Swimming In A Hot Tub

Hello,

So I think this was one of the hottest weeks I have ever before experienced.  It literally feels like we are swimming in hot water when we go out to appointments.  I think I should tell President Berrett that I can't go out and proselyte because I sweat so much that I might as well be swimming!  Even the members here tell us that it's too hot.  I've started taking two liters of water with me when we go outside and I usually drink it all.  Sometimes I need to buy even more!  We're embracing the heat though.  Our afflictions shall be but a small moment.

Aside from that, It's been a pretty successful week! We had two investigators come to church yesterday that we've been trying to get to come for weeks. Also, we had about 15 less active members show up to church. We were very excited to see them all there.

Time seems to be going by so fast. Last week I reached 7 months on my mission. Also it's the last week of the transfer with Elder Ball! I really hope he doesn't get a transfer call. We are doing really well right now 

So a funny story from the other day. Elder Ball and I were hanging out in our room at the end of the day. I was sitting on my bed when I felt a drop of something land on my arm. I looked and saw a small brown nugget sitting there. When I looked up to the ceiling, I saw a lizard looking down at me with his tail up! I got pooped on by a lizard! How many people can say that they have been pooped on by a lizard? Elder Ball and I were laughing pretty hard. 

Here's some pics from the week. Here are some kids collecting water, a sunset, and six of us inside an auto. We managed to squeeze two more of us in there somehow. 

Hope you all have a great week and stay cool! 

Love, Elder Kent Richard Thompson

Elder Thompson and Elder Ball with some children

The Kothangi wedding

Elders Ball, Thompson, Bandi, and D'Vaz with a cute little wedding guest

More wedding festivities

Some children gathering water

A sunset over Rajahmundry

How many missionaries can you fit in an auto?

A giant lizard

A truck piled high with cargo

Some more kids gathering water

Elder Ball with these beautiful children

Fat tie Friday

Carrying plants on the back of a cycle

A little boy enjoying a mango

Making noodles

Camera tricks

India is experiencing a deadly heat wave

Fruit stands on the road

Crazy Week

Hello all,

This has been a really good but fairly crazy week.  However, it was so great to talk to my family last Monday.

So, my companion Elder Ball went to Hyderabad for part of the week to get a new passport. We need to get a new passport so we can go the the Philippines at our year mark. We send the old one in to get our visas renewed while we are gone. He got to hang out with my trainer Elder Grimmett while he was there. They had a fun time. I was in a trio with the other two guys from my apartment, Elder Monk and Elder Harris. That was fun for the first night because we got some good appointments in and I got to see some people in their area which is always fun. The problem is that while I was sleeping, I got really sick. It must have been from what I had for lunch or something. It was a long night for me because I my stomach was really upset. I called Sister Berrett in the morning, and she helped me get better pretty quick. It's always fun talking on the phone with Sister Berret because she can always cheer you up. It must be a requirement for the mission president's wife to be super nice. We stayed inside that day so I could get better. 

Elder Ball came back the next day so it was good to be back with my companion. Teaching in a trio is pretty difficult. I'm sure there's a reason that God puts his missionaries in pairs. 

So we were on our way to visit one member the other day when I heard some really loud screaming! Turns out some guys were catching a wild pig and it wasn't too happy. They had caught it on a rope, and it was jumping around uncontrollably and screaming at the top of it's lungs. It literally looked like a fish when you pull it out of the water, just flopping around so fast. It was definitely a sight to see. I tried to get some video, but they let it go before I could get my camera out. 

I'll send a bunch of pictures this week. First, a sunset, our cycles, and a hut. Many people live in this kinds of homes. 

Love you all and hope you have a great week. 

Elder Thompson

Elder Thompson and Elder Ball's cycles

A pretty sunset

Lots of people live in these huts

A pile of bricks on a man's head.  The Indian people carry all kinds of things on their heads.

A wild pig roaming the city

Random pictures of babies on the walls of random homes

The current church house which is being rented while a new one is being built

The baptismal font

The new church building

Elder Thompson and Elder Ball

Lookin' cool!

Sunglass selfies

Elder Ball

A rooster wandering around the restaurant

Lunch at Dabba

Elder Ball and a watchman who is very friendly but doesn't speak any English

The central shopping area in Rajahmundry

A few branch members and Elder Thompson

It is common to dye baby chicks. You can see one red and one yellow.

The yellow chick

Mother's Day Skype

We were so happy to be able to Skype with Kent on Mother's Day night.  He looks great and he sounds wonderful.  

Nice Week

Hello,

Last week was a really great week!  I'm really starting to connect with the members here.  Many of them are very poor but they are also very humble.  I also went on exchange with our district leader, Elder Farr.  He's  a cool guy.

We celebrated my birthday on Wednesday. Now I don't feel like such a young guy! Some of the elders in this mission are as old as 26! We got a cake and had a fun time. 

It's so fun to serve here in Rajahmundry. I don't have much from last week, but I hope you are all doing well! 

Here's a pic of the cake.

Love, Elder Thompson

Happy Birthday Elder Thompson

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