HE'S HOME!!!!!

The day finally came! Bryce came home yesterday! His flight came in around 6:45 p.m. Our family, the Blacks, the Spahr's, Aunt Leana & some of his friends were there to greet him. He had been traveling for two days and was hungry and wanting a shower. After leaving the airport he went and got released and then several people showed up at my parents to welcome him home. We are glad to have him home!

Mom running to hug him

Our family

Bryce with Dad & Mom

Bryce & Elder Freeman
They left together to the Philippines and returned together

Bryce & Kadence

Meeting Kassidy for the first time

Bryce & Drake

Bryce with friends

His Homecoming will be January 25th
@ 9 a.m.
at the church building on Southern just west of Harris (Mesa South Stake Center)

ELDER THOMPSON IS HOME!!!!!

POST WITH PICTURES COMING SOON!

ELDER THOMPSON WILL BE RETURNING HOME THURSDAY EVENING!!!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

WOW! I'm like done! Today is P-day and we just report into the mission home and then start our journey home. On Wednesday we fly into manila and I get to go to the temple and kind of look around for awhile. Then Thursday we fly to Taiwan and then America. EXCITED! See you all soon. Invite anyone who wants to come and all my friends who are still in mesa. Love you guys. And you better have the new Harry Potter book waiting for me when i get home and i need to also schedule doctor and dentist appointments. I want/need to go to a specialist to make sure i don't got any bugs and stuff. Also I got some rashes and stuff so i need to get to a dermatologist. Well I'll see you soon!

Love elder Thompson

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Hey Everyone

So whats going on? Things here are going good for the most part. A ton of crazy stuff is happening in our mission and so it can be kind of stressfull to think about but at the same time I guess I probably shouldn't even worry about it because I'll be home is like a couple days. I report into the mission home a week from today. When we leave the mission they have to call 8 new zone leaders and 11 new district leaders and that also has to do with some of the other things that are going on here in the mission but basically its going to be a HUGE change in the mission. We also had a good week of work for once. We didn't have as many distractions and so we finally got our area set up really nice now. Im way happy with whats going on here in our area but im kinda sad i wont get so see what really happens here. Well I dont have too much to say so....... thats it.

love you all.love Elder Thompson

P.S. I got the cards they were funny

Sunday, December 21, 2008

TODAY (THE DAY I POSTED THIS, THE 23RD) IS BRYCE'S BIRTHDAY!

HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY ELDER THOMPSON!

SEE YOU SOON!

Hey everyone!

Hope you guys like the pictures of me and my pig. He was a good pig. So its been an interesting week. We had our mission Christmas conference last week so i got to see a lot of the missionaries here for the last time. Christmas time is crazy and we are getting like no work done which is actually kinda sad because this is my last transfer in the mission. We also had our ward Christmas party and i won a little plastic food container (for got the english word for that) in a raffle and then i had to sing a solo in front of the whole ward. Then my companion got sick for like two days and also I haven't felt the greatest but I think I'll be ok. I'm going to keep this short because im going to call on christmas.

love you all.

love elder thompson

WARNING:

PICTURES ARE GRAPHIC

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Hey everyone!


How is life back home? Things here are going good. We spent the morning practicing a dance presentation for our christmas conference which should actually be really fun. This last week was kind of a lazy feeling week because this new area we are in had like no work happening in it for the last 8 months so we are basically starting from scratch and we basically just worked with the members and had them help us find all the investigators and other members. Things are actually going good though now. We had 4 investigators go to church, 2 of which we found last week so we are excited. Too bad i wont be here to see any of them be baptized. Im not sure but i think i wont have any baptisms in this area before i go home. Thats ok because at least i was part of the work here and the members really appreciate what we are doing now. Also one of my converts is going through the temple to get her endowments like RIGHT NOW. So im way excited about that. She wrote me a really good letter telling me about some of the changes in here life and stuff. I really hope I can make it back here to the philippines to come visit some of these people. Now that it's getting closer and closer to coming to a close its making me think how hard it really is going to be to have to leave it all. There is this awesome family here in our area that works with us. They have a car and everything. Its crazy because the whole family works with us and they have only been members for like 18 months and they are really active. The husband is the elders quorum president. They are also going to go get sealed this December which is way cool. We also have this other family who feeds us EVERY night if we would let them. I love the members here so much but i still miss my island. Thats about it for me.

love you all.

Elder Thompson

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Hey everyone.


How is everyone? Well its been an interesting week here. So as you all know from my last email I did NOT want to be transferred but I guess god thought other wise which is OK too because I guess I am his missionary. Its just the fact that I had a goal to achieve 36 baptisms in the year of 2008 and I had enough scheduled in Masbate to more than over achieve that goal. We even had a baptism planned for my last week of my mission and that investigator was very sad also to know that I was going to be transferred. Every single one of our investigators in that area where going to church and progressing good. It was very very sad, that's all I'm going to say about that. Then I thought I was going to go be the Zone leader in Goa zone with one of my good buddys here in the mission but it didn't happen either. So i was transferred and now I'm the Zone Leader in Naga zone. Its kind of crazy to think that i will never get to leave this city because this is where the airport is and this is where the mission home is and this is where our Christmas conference will be. Also that goal that I had is more than likely not going to be achieved. I think I'll fall 1 short and its because we are opening an area here in Naga and the last missionaries who where here didn't update the records so me and my companion had some one drop us off at the apartment because we didn't even know where it was and then we just sat for a second scratching our heads trying to think about what to do. I've never had to open up an area in my whole mission and now I get to do it the last 6 weeks of my mission. So this IS my last area and this is also my last companion. His name is Elder Penrod from California. We have only had like 2 days to really work in the area but the Ward here is amazing. It functions about a thousand times better than any of my other branches or wards. The members here are amazing which is actually really nice. I loved Masbate because of the missionaries and because of the investigators but the members where not friendly and not very supportive. We already have members scheduled to work with us and there are tons of dinner and lunch appointments so I'm happy about that. Plus I finally got to be assigned in Naga. Naga is huge, its got tons of fast food places and two malls so like basically anything I want I can get. I got tons of really cool ties as well which are way cool. I'll make sure to brings you guys some. Maybe I'll be able to find some dolls here in naga for the girls. One other thing is that the missionary I trained back in the day is in my zone so its way cool to be able to see him again because I thought that would never happen again. I guess I'm going to just work hard and try to finish off strong. Love you all and thanks for the support.

LoveElder Thompson


PS. Mom, yes i got the package(thanks) and yes i saw elder walker for like a split second but i will never see him again because he is out on the smallest island in our mission(catanduanes). Also anything anyone sends to me gets to me the day it comes because I'm in Naga.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

afsd Hey everyone,

How is life back home? We had an awesome week. We got to go to sorsogon for our mission tour and Elder Ko came and talked to us. It was really cool because he asked about specific concerns in every zone and it just kind of felt cool to talk to him. We learned a lot of cool stuff that im hoping to be able to apply in my work for these last few weeks. It was also way cool because while we were in sorsogon we had this eating contest one night and there were 3 of us and we each ate 15 donuts and 3 cobras (its a drink here). I couldn't get to sleep for a LONG time. The cobra drinks get you really hyper. Then when we got home we taught at the police station to like 40 police officers which was kind of cool. On saturday night we did the whole cobra thing again but there are no donuts on our island so we used hotdogs instead. After the contest we got all hyper and poured water all over the floor and some dish soap and then just slid around on our bellys for like 2 hours. HAHAHA. I know you want to hear spiritual stories but ill be home in January and i promise i have tons of good stories for you all. Thanks as well aunt leana for your email.


elder thompson

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Hey everyone

How is life going back home. We had an interesting week. The assistants came out to our island and brought us some supplies so now i have a real bed and i dont have to sleep on the floor anymore. We also had a lot of other distraction. The sisters in the zone got in a big fight so we had to make a special trip back to the main island to have one of them emergency transfered. We had tons of investigators go to church but we didnt make it because we were on the dumb boat. i think that was like my 19th boat trip. I know that sounds boring but that was my week.


Love Elder Thompson

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Hey everyone!

How is life going back in america? This week has been a kind of eventfull week. We had a baptism this last saturday which was nice. Also we found out the transfers and no i will not be transfered. I'll stay out on this island at least untill Dec 4 which will be my last transfer day before i go home. My companion, elder yambao will be transfered which really sucks because I like that kid a lot. I know that every missionary is a good missionary but usually my companions are the worst "good missionaries". I think they give me the kind of disobedient missionaries as a joke to see how long they can stretch my patience. Besides my trainie, elder wright, elder yambao is the only normal junior I've had my whole mission so i will miss him. We have been having a lot of success here in our area so im hoping that this next transfer we can have a lot of baptisms. As far as my zone goes......... well nobody has killed anyone yet. They put to of the craziest missionaries out here with me and niether of them are transfered so it means that by december 4th we will have spent 4 and a half months together. Im praying the god will help me develope more patience. I love you all and i hope your all doing good. Happy Birthday kadence! How was your first soccer game? Did kadence get my email to her a couple weeks ago? Well thats about it for me. Later!

elder thompson

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Hey everyone

How is life back in America? Things here are going good. It's been a rough week. The work is going OK but there were a lot of problems with the other missionaries here. I got a elder and sister here in my zone who fell in love so that's been one big thing to take care of. I guess that it could be worse at least they admit that they are in love and i found a good way to keep them apart until transfers which happen to be next week. It seems like the transfers are going by so fast now. After this transfer i only got two left. I think Kathy will be happy to know that i got less weeks left in my mission than Cory does months hahaha. I'm excited for transfers because I think getting my zone mixed up alittle will help a lot but i think I'm going to stay out on the island. I'm almost sure that this is my last area which means i will have stayed out here for about 8 months. That's a long time. I don't have to much more to say. O wait i think i saw Bradley Pew in the choir at the priesthood session of conference, he looks a lot older if that was him. Also the guy who gave the closing prayer at the priesthood session of conference is the general authority in charge of the Philippines missions and i got about a week to hang out with him back when i was in Daet, he is way smart and taught me a lot but he chastised me a couple times. It got to the point where if he was around me i just wouldn't speak English because he riped into me acouple times hahaha. Thats about it though.

elder thompson

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Hey everyone

Well everyone according to my mom i have less than 100 days left and ill be home. This week has been a kind of boring week. I'll be honest with you all this going home stuff is weird. I'm not so much nervous to go home but i don't know where i want to end my mission. I don't know if i want to be transfered or stay on the island and i don't know if i want to be a zone leader or if i want to go back to being a district leader and train again before i go home. I guess god is the boss of that kind of stuff anyways. We have a lot of success going on here in masbate which is kind of the reason why I'm thinking a lot about going home. We have are schedule so full that i don't have to think about the work as much because its all lined out. I'm excited for general conference. It will be nice to hear all the talks. I remember i used to like general conference because i could watch it on TV but i cant really do that here but next general conference I'll be able to. We fixed our plans for this week and we found a lot of less active members that have tons of kids who haven't been baptized yet so that will be our focus for the next few weeks to try to see if we can reactivate them and baptize the kids which would be awesome and that is what we call double effort in our mission because there is reactivation work and baptisms. Next week we are going to have a baptism again. They are thinking that we might do it in the ocean if the weather is good which would be cool because i haven't experience a baptism in the ocean yet even though I'm out on an island. To be honest my mind if off in other places and i cant think of anything to say so maybe ill just leave it at that for now.

elder Thompson

Sunday, September 28, 2008

hey everyone

Ya im still hangin out here in masbate. To be honest part of me really wants to finish my mission here. I've built such a good investigator base here. We have baptisms planned until the month i go home. I would hate to have to go somewhere else. What if my new area doesnt have anything going on in it. The word on the street is that im going to Naga which is one of the hardest areas in my mission but it would be a nice challenge and it is close to the mission home so i wouldnt have to travel too much to get home. I actually had a kind of wierd experience this week. Ever since i got here in masbate there has been this group of members that hate me. The reason is because one of them served a short term mission here in our mission and the person who became her companion just happens to be the gossip queen of our mission. So ya she heard some dumb rumors that I tried to date a 40 year old lady with kids my age. Not to sound dumb but if i was going to get a girl friend on my mission i think i could do a little better. And then right before that sister went home she started another rumor that i had told a lot of people that she had a crush on me. Untill now she calls the mission home and the assistants telling them she wants to slap me for starting that rumor, which i didnt start. So i called in the two members who really had a problem with me and was just like i think that we need to talk about a few things and basically they were just kind of scared at first but then we talked about everthing that needed to be talked about and then the RM who started the whole problem texted me and we were able to straighten it all out. That RM is rediculous and i had to use all my patience to not just explode and tell her what i really think about her. When i brought up the fact that she had basically started a really big rumor about me and the 40 year old lady she was just like, "well thats not to concern right now". I guess my patience and being humble paid off because now things are better and the members that believed in her stories now think she is just a tsismosa (gossip queen). That was one of the biggest things that happened this week. Also we had 6 People come up to us this week and ask if they could be baptized. That doesn't happen every day. They weren't even together, they all asked at different times and some even came to our apartment to find us. The work here on masbate is going great. I love my zone and the missionaries here. I dont know whats going to happen next transfer but im happy i got the chance to be here in masbate. Basically everything is going good. I wont lie, im feeling the whole being close to home thing. Sometimes it just pops into my head when im in my bed at night. I have less weeks than i did months. Its crazy close, especially since time is going way fast now.

love elder thompson

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

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Hey everyone

How is life back in the good old usa? Everything here is going..............ok.......maybe. No, im ok but its just sometimes things can get a little overwhelming. Last week we had a baptism which was cool and we should be haveing another one this coming week. I also am going to go work in cataingan for like 2 days which should be cool. Thats the place where the people cut the soliders legs off so make sure to pray for me, hehehehe. We had a lot of distractions with our work, but thats nothing new. Last saturday was way fun though because after the baptism we were able to just go visit some of my favorite members here and then we had a dinner appointment so that was fun and my voice still hasnt come back. Its been crazy the last few days but i cant think of anything to say so next week ill have a lot to tell you guys.

love elder thompson

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Hey everyone!

Well its been an interesting week to say the least. First off on Monday when I got done emailing I went back to the church only to find out that the sisters where having a ton of problems so I sat and tried to fix their companionship problems for about 2 hours. Then after that we were going to watch a movie but the members didn’t really want us to us the TV or should I say trust us……. So I don’t know what that’s all about. Maybe its because the last missionaries assigned here didn’t do what they should have and didn’t follow all the rules or even half of them. So I was a little hurt by the members so I didn’t use the TV and we just went home. Then on Tuesday I got a text from one of the sisters saying here companion left the house….. alone, which is way not good. So I went there and spent about half my day talking to two of the most hard headed sisters who are both unwilling to change. Then on Thursday we had a way bad experience. There is this family that I really, really love called the Mosamoc family. They have this little 7 year old girl that is handicap because she got really sick when she was like 8 months old so she has like no control over her body but her mind is still ok. I always talk with her and play with her so I really like going there. We are teaching the mom and one other daughter who is like 13. We have been going there for a while and close with them all but the father never wants to listen. Just last week they gave an awesome prayer and even said “we are grateful for the missionaries who come and teach us, especially elder Thompson and we are thankful he is so nice to our family” which of course made me feel good. But on Thursday when we went there the dad was sitting there all alone and I was like hey where is nanay (mom) and ate (sister)? And he was just like there not here, there tired from work and I was like that’s ok we’ll just come back on Saturday and he was like no! and I was like what do you mean and he was like NO! don’t come back ever again, go find another nanay(mom) to teach. Im not sure but I think he was getting jealous of us always talking with his wife but come on, she is a bit old for us. It was way sad and I still haven’t recovered from it. Then on Friday I went back to the sisters house to help them and I think I got to them just a little and they still don’t like each other but at least they can now stand each other. Then on Saturday we had an investigator fail her baptismal interview and then we had one of our really close investigators tell us she has been drinking and smoking again and is going to move so that was way sad as well. Then on Sunday one of our investigators who is supposed to be baptized didn’t come to church because she is offended and wont be baptized anymore. Then a member got really mad at me because she gave me a letter to send to another missionary but because Ive been so busy and my mind is going crazy I left it on the piano at the church and a primary kid ripped it up and the member came up to me crying telling me she will never trust me again and basically it wasn’t good. O yeah and I fell off a bridge but the good thing was it wasn’t too high. So that was my wonderful week. Although all that bad stuff happened I look back on my week and I was still amazingly blessed. I had 9 investigators go to church and I should have two baptisms on Saturday and 4 more in two weeks also I helped the sisters out a little. So even though sometimes my mission is hard I guess ive actually accomplished a lot and im happy. So that was my week.

Elder Thompson

(Here are some pictures from my P-Day where we traveled to a small island)

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Hey everyone!

How is everyone back in the USA? All i keep hearing is that America is going down the crapper. Everyone is losing jobs, gas is expensive as well as food and gays are now aloud to get married! I will be totally honest, i miss America but im way scared to go home. By the way i got my plane tickets now, even though its far away it starting to seem a little bit closer. I fly into cali on January 15th at 2:05pm. im not sure about what time i get into Arizona. Im scared! Well i was realizing that i never tell anyone about the people im teaching so maybe ill try to give a better update. So this week started out good. On monday we had a FHE with some member and after ward they fed us some really good food. We also taught the police again at there camp. There was like 60 police officers there and it went way good. I set up a power point presentation for my district president and he did the talking while i just sat back and pushed the bottons. It was way cool and they really liked it we talked about agency and stuff. Also we had some amazing progression with our investigators. So we have some little girls that we are teaching and they are so shy, especially to my new companion and they wouldnt pray for a long time. My companion kind of talks.......... i dont know how to say it in english but when he talks its easy to be offended so the little girls dont like him that much. The good thing though is this week we joked around with them enough to where things got a little bit more comfortable. They prayed and are doing a lot better. We also are teaching this awesome family with 10 kids. One of the kids got sick so we went to visit him in the hospital and they were sitting as a family reading the book of mormon and they had the handouts we gave them displayed in their window at the hospital. So i was way excited about that. There was just a lot of good progression this week. Also one of the kids we are going to baptize on aug 30 said that he wants to be baptized so he can serve a mission and he is about to be 18 so that would be way cool. Also our zone here out in masbate is doing awesome. Im way excited to be in this zone right now. I requested to my mission president to stay out here one more transfer. Im hoping to stay out here till october then go to a new area(my last area!). Time is going by fast. I love the people we are teaching out here and there is still so much potential here, thats why i would hate to be transferred. I started exercising as well because i cant go home looking like all i did is ate a ton of food on my mission. Everything is going good and im happy to hear that my grandma is doing good. Well i love you all and hope you the best.

elder thompson