One and DONE!

March 14, 2016

Hello from....... Laredo!!!! 

The cars in the picture are in Mexico

My new companion is Sister Moore. We are the STLs for North Laredo and South Laredo Zones. My area is called South Gate and we are in the South Zone. You can literally see into Mexico from the balcony of our apartment! Our apartment is in the middle of this ghetto neighborhood and I love it! Yesterday while driving home from church I saw a guy on the sidewalk with no shirt on holding a hand gun! While contacting I also watched a pit bull eat a rock the size of my fist. I'm already in love with my new area. I hope I die here (in the mission). I might die literally too. Just kidding mom. Everyone is nice here:) 

We drove to Mexico!  That is the river and on the other side is Mexico

When I got here the first house we went to was an investigator named Maria. She has come to church three times. We knocked on the door and her mom came out and told us off. She said for us to not come by anymore because she was already baptized and that she has things that she should be focusing on right now. Sister Moore was pretty upset about that. We decided to go bike up a couple more streets and contact houses. As we were biking we saw this guy sitting on his porch. We decided to talk with him and he had us walk around the gate and come sit on the porch with him. We got to talking with him, his name is Robert. The elders had been teaching him and he had come to church two or three times but he left his wife and moved into our area. The elders didn't know that, they thought that Robert had just been ignoring him. They hadn't been in contact with him for two weeks or so and we just "randomly" found him! He was going to get baptized and wasn't able to because he has problems with smoking cigarettes and pot. When we went to go show him a video his background on his tablet was a pot plant so I changed it for him to a picture of Jesus. He liked it and ended up keeping it haha. He also calls me Thomas. Which I think is great. I don't have the heart to tell him my name isn't Thomas so I just go with it. At the end of the lesson I told Robert that I was taking some of his cigarettes. I was going to take five and he said three so we agreed on four. I took his joint away from him too. As we were walking out I broke the cigarettes in half over the garbage can. I thought he was going to have a heart attack! He was SO funny about it. I decided that I wouldn't torture him so we threw the blunt into the sewer after we left so he couldn't see. The next time we came back he was like "Thomas I hid my smokes from you!" I told him that he couldn't hide them from God! We had a good laugh. Robert's story is crazy. His brother was taken by the Cartel just across the border. Robert had to sell his ranch to pay for the ransom that they were demanding. He paid up and he still has never seen his brother since. We are going to continue working with Robert and help him to stop smoking.  

The blunt I took from Robert- hehe!

I'm still trying to get into the swing of things. We have already had two exchanges and I left for both of them so I'm still not sure of all that is going on. Here in Laredo there are only branches. We are working hard to make it a Stake. That is the focus for all of the branches. We are going to see lots of miracles and I'm excited to be here! 

Exchange with Sister Stanfill.  We were twinners!

I love you all have a splendid week!
Love Hermana Thompson

Transfer 8 = Done.

March 7, 2016

Tomorrow is transfers! Where has time gone? This transfer was a hard one. In fact, this area has been one where I have learned a lot. We have only had one investigator to church and so i have been feeling like II have been doing nothing. The Lord always seems to take care of me and teach me during trials.  

We learned how to make origami dresses

On Saturday night, we were in the more poor part of our area contacting. It was the end of the night and the last house we talked to before going home. We went up to this trailer and this guy came out on crutches. He had his beard in a pony tail and I think he was on drugs. He was wearing a wife beater and had lots of tattoos. His name is Myron. We were talking with him and it turns out he had just moved there 3 days earlier. It also turns out that the elder who was emergency transfered out of the mission had taught him a few months ago! In the back of my head I was hoping this wasn't the same guy for why they had to leave! It's not. I'm pretty sure haha.  We got to talking with him and I asked him if he would come to church the next day.  He was like "Well, yeah sure there is a reason y'all stopped by here so I'd better go." He asked who told us to come by and I replied "God!" He liked that answer.

Sunday selfies

On Sunday, yesterday, we were going around getting people to church in the morning. I jokingly said to my companion, "Let's go by Myron and get him to come" (she was afraid of Myron and didn't want to).  I told her that was fine she didn't have to do it but that I was going to do it either way. We got to the street and I told Sister Eggett to get out with me to go ask him if he was coming. The other two sisters walked down to ask one of the neighbors we had been teaching if they were going to come to church. We knocked on Myron's trailer and he opens the door. I said, "Myron, are you coming to church today?" He looks at me and was like "Yeah! Let me go brush my teeth!" Long story short-- we called a member and they came and got him and he stayed the whole time for church! It was a little testimony builder to me (and I hope to my companion) to always follow the spirit even though things may appear to be scary. That we all, no matter our life decisions or appearance, deserve to hear the gospel. 

We met some guys working out in their garage while out contacting and they insisted that I bench press.  I did a whopping 60 pounds!  I thought my toothpick arms were going to snap!

Our district

We did a lot of service this week. We mowed lots of lawns and helped leaders with their callings this week. I have also enjoyed getting to know the sisters that we live with this transfer as well. Sister Eggett and I have hit it off. The other night we were playing with these Mexican puppets and the lady we live with came in the room to tell us to be more quiet. I wish I had a picture of her face when she saw that we were playing with puppets and that's why we were so loud! I have learned this transfer that although things are hard sometimes that God puts people into our lives to make them easier. The answers to our prayers are usually through other people. I have come to realize that although our area is hard I can still make a difference. After all, Christ has said that "His own rejected him" the area we are in is "my own" but that I am still able to make a difference in the sisters I get to serve and help them in their areas as well. 

We mowed the Bishop's lawn

Sister Eggett and I were laughing because I came into their room at the end of the night and we were wearing the same outfit: fancy shirts and basketball shorts.

Selfies with Sister Eggett

Well that's about all I have this week. My memory has gotten so bad! I still love you all. Thank you for the support. 

Love Sister Thompson 

Washing our bikes on P-Day

January February MARCH MARCH MARCH

February 29, 2016

Heeelllllooo from Texas!!

I'll break it to you now I literally don't have a whole lot to write about this week. I promised my district leader last week that if I was still sick that I would call the mission nurse Monday because I have been sick for 5 weeks.  Last Monday I called her and she made me go into Calallen minor emergency care and go get it checked out. I went in and they did a few x rays and told me that I have bronchitis. I had a hunch that it would be and so i wasn't surprised.  I stayed in for 3 days and slept literally the whole time except for like 8 hours. I don't think my body knew how exhausted it was until I let it rest! 

The Perrys sent me a cute package :) I just love them!

Thursday was my year mark and that was one of the days I stayed home. Sister Eggett stayed home with me and she and I watched "17 Miracles "on our members TV. (perks to living with a member). I felt like the worst person in the world for staying home sick... let me tell ya! If you're sick and don't want to go out and do something just watch "17 Miracles". I felt like the laziest person in the world! There is a reason i was never a pioneer! My heart goes out to them. 

This was church yesterday.  They needed help in nursery and we were happy to help out.
 I made her feed me goldfish crackers.

Reading stories in nursery

Other than that we had to deal with some sister drama. The Lord is teaching me to not speak my mind. We had an exchange as well. The sister that took over training Sister Castro came and I helped her with ideas for the area. It was probably the best exchange Ive had so far. We both learned a lot. I taught her that you can still have fun while doing missionary work and being urgent. They have been struggling with that. She opened up a lot to me and that's always a good feeling as a leader. 

The joys of Texas living!

I'll leave y'all with something spiritual since I don't have much to say this week, something that I have come to realize the past little while is that It's not the things you make up but it's the things that you give up that make you rich. To truly lose yourself is finding yourself. To gain we must lose. Christ gave up His life so that we all could have eternal life. We cannot have success without sacrifice. The world teaches us that everything in life should be easy. How sad. If what we are doing is easy then what we are doing is not worth it. Even Christ himself said " I never said it would be easy but it will be worth it." When things are hard, learn from it. When something is lost, gain from it.  When something is sacrificed, appreciate it. After all, this life is a life of learning. To serve, give, help, sacrifice and lose is to learn.

Missions are not easy. Heck, life isn't easy! But that is why a missionary learns so much. That is how we gain eternal life is because it's not easy! This life is also to help others lives be a little bit more easy. You don't have to be a missionary or a bishop or the prophet to give up your time to help someone else. All you have to be is willing. When life is hard help someone else and I can promise that your troubles will be a little less troublesome! 

I love being a missionary; it's the most difficult and rewarding thing I have ever done. The people that we get to help they help us so much more than they could come to understand! How beautiful is this life! There are 2 things that bring people closer. One is trials and the other is Triumph. When you experience triumph and success and happiness together or when you experience trial, heart ache and afflictions together. That is why the Atonement covers our bad times and our good times. Because both bring us closer to Christ.

I love you all. Thank you for the love you have given me and for the continual support through out this journey! 

Les Amo!

Sister A. Thompson 

ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

February 22, 2016

Making my way through the palms

I'm so ancient! I can't believe that it was a year ago that I was dumped off at the good ole MTC. This week and year went by so-- so fast! I don't know where time is going! It kind of makes me ill to think about. Man I've turned into such a square. 

Mowing the Elders' yard

Sister of Mary

Well we JUST picked up our car today! I just want to say HALLELUJAH!! We had lots of exchanges this week and I was in our area for all of them so I got the fancy privilege of getting to bike all the way to our area everyday! One of the days we figured we biked about 21 miles. I'm guessing I biked well over 70 miles in the last few days. Our area is forever away; it's fine it builds character. I got to work with Sister Castro for one of the days and that was a lot of fun. We biked all the way to our area and I took a wrong turn and so we ended up on this random street that I had never been to before. It was a lot like a little country road in Idaho. We locked our bikes up to a pole and knocked on this door and nobody was there. We decided to cut clear across their yard, which was pretty big and ended up on another street. We walked up to this little pink trailer and some dogs were barking at us and this lady came out.  I thought she was going to yell at us. She told us they weren't her dogs and so we just walked past them and we talked with her on her porch. Her name is Janie. Turns out her son is a member of the church but he is in the military. We got to know her. It's a cool feeling to talk with random people and all of a sudden you feel like you have known them forever. We have been going by her and teaching her. She is super cool. Last night we taught her about the Restoration and the Book Of Mormon. I'll keep you updated on her. 

Exchanges with Sister Castro.  We found some cool hats!

The other 2 sisters we live with- Sisters Eggett and Stanfill.  All of our bikes on one pole!

On Friday we got a call saying that there would be a mission meeting in McAllen the following day and that we all needed to be there at 9 a.m. Which has NEVER happened. Usually the whole mission never gets together and they would have told us way in advance. The only time that has happened was at Christmas. I was convinced that we were all going to get an iPad! I was a little disappointed to find out afterwards that we weren't. We had one of the 70 come and talk with us. He is the one that wrote "The Fourth Missionary".  It was really good to hear from him.  His name is Elder Corbridge.  He talked about being converted and how to set baptism dates with people making sure they know exactly what they are getting into and the purpose of helping others to come unto Christ. It was a nice answer to my prayers because since becoming a leader they drill us on "numbers, numbers, numbers" and so I have been struggling with that. My district leader asks where my faith is if I don't ask everybody to be baptized and it was nice to have one of the 70 to back me up!  It's hard because there is no one way to do missionary work. Like life, there is no instruction book to doing things. Yes, there are guidelines and rules but we still have our individuality and agency.  Sometimes I feel as though i am trying to please SO many people; The sisters we are over, our district and zone leaders, the members, the ward mission leader, the bishop we work under, our investigators, our mission president and endless others. How often in life do we forget our purpose as to pleasing God? How easy it is to just do things so people will be off your back and how easy it is to just do things to not be criticized or yelled at. One thing I have come to learn is there are two kinds of fools in this world. Those who don't do what they are told and those who ONLY do as they are told. 

My fancy study area

People think we actually do things!
I didn't realize how much I lay down in random places until I was going through all of my pictures!
 Not even my bed is fine.

This area is awesome. The members are so good to us. I love this ward and the people we have to serve with. It's funny how you just fall in love with your area over and over. I love the opportunity to have this new calling to help more people. The sisters we are over are awesome. It's frustrating sometimes because i have no idea whats going on in our area but it's nice because we get to change things up a lot. I've learned that everybody and I mean EVERYBODY has something to offer and how we can learn from each and every one of them.  No matter how uneducated, poor, rich, smart, unsuccessful, hard working or lazy, we can learn something new from them. Learning to listen is the key to life, then everybody becomes your guru. 

Waiting for church
Our lives in a candid picture
Eggett smiling, Tervort studying, Stanfill praying, and me dead asleep on the floor!

This was on the way to go help someone move this morning.  They didn't have enough room for all four of us and my bum was too big to sit on the ground so they made sure I was nice and safe!
 (My awesome new shirt of the one and only Hermana Browning)

The gospel is true. This life is so precious and short. Time really does fly. The days are going to pass by anyway so we may as well make the most of them.  

Chillin with the pigs

Horse selfies

I love you all. Thank you for the love and support. Have a good week!

Love Sister Thompson 

Happy Valentines Day!

February 15, 2016

 Sister Tervort and the other two sisters we live with, Eggett and Stanfill

I'm super "Hangry" today. This morning we got up and took our car into the Chevy dealer to get it fixed. We got there at 9 am and sat around until 2pm for them to tell us that it's going to take longer because they can't get to some wire. We hitched a ride and made it back here to Calallen to the library. I'm not sure how we are going to do anything or even get home since our area is so huge! Also I'm starving. 

Sister Tait and I at 3 day

McAllen was good. We had 3 day. My companions for those days were Sisters Tait and Smith. It was really fun and I learned a lot from them. We sat in meetings from 7 am until 4 pmand then went out and worked for the night. I have still been super sick and so it was a little miserable. One of the nights I couldn't fall asleep until 4:30in the morning and every day we had to get up at 5:30. I may have cried in the middle of the meeting but I'm just hoping everyone all thought that it was because I am SO spiritual. I sometimes feel like I'm in a Nazi concentration camp. It's okay though. It builds character and I need a lot of that! 

Sister Tupou and I 

I literally don't even know what to write! I feel like we do literally the same thing everyday lately and it's been hard. I've been bored out of my mind. I only got to work in my area for a day this week so I don't know what's going on with the people we have. I went on an exchange up to Beeville which is a small little town. It was kind of a cute town with a lot of rednecks there. We talked with some great people. I literally am at a loss of words today. I'm hungry and tired. 

My companion Sister Tervort and I

Things are going well. I don't feel like I'm making all that much of a difference because it's hard to measure progress if I'm not working with the same people! I'm learning a lot about patience and how to be a leader this transfer. 

I love you all. The gospel is true!

Love Sister Thompson 

The Crazy Life

February 8, 2016

Biking in the middle of nowhere

I literally feel like I am living in a dream! We have been so busy that I don't even have time to think! Today we are leaving to another meeting down in McAllen. My companion and I have to give a training in Spanish. It will be good I hope. We will get home later on Thursday.  I won't get to work in my area until Saturday because we have exchanges with some of the sisters. We had three exchanges this past week. I have learned a lot. Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing anything because I'm working with so many sisters in different places that it's hard to see the progress I'm making. So that's been a struggle lately. 

                                                           Sunsets in the new area

On one of the exchanges one of the sisters asked me how she can have more faith and we talked about that for awhile. I told her that faith isn't measured by success but by action. I talked with her about doing the small and simple things and the Lord will trust us in doing the bigger things and that's when miracles happen. It just starts with a willingness to follow the Spirit. We had a great exchange and I think I learned more than she did!

Last week my companion and I were knocking doors at this complex that apparently is "golden" (It is) and we were walking around and these chihuahuas from a second floor balcony started barking at us like crazy so we talked to the people that were sitting out there. We were yelling up to them and they were yelling down. The lady's name is Ruth. Turns out she dated an RM five years ago and was going to church with him up in the middle of the Corpus area. I asked which building the street was on and it ended up being the building/ward that I had just come from!  She said she was never baptized but that it was the only church that she ever liked. We got to talking and it turns out that she is a dental assistant and that she was getting her wisdom teeth out the next day. I asked her if she got a sweet deal on paying for them and we got talking about it and I told her my dad is a dentist and she was so shocked by that point at all the things that happened to be "in common." It was a tender mercy from the Lord. I told her that it wasn't a coincidence and she agreed. She then invited us back after she recovers from her surgery for her wisdom teeth. So I'm excited to get to teach her! (Whenever I make it back to my area to work) 

It was 87 degrees the other day!!

We have an older man that is less active that lives in a nursing home in our area. We went by to visit him. I die a little inside when I go into those. They are so sad! There were old people in wheel chairs all over the place! They just seemed so unhappy being there. It made me think of how precious this life is! We talked with this little Mexican man before the visit on the way in and on the way out we saw him with his family in the front lobby area. We decided to go talk with his whole family as well. They were with his father- in-law who was having really bad head aches and is 94 years old. I asked them if it would be okay if I said a prayer for him and so we all had a prayer in the front lobby of this old folks home. It was great. I love the random places that we are able to teach people whether it's at a Walmart, McDonald's, a gas station, sitting in the dirt, on the front porch or even doing yard work; the gospel is for everybody anywhere who is willing to hear it.  

A little boy we taught.  He wanted to wear my nametag.

We are still getting to know the area and the members we have here. All of the missionaries in the mission talk about the "Robstown Ward" and how good it is. I can see that this is such a great place all ready for miracles! We weren't left with any real investigators or even a map. So it's been an adventure, that's for sure.

I love you all! Thank you for your love and support to help me be down here. I hope y'all have a good week! 

Love, 

Sister Thompson 

Transfer 8

February 1, 2016

Transfers

Hello from wherever I am!!! I don't think I have much time to email today because we are leaving for a meeting down in McAllen. I'm not a huge fan of meetings because I get bored haha but it will be good. This past week I have been sick. I sound like a 12 year old little boy when I talk -- it's been great. I just want to go into a mini-coma. Most of the groceries I bought was medicine! 

Saying goodbye to Karl

Recent convert and investigators

Sister Castro's cousins we started teaching

Another family we are teaching with the Lebaron family

Saying bye to the Hulls

Not exactly sure where I am still, but this week has been full that's for sure! We are white washing, so it's been a lot of guessing and going by members houses. We live with a member. She is a single lady in her 60s.  She has a dog named Coco that looks like he is on crack. He is crazy. She got mad at me for teasing him, oops. This area reminds me a lot of Idaho but just a lot more flat! Our area is called Cal Allen and we are here in the Sinton Zone. I'm still in the same stake as my last area so that will be nice.  I will still get to see the members from there. That doesn't say much though because the boundaries down here are huge! There are a ton of fields everywhere and it definitely is Texas. When I think of Texas, I think of a place like this city. The other day we went to a members home for dinner and they have 2 pet pigs! It was the coolest thing ever! One of the sisters said, "Sister Thompson, I bet you won't lay down with them" so of course I had to! I thought that they were going to bite me for sure! 

This family had pet pigs in their home!  I was not expecting that when I got there!

They literally gave us like 20 minutes to write! I love you all. I have to go! There will be lots to write about until next time! I love you!!

Love Sister Thompson