Elder Coleman Thompson: A Baptism!

Hey guys!

This week has yet again been a crazy busy week! There's been so much stuff to do, but it's been amazing as well.

Last Saturday we went on exchange with the Elder's who are serving in South Shields, and we knocked on the door of this mother and daughter, named Susan & Sophie. They invited us to come back, and we did. This week we had a couple of lessons at their house and they really absorbed all of the things we had to say! They came to Akram's baptism on Saturday and church on Sunday as well!

So yeah, Akram was baptised on Saturday! We had a few more lessons with him this week to prepare him for it, and he was really excited to be baptised! We had a decent amount of the ward come for it, and we had Susan & Sophie come, and the Sisters Missionaries had 2 of their investigators that came as well! It was a really spiritual evening and Akram was really happy. He doesn't speak much English, but he felt the spirit.

There is this family that we've been visiting as well who live in like the depths of this council estate, and have one of the messiest houses I've ever seen. Last week we went by one time, and their yard is literally just full of rubbish, like loads of stuff - old furniture, ancient bags of who knows what thats spilled everywhere, it was just nasty. So we were standing outside their door amidst this stuff, and talking about the mess, and all the sudden I just blurted out: "We'll come clean this up for you". I don't know what got a hold of me. Worst idea ever haha, but it really helped them out.

So on Thursday morning we went over and cleaned it all out. We stuck all the rubbish in our car and drove to a tip - except where our map said there was a tip - there wasn't... so we just took all the stuff and threw it in a dumpster by our house haha. It was the nastiest service I've ever given on my mission, but it was worth it because they were grateful.

We also drove up to Alnwick to go to a companionship study of the Elder's up there this week on Saturday morning - it was kind of a crazy drive on these really narrow roads! It was cool though.

On Sunday night Elder Charman and I prepare a bunch of reports for the zone and for the Stake and do our weekly planning session and follow up with the Assistants, which all takes several hours to do. But yesterday after church we got a call from the Mission President - and we had an Elder in the Zone that was being emergency transferred, so we basically went and got him, he packed all his stuff up, and we drove him to Leeds and back - about a 3.5 hour round trip. So we had to prepare those reports a lot quicker than usual - after doing that whole long drive!

All in all, a really good week! Elder Charman and I have been happy! We also had interviews with President and Sister Turvey so that was a blessing this week as well.

Oh - also. On Saturday night one of the members of the Bishopbric came up to me at the baptism and told me that one of the speakers for the next day had cancelled - and so he asked me if I could speak for 10 minutes on missionary work! And so I did, and it went really well! And Elder Charman and I taught Gospel Principles, and we got called in to Primary to help teach the kids too. A busy Sunday yesterday!

Love you guys!

Have a good week!

Elder Thompson