Christmas Zone Conference, the House of Israel & Mexican food

We had a solid week. we had a Christmas Zone conference with sweaters and stuff, so that was cool.

A little bit ago we were about to go home when we saw this guy sitting alone on his porch with no coat. It was like 18 degrees so we went up and talked to him and he told us about how he didn't go to church because he believed hat the truth had been lost and that the authority of God to direct a church on the Earth. He had read the Old testament in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek, been to Israel, the works. He basically taught us the Restoration, except he was missing the part where the authority of God was brought back. So we shared our message and set up a time to come back and that was this week. When we showed up he let us in and we started talking about the Book of Mormon. He was interested when we talked about an ancient american record of scripture. He told us "Well, people think I'm crazy when I say this but I've always believed that the native americans are part of the scattered house of Israel." We told him that we believed that too, and told him about the Book of Mormon. Somehow he had also come to the conclusion by himself a while back that Christ came to the Americas after his resurrection, which just happens to be the crowning event of the Book of Mormon. So he's super cool. He asked how long the Book was and he said that he'd have it done in like 2 weeks so we're pretty excited about him.

Also we went to teach the Flores Family this week, and they fed us some incredible Mexican food. Tender Mercy.

I think my time here in Indianola is coming to a close. But who knows. I love it here so much, I've made some life long friends here.

I love you all a ton! Have a good week

Road Trips and Nostalgia

Some pretty cool stuff happened this week     

On Monday we were at P Day in Des Moines. Back when i was serving in the spanish branch there, we taught this part member family for a while and helped them come back to church and got their grandson baptized. They're some of my favorite people on the planet, and the missionaries there right now told me that Maria (the grandma) wanted me to come over to eat with them. Never in my entire life have I ever met another person other than my mother who makes better food than Maria. So I called her on Monday and went over that night for dinner. The best thing I have ever consumed in my 20 years of earthly life is a Gordita from Marias kitchen, and when we went over on Monday she had made them again, so I was in heaven. They told me about how they had been sealed together and we had a bit to catch up. That was super neat.

Also, my companion right now served in Ottumwa last transfer and someone he taught there got baptized so we got to go road trip back to Ottumwa. For those of you who don't know, Ottumwa, Iowa is my favoriite place on the Planet so I was pretty excited. It was such a great time.

It has been a great transfer, I find out tomorrow if I'm leaving, and I think I'm going to which will be sad. The people we're teaching are so cool. I'll be tight with them forever. 

I love you all! I love Jesus Christ and I love being a missionary for him.  Merry Christmas! 

FuFuFun and Waterloo

Feliz Navidad! I hope you've all had a festive Christmas season to this point. So far my Christmas celebration has involved eating chicken feet with Liberians and talking to some of the best people the world has to offer.

I left Indianola which was super rough. Hard to say goodbye to those people. But now I'm in Waterloo, Iowa, with lots of new friends to make. Including a ton of Africans, and Africans are some of the nicest people currently living. Last night, we went and had dinner with this guy Jenson and his friends. They're from Liberia and Jenson is the mailman for the other elders. He's awesome, he told us about how he was going to join the church and go on a mission. He's been listening to the Book of Mormon while he delivers mail. So cool. They fed us this stuff called fufu, which is best described as an edible hybrid of a thick loogie and grey play-doh. You just douse it in this stuff called peppasou (pepper soup) and throw it down without chewing. It feels like you're eating a bowl of spicy phlegm. Peppasou was a beast of its own. It was some mad spicy broth complete with one pig hoof, two chicken feet, a turkey throat and a whole bunch of fish ribs and scales. My new favorite food is the thick skin off of pig toes.

psych.

But it was really fun, it was cool to talk with them about Liberia and about Jesus Christ. It was probably my favorite Festivus yet

I love you all a lot! I know Jesus lives and leads us. Merry Christmas! 

a pretty neat week

I'll get right to the good stuff this week because time is short

Elder Jarvis and I were knocking some apartments this week and we walked into this one building and it just had an incredible feeling to it. The first door we knocked on, a super solid Pohnpeiian family opened up and were super interested.  We were pretty excited, so we kept knocking. Some apartment doors here have doorbells on them, and that was the case with the next door we knocked on. I pressed the doorbell, and the door wasn't totally latched so the door flung open and the resident of the apartment made terrified eye contact with me. It's one of the most awkward things that could happen as a missionary. They were a spanish family, so I apologized and started teaching. They seemed pretty bummed. After I prayed with them, the dad opened up and apologized for acting so depressed. He explained that his mother had just passed away a few days earlier in Mexico. So I testified about the plan of salvation and told him that god had sent us too him. He agreed, it was super cool. I love being a missionary.

I ate fufu with goat bit soup this week.

Later that night, we had a lesson set up with some Congolese guys. They are hilarious. While I've been on my mission, I've come to the conclusion that Africans are some of the choicest people on the planet. So cool. These two let us right in and started talking. They were two "brothers" named Socrate and Michael. Michael barely speaks english, and socrate translated. We taught them the restoration and they like it a lot. At the end, socrate said "Now I have a question, why do americans not believe in God anymore?" and talked about how me're materialistic and prideful and how lots of americans aren't religious. We talked some more about the apostasy with him and that seemed to smooth some things over. Then he talked about how he was cruising around waterloo with his Bosnian girlfriend and noticed that she had a decorative, glass angel hanging from her car mirror. Apparently he thought it was some Idol or talisman of some sort and broke up with her. Pretty nuts haha but he's a very faithful guy. We finished up, said a prayer, and as we were leaving the apartment Michael came up to me and asked me my name. I pointed to my name tag and said "Elder Thomas" to which he replied "Toma?" Then he chuckled, gave me a fist bump, and walked back into his apartment.

Love you all a lot! Happy new year!

wus good

we had a bomb week. Heavenly Father blessed us a ton this week. I don't have a ton of time so I'm just going to copy and paste some stuff that i said to my family

Last night some missionaries weren't picking up their phone so we had to drive up there so we were driving until like 1 in the morning. then we busted into their apartment with knives and other random pieces of metal in case any maniacs were in there but they were all good. Apparently a storm hit and they couldn't get service. Pretty wild but kind of fun. On they way back this morning we stopped at Buttermilk Cafe in Independence, Iowa and had some incredible breakfast food and found a tank (see foto below)

This week we found and are now teaching a family of Congolese people. We met the dad while knocking, and he was cutting his friends hair and said to come back. we gave him a book of Mormon and a pamphlet and set up a time to come back. We went back and he had read some of the Book of Mormon and the pamphlet and had also gone online and watched the restoration movie. We taught him (Shanne) and his wife (edoumi). they have a one year old son and one on the way. they're awesome. When we came back for the second appointment he didn't answer the door or the doorbell so we were pretty bummed, but then all of a sudden these kids came up out of nowhere and started pounding on his door and calling his phone and he woke up and came to the door. he was happy to see us and it was a definite miracle. They're looking for a church and they're coming this Sunday. Miracles are super real

we also found this one guy, Andrew, in the same building. We were talking to a different guy and Andrew was nearby and afterwards he asked us a whole bunch of questions and is really interested. We went back for our appointment with him and he had a whole new batch of sincere questions. He's going to read the book of Mormon and come to church this week too.

This week I met a Hedgehog named shadow.

We met this one guy named James who talked to us about how he was searching for god's true church. He was partially jewish, he said. He wants to find a church where he can make covenants with god and find out more about his connection to the house of israel.... So cool. 

Yesterday we had an absolutely miraculous day. Our mission has been struggling to get second appointments with the people we find, and yesterday we had back to back appointments every 45 minutes from 11:30 am until the end of the night. They all invited us in and listened. People we found who seemed really standoffish at first were super welcoming and let us into their homes. It was so cool. This is God's work for sure and I love doing it! I absolutely love doing it. I have never done anything in my life that I love as much as serving the God that I love. 

January 14

this week we had zone conference, so instead of spending half the week trekking around Northeastern Iowa to get to several district councils we had all week except for one day (zone conference) to werk in our area. it was a great week. We put in the work and we saw the fruits of it for sure.
We've been working with the one family I talked about last week, Shanne and Evoudi. They've been progressing really well and Shanne came to church yesterday. Evoudi is going to have a baby this next month and wasn't feeling too good so she stayed home. But they're awesome and should be getting baptized here soon.
We've got lots of Haitian people here in Waterloo, and this one guy, Chervinskui, lived with a member family a little while back and now he's really interested. He came to church as well
Maybe my favorite moment of the week was when we found a whole ham sitting in the middle of the road. Naturally, we ran over it so that was pretty cool. Then I kicked it like a soccer ball and got ham slime all over my shoe so we threw it in a cardboard box and now we're going to throw it out of a second story window
We went and taught this Burmese family this week that we found last week, and we read the Book of Mormon with them and the oldest daughter told us that she felt really good and had goosebumps when she read it. Its true! I love when people come to know that its true.
Also this week it snowed and I challenged Elder Jarvis to hit this one squirrel with a snowball. It was way up in this huge tree nestled in a little corner so I didn't think he was going to hit it. I watched him make a hefty snow ball and right when it left his hand we both knew that it was a bullseye. The poor squirrel didn't move in time and he just got lasered in the side of the head. I thought it was dead. It was a powerful throw and I thought it might have gotten knocked out of the tree or something but I watched it jump from branch to branch to get away and he was alright. I felt terrible
zone conference was great
I know this church is the Church of God! It's the best. 

January 21

We had a blessed week. The people we're teaching are progressing, the people we're finding are coming to church. Its all a miracle. I'll tell you a few cool stories

We're working with a Congolese family and they are so awesome. Thats Shanne and Edoumi that I've been talking about. We went over on Monday night to teach them and we heard some loud conversation coming from inside. So we knocked and they let us in and they had invited some friends over. Shanne then introduced us to them in French. I'm getting to the point where i can understand french enough to know what they're saying, and basically Shanne told his friends (Gi and Franc) That we were messengers from God and Missionaries from his church. Its so cool to hear him say "my church". He's locked into it. Super dedicated and he hasn't even been baptized yet. Then I whipped out a Gospel of Jesus Christ Pamphlet and when Shanne saw it he held his hand up to me so I would stop and I heard him say "the Gospel of Jesus Christ is what God gave to prophets and Apostles in the past, and what he gives to us now with prophets today" and then he basically taught them the restoration. He then set a baptismal date with his wife and committed his friends to come to church with us. SO cool.

We went over again yesterday to teach the Word of Wisdom. I was worried, because I really love this family and I was worried it might make them question. I was dead wrong. Shanne immediately understood it and told us he had no problems with any of it. His wife, Evodie, drinks tea, but she said that from then on, she would never have another cup of tea. So much Faith. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Shanne asked us "My wife is giving up tea to follow Jesus. I don't drink alcohol or smoke, I don't drink Coffee or tea, what can I give up to follow him? I just couldn't believe it. He has such a great attitude. I love them

A week or two ago we saw this guy shoveling the sidewalk so we talked to him and he seemed super standoffish. His name is James, we learned, and we gave him a book of Mormon and set up another time to come back. When we came back he said he had read the part of the Book of Mormon we left with him (Moroni 10) We asked him how it went and he said "I didn't have a vision or anything, but I have a feeling in my soul that this book is true." Wow. He came to church and is now working towards baptism

Some guy that elder Jarvis found on exchanges this week just randomly showed up to church which was a tender mercy.

Also last week 2 people randomly showed up to church in the sister's ward(David and Allison). They actually live in our area so we're teaching them now, and they are so prepared. David just said that one day he felt strongly that he needed to look into the church so he spent hours on lds.org. He wants to get baptized real bad and he said he felt spiritually inclined to throw out all his alcohol, coffee and tea 2 weeks ago so he's been living the word of wisdom. Wowza

Today marks 19 months since I started the Mission

Never in my life have I been so happy. 

I love you all a lot! Choose the right