8 MONTHS

October 19, 2015

Hello. 

I always forget that it is October! It is still in the 90s down here. Last night I had a hard time falling asleep because I was so cold. I think our apartment was like 75 degrees.  I'm becoming a baby. 

I made Sister Tovar give me a pump after service

This week we did a service project at the branch presidents house. He lives on a pretty cool ranch. The rama is doing a garden for all the members on his property. It's pretty cool.  We rototilled the garden by hand with shovels and I used the pick ax. (I probably shouldn't have because of my shoulder but it was too fun. I couldn't resist. It was for a good cause though). The garden is probably the size of Dad's but the dirt felt like the dirt in Idaho in maybe March, like frozen clay. I always enjoy the service projects we do! 

This dog followed us home so I decided to bring him in the other sisters' room for a surprise when they got home. Hopefully he didn't have fleas haha!

The further I get in my mission the more I realize I'm becoming my parents! Every morning I make a big bowl of oatmeal with raisins. Whenever I see a butterfly I always think of Dad's voice. "Oooh look at that butterfly!" Or a sunset I hear mom "What a beautiful sunset."  During workouts in the morning the moon is still and I always see "Venus the morning star!"  There are more but I'll leave it at that. 

Transfers 

On Saturday we were looking for this less active family, the Rodriguez family and for the Mendoza family and they weren't home or we couldn't find them. On Sunday we got to church and were talking to this family and we asked what their last name was and it was the Rodriguez family that we had been trying to find. Then we talked with this other boy after church who ended up being the Mendoza kid.  He hadn't been to church in 2 years! Ask and ye shall receive. 

This past transfer I've been having lots of dreams for some reason. The other day we went with a member and were going by less actives and getting to know them. We went to this one lady's house in Harlingen and her granddaughter opened the door. My immediate thought was "Oh, I know her, she and her grandma have come the past few weeks to church" Then we got in the room and I immediately recognized the grandma and we started to talk with her.  As the conversation went on I realized that they hadn't been to church in several months. I leaned over and asked the granddaughter if they had been to any activities or anything in the past several months and she told me no that she goes to church with her mom somewhere else now because the grandma had been sick. (The little girl is nine and is not a member and neither is her mom). I then realized I had a dream that I had forgotten about until that moment of this little girl being at church with her grandma and them walking past me and then of her baptism.  It was the weirdest feeling and almost unexplainable!  We will be working with them more often! 

Elder Browning and I

The work here is great and it's been a privilege to be a part of it and to learn more about myself in the process of helping others. The Lord is so mindful and detailed in all that he does. The big picture is truly amazing. 

I love you all and have a good week 

Hermana Thompson 

We found a giant diaper.  I decided to try it on.  Don't worry I think it was clean!

QUE HONDA?!

October 12, 3015

HOLA MY PEEPS.

Today I have an MRI at 4. I'm actually excited about that because I get to take a fabulous nap and I'll be going on exchanges with Hermana Tovar. She is my favorite and we get along super well.  She went with me to my doctor's appointment last week and we had a ball. We talked to some crazy old people in the waiting room. I told her that I had to go to the bathroom and I got up and the door was locked and one of the old people told me I have to go ask the front desk.  I did and was standing there waiting and they were all telling me what to do. It literally turned into this big ordeal of old people telling me who and where I should go to use the restroom.  To be honest, I didn't have to pee that bad but the entire lobby got involved and so it would have been more awkward just to go sit down. One of the old ladies was like "Just pee right there on the floor, that'll teach em!"  I didn't know what to say!  They all made fun of me because my face went red.  It was a hoot.  After we went to Sonic and got Nerd Slushies and that made my entire week. I miss those. I also realized I have a doctor's appointment every Monday this entire transfer.  Woof!

I think I worked with my companion like twice this week. It's been weird but I've actually had a good week!  I was on an exchange with Hermana Tervort on Tuesday and Wednesday.  We were in our area so I got to pick everything we did and who we needed to go see.  We went by the last appointment of the day, Hermano Del Angel; my 60 year old boyfriend.  Well, one of them.  We had a good lesson and ate chicken in the middle of this trailer park with no lights.  Afterwards we were biking home.  Side note:  Hermana Tervort has not been in a bike area her whole mission and every time I looked back she was like a half mile away out of breath.  I felt bad.  Also, Mom will you send me bigger garment bottoms? My legs are now too buff.  Send me the carinessa ones Small-A. 

I was a little ways ahead and we were biking home.   It was pretty dark and we were on the shoulder of the main road -- Sunnystrip 77.  It's one of the busier roads, a five lane road and it's pretty sketchy.  I was just biking along minding my own business and I looked to my left and there was this big SUV who came out of no where from this parking lot. the fool wasn't going to even stop!  It was like slow motion and I was about to get T-boned and splat into this busy road. She slammed on her brakes literally like 8 inches away from me. I don't know how or if she even saw me because she was on her phone but it was literally as if something was between me and the car.  It was as if she hit something else. We made eye contact and then I just kept peddling. and she took off. I had to stop for a second because my heart came out my bum!  It was so scary. Now I really do know I'm invincible!!  That wasn't the moral to my story. It was just proof to me of how important this work is to the Lord. I literally should have been hit. 

Welp, the church is true everybody. This life isn't a coincidence, there is more to it then taking it day by day.  A lot more goes on than we realize. God is mindful of our potentials and who we can become and who we were before this life. Satan is also aware of it.  We are in a spiritual battle. Don't wait to almost get hit by a car to let it "Wake you up!" ;) this time is so precious and what we do today determines our future. 

I love you all. Thank you for your love and support and your prayers they obviously work daily! Have a good week!

Love Hermana Thompson

HELLLLLLOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

October 5, 2015

This week flew by! We had a lot of meetings and our exchanges and conference so we stayed busy!  My district leader found out that I was sleeping on the sidewalk during morning exercises. I was telling some missionaries a story of when I was laying on the sidewalk. It was when school had started so kids from the apartment would come out to their rides to school in the morning. This girl and her group of friends were walking by across the lot and she saw me and stopped in a panic and I think she thought I was dead.  It was really funny. I sat up so she wouldn't have a heart attack. My district leader overheard me say that and so now our whole district gets up at 5:30 every morning to work out together. It's awful and I complain every morning.  We meet at the school fields between our apartment complexes  The other morning we got there before the elders did so naturally I laid in the parking lot and fell asleep. The elders got there and we started to walk onto the field when a cop pulls up! I guess that someone called the cops because someone was laying down out by the school.  We all had a good laugh.  At least I did.  I'm turning into Dad.  I can literally sleep anywhere I sit down. It's awesome!

We ate at olive garden before conference- haha kind of made me homesick sadly!

This transfer has been really good so far. I love the sisters we live with. Sister Tovar and I get along really well and we always have good talks together. She served in La Joya too. I am learning a lot, especially about loving people. My district leader also found out that I am not fond of hugging people and so he makes me hug my companion all the time.  

Our Zone

Conference was great though. I loved elder Holland's talk about mothers. He always goes hard and I love how blunt he is. He made the comment how mothers carry us for 9 months and they continue to carry us now and the true love of parents and Christ. I love how he tied it into seeing everybody through their parent's eyes. How much more love we can have for people. Everything starts with love. If you don't love you won't serve, if you don't serve you won't be humble.  If you're not humble you won't be faithful, and if you're not faithful you cannot progress. Everything starts with love and a lot of my mission is teaching me how to love people.  Love what I do and love every moment.  Like I love that I hate working out at 5:30 am!;)   

I cut this old mans yard with a machete it was awesome then he gave us his debit card to go by cokes at the store

Someone in our branch makes piñatas for a living. This one is bigger than I am!!

Chilling with my chihuahua friend

There is a man sitting behind me here in the library talking to himself and it's really funny so I lost my train of thought.

My new little friend

I love you all have a good week!

Love Hermana Thompson 

%^$&@^%#$!*^@&#*@#($^*&$^#&&

September 28, 2015

Howdy Ho!!! 

Yes,  everyone I saw the red moon! I have to ride a bike everywhere! It was impossible to miss;)

This week I got hit on by a 60 year old man and a 77 year old man although not in the same day, I also got called a Mexican. I had to eat fish, and cake, then I got sad when I realized that I-m getting fat by eating food I don't even like! 

I had a lot to say this week but I left my planner out in the sisters car and I'm too lazy to go and get it so sorry, not sorry. 

Also, who the heck is Sergio? That's hilarious that Dad is going to do his dental work too! Pretty soon you will have all of south Texas up there getting their teeth done! How great though! 

 I'm still here in good old San  Benito with good old Sister Whitten. We don't live with the STLTs anymore and that has actually helped a lot. They weren't dramatic or anything but it has taken a lot of pressure off things so this week was actually really good! We now live with Sister Tervort and Sister Tovar.  Sister Tovar is my Great-Grandma" in the mission.  She trained Sister Isom (who I lived with last transfer) and Sister Isom trained Sister Kingsford who then trained me! So I have lived with all of my "living" posterity in the mission. I hate the missionary terms.  Also, Sister Lance, my second companion, well I would call her my Dad #1 because Sister Kingsford my first companion was my "mom" and #2.  We are the Elders of the Sister missionaries because we eat a lot and we are gross.  She calls me her son.  This transfer Sister Lance and Sister Kingsford are companions!! So my mom and dad are together now!  It's actually really, really weird. They are both STLs now in Brownsville! So they are over The Brownsville Zone and the Harlingen Zone because we are right next to each other.  Tomorrow I will be on an exchange with them which is really weird to think. And Elder Browning is their Zone leader! 

The Women's thing was good. I didn't fall asleep so that was nice. I liked the story that President Utchdorf shared. We didn't have any investigators come to it which was sad. We have been teaching this family of 12 though! We were biking last week and we were crossing one of the bridges and there was this boy fishing on the other side of the bridge and his little Chihuahua (of course) got away and ran up onto the bridge just as we were riding by. I almost ran it over with my bike!  I hurried and jumped off to help the boy catch his dog. After we caught the mutt, we were talking to the boy and telling him what we do and he says that his older sister is a member!  We have been going over there and making friendships with them and hopefully they will all be baptized here soon! They are the Hinojosa family. They live in a three bedroom house. The parents and 9 of the kids. One is already baptized and two are under age. It is a zoo over there but I love it.  

Thank you all for the prayers and fasting. I literally can tell a difference in this week and wasn't really sure why. Then when I got on to email today 6 or so people said that they had fasted for me. A gem can't be shined without being buffed and a man can't become better without trials. Thank you for helping me get through them! The mission is great and I miss and love you all! I pray for each of you every day! enjoy your week! 

Love,

Hermanita Thompson 

7 freakin' monnnthhhssss doe!

September 21, 2015

Hello my loves! 

I would love to tell you my really fun experience to the doctors office.  I think I would have been better off going to Mexico.  Last P-day we hurried and got all of our stuff done so that one of the STLT's and I could drive an hour to my doctors appointment.  We get to the office and I filled out a bunch of paper work and we sat in the waiting room for like 40 minutes. They finally called my name.  The nurse takes me back and weighs me (I've gotten fat) and then she measures me. She says "seven... zero! You're 6 foot!" and in my head I'm like 'geez I feel like Hagrid, there's no way I'm 6 foot!' then I realized that the nurse took her Helen Keller pill and that I'm really 5' 10" so I didn't say anything and she took me into the room and I handed her all of my medical records from Dr. Biddulph's office. She was putting things through the computer and then she points at a word on my records and says "What does that mean?" I looked at the word and I was like "Clavicle..... Like... your shoulder..." then she was like "Oh thanks!" Then the STL Sister Hunter was like "So how long have you worked here?" and the nurse was like "Oh not very long I think around 9 months!" Then after awhile the doctor walks in and he is like straight up from India or something. He told me that there were only two solutions to my shoulder,; That I could deal with it or that I could take a nerve medication. He said "Okay" between every sentence. I'm not kidding. I think he said it about 130 times. I asked him about the motor function of the nerve and the sensory function and that I knew that motor function doesn't work anymore but that the sensory is still signaling to my brain, that there is pain. And then he was like, "Oh yeah, well you can go in to a specialist and they can go in and destroy the rest of it but you won't be able to feel that part of your shoulder for the rest of your life." It was dumb because he didn't even bring that up until I said something about it! Like he had forgot or something! Hard to explain.  I was already annoyed by that point so he prescribed this nerve medicine that usually people with seizures take and I hate it. I haven't studied once this week because it makes me super super tired. Basically my options are to take a nerve medication or to go in and have them destroy the rest of the nerve. I haven't decided yet. I have a month... 

We have transfers tomorrow... I hope that I get transferred! I probably won't  just for saying that. There has been a lot of drama with my companion and every one of our leaders slowly turned things into a bigger and bigger deal.  We went out to eat with the zone leaders because we won the steaks. They ended up getting into a wreck in the parking lot which was actually really funny. Elder Ward was backing up and T-boned a truck because he wasn't looking at his companion while he was backing him up. I was like four feet away from it and it was awesome!  We still got our steaks though while they stayed out and talked to the cops.  Nobody got hurt but we had to have interviews with them afterward because it was made such a big deal from the Sister APs that we live with and our district leader. Then everything was fine.  I won't get into details because it's the most retarded thing in the world and I don't have time. 

Was the devotional good at BYU-I Mom? I remember having you come up. You would always fall asleep during them and then I would be stuck there watching them! But the lunches with you made up for it:) I miss those days.  

Also quit having all of the grand kids sleep in my room!!!! I know i'ts so awesome but there are literally seven other bedrooms to choose from!!!! And that the dog threw up on my bed.... don't tell me things like that.  I'm glad to hear it was entertaining watching the kids though. 

Thank you for the letter Mom. I really needed it. The past few weeks have been... pretty bad. I love the joseph smith story you sent too. In D&C 121 and 122 are probably my favorite chapters.  It's hard now but I know I'm being made into who I need to be. I love you all have a safe and good week!

 Love Hermana Thompson 

¡Que Vato!

September 14, 2015

Hello Hello!

Thanks for writing me mom!!   We are writing earlier today because we are in a hurry. I have that doctors appointment that I've had for a month, today at 3:00 so we are on a little time crunch. I don't think the MRI is today, I think its just a consultation or something. I'll  keep you updated. We have to drive an hour to McAllen/Mission area. I'm hoping to get everything all figured out. I feel like I've kind of hit rock bottom the past few weeks and so its all up hill from here.

This week was pretty eventful in a few different ways. Our entire zone had a competition for finding and getting baptismal dates and things like that. The winner would get a steak dinner from the zone leaders.  My ears perked up at steak and so we went hard.  My companion and I won the whole competition! (Its us, the two STLTs, and 22 elders in our zone). So they are taking us out this Saturday. I told them I wanted the cowboy cut at Texas Roadhouse so we will see;) 

Where are the white people toiletries?

About the second week or so of being here my companion and I were contacting less actives and we went by this one ladies house who hadn't been to church in awhile. She had moved but it turned out that her brother Ivan, who is not a member, lives there. We have been teaching him for the last month or so.  A week or two ago he told us that he would get missionaries from all kinds of churches and even from ours come by but he would never let them in or talk to them, but the day we came by he didn't know why but he let us in and he said that he was so grateful he did.  He would always read what we asked him to, he stopped drinking, his prayers were fantastic, he was the most prepared and accepting person I have yet to teach. His baptismal date was for the beginning of October. About a week or two ago he also told us that he would be moving to Mexico to work for a year. We had been making plans and things to help him still progress and such. On Saturday we were sitting in a zone meeting and we get a text from Ivan saying that he loved us and that it was good to know us but he was leaving to Mexico earlier. We walked out of the middle of the meeting to go call him to see what was up. He had left that day and was already in Brownsville getting ready to cross the border!  On the phone we could kind of tell that he was crying. He told us that it had been such a pleasure getting to know us and help him grow closer towards God. After our phone call ended my companion and I just sat on the floor and cried. I don't know how to explain it but I had felt like a part of my spirit just died. I would compare it to getting a phone call and finding out someone you love dearly just passed away (not as dramatic obviously). We are doing everything we can to get him connected with the missionaries in Mexico. I will jump the border if I have to! I know that the Lord is going to make sure he finds them but it's still hard just not knowing and having that unsurity that he WILL find the gospel over there. I just hope I can stay in contact with him! 

A lady gave us cool hats that she knitted

The other day it started to rain SO hard! We were out talking to these guys that we had met a few days earlier. I tease one of them and call him Brother Joe.  He hates it.  Later I made the mistake of telling him my first name because they wouldn't stop asking.  Now he calls me sister Abbie.  It's weird. It's this little group of older guys who work at this little dumpy mechanic shop/trailer by our apartment. They are always out there drinking and having a BBQ so they feed us all the time which is nice.  We had just got there and were talking to them and they had us come inside this little trailer because it started to rain. Then it POURED. We were  hiding out from the rain and they gave us cokes to drink because we turned down their "holy water" (Bud Light)  Brother Joe says lets have a cheers!  We held our cokes in with their beers and cheers to "friendship" It was great. It reminded me of the story where someone asked Jesus why he was hanging around all of these sinners and adulterers and thieves. Jesus tells them something like we are all children of God or something like that. I don't remember how the end part of that went but you get the point. 

Biking home in the rain

Welp I forgot everything else I was going to say but that's pretty much it.  Nothing super cool.  I got to hold an iguana that was awesome! 

I love you all so much. Have a great week! 

Love Hermanita Thompson

HOLA!!

I'm getting so bad at keeping the days and weeks straight! Things are starting to cool down a little bit here and by cool down I mean that it's starting to be in the 90s. 

The kids

Family and friends

On Sunday we had a baptism! Well 3 actually! I don't even remember what I have and haven't told y'all. We have been going through the ward list. We found a less active lady named
Sister Montez a few weeks back. She got married when she was 14. She is in her 40's now and her husband isn't a member; just her. She has a daughter that is on drugs and things and lives in Houston.  Her daughter's name is April.  April has 4 kids. Ramiero, Abigail, Timmy and Angel. These kids have been in and out of foster care until finally Sister Montez was able to get custody of them in January.  Her grand kids are technically her kids now.  We have had so much fun teaching them and getting to know their cute little family.  Sister Montez tells us that it's God's way of giving her a second chance, to raise these kids. At the baptism we were all kind of talking afterwards and Elder Thompson was playing a song on the piano. I was talking with Ram about something and he stopped in mid-sentence and his eyes got really big and he looks at me and says, "I had a dream about this!"  It happened a long time ago and he hadn't remembered until Elder Thompson was playing the song because the song was in his dream about his baptism.  It was a cool little tender mercy.  Ram also has some crazy dreams that he has shared with us. I wish I had that gift! I need to write them all down. The only spiritual dream I have had was the night I decided to start my mission papers. I told Elder Thompson our district leader about it and he told me to study the significance of what it means, so I have been working on that.  

Riding away from the sunset

Our district

Things this week have been up and down. I've had a little mid-life mission crisis the past week or two but I'm pushing through. I kind of went into a mini-depression and started to second guess things.  It's amazing how good Satan is at his job. I've seen miracles, helped people and touched lives but yet I'm still so weak and how he uses that and knows that!  It's amazing how fragile our spirits are. How much we have to take care of them and be aware of our spiritual needs as well.  I'm learning day by day how to turn my weaknesses into strengths. I think the Lord has blessed me with depression and A.D.D to become humble and to be a learner.  It's the hardest thing I have ever done! I have a long way to go! I'm learning a lot this transfer and hopefully growing too.

I love you all. I hope that your week goes great!
Love Hermana Thompson

Homemade basketball hoop!

Teaching them how to duck face!