Week 52

Dear All,

I guess my weeks are off by one haha I don't care I'm gonna stop doing
it anyway.  My year mark is coming up on March 9th! It seems like it
has gone by pretty fast to be honest.  This week we had a bit of
different things happen.  Déjeme explicar....

Well Tuesday was Zone Conference and it seemed longer than usual for
some reason.  We had great instruction given to us by President and
his wife, the sister training leaders and zone leaders and stuff.  The
Gainesville relief society made us tacos for lunch. We were there for
6 hours.

On Wednesday we had some things fall through so I showed Elder
Brunsdale what a lightning visit is. We visited a nearby member
family, the Salazars, and  we dropped by unexpected and just spent
like 15 minutes with them. We got to know them and leave them with the
spirit and of course the key of these visits is asking for referrals
and they gave us one! Lightning visits work! The referral was actually
the dad of the Hermano Salazar. We will see how that goes next week. I
have a picture but the Salazars have a pet bunny and they recently had
a bunch of baby bunnies haha we held them it was fun.


Thursday, we had an AWESOME lesson with a new investigator!!!! Her
name is Carole Roupus and yes the thing is we were just tracting and
she let us in and we taught her even though she's American.  She is so
sweet she's like 70 and such a Christian at heart.  We taught her the
Restoration and she said she would of course accept baptism if she
came to know the truth.  She then offered the last prayer and differed
from her way of praying in the Baptist church for years to pray
correctly and she thanked God for opening her eyes and for sending
us...it was pretty dang sweet.  Teaching the gospel in English is hard
now...

Friday we had our weekly planning in the afternoon like normal and we
also had a dinner with a certain member.  I was warned beforehand that
this lady does not stop talking at all haha and it was true.  Their
food was amazing!! But after we had all finished is when the challenge
began.  The lady is all one breath haha and she was going off on her
mission and her testimony and stuff. Like...us 4 missionaries were all
like looking around or looking down and she was just still talking at
us hahaha finally I asked to use the bathroom and when I came back I
didn't sit back down. They shared some interesting insights though I
will give them that!

Then Friday night we went out to try our 3 investigators on date.  I
know I haven't really talked about them because they're not super
solid...they all weakly accepted a baptismal date AND I haven't even
got the chance to see them yet!!!  So we knock on Armando's door and
it's like around 8pm and this guy is old.  And so I knock the 3rd time
pretty hard and he opens it and basically says quit bugging me and
knocking so hard on my door.  Then he said Adios and slammed the door.
Dang.  Elder Brunsdale was kinda down about that but it didn't phase
me.  We went and tried a potential nearby and someone we hadn't met
before answered the door and we had a lesson with him and his wife.
They're Isaac and Elizabeth. It was a pretty good lesson except for a
small part at the end when we found out she's a 7th Day Adventist and
the sabbath day was brought up....don't talk about the sabbath with
one of them haha.

Saturday we had a very very very interesting lesson haha we had a
small bible bash with a guy who is just....lost.  This was my thought
process during the lesson. I was thinking okay this guy is pretty
religious, okay he's got a lot of stories, and he does not understand
authority...what is this guy talking about?? Haha that was about it.
He brought up really weird doctrines like he believed we are born with
sin and he brought up Psalms 51:5 for that and then we read him Moroni
8:10-12 and he misunderstood it and thought it said God is a changing
God.  Man...it was so interesting to see Elder Brunsdale because I had
never before seen him act up and get passionate in a lesson like that
haha I had to calm him down again he said he was this close to
standing up to explain himself and preach hahaha the only thing that
got me frustrated is when we tried explaining authority and he kept
denying us and said "Y sé que no lo tienes tú" oh man that got me a
little simmered but that's all.  It was a weird lesson.

Yesterday was Ward council for the Sudley Ward, so for the third hour
we were all combined and it was a lesson given by the English speaking
stake presidency so there was translation.  It was pretty good.  They
announced that the DC temple will be closed for 2 years for renovation
starting March 2018!!!! I lucked out and I will be home by then haha.
We had correlation at the Obispos house at 5 and ate there.  I really
like how Obispo Pellicier is involved the missionary work firsthand.
We booked it way out to Warrenton for a lesson that didn't happen!
Ugh...we even confirmed. Oh well we went and visited Angel and he had
been sober for a day and he had regained his strength. He told us he
needs to do better, he's really really humble and he knows what he
needs to do.  We read in the BOM with him where he was and set up a
lesson for him and his fam in the Obispos house. Perfect! We'll see
how that goes.

Well it's p day and it's only noon!! We did our shops shtuff and were
on our way to play a bit of pool at the other Elders leasing office
before heading to ball! We have 2 Restoration lessons planned and
another visit with the Guzmans our recent convert. Should be good!  My
mind is blank now must mean it's time to go.  Love you and have a
great week!

❤️ Elder Thompson

Bad lighting but whatever
I would love to talk to this band haha they need help
Scriptures tabbed up!!!!!