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Sunday, April 24, 2016

My Purpose!

Hey family!

I am so tired but so happy! Haha I am always so physically exhausted
but the Spirit and my love for the people and the work keeps me going
everyday! We had an awesome week here in Fairfield and we have an
awesome week ahead of us! Here are the highlights from my week and
updates for this up coming week!

We had zone conference on Tuesday! Loved it. We met in the Fairfield
Stake center with our zone and the Vacaville zone. I absolutely love
zone conference! President and Sister Wright are SO amazing! I was
able to receive some personal revelation during the conference for
some stuff that I've been struggling with lately(I'll share it later
on in this letter). I love the spirit. Heavenly Father knows us so
well and He is SO aware with what we are going through! We just have
to be humble enough to turn to Him in prayer for help and guidance and
He WILL answer! I love this gospel!

We finished everything with Ally this week and SHE WAS BAPTIZED ON
SATURDAY! She had her baptismal interview Thursday night and she
passed but Elder Hardy and Ally decided to pull a joke on all of us
waiting for her during her interview. Ally walked out of her interview
crying and elder Hardy walked out and says, "I'm sorry guys, but there
isn't going to be a baptism this weekend." At this moment my heart
sank, Sister Murakami looked like she was about to punch Elder Hardy
for hurting her daughters feelings and Sister Aiton looked like she
was about to cry. Then all of a sudden Ally starts laughing and looks
up and says, "Ha gotcha!" And then high fives elder Hardy....we were
so mad! Haha they got us pretty good! Ally's baptism on Saturday was
AMAZING though! Watching Ally enter the waters of baptism was
incredible. Brother Thomas was the one baptizing her and as he was
saying the baptismal prayer he started to cry...the spirit in the room
was so strong. After the baptism Ally told us she felt warm inside and
she felt so good! She received the gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday
and her mom was really touched by that. What a powerful weekend we've
had!

Lyndon, Shirley, and Jessica all came to church yesterday! Woo!
Shirley and Jessica loved Sunday school! They are so great but they
are so hard to meet with! Shirley literally works everyday! Funny
story with her real quick, so she has a sister that lives in Mountain
Home, ID and I told Shirley that my dad works at the hospital there!
So randomly this past week on Tuesday I get a call with area code
208..."Hello this is the sister missionaries!" "Hi, is this Sister
Thompson?" "Yes it is! Who is this?" "This is Shirley's sister that
lives in Mountain Home! I hear you like canning so I wanted to know if
you like strawberry banana butter?" "Uhhhh...(in my mind I was so
confused and my companion was right next to me laughing so hard at
this point so I'm trying to keep it together on the phone) Sure! I
love strawberry banana butter!" "Great. I'm going to send you a recipe
for it and when you get home from your mission you can come over and
help me make it." "Well, I don't get home until this fall, but I would
love to come help!" "This fall? Ok, I will write that down. I will get
that recipe to you soon and I will see you this fall. Have a nice day
Sister Thompson!"*hangs up* Now at this point my companion Sister
Aiton is in tears because she is laughing so hard and now I'm laughing
because that would have to be the strangest phone call I have ever
received! Like what? When did I say I liked canning? Haha I'm mean
sure, why not? I love strawberry banana butter? Hahaha anyways,
Shirley delivered the recipe to me at church on Sunday and told me how
excited she was for me to make it with her sister this fall! Haha the
phone call and the recipe totally made my week! Gotta love Idahoans!

So super exciting news for this week! First off, I have MLC on Friday
so I'm super excited for that! But guess what's happening on Saturday
morning?! ELDER DAVID A. BEDNAR IS COMING TO SPEAK TO US!! I'm so
excited and super scared too! Haha Sister Aiton got asked to play the
piano for it and I got asked to conduct the music! So we will get to
be up on the stand with Elder Bednar! I'm so excited! And then on
Sunday, we have stake conference and the 1st councilor in the
presiding bishopric will be here and speak to us! It's going to be an
AMAZING WEEKEND!!

So I mentioned earlier about zone conference and receiving personal
revelation and I want to share it with you all. I hit my year mark
this week on the mission, and I've been doing a lot of reflecting of
this past year: things that I've liked, things I could have done
better, the people I've met, the memories made, etc. Before I came on
my mission, I had told myself that I was going to change. I was going
to give my heart to Heavenly Father and let him sculpt me into the
person He wanted me to become. I wanted my mission to change me. I've
seen countless missionaries return home and I could tell that their
missions had changed them. I wanted to come back home as a changed
person, someone my family wouldn't recognize. But as I started
reflecting on my mission a couple weeks ago, I felt like I hadn't
changed much in the last year. My knowledge and testimony of the
gospel has grown tremendously and I'm more converted to the gospel now
than ever before, but I didn't feel like I've changed. This had been
on my mind for a couple of weeks, but during zone conference the
spirit impressed upon my mind these words, "Yes, you're right. You
haven't changed much, but that's ok. Ive been sculpting you your whole
life. You haven't changed but look at all the lives you have changed."
The spirit reminded me that I didn't come on a mission to improve
myself or receive recognition for "my achievements". I came to help
others come unto Christ. I came to share my knowledge and testimony of
the restored gospel. I came to be an instrument in Gods hands to help
change lives. This past year has been the most incredible year of my
life. I plan on continuing to help God fulfill His purpose of bringing
to pass the immortality and eternal life of man for the next six
months, and for the rest of my life. His purpose is now my purpose.
And that's the thing that's changed about me. My purpose.



Love always, Sister Thompson 🌻
At lunch with Sister Hullinger

After zone conference, a bunch of missionaries randomly showed up at
Dutch Bros all at once. So we took a picture! Haha

Downtown Fairfield!




The Elders left all of this on our front door one night!

For hour of service this week we delivered pineapples :) because we
love Psych haha

We've been in a prank war with the elders using a chocolate bunny that
no one wants, so we got them back this week




I love you all and hope you have an awesome day!










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