Zone Meeting

We had a great week. There were many baptisms across the zone. Everybody is doing a really good job. We had zone meeting in Puerto Princesa last week and will be having another zone meeting in Roxas tomorrow. It's about 3 hours travel for the elders in Roxas and 4.5 hours travel for the elders in Taytay so we're doing a meeting just for them so save all of their travel time.

Don't have a ton of time to elaborate but thank you all for your emails and letters. I am really grateful for the support that so many people send to me each week.

Love, Elder Thompson

A picture from zone meeting courtesy of Elder Wolcott

Zone Activity

If you have cool zone leaders, they will organize a zone activity each transfer. For our activity this time, we purchased four live chickens took them to the mango farm where Brother Benjie lives, killed them and each district took made it into delicious dishes. I even had the chance to kill one of the chickens! It was a good and fun time.

Chopping the chicken

The victims

Cool Experiences

Hello!

We had some some cool experiences this week. 

First, we were riding in a really full jeepney when one of us dropped our phone without noticing. To be a missionary and especially one in a leadership position, that's a pretty pretty devastating thing to happen. We were so worried so we prayed together as a companionship that we could find our phone. About 20 minutes after our prayer, we got a call to the other elders in out apartment's phone. It was a really nice lady who had found our phone and wanted to return it. BOOM! She found our phone and then answered a call from some of the other sisters in our zone who needed to get a hold of us. Those sisters then directed her to our kabahay's phone and we were able to speak with her and meet her the next morning. I'm so grateful that our prayers are answered and that there are a lot of honest people in the world.

Second, my companion and I have been trying a new method of getting around called Hitchhiking!! We figure it's a fun way to get a free ride and have an easy situation to share the gospel. We were so happy the other day when somebody actually stopped for us. When we opened the door, we discovered that it was our next door neighbor. It was cool to get a free ride right to our house, but I don't know if it actually counts as a successful hitchhike since we already knew the person. We'll keep working on that one!

There were many great things that happened this week but unfortunately my time is far spent. Thanks for all of your love and great support. That is one thing that has helped me to be so happy to be on my mission. 

Until next time...

Elder Thompson

PS. The elders in my apartment are great cooks. Elder Sorronda and I are usually in charge of going to the market to buy food on Mondays. Here's an example of what the meat market looks like:

We buy this pork and make lots of delicious Filipino dishes.  It's basically a huge pile of warm meat slapped onto a table.  Flies and all!!  I've never gotten sick or anything so I suppose it is good to eat.

I actually have no idea what this is....looks a little scary.

We had a really fun district activity today at the home of our BML Benjie.  He cooked some delicious food of rice and grilled meat including chicken, fish, squid, and tahong (oysters).

Our district!! (L-R) Elder Thompson, Elder Sorronda, Sister Baul, Elder Binhaon, Sister Narag, Sister Holzworth, Sister Akeripa, Sister Martinez and Elder Panugao. Sister Ta'ala is behind.

Cool Times

Hello!

It was a really productive week for us. We were able to invite 191 people to hear about your unique message and were able to teach 23 wonderful new investigators. Elder Sorronda and I have just been working so hard. We're still trying to find the fruits of our labors but we know that they will keep coming as we work with all of our might!!!

My Tagalog is still pretty limited but I'm finally starting to figure a few things out. If I really try my best, I can speak what they call "Taglish" (Tagalog with English mixed in) or perhaps a more appropriate term is "Engalog" (English with Tagalog mixed in.) I'll keep at it.

We went to visit Brother Teddy out at his home in Sabang. Unfortunately, the branch boundaries just changed so we will no longer be allowed to visit him but at least we will see him at church. He's such a great convert, maybe I can come back to see him and his wife Anita get sealed! To celebrate our last visit, they fed us delicious crabs and squid, fresh from the ocean right next to his house. Such a cool location. See the picture below. 🦀

I'm so stoked to be spending all of my time serving the Lord right now!! Just trying to give my all while I'm here and fight a good fight!! 

Have a great week, be happy, life healthy, and enjoy the moment!

Love, Elder Thompson

Dinner at Teddy's house

Zone Meeting

Dear family and friends,

Things are good here in Palawan. This week we had our zone meeting where my companion and I spoke during much of it. Fortunately it was in English so I could really express myself in front of the zone. I'm starting to be really comfortable with speaking in front of people. The mission has really taught me that so far. A few emails ago, I think I mentioned that our zone was "on fire" because of all the baptisms. I'm pleased to say that we are still "on fire" and the fire has just been stoked. Seriously the elders and sisters are working so hard. When Elder Bowen came he challenged us to talk to 190 people every single week about our unique message. We've really been striving to do that and just hit our goal for the first time. Every companionship in the zone has drastically increased from an average of 40 or so to above 100 people every single week. It's so cool to see the desire that all of these wonderful elders and sisters have. Now we just have to be consistent and keep the excitement. We just had transfers and a bunch of new people came into our zone. I'm excited to get to know them all personally. 

I hope that you're all doing well. Have a great week!

Love, Elder Thompson

I saw these kids pulling each other down a hill on these little homemade go karts.

So creative and fun!

Puerto Zone

Time Goes By So Fast

Well, another month went by and another transfer as well. We got the transfer announcements this morning and I'm happy to say that Elder Sorronda and I will be staying here for another transfer. He's really the only companion that I've ever had for more than one transfer since my old days in Bangalore so it's nice to not bounce around for a second.

We went out to the concrete jungle of Manila again last week for MLC. We're putting a huge stress about OYM. (Open your mouth) That's the way to consistently get new people to teach so we need to do way more than we have before. That's something that Elder Bowen has really stressed as well. We learned lots of different tools that we can use to motivate the zone so we're so pumped about this. We also had the chance to go with the AP's on exchange so I learned some good stuff to take back to our zone.

Here we are in light pollution and traffic.

...and back to paradise.

Love, Elder Thompson

Missionary Work Every Day!!

This week was pretty cool. We traveled out to Roxas for exchanges to see how the work is doing out there. The elders are working really hard so we were really pleased to see what they were doing. Rosas is a few hours north of where we are in Puerto so we took a bus to get out there. The bus ride was one of the most beautiful rides I have ever been on. At one moment we were passing pristine beaches and the next we were passing luscious green mountains and rivers and later we went past open green planes and coconut tree groves. The place I am assigned to work in right now continues to amaze me more and more. We attended district meeting in Roxas and then went to proselyte. I met some really cool members and investigators out there so it was a good time. After all of that, we went to the elders home for the night. It was a cozy two story home, just perfect for the four missionaries assigned there. There was a little open deck on the second story so Elder Sorronda and I slept under brilliantly bright stars and moon.

On New Year's eve we went to the Nunez Family to enjoy some deliections dinner. Brother Nunez likes to keep chickens in his back yard so when we showed up he just took us out back, he picked one that looked good, and we chopped him up and ate him! Wow! They made him into some delicious adobo or a Filipino dish with soy sauce. Masarap!

I've been experiencing so many cool things here in the Philippines. It's so great to work hard and have a good time doing it!

Here's a few shots from our trip to Roxas.

Have a good one!

-Elder Kent R. Thompson

The ride to Roxas

Coconut groves on the road to Roxas