America!

Hello everyone! I hope you all have had a good week and a great Fourth of July, or Canada Day for you Canucks. We got to celebrate both!!! So I would have to say our week was pretty sweet!

So I will start with Canada Day! I got to wear my Canada tie and Canada shirt (for proselyting and service/activities) so that is already a great start! We got to help people move into their new home, and then we went to a bbq. We played a bit of ultimate frisbee and football and then we of course ate food.To finish the night, we did service at Telus Field which is the baseball field here in edmonton. We were the box seat ticket checker people so that was interesting. The Edmonton team played somebody from Saskatchewan and completely destroyed them! But it was just really cool to be at a baseball game again, seeing one of the things that I love. We finished the night by going to sleep... then waking up to the fireworks, which, were ok. Definitely nothing special, pretty much just half or maybe a third of what an American show would be. But it was better than nothing I suppose! 

We also had the opportunity to go on exchanges with the Assistants to the President which was actually really fun. I went with the elder who has been out for about 10 and a half months so it was interesting to have someone interview me who is younger than me and especially when im used to interviewing others. But that is just the way the church is organized and everything i guess for that matter. That is why humility is so important :) But it was a great exchange. I learned a lot, he learned a lot, and we both have a greater desire to do missionary work! We also had a funny experience on Whyte Ave whilst on exchanges. We were street contacting when we met a super nice muslim guy. about 5 minutes into our conversation a different guy comes up to us saying"whoa i didn't know you guys came out at this time of night!"(it was only 8:45) and the dude was a little nuts. he introduced himself as joey, world champion in pushups. so while talking to him and the muslim for a few minutes a guy who kinda looked like Grimley from Lord of the Rings(if you don't get that reference look it up), well he at least had the hair. He introduced himself as the money man... and i was just like what the heck is even happening right now, is there a drug deal going on right in front of us or what? the pushup guy then tells us that he will do 30 one arm pushups for 5 dollars and 50 for 10. we told him wee didn't have any money so the money man came through! so the guy just throws himself down on the middle of the side walk on Whyte and busts out 30 one arm pushups. Flippin strange is how i would describe it haha. Just plain weird!

We also got to celebrate Independence day! Even without the consent of my companion. just one of the perks of being in a 4 man pad with 2 other Americans. We sang the Star Spangled Banner in the morning, it was great! We ate dinner at a less acountable guys home who went all out for us, it was really cool.

We got to re teach the great apostasy to our progressing investigator just because he wanted more info on it. So as we were preparing for the lesson, i was thinking of what would help me, because we have pretty similar minds, in that we both like learning intellectually as well as spiritually and thats when i thought of Jesus the Christ. I read the chapter on the apostasy and just knew we had to share it with him. We did and it was one of the best lessons we have had! I love Jesus the Christ(yes both the Man and the Book) it is just awesome! If you haven't read it, then i invite you to at least read Chapter 40:the long night of apostasy. it is truly an amazing and inspired book.

We talked about the Same sex ruling in church sunday, which in a YSA ward there are going to be a lot of differing opinions. But out ward mission leader closed it off by saying simply that all that matters is the question, did Joseph Smith actually see God? because if he did, then the letter wasnt from some guy named Thomas S. Monson, but it was from some Guy named Jesus Christ.

Im grateful for the opportunity i have had to serve a mission and continually strengthen my testimony. I know that Jesus Christ truly does lead His church on the earth today and that is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know it so well that it has become factual to me. The Spirit bore witness to me, and i know he can bare witness to you too. All you have to do is put in the time and the effort with real intent and God will show you the truthfulness of all things.

Keep it real, 

Elder W. Chad Thompson

#KeepThompsonInTheCity

Brad Jones a great guy with a low form of autism.He is a great example of faith and perseverance to me, and he has the Quote of the Week!"Walmart is like Satan!" haha good times!

Me and Brad

The less accountable dude that fed us! He is a stud!

Farmer Joe

Hey everyone! I hope y'all had a great week and a great week and a great fathers day! You will have to tell me if you did anything fun. We had a pretty productive week where we were able to meet with quite a few people and get stuff done!

So this week a couple of highlights went down. We had our ZTM where the rest of our Zone got distributed iPads, so they were pretty pumped about that. We were able to talk about a lot of great things and hopefully we all learned something and had a greater desire to be better missionaries. 

After ZTM we went of exchanges and i went to Cold Lake where the main highlight of the week happened. We went to a ranch and helped slaughter and skin not one, but two pigs! It was crazy! it was definitely a first(and potentially the last) time i have ever done that. I think its really cool how many different things you get to do and experience on a mission, and that is one of many reasons i am grateful that i have had this chance to serve for almost 2 years and im thankful i still have some time left to finish strong.

We also had a great lesson with one of our progressing investigator. We taught lesson 3 (The Gospel of Jesus Christ). He took everything very well and it has been a really neat experience to see the spirit working with him. He has that real intent that everyone needs to have to be able to receive an answer. Our next step is to help him understand Priesthood Authority a little bit better, because that is his main concern with baptism right now. But i am excited for him and i am grateful i have had the opportunity to meet him and help him along the way of conversion with my companion.

Scripture of the week is 2 Nephi chapter 9 verses 28-29

"28 O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

29 But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God."

Keep it real,

Elder W.Chad Thompson

God Bless America!

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a great week and were able to get lots done. Our week was pretty great.

We went on exchanges with the Spanish elders and had a great time. This time i stayed in our area and we got some good finding done. We got to meet up with our investigator Jonathan who is getting married and moving to Lethbridge in about a month, so hopefully we can help him progress as much as we can before he takes off. We picked up new Investigator named Pape "poppy" and he is black so i call him big poppy. the only problem is he speaks french and has pretty bad english and we dont have any french missionaries yet. We are getting a few in the next couple of transfers though so that should be good. Right now we just have to rely on the members that served french speaking missions.

We did a Booth type thing on Whyte ave this week, except it was raining so that kinda sucked. But it was still good. My companion would get people to give him a topic and he would freestyle rap about it and relate it to the gospel, and it went pretty well. We actually got lots of people to talk to us.

So as you all know my companion is British, and let me tell you, you dont know how patriotic you are until someone starts bagging on your country haha. It has been fun because most of the missionaries are American so we have a good time with it, joking around and what not.

Scripture of the week is 2 Nephi 1:7
 "7 Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever."

Keep it real,

Elder W.Chad Thompson

Ooh Look, Another Beach!

Hello everyone, hope you all had a great week! 

We were able to keep busy this week. Very busy. We got to proselyte in our area for about 3.5 days busy. We went on exchanges out in Cold Lake which is one of the furthest east areas in our mission. So there was the drive out there, we had a District meeting with the elders out there, then did service for a lady the rest of the day.

The service was fun because we got to clean up a lady's yard where she just had a bunch of animals chilling all over the place, especially birds. I also figured out that Elder Liddle has a slight phobia of birds haha. We also were supposed to sheer sheep, but they broke the electric fence and got out from where we were taking them, because the electric fence wasn't turned on... the reason was because the lady "didn't want to hurt the sheep"...dang animal lovers!

We also had Mission Leadership Council this past week which was very very long. Usually they last for about 4 hours, but this one went from 10-7:30 with a lunch break of 30 minutes. But we got our iPads and initialized them, so I guess it was worth it! Elder Christensen of the presidency of the 70 was also there and gave some awesome insight into some things. I got to talk 1 on 1 with him which was super cool. We talked about Yucaipa (because he actually knew where that is!) and what he could expect of Edmonton, to how I was liking my mission. It was legit! but now I am kicking myself because I didn't get a picture with him and he is now an apostle candidate. But we did take an MLC picture so hopefully we can get that.

Using the iPads has been super nice. it makes everything so much more efficient and it's nice having everythying in one place. I have also been using the scripture mastery app and been getting better!(which is a LOT easier as a missionary, after actually been reading the scriptures constantly for almost 2 years.)

And last of all, we had transfer calls this morning, and I'm staying!! I'm happy to have at least 6 more weeks here in the Mill Creek YSA area and looking forward to working hard.

Quote of the week is from Elder Liddle on our drive out to Cold Lake. We passed a sign that said beach and he couldn't figure out why they would call a lake a beach, so every time we passed a lake he would sarcastically say "ooh look, another beach!" haha it was super funny.

Scripture of the week is 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3(which is a Scripture Mastery!)
 "1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
 2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;"

I am thankful for the knowledge that we have of the priesthood authority being lost through the great apostasy and I can testify that those priesthood keys required to have God's church on the earth have been restored and are being exercised today.

Keep it real,

Elder W.Chad Thompson

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!