Elder Henry H. Thompson: In The Middle of The Redwoods

Another amazing Crescent City sunset

Hey everyone! It's been a week for sure here in beautiful Northern California! Walking into church yesterday, we met some visitors and one of them said, "how did you two get so lucky as to get called up here??" and I thought,"man, he's right." I think it's going to be a bit of a shocker going from this sweet coastal town with really good temperatures to the mountains and heat of SLC right now. But for now I'm just living it up here in Cali.

Last Monday we drove down to Fortuna, my old area, to have FHE with the family I used to live with. It was great to see them again! They were surprised to see me and were also surprised my foosball skills were as strong as ever. We had a fun time catching up. It was also sweet to see my Fortuna dogs again! They missed me too.

I had my last interview with President Meservy before my departing interview. He told me to keep working hard until the end, no problems there.

We did some service for a member of the other ward here in CC. I got to practice my wood splitting and I gotta say I got pretty good at it. If anyone needs some wood split in like 2 weeks just hit me up, all I need is an ax and a couple cans of Dr Pepper.

We did some more service for that guy whose foundation we fixed. We went under the house again and fixed a few more things. Once we got out, I probably sneezed a total of 25 times.

Jenna is doing well, we had an awesome lesson with her and her husband this week. We still haven't set that date yet but they love us. Because of that, she was able to open up to us way more than in the past. She told us she does want to be baptized but she just wants to make sure she is doing it "with full purpose of heart," like it says in 2nd Nephi 31. She is awesome!

We also had a great lesson with our family of 6 last week. We had some BBQ and talked around a fire! They are so prepared. We left their whole family BOMs. We keep seeing them everywhere too, it's pretty funny. David, the dad of the family, almost died of a tooth infection last week but he is doing well now! He said it really hurt to eat the steak he fed us. I could see them getting baptized in the next couple of weeks!

Our Klamath group went well yesterday! Nobody was there at 4 when it started but then people showed up and it was good! We watched the video "How Rare A Possession," the story of Parley P. Pratt learning about the Book of Mormon. He read it cover to cover in one night without stopping. The only reason he got it in the first place is because he left his nice house and land to go preach about Jesus Christ without even knowing about the Restored Gospel. He ran into a guy who had a copy of the Book of Mormon and let him read it. Then he set out to find Joseph Smith and joined the church! I think everyone liked it. Hopefully they come back next week! There was some good food as well, Hawaiian haystacks.

First Klamath group meeting in the laundromat

I went on exchanges with one of my good friends, Elder Chipman. He went to Lone Peak. He is hilarious. He and I chopped wood together. We had the sickest lesson ever. A family they're teaching invited us to come teach them at the campground where they were camping. We went and taught them in the middle of the redwoods - around a campfire - while the sun was going down. It was the coolest setting for a lesson ever!

Shoutout to Bryce for finishing his mission this week. I'm sorry you had the garbage classroom in the MTC. I'll make it up to you somehow in a few weeks.

The Song of the Week is, "The Way You Make Me Feel" by Michael Jackson. A classic. I'm surprised I remember so many songs. After I absolutely crush these last 2 weeks, I have a date with my Spotify account.

Love you all!

Elder Thompson