Cambios a Cholula

COCO Activity

I hope that everyone is having a great monday. This week was super fun!! We had our activity COCO, which was painting alebrijes, playing family history games, and eating tomales during COCO. The young woman also did a traditional dance called la baile de la piña. Elder Robles and I were super happy with all the participation of the members. We hoped that we could get a snowball rolling of activities every month in the rama Teotitlan.

We also had the baptism of the hermana Amparo this past sunday. We went early to the church to fill up the font and the water ended up being super freezing, but luckily we survived. The members helped us again by making a special musical number with the primary and a guitar, which was pretty. However, I think my favorite part was the smile of the Hermana Amparo, when she came out of the water. It was special to see her smile of joy.

I was a little bit sad to leave Teotitlan today, but I know that I need to go to new places as well so I keep on learning and teaching people that are waiting for me. I think Teotitlan helped me alot by through the examples of the members and also the huge lessons of humility and patience. I was also able to learn a ton from my companion Elder Robles about obedience and faith. Right now I am in the Touristy area in our mission, which is named Cholula. This is the zone with pyramids, beautiful catholic churches, and a whole bunch of vacationing Germans. My companion is one of the missionaries that started with me named Elder Urbina. He is from Guatemala and seems to be super nice and sincere. I hope that we can do well here in the whitewash.

I love you all and I am praying for you.

Elder Thompson

Start Running

I liked this week because we had a very different prompting. One day we were walking for a long time and we were tired from everbody saying we are busy right now. We remembered a quote from the talk "Stand up inside" from two general conferences ago when a seventy told a story about him and his 90-year-old dad at the airport. He thought that he noticed that his father was struggling and offered him a wheelchair and his father said, "No, Gary; Maybe when I'm old. " And then he added: "Also, if I get tired of walking, I can always run." After remembering that qoute Elder Robles grabbed his backpack and we started running to visit people that we knew. It was very strange to be running all throughout the pueblo but we were laughing all the way We were also able to have a good lesson with a old man named Manuel. Right now we are very careful to say that we are tired of walking

I hope that you all can stand up inside even when you feel like you are being knocked down. I love you all and I am praying for you.

President Monson Passes Away

This week has been a little bit all over the place. First was the passing away of our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, which has caused me to reflect more about his life and teachings and how to apply them to my life. One of my favorite qualities of President Monson was his ability to love and remember friends, members, and just basically every one he met. I think something that helped him to accomplish this great love were some of the lessons he learned in a experience in his life. When President Monson was a newly called bishop he received a phone call about an elderly member of his ward on the way to the hospital, when he was on the way to a meeting with the stake president. President Monson told the nurse he would pass for the hospital right after the meeting. During the meeting President Monson received a strong impression to leave immediately, but he thought it would be disrespectful to the President of the Stake to leave during his talk. Another impression came saying, "Leave, Now". He waited until the president stopped speaking and then rushed to the hospital. When he arrived he learned that the elderly member of his ward had died calling his name. From that day on he vowed to never ignore an impression. This experience and the life of President Monson to succor the weak and forgotten has always had a profound influence on me. I vow to always follow impressions as he did so that maybe I can help those around me as he started to do after this experience. I truly believe that he ministered to everyone one by one as the savior did.

We also had a cool experience as well when we received an impression to visit a member of our branch this week. When we arrived to the house of the family, the Hermana was the only one of the family present. As we began talking about life and about the various trials she is receiving the President of the Branch arrived at the door asking for her husband. Seeing that he had not arrived yet he decided to join us in our message to the Hermana. After sharing a short scripture about Nefi (3 Nefi) and the trials that he overcame the husband of the Hermana arrived as well. President Adolfo shared that he felt that the family needed a spiritual message as well to help them with their trials like we felt. It was a sweet experience to see how the Lord can place us in the exact place where we need to be.

We are planning on helping the Hna Amparo get baptized this week. She is a investigator that has progressed so much I hope that she will take this step of faith!!

Love you all and I am praying for you by name

Oaxaca

Hey Everybody,

It sounds like alot of you are having great vacations and enjoying life. We have been having a blast here in Teotitlan as well. We have been working hard and we are seeing alot of miracles.

We have been trying to help the branch by visiting menos actives. Many families that havent been to church for a super long time (like a year) have started reactivating. The families vega, viveros, ortiz, and fierro have all started to feel the need to come back to the spritual banquet. This past Sunday we had 50 people during scrament meeting. We are super grateful for their faith and the promptings of the Lord that have started helping them come back.

We are also finding a good amount of new people and are trying to get a few of them to progress towards baptism. One investigator named Amparo has comitted to be baptised this next week. At first she did not have to much confidence in us or in the Book of Mormon. Two of her kids have been baptised, but she has just recently started listening tothe missionaries. In our first lessons she rarely did our compromisos, however after recieving an impression we started giving her small scriptures every night to read. Now she knows that the Book of Mormon is from God is trying to convince her other kids to listen to us.

I hope that you all have great weeks and I am praying for you all,

Elder Thompson