Great Week!

Hello family!

Alright, fun fact for the day: if you average 25 prayers a day, and do that for 18 months, that's 13,650 prayers said. If you pray 25 times a day for two years that's 18,200 prayers.

How crazy is that? Sister Whimpey and I were talking about all the prayers we say each day and so we decided to do the math. 13,650 prayers! That's so many prayers! But it's awesome to think about!

This week was awesome! Busy, lots of driving around, but all together a great week! We had a zone meeting this week and it was great! The spirit was so strong in the room as we were taught by the leaders in our zone. I'll explain what happens at zone meeting and why we have them. So each transfer, there's MLC(mission leadership conference) where all the zone leaders and STLs go for the day and learn from the APs and President and Sister Wright. The following week, every zone has a zone meeting where the zone leaders and STL report and teach us what was taught at MLC. It's pretty great. President and Sister Wright are awesome and I love them! I didn't get to write much last week because of time, but I have gotten to spend a lot of time with the Wright family since they live in the ward I'm over! Like I said last week, Sister Wright came out with sister Whimpey and I the first night she was here so we were the first sisters that she met. Then last Sunday, the Wrights had most of the family in town so they invited sister Whimpey and I and the assistants over for a big family dinner with them! It was so fun! I felt right at home because they were all laughing and cracking jokes during dinner. It was so fun getting to know some of president and sister Wrights kids! Sister Whimpey and I have dinner with the Wrights again this Thursday! Speaking of their kids, the 19 year old daughter Amy has been coming out with sister Whimpey and I a lot to lessons! It's awesome! She is so sweet and so fun to be around! And their 17 year old son Max goes out with the elders a lot and he also comes to the church on pdays to play sports with all the missionaries! I think it's so awesome that they get to have the mission experience without actually being on a mission. Super jealous actually, that would have been so cool if that happened before my mission! So dad, if you get called as a mission president, I'm coming with you! Haha

So I love missions. I love being a missionary! We found two new investigators this week!!! Mark and Gary! Mark is what we call ELECT. Where he was definitely prepared by God before meeting with us! He is a 31 year old guy originally from Guam. He's like 5' 2" and he's super witty and he cracks jokes all the time. He's hilarious. Haha He just moved to sant rosa last week and we ran into him while contacting on the streets of downtown Santa Rosa. We were able to introduce the Book of Mormon to him and have a short lesson with him! We left afterwards to go try and visit a potential investigator and as we came back Mark was still outside reading the Book of Mormon! As we walked by, he was like " Hey this is pretty good!" Sister Whimpey and I freaked out when we got back to the car. We were able to meet with Mark four more times during the week! FOUR TIMES in one week!! He is so open to learning and everything we talk to him about makes sense to him! He is progressing so well! He was suppose to come to church yesterday, but he accidentally sleep in....we had a ride set up for him and everything. It broke my heart that he wasn't at church. There's always next week though! And Gary is the other investigator we picked up! He's a 80 year old man that has been everywhere and done everything in life. He's a architect and artist and his house is the coolest house. He has a lot of his artwork up and he designed his house so it's pretty cool. He's open to learning but he keeps saying that he doesn't want to change. But he has allowed us to come over a few times this week and he's excited to learn so we will see what happens with Gary. As for our other investigators, we are meeting with a 50 year old man named Todd. Todd has had a rough life and going through some addiction problems right now but he wants to turn his life around. He came to church yesterday! Which was awesome! But we're not sure how much Todd understands but we will see! Oh guess what? Mike is moving to Sebastopol next month.....he's moving there for work. And I'm super upset about it. But there's missionaries in Sebastopol so he said he's going to keep meeting with missionaries there. I hope Mike can continue to make the steps toward baptism! Also, our investigator Julia had to move this week. It was a rough week for her and she is being forced out of her house. She doesn't have anywhere to go, so we are trying to help her as much as we can right now! On Saturday, we were able to go and help a family move into our Ward! They are fixing up their house first so we got to help paint the inside of their house! There were like ten sets of missionaries there helping! It was so fun! I love this mission!

Overall, it's been a busy week, but I feel like the work is starting to really pick up in the Brush Creek area! I absolutely love being a missionary! But this week is week six of the transfer...so on Friday we find out Transfer Information. I'm scared. I want to stay with sister Whimpey so bad and we just found new investigators! I dont want to leave! But I'll go wherever the Lord needs me. 

Today a bunch of us missionaries are going to a park and having a bbq! We celebrating a few birthdays so it should be fun! Speaking of birthdays, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX! Hope you enjoy being one year older and...maybe a little wiser too. ;) anyways, I'm loving Northern California! I love you all! Have a great week!

Love always, Sister Thompson :)