Bold and Loving

This week was yet another good and eventful one. We of course had the earthquake on Saturday which livened up our evening a bit, but also an exchange with Elder N and Elder T, on Wednesday and Thursday, which was an adventure all in itself.

 

Yeah, there was an earthquake, 7.7 I'm told, it was out in the ocean I think, Haida Gwaii felt it first. Elder A and I were actually working on the "First 12 Weeks" program (which is something for new missionaries where we get an extra hour of study time to work out of Preach My Gospel or watch The District (1&2) videos), we were watching one of the District Videos when Elder A felt his chair moving. I felt the couch moving too, but I thought Elder A was kicking it or something, so I didn't think much of it, but then Elder A asked if I felt that, I was like "... yeah?" and that's when we figured out that EVERYTHING was moving. It was actually pretty fun. Elder A and I stepped outside, because.... that's what you do... right? ;) Except, almost as soon as we got outside it stopped. We were kinda bummed. : P so we went back inside, finished our study, planned and got ready for bed, while I was brushing my teeth Elder A said he felt an aftershock, but I didn't feel anything. It’s harder to tell if you're standing and brushing your teeth. :(

I was excited to get to work with both Elder T and Elder N back to back, and I've learned so much from both of them. I guess the one lesson that they kind of both taught me, even though they each focused on different aspects of it, is that I need to be more Bold and Loving in all aspects of missionary work. We as missionaries are supposed to be bold and loving in everything we do, be it tracting, street contacting, teaching a lesson, or extending an invitation or commitment. We must be both bold and loving.

Now, I thought I had loving down pretty good, but then with Elder T I realized that I didn't really have true Christ-like love for the people to whom I was talking. I had sympathy for most everyone; I could understand the problems in their life and see how the Gospel could help to repair their lives if only they would be willing to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. For some I even felt real empathy, I felt for them because I had experienced those same struggles before in my own life, and I knew how hard it must be, or what they must be going through. But for very few did I feel real, pure, unconditional, Christ-like love. I saw how the gospel could “fix" the "broken" aspects of their lives, but I failed to look deeper and see how the Atonement could heal them as individuals, as sons and daughters of God.

Just like faith in Jesus Christ (and His Atonement) leads us to repentance; True, Christ-like, love leads us to be bold, to lose our tongues and speak the words of Christ. If we can understand that Christ-like love, and feel it or for everyone we meet, there is no power on earth that could stop us from declaring the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ to every creature on this earth that yet draws breath.

I am not a naturally bold person, I don't like to make waves, I like Nephi and Moses am not mighty unto speaking (or writing), but I  have been called, even commanded, to share this message, and I know that this message is true: That God is our Father, and that Jesus Christ is His Firstborn and Only Begotten Son, that the Old Testament, New Testament, and Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, are their words as revealed to His Prophets, and I know it by the power of the Holy Ghost. I know that The Book of Mormon, along with other scriptures, were revealed and translated by the prophet Joseph Smith, that through him the Priesthood, and keys pertaining thereto, were restored to the Earth, and that that Priesthood, those keys, and the authority to speak for the True and Living God, unto all the Earth reside with Thomas S Monson, the Prophet and President of this The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This is my testimony. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I love you all, and I hope that all is well at home, and wherever else you may be.

Thank you all so much for everything you do for the Lord, and for me as a missionary.

Elder Thomson

Picture Time!

I was working in a text email, but I just lost it (like the 116 pages :P) so rather than re-write it I’m justgoing to pick up from where I left off... Monday wasn't that interesting anyway. ;P

Monday:
Pday. Did Pday stuff. Did some finding. Not a lot happened.

Tuesday:
We volunteered for service at the animal shelter, did some finding, and taught one lesson to R, C, and J.

Wednesday:
WAS AWESOME. We taught 4 lessons on Wednesday one to a new investigator named A. We read him a chapter of the Book of Mormon. We also taught T, (I don't know if I’ve told you about him or not ...but I don't really have time right now. :/ ) And J, who is awesome. We met with R and C again, and scored two jars of pickles! ... We are also having dinner with them again tonight (homemade pizzas!!)

Thursday:
Not a lot happened, we spent the morning packing and the afternoon driving down to T. We had to fly down to Vancouver at 3:00 so that we could get a ride to R and stay the night with the Chinese Elders there. Sooo... I realized this week that the blankets I've been using aren't even the missionary’s blankets. I think I told you guys before that we are living in a furnished apartment, but that we are moving out at the end of the month. So while we were in T we seized the opportunity to go to Wal-Mart, everything is so much cheaper there, and especially in Wal-Mart, and I was able to buy a GIANT FUZZY blanket that is mine to keep and take with me when I have to travel, (because not a lot of the apartments have extra blankets and most of the missionaries are using their own blankets anyways.) I also bought a kitchen knife because all we have in the apartment are butcher knives and steak knives and neither of those work... at all. So now I have a knife that I can actually cut stuff with and that's coming with me as well.

Friday:
We were in R, and Elder Haleck of the Seventy (http://www.lds.org/church/leader/o-vincent-haleck?lang=eng)
spoke to us about how we can more fully use the ward council to help us in our work as missionaries, he had some interesting things to say, I tried to take lots of notes but I was wondering if you had any commentary to offer on the subject? :D

I also got the Thanksgiving package while I was at the Mission office, thanks again so much for all the goodies, I decorated with the leaves and little pumpkins this morning, I'll have to take a picture and send it to you some time.

We flew back to T Friday night and stayed the night in the T Elders apartment (even though they weren’t there because they were diving up in a truck with a box spring for one of our mattresses... so we ate all of their food.).

Saturday:

We drove back from T and almost ran out of gas because we forgot to fill up before we left in the morning, but we made it back safely... against all odds. Too bad though, Elder A and I were kinda wondering what would have happened if we had run out of gas. Once we were back we finished up our weekly planning and taught three lessons! Woohoo!!

Sunday:
I gave my talk, (that I brainstormed on the plane, and frantically finished writing that morning.) it was awful, but some people laughed, so I guess it make somebody feel good. We taught two more lessons in the afternoon, to A and T.

Picture Time!

 

Well, this is a different computer so I’m going to see if I can get some pictures out just a few at a time.

 

I don't remember if I told you about the hike that Elder A and our investigator G went on, but these are some pictures of the super cool bunker thing that we found when we hike up on top of a mountain. G invited us to go on a hike with him, and we taught him a lesson about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon while we walked.

 

 

Me standing in our apartment kitchen (Elder A was telling me I was bad at taking pictures so he was showing me how "easy" it was. It’s hard to take a picture in a low light situation, so this is one of the pictures from as we were figuring how to set the camera right.) That super gross stuff in the blender is probably Elder A’s protein shake. *gag* ;)

 

Mashed potato sandwich! It was actually quite tasty.

 

 

And those are all the mattresses we will be sleeping on after we move out of our furnished apartment. But for now they are just chillin' in the dining room.

 

I made myself some Spaghetti, it looked super good, and tasted pretty good to, if I do say so myself. ;)

 

 

Living in Canada is a weird experience, because so many things are the same, but just the little details are different. Like all the traffic signs look like they were purchased second hand from other countries, we went into the mall to buy a USB pen for elder Anderson, but instead of Radio Shack it was called The Source, and they don't have Smarties, they have Rockets. There are no Red Vines they only sell Twizzlers, and if you want to buy mayonnaise you'll find it in with the salad dressing.

Elder A dressed like a Celtic Ninja. Next he'll be trying to walk on the walls!

That's all I have time for again today, gotta run eat pizza at the G’s, but I love you all dearly and look forward to hearing back for you all again. Write me! :D

Elder Thomson

P.S. Please send CDs and gum. Gum really helps with District Meeting and Weekly planning. :D Also, the caramel apple pops were a hit. And I miss Legos, weird I know, but I was in Wal-Mart and I was like "I haven't gotten to play with Legos in forever!" but don’t send me Legos. If you want to get me something for Christmas get me a small, REALLY waterproof backpack. Like... military grade. Like... what the Navy Seals would use. That’s what I need.

 

Why did I eat so much?!?!?

I think the easiest way to do this is by day. So here goes:                                     

Monday:

Thanksgiving was great! We had mostly the same things: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing. Apparently stuffing is called "dressing" if its cooked outside of the turkey, since you didn't stuff it anywhere besides your face, but I feel like that should still count.  Sister L even made  yams with mini-marshmallows on top!. We weren't able to share a message, with their guests, the really sweet couple, like we had hoped, we ran out of time and had to run to a different appointment, but we did have a good chat, and they invited us over for lunch the next day.

The appointment after dinner was with a new member family I can’t remember how much I've told you about them before, but he grew up in the church but got distracted and fell away in his teens, he married his wife, and she just got baptized a few weeks before I got here. They are both active in the church now and are preparing to take their young family to the Temple. We are teaching them the new member lessons, which basically means going over all 5 Preach My Gospel lessons again, but in more detail because she pretty much already knows what’s going on. She seems pretty interested and engaged, and her mom is usually there too so we can just hope that some of what we talked about is sinking in for her as well.

Tuesday:

Our Zone Leaders were in town! I was on an exchange with Elder E, and Elder A was with Elder B. All three of them are exemplary individuals and missionaries. Elder E and I tracted on a certain street, we didn't have too much success but we did find a couple of potential investigators.

At noon we met up with Elders A and B for lunch with the really sweet couple that were at the Thanksgiving Dinner the day before, they are really sweet people, but she has one of those mothering-crushes on me, and I made the mistake of telling her my first name. (In case you aren’t familiar with the term "mothering-crush" I will explain it for you. It’s a term I just invented and it is when a sweet older woman takes a poor "starving" missionary and insists on treating them really well them for no apparent reason.) So everything was "You sit her Alexander." "No, Alexander, you feel at home." "You eat more." "You hungry?" "You eat!" "You not worry nothing, you eat." "You want more food?" "You eat!"

...You know how much you hate yourself after Thanksgiving dinner, when you are lying on the floor in agony asking yourself "Why dear gosh did I let myself eat so much?!?!? Imagine having all those feelings of regret and self-loathing... but directed at a small well-meaning and really actually very sweet older woman. Of course it didn’t help that the other missionaries (Elder A worst of all) were trying not to bust up laughing the whole time, and kept making not so subtle suggestions to her that I looked hungry. Don't get me wrong, the food was really good, but after eating about 30 kilograms of the stuff, it didn't really matter how good it was, I was just stuffed.

After lunch Elder E and I finished tracting on the street we had started earlier and proceeded to tract a street called Bacon (Yes, Bacon) and a Street called Alfred (not as awesome). In the evening Elder E and I taught J (I can’t remember if I told you about J either. In case I didn't, J is a really cool older guy who Elder A and I tracted into, he invited us in and we had a lesson. We talked about Jesus Christ and stuff but didn't really go over the first lesson.... meaning the Restoration.) Elder E had never met J before and didn't really know much about him, so it was pretty much up to me to teach the lesson. It was kinda scary, and I was super glad to have Elder E there to back me up and keep us on the points that we needed to teach in the lesson, but I felt like it went really, really well.

That night Elders E and B stayed the night with us in our apartment, they just crashed on the floor.

Wednesday:

 Elders B and E stayed with us for District Conference, which is every Wednesday from 10 till noon. Since our District and Zone are really too spread out to actually meet in person every Wednesday (travel time alone would take up most of the day) we just get on a conference call and sing, and pray, and have all our other meetings, lessons, and spiritual thoughts over the phone.

For lunch we went to McDonalds. That was the first time I have eaten fast food in a month. It was really weird, I ate off the value menu (there is no such thing as a dollar menu here. Food is too expensive.) But I still spent as much as I would have on a meal and a milkshake back home. Oh! And there is a little tiny maple leaf on all the M's! It’s so weird!

That afternoon Elder A and I were back together, but we certainly weren't back in business. Monday I started a new habit of highlighting each of the items in my planer at the end of the day. Blue means that the event planned went as planned, yellow means that it happened but at a different time in the day than we planned, and red means that it didn't happen at all. I’m doing this so that we can see how well we are actually following our plans, and how much of what we planned actually got done. Ideally we would have an all blue day, and yellow isn't all that bad either, but red means that we aren't getting stuff done and that means that we aren’t being the best Missionaries we can be. Now, it’s not always our fault when things don't go as planned, sometimes our investigators cancel and we can’t do much about that.

Ahhhhhhh and that's all the letter I have time for! :(

We have to run, but I'll have to finish telling you about my week sometime.

I'm talking in Sacrament next week, wish me luck.

Love you lots,
Elder Thomson

Happy Thanksgiving! ...What's wrong with this Country?!?

Yeah, sooo today is Thanksgiving in Canada. Who knew, right? It’s weird having "Thanksgiving" before Halloween, in fact a lot of people already have Halloween decorations up. Elder A and I are all dressed up in our "Thanksgiving" best, which means brown slacks and fall colored ties. We are having Thanksgiving dinner with a family in the ward, they also invited a non-member couple. I’ve only met them once and they are super sweet and they love the missionaries... even if they aren’t so interested in the gospel. But since we'll be at member’s house we might be able to share a spiritual thought. :D

YEAH! GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS AMAZING! We watched conference at the church building. Elder A and I were basically the only people there for all of the session except for Priesthood and Sunday morning. The Prophet used my missionary scripture AND the Canada Vancouver mission got a shout-out by the prophet. I think it was in the Sunday morning session, in case you missed it. Also Jeffery R Holland's talk was AMAZING! Definitely in the top five Talks I’ve ever heard. SO GOOD!

I want a Mormon.org T Shirt now!! "I'm a Mormon. Are you?" or "I’m a Mormon. I know it. I live it. I love it.” with a QR code and "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" on the back. Mark my words; you are going to start seeing them. It’s gonna happen.

Soooo Zach... I know you were looking forward to growing an Afro with me when I get back,  but considering the prophets announcement yesterday I figured I better cut you a deal: I will accept a two year rain-check on the Afros if you have already submitted you papers [or are gone :O Aahhh! ] before I get home. Of course I’d love to see, you.... and Afros... but I'd understand.

Now, about food, and where we live. We live in an apartment and they are actually pretty nice, all things considered. The missionaries used to live in a members basement but now were in apartments. We will be moving from a furnished apartment to an unfurnished apartment so we have like a ton of extra mattresses and stuff kicking around right now. As for food, a gallon of milk is like $6 (plus tax), a box of Goldfish is $11 and a 3 kilogram box of frozen chicken is normally $43 (but I found it on sale!). So we actually have to be pretty stingy with our money. There is a Subway here, but there is no such thing as a $5 foot long. We eat at a member’s house maybe 3 or 4 times a month, and its crazy expensive to eat out, so we mostly just cook for ourselves most of the time. I’ve been eating a bit of PB and J, but I also bought a tube of super cheap nasty hamburger and a box of frozen chicken (at half off!) so I’m getting meat too, I got carrots, potatoes, and an onion (yes, I spent money on an onion of my own free will and choice. I don't know what’s wrong with me. I even read an Ensign article... for fun! I don't know who I am anymore.) I’ve already spent half of my money for the month, but I haven't even eaten half of what I bought yet, so I guess I'm doing okay. I did buy a lot of things that will last me for a while... like a gallon of vanilla ice cream and a bag of frozen raspberries! I’ve been making Elder A and I Milkshakes while we plan. So I splurged a bit there.  ;P  Oh! And I got tater tots! We're out of Ketchup though, so I haven't been able to eat them. I’ll have to get some today.

I was able to get a pretty nice Dakota winter/rain jacket combo. It's not as long as I would have liked, but it has two parts a liner and a shell that are both waterproof and it has pit zips in the liner. They are both black and they look like something the Wolfe’s would wear, so I’m guessing that means quality. I’ve got to wear them in the rain a couple of times already, and they seem to work pretty well. My legs still get wet, but I don’t think there is really anything I can do about that. Elder A has a trench coat that he wore, but it wasn't really waterproof and got pretty soggy so he bought a new jacket too. We look pretty snazzy. When I was coat shopping I kept thinking about that double breasted raincoat at CTR clothing, but I don't know if it was really waterproof. So I'm thinking it was actually a pretty good option coat wise. :)  For now I think I'll just wait on buying anything else until I need it. ;P Probably not the smartest move, but I don’t want to buy snow boots and then end up never using them, right?

As far as packages go, if they are sent to the mission office I should get them whenever my Zone Leaders go there next (which is about once a month) and then they will give it to me the next time they see me (which is this Wednesday). So I probably won’t get your package this month but probably in time for REAL Thanksgiving. ;)

As of right now we have... I don't know how many investigators we have. :/ See, there are four kinds of "investigators":

1.     Potential investigators. These are people we talk to, tell them who we are and what we do, and they say that we can come back sometime and talk to them more. Neither Elder A nor I know how many of these we have. We write them all down, but it’s impossible to really keep track of them all because they are always moving away (or just lying to us about where they live) and often don't keep appointments. Many people never make it past being a potential. :(

2.     New and Other Investigators. A New Investigator is someone who has been taught one lesson (one of the lessons out of Preach My Gospel, complete with leaving them a commitment [i.e. read BoM, pray about what we taught, etc.] and at least one prayer) and has a specific return appointment. We have 5 new investigators this week. Other Investigators have been taught more than one lesson but are not necessarily keeping their commitments.

3.     Progressing Investigators! These are the best kind of investigators; they keep their commitments and appointments, and are moving forward in their faith, testimony, and along the path towards baptism... and ultimately the Celestial Kingdom. :D We only have one of these, and he's young. He wants to/is ready to be baptized but he lives with his dad and stepmother and he need his birth-mom's permission to get baptized. We actually experienced a little miracle with him this last week, we decided in our planning that the next time we met with him we would talk to his parents about getting permission for him to be baptized from his Mom. But then while we were out tracting the first house we knocked on a woman answered the door, I was the one who had knocked and Elder A was standing behind me on the steps, I began to talk to her and tell her about who we were and what we did. She seemed really friendly and nice, and when I asked if there would be a time that we could come back and share our message she said that we could. We set a time and I asked her what her name was, she said “C”, I introduced myself as Elder Thomson and then Elder A leaned around the doorway to introduce himself.... he did a visible double take "C?" he asked, "Young kids Mom?" (Name removed to protect identity) We had unknowingly tracted into our young investigators mom, and got a return appointment. Best day of my mission yet. 

4.     Former investigators. :( These are the sad and depressing people who for whatever reason we are no longer teaching. Perhaps it was that they weren't keeping commitments or appointments. Maybe they felt that they were just too busy for the gospel, or maybe they said that they did not want to meet with us anymore. Each one is different and each one makes us sad.

Hey! Remember that family that invited us in for tea?? Yeah, so we went back and taught them the first lesson, well actually we "talked" them the first lesson, they didn't want us to "teach" them, but that's okay, because God did. ;D These are the kind of people that Preach My Gospel was written for. They have been through quite the journey, and I can’t share all of it because I don't have the time or the right, but as the husband said "I've gone to a lot of different churches throughout my life, but there always seemed to be something missing." His wife had James 1:5 highlighted in her scriptures, and she said that it was amazing that God spoke to Joseph Smith through that scripture to. We taught about the Restoration and told them about how a Prophet Thomas S Monson leads the church and talks to God today. We told them that we had just had a conference and that they could see the Prophet talk if they wanted to look it up on lds.org, we also gave them a Book of Mormon and they said they would read it. It was awesome. I can’t wait to see how things work out with them.

Well I gotta go, but thank you guys so much for the weather forecast that was really helpful. Elder A and I have been lamenting that we can’t get one, so keep 'em up! :D

I love you guys, and can’t wait to hear from you again! :D

Love,

Elder Thomson

I'm in Canada!

Yup, you got it! I’m in Canada. The weather is great! ; ) I love it, especially after how dry Utah was. There has been so much going on and I’ve been trying to get it all down in my journal, but it’s just too much to send in an email. Again, no pictures today sorry. There are no SD card slots on these computers so I can’t get the photos off the camera. So I’m going to need to get an SD to USB adapter later today.
I’m in the chapel right now, they have a family history center with computers so Elder A and I can email home. Elder A is my Companion/trainer. He’s super cool. We're both super excited about this transfer.

It is a little tiny branch of about 32 active members with over half of those being primary and nursery kids. But there was a group of sales guys in town this week selling home security systems so there was more people at church.

I’ve had a chance to tract and street contact a little bit in the last few days (Elder A and I are trying to increase our teaching pool) and to my surprise have found that I like tracting better. The people are actually nicer when you come to their house than when you stop them on the street. Of course it could also have been that it was pouring rain when we did both, so when we stopped people on the street they just got grumpy because they were getting wet, but when we came to peoples doors they took pity on us and let us talk. One family even invited us in for tea! :D We politely declined because we said we don’t drink tea, they said "hot chocolate?" then and we went inside and talked for a good half an hour. Their son had just done a report on all the different creation stories so we talked about that a little bit, and also about where they worked and the members that we knew that they worked with. They said we could come back sometime and talk (just talk, not teach, mind) about what we believed.

SPEAKING OF TALKING!!! Everyone here talks awesome! They are SOOOOOO Canadian, it’s amazing. One of our Zone Leaders, Elder A, is from England, he talks awesome too.

Like I said it has been raining pretty nonstop, actually the first day was sunny and awful, but after that it’s been nothing but beautiful rainy weather. ; P My suit got drenched yesterday because I didn’t have a rain coat, but it dried out okay overnight. I wasn’t able to get a coat or boots from anyone leaving the Mission, but Elder A needs a better rain coat as well so we are going shopping after this. I’m going to need to get a waterproof bag too, or else I won’t be able to carry anything without it getting soaked. Also, umbrellas don’t work as the rain comes at you sideways. :P

I don’t know yet if I’m going to ship my other bag home or keep it for traveling with because it’s so nice and big. Also, I can’t use my iPod. It’s not President T’s rule, apparently it was voted on at a Zone Leaders conference that we can only use CDs. So, I’m stuck with the four CDs I brought and whatever Elder A has. So I was wondering if.... cause you love me...you could burn the contents of my missionary iPod (The Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, Preach My Gospel, Jesus the Christ, every Hymn ever, and all the EFY CDs etc.) to disks and send them to me??? :D Maybe as a Halloween or Thanksgiving present? ;D

Also! Mail is really slow here. I should be here for at least the next three months, but after that I may be transferred, so my whole mission is going to look like 4 week periods of probably-safe-to-send-it, followed by 2 weeks of wait-to-see-if-he’s-still-in-the-same-place. Sorry about that, but that just the way it is. :D And Elder A says packages don’t get delivered here. He doesn’t know where they go, but they don’t come here. So anything that isn’t a letter, send it to the Mission office. We do get letters though! :D Elder A got one today, I was jealous. ;P

Thank so much for the “Greenie” box. It was waiting for me when I got to the mission office, I opened it there, but we had to fly out from there and then drive the rest of the way. I panicked a little when I was trying to figure out how to get all the goodies into my luggage and unfortunately left the Apple Jacks in the transfer van, :( But Elder A was able to take the box as his carry-on so it was okay in the end. The other Elders helped me enjoy some of the goodies. There were 8 of us staying in the one apartment that night so it was a party. We had the apple spice pancakes in the morning and then Elder A and I drove out. I wouldn't have survived the last few days without that food. All we had to eat at the apartment was some frozen chicken and leftover peanut butter. We would have lived, but we wouldn't have been as happy. We're going grocery shopping today, so we should be good on food from here on out, but that box was a lifesaver! :D

I love you guys so much!

I miss you tons, but it’s a ton of light fluffy feathers. ;D

Maybe I’ll be able to get a handwritten letter out today as well... but I wouldn’t count on it. :/

Until next time!- Elder Thomson

P.S. How cool does that sound, eh? Elder Thomson? I'm still not used to it. Are you guys?