week 78: merry christmas!

Christmas morning and all the gifts.

Hey everyone, Merry Christmas!

     This week was a little bit of a tough one to work. A lot of people were busy with the holidays so, we had a pretty slow week. I hit 18 months in the mission, and I'm definitely buckling up because this last six months will fly. We had something super cool happen on Christmas. We were texting and calling members, and we talked to this one lady who said she was praying that we would call her. Her family was sick so we said a prayer with her. On Christmas we met up with the other Elders in our district and had a big Christmas dinner. I really don't know what else happened. We helped someone put up a swing set for their kids and that took a while. We also had a Christmas devotional in our mission each day last week up to Christmas. We had 2 different members of the 70 come and it was so awesome. One of them told us the story of his first Christmas in his mission. He read 3 Nephi 1 and talked a lot about some of the details I never noticed.  

 

     In 3 Nephi 1, all the believers are about to be killed if the sign that Samuel the Lamanite prophesied doesn't come. It's the day before Christ comes into the world, and Nephi is pouring out his soul that the sign is given. Elder Pearson said that if there was one night God should be able to not answer a prayer, it was this night. Christ was about to leave the father's presence and there were final preparations and instructions to be given. But God sent His son to answer the prayer. It was so cool learning that.

That's all for this week.

--Elder Thompson

bits and pieces from family phone calls:

LA county is finally going to be allowed to start having church again...we are on the edge of LA county and hopeful that our county will follow suite. We will be starting up our Spanish group in person as soon as it's possible.

Members dropped each companionship dinner for Christmas which was awesome! We all took our food to the church and had dinner together for Christmas.

Today it was raining, which almost never happens here, so we were able to have our district pday activity in the church. We played chair soccer and a new card game, Skull King. Apparently, my family recently started playing that same game, so I'll be all ready to play when I return!

Our washer is broken right now...for the last week. It will only fill with hot water, which isn't ideal for dark clothes, so we unhooked the hose and we're just filling it by hand with cold water until it gets fixed. Still beats the cement sink I washed my clothes last year in Mexico. 

getting a little california sunshine

weekly devotional

week 77: eat more chicken

 

We're just your local coca-cola supporters

Hey everyone, sorry I don't have much time to write.

    Things are going pretty good here. We were able to find someone this week, but sadly we had to pass her off because she doesn't live in our area. We're working on finding more, and it's going well. We have a few people we're trying to start teaching, and hopefully that goes well next week. My companion's phone broke so we had to go to a city about an hour away to get it fixed. On the bright side, there was a Chick-fil-A there so we got some of that while we were down there. Not too much has gone on, but things seem to be picking up out here in Cal City.

--Elder Thompson

bits and pieces from family phone calls:

With it being Christmas this week, we're having several Christmas devotionals and conferences which is awesome!

We are hopeful that a couple new friends are showing interest in learning more about Christ.

We will be having Christmas dinner as a district, and our ward mission leader is bringing all the food for us!

We've been able to see the Christmas star for several days because the stars are so bright down here...my parents could even see it on my phone. 

Christmas packages made it here this week and I'm excited to see what made it here for me!

Jack is the winter soldier

week 76: the 8 that stayed

sunrise in cal city

Hey Everyone, this transfer is over and I'm staying in Cal City for another one. Elder Bahlmann is stuck here with me too, hopefully he can handle another transfer with me.

Things out here have been a little slow again, which is weird because the week flew by again. We've been dealing with lockdowns again so that's been a little annoying. We've been calling a lot. I also got the chance to do baptismal interviews since I'm the District Leader out here. It was super cool. We also finally got the Sunday meeting handed off to the ward. Elder Bahlmann and I were asked to speak at it. We found out Saturday and I just gave a talk about finding hope through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It was super fun and a little strange because even though I've been out for almost 18 months, it was my first talk. I enjoyed it. Not too much is going on out here, but I'm hoping this next transfer things will really get going. It's also cool that my whole district is staying here another transfer because they're all a ton of fun.

--Elder Thompson

bits and pieces from family phone calls:

I think we're about the only district in the mission that doesn't have anyone transferring this time. We all get along so well, and we're happy to be staying together.

The work has been slow again this week, but the other elders in our apartment have a baptism tonight, so we are helping out with that. 

A Panda Express opened in the town where we grocery shop, so we had that for lunch today which was great!

I made fajitas for the foursome this week...finally using that cookbook my mom sent with me. 

jack makes a pretty scary darth sidious

week 75: some weeks just fly by

 Hey everyone,

    This week flew by. We had a lot of stuff fall through, but we kept pretty busy. We've been working a lot on getting this Spanish group started. This week we did pretty good and had 5 members at our testimony meeting. This is the best it's done so far and next week there'll be a member in charge since we've been running it ourselves. We also are getting shut back down a bit and can no longer go into people's houses. Not too much else is going on now.

Talk to you all next week.

--Elder Thompson

bits and pieces from family phone calls:

We've got lots of work to do here, but things are starting to move forward.

It sounds like my mission in Veracruz is bringing back a few missionaries from the states...I've only got 4 transfers left after next week, so as far as I know, I'll be staying here in Bakersfield which is all good!

We're locking things down more in California, so we won't be able to visit in homes, and we've gotta wear masks unless we're with just the elders we live with.

I'm looking forward to the week and seeing the progress we make.

oh hey...it's Santa Jack!