Farewell to Skoutmaster

Dear All,

“¿Qué es la diferencia entre una pera  y la novia 🏼 del misionero? La pera siempre es pera...pero la novia nunca espera!” Gotta love Spanish jokes that make no sense in English lol

A lot has happened, it seems.  Our week last week started with service with Jaquelyn Montano. She’s the mom of the 2 girls we are teaching and going to baptize! We helped her move some dirt from this mound in her front yard toothed places in the yard to level out the ground. We got talking about our new car and then she offered for us to clean it with her hose because we couldn’t last week so she came out with a bucket and hand soap haha and we washed our car in her driveway. My comp and I established what we call Puro Español Tuesdays. We did our best of only talking in Spanish on Tuesdays. We did pretty good! We had correlation that day and my comp got a little fired up because us missionaries got talking about the white handbook and unwritten rules and Hermana Van was trying to prove that the white handbook says we can’t go to gyms but she couldn’t find it...stuff like that gets my comp mad I guess. We had an epic lightning visit with the Chiñas family that night and we found ourselves talking to 3 recently returned missionaries and so I asked them if they ever had the thought of how they promised themselves while on their missions that they would be a much better member missionary and help to the Ward when they got home and they did!  So we did follow up with them asking them for referrals haha I loved it...and they gave us some!!

So Wednesday was kinda a bad day. The Church came out with an updated app for Areabook called Areabook 2.0. I think a lot of other missions have got it and ours, the Washington DC South Mission got it on the 4th. There was a stir across the entire mission because of this update because it was basically a downgrade and a complete change to what the old areabook app was. Hundreds of missionaries gave it 1 star ⭐️ on the reviews and the reviews section basically became missionary Twitter with all these complaints! My comp and I took 2 hours sitting in Target trying to get it to work and boot up but it wouldn’t. Basically they took out necessary things from the old version like our calendar view how we could see the day and what we were going to do at what times and they made it a list of events instead and you can’t see at what time of the day you’re at...and lots of other things. Basically the whole mission was confused at why this was happening. I have resorted to using Apple Calendar on my iPad because it has that calendar view. It will take some getting used to. It ruined our day on Wednesday.

On Thursday I turned 20.5 years old! Haha it was also the day I started my D&C challenge, that’s when you have 138 days left and you start reading D&C one section every day (most missionaries read it backwards as a countdown but I just can’t do that!) I also started reading El Libro de Mormón and I’m determined to finish it as soon as possible for the first time in Spanish!

We had another lesson with the Montano girls and this time they were kinda restless because they were going to go laser tagging right after our lesson so they were hard to keep focused. We basically told them they have to choose between English and Spanish Ward and we told them if they want to go to church in English we would have to send over other missionaries. That got em haha and they came to church his week!!! We got them to meet our Obispo and we got them to all of their classes! It was perfect! 

We got confused Friday night because we were running around super busy and for some reason we came out of a lesson at 8:30 and we somehow that it was Saturday so we called our recent convert and left him a voicemail but in the middle of our message we realized we were going by his place Saturday and so we had a laugh. We came out of a lesson with Sergio Vargas and we brought up baptism super softly and he said nows not the time for that in his life. We’re gonna continue visiting him. 

I felt bad because Friday we got stuck in a member’s house for an hour and a half at a dinner because she was telling us her WHOLE story of coming to America and meeting her husband and meeting the missionaries haha she said it would only take 5 min. haha  we had our lesson with our recent convert Kevin Hernandez and we taught the WofW by reading section 89 with them. They’re super cool.  They’re our age and their daughter who just turned 1 just got the chicken pox so they were freaking out that we still came by but my comp and I have already had it ha

Church was successful but long for some reason. We got the girls to come and that was basically it.  Elder Richardson and I had an incident after church that made us kinda down the whole rest of the day. After church, Elder Richardson showed a little bit of his inner colors and he started honking at the Hermana missionaries in our district because they were right in front of us pulling out. Well...he probably honked a little too much and he was just doing it to have fun. Not 2 minutes goes by and this Hermana member who’s a mother and returned missionary calls us and starts laying into us on how inappropriate that was and asking why we did that and all that. It honestly wasn’t the time and place for it because church was getting out right then but then this lady told us to look at our badges and consider why were even here. That crossed the line for me. I’m not denying that he didn’t deserve correction but the way this lady mothered us and bit our heads off was really rude and harsh cuz my comp is still striving to find why he’s here serving...my comp told me she and her husband both served missions and they’re so they hold grudges and judge every single missionary that goes through this Ward...ugh if you’re gonna give correction you have to do it the right way...in a way that doesn’t get the other person defensive. Whatever.

Well today we got shopping done early because kids are out of school and whatnot. We went bowling  today!!! We went with Sterling park elders, that’s our district leader. It was a lot of fun!! We are now just chilling at the Sterling Park chapel. 

A cool spiritual thing I read this week was in my BOM reading. I’m in chapter 16 of 1 Nephi I think. I liked chapter 15 verses 5-6:

“5 And it came to pass that I was overcome because of my afflictions, for I considered that mine afflictions were great above all, because of the destruction of my people, for I had beheld their fall.

6 And it came to pass that after I had received strength I spake unto my brethren,...”

I wrote this down in my study thingy: Nephi had to take a moment and take in the fact that his posterity was going to fail and die off because he saw it with the angel. When was the last time you took a quiet moment to reflect and ponder on yourfuture family? 

Just a thought. This is long. Have a great week!

️ Elder Thompson

The Ferrari pics are from last week

Bowling today

Our group pic was taken by an old guy #photocred

General Conference Oct. 2, 2017

Dear All,

We had interviews with President this week and my interview was spent talking all about my companion and how I can help him.  President Huntsman showed me his motivation ladder and I got a picture of it, I liked it a lot.  My hope is that every missionary finds their motivations and that they be good ones. We had exchanges with the district leader Elder Skousen who is in the English program and I went with his companion Elder  Lavarn. We had another lesson with Victor + Ruth that night and....I hated it honestly.  I don’t like lessons with them. I love them a lot it’s just they’re so...uncomfortable to be around while trying to teach them the restored gospel. Thankfully we had Hermano Gonzalez who’s also Bolivian there and Elder Lavarn speaks Spanish because his mom is actually Mexican.  But even with the language barrier aside and having a member there, it was still a rough lesson.  We got there at 7:30and left at 9:20 and it was the member that told the investigators that we Elders have a curfew and we gotta go! It was crazy.

I’ve been kinda uptight this week because the morning during the exchange, I didn’t wake up to my alarm because I sleep with earplugs in this apartment. I usually wake up to Elder Richardson’s alarm through the earplugs and then I hear mine but since he was gone with Elder Skousen and my alarm is too quiet I didn’t actually wake up until 8:30! Ugh! I felt like a pile...and Elder Lavarn was just laying in his bed wide awake on his tablet ...man...that threw off my sleep schedule and I haven’t been sleeping good this week 

Friday was kinda a bad day, I was struggling with motivation that night because all our lessons canceled and they were all in Ashburn and so we ended up doing some paperwork with trying to find less actives and inactive members. Then we had general Conference. Before Conference we helped a member move their massive tv into their new home. We just then watched conference and in the Oakton Stake Center and Sterling Park chapels. We also ended setting a trap for our less active friend Hermano Chirinos to get him to come to the priesthood Session haha we just showed up to their place to visit them before the session and then the Hermana whispers “tell him you don’t have a ride!” So we did and he got dressed and he took us to the priesthood Session haha it was great. Elder Richardson didn’t like it though because we watched it with the hermanos in Spanish and he didn’t get anything out of it. Poor guy. His Spanish is coming along. He was able to do a phone call this week all by himself so that made me happy for him!

We ended up watching the Sunday morning session with our WML Hermano Sánchez in his house. We watched it in English though.  After that session we went to a lesson we didn’t think would happen but it did! We taught Luis Sanchez one of our new investigators and he was able to remember Joseph Smith and all that! Nobody remembers what we teach the last time but he did. He’s super prepared and he is a sophomore in high school.  

As far as the Montano girls, we made a deal with all them that if they read, we’ll set aside a time to play soccer with them haha we hope they watched at least one session. All we asked them to do is at least write down the names of all the speakers of one session. Hopefully they did.  For other things we did this week we helped a member of the sterling park Ward who actually lives in our complex right next to us move. He’s such an interesting guy, he was in the secret service so he knows like...everything it seems and he’s been a lot of places. He just moved down to Nephi and I got his number so I will see him after the mission. He’s a cool guy!  

I loved watching Conference andnhope you guys did too. I liked Elder Nielsen’s talk the most: 

“From the Book of Mormon we learn about the gathering of scattered Israel. We know why we are here on earth. These and other truths are more powerfully and persuasively taught in the Book of Mormon than in any other book. The full power of the gospel of Jesus Christ is contained in the Book of Mormon. Period. …”

I love these promises that we just received and I hope we may all continue to ponder on them through out the weeks. Love you all!

️ Elder Lane Thompson

Motivation ladder

So anxious for Conference at Oakton Stake Center

We are right now eating 2 Pupusas familiares with 6 Elders....they give you a pizza cutter and all

Lessons for Days

Dear All,

We had a bit more lessons this week than normal.  I think we taught every one of our investigators at least once this week.  You know what’s kinda hard to do? Teaching 7-11 year olds about the law of chastity hahaha we taught Noelia + Nailea and her two cousins that and we ended up asking their mom to explain it in her own words. We talked about the importance of coming to church because they haven’t been coming!! And they need to in order to be baptized on the 14th. We actually helped their family out on Tuesday with shoveling some dirt for them. We taught Sergio Vargas who’s basically a dry Mormon. He’s been taught everything and his family are all members. His 9 year old son Omar basically taught us the Plan of Salvation haha he did a pretty good job!

We had a lesson with our tough investigators Victor + Ruth. They’re the ones that are super learned of their Bible and they ask really good, deep questions that are so hard to answer sometimes.  We can’t even plan anything to teach them because it NEVER goes to Plan and they just shoot objection at us after objection. I have mixed feelings towards them because they’re SUPER nice and sweet people. You could see them being members easily. It’s just when it comes to Joseph Smith and the BOM they just let out their doubts in a way that can get ya..

.I don’t know. We talked about a bunch of stuff like the “perfect and complete” bible and how it’s final, saved by grace, trinity, why we were really serving a mission, etc. They work together and they had to go in at 8 that night but Victor texted his work saying he’d show up at 8:30! That’s how much they like talking about these things with us! And my comp right now doesn’t really understand Spanish too well so I felt bit pressured. We walked out with them as they were heading to work and we immediately called reinforcements for the next lesson haha we called a convert member.

We taught our Inv named Cecilio Lara. He works so much so we were lucky to find him. We taught him th Plan of Salvation and he accepted baptism but not a specific date. He’s such a funny guy! We taught our recent convert Kevin too after eating with them. The Mosqueira family have us over for dinner every Thursday and we teach Kevin after. He finally came to church to get the priesthood but we didn’t advise Obispo Perez and so he wasn’t sustained to get it so....he didn’t get it...gah!! Next week for sure.  Sunday we had even more lessons, a few on people’s door steps but we had one with one of our new Inv and he is SOO prepared!! His name is Christian and he asked us if he could come to church! We read out of the BOM a little bit with him. He’s so cool. Then that night we got a call from an old Inv saying he’s ready to meet with the missionaries again. We had a lot of miracles!!

What made us happy is that Noelia + Nailea made it to church! But they went to the English Ward. Somehow Elder Richardson saw them in the chapel singing as we were walking by. That’s basically all that happened for us last week. We are planning on going to the golf course ️today and hit the driving range!! I’m super stoked, it’s been so long since I’ve golfed. Have a good week!

️ Elder Thompson

These are our zone leaders Elders Baxter and Meldrum. Elder Baxter is 6’8.5” and has a scholarship back at BYU for b-ball because he’s so good...and Elder Meldrum is pretty short lol I had to sneak this picture

Homemade spaghetti night!

I promise this pic has not been edited one bit

Golfing videos

New Car! A Week w/ No Personal Study

Dear All,

We have been so crazy busy this week, to the point of not being able
to have personal study for a week straight!! We last had it Tuesday.
Here's why: had a district meeting early on Wednesday, had Zone
conference Thursday morning, had a Dr. appointment Friday morning, a
Ward BBQ Saturday morning and Ward Council for Sunday. We've been
running around so much.

We got a new investigator via the English Elders named Victor Agüero.
We had a pass off lesson and we found out this guy was a talker! We
started talking to him in Spanish and the English Elders were about to
fall asleep because they were just sitting there not understanding
anything...reminded me of my first few weeks in the mission haha we
taught those 2 girls were teaching and their 2 cousins. Teaching kids
can be really hard. But we read from BOM Stories and we read the whole
story of the Brass Plates! I was surprised we made it through the
whole thing haha

I wanted to write about a little bit of zone Conference and some of
the words from our mission president. He shared the story of Achilles
and asked us what our 'Achilles heel' was in regard to obedience. He
talked about rationalization with the white handbook and how always
means always and never means never. He helped us with some
rationalizations that the adversary uses a lot. We ended up getting
the clean car award for the zone 😁 This was also the last zone
conference for our senior missionaries the Craigs, Brownes, and
Hansens.  They're gonna be replaced soon 😥 We had an interesting
lesson with interesting investigators. I call them interesting because
I don't know what to think of them! They are the coolest people; you
would think that they're already members. Their names are Victor and
Ruth Ustariz. But they do have doubts about the Book of Mormon and
Joseph Smith and they asked good questions about them. It was the
first time I stopped a lesson and just wrote down scriptures for them
to study for next time. And THEY are the first ones who asked if we
could do something before next time! Haha they asked us to share
something that came just from the Bible that helped or changed our
lives and something you've prayed for that hasn't been answered yet.
I've never been given homework from investigators hahaha they're
great!

Friday we had another lesson with Noelia and Nailea and their cousins
Andrew and Jennifer. They're all kids. We taught tithing and we had a
good object lesson. We showed a 1:30 min video and then got out a bag
full of 2 one dollar bills and a ton of coins and we divided them up
into two groups and told them to find out how much they had and how
much they would owe in tithing. It was great! I love teaching simply
to kids and helping them understand after only teaching adults for so
long. We also got 2 new investigators named Mary and Kevin that night.
It was awesome to see because Kevin told us he really wanted to know
the word of God through us. They accepted a baptismal invitation! We
will see how they progress here soon.

So Friday night, we got a call from Elder Browne!! He said "you guys
kept the car so clean I wanted to give you a new one." (We were over
58,000 miles so it was time haha) so we drove to the mission office in
Burke Saturday morning to get our brand new 2017 Toyota Corolla! We
had a 14 Corolla before so we just upgraded. It had 17 miles on it
when we drove away! Elder Richardson is driving and he loves it lol
especially because it has those new safety features. It'll beep at ya
and move the steering wheel a bit when you veer out of your lane and
supposedly will apply brakes when about to hit something in front of
you but we don't want to try that out haha.  We went straight to a
Ward BBQ at Lake Fairfax park and we missionaries were in charge of
games. We did a tug-of-war and a three-legged egg race! Towards the
end it got bad because 1 person accidentally projected an egg toward
an hermana Missionary and so all the kids ended up copying what they
saw and they were chucking eggs at this hermana missionary it was
terrible! It was a good turn out for the ward. We got some pictures.

We didn't get anyone to church this week 😢 there was a baptism after
church that we went to because Elder Richardson plays piano. It was a
good service. We stopped by a new investigator we hadn't met yet and
had a Restoration lesson just standing on his steps. It was hard to
balance talking too much and having Elder Richardson practice his
Spanish but were still practicing. This week was long but it was still
a good one because we were so busy. Those are usually the most
satisfying weeks in the end. Thank you for all of your support.

❤️ Elder Thompson

My new district minus the English Elders
Elder Richardson and I with the new car

Six Months Left! Sept. 11

Dear All,

A lot has happened since last week and this week has not slowed down!
We had transfers and I have been sent to a new area and Ward! I was
transferred to the Oakton Stake in the Spring Lake Ward. All the
Spanish missionaries say this is the best Ward as far as members. They
are so involved and so focused!! I've already seen it!

I'm with Elder Richardson now who is from Price, UT. He just finished
up training so I'm helping him with Spanish and learning new things.
We cover mostly Sterling and Ashburn.  I've met some of our
investigators and we have 2 little girls on date for baptism. They're
so hard to keep focused in lessons but we're trying! 😂 we found 4 new
investigators last week.  The last one was by a prompting I followed.
Elder Richardson asked me if I wanted to start knocking some certain
homes but I saw this guy sitting on his steps down  a different road
so we decided to talk to him and he became our investigator! He said
he had never prayed before in his life but an hour before us he posted
a prayer of his on FB and he knew it was a sign from God. It was cool.

Our district is pretty new. I'm no longer a district leader and this
is my first district I have had where our district leader is in the
English program. So that makes Elder Skousen our district leader and
Elder Lavarn, us, Elders Valdez and Ferguson and Hermanas Van and
Porter who is being trained.  Hermana Van reminds me exactly of my
sister, it's weird but cool. It's like seeing her on a mission in 3
years 🙂 not much else to say. I'm trying to find the balance of
getting work done and getting Elder Richardson to talk and use his
Spanish. It can be hard when you're the one with more Spanish. Anyway
hope everyone haves a good week.

❤️ Elder Thompson

Sorry all these pics are from last week
Last district pic with Elder Pickett
This is Gilmer and his roommate, our investigators
Exchange with Elders Cottle and Walker