would seem that his testimony is strengthening slowly but surely. It’s awesome to see how much simply reading the Scriptures with him is having a profound effect on his spirit. As I believe I mentioned before (I can’t really remember if I did or not) we introduced him to his Home Teacher who is also planning on starting to visit and share messages with him as well. With both of us working on him (plus the spirit) there's practically no way his testimony can’t continue to grow stronger. He has yet to come to church in my time here but as his concerns continue to melt away the idea is becoming more and more of a possibility.

Friday afternoon and Saturday morning I was on exchanges with Elder G. Elder G is an awesome Missionary who is excited to serve, and his enthusiasm is contagious. We did a lot of Personal Finding and visited one Member family, we had planned on sharing the Restoration with them but after we started talking for a bit we decided to switch to a Scripture from the Book of Mormon. They have been going through a rough time in their life and have recently lost a lot of their earthy possessions, so we felt like the message we switched to was more fitting and helped them more. They gave us a referral to visit one of their neighbors who is already Christian and with whom they have had religious conversations before.

Sunday, after church, we took the Bishops son out with us to visit a potential we had stopped by earlier in the week. The potential had seemed interested in meeting earlier but when we went back he said that he didn't want to waste our time and wasn't really all that interested. We stopped by a few more people but weren't able to meet with them either, but I think it was still a good experience for the Bishops son and I think we will be taking him out with us again soon.

So far this week is looking a lot better than some of the past few. We have several more solid appointments set up already this week, and are planning on contacting as may potential investigators as possible and figuring out who’s really interested, so we can help them.

All my love, for all God’s Children.... but most especially the ones reading this letter. ;)

Elder Thomson

Millions of Tomatoes!

I must confess, I've never been really all that excited about tomatoes, but after this last weekend I think they are my favorite fruit.

Conference was amazing of course. As always. I think I've really learned to appreciate it so much more since I have been serving as a full time missionary. I never used to get this excited about it.

I particularly enjoyed the parable of the tomato plant. It served perfectly to illustrate the lesson taught. This is exactly what has been happening to the work here in our area.  There are several people with whom we have been working in our Ward whose testimonies have wilted because of neglect, and only the living water of the Gospel of Christ will be able to heal the parched soil in which they find themselves rooted, and bring their wilted tree of testimony back to life. That seed of faith, even the merest desire to believe, if cultivated will bloom again, and will bear fruit, and if the principles of the gospel are observed, and diligently obeyed, before long we will see millions and millions of tomatoes. And we will bring for a bounteous harvest for the Lord. (See: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2013/04?lang=eng&vid=2282048318001&cid=10)

We witnessed one rather... iconic (?) miracle this week. I'm not sure if you'll know what I'm talking about, as I am finding it difficult to think of a specific example of this phenomenon in film. But if you will remember that in some movies there is a scene where the hero walks into a nearly deserted diner and orders something to eat or drink, but almost as soon as the words our out of his mouth someone else speaks up across the room and picks up his bill. Our hero, and his mysterious benefactor, then sit together and discus something, usually of great significance to the plot. This happened to Elder W and myself earlier this week.  We had been street contacting in a historic district where a lot of people walk around on beautiful sunny days. This particular day of which we are speaking was decidedly not sunny or nice, in fact it was rather viciously miserable and wet. We had met very few pleasant people thus far that day, and were pretty cold and hungry, when we were walking past a 50's themed diner which had a great deal on a Milkshake a Fry combo. Elder W mentioned to me that he has been walking past this diner for over two months and he has yet to try their food. He then suggested that we stop in, order some, and then take it back to our apartment for lunch. After some convincing I agreed. Just like in the movies no sooner had we ordered and were about to pay when an elderly mustached gentleman spoke up from across the room, "Put it on my bill! They’re good Mormon boys out spreading the word!" He then invited us to sit with him and proceeded to tell us about how he had just finished reading Brigham Young's biography and how interesting he found it. We thanked him for his generosity and began to talk about what he knew of the church and answer his questions. We answered as many questions as we could and tried hard to keep our answer simple and focused on the Gospel. It wasn't easy as what he seemed interested in was mostly deep doctrine, but in the end we had a really good conversation and a pretty tasty snack. We invited him to come to Conference with us to hear our current Prophet speak (it seems like all we did all week was invite people to Conference). However, he declined as he was going to be out of town, but he gave us his card with his contact information and said he would love to talk to us again sometime. So we will be contacting him later this week.

Maybe that doesn't sound as spectacular as it felt at the time, but it sure seemed like a miracle to me.

With all of the inviting to Conference that we’ve done this last week, we didn’t have any luck having anyone take us up on our invitation. :( I'm trying not to let it get me down but we haven't been having a great deal of success here in our area. We're just struggling to get the ball rolling really. We have met lots of nice people, we've even met a few that have seemed pretty interested, and I've noticed so many miracles here, but we’re just not teaching people consistently. I don't know what to do but keep trying. I guess that's all we can do. :)

Oh! Hey, I love you. I don't know if I've told you that yet this week.

Elder Thomson

Overview of my week:

It was another slow week for big miracles, but there were plenty of small ones along the way for anyone with an eye out to catch.

 Monday we taught an Family Home Evening lesson with a Priest age young man in our Ward, we assigned him the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson in Preach My Gospel to study the week before and asked him to help teach it at Family Home Evening. It went really well. The hope was that it would help him prepare for a mission and see that sharing the gospel is really quite simple. I think it worked.

Tuesday we had a long gospel conversation with man who was very confused about the identity and nature of Christ. We just testified of truth, I don't know how much we were able to help him, but it was certainly a testimony to me that a correct understanding of the true nature and divinity of Christ can be an unfathomable blessing to us and bring such an amazing peace to our lives. The missionaries before had given the man a copy of the Book of Mormon in a language convenient for his study, so we simply encouraged him to revisit it in order to gain a better understanding of who Christ is.

Wednesday was our District Meeting, some wonderful trainings were offered by Elder G and Elder G as well as Elder M, and our Zone Leaders, Elder S and Elder C. Baptisms and inviting everyone were certainly the focus of the day. It really was well timed to remind me of some things that I need to keep working on and areas that I can improve.

Thursday we got the oil changed in our car and did a lot of street contacting. We had dinner at members houses just about every night this week, it’s such an awesome blessing to have the support and encouragement of the ward, we are constantly seeking for ways to get members more excited about giving referrals or helping them build up the courage to invite their Friends. It’s so hard because I feel like a hypocrite because I was never good about giving the missionaries referrals when I was at home.

Friday was Good Friday. We taught the R’s son who is getting ready to be baptized but we are trying to involve his nonmember grandfather whose wife is a member. We talked to his family and they said that it would be alright for us to invite him to hear the discussion at their sons’ baptism.

Saturday was pretty much all finding; it was a really hard go. Not much happened, disappointing, but not discouraging.

Sunday, Easter Sunday, Church was amazing. Powerful testimonies were borne and the Bishopric shared a wonderful Fifth Sunday message from the Worldwide Leadership Training DVD. It was really good. After church we did some finding and had a few unpleasant things yelled at us, which was weird, that doesn't seem to happen to me all that often, and on Easter Sunday of all things. We had dinner that night with one of our Ward Missionaries. After dinner we went to visit a less active member who we missed seeing at church... again. We shared Ether 12, and left him 2 chapters to read out of the Book of Mormon. He had a strong testimony in the past, and has shared some amazing experiences that he has had in association with his baptism, he has just fallen out of the habit of working on his testimony and his faith has suffered because of it. But as we have been going over the past couple of weeks we have seen a marked improvement not only in his faith and testimony but also in in his demeanor. The gospel really does bless lives. We're hoping to be able to get him out to conference this week.

Happy early Birthday to Me! Yeah, I found a watch. Yeah, it was expensive. But I'm not allergic to it, it feels like a marshmallow on my wrist, it has a 2 year warranty, it looks super cool, it’s CRAZY waterproof, and now you don't need to get me a birthday present! :D  Plus, it came with a pair of free sunglasses! How could I say no?

Also, I found out that a Wal-Mart card purchased in the states doesn't work in Canada. Grams sent it to me. So I'll probably be mailing that home soon. So you take my reckless spending out of that instead of my hide. ;)

I got my Easter package in time. Mailing it to Point Roberts didn't seem to be any slower than just sending packages to the Mission Home. Elder W hasn't got his Easter package yet so I've just been force feeding him my Easter candy in hopes that if he develops diabetes we'll get some extra money each month for health food. I don't know if it'll work but I figured it was worth a shot. Don't share my plan with Sister W, I don't think she would approve. :D 

I've been eating a lot of boiled eggs and drinking some nasty chocolate shake mix stuff that some other Elder bought and left in the apartment. It looks really expensive but it tastes like sand. There is a Wal-Mart just outside our area but we got standing permission from the Zone Leaders to go there on P-Day to buy groceries so we can actually get food without having to sell our internal organs on a street corner first. There was a 3 for $8 deal on chips yesterday so we got some of those. There was also a 5 for $2 deal on bagels so we got a bunch load of them as well. There have been weeks where we have dinner appointment just about every night, and if you are a really clever Missionary you can complement the cook enough that she'll send home leftovers and you're set for lunch the next day. But Elder W and I must not be that talented because we have only got leftovers once or twice. I think I'm going to have to bust out those thank you cards that you sent with me. To my shame I haven't used hardly any of them yet. :/ But as the Gospel teaches us this true principal: it is never too late to repent and do better. :)

Love,

Elder Thomson