Nose Hairs Were Frozen!

So my member part of the mission is complete. I have found the awesome member of our ward. He is exactly like me. He loves baseball, he is a stat geek, and he loves the Lakers! And he said I was the best missionary because not only did I like the lakers, but I love baseball too! So as I'm sure you can imagine, we get along amazing!

It has been extremely cold this week. It was -40 for most of the week with the wind chill. You take one breath through your nose and instantly your nose hairs freeze. haha it's awesome! But it makes me appreciate the warm days. Today it is only -15 and it feel amazing! I remember when that made me so cold and now its like I sweat! So it's probably a good thing that I'm adjusting.

Mornings have become a strength for us. We get up at 6 every morning and go to the stake center to play basketball. Its kinda boring for me though because not to brag, but I am by far the only good one there. It's usually just us and both sets of sisters in our district. This week with transfers we got a couple new missionaries. We got a new sister, and she seems like she will be cool and not one of  those nazi sisters. We also got a new zone leader. He is like 6 4 and he is good at basketball. So now we actually have someone that can gaurd Elder G.! He is also a Celtics fan so I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that.

This week for our mormon.org time I came across a talk by Elder Holland. I would encourage everyone to watch it. You won't get as much out of it if you just read it. Watch it. It has easily become my favorite talk by an apostle. Elder Holland is just such a boss. The talk is entitled Safety for the Soul. He is super powerful and just lays down the law haha I love it. It is about his testimony of the BOM. So if you want to be energized, I seriously encourage everyone to watch it.

We also met with a spanish member this week. He is a stud. He went to Mexico on his mission and baptized, wait for it.... 106 people.... What a stud! He also got permission from his mission prez to basically do whatever he wanted. He ended his mission, with the permission of the prez, by proposing to a girl that he barely knew... and she said yes. So they shook hands, he went home the next day, got released and then married her. And then he went on to tell us that he wasn't going to tell us his trunky stories so we didnt get any ideas. Haha it was funny. But we did learn our testimonios en espanol this week. We basically just took lines from PMG and put them in. But mine is super short because we didn't have a lot of time to prepare them, so we can continue to develp them.

We had our ward Christmas party and instead of a dinner we had breakfast, it was really good! We had pancakes with chocolate chips, which is awesome, plus we got a bunch of left overs! Sweet!

Haha and to cap off a great christmas party, Bro. Harvey who i have mentioned in previous emails dressed up in an elf costume. It was so funny! I wish I had my camera at the time. But we took a pic with our phone and he tried avoiding it, but then was a good sport and posed for the picture. Haha what a guy. He is also a Laker fan. So yeah the ward is full of great people.

On Sunday, we tought gospel principles, lesson 38. The lesson, was, Eternal Marriage. So yeah we were super qualified to teach that lesson... not. But it actually went really well and there was some really good discussions that went on(that usually doesnt happen in that class) so I guess we did an okay job. And Then we had the Christmas devotional that night. It was awesome! It was a little cheesy with Elder Nelson but thats okay, it was still good.

Yo se que trabajo misional es muy importante y que trabajo misional de miembros es muy muy importante. I have no idea if that is correct espanol but it sounds Spanishy. It really helps when the members pitch in and do their part and let us teach their friends. It gets really frustrating not having anybody to teach and just finding all day all week. But we have come up with some good finding ideas. We will most likely be doing the 3 on 3 tourney i suggested and hopefully we will be able to scrimmage the High School basketball team (Bro. Harvey is the Head Coach). So if all goes according to plans, we should be teaching lots in no time!

Read the BOM. It's actually a pretty decent book haha. Captain Moroni is by far my favorite so if you don't feel like reading it, just read that part. He is a studly boss too! If only we could all be like him, we would not fall into temptation very often.

Love you all,

Elder Thompson

What you smokin man? I aint smoking...I'm breathin!

Name that movie

Well week 6 was a gong show! But it went pretty well. We went to Bulk Barn on monday and I'm pretty sure it's the place that we went to when we visited Great Grandma Cahoon. It looked super familiar and that was my only explanation for that. So every pday we play basketball. It's funny playing with my comp becasue he's not that good so he plays kinda dirty. Plus, he is a bit over weight, but that's okay, I've learned to deal with it.

On Tuesday, we had our open house and I guess you could consider it a success. We had a couple nonmembers there, but that's not enough. We could easily have 10-15 there. The members need to get off their butts and start getting involved in the work. But other than having just a couple people there, I felt like it went really well.

I also learned that I'm not the best teacher or even very good. So I was a bit discouraged, but I was reading in the Book of Mormon and I remembered Ether 12:27 which says that weak things will be mad strong when we humble ourselves before God. So I felt a lot better after that. Plus we were able to eat at our Bishop's house for US Thanksgiving. Sister Baldry was going to make us a turkey dinner but didnt have time. So we had really good chilli. Then, our bishop invited us to a hockey game. We told him that we had to have an investigator go so we could and he said, oh no problem, I can make that happen. Haha such a stud! Then after our lesson, he told us about how he was doing tithing settlements and talking a little about missionary work. He said that pretty much all the members had really good things to say and that they were confident in giving their friend's names to us... now they just need to do it! But that was a really big confidence booster. That saying in the district, are you a burden or a help to the bishop.

Well we just got swore at at the library... haha funny stuff. Just Good classy people. 

So we have done a really good job getting up in the mornings and going to morning sports, but what really grinds my gears, is when I drag myself out of bed, and the gym is full of tables and chairs. like come on, what is more important, your ward Christmas party, or my morning sports... We also have done a good job at not eating out as much. But we did go to MacShak and there was hockey on! It was awesome! The Rangers were playing the Bruins and my comp was like oh it's Texas. And Elder L. and I were like nope that New York haha. Elder L. goes home this week so he is really trunky haha. I wish I had more time to get to know him because he seems like a cool guy. Plus he really likes baseball so for sure we get along, even if he is a Giant's fan. Another thing about morning sports is a lot of times, it's just us and the 4 sisters in our district. So really, it's just us helping the sisters play basketball. But whatever, my comp really likes it so whatever. Even though it's not really workout I'll do it to get out of bed.

Saturday, we had a food drive at a store. Highlight of the day, was when a drunk guy came up and said "I dont know why we spend so much money on Mars, when there are people hungry down here. You cant even %*@# on Mars, you can't even *&@# properly in space! " Haha we were laughing so hard for a couple minutes straight.

But the best part of the week, was this fast Sunday. (i say that sarcastically.) The fast Sunday part was fine. What wasn't, was when we were asked to help somebody move in right after church. So we couldnt break our fast because we didn't even have time, so we went and my headache just massively increased. So needless to say, we straight went on a food rampage when we got back to the apartment. Fun stuff.

Anyway, this week could be interesting. Keep it real!

Elder Thompson

Love Being a Missionary November 25

So last week I talked about how awesome the ward is here, and how it is a pretty athletic ward. Well, apparently Bro. Harvey was the no. 1 basketball player in Alberta growing up! What a stud! But he got injured so I guess he just called it quits. And our Bishop, is flippin loaded. He not only owns a security system that is big up here, but he also owns the Edmonton Energy...and we are eating dinner at his house on American Thanksgiving so we are pretty excited! We are going to try to get tickets to a game. We found all that out from out zone leader. He served in our area in the beginning of his mission. He is a 6'6 kid from Utah who I have had many sport arguments with. He is the typical hard headed Utah Ute, Jazz fan who hates BYU and the Lakers. All the Jazz fans have a weird fantasy where they are rivals with the Lakers so I had to get it into his mind that the Jazz were just a small little fly that the Lakers have to swat away from time to time. and as for the Utes, I just ask him how many national titles they have in football. That usually shuts him up.

I feel like there isn't enough study time in a week. I want to study all the works, but I only have an hour a day. I was able to finish the Book of Mormon this week though. Its amazing how good it is when you actually sit down and read it, eh? But now I am restarting it and I am also starting Doctrine and Covenants and The New Testament. 

This week we had dinner with a part member family and the husband is one of our potential investigators. He is so close to taking the lessons he just needs something. But we found out that his wife is pregnant so hopefully that gives him the kick over the edge.

This Thursday, we had a new missionary follow up meeting. So I got to meet up with Elders Duncanson and Brevard again. It was awesome! I missed those guys a ton. It would be awesome if we could serve together, but since we get along so well, that probably won't happen. But that was definitely the high point of the week.

The low point of the week came Friday. Being in Millwoods, weed gets smoked on a regular basis by the teens here, so riding the buses with them is always interesting. On Friday we got on a bus with an especially obnoxious group of teens who had obiously been smoking. It was so bad I'm pretty sure we smelled like weed when we got off the bus. And they are so disrespectful. They were yelling throwing out f bombs and this less accountable lady about in her 40s asked them to stop. They just cussed at her and stuff. Man I haven't been so mad since Elder P. was my comp in the mtc. There was just such a negative spirit that we just had to get off the bus. So that was the low or "high" of the week because we may have gotten high off the second hand smoke. The only reason i say that is because after, I slipped on the ice and fell to the ground. That hasn't happened before and I was pretty confident with my balance, so i was shocked when I fell. Now I have to buy the district donuts(thats the rule) so that sucks.

Naps have become my best friend. We helped someone move a bunch of stuff out of their house Saturday and we were just tired, so we took a nap and it was glorious. Just one of the many great things of missionary work. Another is when you are at a bus station and there are no more buses coming and a random girl that we have never met comes up to us and offers us a ride(with her dad so it wasnt burnt) That was awesome. We would have had to walk home and walking isn't fun, but it does burn some calories I guess. On Sunday we had Sunday school lesson on how to have a better family life with our children. so that was fun... I guess. I'm not really sure why we have to sit through those lessons when we could be doing something more productive. After church, I made the ultimate missionary meal of grease, fat and grossness. I call it the Pulkin Bagel with Bacon. It has a blueberry bagel, pulled pork, and bacon. The last few bites were gross but it wasn't too bad at first haha.

We are supposed to teach 20 lessons a week now. I don't know how that's going to happen since we are lucky if we get close to 10. But, we are trying for it!

So if you look up 3 Nephi 18:20 it says "and whatsoever ye shall ask the father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you." Joseph Smith did exactly that... In 1820.

Now that I've blown all your minds, have a great week and keep it real!

Elder Thompson

Kinda cold, but not too bad.  We put on warmer coats and thermals after this pic... It was snowy!

District Temple Pic: No we aren't models - we are just missionaries

The MTC District - minus 2

The Pukin' bagel with bacon

Some very awkward lows were set this week - Nov. 12

So I am emailing today because Monday was Remembrance Day in Canada so the library was closed. I think I will be emailing next Tuesday as well because it is our temple p-day and the temple is close on Mondays. so the awkward lows will be somewhere near the middle of this email and you will know once you read it. So last p-day we played basketball again. I spun off one defender and then boom! Elder S and I hit heads hard! I wasn't aware that he was there and we hit hard. There was blood on the floor so I was like, "What did I do to myself now?" But to my surprise it was Elder S. We hit so hard that his chin split open and was bleeding. So I felt bad but not too bad because I know what its like splitting a chin open and because it really wasn't my fault. But I still felt bad haha. This week has been very busy with service stuff. On Tuesday we went to the church to do service. They got 1000 new chairs so we hauled all of the old ones off and into a truck and then brought the new ones in. They also replaced like all the folding tables as well... must be nice, haha jk.

That night as we were riding the bus, there was a lady that got on that you could just tell was super poor. We were at the bus station so the bus driver was taking a pit stop, so I was like sweet! free ride for her! But when the driver got on, she went up and paid. I was really surprised. It just shows that there are still good people in the world. I also found out that Elder P. went home. I knew he wasn't ready but I still feel bad for him. It also makes the possibility of us becoming comps even more likely (if he comes back out) but I've come to accept it and I say bring it on. If it does happen i have come to the conclusion that there will be no patience in regards to his shinanigans. They just won't happen. But, that compship hasnt happened yet so we will see.

Riding the bus.... is somethimes very interesting. We rode it at 3ish and that is not a good time. All the school kids are out so everyone plus all the kids ride the bus. It was freaking packed. I straight up basically spooned with a sikh guy because it was so packed (a sikh guy is an east Indian who wears the turbin hat thing. I think of Aladdin when I think of them) But not only did that happen once... no no it happened the next day as well. We went at 4 thinking it would be better. This time though instead of spooning room, there was enough room for me to get hit in the junk a bunch of times by a lady's purse. straight up awful haha.

As a missionary, I have become adapted to the stupid dorky missionary humor. If you watch the district where the missionaries try to teach German the law of chastity, it is hilarious! A couple key phrases are use throughout the mission and one is our morning alarm( although it really doesn't work too well but we will get to that later). Another is I was reading in Alma and came to ch. 60 vs 7 which is a great phrase to use if your comp is taking too long in the john. it says "Can you think to sit upon your throne in a state of thoughtless stupor while your enemies are spreading the work of death?" When I first read it I died laughing and then I realized it was just stupid missionary humor.

Because the sister missionaries have been hogging all the dinner appointments, we have eaten out a lot. They get all the dinner app because they are in Relief Society and the calender gets passed around there and they guilt their way into them feeding them. We however are like oh, we dont have a dinner tonight. Well that sucks. I don't like guilting my way into things, I think that is the cheap way to go, but whatever floats your boat I guess. So I am becoming a little worried because we tend to eat at Macshak a lot(Mcdonalds) and I am starting to enjoy it... I don't know if it is the Canadian beef or the cheap missionary budget but I'm worried that it is starting to become enjoyed by myself. And I wouldn't mind if we were working out every morning, but it is extremely hard to get up in the morning. We haven't done morning sports because the gym is getting repairs to the walls so we don't really do anything anymore. Hopefully we start up again. I am in a walking area but that only does so much. And because I am in a walking area i seem to get blisters often. for whaterever reason I get them once a week. But they aren't too bad. They are just bothersome.

So yesterday for p-day we had a couple extra hours at the church. The people move their stuff to the side so we could do stuff. so we played basketball and then dodgeball. After dodgeball or during actually, I came to the awful realization that my baseball career is over. Not that I was going to try or anything, but even if I wanted to, I couldn't. Every time I throw there is a sharp pain in my shoulder. It is so frustrating but stupid stuff like that happens. Maybe it is a blessing in disguise.

I also have a really hard time waking up on time for whatever reason. It has just started to become a problem. The alarm will go off and have no effect. so if anyone has any tips i would certainly be willing to listen!

Love 

Elder Thompson

Is the white stuff sand? November 4

So this week we went on exchanges with the zone leaders and I had my first tracting experience! So we went to the door, I knocked and a lady opened the door with

"Whaaaah!"

"Hey! How's it going?"

"Fine."

"Great.  Well,  we are missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

She looks at the door bell. "What the doorbell doesn't work?"

"Well I guess I could have rang it but ..."

"Yeah you could have. We're not interested."

So there you have it, I was denied because I didn't ring the doorbell ;) Once you get denied you see that there really is nothing to worry about haha.

Later that night we went to a less active house where a 9 year old was date to be baptized. The only thing left was to teach her the law of chastity... haha so that was awkward. But there is a saying here. toast. Thrive on awkward situations today. So it was rather awkward but we got through it.  Then they fed us nachos! The next day after our studies we were trying to decide on lunch. Then we got a text sayng that allotment was in. Allotment is the money the church puts on our church issued debit card. So I'm pretty sure everyone from the mission went out to lunch haha. That night after tracting and what not, we tried to catch a bus back to our place. It wasnt supposed to come for another 2 minutes so my comp left for like 30 seconds. When he was done the bus had already come and gone...It reminded me of the spongebob episode where he keeps missing the bus because of things like that haha. once i brought that up, we were laughing for awhile. But we got a ride from the YSA missionaries so it was all good.

The next day was Halloween. One of the things we were looking for was the number of skanky outfits we saw. We call those types of girls harlots of babylon haha.  So we were expecting a higher number. Sure enough in the hour that we were out, we counted 11. So now to keep things interesting we have an hc or a harlot count. That night our zone leaders got permission for a zone halloween party. The first hour comprised of me playing this kid one on one. I won obviously. then we had a competition of junior comps vs. senior comps. where we had a skills thing and a food challenge. So I did all the skills and the others did the food. Oh and I was captain. We won all because of my captaining ;)

Another thing is tracting really sucks because Jehovah Witnesses tract a lot too. So we would be going up to a door and they would either lock their doors, we could hear it lock, or they would talk to us as if we were jdubs untl we told them we weren't. 

I have only gotten homesick a couple of times. One was when we were going to members houses, We went to one where he was watching college football. Man do I miss that so much. Then that night I had the most realistic dream I have ever had where the Canadian government kicked us out, so I was home and about to watch college football and text people and I woke up. but it's not too bad anymore. The thing that sucks is tracting in the snow. Everything is covered except the face. Eventually though it just goes numb so that's a plus I guess. And I think tracting on Sundays is stupid. It is a day of rest for everyone... except the missionaries. Something that would make the week go by so much better and faster is actually having appointments and dinner appoinments. Since we have sisters in our ward, we never get fed because I guess the elder who was here before me burned his bridges... idiot. but that's been our focus is bettering our relationship with the members which seems like it is getting better once they see it's me and not him.

Not a whole lot went down this week but this next week looks like it is going to be better.

Keep it real and make good choices!

Elder Thompson

Elder P. and Elder Thompson

Elder Thompson's zone in the MTC

Elders with Brother Pickett

Elders with their teacher

MTC West Campus

MTC West Campus

Elder Thompson with Brother Balzar

Elder Thompson's "Greenie" dinner

First snow

Elder Thompson on the Meeting program

From MTC to Greenie

So last p-day when we went to the temple something amazing happened! I saw Jeri! She started tearing up so I had to get out of there because I would have too! Some of the guys got on me for hugging but I was just like bro it’s my sister there isn’t nothing in the rule book that says you can’t hug family. They were fine after that.

So I was super nervous to go into the field. More so than when I entered the MTC. I think I was just about as homesick leaving the MTC than I was leaving home! Crazy I know but we developed good friendships at the MTC. That night we were joking around how much I was called on to pray. I just told everyone that when I got married I was going to send everyone a picture of my trophy wife so that they would all be depressed. It was funny because they all agreed.

Monday night was probably the best lesson I've had and it was with a different person. I was with Elder Duncanson and Brother Picket was teaching us. When I think or thought about judgment day I always thought about it as good tallies against bad tallies and the bad tallies getting erased by repentance. But with Picket he explained to us that it's not so much that but more like if our progression is going up instead of staying the same. As long as we are truly striving to be better we should be good.

But over all I had great teachers. It was funny though throughout my last days at the MTC, I was just getting really fed up with Ponnada. Every single time, and I'm not kidding, that I thought badly of him and his stupidity and questioning God why he would put me with such an idiot, my nose started bleeding.  That happened about 5 times ha-ha. Then I realized that I needed to humble myself. So every time a thought like that would come into my head I pushed it away as fast as I could because I didn’t need to lose any more blood ha-ha.

So the Tuesday we were to leave the MTC we needed to be at the bus at 3:30 am. We woke up at 3:30 am... I don’t think I have ever gotten dressed and packed so fast. But, it was all good. The bus hadn’t even gotten there yet. But that was just the beginning of the stress. Boarding onto the plane after the layover in Phoenix, Ponnada was nowhere to be found. He had gone off with another elder. Shocker I know. All I could think about was how President Manion was going to tear me apart if he didn’t make it. So Duncanson, Brevard, and myself said a quick prayer and no joke 5 seconds before the closed the door, he showed up. He was talking to his family for over 3 hours combined that day. Never in my life did I want to strangle somebody so hard.

So we arrived in Canada and we met our trainers. I got Elder Taylor from Idaho and he is an awesome trainer! I feel like I can learn a lot from him so that’s good. He's been out 9 months. But he had a meeting so I went with another elder for a while that day so I didn’t really get to meet him till that night. But for lunch I got a donair because I heard they were good and they were! For dinner we went to McDonalds so you bet my stomach paid me back for that combo! I also got a package from Grandma and Grandpa that day filled with food! So we didn’t have to do any shopping. WE were happy.

In the morning for workouts, we go the gym with a bunch of other missionaries and play a bunch of sports in the gym. It's legit! So much fun and it wakes me up.

Elder Holland spoke about 10 minutes in a stake but we weren’t invited because we weren’t in that stake. That was kind of stupid but whatever. I also have to play the piano for district meetings... and the days are super long because we have to walk everywhere. Our area got switched to a walking bussing area but they didn’t get us passes because it was so close to the end of the month. But we should get them today.

Saturday we helped a family move. It reminded me of working at Padgett’s so it was weird when she gave us donuts because usually I just got paid for it. Later that night we ate dinner at the Harvey’s. It was very interesting ha-ha. He is a super cool guy around 30 and they gave me a greenie meal. Everything was green. He took a picture and made it the picture on the front of the program for church! I had to give a talk about why I came on a mission and when I introduced myself I said I was the beautiful face on the front of their programs. Later I found out that only 6 of those programs were made... so that was kind of awkward.

And after church we had choir because we got drafted into it. I wanted to shoot myself. And it is already so freakin cold! It snowed yesterday for the first time and it is -6 today. Celsius of course because it would be too easy to use F in Canada. But it’s fun here and the ward is super cool. If you want to send me anything make sure my first name is on it because there are 2 elder Thompsons. They almost sent my package to an outlying area. Oh and I’m in Mill Woods. It’s the southeast part of the city. And I am in the Meadows 1st ward. I’m such a greenie.

Keep it real,

Elder Thompson