Marshallese Birthday

the famous crane

Gas Station Glasses with my Zone Leader on exchanges

Ottumwa's Excellent Sunsets

This week, we were invited to two Marshallese birthdays and finally fulfilled one of my wishes.

Marshallese Parties are awesome. They have us pray on the food and then they feed us first. Also theres singing and throwing candy and stuff at children.

They eat a lot of chicken and rice, and also they cut these huge fish in half and cook them just like that, so you either get a nasty tail or you get to make actual eye contact with what you're about to eat. The Marshallese people are super nice to us. Like I said before, instead of filling a Pinata with little candies, they just throw stuff at the kids, its much better that way. My companion told me that last time he got a whole box of cereal. Wowee.

Also, I've been wanting to take a picture next to this crane for a long time because its hilarious. There's just a generator and some ladders hanging from the crane, so while we waited for the Marshallese people to come to the party we took some fantastic pictures. Also there's this real weird pawn shop and a pile of animal skeletons that we took pictures by as well.

This week was pretty hard at times, but as a result of the hard times we were able to find more people that needed help and grow closer as a companionship. I'm a firm believer that there's no such thing as pointless suffering. Every time I have had something difficult, it has been for my good in the end. The Refiners Fire is super real, and equally purifying.

I love you all

--

Elder Thomas

Car Appreciation Day

President and Sister Badger 

Mission Group Arriving in Des Moines

Vacant Skate Park in Ottumwa

This week we had two of what is called a "car appreciation day", which is basically where we have to bail on our cars.

The first day we had a pretty bad attitude about it, and we walked like 12 miles to a lunch with a member at a place called "Pizza Ranch" so that was pretty cool. Also we were walking to the library and we passed this guy and waved, and then we crossed the street and my companion just stopped and said "We need to talk to that guy." So we did, and he had been taught a while ago and decided to drop them. But he had been trying to decide whether or not to contact us when Elder Wood felt like we should talk to him. So we have started teaching him, and he's actually been baptized but it was a long time ago and he doesn't remember much about it so we're teaching him again. He's a way smart guy, he lives in a tiny, furnitureless apartment attached to a tattoo parlor and his apartment has a yoga mat, a fridge, an electric guitar, and then basically nothing else but piles and piles of books about religion and philosophy. His name is J, and he's awesome.

The second day we found some really old bikes, and although I looked like Doc from back to the future on my bike, we had a really good day. We passed by some kids that laughed at us so we turned around and talked to them, and at the end of the day when a lot of our plans were falling through we passed by a recent convert from Africa and her little kindergartenish aged boy who was just about to start school. The mom asked us if we could give them blessings and that was an awesome experience. The dad of the family isn't a member, and I was able to give this shy little kid a blessing as he started school. That was a good reminder to me of what its all about.

Also we're teaching this family from El Salvador and they are awesome. Their son Steven has a whole bunch of hamsters, and he hadn't named them yet so we named the biggest one "Papa Madera" which meants "Papa Wood" after elder wood, and then there was a little white  one that got the name "Bebe Thomas" after me, baby Thomas. They're hilarious.

Also also we had the opportunity to see one of the Investigators that the Missionaries here have been teaching for a while get baptized. She's awesome, her mom left the church when she was young but she came seeking it out again, she's way cool

Elder Wood and I were talking to this Marshallese guy M and his girlfriend B yesterday about M's baptism date, and then suddenly the senior missionaries and this random guy came and invaded our lesson. We were pretty bummed because the senior missionaries kind of hijacked the lesson and started talking about super confusing stuff, but Elder Wood and I were able to help the marshallese people and the random guy who came in understand it. We learned that the guy, R, who came in with them is their distant cousin and an investigator, and one of my goals for this week was to invite someone to be baptized so I got the chance to invite B and R to be baptized and set a date for them both. The Lord gave us a situation that at first seemed unfair and frustrating, but it ended up helping 2 people turn their lives to their Heavenly Father. So I learned not to question why things happen to us. I've been thinking a lot about how I want my life to go recently, and I've been given a lot of experiences that have shown me not to question God's will. I was definitely questioning the point of walking around when we have a nice, functioning car, but if we had used the car we wouldn't have found James. And I was questioning what I was doing riding a women's bike from the 50's around when we weren't having any success, but if we hadn't we wouldn't have been able to give blessings to that Mom and her little boy. Our Heavenly Father's plan is a whole lot better than any of ours. I think that's something I've been learning over and over again.

I love you a lot

-- Elder Thomas

Baptism!

Carbs, A Swing and a Fistful of Miracles

A Boy and his Dad ~ Here we are having the time of our lives...

Elder Brunelle Toothbrush Totem Pole ~ He skates as well so we were super tight!

Hello everyone,

This week was pretty cool.

We did exchanges this week, and eventually my Trainer and the English trainer went to teach a really stubborn investigator. That left Elder Toone and I alone. We just decided to knock doors, and the first few people either ran away from us or just said no. Up to this point I hadn't found anyone, we have been super busy with current investigators and when we did go finding we mostly got sworn and/or laughed at. But the last door we knocked on was this super relaxed guy who was totally open to listen. We had thought that we wouldn't be able to do anything, because both of us had only been in the field for a week or less, but we found a solid investigator. That was a Miracle.

Also, we've been trying really hard to work with the Marshallese People out here. There's a group of about 30-40 people who came to Ottumwa from the Marshall Islands, and I guess they came here because their Islands are sinking. At least that's what they told me. Luckily, we're good friends with the Matriarch of the Whole society: Mama Jerredine, who's a member and loves us to death. Elder Wood says she's our Marshallese mom, and she is. Anyway, we've been trying to get them to come to church, but they always just sleep in. A lot of them are still investigators, and we want them to come learn together in church. This week, they challenged us to a game of basketball on saturday night, so we accepted. It was way cool, the Marshallese guys we played with were way good, but by some miracle we won, and went home. The next morning, 25 marshallese people showed up to church and the ward grew from 80 people to 105. Elder Wood's companion before me was Marshallese and he says that 25 is the record. That was a miracle.

Also this week, we had dinner with a Member family who's super cool. In their backyard they have this massive swing on a hill so we went out and gave it a whirl, as they say. 

Also also this week we had dinner with a legit scientist. Elder Wood and I had been curious as to why there was 50% of our Carbohydrates Daily value in a bottle of Pink lemonade, and he told us that basically everything is carbs but in a real sciency way. He also told us that we'd get fat if we had too many carbs. That led us to eat all the food in our apartment to dispose of it, and then this week we bought a whole bunch of healthy garbage and we're going to start lifting a ton in order to get huge. We call it: "Getting Yoked with Elder Thomas and Healthy Dave", Healthy Dave being Elder Wood. Come October we're going to be unrecognizably ripped. However, we're going to violate our diet on our birthdays, because mine is the 30th and then his is September 2nd so we're going to treat ourselves.

Our Heavenly Father loves us a lot. If you don't feel that, pray to him and ask if he really does. I think I heard that in stake conference once. The speaker said that if you didn't feel it, you should find some quiet place to be alone, and ask him if he really loves you. I did that, and as such I know that he does. He loves us more than is possible to imagine. 

  

I love all of you

--

Elder Thomas

Barged

Isaac and his Trainer Elder Wood

Outside of the Nauvoo Temple

Hello everyone!

I don't have much time so I'll make this quick

My companion, Elder Wood, is awesome. He's from California, and he and I get along super well. Ottumwa, Iowa is where I'm at. Its super poor here where we live. We live on the south side of the river, and it gets pretty poor in some places. 

We went to the Nauvoo temple and Pageant on my second day here, and while we were crossing the bridge we got "Barged", which is to say that as we crossed the Mighty Mississippi a barge came and the drawbridge trapped us on the bridge so we were late to the temple. Everyone asked, "Did y'all get barged?" We did.

There are a ton of bugs here. While we watched the Pageant at the Nauvoo temple, I could feel bugs crawling around inside my clothes. Pretty Nasty.

We taught a guy who tried to tell us that the only worthy people were Africans. He tried to convince us that famous rappers are the prophets and that the Government and Bankers have hidden books of scripture that could "turn this world on its head."  Eventually we gave him a Book of Mormon, got up, and left. Poor guy. 

We teach a lot of Marshallese people which is way cool. They're all super faithful. We found this really drunk Hispanic guy yesterday and we talked with him for a little bit, but it became clear that his only interest was in bashing with us. So after a few minutes of him struggling to stay upright while he read random scriptures out of the Bible to us, we left. But the Hispanic people out here are usually super nice.

There's this one Non-member out here who owns a snow cone shack, listens  to the same type of music I do, and lives in a house that used to house a bunch of Nuns. He fed us a few nights ago and gives us free snow cones. He's awesome. 

I don't really have any pictures this week because I don't have a flash drive or card reader but I'll send some next week

I read chapter 1 of the book of mormon with an investigator this week, and in the very last verse it talks about how the Lord's tender mercies are over all. And they most certainly are.

I love you all

Fun Fact about Ottumwa, Iowa it is the birthplace of Radar O'Reilly from M*A*S*H

Gift of Tongues

We received this video from a French teacher in the MTC.

The Last Melon ~

This Email is my last one from the MTC, and that's a very exciting thing to write.

Not much happened this week, we did a lot of training and preparation for the field, and Elder Royal and I made a hackysack for P-Day's with Elder Hatch's old sock and popcorn kernels. In Elder Royals words: "It's a little buttery." 

I think that like a lot of people, I have a tendency to get completely wrapped up in something I'm worrying about, or something I think a lot about, and this week I kind of got sick of it so I decided to make a change. I bought this little leather journal in the store here and when something comes up I just write about it until I can't think anything more about it, and then I can move on. It started when I got the Beach Boys stuck in my head way bad so I just wrote out the lyrics and then it stopped, and it works with any bothersome thought. And that was a massive tender mercy. It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that the adversary has no reservations when it comes to making us miserable, but ultimately we get to decide whether or not to let him. It's not easy but it's surely possible. Do what you can to be happy, whatever that is. Right now for me it helps a lot to get everything I'm worrying about onto a paper, and then it becomes apparent how small it is. Every one of us is lucky enough to be on the receiving end of massively strong love. In Romans 8:38-39 it says "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord." His love is always there, and we can always have it. Next to God's love for all of you, mine is near insignificant but I love you all a lot as well.     

Arm Wrestles, Last Lessons, and Devotionals (Week 5)

This week wasn't super exciting but I'll see what I can do

Towards the beginning of the week I had what my teacher Hermano Cook calls a "lucha con muerte" or a "fight with death". I got this crazy virus that put me down for a few days. As with every other trial a person can experience, this was a lesson in faith for me. I didn't want to ask for a blessing because I've always felt like if I'm still standing I don't need one. That is false. I struggled super hard for a few days, I could breathe, I couldn't swallow, I couldn't talk, it was horrible. Nothing was helping, and when I finally asked for a blessing, the next morning I woke up with zero symptoms. The priesthood is a great blessing to all of us, and as long as we have the faith to ask for a blessing and the faith to be healed, we will. 

Later that week, my companion chastised one of my room mates, Elder Royal, about how dirty his part of the room was so he challenged him to an arm wrestle. Elder Royal won, and as such declared himself "Galactic Emperor" and started trashing the room and screaming. It was some well needed comic relief. Imagine Andy Dwyer from Parks and Rec with a deeper voice and less self control and you have Elder Royal. He is an awesome Elder and we get along well.

I've been out a Month, and I leave the MTC in 11 days, and as such we are having some of our last lessons with our investigators. One of our investigators, Diana, was having trouble with Faith and wanted to know with a surety that the church is true before she gets baptized. Incidentally, I had been thinking a lot about the third Indiana Jones movie where he has to literally take a leap of faith onto the invisible bridge haha so i asked her if she knew the movie and she did. So I told her that its really hard when we can't see whats ahead but we have to jump and God will catch us. She thought it was hilarious, especially as I described a scene from Indiana Jones in Spanish, but she committed to be baptized. I think there's a reason we always have situations where we have to trust 100% in our Father, be it getting baptized, or leaving everyone you love for 2 years on a mission, or anything. God knows the end from the beginning, and we don't, so in order to really succeed we have to lean on him, we have to let him bear all our weight. I might be wrong, but I think there's like a gap at the beginning of Indiana Jones' invisible bridge so if he just tiptoed out there he would fall, so he had to literally leap in faith. The amount of parallels between Indiana Jones and life is very eerie. Anyway, we have to have Faith and trust in God completely. And then, like Doctor Jones throwing dust out onto the bridge, we can see that the way was there the whole time. We can receive no witness until after the trial of our faith, be it clearing a subterranean canyon or getting baptized, our trials of faith are opportunities to learn. Trust in God, have faith, and he will bear you up.

Another experience that I have had several times here is receiving clear and obvious answers to prayers as a result of listening to devotionals. Since I got here, its become clear to me that the spirit here is far stronger than anywhere else. And we know that there has to be opposition in all things, so there's also a super evident presence of bad. Satan focuses on us here a lot, because he's intelligent and he knows we have a lot of potential to serve and combat misery and sin. So I've been really struggling all throughout my stay here, and I pray a lot, and I pray very specifically now. I was in a Devotional last Sunday with President and Sister Martino (the MTC President and his Wife) and they showed this quote about prayer, and I just thought " Well, I can't stop thinking about this, its really stressing me out, and I know God can help." So I just said a prayer and asked for peace and knowledge concerning this situation. I prayed really specifically and sincerely as I've been taught, and then I paid really close attention to the Devotional. I started feeling horrible, and I suddenly got all these doubts and worries and woes, but I knew that wasn't the spirit so I pushed through it and kept listening. The talk didn't answer my question, but during the closing hymn, "I Need Thee Every Hour" I got the most incredible feeling of just absolute peace, and I couldn't even sing anymore. It was super powerful, and you all can have the same experiences if you attend your meetings and pray with the intention of getting an answer. We all have a Heavenly Father who loves us more than is possible to understand, and as such he's going to help us. Trust in his knowledge and his plan, and think of him always. I know he's there, and I know he loves every one of you.