Thanksgiving

Hey Everyone!!!!!!!!

 

Hows it all going back at home? Plans for thanksgiving and christmas? haha well people started pulling out their christmas decorations pretty much the day after halloween....and in my last zone, we were singing christmas hymns every reunion we had. Lets just say...people are getting pretty "baggy" for christmas. haha it is very exciting...and kind of scary to see how fast the time really has passed in the mission!!! Everyone has their lights up, and it is realy pretty here at night. We already have members inviting us over to eat for christmas...its kind of amazingly awesome! But hey, we do have a special multi zone meeting this thrusday for thanksgiving, and we are goin to eat with the zone as well as president. I am excited!!!! hmmmm, what else? OH YA!!!!! We are going to the temple this friday to do a session. I cant even describe how much I miss the temple. I think I have forgotten how a session even goes, but I will let you know how is goes!

This week has been an interesting one...full of work, geting to know members, the less actives and finding new people to teach....as well as full of parasites. :( yucky....haha it truly has been once in a lifetme experience. But i am feeling much better, so dont you worry about a thing!!!

well with hermano carmelo, he didnt show up to sacrament meeting yesterday, but showed up after for class. Poor guy..he is so humble and so special for us. He sells milk and cheese on the streets for a living. And he gets up earlier on sundays to do it, in order to make it on time for sacrament meeting. But since he came late, we have to change his baptism date, because he has too go to sacrament meeting 3 times to be baptized. His baptism will be in December. The whole ward is so excited for him, and I will keep you all up to date!!! We are just working now on placing a date for baptism for his wife. She is a little bit harder to work with, but with much prayer and fasting, I think we will be succesful. :)

That is all this week, short and sweet..but things are going great, and I think things will just get better from here. Have a great week!!!! Count your blessings every day!!!!!! Love you all so much!!!

 

Hermana Thomas 

Pics

I have one picture here of ex missionaries. we had a reunion of all of the ex missionaries in the ward of nopal. decided to take a pic with them. Every member a missionary!!!! And the other pictures i have are of the young men in the ward. We went and weeded hermano carmelos lawn last week...no, not with a mower, but with machetes! thats how we do!!!! :) and then just pics of the area i am serving in...told you it was jungle!!!!! Enjoy!!!

Just when I thought it was too good to be true...it just got better

Hey family and friends,

 My pday has now changed to mondays...because guess what... I have been moved to a new area!!!!!!!! My area is called Ahuachapan, Nopal. Crazy name huh. Yep, well I am now an hour away from the mission office. And I have been sent to the jungle!! haha well I live in a city part, but we work mostly in the jungle. This is the most humble part I have served in, in my mission so far. And it is absolutely beautiful!!! We walk a little bit of mountain terrain, rocks, hills. through grade and trees, and boulders. Whoooo I am telling you, its a lot of exercise. haha I thought I was going to miss the hot water shower, and serving in the ward of the president....but just when I thought it was too good to be true, it just got better. I would gladly serve the rest of my mission here!! My companion is super nice too...Hermana Rodas. She is from Guatemala, served her mission for 8 months in the mountains of guatemala, and now has had one month in the mission here in el Salvador. It is still pretty new for her. Well the good news is, we had a baptism on Saturday. Baptized a little kid named Enrique. I still don't know him all that well, but he is a kid of great faith. His mom isn't a member and he doesn't have a dad. But he had the desire to be baptized, and his faith is what got him there. I am grateful for little examples like him. We also have an investigator right now, hermano carmelo. He is like 60 years old, and lives in the jungle. I guess what happened, is that the missionary's didn't find him...but he found them. I don't really know the rest of the story, but here we are teaching him. The cool thing about him...is that he isn't even baptized yet, but he is teaching the gospel to his friends and family and neighbors. He is amazing, and I think he could take my place as a missionary, because he is so good at serving others and sharing his testimony. Things are well here, and I am happy and doing well. I pray for you all, and hope you are all doing great. I have about 40 pictures I need to send, but just for today...I will send a couple. Have a great week!! And share the gospel with everyone you know!!!!

 

love, hermana thomas

 

I will write more next week!!!

Serve

Dear family and friends.....

this week has been one of the best in my mission so far. :) I just feel so happy with this work, and am always grateful to have this opportunity to serve, and I think we truly have taken that opportunity to serve all we could this week. We did some service activities for the members this week, unplanned. We just showed up on their door step, and said, " we are here to serve you...what can we do to help?" We were in our normal clothes, and they were not excpeting us. But they couldnt turn us away, when we were ready to serve. So each time, they found something that we could do for them. I find this is more effective in working with the members. I felt like we gained their trust and confidence. Normally we will visit the members and talk about the mission work, and then ask them if they have any friends or family that we could teach. Much of the time here, that is not too succesful. So now our plan is to show up unplanned on the door steps of the members for 2 hours every day, to serve them. I find that once we gain the trust of the members...then we can start working with them a lot better. We also have a video about the mission work, its only about 5 minutes...but we went and visited our bishop in the ward and showed him the video with his family. He was very touched. And after this we recieved 10 references to contact. I know that this work is true, and is magnificent. We cant do a whole lot without the help of the members....and I know that you all have a great part in this missionary work. You are truly angels for us as missionarys. This week, I want you to contact a neighbor or a friend or family member, and share the gospel with them. You can help them make the better change in their lives. :) 

We have also found other opportunites to serve other people. We just moved into our new house this week, and as we were walking the otehr day, we found this old grandma trying to weed her garden. You have to understand, that here..sometimes gardens are like flippin jungles  haha...seriouosly more of a jungle than an actual garden. Any way, we said, " hey we are missionaries, and now we are your neighbors. Let us go back home, change our clothes, and we can help you out." She kept sayingshe was okay...but we knew better. We weeded her whole garden within about 40 minutes, taught her the first lesson, and invited her to baptism. Although she didnt accpet the invitation right away, we have an appointment with her again tommorow. I know her heart was touched....and our hearts were touched as well. During the month of Thanksgiving....take the opportunity to serve others daily. You will be blessd, and they will be blessed also. :) I love you all, I hope you are all doing wonderful. Have a great week, serve someone, always work hard, and remember to have fun. I will write more next week!! For all of you who I told I would be sending letters to....well, the post office is on strike here, and I am unable to send letters right now. But I will get them out to all of you as soon as I can. :) 

Cuidase mucho!!!!

 

Love, Hermana Thomas 

hey!!!!!! 

 sorry I didn't get through to you last week, the computer was not working. and the thing is..i totally wrote a bomb letter, and then I tried to send it. and the computer wouldn't let me. lameness. but hey, its another week, and I am doing flipping great!!!!!!! we are just truckin along, working hard, looking for success, and seeing little miracles every day. We don't have any dates set for baptism, and we don't have anyone really progressing with us. But we are doing our best, and we are happy. Me and my companion get along great, and today we are actually moving to another house. I failed to mention forever ago that the house we live in, is pretty disgusting. Hermana Toher, the girl I was with in the ccm...lived in this house before I came. But she got dengue a second time in this house, and then got sent home. So I pretty much have been living in a house with a curse of dengue. It is known as the mosquito house in the mission, and nobody wants to visit it. we don't even like it. But thank goodness we found a really beautiful house, with two floors...and guess what else??? HOT WATER!!!! whoooooo!!!!!! pretty much the best blessing ever!!! haha 

my Spanish is the best it has ever been in the mission, i keep improving on that daily. so I gotta say, I am pretty much a flippin professional. hehe jk

oh and Halloween here, well, they celebrate on November 2nd. They don't do trick or treating, which means no candy for us missionaries. But thanks to the most awesome family ever, I received my package this week!!! So for Halloween. just last night, we had hot chocolate, mixed with the Hershey's bars I received, and Oreos. So I must say I feel fat today and am on a chocolate hangover. its whatever. Its probably the best thing I ever ate in the whole mission. Chocolate..mmmmm....never gets old. But now I am having cravings for mountain dew (hint hint) ;) hehe anywho...the way they celebrate Halloween here is different. They call it dia de los muertos. They respect their dead here. and on this day, they clean the graves and decorate them. That's it. In Mexico it is a little more elaborate. They will make the favorite food of the person, and decorate the graves with this food and all this other stuff. apparently it is way crazy.

hmmmmmmm what else can I talk about?? not too much else to talk about this week, except to say the mission is so awesome. cant believe I received my call almost a year ago. how time flies. now I have about a year before I return home. I don't want to think about that right now though, because there is so much work to be done here!!! :) 

just a goal I have for all of you. Start

 

inviting your friends to church, from work school or the neighborhood. Every member a missionary. The goal from Elder Ballard in conference it for every member to have a new convert friend in the church by Christmas. I know you can all do it!! us missionaries are here to help with the rest. I want to hear of your success stories of fellowshipping and inviting your friends and family to hear more about this gospel.

thank you so much for your love and your support. i love you all. we are doing great, and I couldn't be doing any better. have a great week!!!! I will write more next week!! 

 

love hermana thomas :) 

 

Companions :)