Week 15 -- Permission to unplug Tiwi! Exchanges, Ward party

Dear Family,

This week was a little rough in the scheme of working.  We're actually
teaching only 1 investigator right now and 1 eternigator.  I hope you
all pray for missionaries to find people to teach because I could use
that right now haha.  Coburn and I have been trying to do less active
work a lot but we're not having a whole lot of success.  Please keep
praying for us that will may find people who are ready.

Well...starting with last Monday, all we really did was visit a member
named Lesly.  She's really cool but now she's getting sick because we
just found out she's expecting a baby.  We've been teaching her how to
share the gospel with her friends and she likes it a lot!

Tuesday, we had to send our car to get an oil change so we were
waiting for that.  I tried Starbucks hot chocolate for the first time
and guess what....it was not worth $3 haha it's not that good!, I
always heard so many people say how good it is...the hot cocoa at our
apartment is waaaaaaay better haha We visited Hermana Rios and gave
her son Edward a blessing of health.  It was kinda awkward because
Angel wasn't there so we gave it to him with he chair in the doorway
and he came home in the middle of the blessing anyway haha.  I pray
for that family, they are having their struggles.  That nigh, we took
Roberto out.  Now he's a youth member, only 17, but the first time I
saw him, I thought he was 25!!! He's huge.  He went knocking with us
and he helped us find a less active to visit named Ana!  Cool...I like
Roberto, all the youth in Bella Vista are really cool.

Wednesday, we thought the apartment was about to burst into flames
haha 🔥🔥🔥 but turns out....Coburn left the aluminum package of
flavoring for his noodle bowl in the microwave because it was lunch
time haha....that day was rough.  Anxiety and anticipation get to you
as a missionary.  If you're not working but you know you should be or
you can't for some reason, it's hard to deal with!  But that day we
got a lesson in with Monica, our only investigator, with Jeff Jardine
who came with us!  It was a great lesson!! Because....I asked her to
be baptized and....it was the most unsure"yes" but she's on date for
baptism!!! 😱😃😃 Awesome!!!!  That made that day worth it.

Thursday, we had exchanges again.  I went with Elder Biehn this time
and.....it was kinda boring 😕 But!  He took me to The Broiler and it
was sooooo good!!! 😍😍 It's this sandwich place but the bread is
broiled so it's like a hamburger pretty much.  I got the steak and
cheese and it was amazing!!!!!!! Later that night, we had a lesson
with Marina Estacuy, our eternigator, but it was kinda awkward because
she really likes Elder Coburn but it was just me and Biehn.  It was
still really good though...

FRIDAY!!! Friday was a great day for me!!!, 😀😀 Wanna know why?!? So
we get a call from Elder Lowe, one of our seniors who's the vehicle
coordinator, and he had warned Elder Coburn to stop hitting the brakes
so hard once, but Coburn is in the red again 😮 But, he talked to me
and said that my Tiwi card is almost ready to send off but...the power
was down at the office, so he couldn't send off my finalization papers
to wherever so then, he gave me permission to unplug Tiwi!!!!!!
😱😱😱😮😮😵 Crazy!  He wanted me to be the designated driver no
matter what, but they couldn't get my Tiwi card ready and I can't
drive on Coburn's account.  So unplugging it made it so it wouldn't
yell at me to sign in a driver!!!!! 😀😀😀 FINALLLLLYYYYYYY IM DRIVING
AGAIN! 😃😃 ah, that made me so happy!

So, Tiwi is the device that EVERY mission vehicle has in the corner of
the windshield.  It's basically our tracker and speed checker.  I have
a pic here...there's those three lights.  Green is on, blue means it's
got satellites, and the red light only comes in when you're doing a
violation, mostly for speeding (it goes off after 7 over) also for
hitting the brakes too hard obviously, rpm over like 5200 or something
like that, turning too sharp, not wearing seatbelt, driving past 11pm,
all those things.  And it talks to us...it will say "Check...whatever"
or "Aggressive driving".  So Elder Lowe can see where we've been and
how fast we've been going and what violations we got where and if we
left the mission which is bad....anyway yeah.  Normally, unplugging
Tiwi will instantly forfeit your driving privileges for the rest of
your mission no questions asked.  The moment you do, Elder Lowe gets a
notification from Salt Lake!!!  So.....we "went dark" like they say
haha we've been under the radar for the past few days.  We're going to
get my card tomorrow.  I'm soooooo glad to be driving again!!!!
😃😃😃😃 you have no idea! It's been 15 weeks.  That's my news.

Friday night, we had s lesson with Fiorela Picardo again but we
couldn't find a man to come with us so we talked to her at the
door....then she was all bummed because she had made us food, and so
we date anyway!! Haha we setup the table in between the door and we
ate in the hallway!  It was so great.  We taught her about The Family:
A Proclamation to the World.  It was great.

Saturday was fun!!  We had our meetings like correlation which was
eh....but!  We had the anniversary of Bella Vista!! It was our ward
party, and it was great!  There was quite a bit of Peruvian dancing
and we were all surprised when Hermana Morriberon and Hermano Portugal
did a dance because they're these really older members haha it was a
great time.  They did that for the talent show, and we missionaries
had to do something too.  We were scrambling  to think of something
but then we decided just to do Chubby Bunny 😃🐰🐰 It was the Hermanas
idea and then they didn't even do it with us 😒 anyway...we did it
with the big marshmallows!!! I'm terrible at that game I was the first
one out at 4!!!! Haha anyway...Elder Cottle won, but Coburn wasn't
chewing at all so I think he won haha.  There was so much Ward unity
at the party and I loved that!!!

Well, yesterday was Father's Day...we went to church, had dinner with
Hermana Riley again and then did some finding.  After that we visited
Rudy again, he's so funny.  He fed us more food!  He's so great.  I'm
gonna send you guys a pic of him soon.

Well...today is today.  We finished our shopping and usual stuff in
only 2 hours, maybe it's because I'm driving nehehe 😝 We're at the
stake center right now about to play some basketball and other Elders
are setting up tables to play with their cards...oh dang.  I guess
it's getting real with the cards haha. Well...I don't know what we are
going to do today...hopefully just take it easy.  Well, I want to
write to others now. I have others to write to.  Well...hope everyone
has a good week and stay safe! Love you,

❤️ Elder Thompson

Last Two Weeks' Letters

Dear Family,

Are you reading these as a family together??  I've always assumed you
would be around the laptop or something reading them...if not... You
should!! Haha Another good week full of work happened.  We had so many
referrals and we got so much work done!! 😃 Let me try to remember
what went down this week.

Is my guitar coming? Has it been mailed yet?  If you could let me know
the status on that, that would be great.  Oh...and right as I write
that I get wifi haha ok, just let me know.  Well this week was
transfer week.  We lost Elder Pickett!!! 😭😭😫 noooo he was so fun!
Now Elder Cottle is in our district with Elder Biehn!  Oh and he would
like to know Alyssa's email.  Could you ask Sister Burton for it for
me for him?? Haha so yep he's from Lehi and he's been out for 6
months.  Oh and Elder Harding is in my zone now.  So first thing we
did after transfers was the usual...go to Zingas!  It's the frozen
yogurt place we get for free😃😍 so good.

A lot of the usual meetings this week were kind of a waste of time.
Out district meeting is good if we have it in the high council room
with the nice seats.  It's turned into this unspoken battle between us
and the English program having their district meeting in that room too
because this week the zone leaders pulled in early and bolted into the
stake center and took that room.  It's just like ugh....really?  I
don't like that.  Well I mean I don't like how everyone gets all butt
hurt when they do that...who cares?!?!? Our correlation wasn't too
effective neither was this service we did.

Entonces, we had this service thing we did as a zone.  It was a
charity drive thing where you make the kits and stuff so we helped set
that up and then the next morning we were all here to help.  But...we
did not need our whole zone there to do it.  We had so many
missionaries just sitting and standing around, yeah this week wasn't
super effective with time.

Now for teaching....Monica is doing great!  Slow but great process.
So Coburn and I found this family of 9 in Patrick Henry!!!!!  And the
great thing is, we gave a pamphlet to this teenage girl chilling
outside the building and she belonged to this family and she came back
inside the apartment while we were teaching her family and she was
reading the pamphlet!!! 😃😃 like...halfway through it!  Ah man it
made me happy to know that some people read them.  We received SOOO
many referrals his week.  We got 7!!  That's really good for us.  We
had a lot of member presents too!  We took Kleiving Living de Honduras
out a lot and he's super cool.  We visited Fiorela again and it was
better than last time.  The last time we went, it was a stressful
visit.  Her disabled girl was having convulsions and speaking for the
first time ever and her Catholic grandma was convinced that it was a
demon so....we cast out a demon this last week!!!! 😱👿 Haha how's
that for ya?  This visit was better.  It was a good solid work week.

We had the farewell party the for Gerardo.  He's the one just like
Michael, it was so neat!  We had dinner at the Sierra's house Saturday
night and everyone was there and we all shared words of advice and
love to him and it was so nice.  It was emotional for his sister
Marina too.  And after church yesterday was a dinner for him
downstairs in the gym.  There was so much ward unity and I loved that.
Oh...and I found out that Hermana Harley in my district, the one who
came out from Provo the same day as me, also lost her dad just before
her mission.  She was so open about and it amazed me!  We were able to
share our stories.  Well, Gerardo is gone now. 😥 He's so cool! I wish
you could meet him and everyone I know here!!!!!

Yesterday was nuts.  Sunday's are so stressful for me now, and I don't
like it.  We were scrambling to get investigators to church and then
they flaked on us, and we had the farewell thing, and sooo many
members to visit with and set up times to visit.  And we had to help
Dany, our ward mission leader, because his parents were driving his
car home from church but something was wrong so we followed them
home...and....poor old people.  They thought everything was all good
but we were smelling burning brakes the whooooole way to the stake
center.  Turns out, a bolt from the tired fell inward....I don't know
how but it was rubbing the tire raw from the inside.  Crazy unexpected
stuff on Sundays.  But, testimony meeting was sooooo great.  Fue muy
bonito. I'm glad that was the case.

Pues, estoy progresando con mi Español creo.  Kyle, traduce por favor!
Haha nuestra meta es tener yo enseñando más de La Restauración.  Elder
Coburn me ha dado más oportunidades enseñar.  Estoy al tiempo
cuando...necesito enseñar más.  No soy el compañero apacible ahora!!!
De verdad.  Perdon...quise escribir un poco de mi carta en la idioma
que estoy aprendiendo!  Puedo entender casi todo de lo que escucho
pero...hablar...eso es lo que necesito practicar!!! Haha voy a
hacerlo.  Quiero que ustedes saber....el don de lenguas es real!  Sé
eso con todo mi corazón.

Anyway...back to good old English.  So...sorry family, but there's a
real letter on the way to the house but there's nothing for
you...hahahahaha sorry 😳😶 it's because I only have one stamp and I
didn't want to risk the whole weight thing so I have one letter in
there for grandma and grandpa and for Jentry Hendrickson because she
wrote me too.  If you could deliver those when you get them this week
thanks.  I told grandma I will write to you now and then have you
print it out for them but...a real letter is always nice.

Well, we are resting again at our apartment for once. 🙂 Shopping is
done and all that.  P day is always great.  I hope that you guys did
that fhe thing I asked!  I felt like it was a perfect fhe thing to do.
Well keep writing me!  You can write me anytime! Any day...well, I'm
gonna write to some others right now.  Take care of each other and be
safe!  Love you all.  ...bye!

❤️ Elder Thompson

P.s. I can't see your photo with Facebook format
P.s.s. I promise I'm not trunky haha

Dear Family,

SEEEPRIIIIISE!!!  I'm not writing on Wednesday after all.  So...lemme
tell you this.....being a missionary, there's this thing we have
called a schedule.  Sometimes it's nice to us and goes like it says
and sometimes as a missionary it tosses us around and makes itself
then breaks itself!!! Kyle, you can explain right?? Haha please back
me up on that 😛 We had pretty much everything cancel today which...is
bad, but I'm....kinda glad it was the case because I don't know what I
would have done until Wednesday!! We were out of milk.....can you
imagine me going 2 days with out oatmeal or cereal!?!?!? 😱 I wouldn't
have made it hahaha anyway.  So...we got our p day back.

Well last Monday while I was writing, we pretty much piled-out at the
other Elders apartment playing card games and chess and relaxing and
I'm pretty dang sure that's what we're doing today 😒 So many Elders
play cards, and I doubt were going into DC on Memorial Day.  I'm
bringing a change of clothes just in case Pickett and I want to go to
Great Falls to do the hike again.  I don't even know if I've told you
my full district yet...its me and Coburn, Biehn and Pickett, and
Hermanas Bliss and Harley.  I haven't wrote about them in a long time
probably because they're super busy doing other things, and we just
never see them.  They have twice as many investigators as us because
they cover both areas of us Elders so Falls Church and Arlington.
Hermana Bliss is always happy and super excited about everything and
Hermana Harley came out with me at the same time.  Soooo....yeah.

We had a day this week where we had so many things planned, the
biggest one being hat we were planning to take a recent convert to the
temple.  We had already planned the exchanges and had everything ready
to go, and....all it took was one call from the recent converts mom
saying she doesn't understand why she's doing baptisms for someone she
doesn't know.  That ruined everything at day, and all....ALL lessons
that day went through.  It was a day that exploded right in front of
us and we were left to sit there and stare at the day, shattered into
pieces on the floor.  That day we learned that Pamela dropped the
sisters and our next door neighbor who's a member had her daughter
arrested for possession.....That day was rough.

I had exchanges with Elder Pickett this week!!! That was so fun.  He
really likes to talk.  He's from Idaho Falls.  But....with what Kyle
said to me, it was so relevant.  While we were tracting, he kept
talking and talking...which is ok but when I knock on the door, I like
to just listen and wait.  He kept talking and talking about non
missionary things non stop and guess what?  We only had one person
even answer the door...gotta be in tune.

Oh!!! Oh my......I just remembered another thing we
did....sooooo....we uhh....there was a day this week where Pickett and
i...well...we did service but we helped a hoarder move stuff.... 😳
Mom.  It was.  The...ugh it sounds bad, but it was sooo wrank it was
crazy filthy.  There were trails in the house and all along the sides
was just crap.  Crap piled up everywhere.  Every window in the house
you could see from outside was junk piled up from the bottom up
against the glass.  Oh man...we helped them move stuff into a U-haul
because the Virginia gov. Is after these people to get rid of some of
their property.  We had a really good lunch brought to their house by
a member that came with us.  It was us and 4 English elders in our
zone, and the hoarders were English too.  And haha after we finished
our food we had our paper plates and we asked the home owners what to
do with them and they say, "Well, we don't have any trash cans around
here...so go ahead and put it by the cat cage over there" (We were
eating outside) and we look over and there's...just more random stuff
by it.  I'm really convinced these people do not throw anything away.
But...they're so nice.  They took us to Baskin Robbins and paid for
ice cream for all of us.  The end.

I got a haircut from Elder Biehn!!  He only used the clippers haha and
it's not too bad.  I used my sheet for the cloth thing that barbers
use haha and yes...I'm washing my sheets right now.  We've started to
do an English class for a few members and an investigator.  We do it
in the mornings on Fridays at her house and this is my first time
teaching English so it's really interesting.  Like...were teaching
basic "hi how are you" stuff and family conversation.  It's a good
work.  Thursday I had my first and only return and report.  It's
everyone who came out with me because this transfer ends his week!!!
It went by crazy fast!  We had a "changing of the guard" in our
mission...fitting that they call it that, it's when we get a new AP.
It was a good meeting.

We went out tracting with a youth member he just turned 18 and is
preparing to go on his mission.  His name is Mateas Sierra and he's
super cool.  The interesting thing about my ward Bella Vista is
that...all the youth know both Spanish and English, and their parents
mostly only know Spanish.  Anyway...he came with us and helped us get
a new investigator!!! 😱😃😃 her name is Monica and we had visited her
before and setup an appt at the door, which is amazing...people never
follow through with setting up an appt right there at the door!  This
was the first time that Elder Coburn invited someone to be baptized
during the first lesson!  But...she said she would think about it.

The next day on Saturday we visited the whole Sierra family with all 4
of us elders.  Hermano Sierra is de Argentina and he is the BEST cook
ever!! He mostly cooks meats and it's always good! 😍 Yesterday on
Sunday, we got our investigator Marina Estacuy to church!! I'm so glad
we found Monica because....we're actually stalled right now.  We need
more investigators.  We did a zebra yesterday!! My first one...it's
when we do mini splits with English Elders.  Sometimes it's fun.  It
was worth it because we got 2 potentials doing so.

So yeah, today everything canceled again.  We had appts today and
that's why we wanted to change...but everything went poof.  Yep...we
just piled out again today.  Hey, I'm actually just about to go have
dinner with Elder Wise's family!!! They live in my area!! Ok I'm back
now it was great haha I gave the thought.  Anyway...I didn't have have
a whole lot of time to write...well...to others 😳 Well...p day is
over for me now...I will be thinking about my family this week.
Please, write me back!!  Gotta go teach to a less active.  It was
good...there's a lot of gaps in my writing hahaha...well...don't sleep
in too long now that schools out haha don't make me jealous 😜 Thanks
for the pictures, and yeah...write me sometime this week.  Take care,
I love you ALL!!!

❤️Elder Thompson

P.s.  Here's your homework family: here is the "Manner of Happiness"
it's something President made for us.  For family night, or any night
really...  Meet all together and read the scriptures along with it
talk about it, what it is and how we can have more of all of these
things in our home....  I WILL FOLLOW UP!!!!!!!