The Best 2 Years: Elder Jace Thompson in Omaha/Japan: February 2024

Sunday, February 25, 2024

the one where everything changed

"Boom, you looking for this?"

Holy, this was a good week...

Starting with Tuesday, we made it to shikoku and spent the day in wakayama. We went to a second-hand store and a few other places to go shopping and had a pretty laid back p day. We stayed there because my comp and another misisonary's comp were going to MLC (missionary leadership council) that night and it was going to save some travel so we just spent the day there. Because of that, I went on exchanges on Tuesday before I was really even comps with my new comp (Elder Holmes).

Wednesday, we went to work in toyoka, which is where this elder (Elder Coates) was assigned. It was a pretty basic day of missionary work, and we had a good time. We spent the night there and it was a fun day.

Thursday, we left to go meet up with our actual comps, and once we all met up, we ate some lunch at this ramen shop, which was hekkin good. After that, Elder Holmes and I started making the long journey to our area. We had a long day of travel ahead of us, but we made it back to our area just in time for eikaiwa (english class) and had some fun people come! I was so happy to FINALLY be in my area, and Uwajima is awesome! It is SUPER 田舎 (country side), so we have to be more creative with how we do missionary work.

Friday & Saturday were mostly regular days of missionary work except for the fact that we saw SO MANY more miracles than I've ever seen so far! Elder Holmes and I get along so well, and it's really been showing in the missionary work! We are really hoping to spend two transfers together 🤞🤞

Sunday, we had a really good day at church, but it was looonnggg. After that, we went to a couple of shrines and found so many people to talk to, and we met a professional photographer at one of them! She took so many amazing pictures and offered to take some pics of Elder Holmes and I! Check the photos album to see some amazing pics of cherry blossoms!

The reason for the title is that this week was AMAZING! I mean, my mission was good before, but now!? "Oh man! I'm still geeking out about it!" –Syndrome (the incredibles).

My new comp and I have seen so many miracles, and these two transfers with him are going to fly by! We have been doing so many creative ways to do missionary work, and it's been so fun, and we are seeing so much success! In about two days we found four people! We made some really big goals this transfer, and I know that as long as you work as hard as you can, the Lord will magnify your efforts to achieve your goals!

Spiritual thought:

2 Nephi 26:30

Behold, the Lord hath forbidden this thing; wherefore, the Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love. And except they should have charity they were nothing. Wherefore, if they should have charity, they would not suffer the laborer in Zion to perish.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

–C.S. Lewis

Todays message is all about love!! I know I talk about it a lot, but it's just the best, so here we go again...

To simply put it: through love, everything else works out. When we love God and our neighbors, everything in our lives will get better. With this new transfer, I have an AMAZING comp, and together, we have been working so hard on loving the people of Japan. We have seen so many miracles come from it, and it's only gonna get better!

Sometimes it can be really hard to love others around you for a plethora of reasons, but if you do your best to love everyone, your life will be better! Other times, we forget to tell others around us that we love them, so just in case you haven't heard it in a while, I love you! And I want you to tell that to someone who you think could use a little extra loving! 愛してるよう！

That's all I got this week, but feel free to email me if you get a chance!

Ended up seeing a professional photographer and she offered to take some pics

Found some mammoths on the way to my area

Ping pong game night with some recent members

Hitting up the shrine that's right next to the church

After a long time, I'm finally with my comp

Not much for art, "but this does put a smile on my face"

"Everybody was kung fu fighting"

On our way up to a castle

Made it to the top and here's the castle!

Got some sweet cherry blossoms at the top

Sick day with the comp

Full view from the top

Closer pic of the 桜

Bamboo forest

Hit up another shrine with some more early blooming cherry blossoms

View from the top

Some more sick pics with my greatest possession

So many fire flicks 🔥

Even more

This one's for my mama

The lookout over the graveyard

This is the new pose

New profile pic🔥

Last little shrine and this was the ceiling

More fire flicks with the new comp

Looking like family pics

🔥🔥

She knew what she was doing...

Holy this one's my favorite 🔥🔥

Her pics are so much better than ours🔥

Close up on the 桜（cherry blossoms）

More of her pics

Hope you like 'em

Japan is so sick

😱😱

One more of the statue

Last pic of the trees...they are just so cool

The awesome lady that took the pics!!🔥🔥

ありがとうみさき！

Monday, February 19, 2024

the one where he left nishinomiya

"Boom, you looking for this?"

Aiight sorry in advance because this is gonna be a long email but I had a crazy week so its well deserved.

Starting with Tuesday we went shopping for p day (not my idea) and yeah that was the whole day😭😭

Wednesday we got transfer news and I am going to Uwajima! Its on Shikoku and it is crazy 田舎 (countryside and rural) so missionary work might be slow but the its gonna be a party. My new comp is Elder Holmes who was in the MTC when I was so we know each other a little bit.

Thursday I started packing up some of my stuff and while I was doing that, my comps made a valiant attempt at no bake cookies... it did not go as they had forseen.... there were too many oats so it was so crumbly you couldn't make it into a shape and they burned the heck out of them....also they didn't add any vanilla extract so they didn't taste very good. There was so much sugar and crap that if you ate a handful you had a stomach ache for the next couple hours. They didn't want to waste the food though so they called it cereal and ate it for breakfast over the next few days. Every day they started the day out with a massive stomach ache. Luckily I was just packing so I don't have to tie my name to that disaster 🤣🤣

Friday we had out game night and yuta was the only one who pulled up...luckily he's the one that has been teaching me ping pong so me and him played ping pong for like 2 hours and just talked. I invited him to this hawaiian night that some sisters in our district were putting on which he seemed really excited about and wanted to come. I also told him that I was gonna be leaving Nishinomiya on Monday which he was much less excited about

Saturday we dropped perkins off as he was gonna be spending two days in Akashi with elder Noda while elder Noda was waiting on his comps to get to the new area. That night we had the hula night which was an absolute blast and I may or may not have been "gifted" the opportunity to dance in front of everyone. That went about as good as you'd expect for a white kid trying to hula dance. Yuta also came which was awesome and he really enjoyed it. But near the end of the night I saw him crying so I asked him if he was ok and in the best broken english he could muster he said, "Jace....last....day." Yeah that got me depressed pretty quick so I was like what if you come to church tomorrow and we can say our goodbyes then? And he got a lot happier and said that he really wanted to come to church

Sunday was a good day. Yuta did pull up and he seemed to enjoy it. He said it was a little difficult to understand but that he wanted to learn more so that was awesome. We also had a baptism of one of the kids in the ward so he stayed for that and then we said our goodbyes. Yuta is so sick and he will always be the person I credit my ping pong skills to...it was sad to say goodbye but maybe someday ill be back in Nishinomiya. He also said he wanted to visit me on shikoku so maybe I'll see him in my next area?

Monday was a looonggg day. We started out by finishing up packing everything and then we left for Kobe. We got there with a bunch of other missionaries and were just talking and saying goodbye because for some of them it was their last day. I was meeting up with elder Hogge (from the MTC) and elder Lau (also from the MTC just younger district) and we were getting on a bus to get to our areas. But elder lau and Hogge pulled up like 10 minutes late so we missed that bus and the next one wasnt for three more hours. So we just chilled with other missionaries and talked and got some mcdonalds. It was pretty fun and good to catch up and day goodbye to lots of missionaries. Then we got on our bus and were off...we met up with our comps and got to some other elders apartment at like 10:45 but I'm writing this at 11:40 and no one is ready to go to bed so we'll be up late...

Spiritual thought

Don't have a lot of time so I'll keep it quick but

Doctrine and Covenants 84:63

And as I said unto mine apostles, even so I say unto you, for you are mine apostles, even God’s high priests; ye are they whom my Father hath given me; ye are my friends;

Today I just wanna give a massive thank you to all of my friends. You guys are the best and I love each of you! Yall are one of the biggest reasons I am a missionary and I'm so grateful for every single one of you. I cant wait until we all get home and we all get to party again! I hope everything is going well and if you need anything just let me know!

Side note... please tell your friends that you love them cause someone probably needs to hear it.

Well thats all I got this week! Feel free to email me!