Axocopan

I pray that you all are having a great Monday!! I am feeling good and working hard here in Atlixco. It has been amazing working in the ward and trying to coordinate the work with the members. I have really enjoyed living with 3 other missionaries because we make a good team. Elder Garcia, Elder Chinchilla, Elder Cruz, and I were able to pull together a super fun activity this last Friday. However we officially got permission to move out to a pueblo (so that hopefully we can start a rama) named Axocopan. 

We have been focusing our efforts on Axocopan because they already have 2 Melquisedec priesthood holders (we would need three more to start the rama). This pueblo is a center of travel for combis and camiones, which will make traveling farther easier and cheaper. The main people that seem to have potential in Axocopan is a man called Eric and 2 little girls who still have not been baptized because of inactivity.

We actually found Eric yesterday after trying to follow up with the contact we had with his Dad. Eric is Catholic, very friendly, and looks like a classic thug haha. We started teaching him about three basics he would need to do to improve his relation with God. In Spanish they are called OLA (Oracion, Leer, y Asistir) or in English RAP (Read, Attend, and Pray) and Eric seemed to take them very well.

The other 2 little girls looks a little bit more difficult to bring them back to the fold. We talked with the mom named Juana, who says that she only got baptized to please her Mormon parents in law. However, after having a small lesson with Juana about the Book of Mormon she was open to reading it to find out what it is. We invited her to read Alma 32 to help her understand that the church is here to help increase her faith and not to lavar su cerebro.

Elder Garcia is doing good and quickly becoming a great missionary. His family is still fine there in Nicaragua. I still have not told Elder Garcia how much time I have, which is going to make me sad to tell him. However, I think it makes it much easier to focus for the both of us while I only have a year here in the mission. haha

Love you all and I hope that you have some great experiences this week. If they do not seem to be arriving go out and look for them!

Love you all

Elder Thompson

God Speaks to YOU

We had a great week with lots of lessons on humility and patience. There were many "too busy" people this week so we had the opportunity to contact and get to know many new people. It was also a pretty fun week because we had some rain storms everyday haha, which means that people got to ask us what canal we fell into. After a week of doing this for most of our day we decided to do something different.

We followed the counsel of our prophet Russell M. Nelson in his talk about Revelation:

"Brothers and sisters, how can we become the men and women—the Christlike servants—the Lord needs us to be? How can we find answers to questions that perplex us? If Joseph Smith’s transcendent experience in the Sacred Grove teaches us anything, it is that the heavens are open and that God speaks to His children.

The Prophet Joseph Smith set a pattern for us to follow in resolving our questions. Drawn to the promise of James that if we lack wisdom we may ask of God,⁸ the boy Joseph took his question directly to Heavenly Father. He sought personal revelation, and his seeking opened this last dispensation.

In like manner, what will your seeking open for you? What wisdom do you lack? What do you feel an urgent need to know or understand? Follow the example of the Prophet Joseph. Find a quiet place where you can regularly go. Humble yourself before God. Pour out your heart to your Heavenly Father. Turn to Him for answers and for comfort.

Pray in the name of Jesus Christ about your concerns, your fears, your weaknesses—yes, the very longings of your heart. And then listen! Write the thoughts that come to your mind. Record your feelings and follow through with actions that you are prompted to take. As you repeat this process day after day, month after month, year after year, you will “grow into the principle of revelation.”⁹

Does God really want to speak to you? Yes! “As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course … as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints.”^10"

^{After our prayer we recieved feelings of great peace and tranquility that settled our hearts. The next day we also recieved alot of help from members. We had young men that accompanied us and many others gave us the directions of their friends so that we could visit them. I really hope that we can keep on working with the members in our half of the ward so that we can open up some branches in the pueblos where we are working.}

We are still working hard for our goal of 5 baptisms if you all could pray for us that would be great. We want to start off Elder Garcias mission with a bang.

Love you all and hope that you have a great week!!

Elder Thompson

Temple with Elizabeth

This past week I had the first opportunity to go to the temple in like a year and a half. Here on the mission we are not allowed to go to the temple unless a family we baptised is getting sealed. It was amazing to do almost all of the ordinances (still not ready to get sealed). I felt the peace of the Lord and his great power to bind people together for the eternities. Love you all and for those of you that have a temple close by I invite you all to attend!! 

Empty Carpeta in Atlixco

Thank you for all the birthday wishes and for all of your prayers. I am really thankful for all of the support that I have had this far on my mission. Wow I now have 2 decades and a year here in "this thing we call life". I am starting feel old... on the mission. We are officially the oldest generation here on the mission, but I am supper happy to reflect on all of our memories and for what lies in the future on my mission.

For those of you that do not know I had a change of area two weeks ago. I am now serving in Atlixco with a new missionary fresh off the bus. His name is Elder Garcia and comes from Nicaragua (if you all could pray for his country and family that would be great!). Elder Garcia has the excitement of every new missionary and is ready to work hard, which is something that we need because we are opening a new area.

We opened up our carpeta de area (book of registers of members and people getting to know the church) on our first day and it was empty. We immediately hit the streets to start filling it with a lot of contacts. The blessings and miracles that we received in this first week were amazing. God placed many people in our path that seem to be pretty prepared to receive the gospel.

There was one time where we were walking looking for a address and we passed by a joven of about 14 years. After walking about 10 feet we immediately decided to turn back and contact this joven. His name is Isaac and we learned that he is trying to build a stronger relationship with God. In our first lesson he said he started feeling happy and pressure in his chest, which is the Holy Ghost helping him to receive an answer. We have also talked to his brother and sister, who are also interested in the Gospel. If you all could pray for his parents so that they can be receptive to the Gospel as well, you would help us out a lot.

We are hoping to take some of the people that we contacted this week to church so that they can begin their journey to baptism. We have a goal to baptize 5 people this change (in 5 weeks)

Other news!!!! The hermana Elizabeth (someone I had the opportunity to baptize) from Tehuacan is going to the temple to get sealed to her family. She has invited me to accompany them. I am so happy that she and all of her family got baptized. It is going to be a special day with them in the temple.

I love you all and I hope that you have great weeks!!

Elder Thompson

Training in Atlixco

Today was changes and I am heading out to a different area! I am going to be finishing as a trainer in a place called Atlixco. The funny thing is that I am going to be living in the same house as two other Elders (Lideres de Zona) and guess who they are.... I am going to be in the same house as Elder Cruz again haha. I think it is going to be a fun time. I am also going to have a good friend of mine named Elder Smiley as my district leader. This place is also pretty turista so let me know if there is anything you guys want from México.

Erick, Laura and Miriam

God gave us the opportunity to baptize three people this week named Erick (the red head) and Laura and Miriam. They were awesome baptisms where you could feel the holy spirit of promise. I also had the opportunity to confirm Erik, which helped me feel the power of God and have more peace. I am also super grateful for the Priesthood. My companion Elder Montez gave me an amazing blessing when I was feeling a little disanimated this week. He let me know that I am giving a good performance here on the mission and that happiness is the reason why we are living on this world.

Leonardo Baptized

I am feeling pretty great out here in Valsequillo (as you can see we have a buffet in our zone haha). I am especially enjoying the work out here because God is helping us to have success. We had the opportunity to baptize Leonardo one of the most prepared referrals that we have ever gotten from members. His "friend" haha is an ex missionary that was teaching him the lessons before she passed the reference. The testimony of Leonardo is super powerful because he was willing to be baptized even though some of his family were not 100% ok with it. It was a special experience when we saw him the Sunday after his confirmation, paying his tithing. It looks like he has good comprehension of the gospel as well because he likes participating a lot in Sunday school.

We also have some other super awesome people that we are working with. One of them is named Erick and he is about our same age. He also works in a taco stand called "los gordos" and is always trying to give us free food. We have been inviting him to pray about the gospel so that he can receive an answer that this is the true church. One night he finally decided to pray about how this message could help him and he immediately received a strong answer. God blessed him with a impression telling him that gospel is the only thing that could help his separated family. He immediately went to work inviting his ex-wife and his daughter to church. We received the three of them that Sunday with huge grins on our faces. The answer that Erick received helped him establish a goal to be baptized for this Saturday if everything works out okay.

We are also working to try and get a couple married so that they and their oldest daughter can get baptized this Saturday. Carlos and Laura own a panadaria and have made a huge effort to come to church to prepare for their baptism. If you all could pray so that they could get married that would be a great help.

I also want to share with you all that through blessings that I have both given and received I know that God work miracles through his priesthood. I especially know that, when a person is desanimated or just feeling like they have bad reception with God, blessings can be the spiritual energizer that we all need. I am so thankful for this wonderful gift that God has given us to help others. I know that people can be healed from sicknesses through the miracles that I have witnessed.

I love you all and I hope that you have a great week!

Elder Thompson

Ward Attack

Hey Everyone I hope you all are having a great summer!! I am doing pretty good here in Valsequillo and it is pretty cool to see some familiar faces again like Obispo Marin. As a zone we are doing pretty good and we are hoping to help a few people into the waters of baptism. We organized a Ward attack in our ward where the members in our ward and all the missionaries in the stake combine forces to visit investigators and contacts that we have. It helped Elder Montez and I a ton with the work in our area.

I am really enjoying my time in the Book of Mormon this time through. I especially liked this scripture that we are trying to apply to our companionship and the zone that can be found in the words of Mormon 1:7.   " And I do this for a ^awise ^bpurpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord ^cknoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he ^dworketh in me to do according to his ^ewill." I love how the prophets like Alma papa our so willing to follow the workings of the spirit. They recieve great miracles and teachings from above in their work.

This week God guided us to find many people that are willing to learn more about Christ. We felt wisperings to knock on doors and talk with others in the street while walking. This week God has also blessed me with wisperings in what my life will be like. I love how direct God can lead us to success and happiness in this life if we are willing to work hard.

I feel like the power of God is something that I have learned to see and use alot here on the mission. I never want to have a second class experience and not unlock my full potential in this life again. I know that God loves us and is willing to help. I hope and pray that you all can recieve the power of God this week in your lives.

Elder Thompson

Senior Companion the Spirit

Really Quickly I wanted to share you all a cool experience!!

Anyways for those of you that do not know I am in the Zona Valsequillo and we are focusing on making the Spirit our Senior Companion. He will be the senior companion in contacting, teaching, planning, and everything else.

One day Elder Montez and I decided to pray for his guidance asking where we should go and what we should do. We recieved a strong impression to knock on a certain door. A young man named Alfonzo answered us with a warm smile and asked who we were. We explained how we teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and he ushered us into his house to talk to him and his girlfriend Aranza. They were both super open and happy in accepting our message. Both even said that they would be baptised if they recieved an answer about the church. We hope to keep on progressing with them and with others!!

I love you all and I hope that you have a great week

Started in Valsequillo and Finishing here

So yesterday we did not have time to write but we got permission to write today. So yeah I am still alive... I did have changes as well and I am back in the first ward that I started in, Valsequillo (different area though). My new companion is Elder Montez he is one of the Elders that was with me in Ignacio mejia.

Pamphlets at Stop Light

This week was pretty fun because I had the oportunity to talk to my family and for another quick experience that I want to share with you guys.

We had interchanges with the asistentes (Elder Nunley and Elder Cruz) and I went with Elder Nunley. I was with Elder Nunley in Tehuacan at the start of our missions and then later on he was my zone leader when I was training Elder Robles. We got to a point in their area where we started contacting people around a dirrection that we were looking for and then Elder Nunley had a great idea. We had been talking about the comfort zone and we decided to get out of the zone and do something different.

We were in the city of Puebla one of the biggest cities here in Mexico and we decided to go hand out every pamphlet that we had at the stoplight. We would wait for the red light and then we would go down the line of cars handing all that we had. It was super satisfactory experience becuase we literally gave it all we had.

This memory is also super great because some people even offered us money for the pamphlets that we were handing out. A member actually gave us 10 pesos and told us to go buy a soda and to get out of the street hahaha. There were some other people as well that called us back to ask for more pamphlets for the rest of there family.

Anyways love you all and hope that you all have a great semana.

Elder Thompson

Mission Council

Just wanted to send out a huge thank you to Hermana Claudia and all the help she has done for me. I am glad that I have had the time to get to know her family and her niece Yolanda. I will pray for Yolanda and Jared so that both of them can be protected spiritually and physically. I had a great time in the Mission Council because a lot of my CCM friends were there. I am really thankful for all the people that I have gotten to know here on the mission. Love you all and hope that you have a great week.

Goldfish

First off I thank you for sending me the awesome package with Claudia. It helped me out a ton and the snacks were super good. I also had a cool experince using the package in a lesson. After we had left Claudia and her family we went to a cita with the Familia Trifundio (those two girls that we baptised named Esmeralda and Alondra). We decided to recover tithing to help them understand better what they could do with money that they earn. We recieved inspiration to use the goldfish from the package as a representation of money to better explain what tithing is. We gave everyone in the family different numbers of Gold fishes and we then asked them to sort out 10 percent of their goldfish. They really liked how simple everything was and how tasty the Gold fish were. Pretty soon the whole family were open and laughing during the entire lesson, which made it one of my favorite lessons that I have had with them. It was a cool little experince that taught me that God will always give us a gift so that we can bless those around us.

We also had our zone conference this week and it was super great to catch up a little bit with Elder Cruz again (my companion from Huejotzingo). My favorite part of the Conference was talking about the 3 pioneers from the Sweetwater Rescue. It is the story of 3 men that go to rescue a pioneer company trapped in bitter winter conditions. These three men find the company have frozen to death and travel with them until they get to a frozen river. The exhuasted band could hardly stand and much less cross a freezing river on foot. These three men then decided to carry each person one by one over this frozen river sacrificing their energy and warmth to help others. Eventually all three died of hypothermia but they had saved the company. I hope that I can follow their examples of sacrifice. This is a true example of Christlike love.

I hope that you all have a great great week sorry that the email is so short.

Elder Thompson

Family Trifundio

We finally got two of the Family Trifundio baptized. Their names are Esmeralda y Alma. We are hoping that all of their family will reactivate and will remain strong in the gospel. I hope that you all have a great week. 

Baptism

Baptism

I hope that you all are loving life and working super hard as always. Things here in the Mission Mexico Puebla Sur are still going pretty swell. As you can probably see from the photos we have had a few meetings with a few familiar faces. I am extremely grateful for all the great friends that I have gotten to know here. I love joking around and seeing how old we are in the mission with Elder Slaugh and Elder Mills. It is also cool to see and talk to old companions and friends like Elder Clawson, Elder Smith, Elder Montez, Elder Ackerman, and Elder Mangum. The zone of Cholula is also being consistent as we work as a team to meet our goals. This last month we had 6 baptisms and we already have 2 baptisms for april (Super exciting).

I am really grateful that we had the oportunity this last week to baptize a 18 year old Raymundo. The conversion process of Raymundo has been very exciting because he was at first just invited by his friends to seminary, and then right after he was invited to a Family Home Evening where we were attending. He has gone to church consistently for about 6 weeks and has lots of support from the ward. The support of the ward was actually one of the miracles of the week!!!  So many members from our ward came to our baptism that we didnt have enough chairs to fit them all. I am also super happy and excited for Raymundo because their are two other converts named Cesar and Abram (that got baptized a year ago) that are preparing to go on missions. I hope that he can follow the great examples of Cesar and Abram by serving a mission later on as well. I am a little bit sad that my camera is not working to well so I cant send you all photos of his baptism but maybe next week.

The ward of Cocoyotla is such a cool area for me because of the people. One of our investigators named Aranza also wants to get baptized. She went from a street contact to avid investigator that has received all of the mission lessons and is currently treasuring up the Book of Mormon. Aranza also wants to wait to get baptized with her boyfriend, but maybe she will understand that she needs to be an example if you all could pray for her. This is her last trial before she accepts to be baptized on a certain day. Your prayers would be much apreciated! We are also working very hard with the Trifundio family. They went to Young womens camp and the ward is helping them to reactivate and to be baptized. They are also super close to the border of becoming a happy family after their baptism.

I really loved General Conference because my testimony got fortified in some different parts of the Gospel. I do not know if you all felt it, but it was amazing for me to receive a confirming witness of the prophet Russell M. Nelson during the solemn assembly. I actually was a little bit worried during the transmission in January that announced his ministry because I didnt feel the spirit. However I received my witness during this conference and I am excited to see the direction he gives this church. I also received a big testimony of how God gives us answers through general conference. I fasted to know the answers of a few GIANT questions that I have been having and within the first session I received answers to every question.

Here are some key teachings that I think are going to help me alot:

As long as we have the faith the size of a mustard seed we can remove mountains of doubt and fears.

Does God want to talk with me? YES

SERVICE is one of the best ways to receive the Spirit

To show our love to others (including God) we have to be willing to make sacrifices for them TURN OUTWARD NOT INWARD

We should MAGNIFY our calling no matter where we are called or what we are called to (Imagine God telling you your calling personally)

BE MEEK

Hope that you all have a great week and Keep on receiving divine Guidance from God!

Elder Thompson