December 25, 2011

As for yesterday. After we left the Ks, we went to the D family. They are so funny. I really like them, and their kids, they are hilarious. And they like the missionaries which is good. They were really excited about the presents and we just had fun and played some games with them. They showed us something cool. Apparently, there was a comet in Landshut on the 24th at about 1730 that was huge, and Brother D got a video of it. They told their kids it was Santa's Sleigh and they were so excited. Haha! I think they are one of the few German families who use Santa. Most of them have Das Christkind, or the Christ Child bring the presents.
I forgot to tell you about what we did for a couple families. We were bringing them gifts, which we just got little ball decorations and wrote our names on it and years on it (We thought it would be cool after a lot of years to see how many times the missionaries were there, and who they were etc.) and then for the Ds and the Z's we bought a super ugly little clown statue and made up a big story about how it was a really meaningful tradition past down from our grandparents who wanted us to be happy inspite of the bad things and went on for a bit. And of course, they have to be gracious and say thanks, but think it is super terrible and everything and so it's awkward. And then we would pull out some cookies that we made them and gave them those. It was good.
The past week was good. We had an exchange and I worked with Elder G who goes home this Wednesday, weird.
We are almost out of time as Elder B has to pack and then we are going to the Branch President's house. I will send you a picture of him. He is the German version of Jason. I love him. He is super funny. And just the best kind of person you could meet. Very much like Jason.
As for this next transfer. I am super excited. Elder P! We were together for a week in the MTC, which feels like forever and I am super excited. I don't know what to do as District Leader, I feel a little unprepared for that.

I love you guys a lot. Hope everyone had a great Christmas.

--
Sincerely,

Elder Connor J. Thompson

December 19, 2011

This week has been really interesting.

So first I will start with T. Oh T.... We met with him twice this last week, and it is interesting. We are teaching him to read and are now reading through the children's Book of Mormon.

H on the other hand is awesome. I love this man. He is the best thing ever. We met with him twice this week and all of the members come out from the lessons and say to us ''Wow! He has really made a lot of progress. ''

He did get to bring his banjo and play at the branch Christmas Party. I would have taken a video, except he wanted Elder B and I to sing with him so that he wouldn't be all alone up there. It was funny. We sang Stille Nacht and O Tannenbaum. Both of which I don't know. So I got to practice my fake singing a bit. Woohoo! Haha!

He was in Canada once and loved it. He showed me so many pictures about it. Haha! He is so awesome. And funny. He is going to make his date for the 28th I am pretty sure.

The big thing this week was Zone Conference. It was such an amazing experience. I love President Miles so much. And Sister Miles. They are amazing people. He talked about how we need to use the Book of Mormon a lot more. Which is really true.

I can hardly believe transfers are next week. Calls will come on Friday morning so I guess we will find out what will happen then. Exciting!

Also, I did get my packages! I am excited. Thanks so much! I opened the Dear Elder one. The cookies were really good. I am also probably good for Peanut Butter the rest of mission too. Haha! And the Mo Tab Christmas CD is a nice change as well. It doesn't really feel like Christmas at all. We don't have snow or anything... It is weird.

We are going to go to the Christmas Market today. We didn't last week because it was super ugly. So I sent some chocolate home in a package. Sorry that is so lame. Hopefully today I will get a better package. It's hard because there are so many people! Haha!

Not a whole lot else happened this week. Elder B got sick and had 'extreme vertigo' so we didn't really do too much. I have a little bit of a cold, but I am drinking up a storm. Orange Juice of course. So that is helping. I am doing good though.

As for our Christmas plans. We have a meal on Wednesday with H and his sister, apparently she is a good cook too so that is exciting! On Thursday, we have a meal with another less-active who are awesome. And amazing cooks! On Friday we are going to NeuÖtting and are going to an eating appointment with their Ward Mission Leader, NeuÖtting Elders, and Passau Elders and then we are going to sleep over there and have fun.

On Saturday we are going to be with Z's from 4:00 onward. They said ''You will come here and leave when we are bored of you.'' So we will probably be there all day. Which is awesome. Sunday, we have church from 10:00 to 11:30 (We are only having Sacrament and watching the Christmas Devotional). Then we are going to the R Family. (They are awesome. They have little kids Aiden and Dexter's age, the dad reminds me of a German Matt, and they are good cooks too :) The wife cut my hair and we just made bald jokes the whole time. It was awesome....) (It was actually funny though) (Also, everyone is a good cook when you are on a mission.) then after that we are going to the K Family and then we will Skype from their house, and then we will probably go to the D family. Who had Thanksgiving for us. And then on the 26th we will be with the Al's, who feed us every other week. And they are going to make us duck. I have never had duck before. But I am excited.

I am not too sure what traditional Bavarian Christmas meals would be, but I will let you know on Sunday. Haha!

I am excited. Life is good. I love you guys a lot.

Feed the Missionaries!

--

Sincerely,

Elder Connor J. Thompson

P.S. I am glad to see that Jordan wore the tie I sent him.

6 Months!!

Holy Dyna! I can hardly believe that this has been 6 months already. Time on a mission is weird. There is never enough of it (especially between 10:30 and 6:30) and it goes so fast, but sometimes when I think about being here for another 18 months, I can't imagine it. It is strange...

As for the important things first. I decided I was going to try and take at least one picture a day, and then I can send a couple pictures home every week instead of trying to send a whole bunch home. Good plan eh? One is our car. The Opel Corsa... Look it up. They are probably the worst cars ever made. It can somehow be Automatic and Manual. Obviously I drive Automatic. Hah! But the transmission or something is really bad so it seems like I am just driving Manual for the very first time. Lots of fun.... Haha! It is also really slow, and the dents and stuff on it are not from me. We also have a picture of a sweet one seater truck. They have lots of them here. I don't know what they are for, but apparently it's better for the environment, so obviously in Europe you drive them.

So this week has been super good. Usually, on my mission we would be around 10 lessons a week, a couple times in Landshut, we got to maybe 15 or so, but this week we had 23! It was crazy!! But really good! We were so busy, and it is nice because we found a lot of investigators who live on the one hill in Landshut. And we have a car now! Haha! I am so lazy... But riding a bike is not as fun as I remember. Especially in the winter and the rain. Luckily, we haven't seen any snow yet which is nice.

This week we found a lot of people, so I will tell you a little bit about them. On Monday, we found an awesome guy dooring named C (At least, that is what we think. We are too embarrassed to ask him again...) and he started to tell us that he wasn't interested at all. Then we bore testimony that with the Book of Mormon, we can pray and receive an answer directly from God, and that every single person can do it too. He let us in (which really does not happen in Germany that often. I have had it happen twice my whole mission) and we taught an awesome first lesson. The spirit was so strong there. It was awesome. He told us how he hadn't been religious before, and told his father he didn't believe in God at all, and then after that everything in his life went to pot, his girlfriend left him, he lost a lot of money, his band kicked him out , pretty much the worst things that can happen. Then he bought a Bible, started reading in it and now he felt that God was there again. It was cool. We are really excited about it. He is young and that is what we need in the branch right now. The branch is really close to being a ward (There were 70 people in Church yesterday) and he is a good addition.

On Thursday, we met three awesome investigators, one is S. He lives a little ways away, and is 17 in school. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon a couple of days before that and about how he could find out if it was true and he said he would ask because he had nothing to lose. So on Thursday, we went back and it was awesome! He was like ''I think this is true. I looked at the website that your church has as well, and I really want to go to the temple. I have a list of places I want to see when I turn 18 and the Frankfurt Temple just took the number one spot. What sort of things happen there?'' We were blown away. It was awesome. We also met C on Thursday, we had talked to him about the Book of Mormon and then he told us he didn't believe in God at all but would meet with us to try and convert us. We thought that would be okay, and so we met with him and talked about the Plan of Salvation and about some basic church beliefs, then used the Book of Mormon for the Knock-Out Punch! Haha! By the end he was really excited to read it and to find out if it was true or not. We were able to help him with a couple of his issues and get him to understand that the worst that can happen if he asks God if God is there, is nothing. But he has so much to gain. I think that is something not many people understand about what we do. But we are just trying to help them to find out for themselves. We know that it has helped us, and that it can help them too and if they try and are really sincere, then it can only be good for them.

We also found a sweet old man named E S who is a nice old man and we are helping him to try and find out if God is there.

On Friday we had a pretty awesome experience with a Less-Active member. She had mentioned that she might be getting a new couch and would need help to get it to her apartment, and so we said she could call us and we would come help her. We stopped by again on Friday to see if she had managed it, and then she invited us in. We told her we couldn't because we needed a man to be there, and she said it was okay because her boyfriend was there. We were able to teach him a first lesson and she was able to give great testimony as well. Something that I think helped both of them, Helped him to see that it was important to her, and helped her to remember why she was baptized and what the church meant to her. It was really awesome.

T is still progressing, sort of, to his baptismal date on the 8th. We have been having really good lessons. We got to teach the Law of Chastity, something that is always fun. Luckily, we got to do that in English. I don't know some of the 'fun' words in German, but I probably should learn to avoid awkward situations later on. He came to church and is making a lot of progress. He is also getting better with reading and writing as well. We give him the Children's version of the Book of Mormon soon and then he can read that. Hopefully. I am still a little anxious about him because apparently, he is having some problems with the Word of Wisdom and we don't know how mad the language barrier is, but he is a good guy and really wants to change, so it is hard to judge him.

H is also making a lot of progress too. We met with him a couple times this week. I also got a video of him playing his banjo for us, and he is going to play at the Ward Christmas Party, which is good. I love him. Somehow I forgot to mention this last week, but Brother K in our ward took us shopping the other day. It was insane. Dad would have died. He told us to get 2 karts, then asked like ''What Cereal do you like?'' Uhh... This one. Then he bought like 4 boxes of it, and just ridiculous amounts of food. We haven't had to go shopping since. But it was weird, a lot of the time he was like ''Do you like these?'' ''I don't know. We have never had it.'' ''Well... you should try it.'' Then he would put like 4 boxes of it in there. It was crazy. But we discovered the best thing in the world. They make Cream Cheese mixed with Milka (Just in case the chocolate wasn't fatty enough for you) for breads and stuff. It is sooo good. He bought us almost 300€ in food though. Which is a lot because I use about 15€ a week. It was insane! I love the members here.

We saw a lot of other miracles this week, and things are going much better. Transfers are three days after Christmas, so transfer calls will be the 23rd. Which is crazy. I can hardly believe we have been together for two transfers (half of my mission!).

This week should be good. We have an eating appointment everyday, something fairly unheard of. At least from my experience, and I am excited.

Love you guys a lot!
Sincerely,

Elder Connor J. Thompson

December 5, 2011

Holy Dyna! I can't believe that it is already Monday again. This week has gone by so fast it is incredible!

Anyways, back to Monday. We had Family Home Evening with the W's and some less-active members. Which is always nice. Sister W always makes us some really good food which is really nice. I really love the W's, they had to go home on Thursday, but will be back in one month and hopefully I will be here to see them. Luckily the car is staying, so staying warm isn't too big of an issue. And I get to drive, which is good.

On Tuesday, we had our District Meeting and then we had an exchange so I got to work with an Elder from Hungary. Which is the first time I have worked with someone not from America. He was really funny. And it was interesting. It was good though, I learned a lot about how we can be talking to more people and really using our time well. It was strange though because we had to speak German to each other because he doesn't speak English and my Hungarian is a little rusty. But it was good. Oh German... I think the longer I am here and the more grammar I learn, the more it confuses me and the more I realize I don't know anything. Although, that feeling has just been true with every aspect of my mission. At the beginning I felt like I knew everything that it took to be a good missionary, and that it would be easy. Haha! Oh young, full of hair Elder Thompson... so young and naive... Haha! Now, I think that every day I know less and less about what I am doing, but it is good because it makes me work harder and really depend on the Lord. I think that is probably true for every missionary. I have really learned how much I have to depend on Him, and how blessed I have been in my life.

On Wednesday we had a good day as well. I can't really remember what we did but I don't think anything too special happened. We have really been trying hard to find new people to teach. On Friday we sort of figured it out and had some really cool experiences, but until then we were working a lot with T and H, who have both been making a lot of progress lately and are really progressing towards their baptisms. I guess it wasn't Wednesday that we set it, but since I am writing the e-mail, I can tell you now, but they both have baptismal dates. T is on January 8th, which is good. I think he will be able to make that for sure. H is on the 28th of January. Which seems like a long time away, but we wanted to be sure that the W's would be there for his baptism, and since he has been an investigator for so long and has had so many previous baptismal dates it needed to be his goal. We taught him a really good lesson where he told us that someone has to be baptized to get to heaven, and he wants to go to heaven, so we basically just connected the dots for him. He set this for his goal and is working to reach it, which is really awesome. It is exciting!

Anyways, on Thursday, was the sad day where we had to drop the W's off at the Airport with President and Sister Miles, and then we had a meeting with some other missionaries in the Zone (Not Zone Conference) in Munich. It was sad, but they will be back in a month so not too sad. They are sad to leave, but a little happy to be home for the Christmas break with their kids and grandkids, and then be able to come again to the mission. Not too much else happened out of the ordinary.

We have key indicators, or our number that we report every day and we decided that we are going to get one of each (One lesson, one joint teach, one less active, one referral) a day. We talked a little bit about how dooring wasn't going really well and it was hard because we weren't really seeing a lot of success and then we made our plan for the evening. We drove (that is the keyword) drove to the top of a hill because we figured we might as well be using the car while we have it, and the first lady that we spoke to started to cry and talked about how she was really having a lot of problems in her life lately, and thought that the Book of Mormon could help her. Then she told us we reminded her of the Mormon's, and how she had met with them and really liked them, and when we told her that we were the Mormon's she was pleasantly surprised. It was fun. She is also like 65, and then when she talked to us out of nowhere grabbed my hand and started holding it (I had gloves on so I couldn't feel her wrinkly hands, but it was still weird) and then said ''You guys are so sweet'' and then rubbed my face with the back of her hand. Like you do to a baby. Or small kid. (Un)fortunately, I may have forgotten to shave that day (It doesn't really make that big of a difference yet. 1 Day or 2. Meh..) but it was not quite as smooth and she made a weird face... Haha! It was funny. But she is really prepared and just what we needed to get through the day.

Saturday and Sunday we had a lot of other really good people who were really open. We are really trying to help people understand that it doesn't hurt to ask God about the Book of Mormon, and the worst he can say is that it isn't true, but the best is that you have found the Word of God. That probably isn't explained very well, but it seems to make sense to these people which is all the matters.

I love you guys a lot! Thanks for all that you do for me!
--
Sincerely,

Elder Connor J. Thompson