New Area Is Poppin

New address:
642 Santa Alicia Dr.
Rohnert Park, CA
94928-3244


June 26, 2018

Hello everyone and what a week it has been.

I got moved wayyyy down south and it's very hot down here... it was in the 100s on Saturday so that was fun.   I've been enjoying myself down here in Rohnert Park!  We combined two areas together so we cover twice as much now which makes it crazy.  My new responsibilities make it so there is basically no time to breathe haha but it's all good because staying busy is what it's all about. 

I did get to skype into the baptism but not the whole thing... it was good and it was only Cary, Duane and Clinton are waiting until next week. I was happy to see Cary and her daughter, Naomi.

We have been teaching a woman named Yanping who is getting baptized tomorrow actually so that will be another fun day for me! She's super nice and very prepared. She moved  here from China and a few months ago, some missionaries knocked on her door.  They taught her about who God is and she gained a testimony of God and Jesus Christ and now she is getting baptized! She has a very cool conversion story. 

We are also teaching a woman named Kenya (shoutout to Austin) who will be getting baptized in August! All she has do is quit some things and get married. She will be getting married in August too so she will be getting dunked right after! This area is really going strong and we intend to keep the ball rolling!!! The ward is super nice which is always good and I'm happy in my apartment with Elder Siebach and the Spanish Elders. We have some good conversations and there's a ton of love. They're great guys. 

In short, I'm keeping SUPER busy and I'm having a good time. This will be President Wright's last week in the mission which will be sad. I'm happy that I get to go to his last Mission Leadership Council though.  Next Sunday will be President Meservy's first Sunday.

The Song of the Week is Cleopatra by The Lumineers, which is a pretty good one. 

Huge shoutout to my cousin Luke who is headed to Tacoma Washington in October and to Nathan who leaves for the Peru MTC tomorrow.  The Three Musketeers all in the mission field together!!

I hope everyone has a great week! I hope to have some spiritual and funny stuff for you next week! 

Love from the North Bay,

Elder Thompson

haircut today

Transfer day breakfast, Sister Dean fell asleep before she could eat

Zone roller skating activity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN5s9N_pTUs   Cleopatra Lumineers

Meet Me at the Golden Gate Bridge!!

June 19, 2018

Hey everyone!! First of all, shoutout to my dad for being the absolute best. He's someone I will always look up to and I hope to be like someday. I can't wait to hit the lake and the sand with you when I'm back!!  Love you so much Dad!

I don't have too much time today so let's get down to the nitty gritty!!

The thing everyone wants to hear about: BAPTISM. That's right guys, Brodee was baptized on Saturday and it couldn't have gone better!! The Spirit was so strong and Brodee kept telling us how happy it made him. Elder Justus and I were both in the baptismal font with him, since he is in a wheelchair and needed a little extra help.  I got to do the actual baptism which was amazing because it was the first time that I have performed this ordinance on my mission. The next day, we spoke in Fortuna and then left in the middle of Sacrament Meeting to book it down to Miranda where we confirmed Brodee and gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost. This man is going to be Branch President someday. He always talks about how they're going to turn the branch into the biggest ward in the Stake! So that has been amazing. Brodee is the first person that I got to find, teach, and baptize start to finish.

As for other news,  Cary is still getting baptized this Saturday and hopefully Duane and Clinton too! The sad part is, I found out that I'm getting transferred and won't be here to see it.  I think I will be able to Skype in for it though. 

 I'm going from the northernmost zone to the  southernmost zone in the mission, San Rafael. I've heard great things about it and the crazy part is I'm going BACK with my trainer, Elder Siebach, who I love; and we are going to be zone leaders together!   We will be living with 2 Spanish elders in a town called Rohnert Park.  The Golden Gate Bridge is in my Zone!!  I'm excited to see what's in store!! 

Today is going to be filled with packing and goodbyes.  I've already said goodbye to most of the members that I needed to and that was sad.  I have to drive down to Santa Rosa this afternoon so I can make it to transfers on time in the morning.  It's going to be super crazy to be in civilization again!! I've been 5 hours away from anything for the past 5 months haha!! 

Well that's about it for this week.  The Song of the Week is: Green Grass and High Tides by The Outlaws. One of the craziest guitar solos I've ever heard!! 

Love, your favorite Humboldt homeboy,

Elder Thompson 

Brodee's baptism

Goodbye to the Lorang family

We lived in the Lorang family's guest cottage and they had us over for FHE every Monday night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R82OM5tzcrk    green grass and high tides the outlaws

Hanging out in Hollow Trees

June 12, 2018

Hey buzzards! 

We have had a week for sure in Humboldt county. This upcoming week could be my last since I'm most likely getting transferred next Tuesday. I'm excited to have a bit of a change but I will be terribly sad to leave some of the families here and some of my investigators like Brodee. 

Quick little update on what happened this week:

I went on exchanges with Elder Jones, my former trainee, which was super fun! We had a great time and we get along so well.  I wish I could be companions with him again sometime.  We taught Duane and Clinton together and we decided that they needed a few more weeks until they can get baptized. So sadly, they didn't get baptized on Saturday but we have them on date for the 23rd now.  After all, it's all on the Lord's time, not ours.

We also extended a baptismal invitation to our other investigator, Cary, and she accepted! She has been looking for the truth for a long time and has actually been a member 3 different churches previously, haha, but she says that she has found it now and is ready to make the promise, which is Baptism on the 23rd as well!! We also invited her to put her poor old dog down but she declined that one.... (editor's note:  I asked him to explain and he said the dog is 13+ years old and very skinny with tumors all over her body.  She lays there, infested with fleas, and just cries.  It's almost more than he can bear!)

We went to the best burger joint in Humboldt which is called The Chimney Tree. It was delicious!! It's this super good grill place that's right next to a completely hollowed out Redwood tree, which is still alive! That's pretty legit. It's huge on the inside and you can have a fire in it if they'd let you!  The tree is 78 feet tall, has a circumference of 50'4" and the center of the tree burned out in 1914.  The room inside is 12'6" in diameter.

As for Brodee, he is still planning on getting baptized this weekend and I think that's a sure thing that'll happen! We have had some great lessons with him. He always ends up teaching us something. We taught him the Plan of Salvation this week and he was absolutely overjoyed because of the things we told him. He told us that it bridged so many gaps that were in his head. After that lesson, he gave us all of the stuff that he shouldn't have: tea, coffee, his vape mod, and told us that he doesn't want them anymore. What a guy. He is a big reason I'll  be sad to leave here. But hopefully they'll let me open up the Miranda Branch with it's own set of missionaries sometime in the future since I know this place super well. That way, I would get to see Brodee a lot. He told me that he is going to come visit me when I'm home. He also told me that he would be walking up to my door.  Since he is in a wheelchair, I told him I'd love to see that!

Other than that, we found more new investigators as well, which is always great! We found a super solid investigator named Catherine who might be the most tatted up woman I have ever seen. She's super nice. She had been wondering why there are so many churches on the earth and we were like, we can answer that for you right now! So she let us in her house (that doesn't happen often guys) and we taught her and she loved it. Hopefully we will get to see her again this week!

Today our district hiked to Strawberry Rock near Trinidad.  The view above the Redwoods to the ocean is amazing.

The song of the week this week is "Satellite" by Guster, in honor of my boy Toph Kearl. Shout out to him for his awesome Farewell talk. We used to jam to that one back in the day all the time! Ritt Moms forever.

Well, I love you all and I'm doing well. Hopefully I can report on some baptisms this upcoming week, I'll let you know! 

Stay Woke,

Elder Thompson 

inside the Chimney Tree, looking up

District hike to Strawberry Rock/Trinidad

Trinidad Beach from Strawberry Rock

High above the Redwoods on Strawberry Rock, Pacific Ocean in the background

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekt6PELAcEg   Satellite/Guster

Good Fortune in Fortuna

June 4, 2018

Hey there friends and fam!!

First off, I wanted to give a birthday shoutout to my wonderful Mom. She has a birthday this week so if you see her, hug her for me!! She is the most wonderful mom I could have asked for. She is the most supportive person on the planet and I think half of my friends would only come over to see her. So, I love you mom and I hope that you have the greatest birthday!

Also, shoutout to Elder Schiel who is headed to the MTC this week!!

  

 I hope everyone had a great week and that things are going well.  Here's a quick update on some of the things that I did this week, for anyone who still cares. 

Our investigators, Duane and Clinton, are leaving their cigarettes and coffee behind to make an amazing change in their lives and be baptized this upcoming Saturday. I'm super excited for them. I know that they have been given the strength to put these addictions behind them. 

Our other amazing investigator, Brodee, is practically already a member, paying tithing and everything at church yesterday. He loved coming to church and has been reading the BOM to his wife at night! He will be getting baptized on June 16, right before transfers when I could possibly be leaving Fortuna. He will be the big reason why I'll miss being here. I'll for sure keep in touch with him though!! I have found such love for the people that I'm teaching and am so grateful for that. 

We have also been teaching a woman named Cary who came to church for the first time and found an incredible friend in one of our members. We were so stoked!! It always helps when members are genunine and welcoming,  so they can make better friendships that way. We are hoping to see her come again next week!

My days are full of teaching and finding which is great! 

We took our dogs out for a walk down Main Street when there was a huge sidewalk sale going on that shut down the whole town. It was a great opportunity to talk to a lot of people and introduce ourselves as missionaries. There really are people here who are ready and willing to accept the gospel in their lives. 

That's this week in a nutshell. A lot of crazy stuff happens every day, like finding one of those hoverboards and riding it around and also meeting lots of dogs which is always great. And of course the crazy Humboldt people -  haha I'll probably miss them the most when I get transferred. 

We have an exciting week ahead of us because of the 2 baptisms on Saturday.  We need to organize and get it set up.  We are also going to dinner with Brodee and some members of the Miranda Branch on Tuesday.  We are going to the best burger joint in southern Humboldt, which is in a super small town called Phillipsville. Im excited!! Other than that, it's regular things like teaching district meeting and going on exchanges with Elder Jones, my former trainee! 

I hope you all have a great week! Thanks for reading this if you got this far. As a reward, the Song of The Week is Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  It's a classic!  

Love you all!! 

Elder Thompson 

Eureka Zone Conference

Garberville from the rooftops

A new mode of transportation

Mountains of Miranda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ3Bb4UsXhU  Goodbye Yellow Brick Road  Elton John

Craziest Sunday I've Ever Had

5.29.18

Everyone sit down and buckle up because boy have I an email for you. 

The week itself was pretty boring but yesterday was the craziest Sunday I've ever had at church. It all started with inviting a man, who it turns out has dementia,  to church. We got him a ride and everything. but he lives in Loleta which is about a 15 minute drive north from Fortuna and the chapel is at the very south end of Fortuna. So he came and wanted to leave after the first hour because he gets tired.  We told him we would go find him a ride but then when we came back, he wasn't there anymore and we looked for him for like 10 minutes all around the church but couldn't find him anywhere. We decided to go look outside and there he was, about a quarter mile down the road, just trying to walk home!  I guess he forgot where he was and started to WALK back to Loleta which would've taken him a while but we got him home safe. 

THEN: There is a woman named Shauna who is Pentacostal but takes care of one of the really elderly ladies in our ward who also has dementia (it's a trend up here guys) and so that means  Shauna comes to our church on Sunday. We have tried to teach her about the church but honestly she is kinda crazy and very stubborn so we have stopped but she still comes to church. I guess Shauna had taken a month-long vow of silence for Jesus.  So she wasn't talking to anyone at church but she was writing notes to the MVP of our ward, Sister Jutila, who puts the team on her back. They were writing to discuss the woman that Shauna takes care of because Sister Jutila has power of attorney or something for her. But Sister Jutila is old too so she couldn't read the notes that Shauna was writing her in pencil and after a few tries, Shauna just got really upset and started yelling at Sister Jutila in the middle of church.  I walked in there and tried to calm the situation down. Shauna was upset that Sister Jutila couldn't find a time to meet about taking care of the elderly lady and she was REALLY upset that Sister Jutila made her break her vow of silence for Jesus. (I was actually kind of upset that she broke it too because honestly I was having a good time not hearing her for a while) Back to the story though, Sister Jutila then fired Shauna in the middle of church from being a caretaker and then (this is where it gets crazy) Shauna stood up and said, "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" and then proceeded to rebuke sister Jutila using "the gift of tongues" which was just random noises and babbling. I told Shauna "I don't think that's how it works," and then she left. Man! what a day of church! 

Later that day, we decided to drive an hour down to Redway to see our investigator with a baptismal date, because he didn't show up to church and we were worried about him. We got there and it turns out that Brodee's wheelchair broke and he had no way of getting to church anymore. I breathed such a sigh of relief. He is still as prepared and golden as ever. Even teaching US the law of tithing saying "I feel like if God gave you a job and money, you should give at least 10% back to Him" and we were like that's exactly right! haha. We moved his baptismal date to June 16th (right before transfers) and he said that we were part of the "SoHum Family" (Southern Humboldt) now. Guys seriously, I don't think we could have met a more prepared person in the world. He is willing to give up anything on the spot and already believes in all of the things that we do. We found him because we literally talk to everybody. He and his buddy were sitting in his truck while we were tracting down there and so of course we talked to him and now he is getting baptized. He was ready. It's been such a testimony builder for me seeing people actually prepared for the gospel, even in Southern Humboldt county. 

Duane and Clinton are doing well also, Duane came to church yesterday with his granddaughter but Clinton wasnt feeling well. They both have some serious health problems. but Duane is down from 10 cups of coffee a day, to about 3 or 4 so we are super stoked for them! Hopefully we can get them baptized in a few weeks! 

Yesterday was also good because we had 6 investigators at church which is a new record for me! even beating out last week's 5.  

Today Brother Lorang took us out for breakfast and we helped him pick some blackberries.

Sorry for the long email today but some interesting things happened and I thought you would want to read about them! The Song of the Week is "My Brain is Hanging Upside Down," also called "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" by the Ramones.  One of my absolute favorites and something I would jam to with my friends all of the time!! I hope everyone has a great week! 

Love from Humboldt's favorite hot shot,

Elder Thompson

HYPE = Help Your People Energize
HYPE Companionship of the Week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su0Hvt6hTmA  My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down/The Ramones

New, New Mission Pres and Baptismal Dates Baby!

May 22, 2018

This week has been one of the greatest weeks on my mission and let me tell you why... 
That's right: BAPTISMAL DATES BABY!  We set 3 dates with our investigators for early June and also had 5 people at Sacrament Meeting this week with a possibility of having 11 come next week! A record for my mission so far!!  Dwayne and Clinton who are on date for June 9 are two brothers in their 60s or so.  They decided they needed a change in their lives when one of their ex-wives got baptized and they saw a drastic change in her life, for the better.  We just need to help them lose the coffee and cigarettes but we are working on that!

I don't have much time but I'll tell you that the Lord is preparing people to be baptized! We also have a bunch of progressing investigators so the work is awesome. We will do a booth in Miranda tomorrow.  I'm fulfilling my district leader duties well and I'm loving it.  

We got some news the other day and we were all super shaken up for a minute.  President Bentley, the new Mission President who was supposed to come next transfer, is now going to the Chile, Santiago North.  And the Mission President who has been in Chile for a year, President Meservy, is coming here.  I'm sure there's a good reason for the change and I am just as excited to meet President Meservy.

We went to the beach up in Trinidad today even though it's kinda cold. We walked all around and climbed on the rocks.  I smashed a clam on a rock and another Elder ate it haha! 

EAST LAX FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP!! How awesome is that.  I'm so proud of the boys for sure, they deserved it and it was our time.  And super cool that it was for Coach Hearn this season, I wear his name and number on the back of my tag. 

Song of the week is "Pulling Me Under" by Kevin Garrett,  my favorite artist. 

Love, Hank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkdMG8Gkt1Y  Pulling Me Under   Kevin Garrett

Lucky 13

May 14, 2018

Hey everyone!! This week has been a long one but it was also good! 

I was able to talk to my family yesterday!!  I was so happy to see everyone... it also marked 8 months out for me.  Hey, ask my little sister about her new cookie business, maybe I'll even get some samples here in California. hint hint.
I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day. We spoke in the Miranda branch again and they fed us a fantastic lunch after church.   I love my mom so much, so give her a hug for me when you see her!
We picked up a ton of new investigators, 13 to be exact... because we talk to everyone!! My new companion is Elder Justus (he's from Tennessee) and we have been working hard! 

We saw some pretty great miracles, like inviting people to come to church and having them say yes! Also, running into people and asking if we can help them and having them turn into some of our most promising investigators! 

We had dinner at a member's house and their Rottweiler threw up all over my shoe, dang it sucked but they washed it off for me!

We have just been doing a ton of finding but we will start having more lessons soon and then we will get some good progressing investigators! 

Sorry this is short but I'm sure some of you will appreciate it actually.... 

Wish me luck on all the tracting! 

This church is the true Church of Jesus Christ and it has brought me so much happiness! I hope to be able to bring that into many other lives! 

Song of The Week is The Girl  by City and Colour in honor of all of the amazing women in our lives.

Go East Lax!

Love Elder Thompson 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVHk4dc7yaE  The Girl  City and Colour