week 14: cake in your face

Leftover cake to the face...it's tradition!

    We had a pretty busy week. Monday night we said good bye to Elder Gallegos. We had some cake and then lined up to take a picture. One of the Elders had the remnants of that cake and right when the pictures started, hit Elder Gallegos in the face with it.. I've got a wonderful during and after picture. We all had a good laugh about that.

    We had splits on Wednesday with the other elders in our area. I was with Elder Ordell and it was a fun day. We found some new people and had a few lessons. Then Thursday we were in a trio with one of the zone leaders. We worked hard and we found a new person named Fatima, she's married, eight months pregnant, and 16! When I found that out it threw me off big time. Friday we had a battalion. It was awesome. Basically we had everyone in our zone come to this area, then we got split up and all contacted for a few hours.

    That's pretty much all that went on this week.

--Elder Thompson

Bits and pieces from family phone calls:

There is a tradition that if we have a cake for someone at zone conference, whoever the cake is for has to take a bite out of it before we cut it. When they take a bite, someone tries to shove their face in the cake. If the elder is fast enough, there is still cake for the rest of us! 

We're going to the mission home today to pick up my bankcard and a package from my mom!

We've been eating A LOT of Oreos because they've had a package of about 30 that we can buy for about $1. So yeah. lots of Oreos....breakfast, dinner, just whenever.

Update on the glasses: I heated them up and bent the earpieces enough that now they stay on my face so that's a good thing. 

I wish the language was coming faster, but I'm trying to be patient.

Life as a missionary is good. 

We really think we're so funny

week 13: holy water

sometimes ya just gotta try and win the stuffed penguin!

Hey Everyone,

This week was a tough one. We had Elder Hawkins get transferred and we have a new Elder named Elder Ordell. He was Elder Arroyo's companion in his last area. He's from Idaho. We had an interesting experience when we were contacting. We started talking to this guy and he was a little strange. Then he offered us Coca-Cola, but our mission president has a rule that we can't drink coke or pepsi, so we asked for water. He said he didn't have any, so he ran across the street and bought some. He came back and poured some water for us, and then some in his hands and said in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost, then started washing off his arms and face...wow.

Other than that, not much happened. We had almost all of our different appointments fall through this week. I had a really tough time with all of that. Manuel left for his family, and after he sells his house he'll be coming back. We also went on splits with Elder Gallegos. He's leaving this week to go home, and this was one of his old areas so we're in a trio right now. It's been fun getting to watch some of the ward members react to seeing him again.

--Elder Thompson

Bits and pieces from family phone calls:

It's a struggle trying to feel like I'm doing enough on weeks like this. It was a bummer that so many of our return appointments were busy/no shows. My dad gave me some good advice about trusting the Lord when I know I'm doing the best that I can. 

The roads here are interesting. Some are dirt, some are cement, and some are literally just so destroyed they don't even look like roads. One of our bus routes is so full of potholes and uneven ground, we get air time over the bumps.

My mom asked me how often we clean the apartment...I mean, we take out trash and kill cockroaches...and no, in 7 weeks in the apartment we've never cleaned the toilet. I guess we might need to rethink the cleaning thing.

My bank card made it to the mission home and I'll be going there to pick it up in the next week or two!

I also got advice on how to tighten the earpieces on my glasses. They won't stay on because of all the weight I've lost, so I'm gonna use the hotplate in our apartment to heat up the ends and try to bend them a bit...update on that next week.

only missionaries would be able to win this game!

ward party at the church...

that's right, someone brought a trampoline and we set it up.

my American buddy, Elder Hawkins

good thing my mom packed me scissors...

I had to get creative to add another hole in my belt.

be impressed

map of my area

week 12: pig skin is not my favorite

This week was a lot of work and a lot of fun. We had to drop a lot of investigators so we did a lot of contacting. It's sad when we have to drop investigators because they aren't progressing. We started teaching this new guy named Rafael. He's trying to learn English so we taught a lesson in Spanglish...I'm a pro.

We also had a ward party this last Saturday. That was awesome! Me and one of the other Elders helped set up a trampoline, and when we finished the guy helping us started jumping and yelled for us to come over. We took a selfie with him which was fun. We also had those corn on the cob things from Nacho Libre. They are really good.

Yesterday we got to go to an internet cafe and watch the Face to Face with Elder Soares and Elder Christensen. That was awesome. I got to watch it in English, but there was a question asked and answered in Spanish so I watched that part in Spanish. I also finished 2 Nephi in spanish. I've decided no one has the right to complain about the Isaiah chapters until they've read them in another language. 

--Elder Thompson

Bits and pieces from family phone calls:

Today is Independence Day in Mexico, so all our usual internet places were closed. We finally found one...the cameras on the computers didn't work. The guy there asked if we had stuff to hook up to the computer (like cords to download pictures). I said yes, and he was all "yeah, none of that's gonna work". So yep, no pictures this week.

We're meeting the other elders for lunch today at Little Caesars Pizza..it's pretty much the same as America!

I had the worst meal of my mission this last week. Pig skin soup. The pig skin was boiled and then added to REALLY SPICY broth. It was so spicy, I really couldn't taste anything which was probably a good thing, but the texture of the skin was awful. All the elders were dying, but we got it down and no one got sick.

Interviews with my mission president last week were so good. I really am feeling like I'm adjusting. The homesickness is so much better. I'm getting used to the heat/humidity and not nearly as sweaty. The language is still slow, but I can see improvement. 

week 11: a robbery

Hermana Buda was so nice to come find me and bring me stuff from home.

I got robbed finally, the disappointing part was it was by an ATM. I was running a little low on money because we paid for water and I don't get reimbursed until next week, so I thought I'd use my card and withdraw some money. I went to a bank and put my card in the ATM and then it never came out. I went in to the people and asked in my broken spanish how to get it back. They asked me what bank it was from and I said Wells Fargo. They told me it's gone... so when I called home we had the adventure of trying to order my a new one with a video chat and a phone on speaker. 

    Other than that this week has been pretty good. Tuesday we found a lady and started teaching her the first lesson. Then we invited her to read the Book of Mormon and she started talking about how she reads the bible all the time, and she has this really awesome website she goes to where she can learn more about it. Then she gives us both cards for the website and she was a TJ!!! TJ stands for testigos de jehovah, or Jehovah Witnesses. We were pretty sad and then we ran into a drunk guy who was much sadder. He started telling us that he lied to his wife and he had a rose and a steak in a bag for her. I was so close to breaking down laughing and felt kind of bad. After he left me, and my companion just started dying.

     We had zone conference so I got to see the temple because zone conference was in the church next to it. We also had splits and I went with Elder Hurren, one of the zone leaders. He was super fun and we were crossing these train tracks and he wanted to walk down them and look for people. So we did and we found 2 people that are interested. He gave me some advice to live my mission without regrets. If you want to talk to someone, or go somewhere, do it, while staying focused on your purpose.

--Elder Thompson

Bits and pieces from family phone calls:

The Veracruz temple is so small. It's 9,000 square feet...the timp temple is over 100,000 square feet. I'll get to go there for my 1 year mark, and again before going home.

I'm still struggling with the language. I just want to understand people, really understand them. But I also know I'm doing all I can to learn.

When we got to church Sunday, the other elders came to find me and said they had a surprise for me. They took me over to meet Rocio. She is from Saratoga Springs and is friends with my dad's secretary. Her mother lives in Veracruz and is sick and so she came to visit her. She got in contact with my parents and they were able to send me Oreos and gatorade mix and a few other things! The other elders gave her mom a blessing, and then she asked me to give her a blessing. It was scary, but I did it with the help of the Lord.

Veracruz Temple

best zone!

Zone Conference

week 10: third times the charm

Manuel's baptism day!

This week was a little hectic. Tuesday one of the Elders in the other companionship was sick, and they had a lot of appointments so we went on splits and I stayed with Elder Hawkins. That was pretty chill. Then we started teaching these 2 new people, David and Elena. It was cool because last week they came to church because they were curious. No one invited them and they had never spoken with missionaries. Sadly when we went and taught them we found out they aren't married, so we can't baptize them yet. We'll be meeting with them again this week to teach them more, and talk to them about marriage. 

We also had splits with the district leader and his companion. I went with Elder Hansen, who is from PG, and we went to his area. That was pretty fun, but not too much happened. 

Saturday was a big day, I bought my own soap for the first time . . . and Manuel got baptized! It was awesome, but was definitely an adventure. Since he only has one leg, we had to put a chair in the font, and help him get in it. Me and Elder Arroyo both were in the font and I performed the ordinance, and he helped Manuel lean back. The problem was his leg popped up so we did it again. This time Elder Arroyo held his leg down, but his elbow didn't make it under. Third times the charm, and with a fair amount of pushing we got him under. We confirmed him a member on Sunday and it was super awesome.

Hope you all are doing great.

--Elder Thompson

bits and pieces from family phone calls:

They say it's supposed to start cooling down, but I honestly can tell at all.

Our area is massive... probably 20 or 30 miles top to bottom and just as wide. We mostly stay in the center area where most of the people are. 

The language is still a struggle, but getting a little better each week.

Best day on the mission so far!

Literally, just a bunch of cows grazing in someone's front yard