Elder Henry H. Thompson: I Don't Speak Spanish ~ 10.23.17

What's up friends and family and other people who somehow know me well enough to receive this email!! Another smokin week here in NorCal!!

This week I went on exchanges with our District Leader who is a Spanish elder. I spent the night in Woodland, California and we were able to do some really effective street contacting. The missionaries here tell me that I'm really good at talking to everyone and that I don't act like a normal greenie because I "look" like I know what I'm doing. I tell them that I used to get in trouble every day at school for being too social but it's working out for me here. so take that East High.

I had no idea what was being said when Elder Morais would start speaking Spanish but I could feel the spirit so strongly and that was a really cool experience. The next day, we had interviews with President Wright. Some of you may have seen him on the news in recent days. He is the greatest man ever! He really loves us missionaries and will do everything that he can to set us up to be successful. I have been so blessed to have a Mission President like him.

The other day, while knocking doors by our apartment, we knocked on this lady's door and she started talking to us. She is a college student studying to be a botanist. She is Pagan and her husband is an Atheist. After about 20 minutes of talking to her about why we go around knocking doors and following a crazy schedule, she invited us back the next day to help her teach her husband about God. That was a cool thing. The next day we went back and nobody was there.... weird. So we went back the next day and she opened the door and was kind of not there in a way. She told us that she had gotten in a bad car accident the day before and to come back like next week. Now, I'm not sure what kind of crap satan is pulling here, but he better stop messing with our potential investigators! We are praying for her.

One more cool experience this week. We meet with this recent convert, Ron, who doesn't really believe what we do... but he has it really rough and his life has been really hard so we go over and talk to him twice a week. He is in his mid 60's and arthritis is setting in pretty hard for him so he cant do much work. Anyway, this investigator family that we had dinner with one night had a mattress in their front room. We asked them what it was about and they said that now that they have two kids, they can't have this queen sized mattress anymore because they need twin beds so they were getting rid of this pretty much brand new, super soft, queen-sized mattress. They asked if we knew anyone who needed it. We said that Ron would probably really appreciate it because he doesnt have much. Well, we went over the next day and gave it to him and he seemed kind of shocked and speechless that people could be so kind. The next day at church, we talked to him and he said that the mattress was such a Godsend because it was the first day in years when he hadn't woken up with shoulder and back pain! I'm glad we were able to help him out. That's about it for this week. I've written all of the interesting stuff so if you've stopped caring, you can stop reading now.

I've been thinking about all of my friends in SLC and around the world as well. I've also been thinking a lot about India since our 1 year mark of going there is coming up next month so shoutout to my YMAD fam! Love you guys!

Let me know what is going on in life! Also the song of the week is the acoustic version of "layla" by Eric Clapton. That one has been stuck in my head for the past little while. Everything is going well here in Cali. I think the fires are coming to an end but I'm a missionary so I don't know anything.

Onward and upward, squad up and squad out, and welcome to Scrusstown.

Love,

Elder Thompson