I Live In The Most Beautiful Place In The World

Hey everyone!! 
Man, these weeks just keep going by faster and faster! We had a good one, it got up to 70 degrees here and man, it was a scorcher.... I guess we had a heat wave come through! 

Nothing wild happened except we spent about 4 hours underneath a house doing service for a guy. We were fixing the foundation of his house.  I'm not sure how qualified we were to do it but we did it anyway and it turned out okay.  I think we are going back to do more this Thursday.  The dude is a really great artist and his signature is guitars he makes out of driftwood from local beaches.  They look pretty sweet, I might see if I can snag one! 

Remember the family I talked about maybe 2 weeks ago? The one where the wife was from SLC? Well her husband had to go to the E.R. so we hadn't heard from them for a while and we were worried they were ghosting us.  One of the senior couples from the Eureka Zone is going home and took us to Burger King before they left. As we were leaving, that very same family walked in! Their daughter was hyped to see us and we were able to see how they're doing and make an appointment to go see them! It's cool how God makes things happen because I can guarantee  that I wouldn't have been at Burger King any other way than someone taking us there haha.  Things work out! 

Another cool thing, Cinthya and Jody were endowed and sealed in the Medford Oregon Temple this past week! They stopped to see me in CC when they were passing through to go back to Fortuna. It is so fun to see the first person I baptized still active and thriving in the church!! They were so happy and it was great to see them. I wish I could have gone with them but it was a little too late for me to make it back in time. Medford is about 2 hours away.  

In other news, I am too old in the mission to order a new name tag. I tried to order a new one so I could have one from the beginning of my mission and one from the end of my mission and the mission secretary was like, "Elder Thompson, it's too late for you! You are too close to going home and the name tag won't arrive here in time." 

That was a reality check! 

Things in Klamath are going well. We are going to have our first ever group study session there on Sunday! We have been inviting people and seeing who would be interested in attending. We are "doing our homework" as President told us to do. We have become pretty cool with a lot of the Native American families and I love them, they are so awesome. I'll let you know how the group goes! There will be food so I think a lot of people will show up. All of you are invited as well, text me for the address.

We did a lot of knocking and meeting some wack people! 
The Song of the Week is, "The Gospel of John Hurt" by Alt-J.

Also shoutout Ritt Momney! I heard about the newest album release, I'm sure it's amazing. I'll be able to listen to it in just about 3 weeks! That's crazy.... Time to continue enjoying to the end! 

Love,

Elder Thompson 

P.S. I live in the most beautiful place in the world!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXkpWY5Y02Q The Gospel of John Hurt   Alt-J

The Time Is Far Spent

New address:
1385 W. Washington Blvd. #61
Crescent City, CA 95531


What's up everyone?! I'm sure you're super stoked to get another weekly email from yours truly. We had a pretty great week up here in Crescent City. 

Things are going well trying to get the branch started. There's a great member down in Klamath who is helping us get everything together. We are going to meet in the laundromat he owns, in an adjacent room where we can have chairs set up. We're now just asking everyone who would attend if we had a little group set up down there. Yesterday we went around to all of the Yurok Tribe members we are teaching because our member's wife is actually Yurok so we have an in there. In the native culture, once you get to know people and they know you're friendly, you are instantly family and can basically just walk into their houses. So we met some great new friends yesterday! We are going to go back to teach many of them this week. We're going to create a little study group or get together before we can get the branch going just to see what kind of turn out we'd get. We walked into a store and the clerk said, "hey, you're Brad's boys!" and was so nice.

We had a cool experience the other day: we decided to go knock a street called Murphy Avenue (s/o to my dog, Murphy). We decided to knock on the right side of the street first. As we knocked one door, we were standing on the porch and a car came into the driveway and then another car. A husband and wife got out of their respective cars, just getting home from work. They invited us in and I totally thought we had tracted into members. Turns out, the wife is from SLC and loves going to the temple lights in the winter. The husband is from Cali but was super down to have us come teach him and his family of 4 kids! We are so hyped about them! They have Sundays off and have been looking for a church lately.  Right time, right place... God makes it happen! 

It was a week of a lot of knocking and weeding out the promising people from the less interested people. Time is of the essence!!!! 

The Song of the Week is Hymn #266: The Time is Far Spent - my Mission President told me to read the lyrics as I finish my mission soon.  There is still so much to do in the coming weeks, there is no slowing down now! 

Love you all, have a great week! 

Elder Thompson 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/music/library/hymns/the-time-is-far-spent?lang=eng&_r=1  

The Time Is Far Spent

Crescent City Vibes

Hello all! 

Wanna know an amazing thing? I was transferred to pretty much the coolest area in my mission. I'm now in Crescent City, California; which is at the VERY top of California, right on the coast. It's so beautiful!! We have the huge redwoods on one side and then the coast on the other side! We're about 20 minutes south of the Oregon border and 2 hours north of Eureka which is about 4-5 hours away from any other civilization, so this is a great way to start the end of the mission! The best part is it's always 65 degrees here, all day, which is so much better than the 105 in Lakeport. 

I'm with Elder Sanders from Syracuse, Utah and he is only 1 transfer after me so we are a pretty experienced duo! We both came into the area new so we have a lot to learn but we just got to work. The teaching pool the previous elders had was pretty garbage except for like 2 people so we are starting from scratch and trying to find new people and families to baptize in our final weeks. We also cover a sweet little town called Klamath, which is where the Trees of Mystery attraction is located.  It's also home to the Yurok Indian Tribe, whose people are primed and ready for the gospel. Elder Sanders and I have been tasked with starting a branch in Klamath.  We already have a building set up, we just need members to commit and people to baptize down there! It's going to be a very exciting transfer. It also makes me nervous because I'm going to have to leave soon and I'm going to miss it very much. 

We are teaching a part member family, Chris and Jenna. Chris is a member, Jenna is not. We are just trying to help her feel ready for baptism and get to a point when there really isn't anything to wait for. We are hoping for her to be baptized this transfer! 

The 4th of July was so great! We did the Book of Mormon Experiment and had a booth at the parade. People come by and read a page of the Book of Mormon without knowing what book it is and they mark references to God and Jesus Christ or anything which stands out to them. Then we take their picture and put it in a little display we have.  It was a huge success! We were allowed to dress down for it so more people would talk to us and it was weird to say the least! 

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/beliefs/book-of-mormon/experiment

Then in the evening, we got to go to a super nice house right on the beach, next to a lighthouse, to watch fireworks and eat food. We built a fire on the beach and watched the fireworks! It was a night to remember! Everyone is super patriotic up here...  there were so many fireworks going on alllllll night. 

Also, I guess this is a different state than California... or so some think.  Some say this is a state called, "Jefferson, " you can look it up if you want to.

We had Zone Conference yesterday, my last one. I gave my departing testimony, which felt weird. I loved learning from President and Sister Meservy and just soaking up everything they teach. I can't believe how much I still don't know! There's always something to improve upon. President and Sister Meservy expressed their appreciation for me because it was my last Zone Conference and it made me feel great. The last thing President said to me before we drove back up to Crescent City was, "now go tear it up up there!" 

I'm just enjoying to the end, working hard, and focusing very hard on my purpose here. Thank you all for your support! If  you ever have a chance to come up to Crescent City, do it! It's the most beautiful place ever! 

The Song of the Week is "Let it Go" by James Bay because it was playing on the 4th of July. 

Shoutout to Dallen and Thomas for finishing their missions this week. I'm so excited to see you guys in about a month! I've been blessed to serve at the same time as some of my best friends!  Love you all, have a great week! 

-Elder Thompson 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsPq9mzFNGY   Let It Go  James Bay