Sunday September 21, 2008

Hey everyone.

So how is life back in the usa besides the fact that the stock market is going down the crapper? Things here have been going good. I finally got to get back into my area and im back to work. My zone is way awesome this transfer. I got a lot of good missionaries here and im hoping to have a lot of success here in masbate. Im almost starting to think that it would be better to just have this be my last area but that would mean that i would be here for almost 8 months! Thats kind of a long time. They keep saying im going to go to Naga for my last area so i guess we will see what happens. Even though last week i didnt get to work much and i spent a lot of time with the assistants i had a good week and i learned a lot of good stuff. I dont have too much to report on because i didnt get to work much. well basically i love you all and thanks for the support. See you all in 4 months.

elder thompson

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Hey everyone

Hey! I got lots of time to write you guys because i only got TWO emails one from my mom and one from my dad. Its been an interesting week because it was transfer week. Basically i came off of Masbate island to go to Zone Leaders Council but there wasn't any transfer between me and my companion. I woke up early on Wednesday morning at about 3am to get my tickets to the boat and i got into Legazpi at about 3pm. Then that night i had to sleep in a house with 13 elders and only 4 mattresses so that was fun and you know i got tons of sleep. Then the next day was our transfer day and because i was in legazpi i went to the only place you can get Mexican food in our whole mission. I got to eat all kinds of good food BUT it was spicy and very far from what my body is used to so i got sick. That was on Thursday and I'm just getting better from it right now (Monday). We had our Council meeting Friday and Saturday but on Saturday night i threw up and lets just say my bowels where not doing too great. So because of all that i didn't get to go back to my area so basically I'm just hangin out with the assistants right now. My zone conference is on Thursday and there going to just take me down to sorsogon and then I'll see my zone there. It can be hard to be so far from my area, my zone, my missionaries. Hopefully they wont die out on the island. To be honest its really boring to hang out with the assistants they don't get to leave the office very much. We have these sweet couple missionaries here who are from Arizona. They've been taking care of me because they know that I'm sick. They took me to their house and cooked me some American food which was cool and i appreciate their kindness to me. It's kind of been nice to get a little bit of a rest. Being the zone leader of masbate can be hard because we are so far away from everyone and we have weird sleep schedule because of the boats and other weird problems but I'm loving it out on that island we have tons of baptisms coming up in the next couple weeks and I'm glad i wasn't transfered so that i will still be their to see them. Well that is about it for me i guess ill just write to you next week.

Love elder Thompson

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Everything here is going good. We had 3 more baptisms on saturday and have plenty more planed and since im not transfered i should get to see most of my investigators get baptized. We have some awesome investigators and even though sometimes i dont get along with ALL the members im happy here in masbate. Last week i got the chance to go to Cataingan ( the most dangerous part of our mission) and i was the first American EVER to work down there. It was actually really fun. I was able to work with the missionaries there for two days. We also got to have our service project there and we went up in the mountains and collected bamboo for one of the investigators house. We also got to eat TONS of coco nuts, which ive grown to love. We were tracting up there and then we tracted into a pastures house which was kind of interesting but fun too. He was very hard headed but even though he was like that we where able to finish the whole first lesson to him and we never even debated with him. Then there was this awesome family up there that im almost positive will be baptized because they were saying how there prayers had been answered and that they believed everything. As for my area we have been having tons of success. we got two more baptisms coming up on the 27th and many more for october. Its crazy that im planning for october already. After october is november and after november is december and after that.................. Wow, im starting to sound trunky. Last week i also kept messing around with my companion telling him he was going to be transfered and of course he will believe anything i say because im the zone leader but neither of us were transferred so we will spend six more weeks together here which is ok because we get a long ok. I think we both drive eachother crazy at times but because i can get a little wild at times in the house we still have fun. Plus i think he is kind of scared to tell me if he ever was mad because i think im the craziest american he has ever seen. I havent been in the same zone as another american for like 6 months now so im pretty much filipino now. All the missionaries in my zone think im crazy but thats ok as long as work is good. Also ive taken these six months to really get to know the culture and ive learned how to cook some of the traditional filipino food so when i get home ill cook you guys some good food like sinagang or adobo. The song here in the internet cafe keeps repeating the words, "im going home" hahahah. Im so happy to get to go to zone leaders council this week and see some other missionaries. Well that was my week.

love elder thompson