Elder Thompson: Veracruz, Mexico/ Bakersfield, California Missions: week 22: reindeer pinatas

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well another week down, and it's already December. I'm going to be honest, it feels nothing like December.

This week I was in a trio with one of the other Elders in my area because his companion was sick and went to the port, so we've been working both areas. It's been fun and this Sunday we had some really cool things happen. We had some random guy show up. We started talking to him and found out he has some friends that are members and they invited him to come. We spent the second hour teaching him the first lesson and he accepted baptism. It was awesome.

After church we ate and there was a branch activity we were going to when we ran into a family that's new to the ward. The two parents both served missions, the wife served here in Veracruz, and they lived close to the offices and worked a lot with the missionaries, and they gave us some really good advice. Two things that really stood out were first, we are literally representatives of Jesus Christ and need to act as such, and second, that whenever missionaries start breaking the little rules, it leads to big problems.

After we talked to them we went to the ward activity which was awesome. We took a bunch of clothes, toys, and some piñatas to a place with some poorer people and it was the best. The piñatas were very fun. There was one of the young adults that was in charge of holding the kids back, and when the piñata broke he would throw out the candy that didn't fall out. One time he didn't make it to the piñata in time and within seconds every kid there was on top of it. The last piñata was a reindeer and it broke in half. Then one of the older kids grabbed the half with candy and took off with it, leaving a trail of kids running after him. We set up some appointments to return with a few of the families. One of them was really cool because the lady had been taught before but when she moved she lost track of them. She told us that she had been praying to find the missionaries.

Well that's all for now

--Elder Thompson

Bits and pieces from family phone calls:

I celebrated Thanksgiving again...store bought turkey sandwich, chips, and oreos...what else do you really need?

We still have ants...everywhere. You can see trails of ants on the walls leading into the outlet boxes...the floor...you name it. Sometimes if we're bored, we'll spray bug spray onto the ants...it kills just a few, and totally confuses the rest of them when they try to figure out how to get around the bug spray on the wall. That's right...entertainment at its best.

I got my Christmas package today so I'll be opening it tonight..pretty sure my mom is as excited as I am that it made it here. She made me promise not to open the presents until Christmas...hmmm.