Elder Henry H. Thompson: Missionary Menu: Indian, Tongan, Lessons and Pie

Hey y'all, what's up?

We had a pretty good week here on the West Coast. A good update on California: it's still hot and the traffic is still as bad as ever... so there's that for you.

We found some great people this week, namely Ben and Julia, Nancy and Mike, also Kaci! We are hoping to continue teaching them. It was definitely a blessed week for finding though.

On Wednesday, I went on exchanges with Elder Walker from Logan. We tracted all day and it was pretty fun meeting some interesting people. Nobody was really interested that day but it's alright. Elder Walker shared with me a letter called "The Riccardi Letter" and let me tell you, it's one of the most motivational reads you could ever read! It is a letter that a man wrote to someone he knew who was in the MTC at the time. He wrote about his experiences as a missionary in England and particularly his trainer, Elder Riccardi. It's full of amazing stories and life lessons learned from a great trainer. I would encourage all people, missionary or not, to look it up and read it!

Elder Walker and I also ran into a group of college kids living together who all happened to play lacrosse! It was great to hear about how the D1 schools are doing and everything. We made some awesome friends that day and they said that whenever we are having a bad day, just come on over and they'll talk to us for a bit!

We did some service for Mike and Nancy, which turned into a lesson and pie! I was grateful for that. Nancy actually kept our commitment to read the Book of Mormon and she actually really liked it! We are going back this week to teach them! It was hard service though, lots of yard work and it was hot! Totally worth it though.

We got to go to a traditional Tongan dinner this week and it was awesome as well! They live on a sweet farm with lots of chickens, pigs, cows, and more. It was fun to see and I really love the Tongan culture.

Cool story from this week: we didn't have a dinner so we went back to the apartment to eat. Then, one of our members called us and invited us out to eat. Of course we said yes! She took us out to Indian food which brought back some great memories. The smells and tastes were very familiar. I got the Chicken Tikka Masala and also some Momo's (dumplings). Reminds me of the time that Isaac Thorell accidentally ordered 10 momo's from a street vendor in Chamba haha!! Much love to my YMAD family. But here's the cool part: our server asked us what religion we were and when we told her, she said that she used to go to our church when she was little and that she loved it. We had to leave soon after for some contact attempts, but our member stayed and talked to her a little bit more. Our member ended up being an awesome missionary! She gave the server her phone number and the church's address and start time. The server said that she would want to come back to church and how much she loved it. The Lord places us right where we need to be, when we need to be there... but only if we follow the small promptings of the Holy Ghost.

The Song of the Week is Don't Stop Me Now by Queen - one of my all time favorites and such a classic.

Love you all!! keep it up!!

Elder Thompson