A Bit of Real Joy

Monday was a good p-day..it is always pretty good. It's nice to have a little bit of a break. Tuesday was nice--I can't remember anything really exciting happening but Wednesday was different. We had district meeting and they had just re-done the floor in the gym so it was super smelly. We opened up the windows to try to air it out a little and while we were in the meeting it started to rain.  It was coming down really steadily so we went home and had lunch then we went out and knocked doors in the rain. It wasn't too bad, the first hour anyway, but after that it got old and we didn't have any success.

We did get to talk to a preacher's wife. There is a huge non-denominational church called Oak Point. The woman's husband is one of the pastors there. We talked to her for a minute and invited her to get a Book of Mormon and she said the already had one and she has read some of it.  That was pretty surprising! We invited her to get it out again, read it, and pray about it. She said she hoped we would pray so God could help us find the truth.  ha-ha! It was pretty funny. Thursday and Friday were pretty uneventful just tracting and stuff.  Oh! on 9/11 the teenage girl that we go and teach had her baby. We haven't seen either of them yet but we are planning on seeing them, along with the girl's mom, this Thursday.  So I'll get to see a brand new baby!

This week got chilly. Thursday we went out to the car and turned right back around and got jackets! It was 50 and 60  instead of the 70 and 80. It's chilly!  We went and knocked some doors and I found this tiny butterfly. It was too cold to fly so I picked him up and carried him around with me for a couple hours. Olsen thought that I was a little off but I liked it! so say hello to my little Friend!

Saturday was pretty great we have a family in our ward that are super awesome he is a returned missionary and his wife is super cool. They have two little kids and their little boy turned six and had a party. He likes us a lot so we got invited! That it was cool but a little weird because the kids' parents were all there and we are the weird robots, you know. Some of them talked to us, so that was good. It was nice to be at a party-- even if it was only for a little while. Then we went and knocked this  neighborhood. Not too may people answered the door. Then, at the last house, this lady answers the door and invited us in. We couldn't go in because there was no man home, so she stepped out. She works for Scentsy, (the company that sells the wax that you have for your little pot thing) so she has a lot of Mormon friends. She was so awesome! She is Catholic but she wanted to help us and told us her home is always open to us for anything. It was really cool. She told us she was gay and introduced us to her partner. That was a little of a shock but she was so nice to us! She told us she wanted her house to be our home-away-from-home and to stop by anytime.  It was good! Faith in humanity restored!

Alright, now the super awesome mission experience! We had a referral a couple weeks ago and the guy wasn't home. The next door neighbor was out smoking on his front step so Olsen went over and we talked to him (I didn't want to go, by the way). We taught him about the restoration and then we stopped by again and gave him a book of Mormon. We read the intro with him and challenged him to read. This week we went to follow up with him. In one week, he had read the first 13 chapters of Nephi and asked all sorts of questions! It was great! He said that he felt reading was helping him grow spiritually. It was so great! Poor Olsen had to do all the teaching...I just sat there thinking "holy crap! he actually is reading! I don't know what to do from here!" It was great! That's the first time that I've felt what real joy is! I can't wait to go visit him this next week!!

Have an awesome week!  You are in my prayers and heart!

--Cooper

Sister Thompson sent these photos from Sept. 15. She wrote "Your boys are the hardest working missionaries I have met! An elderly man in our ward, whose wife passed away, needed to empty his house and barn to sell it. They worked really hard to help fill up this 30 yard dumpster.  They even gave up some of their p-day to get it done.