Surprise!Today is our P-Day for this upcoming week because we just went to the
temple!!! And of course the temple is closed on Mondays so we made
plans to go today. The Parkers took us and the other Bella Vista
Elders up to Maryland to the Washington D.C. Temple! It's awesome to
be here. And it feels weird being out of the mission in Maryland haha
Basically the description of this week is the following: Exchanges. We
had 3 exchanges in a row we had to get done. The first was on a
Tuesday after district meeting with our zone leaders in the Tysons
Ward. They are also in a trio with Elder Chaffey in the Great Falls
Ward so they cover both wards right now. Our exchange there was
great. I went with Elder Baldwin and we just did a lot of finding. The
next day we all came back and the zone leaders had the district
meeting but Elder Lawson and Chaffey had been together on the exchange
and they drove the Great Falls car to meet back up. So that caused a
big problem in the day in that we took 45 minutes trying to decide how
we would get the Great Falls car back to its apartment because with
their trio they're not using it and Elder Chaffey was proposing the
whole time that Elder Lawson should stay with him one more day to do
more work in Great Falls but Elder Pickett said that the white
handbook says to do exchanges for only 24 hours and this and that and
all these phone calls to the APs. It was a mess. I ended up going
with the zone leaders and Chaffey just to take the car back to its
apartment and then drive right back.
Another factor of why that took so long was that we were then doing
our 2nd exchange in a row with BVA Elders Cardinals and Amott who was
with me and Pickett in Arlington. We did a lot of inside work that
day and organized a bunch of papers that we've received from the Ward
Council. We had to end that exchange at night because of our 3rd
exchange the next day.
So Thursday we went down to Woodbridge to be with the Spanish zone
leaders. I was with Elder Walker for the day and we hadn't done an
exchange since last year here in Bella Vista haha. He is the most
obedient Spanish missionary as of right now I would say. He really
taught how to teach for understanding. We taught this Mexican man and
we spent a good solid 10-15 min trying to teach him how to pray. If I
would have been leading the lesson out I think I would have gave up
and said the closing prayer myself. But Elder Walker really explained
deeply that the 'How should I pray?' box in the pamphlet was not a
prayer haha this guy read the guide of how to pray thinking it was a
prayer 4 times!! We finally ended up getting it to him that he can
talk openly with his Heavenly Father and he said the closing prayer.
That stood out to me. It was an eye-opener.
We ended up heading back to go to a lesson with Patricia at 10:15 with
Dany. She's doing really well especially for how long it's been since
we've met with her! The adversary works hard on recent converts and
we've seen that as we have somehow just not been able to meet with
Patricia lately. Her schedule changed and we have had less contact.
We had a short visit with her. We then had to go to the mission office
for Elder Pickett's departing interview with President. That only
lasted like 10 min so we got some supplies and left. We started weekly
planning and we all had an energy crash but then we got a call to do a
baptismal interview. I did it for the zone leaders investigator who
will be baptized tomorrow! Yesterday night our Obispo took us out to
Cafe Rio and we talked about some of the needs of the Ward. He is
government relations for Ford and he just got a brand new F-150 so he
showed us.
Today we went to the 8:00 am session in the temple so we woke up at
5:30 this morning 😩 and we were driving to go get the other Elders
and they call us as we're about to get them and they're like "we have
to wear suits right?" And we were like yeah of course and so we picked
them up and the Parkers took us and as we pull into the temple they
realized they didn't grab their wallets when they changed into their
suits so they forgot their recommends. We did the 8:00 session and
they did the 8:30 after the temple called President Huntsman haha. It
was a great session and it had been a loooong time since I went to the
temple. I hadn't been in 15 months! After our wonderful experience, we
went out to the visitors center to wait for the other Elders. We
wanted to get a picture in front of the temple but RIGHT as we walked
outside from the temple, it started raining really really hard!! We
booked it to the visitors center but it it's a ways down the parking
lot and we ended up getting SOAKED!! Gah...we went in and dried off.
We got some pics.
Then the Elder Parker took us to 'This is the Place' a few miles away
which is basically a Deseret Book. We looked around and got some
things. Then they took us to Five Guys! They're so awesome. We plan on
just having a chill rest of the p day and packing s little more on
Monday for Elder Pickett. If you haven't been to the temple in a
while, I encourage you to go! You learn something every time and it's
so great! Have a great week!
❤️ Elder Thompson
Our hair is soaked haha
