Great Week!

Hello,

It was a great week for Elder Thompson and Cloward with many fun experiences and stories.

Our investigator Krishna has accepted the invitation to be baptized on April 12th. We will probably push it to the next Sunday because we are having General Conference on the 12th, but we are all very excited for him. He's been learning so much and doing an amazing job with keeping his commitments. Even though his knowledge of Christianity is so minimal, he has been learning so much.

Elder Cloward is finally back up to full health so we hit the work in full force. We taught so many lessons and had a great time. One night, we were taking a short break and eating some ice cream in a park. We saw this guy sitting on a bench all by himself and he looked a little bit low. We both felt prompted to say hi to him and give him a pass along card. He didn't speak much English, and I'm sure he won't call us back anytime soon, but it was just a good experience to say hi to somebody that maybe was having a bad day. It just strengthened my testimony to always listen to promptings of the Spirit. 

We had another fun experience the other day.  We were pretty far from home, but needed to get from where we were back to our home.  I wanted to take a bus because it's way cheaper than taking an auto.  I knew the bus number so I told Elder Cloward which one it was.  I also told him that it might be a little bit full because it was rush hour.  (I didn't tell him that it would probably be packed because he doesn't like going on crowded busses).  The bus arrived and there were literally people spilling out the doors because it was so full.  Elder Cloward looked at me and gave me a chuckle meaning that he would rather stick a pin into his left eye than get on that bus.  Being the assertive companion that I sometimes am, I ignored his chuckle and bulldozed my way into the bus.  Realizing that he had no choice because the bus was about to pull away, he followed me in.  About two minutes into the bus ride, the guy right next to me got off so I took his seat.  Elder Cloward just looked at me and shook his head. :-)

Today we travelled to Whitefield to see the new mission home get dedicated. We needed to travel here on our cycles because mine is having some trouble and I need to take it to the place that we purchased them to get it fixed. They aren't very high quality bikes, so it's slowly been falling apart. The screw holding the handlebars in place often comes loose, and I've taken it to little bike stands to tighten it probably a dozen times. It's been tightened so many times that the screw is completely stripped and the handlebars will no longer stay in place. I wasn't about to pay for an auto to bring us and our cycles here, so I rode my wobbly bike through traffic all the way to the mission home. It was one of the most treacherous things I have done in a while. But aside from that, the dedication was great! President Berrett did the dedication and it was a really nice and spiritual experience. After, Sister Berrett said that there was going to be some "small snacks". She then brought out tray after tray of tuna fish sandwiches, fresh fruit, chips, salad, juice, and some delicious chocolate cake. Basically all of the things that I can't afford to eat on a daily basis. I was ecstatic. We took a tour of the mission home, and it was one of the nicest homes I have been in in a very long time. It was complete with many bedrooms, two large dining room tables, a nice kitchen, many bathrooms, and a huge living room that we can use for zone trainings and things. There was even a washing machine with a drier. (The first time I have seen a drier in India.) And on top of that, there was a fancy guest room dedicated to giving a general authority a place to stay if he was to come to this area for a time.

I think that's all for this week. I'm pleased to be part of the missionary work here in Bangalore. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week. 

Love, 

Elder Kent R. Thompson

Nice Week

Hello,

We had a nice week. Elder Cloward is back to full health so we were able to teach lots of lessons this time. We focused most on less active members, and were so happy to see one of them at church yesterday. His name is Silveraj and he hasn't come to church in probably 25 years. We contacted him from trying to find people on the membership list. We've been working with him for several months and finally he came back to church. It was amazing.

Yesterday we visited another member named Shiva who also hasn't come to church in years. He hasn't been able to come because of his job, but last time we visited, we encouraged him to start reading the Book of Mormon again. He's been reading since the last time we went over, and understanding on his own. It's so nice when people keep commitments. 

Today for our P-day, we decided that we would go to see (according to a tourist book that we have) the largest tourist attraction in all of Bangalore. This place is a huge government building that looks really nice. We were all excited to go, took about a 150 rupee auto ride to get there, went up to the front gate, and discovered that you are only allowed to come inside the fence if you have a pass. Obviously we didn't have passes, so we had to settle with taking pictures from outside the fence. It was a bummer. On the bright side, there was a nice big park called Cubbin Park just across the street so we went there and threw the disc for a while. After that, we found out that there was a nice Library, Art Gallery, Museum, and Aquarium just down the road. When we got there, we found that all of those buildings are open every day except for Monday. Figures. We were pretty fed up with government attractions, so we went over to the Lamborghini Showroom. It was cool, but they wouldn't let us inside...

Here's some pictures. The first three are the Government building. It was massive! 

A government building

Elder Peter throwing the disc at the park

The park

Elder Anderson, Elder Peter, Elder Cloward, and Elder Thompson

Park pano

Buildings in Bangalore

Hello

Hello,

Not too much has happened since the last time I sent an email. We have been spending lots of time inside so that Elder Cloward can recover from his surgery. But on the bright side, I have been able to go on exchange with Elder Anderson and Elder Peter a few times to get some missionary work done.  

On Saturday we met a new investigator names Moses (Can you guess which religion he is?). He was interested to learn what we had to say. We had a nice discussion with him and are planning to meet with him again on Tuesday and teach The Restoration. He was a really nice guy and even bought us some lunch. He was one of many referrals that we have received from a member named Kerthi Sagar.

Our investigator, Krishna was at church again on Sunday and is really excited about it. We've been working really hard with him. It's a little tricky because he has absolutely no Christian background so we have to teach him really slowly or he won't understand. This week we are planning to teach him about baptism and extend an invitation. I'm really excited for that!

Other than that, I wasn't able to get much done. Elder Cloward has been so tired and weak. On Wednesday we will go to the hospital and get the stitches out. Hopefully by then he will be back to his usual self.

I think that's all for now. We're excited to get back to work!

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Thompson

In the Hospital

Hello,

So the last week or so has been quite hectic. I spent about the last 5 days in the hospital with my companion Elder Cloward who had to have his appendix removed. He's been pretty tired the last few weeks and wasn't sure what the problem was. He got really sick on Saturday and started having some major pain. I took him to the clinic and they didn't know anything, so we went to the hospital, which was about an hour away. We got to the hospital, spent most of the night in the ER, and they couldn't find any problem either. They sent him home with a bunch of different medicines and we got home around 1 in the morning. The next day (Sunday), he was feeling a lot better, but still pretty tired and sore. I got to go to church with Elder Peter. When we got home, Elder Cloward was feeling terrible again. This time, it was a very sharp pain on the left side of his stomach. We went back to the hospital and after being in the ER for about four hours, they decided to give him a full CT scan. They finally found the problem that his appendix was inflamed and needed to come out. We stayed the night, and they did the Surgery on Monday. We stayed for Tuesday and most of Wednesday before we were finally able to come home. He's recovering well, and doing much better than before. President Berrett came by on Tuesday and let him call his mom. I guess all you have to do is lose an organ, and you can call home whenever you want! Today I'm at the church with Elder Anderson and glad to finally do my emailing.

As far as for me, I'm doing great! The hospital was nice, and they brought me three meals a day! It's pretty exciting as a YSA guy to get free food once and a while. Even if it is hospital food. They even had a little bed for me to sleep on at the hospital. I had everything I would ever need. It was nice, but we were super stoked to get out of there on Wednesday.

Church with Elder Peter was nice. We had branch conference. For the music, members of the branch did a special musical number for each song. The relief society sisters sang "As Sisters in Zion", we all sang the sacrament hymn "Jesus Once of Humble Birth", the primary sang "I am a child of God, and the youth sang "Called to Serve". I had the opportunity to play the piano, and it sounded great. There's some cool people in our branch. Although, I was a little skeptical when branch president called me last week to say that we would be singing "As Sisters in Zion" in sacrament meeting. I just went with it, and it worked out very well.

That's about all I have to report for the last week or so. We've just been in the hospital and Elder Cloward has been trying so hard to recover from his sickness. I'm glad that they finally found the problem, things went well, and he's doing much better. 

Here's a cool picture of the moon from last week. Also a funny pic of my friend Karthik. He was the one that got the pic of the moon. 

The life of a missionary is great, and you never know what's going to happen!

 I hope that things are going well for you all. 

Love, 

Elder Kent R. Thompson

A cool picture of the moon

Karthik

So Much Time at the FRO...

Hello,

This was a good week but a little slow. Elder Cloward had to go to this place called the FRO many times. Whenever a foreigner here in India wants to change the city that they live in, they have to go to this place and get a bunch of paperwork done. The FRO reminds me of the DMV. Everybody is pretty cranky and they don't really care about all of the desperate people that need the paperwork done. They kept telling Elder Cloward that he needed to come back day after day because of some probably made up reason. Oh, and you're not allowed to go inside unless you have an appointment so while he was in there I hung out in the veg restaurant next door. It was pretty boring but I passed the time by people watching, practicing cursive writing, and reading scriptures. I also met this friendly French guy while I was there. I can't remember his name because it was pretty long but he added me on FB. Everybody in India has FB. 

We've started doing FHE with members on Monday nights. It's really fun to be with them and it really gets them involved. Last Monday, we shared about Lehi's dream, and then played a game. For the game, one person has a small cup of water. They think of something in a specific category, (for example if the category was birds they would think of an eagle.) We'll go around the circle and everybody says a bird. If one is repeated or they say the one that the person with the water is thinking of, they get splashed. It was pretty fun. We were going around the circle naming off some birds when it got to me. My mind suddenly blanked and I said fish. I got splashed pretty hard after that! It was funny.

On Saturday I went on exchange with Elder Anderson. It's always fun to be with another missionary for a day and see how they do things. He's been on his mission for about 22 months so he really knows his stuff.  A really chill guy and fun to serve with. We went around and were able to see a ton of less active members. And even better was that most of the people we visited made it to church the next day. I love it when that happens!

Yesterday, we were out riding our cycles when it started to rain. And this isn't just any rain.  It's like hard core stuff. I was pretty excited because I haven't seen any rain for about three months but Elder Cloward freaked out. It was funny. I don't think I have ever seen him ride his cycle any faster! 

Here's a few pics. A really cool sunset in a place called Koramangala and also a cute little boy named Dallin. We visited him and his family last night.

Hope all is well, 

Elder Thompson 

Sunset in Koramangala

Sunset in Koramangala

Cute little Dallin