Six Months Complete!

Hello,

This week marked 6 months on the mission for me. It's crazy to think that I have been out that long. I'm loving Rajahmundry and Elder Ball and I have been tearing it up. It's a great place. Another fun thing is that my MTC companion Elder Harris just moved into our apartment so it's so fun to be reunited. Also, Elder D'vaz and Linsay live just downstairs. It's so fun to have all the elders from our MTC back together. For our six month mark, we went to the nicest restaurant in Rajahmundry. It's called Dolphins. The food was great and the entire restaurant was A/C so that's living the high life. Also, we all went on the roof and burned one of our ties. It's a missionary tradition to burn a tie once you finish 6 months.

Rajahmundry is really great. I seriously think that the missionaries are the only white people in the entire city. Whenever we ride our cycles anywhere, everybody waves or says hi. Kids will literally run over to us and put themselves in front of our cycles just so they can talk to us. We are celebrities here. Everybody is so nice and always wants to chat wit us. (But they usually don't speak English.) The lack of English is a little tricky, but my companion has been with three Telugu speaking elders before me so he knows enough to get by. We don't really have any investigators right now so we've really been focusing on recent convert and less active members. Last week we taught 17 rc/la lessons which is more than I have ever before had in one week. We're also working on getting new investigators that speak English.

Church was a little crazy. Most of it was in Telugu so it was hard to stay involved. Elder Harris and I were asked to give our testimonies in sacrament meeting so that was nice. This branch actually has their own piano player! She played tons of wrong notes, but she is trying. I'm glad that they have the members doing that on their own. Also, my good friend Elder Dondapati just got home from his mission and now lives in this branch. It was fun to see him not as a missionary. Just a few weeks ago, I went on exchange with him in Bangalore! 

That's all for now! Here's a picture of us burning our ties and also a nice sunset. It's so nice to see some open land because I've been in such a huge city for the last six months. 

Love,

Elder Thompson

A nice sunset in some open countryside

The traditional  6 month tie burning

Rajahmundry 1st Branch

Hello,

So much has happened since the last time I emailed. I got my transfer call to serve in Rajahmundry with Elder Ball. Elder Ball is from Meridian Idaho and is a really cool kid. He served in Bangalore before as well, so we are already good friends. 

Last week, Elder Cloward and I taught more member lessons than ever before because we went around visiting all my favorite families and telling them goodbye. It was so sad to say goodbye to them because I have made some really great friends in Bangalore.

On Saturday and Sunday, I got everything packed up, said goodbye to people, and we took an auto to another area in Bangalore. I met up with another elder named Elder Bandi, and the next morning, we took a cab to the airport. There were no flights from Bangalore to Rajahmundry, so the flight took us to Visak. I felt bad for Elder Bandi, because he is from Visak. That would have been like me taking a plane to Salt Lake, and then driving to Kaysville to have lunch and then going to serve in Pocatello. Once we arrived, we met up with one member named Raju and he drove us and another elder who was also being transferred to Rajahmundry to our apartment. It was a 3 hour car ride, but was really nice because we got to see the countryside and villages. Because I've been in such a big city this whole time, it was really nice for me to see some open space. Once we got there, we were all so excited to be together. Elder Ball was so stoked because I'm his first American companion. (Not that it's bad to be companions with an Indian, it's just very different.) He told me "We'll have fun, but we're gonna go work hard."  He's such a cool elder, and I'm excited for this companionship. Another weird thing is that Elder Ball is the third person in a row that I've has as a companion from the same batch. Crazy! The apartment is awesome. The elders are super great, and there is another missionary apartment just downstairs. In that apartment, Elder D'vaz and Elder Lindsay from my MTC batch are living there. It was so cool to see them after such a long time. We're going to have a great time in this city. 

If I could describe Rajahmundry in one word, that word would be HOT. This place is very very hot. I think it's usually about 35 degrees Celsius with full humidity. The good news is that we basically live in some of the nicest apartments in the city which means we get A/C. Also, Rajahmundry is a village. Unlike Bangalore, there are no malls, no Western restaurants, and very little English. Almost everybody here only speaks Telugu. It's going to be tricky with two elders that only know English, but we will do what we can. It sounds like our focus right now is to help the members as much as possible because most of them have almost no gospel knowledge.  We have lots of work to do. :) So far, the people here are amazing. Even though most of them don't know English, they are some of the best people I have ever met. I'm so excited to work with them. 

I'll send a bunch of pictures this week. Here I am with some of my best friends from Banglore. Aditya, Karthik, Charles, and Prasanth. I'll reply with more. 

Love, Elder Thompson

Elder Thompson, Aditya, and Elder Cloward

Charles, Elder Thompson, and Prasanth

Karthik and Elder Thompson

Megha and his yellow socks.  He has sunshine in his "soles". :-)

Krishna and Kent

Elder Thompson and Elder Bandi in a cab

Airplane transfers

Flying out of Visak (short for Visakhaptnam)

Elder Bandi and Elder Thompson having lunch in Visak 

Elder Bandi, Elder Thompson, and Elder ? being driven by a member named Raju

The open road

Elder Thompson and Elder Ball who is wearing a Lungi

General Conference

Hello,

This was a great week and we loved finally getting the chance to listen to conference. There were so many great talks and it was fun to be there with my missionary and branch member friends. We were so excited to hear about the new temple announced in Thailand because that is really close to India! Now members won't have to travel quite as far to go to the temple. Elder Holland's talk was one of my favorites as usual. I had to hold on to my chair while he was speaking. Also, there were some great talks in the priesthood session. In India, the session was a little different from the session at home. I noticed that nobody parked on the street or backed their cars into the slots. Nobody left during the closing song to be the first ones to the ice cream place. And when we went to a popular ice cream joint after, we were the only ones there in white shirts and ties. It was great. 

Our investigator Krishna is doing really well. He's progressing slowly and we need to push his baptism date out a little further, but his testimony and faith are growing little by little. I think I mentioned before, but he has a Hindu background so it's pretty tricky for him to learn everything. He called us the other day with a really great story. We've been teaching him that when he needs something, he should pray and ask God for help. He's been showing his faith by doing that more and more. Anyway, he was outside and a little far from his home. He was feeling pretty hungry but realized that he didn't have his wallet with him. So what did he do? He prayed and asked for help. He finished the prayer and about 30 seconds later, he found 10 rupees on the side of the road. He took that money and bought himself a nice snack. I thought that was a really amazing story especially for somebody that is so young in the gospel to have an experience like this. It's like if a little kid looses his toy and prays and then he finds it. I think it's God's way of helping people grow in faith. It also strengthened my testimony that God really loves us and cares about us. Did it really matter if Krishna found money or not? No it did not. But God cares so much and somehow placed 10 rupees on the road right while Krishna was passing by. Amazing.

My time is short, but I know that God cares! He hears and answers each one of our prayers. He has a perfect love for each one of us.

Have a great week.

Elder Kent Thompson

Easter Weekend

Hello,

It was a great week and a wonderful chance to think about the Savior and remember that He suffered and died for us and also rose again so that we can repent of our sins and some day return to live with Him. We had a really nice fast and testimony meeting and I bore my testimony about Christ. I think it was a good thing to do because I have never born my testimony in this branch before. I practiced one of my favorite Easter Songs, "He is Risen!" earlier in the week and we sang it in the meeting. It was a great time. We are so excited to hear the words of the prophets this coming weekend. Because we are so far ahead in the time zone we will have to wait.

On Saturday, we all met as a zone and had Zone Conference. It was a really great conference and we learned a lot. President Berrett is such a great teacher and leader. We learned about how we should be using the Book of Mormon more in our teaching. It's such a powerful tool in conversion and can answer so many questions. I think the Book of Mormon is one of the strongest sources of my personal testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I've been given that testimony by the Holy Ghost, but everything just makes so much sense to me. While I've been on the mission I've come to realize that more and more. President Berrett wants to make sure that all of us really know the Book of Mormon so we can teach it effectively. He issued a challenge to read it cover to cover before the next Zone Conference which will be 62 days from last Saturday. At first that sounded like a really crazy goal but I have taken it really seriously and have noticed that it's really not hard to read. Any spare time that I find, especially in the morning and evening, I have been reading like crazy. Now I'm on 2 Nephi chapter 19. It's interesting that I'm reading so well because it seemed like it was so hard to read it before my mission. 

I noticed a tender mercy yesterday as I was walking along the street. That mercy is that a bird pooped on my shoe. Now you may be wondering how getting pooped on by a bird could possibly be a tender mercy. I realized that it was because if that particular drop of poop had come just a split second later it would have landed right in my hair. And that's gross. So I was very happy to get bird poop on my shoe. 

Anyway, everything is just great here in India. The hot season has started up and it is getting hotter and hotter every day. I've just accepted the fact that I will always be hot and sweaty. On the bright side, I have heard that mango season is May and June so I am just eccstatic because I love mangos. From what I have heard, mangos in India are superb.

Life is good! 

Love, Elder Thompson