This week was awesome!!

This week was awesome!! Except I missed everything fun. We had back to back exchanges and both times I got picked to go to the other areas, so I wasn’t in my area for a combined total of about 48 hours. Of course in that time Elder H and first Elder B and then Elder F; contacted a referral, set up about a million appointments (exaggerating), taught three lessons, and found three new investigators. Meanwhile back in the Ward: when I'm not tracting, I’m getting stood up on appointments and force fed ice-cream and cherries by overly generous British people. ; P

But life is good! : D There are a lot of good things happening in our area that I was actually able to be around for.

Like I said there really isn't a whole lot I can report on this week as it seems like anything interesting that happened in the area this past week happened while I was gone on exchanges. We had back to back exchanges Tuesday into Wednesday and Wednesday into Thursday. We did find three new investigators this week, but I have yet to meet any of them, but our return appointments with them are coming up so I look forward to meeting with and getting to know them soon.

One thing that's kind of cool that we have been working on this week is we set up to have weekly splits with the Elders and High Priests every Thursday night. Our first priority will be to have hopefully 2 lessons with investigators scheduled during that time, but after that we will be visiting Less Active Members (preferably with their Home Teachers) and helping to uplift and encourage them.

The Ward Mission leader is really on board and the Quorum and Group as a whole seemed fairly in favor of the idea so the first of these "rescue nights" will be this upcoming Thursday. I'm excited to see how it goes.

I love the area. I love the people here. I love my companion. I love the work. I tolerate the weather. Life is good. God is good. The church is true.

Love ya lots!

Elder Thomson

P.S. To answer your questions:

I’m serving in a weird place, cool people. As per the usual in Canada none of the streets make sense. The weather is as far as I can tell consistently too warm, but we just mooched a fan off of the First Ward Elders so we should survive...maybe.

My Companion: Weird guy... that pretty much all there is. He is a nerd, a dweeb, and a dork, and I love him for all of those reasons! His favorite past times are juggling and Rubik’s cube. I know... right? But he has impressive skills in both and more women (i.e. girlfriends) than any other Missionary I have served with, and for that he is a stud... but I don’t understand how...  ; P

The apartment: Small, but clean. I have seen bigger shoe boxes, but compared to my last apartment it’s a gold inlaid shoe box. We live under a super cool family. And the members in the Ward are awesome.

 

Several Awesome Miracles!

Hello family!

This past week has been wonderful. We witnessed several awesome miracles, and the Lord has blessed us indeed. Funny thing about miracles: I never seem to stop being surprised when they happen. You'd think that sooner or later after seeing so many we'd get desensitized, or they'd stop impressing us quite as much, and I guess that does happen, but it’s usually more of a deficiency of gratitude than anything else.

 

Anyway this past week we had two miracles with referrals and one miracle new investigator.

 

Our miracle new investigator's name is C, we met him after Church when our Ward Mission Leader (Brother S, who is awesome) came running up to us after church and said for us to come quick because he had someone for us to meet. That's when he introduced us to C. Turns out C has been coming to church for a while at different buildings, he has been unofficially investigating for a long time and some recent challenges in his life have thrown into sharp contrast the proper order of his priorities. He attended several other Wards yesterday, and talked to missionaries in all three wards. He was in Gospel Principles which is where he met our Ward Mission Leader and told him briefly his story. Anyway, we were able to meet with him after church and get to know where he is coming from, we shared our testimonies with him of the Church and of God's hand in everything, we shared some scriptures and he said that he would be attending Church next week as well, and we set up another meeting for after church. He seems very humble and very sincere, he said that he is searching for something, for a place where he belongs, so I think good thinks are ahead for him.

 

Both of our miracle referrals were from Missionaries; one who just left for her mission to Nevada and another who just returned. Turns out one of the referrals is actually a part member family that we didn't have on our records, and when we went over to see them they were super friendly and invited us back for another time.

 

The other referral we have not been able to contact yet but it was also truly an unexpected miracle.

 

That’s cool that we passed the home inspection thingy for Adult Foster Parenting. It’s also cool that you got released from RS President, but not so cool that you got sick. Woot! A Stake Primary calling! That’s going to be awesome!

 

I love you soooo much too. Sorry my emails have been kinda weak lately. I keep telling myself I'm going to do better but then I get distracted.

 

Anyways! Questions I want to know about home:

 

Who are the Elders in our Ward right now? How is their teaching pool?

 

How are things in politics/the world? I haven’t got an update on that in a while?

 

Also a kitchen update would be cool.

 

How are the Wolfes doing? Is everything going well there or are they ready to through in the towel and come back to civilized country?  :  )

 

Also if you could send me a hard copy of the edited letter that I wrote for the Sons of... whatchamacallit camp that would be awesome! :D

 

The Lord is just and merciful, the work is hard and miraculous, the Church is true and that's it.

 

Love ya!

 

-Elder Thomson

I did indeed get transferred!

I did indeed get transferred. I am now serving with Elder H. This is his last transfer of his mission, which means he has been out exactly one year longer than me. He is super cool, and our personalities are scary similar. This is either going to end really good or really bad.

 

We live in the basement. Just btw, you don’t need to put “basement” on the envelope. The people upstairs are members and they will just give us the mail.

 

In other news... remember how I got two packages at the same time a week before I got transferred? Remember how I had to ditch so much stuff? But in other news the Zone Leaders now love me forever because I gave them a box of Angry Birds Cheese Nips and a box of Goldfish Crackers and half a box of Oreos. I couldn't leave that for the new Elders!

 

Oh! I got whitewashed again! That makes me three for three on the whitewash. Weird. I'm actually going to write President about that right now. ;)

 

Pray for me!

 

Elder Thomson

 

Oh, and I love Kyri too. And I love being a Cuz-Uncle. And I love being a Missionary, and I love Cherries and Legos and my companion. And I love the Scriptures and I love the Savior. And I love all you guys at home.

 

Love me back? :D

 

 

 

"Peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment."

I'm sorry to hear about the passing of Aunt Alisha and Uncle Nate's baby. Destiny is such a beautiful name for an equally beautiful daughter of God, who was just too good for this evil world. Please tell them that they are in my prayers, and share with them my testimony that they will see her daughter again. "peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment." see D&C 121: 7-8

Your calculations are so correct! If one of us is getting a call to be transferred we should be getting it this evening. Side Note: we had dinner with the N family yesterday and Sister N's sister has a son serving in Toronto so while we were there she was writing him an email and I had her put in to have her son say "Hi" to an Elder Romrell serving in Mandarin work in or near Toronto. ;) So we'll see if the message gets through. ;) I have been in this area for three transfers now (4 1/2 months for those of you who are keeping track at home) and so I wouldn't be surprised if I left, but at the same time I wouldn't be surprised if I stayed.

This is a tough area, I'm not complaining or making excuses (I have before, but I'm not now), it just is. But good things are happening in the Ward. We had a meeting with Bishop last Sunday afternoon and set up with him to have a Missionary Correlation meeting with him and his Councilors and a representative from each Priesthood and Auxiliary Presidency. Ward Council and PEC are good, but Missionary work gets five minutes, tops, and that just to ask if there are any investigators that they should know about or that we need help with.  That first correlation meeting happened Tuesday night, at that meeting Brother O, a member of the Bishopric stepped forward and volunteered to serve as the interim Ward Mission Leader, until our recently called new Ward Mission Leader returns from his seven week vacation. The next afternoon we met at Brother O’s house with Brother A (our Ward Missionary who plays for the BC Lions), and Sister H (our upstairs neighbor), we hashed over the Ward Mission Plan, and set some serious goals for the Ward Mission, and some super manageable baby steps to get the members helping to accomplish those goals. It was really good. Then yesterday Brother O (politely) hijacked PEC and we spent the whole meeting talking about Missionary work. THEN after church we met with President K of the Elder’s Quorum and went over the Ward list and talked about who he thought would be good for us to visit or what we could do to help the members fellowship these people. ALSO we got our first batch of 20 names for the Lost Sheep rescue effort so pretty soon we will be dividing those 20 between us and the Sisters so we can start tracking 'em down. ;) Good stuff.

As far as transfers go though, I don’t know what stresses me out the most.  I don’t necessarily like saying goodbye to everybody, that’s stressful. There are so many cool people in each of the areas that I’ve served, both members and nonmembers. I’m not a fan of packing up all my junk or trying to juggle everything while I travel. I’m always plagued by the fear that I’m forgetting something. And honestly if I move this transfer I’m getting rid of a bunch of it and just keeping the things that I really need... or like. I hope you don’t mind but I already gave my EFY CD's to Elder A because now that I have the USB I don’t really use them anyway, but thank you so much for the CDs and the USB, they have both been wonderful. But I think the thing that stresses me out the most is the fear of the unknown.

In other news.. we are taking our second hour of email in the Clerk’s office at the church today so you get pictures!!!

 

Love ya. Gotta run! Bye! :D

Elder Thomson

Lego!!!

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

I think this actually might be a better goofy glasses picture:

Me doing cool things with a flashlight ;)

District:

Happy Canada Day and Independence Day!

Good morning! : D

Nope, didn’t get my face painted for Canada Day and I didn’t see anyone with a painted face either. The ward did have a BBQ, and I guess we could have gone since it was our P-day, but we were busy cleaning the whole time so instead of celebrating Canada’s independence from Great Brittan, we fought for our own independence from dirt. We did a halfhearted, at best, job cleaning the car and apartment a few weeks back (because we got distracted playing Frisbee with the District and ran out of time) and we never really recovered. So we were due for a deep clean, and both the car and the apartment are looking good now.

I also cut two Elders hair yesterday. I can’t remember if I told you or not but a few months back I got sick of other people doing an awful job cutting my hair, and so I decided that I couldn’t do much worse myself so I have been cutting my own hair for a while now and so far everything seems to be going good (but you wouldn’t know otherwise since you haven’t gotten pictures in like FOREVER. I do feel bad about that, I really do, I’ll get right on that. I’m 500 lbs. btw. So FAT!) Anyway! both Elder S’s in my District; Zone Leader Elder S, and greenie Elder S, thought I did an alright job on my own hair, and I guess they figured if I did an okay job on my own hair I couldn’t do too terrible of a job on theirs, so they both asked me to cut their hair yesterday, and I think they turned out alright. We will see if they ask me to cut their hair again, then we'll know what they really thought. ;)

Anywho! I thence for titled myself Zone Barber, which is far better than my previous title of Poverty Boy. I ran out of money for food early last month because I didn’t budget well, and so I was mooching food left right and center. I did end up buying some stuff on personal funds last week, and I do feel bad about that but I was hungry and that frozen food tasted so good!! I had to buy pens anyway, right?

Oh, and I totally did see that broadcast. https://www.lds.org/training/wwlt/2013/hastening/special-broadcast?lang=eng

 IT WAS SO GOOD!! You have to watch it! Watch it now! And then watch it again! And then tell me what you thought... in your letter... because I don’t have that much longer on the computer. I took a really long time to email the Mission President today. :/

 Anyway, I love and miss you all terrible much. Time flies when you're having fun. Pigs fly when you throw them far. And when it’s hot out have a Melona Bar. (I think the company that makes them is called Bingrea, or something like that. You should try them if you can find them. They are super good! )

Love,

Elder Thomson

P.S. I miss the Wolfe’s already!! :(  Make sure they know exactly where they have to be on September 10th 2014. That’s right! Back in Corvallis... or else! ;P