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

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

the one with the return of the king

"Boom, you looking for this?"

Sorry, this email is long and rushed😅😅

Starting with monday, we had one of the greatest P days of all time. We had district p-day, and we all went to a spot called round one, which we went to last transfer for district P day as well. It's the place that has bowling, a batting cage, sports, an arcade, and a drink bar for the whole day! We had an absolute party, and the one kid from the US who came to church and ate with us on Sunday, Alex, also came with us. We also brought our friend Chika and we all had such a fun time together! 😆😆😆 I also went off in bowling and had the greatest game of my entire life. I bowled a 179, which is so much better than I could have ever possibly imagined😆😆🤣

Tuesday, we started with District Council as usual, which was really great and kind of sad because it was going to be our last District Council of the transfer. After that, we did some song practice with the ward practicing for Christmas concert that we have later in December and then we went to another member's house for lunch. We went with the other two Elders that are also in our apartment, and it was super great. She is super awesome and makes some of the best food ever, and she made some very delicious curry for us! 😆😆 on our way back, all four of we're biking back when Elder Rowberry, the one who just got to Japan this transfer, wasn't paying attention when we all stopped and ran into the back of Elder Wynn's bike, he slammed on his brakes at the last second, and went up and over the handlebars and his bike got thrown into the road. And right as the bike got thrown into the road, a massive dump truck came and crushed his bike....And I mean CRUSHED his bike. So we called the police, got everything figured out, and walked home, and that was the end of the day for us. And, at the end of the day, we got transfer news, and Elder Wynn and I found that we are both going to be staying here in okayama!! We couldn't be more excited, and we are so happy that we get to stay for another transfer in okayama and work together!

Wednesday was another very phenomenal day. We were able to meet with our friend from the mafia, Sunami さん. We knew that he was moving apartments, and so us and another member came and helped him move as much as we could. We ended up having a really great conversation with him, and we got on the topic of a board game in Japan called igo. this game is one of the oldest games in the entire world that is still played and he was explaining it and I decided that I was going to try and learn how to play it so we could play together. After expressing my interest, he got very, very excited and said he wanted to have us come over every single day, kind of like we used to. Which made us super happy, and we couldn't be more excited because we have another chance to keep teaching our favorite friend! We also met up with the new friend at a cafe and then taught English class to finish the night.

Thursday was a very, very special day. After lunch and all of our studies for the day, my best friend, mima, who was baptized in my last area in Osaka, came and visited, and we were able to meet up! We went out to dinner together and had a real great time catching up. it was so great to see him again! He also knew that my birthday was coming up, and got me a very nice gift, which was so awesome, and I am so grateful for him. It was so unbelievably great to see him again, and he just recently got set apart as a ward missionary in Osaka, and he couldn't be more ecstatic. It's so cool seeing him progress through the church and seeing the blessings that he's been able to receive and the happiness that it brings him!

Friday, we were able to do more service at the community center near our house. after that we had a pretty normal morning and afternoon and then at the end of the day, lots of missionaries from around our area came and we practiced for the Christmas concert. We had the Christmas concert at the very next day, and so we definitely needed to practice the songs and see where we could improve, and we had about 40 missionaries or so there. It was great to catch up with a lot of missionaries who I haven't been able to see for a long time, and it was another really great night!

Saturday, we had our Christmas concert and it went so well! we had lots of members and friends who came and watched us sing, and after we sang, we had a very big feast with all of everyone that was there and played lots of different games for Christmas. And another one of my friends, kai, from Osaka also came and visited for the concert. he also knew that it was my birthday and gave me more very very, nice presents and gifts, including a very nice pair of Chopsticks which have my name engraved! He is one of the nicest people I've ever met, and it was so good to see him again and catch up. Again it was a super super fun day but very, very busy after the concert ended we had to clean up and then we started sports night. It was really great and one of our friends from last week, ayaka, came and she had such a great time and we are hoping that she will want to keep coming and keep meeting with us!!

Sunday was my birthday!! it was hands down one of, if not the best, birthdays that I've ever had, and I was able to have such a great day. I got so many different presents and congratulations from all of the members and I was able to celebrate with all of them all day, which was so nice. It's so nice to be in a place filled with people who love me and all of the missionaries and who want to do everything that they can for them. it made it a very, very special birthday that I will never forget.

Sorry, we have a long email today because so much happened, and we also had a long week because of transfers period. So, on monday, we had a pretty normal day since me and Elder Wynn are staying for the transfer. But we were able to meet with Sunami and he was so kind and taught me more about the rules of the board game I'm trying to learn and gave me lots of resources to practice on my own. Those resources, include a bunch of books about how to play the game and different professionals and the strategies they use, as well as an entire board and set of marbles for me to play and practice on my own and with others in the apartment! He really is so kind and is so giving, and I feel bad taking the stuff home, but he won't let me leave his apartment unless I take it with me🤣🤣

Tuesday, we went to Kobe for MLC again, and we spent pretty much the entire day in Kobe. It was really fun, but we want to just stay in Okayama now.🤣🤣 We love Okayama so much and have been spending so much time in Kobe lately and we want to just stay in our area and work here🤣🤣

Alright, sorry for the very, very long email. It was a long week, and stuff happened almost every day, and it made for such a great week.😆😆

Well, that's all I've got for this week. Feel free to email me!

That's all, folks.

Teaching me how to play one of the oldest games in the world 😆😆

BACK WITH THE LEGEND HIMSELF

Bowling with the Gang😁😆

Best game I've ever had😆😆 I am moses

More flicks on the digital camera...

Lunch with Fukushima 姉妹

More flicks of lunch...

Dinner with our boy katsume

Dog #88

Last English class with Strebel 姉妹😭

Found out I'm really bad at this...

愛の奇跡物語

the final product

Crazy dorito nacho dinner (we also made guacamole) 😆😆😆

MET UP WITH MIMA😆😆😆😆😁😁😁

Flicks of the day with Mima! 😁😁

ALSO MET WITH KIA AND TAKAFUMI 😆😆😆😁😁

Dinner with the Maki family and friends!

This is what we ate.... 😁😁

mission leadership conference

Sunday, December 1, 2024

the one with the campfire

"Boom, you looking for this?"

Starting with Monday, I got one of my big bucket list items checked off. I finally had a campfire in japan!!😆😆😆 We ended up going with the other Elders that are in our apartment and went to the same hike that Elder Wynn and I went on a couple weeks back and all went up and had a big fire together which was an absolute party! After that, we came back home, showered, and tried to get the campfire smell out of our clothes. Then we went to the senior couple's house and had Thanksgiving together!! 😆😆😁It was so fetching good, and they had all of the Thanksgiving Classics: mashed potatoes, carrots, rolls, gravy, turkey, squash yam marshmallow things, and fruit salad. It was so good, and it was hands down better than last year's Thanksgiving when we went to KFC🤣🤣

Tuesday was Zone conference!! And it was so great!!😆😆😆 Elder Wynn and I gave a training about Hope! And how through the spirit, we are able to feel hope! Especially in missionary work, when it gets hard and we are not seeing as much success as we would like to. Zone conference ended up being really good and I think everyone was able to learn a lot! It was a little weird because Zone conference was at the end of the transfer this transfer because things were a little weird at the beginning of the transfer.

Wednesday, we saw some crazy miracles! First off, we went to go visit a member, but they weren't home and we were a little sad because it had started raining so we knew it was going to be hard to find people and talk to people outside. But, luckily, we ended up being able to talk to a guy who is from China and has been looking for a church in the area, and he hasn't been able to find one. We invited him to ours, and he said he really wanted to come, and so we are hoping that he will be able to make it to church sometime soon! After talking with him, me and my comp had got a pretty strong spiritual impression to go to a cafe that we had gone to last week and talked to a girl that had been working there while we were there. When we initially started talking with her last week, she had really good English and so we went back and invited her to come to our English class. She was very ecstatic and wanted to come and after we had talked with her, she sent us a text later saying that she was having a really rough day, because work had been difficult and she had made a few mistakes at work so she was getting down on herself. But after we came, she was so happy, and it really made her day. No doubt the spirit was guiding us that day. At night, we also had our English class and again our friend Mari came and it was super great and we had lots of people come which was a very big surprise!

Friday was a very good day! We started the day with some service for a nearby community center, which was very refreshing. After the service, we went and got some very delicious Indian curry with the other Elders that we live with and had a great time there. One of the workers said that the day before, two girls from Nepal had come in and we're looking for a church around and she told them to go to our church and so hopefully they will be able to make it to church sometime soon! After that, we had our English class, which was really great and a lot of fun as usual. Then, we went and visited a member named Yuki姉妹. She is one of my favorite members in our area, and she has become my Japanese mom!😆😆 She is super loving and doesn't have any kids of her own, so she loves to talk and be friends with the missionaries! We gave her a visit and talked with her for a while! After that, we went and had dinner with our friend Mari! She took us to a very nice and expensive all you can eat meat buffet and when we sat down she offered to buy us the most expensive option which was very crazy! Of course we said that we didn't need it and so instead she bought us the second most expensive option! 😅😅She is way too kind to us and we had a very, very great time with her at dinner!

Saturday was a very, very busy day for us! In the morning, we got up early and went on a big hike with the ward, which was a ton of fun! We had some of our friends come and everybody packed a lunch and we ate lunch at the top of the mountain... The funny thing is that this is the place Elder Wynn and I had gone for the campfire and for the hike, so this was our third time going to this mountain! 😆😆 after we came back down, we had just a minute to kill, and then we had a big cookie baking class as a ward! We also had lots of friends come to that and we all baked different cookies together, which was also super fun!! After we finished the baking class, we cleaned up and kind of got caught talking with the members, and so we didn't have a lot of time before our sports night started! That was again a lot of fun, and that took us to the end of the day. We also had some members who brought calligraphy for us to do so we practiced writing Japanese characters during the sports night 😆😆

Sunday started out with going to church and having a pretty good day at church! Then after, we had song practice cuz we are practicing lots of different songs for our ward Christmas Concert. After finishing singing, we came back home and since it was a fast sunday, we took a little nap for lunch because me and my comp were still so tired from yesterday😆😆 After finishing lunch, we had different meetings and calls with different missionaries and then we went to a member's house and had dinner together! This is the same family that we played Uno with a couple months back and we had a ton of our friends come! We also had a guy named Alex who is traveling around the world and is in Japan for a little while so he spent the whole day with us and he is a member from Las Vegas! The meal was so good and it was so fun since we had almost 20 people there which was a very great time! 😆😆

Spiritual thought:

2 Nephi 28:32

Wo be unto the Gentiles, saith the Lord God of Hosts! For notwithstanding I shall lengthen out mine arm unto them from day to day, they will deny me; nevertheless, I will be merciful unto them, saith the Lord God, if they will repent and come unto me; for mine arm is lengthened out all the day long, saith the Lord God of Hosts.

To all of you who think you are lost or without hope, or who think you have done too much that was too wrong for too long, to every one of you who worry that you are stranded somewhere on the wintry plains of life and have wrecked your handcart in the process, this conference calls out Jehovah’s unrelenting refrain, “[My] hand is stretched out still. I shall lengthen out mine arm unto them,” He said, “[and even if they] deny me; nevertheless, I will be merciful unto them, … if they will repent and come unto me; for mine arm is lengthened out all the day long, saith the Lord God of Hosts.” His mercy endureth forever, and His hand is stretched out still. His is the pure love of Christ, the charity that never faileth, that compassion which endures even when all other strength disappears.

—Jeffrey R. Holland

Well, that's all I got for this week! Feel free to email me!

That's all, folks.