Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Honored Guests

What's up again everyone? I guess it's been another week! 

This week, we had a weird amount of people willing to sit down with us and listen so that was a true blessing! 
I had a cool experience last Monday night: we were in Lucerne (kind of sketchy) and as we were driving down the road to see someone we're teaching, I remembered a lady we had talked to  2-3 weeks earlier in her front yard. We didn't really teach her and didn't set up a return appointment so I wasn't sure why I thought of her, but I told Elder Hunsaker to turn down her street and we went to go see her. She came outside, sat down with us and listened to the Restoration. She loved the idea of the Book of Mormon and told us that she would read it. I was really happy to have received a small prompting and followed it to have this experience, but it doesn't end there! We went back yesterday for our return appointment and she had read the BoM while we were gone!! Not the whole thing obviously, but she read the first few chapters and actually understood it and was so excited to tell us about it! When I asked her if she thought what she was reading was true, she told me "well, when you ask me that, all I can really say is 'how can it not be true?'" That was a great experience, hearing that. "Finally! someone gets it!" I thought. I asked her to come check out the church on Sunday and she agreed! So she should be coming to church this Sunday! Her name is Patricia. I was happy to meet her. 




This weekend was a really special one for the Native Americans in our area.  It is the weekend of their Roundhouse Ceremony. It goes pretty much nonstop for 3 days and we were invited to go! We have talked to a few people and they are amazed we were invited because, in their many years living around the reservation and knowing the people, they have never seen any white people get invited into the Roundhouse Ceremony. So it was a huge honor! 
With special permission from President Meservy, we were able to go. All sorts of people from reservations around the county and beyond come to celebrate with their families. There were quite a few people there. They always start off with a big meal together and good conversation. We got some weird looks at first, we stood out like sore thumbs, but as soon as they learned we were "JoJo's special guests" they immediately changed and were incredibly nice from that point on. (JoJo is their spiritual leader who wants to be baptized) We were invited to sit at the table reserved especially for the Elders of the tribe and their families which was so cool. The food was really good. Then the Elders of the tribe went inside their roundhouse (a literal round hut) and started their ceremonies by blessing the objects they were going to be using and the headdresses and stuff like that. Only the tribal elders were allowed in at that point, then the rest of us came inside and we all sat down around the edges of the roundhouse. There were probably a little less than a hundred people packed into that place. There are all sorts of amazing symbols in there. We were all seated on the straw floor around a big fire. I'm not sure how much of the symbolism I am allowed to explain because nobody is allowed to bring any phones or writing tools in the roundhouse, they don't want anybody recording the ceremonies. They did say I could tell people about my experience.  The rest of the night until about 11:00pm, when they took their first break, was full of chanting, singing and dancing...  amazing ceremonial clothing, headdresses, and other cool things.  It is something that is really special to them, it was unforgettable! I'll just say it was one of the coolest things I've ever experienced and I have a great amount of respect for their culture and customs.  It was also positive because we made  many friends and gained their trust.  They seemed to really love having us there! 

The Song of the Week is Life In The Fast Lane by the Eagles. We are definitely in the fast lane out here in the mission field, however California is aggravatingly not in the fast lane with it's 65 MPH freeway speed limits... c'mon what kind of garbage is that?? Just a few more months and we will be back to good old 80's. 
Have a great week everyone and remember, if you slow down, you go down!
Love Elder Thompson 




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsYhDSR9mGI  Life In The Fast Lane  The Eagles

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