I am doing well and I hope you are all having a great fall. Things in Bakersfield are going great. Temperatures are getting cooler and I really love the area! The members here are so good to us. We always have dinner and always have members to come with us to lessons. They are really funny too. We had dinner twice with the Avalos family this week. They are sooo awesome. The dad has been a member for fifteen years, but everyone else in the family recently got baptized. He is really funny because he doesn't speak any English whatsoever, but his favorite genre of music is country. I thought that was so funny. It was fun talking about country music with him. He doesn't speak English, but he can sing along to all the songs. It’s awesome. We had dinner with them yesterday. They were having a barbecue for their daughter Wendy. She is really funny. She was recently baptized and is leaving to serve in the marines this Friday. She is really cool and we had a really good talk about her military service and how it has helped with her faith. I admire her so much.
We have found some great people this week. Now that I think of it, four of our new investigators that we have found this week are single Mothers. One of them is Rosario.
We were trying to visit an investigator that the Elders had been teaching last teaching last transfer, who had been living with Rosario. It turns out that Rosario kicked the other lady out. She is a really sweet lady with three kids and she works really hard to provide for them. She was really open with us about how she has been trying to give her kids the best life that she can, but she hasn't had much time to be able to bring them to church or teach them about God. So we had a really good lesson and she is really genuine about wanting to learn more, for herself and
her kids. She reminds me a little bit of my mom. One of her kids came outside and she was on her phone. She told her daughter to put her phone down and say hi. When she didn't, Rosario said, "Okay, give me your phone, NOW.
I'll give it back later." She didn’t play around. I am sure I have heard those exact words a couple of times. It was funny. She is really sweet though, and I am excited to keep visiting her and her family.
Nestor!!! haha I don't really know how to describe Nestor. We found him last week, but visited him again this week. He is hilarious. He is an older Colombian man. He lives with his wife who is a member of the church, but has not been to church in years. He is a really funny and passive guy. He and his wife seem to be complete opposites. She is a nice lady, but she yells at him a lot and orders him around. We think that they are divorced. She is looking for
another place to live, but for now they are kind of stuck together. Nestor is just so funny because every time his wife tells him to do something or yells at him, he has a very quiet, yet quick and hilarious comeback. Despite their relationship issues, they are so awesome. We love teaching them and they seem to really love what we
have to teach.
Everything else is going really well. I love the Buena Vista Ward. Time is flying by here. We are really pushing ourselves to be better and I feel God's help every single day. I know if I work hard, He will help me.
We actually had a thunder storm. It was awesome! We got some pretty heavy rain and a ton of thunder.
I haven't seen that much lightning since Michigan. I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween.
Love you all! Take care.
Much Love,
Elder Chad Thompson