week 57: midnight visitor

My mom wanted to see my face, and I wanted her to see the bird!

Well another week has gone by, and I've now been back out for two months. 

 

This week was a lot of the same stuff. We called a lot of people and went on exchanges. That was fun. I was with Elder Mott. He was reassigned from Fiji and is from Alpine. We called a wrong number and the other person ended up speaking Spanish so I shared a little message with them. We also have been working a lot with this lady named Alicia. She's really sweet and we're planning on inviting her to baptism. The missionaries have been teaching her for a while, so when we asked for an example of a prophet, she said Joseph Smith. 

 

Thursday night the police came to our apartment at midnight which is way too late to talk to missionaries. We were half dead and apparently someone had been trying to get into nearby apartments. They asked if we saw anything and we hadn't. I was basically dead the next day. 

 

On Friday it we thought it was a member's birthday so we took some brownies over. Turns out his birthday was actually Monday but he was still really grateful. Then today, for our district activity we went and played some volleyball at a park. President Sandberg joined us for a bit, and he was pretty competitive. He told us all not to go easy on him because if he won he wouldn't let us forget it soon. He only played two games, and both times was on the winning side. Then when we were taking a break, a bird started walking around us. Don't worry, I got a picture with him. 

 

 We watched an MTC devotional last night and our zone had a little meeting with President Sandberg to talk about it. After we discussed it he did a little question and answer session where he ended up taking a bit about trusting in God. He talked about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and how they said they knew God could save, but if not they still wouldn't bow down to the idols. They showed trust by saying they would be faithful despite the outcome.

 

--Elder Thompson

bits and pieces from family phone calls:

More and more things are shutting down here. We are still meeting at the church for Sunday, but no more ward council meetings at the building.

It felt good to have more to do this week, and we are so excited about having a potential baptism. We can't use the stake center font, so we will have to find a private swimming pool or a lake or something. We'll figure that out when we need to. 

 

 California cockroaches are wimpy compared to Mexican cockroaches

week 56: this week happened

Thank goodness my mission mom screenshots zone conference calls.

I keep saying there is nothing to take a picture of,  but my mom disagrees!

Well this week happened, and that's about all I remember. 

Let's see what else I remember. I had Zone Conference Tuesday and that was really great. We went over things like finding and using the Spirit which was cool. We talked about how the Spirit always gives us the power to follow its prompting. Then we went on exchanges with some other elders and I left the area for the afternoon. Not much else really stood out during the week. We called lots of people, found someone new, and not too much else went on. We've been visiting a family that's been trying to get baptized. They're getting kinda close, but one family member is waiting on his application for citizenship to be approved so that he and his wife (sort of) can get married, and then hopefully, baptized! 

Sorry it's another short email, but nothing is really going on. 

--Elder Thompson 

Bits & pieces from family phone calls:

Definitely a slow week in Bakersfield. We've divided the ward into 4 sections so that each companionship has a group to work with. We have a lot of members in our area who area active, but we've been asked to bring a member along to visit them (someone to support them when the missionaries changes). We only have a handful or less of active members in our group, so it's really difficult finding someone who can come visit with us, but we're hopeful things will start moving!

Our area doesn't have the same restrictions as LA county, so we can still meet at the church for sacrament meeting and district meetings which is great.

I'm reading "Saints" in spanish which is good language study for me for sure. 

We also received a tip from another missionary and were able to find (using the gospel library app) the final video in the Book of Mormon series!

Zoom conference from last week!

Look for La Cresta 3

so many filters so little time!

week 55: 4 elders...4 sisters...1 ward

This will definitely be a short email. 

This week we had transfers and we've had 2 elders stay with us for the last week, but they'll be moving out this week. We honestly haven't done too much...so many new missionaries arrived that we've had a ton of meetings this week. 

We did have a really cool experience this last week. I was praying to know what we should do to help our area and I had the impression to reach out to our bishop, thank him for his support, and then ask to share a message. We asked to do this and we got a message back to come over. We went over and the zone leaders were already there (they had the same idea). We then had a great meeting on what we should do, who we should work with, and how to involve the ward more. This was really important because we now have 8 missionaries serving in this ward. We had a meeting with just the missionaries earlier in the week and it was a total train wreck, but now we have some direction. It's amazing to see how the Lord directs his work. 

--Elder Thompson

bits and piecers from family phone calls:

Meeting with the bishop in person for the first time was awesome! We have some ideas of who to contact, and how we can support the ward missionary goals, and we are definitely excited about that!

If you thought the In-n-Out drive thru line in AF was bad, you should see the line in Bakersfield....twice as long! And as missionaries, we can't go inside restaurants.

Thank goodness Wendy's drive thru is always short!

We played a little ultimate frisbee today...until the sisters decided it was too hot...but actually, we were dying with the heat. 

Almost finished with Jesus the Christ...that book blows my mind every time I read it!

week 54: staying put

"And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood."

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

(that's right...I drew this so that we could patriotic and stuff)

Well, the transfer is over and I'm staying in La Cresta for another 6 weeks.

This week was chill, we didn't do too much new stuff. We're still calling lots of people, but we're teaching more so that's dope. We are working a lot with the Perez family and it's been going great. The parents aren't baptized yet, but one of their kids is. We taught them about prayer yesterday and they said they'd start praying daily again. Not too much has happened honestly. Friday we went to Chick-fil-a which is always awesome. Saturday was of course July 4th. We didn't really do anything special, we had to be inside by 6:00, but we did get to call our families and watch the fireworks go off. 

So today was fun, but a little sad because my district is being torn to shreds tomorrow. Only three of us will be left. We made friendship bracelets which was not my idea, but I also brought Uno so that was a party. We had cake because it was the birthday of one of the sisters and then we gave blessings to the sisters.

Not much is going on. 

--Elder Thompson 

bits and pieces from family phone calls:

Working with a few people now which is AWESOME!!

We are getting 2 new elders this week that will be living in our apartment for a couple of weeks which should be fun!

Dinner hack: Did you know you can buy a pack of 16 CORNDOGS for $5 at Walmart? Dinner for days!

I failed at making friendship bracelets...that was way too confusing.