HOLA from Hermana Thompson

HOLA!!!

So this week was great!!! We had a leaders conference and president really encouraged us to have faith in the plans that the Lord has given us. We have a goal to complete the standard of excellence in 3 weeks and with the help of the Lord, anything is possible.  I have really learned what faith is. But with faith we need to act and trust in the Lord that it will go the best way possible. 

Anyways, we were able to find more new investigadors who really seem to be prepared! The Lord has put everything in our path so that we can really accomplish the goals we have set, we cant do this work alone, we are in a trio with the Lord. Oh and im not in a Hermana trio anymore because Hna Valesquez had emergency transfers today. Sad day. but its all good!!! 

So i wrote out things I was going to write, and forgot it all. So its a super short email. 

We had interviews with president and he first tells me that he cant believe I already have 13 months. Me neither. What the heck. But I'm so motivated to really work hard in these last 5 months! I am going to be the person the lord wants me to be. 

Love ya all

Hermana Thompson

Pix of Zone leaders and Hermana leaders in mission

HOLAaaaaaaa

July 6^th 2015

hola hola!!! 

como estan mi familia??? les extrano mucho!! pero estoy feliz!!! its just a party here in guatemala. well. not really. but lets just start wtih this. thanks mom for the package with cereal, i decided to make breakfast for them with it hahah...l look at one of the photos i sent. 

so andrea got baptized!!! i came in when she arleady had her date, but I’m super grateful to have been apart of it and see her make this covenant with our Father in Heaven! She is 13 and takes care of her younger brother and sisters. Her mom is an alcoholic and is never home because works like 5 hours away. She takes her younger sibling to church and everything. She was so excited to be baptized and she knows this church is true! i am excited to see the generations that follow!!

Eriks fecha fija fell because he is having problem overcoming addictions. We are going to pass the reference to the elders because its more appropriate for them to help them, but we are just praying for him!!

I also had divisions with my old comp is my old area. weird. but it was like i never had changes hahah but it was fun being with her and seeing how she is really becoming a great missionary!!! 

We met a lady named nancy who just loves the book of mormon and can feel the difference in her life. When people open up there hearts to the spirit, they can receive sooo much more happiness!!! 

This week i learned an important lesson about repentance. true repentance means that we are better than yesterday and tomorrow we are better than today! i love it!!! 

We need to be repenting every day and truly talking to our Heavenly Father. When you pray, imagine like its a conversation. He wont answer you in the ways you want, but many of your answers can be found in His written words. Listen to the spirit, he will answer. He loves you. He knows you, and He wants to help you. He provides comfort that no one can. 

I love you all

con amor 

hermana thompson

----------------------------

June 29th

HOLAAA

Well, this has been the most tiring thing of my life. For the least, i fit everything in my suitcases...almost. Well, Hermana Woods, my trainer went home this week so that was sad! But i received not only one, but TWO new comps!!! Hermana Yriarte who is from Mexico who has an obsession with instant soup and Hermana Valesquez from Mexico who is the skinniest person yet eats the world. not fair. but its chill. We have an uneven amount of Hermanas so Hermana V didnt have a comp. Trio for 6 weeks woot woot! but its probs the best trio ever. WE have soo much fun and i learn sooo much from them! they came to the mission together and have 14 months! Last night, we compared Disney movies with the lessons we teach. Lion king and Hercules are the plan of salvation. think about it. 

So I felt like this week went by so fast and I’m so tired!!We did divisions with Olintepece, Hermana Feliz and Hermana Tolman. I went with Hermana Feliz there and it was so great! Olinte is beautiful! i learn so much through divisions. we went running through the corn field so it was great! As sister leaders we get to go and do divisions with different Hermanas every week, and one of them is my area i just came from. YAY: 

This week i met Erik who will be getting baptized on Saturday. Hes just been looking for God and has made a huge change in his life! its amazing to see the gospel change peoples lifes.  

QUe mas...

OOO. so the sunday before changes my old ward assigned me a talk about how to prepare for the missin, when i got changes i was excited because i didn’t have to give it anymore, but the first counselor of my new ward called me and assigned me it AGAIN. 

WHAT. 

hahaah but it all went well! 

We also ate soo much food this week. everyone gave us food. i ate baladas, from honduras, chilikilis, from mexico, and spaghetti and frijoles, from guatemala. puede ver quien tiene comida mas rica. Jajaja.

anyways. thats it for this week!! 

love ya all 

hermana thompson

One of my new Comp!

I made them french toast for July 4th!

For My Moms Bday

Baptism of Andrea

la canchota se va

Our investigators daughter

We found a secret path 

Erikas kids. They love frozen. every time I go to there house I just want to watch frozen. 

herman piedra santa, the menos activa who is now active!!! woot woot just took ironing her clothes and cleaning her house

HOLA!!

Well, by the time that everyone gets this email, my brother Austen will be engaged!!! CONGRATS!!! I may not knwo your future wife, but im still excited for ya! 

So, last night, as we were waiting for our district leader to call about changes when President calls and called me as a sister leader. I was in shock and couldnt sleep all through the night!!! Im super scared and nervous, but I have been praying a lot to develop more love in everything that I do and i feel like this was an answer. I am excited to help support other Hermanas!! So I have transfers tomorrow so we will see where i go!

So, as everyone knows, i always get talked to in the street, normally its a hey baby and thats about all the English that they know, but this week i was impressed by the creativity. So a lto say canche which means blonde person. Well, they used canche and another word, grandota, which means giant, and put them together. Canchota. I was impressed. hahaha 

So about 3 months ago i shared a sotry about a man named Froilan, he was in a serious accident and had a crazy cast thing for awhile. We taught him for a little bit and he was just so humble and ready to accept the gospel. It broke our hearts when we found out that he moved, BUT we tracked him down and he was in the area of the hermanas of centro, hermana woods and Bingham. they found him and HE GOT BAPTIZED! I WAS SO EXCITED FOR THEM!!! 

So i said we were going to have a baptism with a man named Domingo, well, satan got a hold of him and he did some things he shouldnt so we moved the date. He is still trying, but when someone tries to change their life COMPLETELY its pretty tough. He has a lot of repentance to do, but the Lord is with him and helping him. It has made me think a lot about the atonement and how Jesus has really felt Every pain, every sadness, EVERYTHING. In sunday school someones said something relaly powerful, when Jesus was suffering in the garden of gethsemene our Heavenly Father had to distance himself from Him to stop from helping with the pain. Not only Jesus was suffering, but our Father in Heaven as well. Every time we feel pain, he is saddened as well, but he knows what is best for us

. 

Also, one of our cute investigators named Rosio took the faith as Esther did and came to church not really caring what her husband said. He is super not interested in hearing from us so really doesnt like us talkiing to her but she wants to find the true church and is doing everything she can to be able to come to church!

Also, Amalia and Glenda read not only the intro but the testimonies and highlighted. 

They are praying to find the true church as well. Im sad to leave all these people, but I feel like I have completed my work here in Los Arcos, this was a great four and a half months!! 

love you all!!

con amor

hermana thompson

IT'S ALREADY BEEN ONE WHOLE YEAR!!!

Enough said!

P Day cleaning out the mission home storage area....Lots of work!

HOLA

Well, this week was one of weird emotions. I Completed one year on Thursday. It made me think about my time I have had here in the mission and i have realized how much I have loved every second of it. Its been the hardest, best time of my life. I have met so many people who have changed my life!!!  I love this gospel and I love every opportunity I have to share it. 

So one of the best parts of this week was Hermana Piedra Santa, who has been inactive for three years and she finally came to church two weeks ago and last week. two Sundays in a row for the first tim ein three years. She says that she can already see the blessings in her life. Attending church is very important, and a time taht we can renew our covenants and remember His sacrafice for us. 

Also, Domingo was the man who has come to church four Sundays in a row. that a gold mine in missionary world. He was going to get up and move to Mexico this week and so he told us he had to think about baptism. On thursday we went and I asked if ya se va?..are you out of here?.. and he said no I have to get baptized first!!! This man is amazing!! he also invites two of his friends to church with him and they both came! we couldnt find them after the first hour, but we found them at the tienda buying cookies hahaahaha 

but Domingo was so prepared. He teaches us the commandments before we even need to teach him. The Lord really does prepare people. He is getting baptized this saturday!!! When he gets no sleep, he comes to church. When hes alzy, he still comes to church. He has no excuses for himself and his relationship in God. He even knows the importance of missionary work. 

Every one of us should be striving to be obedient in all aspects of life. We need to put Him first, not anyone else. We should live every moment as if the second coming was tomorrow. Obedience is the key to happiness in this life, I testify of that. It isn't a burden its a blessing!!! 

con amor

hermana thompson

IT'S RAINING, RAINING, AND IT'S RAINING!

Hola!!

This week we had crazyyyy rainstorms. hail lightening, the works!!! we were soaking wet from the rain for many days but i love it still! hahaah i guess ther is a hurricane in mexico so we got some of that rain. 

also my companion took about an hour talking about how mexican weddings are like 6 days long...what the what. and also the traditional Guatemalan wedding! and they give left overs out. 6 days of a partying??? man. sounds tiring. 

it was pouring rain one day and all of our citas fell so we tried finding a contact that we had talked too. we actually knocked on one door and they were like come in! that never happens. so we were shocked and then remembered that we had actually contacted them before too. they were waiting for us!! it s as an amazing spiritual lesson in how god has restored his church here. she is going to pray and see if it is true. 

On sunday I was just sooo happy!! we have been working with a menos ativa since I got here...like more than 4 months ago. We passed for her one time and she said absolutely not. on saturday she said she would go with. us. and she actually did. and loved it. she told me she thinks she is sick because she is sooo excited to be here hahaah i love her!! also a menos activa family came that we have been working with! its been full of lots of blessings!!! 

Anyways, I lvoe being a missionary. its been the best roller coaster of my life!!! Never want it to end. 

Love ya all   

Hermana Thompson

1. lets play a game. i spy Hermana Thompson.. hahaahahah you cant even see my comp!! a gorup that came and we gave a tour at the temple

Cool castle in our area. i mean the floors are from england so its pretty cool 

Hola...Mad frogs?

May 25th Letter...

HOLA!!!

So this week it rained a lot and there are a lot of frogs here i guess. who knew. My comp said that if you make a frog mad it will blow up and explode...so she started to throw rocks and it and the frog just looked at us like we were not the smartest people alive. hahha

also it was Miriams bday so we went over and made dinner and got a cake! this was Sunday night and we have a weekly goal of 70 contacts every week. We left and about 850 and my comp had cake all in her hair because her and Miriam had a cake fight...i got lucky hahaah. but we only had 68 so we contacted people with cake on our face. it was hilarious hahahahah 

A lot of our investigators have seemed to disappear and i felt like we weren't finding the chose people. A member had given us a reference that was iffy but we went and found him and his name is Domingo!! He is amazing!!!! We put an appointment and when we show up he had invited his friends to listen as well!! He has quite a past and was listening to the elders about five years ago but had so much going on that it just didn't happen in that time. He is looking to start over and this time he has realized what he didn't have last time, God. He never really practiced a religion and felt a lot of sadness in his life, but he now wants to start over but with God in his life! We met him Saturday and he cam to church Sunday. He has really been prepared and i am so grateful that Heavenly Father sent those two elders to him five years ago. God answers prayers, i was prying to find those prepared and he showed us to Domingo. He tells us the people that he has prepared. i love being a missionary. 

 love 

hermana thompson

Miriams Birthday cake fight... No, I didn't start it.

My companion

Cake is everywhere with Miriam

Miriams baby Brody...so cute!

Purses here is Guatemala

Backpacks everyone uses here

Bautismo de Miriam, Best Day Ever!

May 18^th letter:

Hola!!! 

So this last week was changes but the best news is that HERMANA WOODS IS BACK IN MY ZONE. my trainer. its her last change which is sad but I'm happy she is going to die in our zone! 

So this week we found a man who told us that he already has God but that we should go preach to the government (there is some problems with a major bank here and its the governments fault or something). Pretty funny not gonna lie. 

So the best news is that MIRIAM WAS BAPTIZED!!! We found her about 2 months ago through a members reference. We really didn't think she would every be baptized and she didn't seem happy with her life at all. She is 22 years old, single mom, with a 9 month baby, Brody, who is the cutest of them all!!!! She always wanted to be baptized because she feels that this is what her life needs to keep going forward and really change. She was having problems going to church because she takes care of her nephews during the church time, but she wanted it so she came and then her sister in laws work schedule changed so now she can go to all 3 hours!! we always have miracles when we choose to do the right, in her case, baptize. I just love her and i can honestly say she is one of my best friends and has really showed me such an example of change. 

We also has Carmen Paz, and investigator who we found months ago but was never home. She was home these last couple of weeks and we went one day and she was crying. Her husband and just left her with all her kids and wasn't coming back. We shared some verses from the Book of Mormon and planned a cita to go back. We went back and she had read the Book of Mormon and felt soooo much peace from it. We weren't even teaching about the Book of Mormon, but i felt like we should put a baptism date for the 6th of June, but before i got the chance to invite her my comp said the same thing i would have said°! I love how the spirit works with us and really tells us what we need to do. She accepted the date too!! such a great spiritual experience. 

I learned a lot about faith this weeek. Faith does not come from miracles, rather miracles come from faith. We have to gain the faith by doing the little things, reading our scripture and praying daily. but most importantly we need to live the gospel. We need to repent daily, exercises our faith daily, and partake of the sacrament always. 

I love being a  missionary. Har4dest, best decision of my life!!! 

love you all

hermana thompson

Hermana Woods is back!

This is the typical clothes they wear here.  The long dress is about 10,000 quetz, so like 800 dollars. The other is the corte and wepul they wear.  Lots of people wear them here!

Bautismo de Miriam!!! Best day ever!