HOWDYYYYYYYY

Hola!!

Where to start! This week we got mini missionaries. My companion got one and I got one for the whole week. If you don't know what a mini missionary is; it's basically teaching a 16 year old how to work and not snap chat every five seconds. I decided I was going to have a nice fun day of hard core biking with my mini (I'm so mean) So I took her up to the very end of our area which is literally off the grid. There is no map of it and it's all dirt roads. Every person we talk to up there always asks us if we are afraid to be up there because there are no police! We literally hit our goals of contactng and receiving for the week in one day! At first I was nervous to get a mini because I had no idea what I was doing but I just made it all up as we went and it turned out well. We met some cool people. The first house we talked to we got a baptism in the first 5 minutes. I also learned that Texas can't ride bikes! I got in my first bike wreck of the mission! My mini crashed maybe 8 times! One of the times she just laid there for like 5 minutes (this was after she complained the whole day about hating biking) So I was like " K im leaving you!!" and I took off! I got like 1/4 of a mile down the dirt road and turned around to see if she was coming and she was still laying there in the sand! So I took a video of me yelling at her to "GEETTT UUUUUUUP" Poor kid. Hopefully she still wants to serve a mission;)  I told her I hope that she gets called to a biking area. She didn't think it was very funny.

I just layed there after my bike crash. No scratches though. It was my minis fault. she cut me off and just stopped!

She Loved Me!

Another day I took my mini to a retirement neighborhood to switch things up a bit. There are some rude old people out there! Someone needs to change their diapers. We met this old couple named Harold and Laura. The old man just opened the door without asking who it was and told us to come in! So we did. The old lady said "IM A METHODIST" I told her that was fine! We just wanted to share a message about Jesus. Then we got talking about gambling in Vegas with this 80 year old couple! They were a hoot. Another trailer we knocked on this little old lady opened the door and says "Who sent you?!" I was like, "Um Jesus did!" She slammed the door on us as fast as a little old woman could slam the door. (sllloooowww) We also got lost in that retirement neighborhood. Don't worry we eventually found our way out.

Van Ride with the Minis

So the Jehovah Witnesses love to come by and try and bible bash with us at our apartment. I kept trying to INSIST that she take my Book of Mormon. She wouldn't! One day I'll get her. The other lady told us "That it's good that we were young and wanting to preach the word of God but that she would feel pretty bad if she were wasting her time preaching wrong doctrine." I was so close to slapping her across the face with my Book of Mormon! The next day they had two other ones come over and try to talk with us and so we just sat in our study room and they wouldn't leave our door because they could see us through the window. So I finally got up and answered it and was like "Hello I only speak English" and they were like "What about the other girl, where is she, does she speak Spanish" I was like "What? I  don't know what you're saying?" Then they left.

i look gross but this is one of my favorite families after we helped them move

We also did a lot of service this week. We moved branches for one family and helped plant mango trees and that was fun. Then we went and helped one of my favorite families who is actually from Idaho Falls but they are stuck down here now:(  We helped move them to their new place down here.  Sister Kingsford and I moved a fridge! I was more than happy to help them but I was even more happy to wear pants! It was magical. After that we had a little time before it was 9:00 so I went and bought a strawberry Fanta at a corner store and we went and drank it outside sitting in the dirt with my favorite little family. They have a single mom who works so we usually go by when we can and play with them or help teach them things. They love it when I bring a soccer ball and they make me teach them how to rainbow. They are getting pretty close! Pretty soon I'll have the whole valley pros;)

Cactus

My little thing of inspiration this week was that as missionaries and even in life we do a lot of things that aren't accounted or recognized. Those are the things that matter. Once we are doing things out of pure love to help someone else and not out of recognition of others is such an awesome thing. It's the small things in life that count and it's also the small ways to help others that count. Whether it's taking time to drink a soda in the dirt with some kids or to smile at somebody, those are the things that keep others moving forward; little pieces of love and kindness. My challenge is to do something for someone else this week that you wouldn't normally do and you will see the blessings from it.

Another Sunset

I love you all.  Thank you for your love and support and for your prayers! Keep smiling!:)

Love Hermana Thompson

Giant frog I caught while doing service

HOLAAAAAA!

Hola todos!

I hope I have enough time to write what I want! This week was freakin' nuts! God gave me a big bite of humble pie.

It has starting to get super hot and extremely humid! My hair looks like a Jew fro sometimes.  I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'm so sweaty. It's gross but it builds character.

Lately I've been praying to see a miracle and this is my little experience. We had a dinner appointment at a members' house, who I really enjoy. She made us Mole. If you don't know what mole is, I envy you. My companion asked her what was in it. It was fried animal crackers, hot chocolate, tomatoes, apple, peppers and a pear. They  put it in a blender and make it into a sauce and then put it over chicken. It looks the same coming in your body as it does coming out. My miracle was that I managed to eat an entire plate without throwing up. I think it's the only food here that I've managed to eat slowly. Luckily she didn't force me to eat seconds like everyone else does. The days we have two meal appointments in a row kill me. Yesterday we did and then after we went to a third house and they kept saying I was too skinny. (this was after I ate like 3 plates of food) needless to say I managed to eat literally half a watermelon because every time I finished a piece somehow there would be another on my plate. When we got in the car my companion just laughs and said "How do you feel?!" ... "Full. I feel full."

I was also bit by a pig this week! People have weird pets. I counted all of my tallies for how many dogs we have been chased by so far in my mission -- 222!! I hate them all.

The first lesson I learned this week is even though I'm a missionary I can't do stupid things. I have bugged my companion to go teach in this voodoo store that a member lives behind. Finally she let me but she waited at the door while I talked to the guy and taught him. After we left I told her that I felt creepy and she said she did too. She then asked if I knew what that place was. I was like, "No, not really, I just thought it would be cool to convert a voodoo man." (dumb idea) I guess it was a santa muerta store which in English means death saint. They worship death and have death shrines. She then told me that they worship it and have brought people back to life and a few other crazy stories. It's pretty much a Satan worshipping thing. I was like "WHAT?! Why did you let me go in there?!!??" and my companion said, " I thought you knew!!" We couldn't get back into the spirit of things the whole day and it sucked. I'm trying to remember that I'm not invincible. We also found a Buddhist temple that we thought was a house but it was cool. We talked to a Chinese man. He was nice.

We went by a recent converts' house this week who stopped coming to church. It's a family of 7. They have been trying to get help from the Bishop and having a hard time paying taxes. When we walked in I noticed they had a brand new TV that was like 60 in. and we got talking to them and she said she didn't like to go to church because she didn't like wearing a dress and that's why they don't go anymore and that they are trying to pay their bills and a few other excuses and that they were having a hard time. I was like just wear pants to church then! I asked her what the real reason was that she didn't want to come because that was a dumb reason not to go to church. She was saying they are having a hard time because they needed to buy a work visa or something. So we pointed at the TV and we were like then why did you buy a new TV?!  She told us she got it from a pawn shop for 200 dollars. Which is a lie. I was like well what else? She told us that her friend told her that we aren't Christians because we are called Mormons. I sat there thinking and my companion was like do you know how to answer that? ... I took off my name tag and I asked "What is the name of our church? she answered. I asked, "What's the biggest lettering on my tag?!" She was silent because she knew where I was going with it. I said, "JESUCRISTO! Do you still think we aren't Christian?" My companion loves that I'm so blunt when we doubt bust.

We went by another less active this week. We were sitting there talking with the mom and the kids. One of the little girls who was about 3 brought her chair by mine and was eye balling me for like five minutes. She then went in the other room and came out with a dress on and sat by me again. She stared some more. She kept looking at my shoes. She left the room again and came back out with her shoes and I helped her put them on. She had my companion braid her hair and she came and sat by me and crossed her legs like mine. It was adorable. It took me back a minute and made me realize that people are watching everything we do. I feel like a normal person but we are representatives of Jesus Christ. We are literally disciples of Christ. That's all we do 7 days a week is be the mouth piece that Christ wants us to be. It made me realize that little girl was watching me and wanted to be like me and that's how we need to look at Christ is to watch him and study him in the Bible, etc. and become more like him because he was the ultimate example.

We meet so many people and hear so many dark things in people's lives whether it's about people's children dying, people being burned in a fire, husbands in jail and not being able to provide for their kids, stories of abuse and peoples kids on drugs, we have heard it all. The other day we were in the car driving and my companion asked what I was thinking. I told her that I was frustrated because I want to help these people with all of their problems. I told her that when they tell me they become my problems and that I was a little overwhelmed because I have the problems of many now and not just mine! My companion then asked me "Do you know what that means?"  I said, "Yeah, a headache!" She said, "That means you love the people," Love is hard! It hurts so good. Although I can't give everyone their papers and bring their loved ones back to life or make drugs disappear I can give them the ultimate gift and bring them to Christ. Helping others remember that Christ died on the cross and the atonement has already been paid for; it's already been done! The biggest thing I ask people is if they are going to let his death be in vain or if they are going to accept him. This life is going to go on and we are going to have our trials either way. I tell people that and I ask them if they are going to go through this crazy adventure alone or if they want to go through it with Christ because I've done both and it's a lot easier with Christ! Christ chose us before we chose him. It's been a blessing to see people change and to help their souls.

It doesn't take a mission to be a missionary or to be an example. We are all on this earth to learn. Although we all have different trials and problems we all want to end up in the same place; on the right hand of God. Help those around you because I can literally tell you that you would be surprised at what people are going through whether you know it or not. Be kind. People won't remember the things you said or the clothes you wore but they will remember how you made them feel. Charity is the true love of Christ. I hope you all have a good week! Thank you for the love and support and prayers. Te Amo!!

Thompson Street! 

This is what our backyard looks like. right when you open the door there is like 5 feet of grass haha!

"nor responsible for accidents" outside our apartment haha  

Howdy!

Hola y'all!!!

This week was a little slow but still nuts to say the least! We do a lot of biking and my legs are getting so buff! We have been making friends with the neighborhood kids and then they point out the best houses to go to! I teach them all how to pop wheelies. None of them can do it so they make me show them over and over. They yell "Otra vez! Otra vez!" I also have been playing a lot of soccer, pretty much everyday. It's hard to play in a dress but I still school all of the kids. All of my shoes are pretty much destroyed and I look homeless sometimes. I also had to climb a fence in a dress!

The other day we went to a random house and they were peeling oranges and so we ate oranges from their backyard with this family and taught them on the porch. The little kids' name is Kevin.  He is in second grade. We taught him how to pray and he prayed for two girlfriends. Who knows; God works in mysterious ways. The next time we came back he ran up to us and gave us a huge hug and said "You came!!" It melted my heart. He and his cousin who is in 3rd grade come from Mexico to stay at their grandmas house during the week to go to school and then they go to Mexico every weekend. We committed the kids to be baptized but we are having a hard time with what church they should be attending because they literally live two lives. So we have been working with that.

We have also been working in the same neighborhood as the Jehovah Witnesses. (curses) It's okay because we pretty much stole all of their investigators. We met a boy named Julio. He is 17 and we have been teaching him the past two weeks. On Sunday he told us he would come to church so we set up a ride for him. Just a side note -- I think that Sundays are like a giant game of 'Where's Waldo?' except I call it "Where's Juan?" You get to church and you're like "Where is so and so?" then you have to go and find them! We went over to Julios to introduce him to his ride and he didn't want to go! I used my youngest child skills and talked him into it. I think I had an easier time talking Dad into getting a trampoline.  He didn't want to come because he thought that it was too early. He said he didn't know enough. I explained to him we don't go to church because we know everything we go because we want to learn more. After I talked to him he decided he would come. He loved it! He said he had fun and loved the ward and he wants to come back. I was so happy! This kid has been talking to the Jehovah Witnesses for 2 years. He never went to church with them but he said they invited him several times.

Another lesson we had I was sitting on the porch of this lady's trailer home and we were listening to her story. It's super sad and I wont get into it. She has a pet chihuahua and it had lice or fleas or something and the stupid dog kept trying to come sit by me so I finally kicked it in the middle of this lesson! I'm pretty sure she saw too but she didn't say anything.

After church yesterday we went to go find this house that the zone leaders gave us from a referral they had. It was clear at the end of our area and it took us awhile to find it. It was up this dirt road and not many houses. We parked on the road and walked up to the house and nobody answered. They had two other little trailer houses farther back on the property so we decided to go knock on the doors of them. While walking back I got a super creepy feeling like somebody punched me in the stomach. I didn't say anything though so we walked to the first building and nobody answered and then the next one which was actually a school bus that was turned into a house. On both buildings were padlocks on the outside of them, but it looked like someone lived in them. Hard to explain. Immediately the story of the guy who kept kidnapped people in his backyard came to my mind and I told my companion that I had an off feeling about this place and she was like I thought the same thing! She called up the Zone Leaders to get more information and to ask about it and while she was on the phone I was kind of snooping around and found this crater hole with tin roof coverings over it so I pulled out my light from my bike and tried to turn it on to shine it down and it wouldn't turn on! Just then my comp. got off the phone and called me over and as soon as I walked away my light turned on! We eventually left after talking to some random sketchy lady who drove by and claimed to be the provider. She was super uneasy that we were there. There is probably some slave trade going on it that place and I almost got murdered but we have to go back this week to try and contact it again. That place gave me the willies.

We also had exchanges this week and I went with a companion to McAllen. It was weird being in a neighborhood with real houses. It was an English area and the people there were such butts. They were super rude. We got the doors closed in our faces a lot. Our lesson was in English and so it was hard to teach but this little second grade boy did tell me that I "have a good style" It was hilarious.  I love my ghetto La Jola though. I held a parrot yesterday. It bit me of course! I decided that animals and I share a mutual feeling if we don't like each other; especially the nappy dogs down here.

I guess I better leave you all with something about Jesus and such. Life is hard and we all aren't perfect but that's the great thing about the atonement. We are all here to learn and to become better people. This life is for progression and to come unto Christ. Some days are rough and I want to give up and others I help so many people and I forget about my problems. God has us in the palm of his hands. He is looking out for us. When things are good he rejoices with us and when things are hard that is when he carries us. If there is one thing that I have learned here it would be that I don't believe in coincidences. Everything happens for a reason; every person we meet, we met them for a reason. Make sure that you are the reason that somebody wanted to become better. The Lord watches over us with the tiny things and with the big things. Always notice the Lord's hand and life will become so much more rich. Trials make you become stronger. I believe that we have trials because we have something we need to learn from them. Make sure you learn from them or you go through them for nothing.

I love you all! Thank you for all of the support and prayers and letters! I think about you all daily! Have a great week! And be the miracle in somebody's life.
                                                   
Love,
Hermana Thompson!

Jesus Mural 

Schooling the Mexis in Soccer

The First Adventures in Texas

 Howdy doo dee!!!

This week has been awesome, rough, tiring, sad, happy and everything else! Where to start! I wish I had time to write every detail but I sadly don't. I always forget I am in America and then I see a sign with Texas on it and I remember. It is extremely ghetto here.

The very first house (trailer) I went in we were tracting an area and saw that the door was open so we went and knocked on the door. This lady answered and let us in and we talked to her for awhile. She was freakin nuts! They had this guinea pig they were playing with and she was telling us that she ate them! The Mexicans love to give us drinks; most of them are like a fruit drink that I have never heard of but I was drinking a weird drink that she had offered us and was afraid to finish it after she had said that! It was probably guinea  pig juice. I wish I had time to tell about all of the investigators but I'll tell about the good ones. All the people we are teaching we have pretty much found or met since I got here. We have roughly 7 new people/families that we are teaching as of now. One of the members in the ward is a mom that is baptized and the two sons who are 13 and 14 aren't. They go to church and seminary but they won't be baptized. We spent a little bit talking to them and trying to help them understand the importance. I probably would have had an easier time trying to baptize a cat.

Do you want to hear the worst day ever? On Friday when we started biking it wasn't raining but as we got a few miles it started to pour and I mean POUR. The roads turned into rivers.  We went to the trailer of an investigator that we had found earlier in the week. Her name is Claudia and we are teaching her and her 5 kids. At first we started teaching them standing on the doorstep while it's still pouring but then she finally let us inside. We taught them about prayer and Joseph Smith and the spirit was so strong. We had her 13 year old boy pray and things went really well. After that we started to bike home but we stopped off the side of the road and were deciding what we should do when this car stopped and said that they would feed us and we could teach them. (it wasn't a coincidence that we couldn't decide where to go) it turns out that the son Jose had just been baptized and that the rest of the family wasn't. We ate and taught them. They offered us a ride to our car (we parked at a members house then biked) because it was pouring rain and was dark but I insisted we ride our bikes but my companion said that they should give us a ride. When we got to the place where we had parked our car the guy who gave us a ride tried to back up to drop us off. He got his truck stuck in a ditch and had backed into the mailbox. We had the member come out and see if they could pull him out. The member's van got stuck too!! We got the van pushed out and then forever later we got the truck pulled out. The same guy who got the truck stuck jumped out of the truck to help push and nobody was in it to stop it, so it rolled on the other side of the road and got stuck on that side!! Then we realized our car was stuck too. The Zone Leaders finally came and pulled us out and we didn't get to bed until like midnight! Also, I got bit like by a million fire ants while this was all going on. I did catch a GIANT frog. We were able to find two new investigators that day so it all worked out.

While riding bikes I've been keeping tally marks on how many dogs chase us. It's really fun. I don't count how many times we get chased though because that's too many because the same dog will chase us several times!  This week we were chased by 12 dogs! I almost kicked one in the face because they try to bite my heels!! They never chase my companion either!

Also, my stomach problems are back! Every time we eat at someones house I almost poop my dress. My stomach is a fire ball but the food is so good. The little kids laugh at my Spanish and everyone loves to call on me to say the prayer. I've been getting really good at saying the same prayer. Some days are hard here but when we go out and teach the people I forget about my problems. We play pross ball which is when we are tracting and see someone playing we go play with them. We made a deal with some kids that if we won them in a basketball game we got to teach them about Jesus. Sadly, they won.

OH i almost forgot...there are ice cream trucks EVERYWHERE! We teach a lot on peoples' door steps or will be talking to people on the street and we will be in a serious spiritual moment like "I know that through Christ.." then in the middle of a sentence an ice cream truck comes by blaring some stupid kids' song super loud. It has happened so many times!

We taught two sisters who thought Moroni was an alien and they believe we came from aliens. That was a rough lesson. We taught them behind the counter of a convenience store they own. I don't have time to go into detail but it's hard to explain why angels aren't aliens in Spanish!

I hope you have a great week! I feel your prayers and thoughts all of the time! Thank you for the support!! love you!
                                                                   Hermana Thompson