Holy Dyna!

Dearest Family,

How are you doing? Things here in Landshut are doing good. This has been an interesting week to say the least. Everyone says that a mission is like a roller-coaster. But it is really true. Especially this week. I will try to take you through it so you can see things as they go on.

So on Monday after e-mails, we did the rest of our P-Day things. Nothing too special. We went to FHA (Familie Heim Abend) (Which if you are terrible at German, it would be Family Home Evening) and nobody showed up. Which was a little hard. But we sat down with the W's and came up with a plan so that we could get more people there.

On Tuesday, we met with R. She is so funny! I love this lady! It was cool because she gave us her Tschüß Book. Which is something that missionaries have and you get your companions and everyone to write in and put inside jokes. She had the missionaries who baptized her write in it, and then hadn't had anything happen with it until now. Which is cool. It is neat to see how much she has opened up to us. It is really fun. After that we were going to go with President A to see A and H, but when we phoned A to confirm she wasn't going to be there. So President A brought us to his house and we had supper with his family. They are awesome. They have 6 kids, and they are all super funny. And they don't have TV's so they are good at music and tons of stuff. After that we went to H and had a really great appointment. President A was great to have there because he answered a lot of his questions.

Then on Wednesday, we had a District Meeting with the Zone Leaders there. Which is good. Sister W made Waffles, which was awesome! After that we went on an exchange and I worked with Elder S. It was really good. We have started to teach a German class which is interesting. There are a couple American families that live here as well as some of the people from the Azylheim and so we are going to be teaching them German. It was interesting. Luckily, we have a member, Sister H with us. She is awesome. It is interesting. But we are working on getting more activities with the ward to happen so that people will be at the church more.

On Thursday, was H's baptismal interview. He wanted to postpone his baptism until he felt ready. It was really tough. I think that might have been the crappiest that I have ever felt on my mission. We had done everything that we could, and it didn't work out. It was really hard. But at the end he said that he could maybe be ready in two weeks, and so it was a little bit of hope at the end of that. It was tough. It was hard because we love him so much and we know that he can do it and that it is good for him, but he needs to figure it out for himself. We will still work with him. After that we went back to the Ws and they made us waffles and we ate our feelings. It was bad. Haha! Actually, I only had three so it wasn't that bad. However, later that evening we had an eating appointment with the As, who feed us fairly regularly. And they fed us so much. It was good.

On Friday, we had a lesson with the W's and A.

On Saturday, we met with H and the Ws and helped him to sort of plan out how we can make his baptism happen. It was really good. He seemed like he was understanding things much better, and it was great to see. We talked about prayer and how we can make our prayers really meaningful. It was really good.

On Sunday, H was not there, and A couldn't come as well. So we were very lonely. It was sad. When investigators don't come to church, it is the worst. We had a couple other appointments fall out, and so we went finding, but didn't find anyone at all.

This week was hard, but we saw a lot of things, and there is a reason for it. Unfortunately not everything is rainbows and butterflies on a mission. Or, probably I should say, baptisms and new investigators, on a mission. Especially not in Europe. But I love it.

I love you guys a lot. I am not sure what will happen tomorrow for transfers. But who knows. I am glad that your vacation was good. Hope you are back into the swing of things and dealing with the cold. We had snow on Friday, which makes riding a bike interesting. Elder P fell twice. But I am still showing the Purple Bandit who is boss. And it is I. I am the boss. Glad you are having fun with the boys. I am jealous.

I love you guys a lot!

Sincerely,

Elder Connor J. Thompson

January 23, 2012

Dear Family,

Gosh, where does the time go? It seems like I was here just last week that I was writing. Time is so fast! Ahhh!!! Anyways, this week has been really cool. We saw a lot of miracles.

We finalized all of the plans for Brother H's baptism and have set it up and everything. I have heard that everything that can go wrong does the week before a baptism. And it looks like we are no exception. On Sunday after church we got a call from Brother H's sister, and she said that she could not make it to the baptism and so we needed to change the date of it because she had to work. We are meeting with H and our branch president on Tuesday so hopefully we will know what to do. It isn't going to be a large problem I don't think, but it certainly throws a little wrench into the system. We are focusing on having contact with him every day this week with the Ws and other members, and things will be very good for him. We are really excited for him. He comes with us when we teach our English class for the Africans. And he usually helps us to teach and does good. He's such a great guy. I am excited for his baptism. Elder P is doing the baptizing and I am doing the confirmation the next Sunday, which could be right before I am transfered. But I sort of don't feel like it. I think we may be together again. Who knows though?

This week we have been working to help our less-active and recent converts to hear more from the Prophets. We have been sharing the Home Teaching Message and working on how we can help the Elder's Quorum with Home Teaching. Our Ward has set some very good goals for the less-active work in this area and so we are looking forward to helping them to accomplish them. We have actually found out that there are things that they would like us to do, such as Elder P and I teaching a German class to the English Speaking members (yikes!) and they have given us more families to Home Teach. We are excited to work with them, and the ward is really working hard to support us more. I am especially excited for their goal to feed the missionaries four times a week.

I love you guys a lot. Thanks for all your support.

--
Sincerely,

Elder Connor J. Thompson

January 16, 2012

Hello family,

How are you guys doing? I would love to be somewhere a little warmer. Or at least back in a car. This week has been interesting without the car, to say the least, but it will be fine.

Anyways, I am sure that everyone is doing good. I am praying for you guys a lot. And I have really learned this week how well prayer works, and that our Father in Heaven hears and answers our prayers. We saw a lot of miracles this week. On Thursday in our daily planning session, we were wondering about what we should do from 1600 to 1700, we came up with a street that we should go to see, but still weren't 100% sure. We decided to pray about it and about one minute after we finished praying, a former investigator who we did not know at all phoned us out of the blue. She asked if we could come over to visit her and her husband. We said we would be happy to do that and asked when we could come. She said tomorrow at 1600 and we could stay for an hour. I have never been more shocked and amazed in my life. If that doesn't strengthen a missionary's testimony of prayer, I don't know what will. We hung up the phone and couldn't believe it and said a prayer of thanksgiving. We then looked at the map to find the address, and discovered that it was the exact street that we had thought about going to at 1600. It was such an amazing experiences. Being able to recognize these experiences and remembering them in time of trials is something that I would like to get better. I know that the Lord is helping us as we do His work. Her husband has a disease and is stuck in bed, and so she wants us to come and visit him and talk to him because it is good for him. But while we are there we can work on our teaching, and then we are also able to teach her, and she has a lot of potential. It was so amazing to see. That same day before we left we talked about what we can do to be doing better with our goals. President Miles set a goal for us to give out one Book of Mormon per day, and we have been... falling short of that. Although not for lack of trying, just lack of working smarter and having more faith. We prayed before we left and we both knew that we needed to give a Book of Mormon. We prayed where we should go, and to help us to find one person who we could give a Book to. We left and there was nobody on the street. Which is a little frustrating, but we walked towards where we had planned to go and we just felt good. The first person we saw we started to talk to and after a couple minutes we were able to give her a Book of Mormon and she said she would read in it. It was really amazing. I think something we think fairly often is, why are we so silly and forget to pray. I guess that is the pride cycle for you, but it stinks. I am really trying hard to be quicker to pray. I don't think that it offends Heavenly Father if someone prays a lot. I am fairly certain it doesn't. And it is a commandment to pray often. So... I think it's good.

We have had some good lessons with R, and Sister O as well this week. R and I were in church again. Which is AWESOME! Especially because they got to hear me speak. Which was interesting. I found out the day before that I had to give a talk. Which was a big surprise. I kept it pretty short (They only asked me to speak for a little bit because the Stake President or one of the councillors was speaking afterwards, and well... you know how it is. Haha! But I talked about the Book of Mormon and all of the promises in it. That is something that I have already come to love. President Miles challenged us to read 2 chapters a day and then by April we would be finished the Book of Mormon. It has been such an amazing thing to see how many things I have learned that I have never seemed to notice before. I wish that EVERYONE in the family would do that, and challenge you guys to do that. Even if you hardly read anything because you have (crazy) children running all over the place. I know that the Book of Mormon can help with any problem, and can help more than anything else. The more I think about it, the more excited it makes me. I don't think we can really comprehend all of the efforts it took to get it to us, and how important it is for us. I know without a doubt that it really is the word of God.

In other news things are going good. Elder P and I are getting along great. He talks a lot about how we keeps writing President Miles about how we need to stay together, which would be good. But interesting. We are both so young. At interviews, President Miles told the Woods to take care of us because we were 'babes in the woods'. I don't know what that means entirely, but it is probably true. But because we are so young we have learned a lot. I know I have. I have really learned a lot.
This week I really learned a lot about what I need to change to be the missionary that I am expected to be, and that I want to be. It is not going to be easy, but I will regret it if I don't. I love you guys so much. I am glad that you are doing well and are having so much fun that everyone but mom forgets to write me. No news is good news right? Haha! Also, I am not trying to be sarcastic or anything. I haven't written you either and you have a lot going on. Just remember how much I love you. And how much you love me and need to help your balding little brother.

Sincerely,

Elder Connor J. Thompson

January 9, 2012

As for the rest of the week. It has been interesting.... Not going to lie, this has maybe been the most frustrating week of my whole mission. We have one investigator, H, who is doing awesome which is great. We have started planning his baptism and he didn't panic or anything which is awesome. He is really doing well. I am so excited for him.

Elder and Sister W came back! Which was really surprising! Sadly, it means that we lose the car, but I don't think it has gotten below 0° here so it shouldn't be too bad. And it is really great. They do a lot with the ward, and everyone is really excited that they are back.

Church yesterday was really... interesting. It was good because R, a recent convert from Africa asked me to translate his testimony. It was really good and he talked about how he knew that the Lord helped everyone with his problems. Then I gave his testimony and asked me to translate. It was interesting. First of all. He speaks nice English. As in, I have troubles understanding that in the first place. Then he was talking about crazy things I had NO idea how to say in German. Then the whole ward was just laughing because they knew that I couldn't do it. It was really fun... There goes our chances for referrals. Haha! I remember Spencer talking about how he got a Media referral once. That sounded nice. I would like one of those. I still have 18 months so it could happen. Who knows? Haha! Plus we don't really get referrals anyways so no harm there I suppose.

While this week was tough, we did see a lot of great things that happened. I really learned the power of prayer and being comforted. I would come home every evening feeling just crappy and would pray to know what to do, and would just feel comforted. I know that our Heavenly Father is there and answers prayers, even if it is not how we want him to. What a blessing to know that Heavenly Father wants to help us and will, we just always have to remember to ask him.

Things are going good with Elder P and I, and I know that this week will be better. We had a lot of cool experiences. One of them was that we were able to share a short lesson with R, a less active who we work with. And then later that day run into her mom, we didn't know it was her though. We were able to help her mom carry some stuff to her apartment and then she told us she knew us and that R had been talking a lot about the church with her lately.

Sorry that this email isn't that long or great. Say hi to everyone for me. I love you a lot! Next week will be a good letter full of investigators. I hope.

Sincerely,

Elder Connor J. Thompson

Happy New Year!

Well hello family!

This last week has been crazy for so many reasons. Where to begin...I guess I will just start from Monday. So after emails, we went to the Branch President's house and played some games with them to finish our holidays and P-Day. Then on Tuesday, it was back to work. Sort of. Because it was Transfer Day. We had District Meeting, and then went to Munich to do transfers. I don't know how they work in other missions. I heard from a member here, that they do a big transfer meeting. So if you are getting transferred you go to a main Stake Center or something and then they have a little meeting and everyone goes home with their new companions. The problem with that, is that it

wouldn't really work too well. To get from Vienna (the Eastern most part of the mission) to Bern (The Western most part of the mission) is about 15 hours by train? I don't know. But it is far. So usually people just meet in Munich Bahnhof (on transfer day there is always a group of missionaries there. Which is fun because then you can catch up and see how people are doing and what not.) So we went there, then got new companions and just left. It was strange. I got to see Elder B there which was good. We stay in touch a little bit. He is actually training, which is exciting. I love that man. Haha!
Then we came back, Elder P and I. First of all, it is weird as heck to be with him because I knew him before. But we get along great.

We got stood up a lot because of the holidays, we couldn't get a hold of any investigators except for H (who I love) and a new person we found. But despite that, I am feeling good. We are working hard
and Elder P and I are working better together. Which is nice. I can't remember what days we did things anymore, but I will just give you the rest of the week too.

We met with H and he is really making some progress. His Jeep is broken and so he asked us if a member could bring him to church and we said that would great. And so it meant that he was there for all three hours (which was wonderful. Maybe there is a reason that his Jeep broke?) and he gave lots of answers and was really good.

We did some service for the Ks, who we did emails at, and they gave us tons of stuff in return. Their son M, has a photography business here that is really doing well and he is actually getting two
couples from America to come here and work and so he told us that he was going to help them with German and asked us if we would like to as well. Well... he had us at supper and so that will
hopefully help us with our German problems a bit. A real answer to prayers.

The members are really great to us. There is one family, the R's, whose house we went to on Christmas day, and then we went there on Sylvester as well (New Year's Eve). They are really funny. I like them a lot. They remind me a lot of Matt and Kari. It was fun to spend Sylvester with them because it is a huge deal in Germany. It is the only day of the year where fireworks are allowed. And you can
just do them on the street, from the balcony, anywhere. It was INSANE! It was such a neat

experience. It was also an answer to prayers that they invited us over, because they invited us about 2 hours before they wanted us to come (4:00). Which was awesome because otherwise we were going to be staying in our apartment all night playing Monopoly. Which we did there because Brother R has a 10 year old son, but it was fun to be with people, not in our apartment.

We also found a cool new investigator. We were out dooring and it was pretty ineffective and then we talked to this nice guy who told us to go to a certain apartment building because he thought there would maybe be someone there who was interested. Well, the first buzzer we rang this lady opened up and started crying. She had just gotten out of the hospital because her leg was just amputated and had nobody to help her. We were able to give her a Book of Mormon and set up an appointment for the next day, since we need a Joint teach. It was amazing to see that there are people prepared, we just need to find them. I know the Lord is directing this work and that He will help us in so many ways. The rest of the members were super good to us this whole week. I am glad that I am here in Landshut to work with them. Sunday morning, after Sylvester was a little tough to wake up at 6:30 for our Ward Mission Correlation, but such is life. A nice nap on P-Day always makes up for it. :)

Everything is good. Thanks everyone for the letters and things. I love you guys a lot! Glad you are doing well. Hope your Christmas was good. Tell everyone I say hello!

--
Sincerely,

Elder Connor J. Thompson