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

Week 78: Sisters Mission Completed

Hello everyone! hope everything is going well for you.

It's really a weird experience seeing the sisters I came out with go home next week. I'm actually really happy that I still have 6 months left to work! 18 seems too short too me. Maybe that's why elders serve 24 months haha.

Not much went down this week. I had a great birthday. We started with weekly basketball, which is always fun. It's nice to get the ysa guys out and some non members as well. We had dinner at a buffet with 2 of our favourite members which was super good. Elder Monks blew up some balloons and wrote on them and one of the things is the quote of the week. "Jesus Loves Bill!" Haha he thinks it's funny that I don't go by my first name. so he calls me Bill. We had an investigator lesson, but the best part of the day, was we got to go to a baptism! So Cassandra, who I found and taught in my last area decided to get baptized and it happened to be on my birthday! So President Manion let Elder Winnie and me go since we started teaching her. It was such a great experience! I'm super happy for her and I'm grateful for the covenant that we make at baptism/every week with the sacrament. That is what will carry us throughout this life. My favorite part is always remembering and acknowledging the Saviour for what he did and does for us. That is where true strength comes from.

Cassandra's baptism April 11, 2015

Cassandra's baptism April 11, 2015

First plate of buffet dinner

I'm excited to be entering the last part of my mission. The home stretch. I will work harder, not that I haven't worked hard up to this point, but now is the time to use 18 months of hard work as experience, to push myself harder than ever before, and truly do all that I need to do to leave everything out on the field. I love serving the Lord as a full time missionary and will miss it deeply (along with all the benefits :) ) but for now, I still get to go out everyday and do my duty. 1 Corinthians 15:58 " 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye ^asteadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." This is not the time to quit, or to coast. That is for the quitters, for the weak. This is the time for exactly the opposite.  "Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just NEVER give up." 

"You are never a loser until you quit trying." I will, with the help of the Lord, win the fight and accomplish what he needs me to accomplish.

Keep it real, 

Elder W.Chad Thompson

Edmonton - The City of Potholes

Hello everyone,

Transfer calls were today and we got sad news. Elder Monks is leaving for his last transfer and I am getting Elder Liddle. He is from England and that is about all I know!! haha so I will have to get him to say a bunch of Harry Potter quotes!

As for this week, it has been a good one. We weren't able to meet with all our investigators, but we were able to meet with William, our hippy investigator. a funny quote from that lesson, was when we were talking about miracles and he said "oh yeah, Jesus walking on water? Ihat was a yogi practice. It just requires breathing patterns. There are manuals for that." haha He is a strange/awesome guy. We also picked up a new investigator this week that is blind! completely! Like stick and all! and he is super solid so I'm super excited for him. Hopefully he will stay in our area (he is moving) but he is super cool. Maybe we will even get to learn how to read Braille! 

Other than that, there is not much to report on. We had a lesson with a member who has a very low form of autism, so he is fully functional, but still has the attitude of a child. We talked about a lot of random things so I'm not sure how we got on the topic of vegetables, but he said "Broccoli and mushrooms are pornographic vegetables! They are nasty and gross!" haha we both just lost it!

Scripture of the week is Matthew 18:9 " 9 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire" We need to always remember that it is better to go through life having maybe a little less comfort or "fun" and receive eternal life, rather than indulge and receive the wrath of God. Because that really isn't all that fun ;)

Keep it real,

Elder W.Chad Thompson

Week 76: Work Paying Off

Hello everyone, hope all is going well down south. Things up here have been great! The weather has been super nice all week. All the snow again is gone and the grass even looks a little greener. Too bad Canada will soon again destroy its hopes and dreams. But its nice while it lasts and we will definitely take it! So this week it seemed like the work just exploded! it was really nice. We picked up 3 new Solid investigators who will all progress and then last night, we went to one of the YSA girls farewell party and there she introduced us to her friend who wants to take the discussions! So we will be teaching her this week! Its always awesome when all the work of the member pays off for them and they see some of the fruit of their work. 

On a lower point of this week, we found out that one of our progressing investigators who we have taught everything, doesnt even live in our area. he just goes to school in our area. He made a comment about how it takes him an hour to get to school, and we were just like, whoa, you probably dont live in our area. So we have a lesson this week where we get to pass him off to the missionaries where he lives. hopefully all goes well with that.

We also started up a Saturday basketball day with the ysa that we could bring some investigators to and meet there non member friends. Im really excited about that :)

Quote of the week:

" The trouble with an opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work"- Will Rogers

Scripture of the week is 3 Nephi 9:14-15 "14 Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me.

 15 Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified his name.

​ " The cool thing about Jesus Christ is that his arm of mercy is always extended towards us. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and the blessings that we receive as we go to him and trust in him."

​Keep it real,​

Elder W.Chad Thompson