MY FIRST TRANSFER

HOLA HOLA HOLA

Well. the time has come. i was transfered. Where?? the center of the mission. Xela, Los Arcos. aka where the President lives. Yes. I'm nervous. 

My comp is hermana aguilar and she is from Honduras! i absolutely love her and we have soo much fun!!!

She is half my size. She couldnt be my comp if she wasnt half my size hahah. This area is completely different, in fact im pretty sure im not in the same Guatemala i have been in for the last 8 months. 

First of all, there are no more dirt roads. they are all cobble stone and there are cars everywhere. in huehue, it was one main road and a bunch of dirt roads. Here, there are other white people. I didnt feel liek they existed in Guatemala! Which also mean i dont get as many cat calls anymore!!! I used to be the only white girl in site, now there's lots! Everyone I went in HueHue they would ask how my eyes were blue, but here, its the norm. I FIT IN!! 

So the people here have iphones, and ipads. i haven't seen those for 8 months. Teh houses here are beautiful!!! and lots of people wear the typical corte of xela, which is different than huehue. Our house is practically outside, but hey i get my own bathroom! And part of our house is a bakery owned by members so we get to eat all the bread and donuts we want when we want them. they just ring our doorbell and give us some! they are so great! 

No i will not get fat. but i make no promises. 

So this ward is different. they have about 200 people every week, where before I had about 100. 

BUT I get to work in the temple once a week!!! We get to give tours and explain why we have the temples! I LOVE IT!!! One of the recent converts, Rudy, is truly amazing. He got baptized about 2 weeks ago and his story is inspiring. He came to know the church because he always watched BYUtv. He used to watch all teh General Conferences and everything, and just loved it! One day he met the missionaries and he just knew the church was true. I have a testimony that the Lord really prepares

My new companion from Honduras, Hermana Agulara

Cobblestone streets

Herman Agulara is about 5'2"

Our new home

people to be baptized and in this case, he was prepared through the words of our living prophet. WOW. He came to the temple and was sooo grateful that he could share this joy of baptism with his parents who have already passed away. In the next couple of weeks, he will be going and doing baptisms for his family members who have already passed away. I lvoe the temple so much°! 

So we recieved a reference for an inactive name Pedro. Wow, he has been inactive for two years and didnt want anything, then we came and he just needed to hear some things about repentance. Now he knows he can be forgiven for anything and everything, and he came to church with us on sunday! He may not have been ready a year ago to come back, but he is now. 

so we have two baptisms on saturday!!   One. Andrea, super pilas 12 year old, the daughter of Rudy the recent convert. She is so smart and loves the church!!! 

The second is Manuel. He kept saying that he didnt feel prepared for baptism, but he already recieved all the lessons and we knew something just wasnt right. So we had a lesson and the spirit jsut worked through us and we found out his fears of baptism. I didnt even know him but during this lesson i felt like I have known him all my life.  We talked to him about how we aren't all perfect, thats why we have repentance. We told him to pray about the 28th of feb. On saturday he told us he is getting baptized on the 28th. what the what. 

Xela or Quetzaltenango

We live below a bakery and they feed us all the time!

Anyway, its been crazy! I have lots of fun things but it will wait till next week!!

love ya 

hna Thompson

Aura and my one of my comps

Our district

Alma Molina and her family (working on going to the temple)

Add caption

Aura game me these to take home

We celebrated with cascarones for Carnival Day..its like Lent

me voy huehue

February 16th - out of order..

Weell...the time has come ladies and gentleman. sorry if thats not how you spell that...spanish problems. BUT. 

after 8 of the most amazing months of my life. i am leaving HueHue! I have transfers!! My first normal transfer as all of my other transfers have been an emergency...so now that i have a normal one i feel like im in trouble or something haha. BUT dont you worry Im not! 

So i figured I would list 8 things I am going to miss about my home there in Las Flores, HueHuetenango. 

1. Hot Chocolate and bread with Hermana Aura when we were sad or when we were happy (i will also miss her hugs and the calls we always received to make sure we were alive) 

2. Waking up to fireworks and evangelica music at 5 am in the morning. 

3. 3 Hour bus rides squished between people who should shower more regularly

4. Seeing these peoples lives change because of the gospel 

5. The three dogs, scooby and sparky and i forgot the other name, that lived outside of my house and protected us

6. the dog that always hid and then came out to scare me every day by barking like ccrazy 

7. the rock i tripped on every day as i left the house. 

8. The amazing friends and family I have met. Las Flores I have a second family and am so grateful to be part of their lives. it was truly the most special thing in the world. 

I was in the area for awhile. but I was sooo grateful for my time. I watched peoples puppys grow to dogs, watched people begin their pregnancy and then have their little babies, discovered where all the Jehovahs Witnesses and Evangelicas lived, but most importantly I saw the gospel grow in peoples hearts. 

I have a couple of little miracles this week. 

We have a family in our ward, the Molinas. Alma Molina has a husband whose a convert and they havent been able to go to the temple because her husband hasnt been able to stay strong in the church. About a month ago he had a horrible experience with a member and decided to never ever go back to church. He had already not been assisting the church for about 4 months but Alma began to loose hope. We tried everything we could to give him suppor tfrom the ward. We made their family a sign with a couple of things they need to do to be able to go to the temple and be sealed as a family for eternity. It had a picture of the temple and things like going to church every sunday or things like that. I didnt think they would really cherish it or anything and i didn thave the chance to talk to him. As my last sunday in my ward. Who was sitting on the front row with the family?? Alma, her kids, and her husband, Jorge. I wanted to cry of joy! Alma told me later that she will be sending me an invite to the sealing as he his going to follow everything that our poster said. I was so overjoyed to see them as a family in the church!!! It was such a blessing!!! Great way to end my time there!!! 

this week was amazsing. 

Well, changes are tomorrow, so we will see where i go!!!!!

love you all

Hermana Thompson

CAMPING, TRIO LIFE, VOMIT, AND ALIENS

HOLA!

Well...this was the most interesting week of my life. Its a good one so listen up. 

On Tuesday my companion informed me that she saw aliens the night before. Shes been a little sick so Ill accept it for now. now you all remember what it means when someone is really a missionary?? when someone has an accident?? well i promise you it happens to alllllll missionaries. and my comp made fun of me but then it happened to her. KARMA. 

Anyways. My companion, Hermana Romero (the one I was training) ended up going home this week. It was super quick, and president didnt really know what to do so he put me with the hermanas whose area is newxt to mine. I am officially sleeping on a cot made for guatemalans. aka. my feet hang off the end. but im not complaining i will only be here till next week when we have changes and we will see what happens then. 

But, the barrio prado had a ward baptism and asked for our help so we went. This was the first time I was introduced to their ward, and well as everyone was eating some cake after the baptism I puked all over the floor. Well, I can make great first impressions!!! But its all good. This ward gives us a lot of food so im not used to it. Clearly. 

So we are working two areas! Its a little challenging getting to visit everyone because we both have giant areas, but we still had a really great experience with one of my investigadors, libni. Her husband is in jail and she has two kids and has a lot of difficulties. We met her in December and had only talked to her for abut 5 minutes and she told us all of her problems. She just needed t talk. We couldnt find her for about a month but ended up finding her one day. We have been teaching her a lot and she told us she doesnt like telling her problems to anyone, but has received so much peace in her life from our visits that she feels that she can talk to us. We have seen the gospel bring this peace to her life. 

I just finished reading the Book of Mormon again, and I cant deny of how true it is. The way and map for peace in this life is written right there in the Book of Mormon. Its so simple. We need to be obedient to everything. Its hard sometimes, but its worth it. We use the bible adn the book of mormon as one. We have the restored gospel on the earth today and I am so excited to share it with everyone I meet. If we do our part and read and pray, we will be shown the truth. 

I am so grateful taht I have the opportunity to watch people change because of this gospel! Dont be afraid to share it with anyone! Every soul is great in the eyes of God. 

have a great week!!

con mucho amor, 

Hermana Thompson

My new Guatemalan length cot.  Temporary sleeping for a while.

Can't ever say I wasn't here!

I actually got to go swimming.  Checking out the depth of the font.

My Trio companions

Love these guys!

My new digs for a week or so.

NUTELLA AND DEEP DOCTRINE

HOLA
so sometimes as a missionary it sounds nice to just sit in the house and sleep...but  let me tell you all that it is not fun!!! My comp was sick most of the week so we werent able to leave and i was soooooooo bored!!!! I had so much energy..partially because i recieved the amazing package from deana giles and was eating all the candyand nutella this week. whoops. i found many different things one could eat nutella with. it was great. but so worth it. BUT. I did get a lot of time to study and really read the Book of Mormon and some conference talks. 

My favorite talk is the one by President Uchtdorf called Recieving a Testimony of Light and Trusth. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/receiving-a-testimony-of-light-and-truth?lang=eng

He goes on to say that a personal testimony of light and truth is the most valuable thing one can have in this life. I truly testify of that. All fo our actions in life should be to help build our testimonys. Now, a testimony is based on faith. and its hard to believe what we cant see. For example go back into time adn try explaining a microwave or an iphone to the people in ancient europe. Most would ridicule or apply reason or logic for what they dont know. The arent able to see clearly because they had not yet received complete light and truth. Thats exactly how it is with the gospel. We cant really see what is going to happen in the future, but if we have faith we will know. 

Many people think that God doesnt have enough time to answer each one of us, but i testify that he does. He cares about you and he will answer your personal questions in his own way and in his own time. We just need to learn to listen to his voice and declutter our lives. 

God wants you to find your way back to him. but we need to do our part! Thats the hardest part about being a missionary is trying to get the people to do their part. We can preach all we want, but unless they pray to God and ask if im our message is true, they will never know. We need to search the words of God, consider and ponder them and strive to believe, we need to ask Heavenly Father in the Name of Christ is this is the truth, and to really verify that these gospel principals are true we need to live them. Do these things and he promises to show the truth. Use the right instruments to find the truth. instruments of man wont work in this situation. 

Mormon 9 25

and whosoever shall believe in my name, doubting nothing, unto him will i confirm all my words even unto the ends of the earth

This week was full of little miracles. When we could leave, we got to go wtiih Vanessa. She is 17 and wants to find the truth! She is truly praying and I can see her yearn to find more! We also have an investigator named Mary, who is reading and she has the desire to keep reading!! These people are doing their part and the Lord is working with them too. 

If you want to find the truth. Just ask. 

love you all!!!!! 

thanks for all the support!!!

love 

hermana thompson