Tis The Season, Light The World

11.27.17

Greetings from the Republic of California! I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving. It's a great time to be with the people that you are most grateful for... and don't forget the mashed potatoes!! 

Our 5-man here in the Woodland Zone is always a party and I gotta say what a blessing, we are always having a good time (and working hard).

This week was pretty crazy. Since Elder Siebach is the District Leader, I have to go on exchanges 2-3 times each week. Most of the time I have gone into Spanish areas so I have no idea what is being said but it's all good because it all means the same thing! 

All 5 of us had Thanksgiving with a family in the ward. It was really nice of them to invite us. We stuffed ourselves to the max! That was a good and a bad thing. 

Friday was a day of service. We helped a member move his chicken coop and we watched his dog almost kill a chicken... the chicken is alright and no we did not make that happen on purpose. Then we helped another member move. The wife recently had a heart attack and so she can't lift more than 40 lbs now so all 5 of us were glad to help! It was really fulfilling! 

At a dinner appointment on saturday, I gave a spiritual thought about Enos. After Enos gains a remission of his sins, he begins to pray for the welfare of his friends, the Nephites, which is pretty normal I guess. But then he prays for the welfare of his enemies, the Lamanites! How selfless! We all should turn outward like Enos does and our lives will all be so much happier. 

Read the Book of Mormon every day! It will change your life for the better. 

It's been great hearing from some of you! I hope everything is going well with the rest. 

The song of the week is the hit "Young Adult" by Ritt Momney! If you haven't heard it yet, I would highly recommend it!  Making music with that wonderful group of people was some of the best times of my life so far. One good song can change someone's life! 

Turn outward this week, follow the "Light The World" campaign! The videos bring so much spirit into our lives. Rake someones leaves, bake some cookies with your grandma, share your favorite song with someone! 

Have a great week and take advantage of all that you can do during this Christmas season! 

Festively,

Elder Thompson 

Hank's address: (at least until December 19 transfers)

1225 Linford Lane 

Apt. D3

Dixon, CA 95620

D 3 Five at the Hollowell's home

Republic of California

Thanksgiving activities

Thanksgiving in Dixon

11.20.17

Hey group email squad! 
I'd like to start off this email by giving big shout out to YMAD... an experience that changed my life. A year ago today, I was in Chamba, India. Half of a world away, with some of the best friends that I have ever made and helping out some of the best people I have ever met. Which brings me to the song of the week: One Day by Matisyahu. I'm grateful for everything that YMAD taught me and I'm grateful for the people that I was able to come close to during my time preparing for India and actually being there. 

This week was crazy! We spent Tuesday in Santa Rosa and it was really boring except I saw Elder Nate Koelliker at transfers!! It was really great to see him! The next day, we picked up our little boy, Elder Mohler, from Vegas baby! We also picked up two Spanish elders, Elder Abraham from Glendale, Arizona, and Elder Walker from Logan, Utah. They're all super cool and it's been a party in our little 5-man apartment. I'm now chilling here with Elder Kelso from Holladay, Utah.  If anyone knows him, say what's up. 

This week we had a super spiritual finding experience. We each said where we wanted to tract and each of us said different places so we decided to go from the top to the bottom to where each of us wanted to go. In one area, we got a return appointment and then at the park we got a referral from a member and talked to a family playing basketball and then we had a super great spiritual thought at our dinner that night! It was super directed by the Spirit!! 

Most of this week was just adjusting for having 5 people. We had to put together some bunk beds and we had to get some other desks. 

We are working hard every day.  The longer I've been out, the more everything makes sense and I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve in the CASRM! The other cool thing that happened was I was able to see some of the fire damage and some vineyards in Napa and Sonoma valleys. I'll attach some pictures. Have a great Thanksgiving this week! Be thankful for each day! Hug your favorite Pilgrim or Indian! 

Onward and upward.

Love, 

Elder Thompson 

5 Guys Dixon Apartment

Napa Valley

Sonoma Vineyards

Trio: Thompson, Mohler, Siebach

Elders Thompson and Koelliker

Destruction in Santa Rosa

TWO MONTHS

11.13.17

Friends and family,

Yes, it is that time again when I tell you what I have been doing for the past week. It has been a pretty eventful one! 

First off, I would like to announce that Elder Siebach and I are pregnant! That's right, we will be having a son on Tuesday. We will be trio training a brand new missionary and Elder Siebach will also be the District Leader... so that will be interesting! Along with those two surprises, we will also be gaining two OTHER Elders here in our apartment. They will be Spanish elders, one of them is straight out of the MTC. So three greenies, a district leader/trainer, and a trainer. That should make for an interesting holiday season! So tomorrow I will be spending the day working in santa rosa and it will be different to see everything so burned up. We will stay the night in Foothill Park and then pick up our greenies the next day and go to work! 

We will be passing off Carlos and Rosa, the two Spanish speaking people who have a baptismal date, to the Spanish speaking elders who will probably be pretty happy about that. 

The other family that I have mentioned, the father has come to church without fail for the past two weeks so we are just awaiting the call from Bishop to be able to go over and teach. Bishop says they have had some really spiritual talks together and that things are going well. We are praying hard for them! 

Funny story for the week: on Monday night they took our car to Santa Rosa and gave us bikes, so we have been cruising alllll around the place having a great time. But on Tuesday for Exchanges, the Spanish elder who was with me for the day and myself had to go wayyyyy outside of town for a lesson. This was our first day on bikes. keep that in mind. We get about halfway there and both of our rear tires popped and the other elder's chain snapped in half. So we had to walk about 2 miles to get to this lesson in the middle of nowhere. That night, all of our plans to go to the Spanish part of town went right down that fat drain since we had no way to get there and it was pretty far away. We ended up tracting around our apartment and our church. Nobody was willing to listen except for the last person that we talked to. She and her husband had recently been talking a lot about going to church but they didnt know which one. I pointed them toward our church and told them that they would be welcome to come to ours. She told us that she really appreciates what we do every day. If our bikes wouldn't have broken, we wouldn't have met this woman so that's really cool to me! 

The song of the week is "Leaves" by Miguel and it really doesn't have to do with anything, I just like it and it's been stuck in my head so there's that. 

In Mormon chapter 9, it talks about how God is a God of miracles to all who believe on His name, we just have to have faith and work to be more like Christ and God will give us all that we need. The miracles come after the trial of your faith. 

That's about it for this week, wish me some phaat luck this week with our new additions coming in. Thank you for all of the support over these past 2 months! More to come next week! Onward and upward.

P.S. Huge shout out to Grandpa Roger who is having a birthday on the 14th!  Love you Grandpa, thanks for your example!

Loves,

Elder Thompson 

Woodland Zone Conference

Dixon sunset

Rainy days

People Get Ready

November 6, 2018

I would like to start this email off by giving a shout out to Auden by saying: the bees are dying. 

Things are going well here in the 707, we had some really great miracles this week! We are working hard and gaining more success during each day that goes by! Its "high noon" (as the lax team would say) out here in the California Santa Rosa Mission. 

This week I had the opportunity to attend my very first Zone Conference. It was great to see President and Sister Wright and to be able to learn from the APs and other leaders. Elder Siebach,  two other Elders, and I formed a quartet and sang "The Upper California" for the musical number. It was a really cool song to sing. We learned more about making commitments and following up on people. We also learned how to better set goals and how to productively find people to teach. I would like to tell a story that Sister Wright told us during Zone Conference that makes me so grateful to have the best Mission President in the world. In the midst of all of the fires burning in Northern California, President and Sister Wright were told that they needed to evacuate the mission home. They had only a few minutes to gather some irreplacable documents and other things of that sort. In those few minutes, do you know what the first thing they thought to grab was? A big bin full of snacks and water bottles because they were worried that their missionaries would get hungry during interviews that week. They're the most selfless, loving people I think I have ever met and I am so blessed to have them over this mission. 

Onto more cool stuff for this week! On Friday we were walking around trying to visit some members and less active families. Usually everyone is home and in bed by about 7 which is when it gets dark so we don't have success after 7 most nights. We thought we should stop by this family's house a few streets away. We knocked on their door and the wife answered the door and said that her husband was out of town and her 6 month old baby was sick. She asked us to give her baby a blessing and so we did. We were at the right place at the right time. 

The other cool experience that we had this week: We think God sent us an angel to help us out on Saturday. We were doing a blitz with the whole zone where everyone goes into one area and does a ton of work for a few hours, visiting people and tracting and such. Elder Siebach and I were supposed to visit people on this list of potential investigators. As we approached an apartment complex, we realized that we needed to put in a password to unlock the entrance. We were defeated as we sat down in front of the complex looking on the map for the next people to go visit. Just then, a man rode up on a bicycle out of nowhere and unlocked the door with a key, let us in, and then rode away.... After that we were able to give a Book of Mormon to the woman that we were trying to visit inside the complex! 

About the man in my email last week, he and the Bishop have been talking a lot and we are just waiting to hear from him and his family. He did come to church again yesterday so we are really excited about that. 

Fun fact: Elder Siebach is basically a wizard with the scriptures. He knows them really well and has a ton of stuff memorized. In order for me to learn as much as I can from him, we have been making a "posterity anti-bash Bible" together. The front page is pretty funny, it has the answer to any question that someone might have about the Bible and how it correlates to the Book of Mormon and the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

We are working hard here. Its all good. The song of this week is "People Get Ready" by The Impressions. I would suggest checking it out. 

Let me know how life is for everyone else! It's great to hear from a lot of you.  Also, for the East Lacrosse team, I hope that you guys killed it in Fall Ball... go work hard this off-season so that you can beat the snot out of Corner Canyon this year.  

The gospel is true! God loves us and wants to help us. 

what the geesht,

Elder Thompson

Fenton's famous ice cream

no caption needed

Tracting during the Davis blitz