"Jesus told my I have to go to the gym right now."

Dear All,

This week went by a whole lot faster than last week. Work with the
investigators has been a little bit slow. We had a lesson with this
dude named Barón. It was our second lesson with him and we're planning
on giving him one more chance because this guy is so...interesting. He
always tells us that God isn't religion, He's love. He has always
claimed he himself is a prophet And this lesson he basically said he
was Jesus. It was weird.

On the other hand we had an awesome lesson with Patricia. She is our
only progressing investigator right now and she takes the messages so
well.  We taught the Word of Wisdom and found out she has grown up
drinking coffee, she's Colombian. We had a member there to help us and
it was taken very well. She wants us to send texts right when's we
wake up in the morning to remind her to not make coffee haha so we've
been doing that.

We had a lot of service this week too. We helped the Morriberon family
with their yard just like we would last year and they fed us. We also
helped Hermano Perdomo with cleaning his kitchen and I helped him with
his internet router. He was SOO thankful that we did that and it was
pretty cool to see the blessings we can share with one another. We
also had another computer help that same day with Hermano Vásquez, he
basically didn't know how to use Facebook cuz he's a little old and so
we taught him haha

So the subject line is what someone said to me as I started talking to
him haha. He was dressed in workout clothes and I asked him if he
believed in Christ at all and then he made his religious sign, said
that and then just walked off. It was the weirdest thing I've heard
someone say haha. Things were pretty normal except we as a trio taught
the lesson in the 3rd hour of church and today we had another BBQ at
the mission home. That was really fun. We're pretty tired now.

❤️ Elder Thompson


Typical work truck of a Hispanic
We walked in to our classroom and found this...seems like those young
men got it figured outJe

Trio Back to Bella Vista (Arlington)

Dear All,

This was probably one of the most longest weeks in my mission.
Transfers went down Tuesday and I got a final picture with Elder
Castillo.  He's home now! So crazy... so during transfers Elder Andrus
who's the other Elder in my new district says we're going to be in a
trio! It was super last minute.

What happened was an English Elder went home early for surgery and I
guess they didn't find that out early enough and so Elder Andruses new
companion who he was going to receive went to the English program
(where he originally started) to fill the gap... leaving the Spanish
program with an odd number....so my new district is now 2
companionships instead of 3. I am with Elder Cardona and Elder Andrus.
They're both from California.

It's been insane. We had to go to Elder Andruses apartment and get all
his things including his bed and all that fun stuff. Weekly planning
was super long because we were combining 2 areas and schedules into
one. And it feels weird to be back here in Arlington.  It's strange
when one has certain memories, feelings and biases of a certain place
or thing and after a year or a bit of time, you go back to it with
differing circumstances. I've been having those flashback feelings and
I don't know what I think of it. I didn't know what I was doing at all
my first time in Arlington because I started here. However, I can't
claim I now know what I'm doing 100% but...there's been lots of
changes to the Ward and I have different companions with very
different work ethics. We'll see how it goes. To quote my own father
for having had Father's Day yesterday, "There are 3 things certain to
happen in life: Death, change and The Atonement."

We have met a few members, some of which I did not know before, and we
had a super awesome lesson Saturday night with an investigator named
Patricia and her daughter. She is super solid and is now in Ch. 15 of
1 Nephi or something and we brought a member couple with us and it was
such a good lesson! They came to church yesterday. Speaking of
church...it was interesting. It was super super good to see familiar
faces and people who actually recognized me after a year. I offered
the closing prayer in Sacrament meeting.

During 3rd hour both the primary and relief society came into our
classes and gave us cake and ice cream and candy for Father's Day.
Bella Vista is awesome that way. This Ward knows how to have special
events. This is getting long. Not a lot more happened than that. This
P-Day was well deserved. Hope you all had a good week and continue to
improve your lives for the better. Want to wish my parents a happy 25
years today. I love them so much.

❤️ Elder Thompson

Week 67 First Time as a DL, English Exchange, a Baptism and Charla

Dear All,

Another eventful week just finished up here in Manassas. First of all,
we got transfer info and I will be going back to where I started in
the Bella Vista Ward in Arlington! And I will be a district leader for
the first time! I'm pretty stoked. My comp Elder Clayton as well got a
phone call to be district leader here in Sudley. I will miss Sudley
Ward. It's been real in Manassas.

We had exchanges with our zone leaders way out in Warrenton and it was
awesome!!! I went with Elder Babcock and because we were in Warrenton,
most of the time spent was either walking or driving. (The houses are
more spacious and spread out) We got to know each other more and we
found out we're in to a lot of the same stuff especially music. THEN,
we visit a less active in their Ward and his name was Brother Landus
and he at first said he didn't have time to talk but we talked and
found out he was in a metal band like me and we like the same stuff so
we went in and turns out he had like 20 guitars and all this awesome
gear!!! Haha...you can imagine what ended up happening...

I ended up jamming out on the guitar with this less active!! 🎸🎸🎸🎸
haha it was so fun and Babcock and I knew we were in the right place
at the right time. I got a video 😍 I'm a little rusty but still got
my shredding down 😃 I then said to myself, ok I'm a missionary I
gotta leave with the Spirit so I hit the clean channel and played
'Joseph Smith's First Prayer' and gave a brief testimony. It was epic.

Friday we had correlation for the first time in months!!! Our WML
Angel is finally back in town. He forgot his key to the church so we
had it in the back of his Colorado in the parking lot. Elder Castillo
left with the Spanish zone leaders for a baptismal interview. Angel is
super cool and took us out to Baskin Robbins for the last thing of the
day! 😃🍦

We also had our Ward party for Fathers Day on Saturday. That was
pretty stressful. We were supposed to go there just to eat dinner and
chat with members but it turned out to be us co-running the whole
event and serving food. It was alright though. We went to go see a
recent convert Elmer Recinos and he is doing great. He hasn't made it
to church, but he's still happy and we taught him the Gospel of Jesus
Christ lesson and we used the windshield and rear-view mirror analogy
with repentance and we could tell he liked it. He said he learned
something new that night and that makes one feel pretty good 😊

So....yesterday we were in the church for 8 hours straight 😩😩 we had
our normal meetings and then the other Elders had a baptism! His name
is Lucio and he was baptized by Elder Castillo. It was his last
baptism. Castillo leaves for home tomorrow. After that, we stayed to
eat dinner that someone had brought to the church and then there was a
Charlafooganera (Fireside) for all the Spanish program in my mission.
It takes place at different chapels in the mission every 6 weeks and
this one was in ours. Hermano Suamy talked and so did many other
recent converts. It was really, really REALLY inspiring and everyone
was able to feel the Holy Ghost there. It was pretty spiritual. Lots
of conversion stories were shared.

Today I dislocated my shoulder playing some b-ball, 🤕 but those who
know me pretty well know that I can dislocate my shoulders whenever I
want to. So, it popped back into place as I was getting up off the
ground. This one still hurts just because it was forced. It's alright
though, it just feels like a dead arm now. Man...I'm gonna miss this
district and Ward. I will for sure get one last pic with Castillo
tomorrow at transfers. I will miss him a lot. This district has been
great, and just a note to explain the pictures I'm putting we have
actually had a trio of Hermanas as of a week or two ago. Sister
Jackman is in the English program and she's with the Hermanas because
her comp went home a couple weeks ago. It's been crazy for them.

I know that God lives! That Charla was another reminder to me of that.
I know that we can become something else through the power of Christ.
Until next week! Love you all!

❤️ Elder Thompson

Last district pic
Elder Castillo's death pic -- taken after the missionary's last district meeting
Correlation meeting
Baskin Robins afterward
...Metal

Week 66

Dear All,

I don't feel like writing much today.  This week we helped a couple, the Tomasellis move into their brand new townhouse in Haymarket.  Elder Brunsdale and I had helped them move all their stuff into a storage unit a few months ago and we moved it from there to Haymarket this week.  Crazy story...it was going to be on Wednesday and they called us at like 6pm.  Normally we try not to do service during prime pros, but we didn't have anything else planned.  We show up to the storage at 6ish and they say the truck is an hour late stuck in traffic.  So, we stuck around close by and called a bunch of potential investigators in our Areabook.  We finally see the truck pull in to the place so we go back and it's like 8 by this point.  We walk up and there's this contention going on.  The moving guy said it's going to cost $200 or $300 to move all their stuff when they had originally said 120.  So the Hermana Tomaselli wasn't a fan of that but her husband Paul said let's just pay it and get it done while we're all here.  THEN, the moving guy was not having it that day and he took the comment from her the wrong way and was like, "if you're gonna complain, we won't do it at all!" With that they started putting the ramp back up to leave even though Paul was basically yelling at them saying he was willing to pay the amount. But.....they just got back in their truck and drove off.  Twas really awkward.  And by that point it was raining and it would have been really miserable.  Our night was destroyed.

So they call us the next morning and they had gotten just a U-Haul and so we helped them the next morning.  It was a successful move, and their new place is pretty nice! We were really tired the rest of the day though.  

We had another one of those car fasts our mission is doing every first Saturday of the month.  We realized we had setup an appt with Lorena....she lives 15 minutes away out in Warrenton.  We didn't think any member would be willing to help us out...but....we tried.  We ended up calling one member, Hermano Alvarez.  We asked him to take us that far and all he said was, "No hay problema" We were so shocked and grateful that he didn't have a problem with taking us! Turns out, he's a trucker and he's use to driving so that's why.  We were able to get to know him more on the way and then we show up to Lorena's mansion and nobody's there!! We had said we would come by but they weren't there D: I felt really stupid and embarrassed and we headed back home.  On the way, Hno Alvarez pointed out some people playing soccer on a caged basketball court off the side of the road and I notice Lorena's car was there so we ask him to pull in there.  It was them! Haha it was a bit awkward just hopping out and walking up to our investigators there hahaha but we were able to setup a new appt and also gave the Hno a chance to bear his testimony so it was worth it. :)

Sunday was testimony meeting and Elder Castillo, our district leader, gave his last testimony in the mission field.  It was really good.  He leaves next week.  Today has been one of the most stressful P-Days I have had.  I basically sucked it up in ball and I was pretty mad about that, but I got over it.  Then, we went to Men's Warehouse to get me some new shirts and I left my iPad there. Ugh!!!I I HATE forgetting things for those that don't know that.  I've been pretty high-strung today but I know I'll get over it.  

Well, I don't feel like writing anymore. Thank you for all the support you all give me, whether it be you folks back home not serving or my friends serving as well, supporting me by example.  I love you all!

️ Elder Thompson

Week 65 Slow Week

Fam,

This week was one of the slowest weeks in my mission. Not a lot
happened...and that's for real. We did not find any new investigators
last week. 😳 we did so much finding.  Ironic right? The only lessons
we had were with the Hermana Guzman last Monday night, an investigator
named Edwin and one with Angel. We taught Edwin more about the BOM and
he was able to get it and repeat back what he was learning. It was a
pretty good lesson.

Nothing else eventful happened until Saturday. We actually had tracted
into a less active member of the English Ward in the week and we found
out she was moving on Saturday so we went back to help.  Elder Clayton
and I got to meet the Bishop of the Manassas 1 Ward and he's a great
guy! There were a good number of members there to help. Thankfully,
Sister Carr didn't have a lot of stuff and we got it all done in an
hour and a half.

Then after that we went straight to our Ward Picnic we were supposed
to have back in April that was canceled for rain.  So we get there and
we found out we had to pay 4$ to get in Bull Run park and nobody had
said a word about paying so we were kinda unimpressed about that
especially how they kept telling us to invite our investigators...oh
well. It turned out fine. We showed up and visited with some members.
It was just a typical Ward party at the park. We did play one game of
Fútbol but the grass was pretty wet and swampy and my companion ended
up falling on his back in the muddy water haha everyone was laughing!
Poor guy. He was alright with it though. Gotta give him some slack,
he's 6'8" so when he falls it's a long way down!

That night we decided to take another road trip to Bealton and we
visited the Santillán family.  They're members and they live forever
away, but they're so awesome and I love visiting them! I love their
house too...out in the country and away from all the cities. We
invited them to follow Thomas S. Monson's most recent mandate: read
the BOM everyday. They said it was time for them to start once again
so it was just what they needed to hear! From there, we headed back
East to Warrenton to see Lorena but she was sick. It was
understandable as this is her first time being pregnant.

We got Angel and his wife to church yesterday! They always leave right
after Sacrament though. The microphones were not working and the ac is
still broken so...we're wondering what's gonna be next for next week!
Haha qué más falta la iglesia?!? Sadly, we found out that Hermano
Dorsey will no longer be the Gospel Principles teacher. 😰😰 he was SO
good at teaching! He's an amazing man. We visited Elmer Recinos that
night. He's a recent convert. We reviewed the Plan of Salvation with
him and he remembered a lot! He seems really happy even though he's
super busy.

Because I have been sharing it more than usual this week, I will share
it once again.  President Monson told us, "The importance of having a
firm and sure testimony of the Book of Mormon cannot be
overstated.{...}If you are not reading the Book of Mormon each day,
please do so{...}As we do so, we will be in a position to hear the
voice of the Spirit, to resist temptation, to overcome doubt and fear,
and to receive heaven’s help in our lives." I also know that promise
to be true because I have seen it in my life. I hope you all can
relate.

❤️ Elder Thompson

Cafe Rio with the senior missionaries
Saw an Emu where the cows were last time!
Night in Georgetown South...if you can't tell the car is basically in
the yard. We were at Elmer's door

Week 64 . Rackin' in la gente!

Dear All,

What a eventful week! We had some things that are out of the normal
this week and that's always fun. We started with a Noche de Hogar last
week after P-Day with a less active family, the Quezadas. We talked
about service and showed El Buen Samaritano video and talked about
service. Their 3 year old boy was going insane and talking and jumping
off the walls nonstop! Haha it was alright though.

We visited Angel this week and he has been making a ton of progress
with living the Word of Wisdom!!  Is is the most progress I've seen!
He didn't make it to church but he's still making progress. This
Wednesday was successful.  We had 4 lessons that day! We went to see
Lorena, our recent convert Hermana Guzman, and two others that night!
It was a pretty good day.  I was satisfied.

We had a service for the Hermana Colina in our Ward. We helped with
some yard work and she told us that when we're finished, it's going to
look like El Jardín de Edén haha we cleaned up her backyard and
machetes were used ha. That night we had English Class finally!!!!
Except we only had one person show up and it was the Hermana
missionaries' investigator Jesus. We taught him some basic stuff.
Ok...while we were finishing up, this HUGE rainstorm hit. It was so
heavy and loud! I got a video...it was one of those rainstorms where
if you step out in it for 5 seconds, you're soaked. The weather here
has been hot....and wet. The day after the storm was miserable because
it was still hot and so humid and muggy....ugh. But it's alright.

Friday was great because we found a family!!! 😃😃 we met the Gonzalez
family and both me and my companion were so impressed by their family.
They have a beautiful home and their kids are so good. It was
incredible, we invited them to read the introduction of the BOM before
we came back and the mom made assignments for all the kids to read
certain paragraphs and to read them to each other... it was awesome!
I've never seen that yet. We laughed a lot in that lesson just because
we "clicked" and it was just joyous time spent together with good
people. I loved it! We found 9 new investigators this week! I'm
satisfied with that.

We actually visited Lorena twice this week on Saturday night to try
and see if her cousin Alberto would be there but he was still working.
But we had left Mosiah 13 with them to read on their own and they
didn't so we read it with them explaining the 10 commandments. Lessons
with Lorena are always interesting because they have good questions
about our church. They were wondering why we don't buy things on
Sunday and why we don't drink coffee and stuff. She kept asking about
how the church is organized with the apostles and 70s...we keep
telling her the best place to learn is the church but they still
haven't been able to make it. 😢 One day they will.

Bueno...quiero terminar con mi testimonio de la obra misional.  Llevo
casi 15 meses de estar aquí en la misión y me encanta la misión en
cada aspecto. Ha sido un milagro para mí al ver todos los cambios en
mi vida y en las vidas de los demás. Sé que esta obra es la obra del
Señor y que Su iglesia ha sido restaurada en estos últimos días por el
profeta José Smith.  Sé que el Libro de Mormón es otro testamento de
Jesucristo. Sé que las familias pueden ser eternas gracias al
Sacerdocio y las ordenanzas en los templos que están disponibles para
nosotros. Que los aprovechen. Dios nos ama y quiere que seamos
felices. Por eso tiene un plan.

Have a good week everyone and Happy Memorial Day! 💐👨🏼‍✈️

❤️ Elder Thompson




Sorry for the kinda lame pics...they all have to do with Mother Nature
of some sort lol

This was the reading on the car but it was really like 102
Angry clouds
The Beast. One of the biggest dogs I've seen, this is the neighbors of Lorena
First live skunk I've seen lol

Week 63

Dear All,

It seems like this week we only had things happen at the very start
and the very end of the week.  We found 2 new investigators last
Monday night and we found some more just last night.  We had an
exchange and Elder Castillo was with me and we visited this less
active family and we are going to visit them again tonight and do a
Noche de Hogar. We had 2 lessons with Lorena and she is doing pretty
good. She wants to come to church but she drives without a license so
she doesn't like leaving the house unless it's for something needful.
Church is pretty needed haha. We met a new guy named Julio who was
really cool and we taught him the first lesson. He's one of those
people you can just see being members, but they aren't yet! We also
had an interesting encounter where we ended up talking for 30 minutes
on the doorstep of a Testigo de Jehova and she gave me a bunch of
scriptures to look up and study. It was kinda cool and different.

Sadly we didn't get anyone to church yesterday but talking to my
family made me feel better. 😁😁 My companion's tablet died in the
middle of his call so he didn't even get to say bye or
anything...kinda a bummer. After the call we went to a members home
for hamburgers like a BBQ with other members and for some reason the
members were so happy to see us there. We finished out the night
finding those news Carlos and Magdalena. Today we played ball and
again went to Udvar-Hazy National Smithsonian Museum. It was my 3rd
time but got I got to see some planes landing. This week has been
quite ordinary but great and precious because I'm serving a full time
mission for The Lord.

❤️ Elder Thompson

A member of our ward, Jared Flores, leaves for his mission tomorrow in Wisconsin
It's been a while since I've seen these
My family ❤️ ...I was trying so hard to get the dumb notification out
of the way but it wouldn't!

Week 62 New Companion and Regional Stake Conference

Querido gente,

This week was a week of change and a new start. Elder Brunsdale had
our last day together last week and we went to visit our recent
convert Hermana Guzman and she was home so we were able to teach her
about the temples and family history using the new pamphlets and she
was so excited that it was a new pamphlet, she loves her pamphlets
haha. It was kinda sad because towards the end Brunsdale mentioned
that he was leaving and she seemed really down after that. She kind of
teared up. After saying bye we went to a lesson with our investigators
Lorena and Alberto Hernandez (they live in that mansion) and we had a
great lesson with them and they said how much they were gonna miss
Elder Brunsdale and it was so satisfying and precious to see how much
of a relationship we have with them. There was a strong spirit of
friendship there. They thanked us for all that we've done to help
them.

Transfers happened and like I said I'm now with Elder Clayton.  He's
about to hit 6 months in mission time and...the ceiling hahaha he's
too tall.  He's actually hit his head multiple times on one of our
chandeliers in our apartment. He just came from his first area in
Little River so this is my first time leading out the area as senior
comp as well. It's not too bad.

Not too much has happened apart from our finding efforts. Our district
is back down to 3 companionships so the Sudley D Hermanas passed some
of their investigators to us because their area closed down. One of
them has a baptismal date for June! His name is Jose Flores, and we
have a lesson with him on Wednesday.

We found only 3 new investigators this week. Angie and Luis are the
names of this couple and they were really kind and receptive to the
message.  Luis seemed more interested than Angie and she kept bringing
up random things she's heard from other churches but it turned out
well. The other new was a guy named Carlos. We had a lesson with him
last night and he really wanted to know about the Restoration of the
priesthood in depth. We ended up having to read JSH a bit. They're
great people and we're looking fwd to teaching them more.

We actually had another car fast on Saturday. Man...we walked for
hours to get places.  We had a mother lesson with the Delgadillo
family and had a dinner with an Hermana in the Ward. Thankfully our
WML wasn't doing anything so he was able to give us a lift in his
truck to that. The rest of the day we were walking in the rain 😩

Lastly, we had a regional stake conference yesterday where Elder Gong
and Elder Dallin H. Oaks along with a few others spoke to us.  It was
really inspiring and it made me want to be a better missionary. That's
how my week went. Don't feel like writing anymore.

❤️ Elder Thompson