Elder Henry H. Thompson: Final Saturday Splash

Hello everyone! We had a fantastic week here in CC and let me tell you why:

First off, we had lunch again at "A Good Place To Eat" down in Klamath. It's a little on the expensive side which is weird considering it's not even a great place to eat, just a good place to eat.

That's not the entire reason this week was fantastic.

We had a lesson with Jenna and Chris again on Tuesday and when we got talking, Jenna opened up and told us of a spiritual experience she had at church. She couldn't stop crying during the Relief Society lesson and she felt it was time to be baptized!!!! Sweet! So Elder Sanders and I just absolutely sent it and committed her to being baptized on August 10th. She was a little surprised but when we asked her to pray about the date, she said "let's just do it then!" So we are having a baptism this Saturday, my last Saturday in the mission. Jenna can recognize the Holy Ghost so well and I've seen a big change in her. The Spirit has been working on her! When I came up here, my Mission President took me aside at transfers and told me that I was coming up here for a special purpose. I think I found a big part of that purpose! It has probably been the easiest baptism I've ever planned because the whole ward knows and loves her a ton already and everyone was so willing to help and give talks and do whatever is needed. It's going to be a great day Saturday!

We also had an awesome lesson with our family of 6 last night. We cut up the cover of a Restoration pamphlet to look like a puzzle and we gave each of them a piece. We wrote down essential parts of Christ's true church on the back of each one such as: "priesthood authority" or "prophets," and had each of them read their piece. We had them put all the pieces together so it makes the picture complete and told them this is what Christ did when He came to earth. He organized His church. But after He and all of the other Apostles were killed or kicked out, people changed the structure of the church and many truths were lost. We took the puzzle apart, each piece representing a different church. But we gave them the good news: God always calls another prophet and He did just that when He called Joseph Smith to be a prophet and put together the whole puzzle again. It was a great lesson, especially to keep their kids' attention. I'd call it a success. When they found out I'm leaving soon, they invited us over for dinner this week. They told me they want to keep in touch with me and they want to come out to Utah and go to Lagoon with me. They lived in Utah for a few months and absolutely love Lagoon. I told them I'm more than down!

I love meeting great people like this family, Chris and Jenna, and too many others to name. Definitely one of the best parts of the mission.

To cap off a great week, we did some service for a lady and she bought us Dutch Brethren in return which was a nice treat.

This is my last week here in CC. On Sunday, we will drive down to Santa Rosa and then Monday I will have my departing interview with President Meservy and then dinner and testimony meeting. Tuesday I'll spend the day with the AP's and continue to work and then fly home Wednesday! I'm definitely excited to see friends and family who I haven't seen in 2 years, but I'm going to miss a lot of things out here. The beauty of NorCal, lots of great people, and just thinking about others a lot. Life is coming up quickly, so I'll continue to make the most out of this "Week of Lasts."
Shout out to Jack Perry who leaves for Brazil next week! In a lot of ways I'm envious as you're about to begin your "Week of Firsts." Way to represent for FH7!

So stay tuned for next week, I'll send out my final group email with some thoughts about my time in the CASRM. Thank you for sticking around and reading these every week.

The Song of the Week is "American Teen" by Khalid - in honor of my last week as an American Teen. I'll turn 20 the day before I go home! Crazy stuff.

Much love to all of you and I can officially say: see you next week!

Love

Elder Thompson