Long Week!

Hello everyone, hope you all had a great week! Our week was just one of those weeks you want to move on from.

We still had some bright spots this week(other than the obvious one of having the opportunity to serve the Lord full time) We went on exchanges with an elder that had served in one of the areas where we cover as a ysa, so he took me out there to meet the less active and recent convert ysa aged people that will hopefully start coming!

All of our investigator lessons canceled except for one! And it was a great lesson! We picked up a new investigator named Divyanshu(yes I spelled that right) who moved from India a few years ago to attend the University of Alberta and is in physics. He is super open and willing to learn about God and Jesus Christ so we are really excited about him. In fact, he would be the top bright spot of the week!

Scripture of the week is Ether 12:4
" 4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God."

Also if you are looking for some good videos to watch on Mormon Channel, check out Two Brothers Two, it is awesome! Along with all the other mormon messages, they are great too!

Keep it real,

Elder W.Chad Thompson

Happy Mother's Day (A couple of days late)

Hello everyone, hope you all had a great mothers day and week! Our week was pretty great! We celebrated Cinco De mayo by going on exchanges with the spanish elders! We went and ate at a place called 3 amigos. it was decent, but definitely not as good as real mexican good!

Do it snowed this week then went back to normal (if you can say that in Alberta) weather. People weren't exactly happy that day haha.

This week we got a member referral from a member in another YSA here in Edmonton and the guy is awesome! He is super solid and willing to keep commitments! He is a pretty active Anglican, but said he wanted to learn more about our church. He is getting married in a couple of months so hopefully we can help him progress before he does the marriage thing.

We had lunch a couple of days ago with a crazy Jamaican at Panda Express and it was great!(it was free :) ) she likes to give nicknames to the missionaries so she came up with mr. noodles for my comp haha. he didnt like that very much!

Mother's day was good! We ate breakfast and dinner at our Bishop's house which was awesome since his wife is a professional cook! nice change of pace serving in a ysa ward! Skyping the family was pretty cool too. it is a very surreal moment knowing that was my last skype call home as a full time missionary. crazy how time flies!

Scripture of the week is Ether 5: 6 "  And now, if I have no authority for these things, judge ye; for ye shall know that I have authority when ye shall see me, and we shall stand before God at the last day. Amen." the priesthood authority has been restored on the earth and we have a great responsibility with that authority. Missionary work is one of the most important opportunities that we have in this life. President John Taylor said "Our duty is to preach the gospel to all men... this is what God expects of us."

Have a great week!

Elder W.Chad Thompson

​what a difference a day makes ​

Big Changes

Hello everyone, hope your week has been a great one!

So there are some pretty big changes coming up in our mission that will be interesting to see how they play out. First off, starting next week, our mission president has decided to switch P-Day to Tuesday. His reasoning was he was trying to make Sunday more of a holy day because missionaries forget its sunday i guess and it becomes p-day eve. So that will be different for sure! Second, our mission is decreasing in size. When my transfer goes home in 3 transfers, the mission will have gone from 210 to about 110, so it is shrinking like crazy! And last of all, within the month and a half our mission will be getting ipads(although they have been saying that for the last 2 years) Elder Nielsen of the 70 is coming for a mission conference in 2 weeks to train us on it and if it actually does happen, we will be the first mission in Canada to get them!

This week has been pretty good for us. Very, very long, but it has still been good. We calculated that in the past week, we have been in meetings for about 26 hours so we are super tired! But we did some exciting things happen this week. We met with one of our investigators who hadnt met with us in awhile and he committed to baptism!!! eventually... he is on probation for now, but he is excited to continue learning. He even came to part of stake conference in which Elder Renlund of the 70 and Elder Evanson of the 70 were there. Stake conference was really good. there were a lot of speakers so they were all relatively short. And let it be known that dog sledding teams were used as an analogy in one of the talks. I thought it was fitting for a canadian stake conference! Elder Renlund gave some great talks as did mostly everyone else. We also went to the Worldwide Devotional last night with a LA. It was all about strengthening faith and testimony.

Quote of the week is from Howard W. Hunter "To be successful, missionaries must avoid worldly things. Remember that you have a relatively short time to serve the Lord full-time, and the rest of your life to think about it." This gives me motivation to work day in and day out, no matter how exhausted and tired i currently am. 

Also, some words of advice for the day: May the fourth be with you.

Keep it real,

Elder W.Chad Thompson

​This is what we made our zone for this transfer!​ But this computer kinda messed it up.... good thing its already printed!

 

 

Week 80:Missionary Work Brownies???

Hello everyone, I hope all is going well for you. Things up here have been interesting. As I mentioned last week I got a new companion. His name is Elder Liddle. He is from Sunderland in England and loves his accent haha. He is definitely a bit different from my last companion, so it will be fun to adjust to a new situation. My coaches always said the key to success is being able to adjust to any type of situation. He is a great missionary and I am excited to serve with him. He has been out for about a week shy of a year, and he is into drama and entertaining and stuff like that. So it should be a fun companionship!

So this week there was a YSA international potluck, so there was lots of interesting foods. and wouldnt you know it, they asked us and the sisters to judge the most delicious, most exotic and most creative. So it was interesting to say the least. We got to eat a lot of food!

We have also been attempting to do transfer planning for our zone this past week, but we haven't gotten transfer events from the AP's yet. And there was a switch in our zone! So Lloydminster and Vermillion were taken out and put in the other Bonnie Doon zone and we picked up the Cold Lake/Cherry Grove area, which goes even further west into Saskatchewan than Lloyd did! So it will be kinda fun.

We had a great lesson yesterday with our investigator Diddy. and yes he is black and awesome! He is the boyfriend of a less active in our ward and he is super solid! We were trying to think of another fellowshipper in the ward, so we ended up bringing one of my favorite members because he liked soccer as well as Diddy. and they are literally both the same. From schooling, right down to the same position in soccer! It was a testimony to me that as we rely on the spirit, he will guide us in all things.

Quote of the week comes from the same guy as last week. "I'm totally stoned on missionary work. It just gets me totally baked!" haha fun times visiting Brad!

Scripture of the week is Alma 5:44-46 " 44 For I am called to speak after this manner, according to the holy order of God, which is in Christ Jesus; yea, I am commanded to stand and testify unto this people the things which have been spoken by our fathers concerning the things which are to come.

 45 And this is not all. Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?

 46 Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me.​"

​I have gained a strong testimony of Fasting and Prayer. The opportunity has been one of the greatest experineces on my mission. We had the opportunity to have Fast Sunday yesterday since stake conference is this upcoming sunday (Elder Renlud is coming!) and it was an aweswome experience. The power of fasting is real! Sometimes the answers don't immediately come and sometimes they don't come in a way that we expect, but I can testify that they DO come.​

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​Keep it real​,

 

Elder W.Chad Thompson