Hola from Mexas!!!

I feel like I just wrote y'all!! This week flew by! Our area is progressing very well! My companion told me that she thinks I will be training soon. I hope not. This week we found 10 new investigators. Eber was confirmed on Sunday. I felt like a proud mom. Our area touches the Rio Grande River. I can officially say I've biked to Mexico;) We got lost in a field the other day down a dirt road because we thought there would be houses....there wasn't.

So tales to tell from this week.... There is this crazy dude in our ward who the Bishop has specifically told us not to go by their trailer (he's in our area). He's pretty nuts --  I wont go into detail. About a week and a half ago this guy, at one of the ward activities gave us a referral and told us to go by it. I wrote it down but didn't really pay much attention to it. A few days later he asked us if we went by and talked to the family.  I told him that we hadn't had the chance yet. He was very persistent that we go by but I still kind of brushed it off.

A few days later on Wednesday, we were doing the usual and one of our appointments texted us and cancelled.  We were sitting in the car kind of debating what we wanted to do and the thought came to me to go by this referral from the crazy guy in the ward.  I told my companion and she said she had thought the same thing!  We call the number he gave and went to the street. The number of the house didn't really exist.  I asked a guy who was outside on his lawn if he knew where it was and he told us that the house was farther back on his property and that he rented it out.  We walk back there and it's this little shack, no joke I could have built it.  It was literally a frame and plywood for the walls.  We get in there and its like 100+ degrees. The lady we talked to on the phone earlier to get the address from got another phone call and left. The dad wasn't really saying much so we started to talk to the girl that was there. She is 18 and her name is Alexis. I asked her how her parents knew the family at our church (the one that referred us to them) and she was like "Oh they aren't my parents."  After talking more with her it turns out that she is friends with the family's son (who was at work at the time). She had come the night before to their house to live. She got kicked out of her house or something along the lines of that because of family problems and she wasn't going to go back. I asked her randomly if she prayed and she said she did. I asked her what she prayed about and then I told her that we were the answer to her prayers. I told her that we were asked to come by that house over a week ago and that we didn't until that day. I then helped her notice that is was not a coincidence that she had come there the NIGHT before we came. She shared with us that she didn't think that she had a purpose in this life. It broke my heart. I shared the most sincere testimony that anybody will probably hear from me, that God loves her and she does in fact have a purpose. I can't wait to start teaching her more about her purpose here.

We are also teaching this big ole Mexican man named Jesus. He is like a giant teddy bear. He has such a strong testimony and has the biggest desire to be baptized. His spirit is ready but his body is not.  We are helping him to stop smoking. He was chewing nicotine gum instead, one every two hours.  Now he is down to one a day! We went to the gas station the other day after we had a lesson with him and I bought him 14 little packs of regular gum that is the same flavor. I want so badly for him to quit and he does too!  It's hard to see something as silly as smoking keeping him from being able to make the promises with God that he so badly wants. I just know that it's going to make him even stronger than ever! I don't have time today but I'll share some more stories about Jesus and keep y'all updated!

Well everybody, I love you all! The Lord's hand is in everything, always remember to notice it! There are no such thing as coincidences, just tender mercies. Everything we should be doing in this life is all for love and nothing for reward. Have a good week!!! Te Amo!!

Love,
Hermana Thompson

3 Months Down!!

Que honda!?

Sorry I didn't get to write yesterday. I guess the library closed for the holiday but this week we had transfers. I'm still here in good ole La Joya! This week was such a hard one. I call it the spiritual wedgie... it was uplifting but in all the hurtful ways.

a lot of people have toilets in their yard... i think they knew i was coming

I'll start with my miracle.  We got a new district leader named Elder Sessions and on Tuesday we had a meeting and at the meeting he told us to write about a family that we want to find on our missions. Since I had so much practice painting with Bob Ross before coming out here I decided I was going to draw my mystery family. I was pretty specific and everyone gave me grief for my awesome picture. I first drew the mom. She had a striped shirt on and she was literally like 9 months pregnant and wore flip flops. Then I drew two kids. After I drew the dad and he was a Mexican man with a mustache and I drew a lawn mower by him because that is what he was going to do for a living. We all had a good laugh at my picture and then I told everybody that I'm not leaving Texas until I find this family.

The next day we were out at the end of our area on our bikes mapping out the streets because we didn't have a map for this part of our area. It was weird because all of the street names were family names. Los ninos, Copadres, Comadres, Cunado, and Los Vecinos. etc. We were riding down the street and Hermana Kingsford was like "Hey, there is a lady in a striped shirt!" she was kind of mocking me for my picture I  had drawn because I made kind of a big deal out of it. I stopped on my bike in the middle of the street and I was like "Is she pregnant?!!" She said she didn't know.  I watched until the lady came around her car and BAM!!, she's like 10 months pregnant. I rode over there so fast!! We talked to her. She was also wearing flip flops. Come to find out she also has two kids. She said she couldn't talk with us right then because they were going to visit her Mother-in-Law in the hospital.  We gave her our number and our names and left.

The day after that we had planning and during planning I was venting to my companion about some things and then I was like, I'm going to go lie down and think for a minute about what I want to do. Literally, right after I said that the phone rang. This Mexican lady was asking for a "Thompson? Thompson esta?" So we talked to her. It turns out it's this pregnant lady we found!! She said that she had a baby last July and that it died and so right now they were looking for a church because she was about to have another baby and that they needed God. We told her that we would be over there in an hour!!

We get over to her trailer and she lets us in. She is telling us what's up and everything about them. She told us that her husband was looking for a better job because he mows lawns for a living and that he wasn't making very much. I was like "Wait what does your husband do?!" She was like "He cuts grass." It took every fiber of my being to not freak out!!  I found my mystery family!!  We talked more and she gave us a referral of her neighbor as well who wanted to hear from us and then we set up a return appointment.

We go back to their trailer and she was sick so we talked with the husband who was outside. He has a freakin' mustache too!  We asked if they needed help with his yard and told him we would come back when his wife felt better.

On Sunday we get a call during our dinner at a members house and it's my mystery family. The lady tells us that she really wants us to come by but her husband says that he doesn't want the Mormons to come by and teach them. He thinks we are not christian and so we asked if we could come and explain our religion to them and that we are christian and she said she would talk to him. She called yesterday and told us that he said we can't come over and she sounded scared too but that she wanted to hear from us. I think she is afraid that he will kick her out if we come over. She said that he will eventually come around so that we can go over and teach them but for us to wait. I felt like I had just gotten dumped!!! I was so frustrated, like why have I had the gift of revelation since being here and we have seen so many things that were not coincidences and then this happens. We lost almost all of our investigators. Julio's parents wont sign his baptismal paper. That's a long story I'll have to tell later too. Something happened with the other family we are teaching, we aren't sure what. Then the other family the mom kind of became antied by someone. The list goes on. Things started out so golden then literally in the span of two days everything hit the fan.

Then I realized that all the people who have been recently baptized or recently converted are having troubles. This older lady that we just reactivated, as soon as she started coming back to church her TV, washer, oven, boiler and AC all broke within like a week or so. The other recent converts are having money troubles. The list goes on. Then that's when it hit me, that us as missionaries were having the same thing happen! You know you are doing something right when everything goes wrong. Freakin' Satan.

My Fear of Horses

Also, this week we saw a cop pull over a guy at this gas station then the guy got out of his car and was walking toward the cop and the cop pulled his gun out on him and it was legit! It was like watching an episode of cops but like fifteen feet away.

We also were pros-ing this street and we heard this woman singing super loud like opera! My comp and I looked and each other and laughed! Like, "What the heck??"  I was like let's go teach her!! My comp was hesitant so I just started walking toward the house.  We got up to the porch and it was a parrot! Haha!! We taught the couple that lived there. They were an older couple. We sat on the porch and were having a good lesson but the parrot kept talking over us.  It talked in Spanish too and it would laugh really creepy. It reminded me of the parrot off of home alone 3. Good times.

This week I was bit by a Blue Healer on my calf! I loathe the dogs down here. They all chase me and they all have lice and fleas and other diseases. Sick.

My Favorite Family

This is my spiritual thought for you all. It's a Mexican saying that says, "Dime con quien andas y te dire quien ares." It means, "Tell me with whom you walk with and I'll tell you with whom you are." I love that saying. You become like the people you associate yourself with. Be the right person to begin with and you will attract others the same. It affects your character and your life long choices. I hope you all are doing well. Remember who you are! God loves you, I love you, and your mom loves you. Keep it real and have a safe week!

love,
Hermana Thompson

 God Pinata?