Elder Henry H. Thompson: I'm Registering to Vote In Sonoma County

What's up everyone, it's been a good week!

First of all, transfers: I'm staying for a 6th transfer in Rohnert Park! The ward keeps joking that they should start letting me sign the lease on the apartment and also that I should register to vote in Sonoma County. In reality though, I'm pretty stoked! This ward is so great with missionary work and the work is booming so I have no complaints being here for 9 months. My 2 companions though, Elder Staten and Elder Van Katwyk, who have only been here for 1 transfer, are both leaving. I am getting a new companion who is a little younger in the mission, probably about 6 months in. His name is Elder Taylor from Vegas baby. He has been banished to Crescent City his whole mission so I'll be happy to welcome him back to civilization. This will be the 2nd zone leader I've trained, I think it's going to go well!

As for the week, we had Elder Whiting of the Quorum of the Seventy as well as the area presidency come visit the mission. He said, "Go Leopards" when I told him where I was from and where I went to school. He gave us some great advice and motivation on how to be better missionaries by being more bold and inviting people to be baptized a lot more often. In his words: "People expect you to ask them to join our church, don't disappoint them!" We have been inviting people to be baptized a lot more this past week and it has been great! It helps us to know who is actually willing to commit and also lets them know what we are actually here for and what our goals are. It was an inspired meeting.

Weird experience, we knocked on a door and a deaf lady opened the door and started talking to us. She could read lips so that was nice. She is also a caretaker for a guy who is blind AND deaf. She told us to meet her at a pizza place in town. We met both of them there and they talked to us for like 15 minutes and then said they had to leave so they just got up and left. It was unexpected but I got pizza so I can't complain. It was just super random. Maybe time to learn ASL??

One other cool thing was we were meeting with a recent convert and she was telling us about Lotus flowers and how they are symbolic of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and baptism with the way that they go under the water and come back up 3 days later. That night, we were walking through a neighborhood and saw a woman with her garage open. Naturally we had to see if she was someone who the Lord had prepared for us to talk to, so we did. She listened to the whole Restoration and was even asking questions about the prophet and other things like the Book of Mormon. When we asked for her name, she told us that her name was Lotus. No coincidences!

In other news, Barbara finally came to church!!!! She goes to her church EVERY MORNING, but she finally came to our church! She really enjoyed it and she said that maybe God was keeping me here for another 6 weeks just for her. I told her I believe that too. Prayers that Barbara will accept a baptismal date!

Also, Anissa is up to Mosiah 26 in her Book of Mormon reading and is planning on finishing it by the end of January! She went online and found a day by day study guide to help her finish the BOM at the end of the month! I've never read it so quickly, so sweet! We went over and gave their baby a blessing because she is sick and it was really nice. Their baby perked up right after the blessing was over! I think I have a few reasons why God wants me to stay in this area for another 6 weeks.

2019 is off to a good start! I love being a missionary and the experiences that I get to have every day.

The Song of the Week is Tessellate by Alt-J. I started beatboxing the drum part of that this week and Elder Van Katwyk was like, "you know Alt-J?!" so we found a good connection.

Have a great week everyone, thank you for all of the support!

Much love,

Elder Thompson