July 30, 2012

My Dearest Family and Friends,

What a week! Being a Missionary just keeps getting better! I love it so much. The weather here in Edmonton is kind of random. In one day we had a crazy rain (downpour), hail, and sun. It was all within 2 hours of each other. Gotta love it. The hottest week so far has come and past (about a month ago) and now it feels like spring all over again (well, spring in Utah). I love it here though. I also got the package of letters from everyone at the Thompson reunion this week as well. That was a pleasant surprise. It was wonderful to hear from all of you! Thank you so much for your continued love, support, encouragement, and prayers. It means the world to me. I have put the Handcart charm on my bag. :)

So, I'm sure you all are waiting on the edge of your seat for the stories from this week. Hmmm... Where to begin? Our Investigator Chris is progressing SO WELL!!! It has been such a blessing to teach him. He is definitely prepared. We were privileged to teach him three times this week. WE taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End) and we started teaching him the commandments. We taught him the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom this week. We found out that he does smoke (has since he was 15, but only smokes at work on breaks because everyone else is), but has been trying to quit for years. His plan was to quit August 1st when him and Jen go to Hawaii. We are praying that he will be able to quit for sure! Jen (his Girlfriend/ fellow shipper) said, "I'll help you flush your sin sticks down to Hell." It was pretty funny. He is excited to quit and really excited to be baptized. He has now come to church five Sundays in a row. Also, we got permission from our Mission President to Skype Chris while he is Hawaii for a few weeks. We're quite excited about that and to help him continue to progress.

We were also privileged to meet with two former Investigators, Azeez and Jerri. We hope that they start progressing again. We were blessed to have Melanie join us for both those lessons. Melanie just returned home from her mission in the Scotland/ Ireland Mission a couple weeks ago and is a great support. She is really great to have in lessons. We were also able to meet with Zhang once this week, but sadly he isn't progressing like we'd like him to. :( We haven't been able to figure out his concerns quite yet. Millwoods is booming though. We have a lot of potential and triple the investigator pool I have had in any of my other areas. (Which is really fun.) Our goal is to have three baptisms in August. You're probably thinking, "Sisters, that is an ambitious goal." Yep! But why would we hinder God's work by saying that we only want to see one person enter the waters of baptism in August. Go Big or Go Home!!!

As Sister Roberts and myself were teaching one of our members the Ward Mission Plan outside of the Stake Center I noticed a car break down on the street. After our lesson I felt impressed to go see how we could help. We went over and found a lady, Ruth, stranded and her car wouldn't start anymore. We (being prepared with jumper cables for just this reason) helped her jump her car. She was very grateful and we were able to give her a mormon.org card with our number (to call us if she broke down again.) ;) I'm glad that Heavenly Father blesses us with opportunities to serve his children if we will open our eyes and take the time to do it. Who knows what will come of it, but at least she was able to get home and a seed was planted.

This week I was blessed to follow the promptings I received and to see the benefits of it. I feel I have finally recognized how the Holy Ghost speaks to me and I am grateful that I have followed through. I am also grateful for a companion who doesn't question the promptings I receive and together we are able to follow the spirit even more. We were meeting with one of our Less Actives, Ben, who knows that he should be coming to church, but chooses not to. We had planned on sharing a scripture in Ether with him, but during Companion Study I felt impressed that we should go another way with our lesson. It turned out to be exactly what Ben needed. We were able to find out some of his concerns because of it and the Spirit wasn't hindered. It was a great lesson.

Oh, we did some street contacting this past week using a Spiritual Survey. It was pretty fun. You meet some of the most random people when do. This one guy (native) told us that the Europeans didn't take over North America, "We invited them here so that they could build a spaceship for us." Then he told us that, "Welfare is just the White man paying rent." Super random hey? Ha ha Sister Roberts and I got a pretty good laugh about this. Gotta love people.

I wanted to end with a quote told by President Monson.

"Dare to be a Mormon.

Dare to Stand Alone.

Dare to have a purpose firm.

Dare to make it known."

Are you standing up for the things you believe in? Even if you have to stand alone? I encourage everyone to watch this amazing Mormon Message http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#dare-to-stand-alone

I love you all!!! God be with you til we meet again!

Love Eternally,

Sister Thompson

P.S. I wanted to attach a picture of Chris and Jen for you to see. He looks like a Paul Walker with a little bit of Hayden Christensen. ;) (Jen, Chris, Sister Thompson, and Sister Roberts).