Hi everyone,
I hope you are all having an awesome week. Delano is great! I am starting to love it more and more. I think it has just been taking me a little bit to get used to being in a newer and bigger area. The heat is getting a little crazy though. Today isn't bad, but on Saturday it hit 108! I was dying in my shirt and tie. Luckily, Saturday was our day to have the car. This week we have had a lot of lessons. We visited Rustum this week. He is doing really well and so is his wife Amerika. She is due to have her baby any day and they are so excited. We had a really good lesson on the importance of prayer and studying the scriptures. Later in the week we had a lesson with Jamie. She is doing really good. It is funny, she has grown up in a home that only speaks Spanish so she speaks really good Spanish, but now that she has spent a couple of years in public schools, she has nearly perfect English. It seems crazy to me, but this little 9 year old girl is fluent in two languages. Every time we go over there we ask her which language she would like us to teach in and she likes to switch back and forth. Well we taught her twice this week and she understands everything really well. At the end of our lessons we quiz her about what we talked about, and she always knows exactly the right answers. We also met her brother, Jeremy, and her cousin, Anderson this week. Jeremy and Anderson are 12 years old and they were taught by the missionaries about two years ago. We asked if they remembered the missionaries and Anderson said, "Oh yeah! I remember Elder Dee." haha Delano was Elder Dee's first area a long time ago and I guess he was the one who taught these guys. They seem like super cool kids and we are excited to teach them too.
This week we also met a really cool kid named Pedro. He is a Senior in high school. He runs cross country and plays baseball. He is a really nice kid. He is really interested in talking to us more. He said that he really tries to go to church, but sometimes it is hard because his family has never gone. They are not really interested in going to any church, but he believes in Christ and wants to go to a church. He said that sometimes he just walks to one of the Christian churches in town. I think that is so cool that he does that. It would probably be pretty hard to go to church all by yourself as a kid. It made me grateful that I have a family who helped me to know and love Jesus Christ. We are excited to keep meeting with Pedro and help him in any way that we can.
We visited Adrian, Adriana, and Ray this week as well. They invited us over for dinner and service earlier last week. So we went over and had dinner and then afterwards we helped her get ready for Adrian's graduation party. After we were all done, Adrian and Ray were on Netflix looking for a movie to watch and they said, "Hey! Mormons, look, it's a movie called Meet the Mormons!" haha So I guess that movie, Meet the Mormons is on Netflix now. Elder Tapia and I told them to watch it and they really loved it. Adriana was crying during the last part when the mom was sending off her son on a mission. They thought it was really cool and they had a lot of questions for us afterwards. Well, they invited us over for Adrian's graduation party on Saturday, which happened to be the same day as my birthday. So we went over thereSaturday night to spend a little time at their house for Adrian's graduation party. When we walked in we saw all of the decorations that we helped put up and they yelled, "Surprise!" They threw me a surprise birthday party! It was so sweet of them. They had a cake with a candle in the shape of a "?" because they didn't know how old I was. They all sang happy birthday to me. It was really cool. They were so good to me. They had a lot of their friends over and a bunch of Adrian's friends from school. It was a pool party and they were bummed to hear that we couldn't swim. haha But it was still a really fun time. Ray works at a printing shop, so he made me an awesome Detroit Tigers shirt with my name on it! We grilled a lot of food. They are such a nice family. The rest of my birthday was really great too. I got a lot of mail from my family and friends. They sent a cake, a bunch of presents, and a really cool picture video that I love. It is full of pictures of me with people that I love and I have probably watched it 20 times. I really do have the best family ever. I didn't feel too far from home at all. It was a great day and a great week. I feel so lucky. I love Delano and I love the people we get to help and teach. I love that I have the chance to do what I am doing. We are going into the last week of this transfer and Elder Tapia just reminded me that I only have 5 more of these six week transfers. That is so crazy to me. It really does go so fast. I am enjoying this amazing opportunity I have to help others come closer to Jesus Christ. Even though I can never repay Him for His sacrifice for me, I am so grateful to be out here contributing to His work in some small way.
Well, I hope you all had a great week. I sure did. I miss you and wish you all the best. Take good care.
Much Love,
Elder Chad Thompson
I hope you are all having an awesome week. Delano is great! I am starting to love it more and more. I think it has just been taking me a little bit to get used to being in a newer and bigger area. The heat is getting a little crazy though. Today isn't bad, but on Saturday it hit 108! I was dying in my shirt and tie. Luckily, Saturday was our day to have the car. This week we have had a lot of lessons. We visited Rustum this week. He is doing really well and so is his wife Amerika. She is due to have her baby any day and they are so excited. We had a really good lesson on the importance of prayer and studying the scriptures. Later in the week we had a lesson with Jamie. She is doing really good. It is funny, she has grown up in a home that only speaks Spanish so she speaks really good Spanish, but now that she has spent a couple of years in public schools, she has nearly perfect English. It seems crazy to me, but this little 9 year old girl is fluent in two languages. Every time we go over there we ask her which language she would like us to teach in and she likes to switch back and forth. Well we taught her twice this week and she understands everything really well. At the end of our lessons we quiz her about what we talked about, and she always knows exactly the right answers. We also met her brother, Jeremy, and her cousin, Anderson this week. Jeremy and Anderson are 12 years old and they were taught by the missionaries about two years ago. We asked if they remembered the missionaries and Anderson said, "Oh yeah! I remember Elder Dee." haha Delano was Elder Dee's first area a long time ago and I guess he was the one who taught these guys. They seem like super cool kids and we are excited to teach them too.
This week we also met a really cool kid named Pedro. He is a Senior in high school. He runs cross country and plays baseball. He is a really nice kid. He is really interested in talking to us more. He said that he really tries to go to church, but sometimes it is hard because his family has never gone. They are not really interested in going to any church, but he believes in Christ and wants to go to a church. He said that sometimes he just walks to one of the Christian churches in town. I think that is so cool that he does that. It would probably be pretty hard to go to church all by yourself as a kid. It made me grateful that I have a family who helped me to know and love Jesus Christ. We are excited to keep meeting with Pedro and help him in any way that we can.
We visited Adrian, Adriana, and Ray this week as well. They invited us over for dinner and service earlier last week. So we went over and had dinner and then afterwards we helped her get ready for Adrian's graduation party. After we were all done, Adrian and Ray were on Netflix looking for a movie to watch and they said, "Hey! Mormons, look, it's a movie called Meet the Mormons!" haha So I guess that movie, Meet the Mormons is on Netflix now. Elder Tapia and I told them to watch it and they really loved it. Adriana was crying during the last part when the mom was sending off her son on a mission. They thought it was really cool and they had a lot of questions for us afterwards. Well, they invited us over for Adrian's graduation party on Saturday, which happened to be the same day as my birthday. So we went over thereSaturday night to spend a little time at their house for Adrian's graduation party. When we walked in we saw all of the decorations that we helped put up and they yelled, "Surprise!" They threw me a surprise birthday party! It was so sweet of them. They had a cake with a candle in the shape of a "?" because they didn't know how old I was. They all sang happy birthday to me. It was really cool. They were so good to me. They had a lot of their friends over and a bunch of Adrian's friends from school. It was a pool party and they were bummed to hear that we couldn't swim. haha But it was still a really fun time. Ray works at a printing shop, so he made me an awesome Detroit Tigers shirt with my name on it! We grilled a lot of food. They are such a nice family. The rest of my birthday was really great too. I got a lot of mail from my family and friends. They sent a cake, a bunch of presents, and a really cool picture video that I love. It is full of pictures of me with people that I love and I have probably watched it 20 times. I really do have the best family ever. I didn't feel too far from home at all. It was a great day and a great week. I feel so lucky. I love Delano and I love the people we get to help and teach. I love that I have the chance to do what I am doing. We are going into the last week of this transfer and Elder Tapia just reminded me that I only have 5 more of these six week transfers. That is so crazy to me. It really does go so fast. I am enjoying this amazing opportunity I have to help others come closer to Jesus Christ. Even though I can never repay Him for His sacrifice for me, I am so grateful to be out here contributing to His work in some small way.
Well, I hope you all had a great week. I sure did. I miss you and wish you all the best. Take good care.
Much Love,
Elder Chad Thompson