Orange crayon on my da kine

Hey Everyone,

Alright so sorry about not e-mailing you yesterday. we never had any time, we were way busy trying to find stuff to do haha and so we got a ride down to another zone to go play some basketball and didn't come back to late and so we never had a chance to e mail, but now i am so its all good. Ok so yeah, i got transfered to the San Diego Zone. it's right by downtown, like we can walk there if we want and we are way close to the naval base. the place is called Barrio Logan or Logan heights. it's the Ghetto! it's pretty sick, haha. funny story so we were walking at night after an appoinment with a member and this guy on a corner street came up to us and was like "gue tal perros" and we were like hey man how's it going? and then in a gangsta tone he said "oh perros, you best be stepping, this is logan heights perros, you betta step outta here. we just were laughing this small skinny poser was trying to act tough. we probably shoulda knocked that brotha out, haha. get some stress out on him. So yeah anyways, my new companion is Elder Lawter, he is from MIssouri, cool guy. way chill, which is sick. i was like...finally. God does hear me and there are normal people here haha. But our apartment is sick, we live in an attic pretty much like in our room the roof slants, which is funny, because you know me i don't think before i do things a lot of the times so i was setting up my bed and i set up my pillow and where my head was supposed to be by the slanted side, which isn't too smart probably bang my head every morning, so i changed it haha. anyways i will send some pictures, hopefully soon.

Oh thanks for sending all that stuff! that was way nice, i am pretty sure half of it is gone already haha, everytime we come back, i snack on like 5 things and then all my roommates are like why the heck are you eating seaweed, and obviously i said kus it tastes good braddah. oh and the other two elders in the apartment are natives!! so sick they know tons of Spanish and they are hilarious too, its way fun. for some reason, someone gets a hold of a picture of cait and is like oh who's that? then that's where i start the spiel or what ever it is ... yes, that's my sister, her name is Imnotinterestedinyou Thomas and no, you can't date her she's 16, haha. it's ridiculous, haha. but yeah Cait you better turn it down on the looking good thing, alright?

So yeah, our area is the ghetto. all mexicans! oh man its so nice, very very nice! they all are like illegal and have mustaches and listen to mexican songs and cook tortillas all day and play soccer at the park and dress like cholos. everyone lives together and isn't married. oh it is heaven for a missionary, we have tons of investigators and they are nice to us and the members are sweet! it's good i am excited to be here. now i just got to get to work. it was funny because a member got deported the other day and then we heard he was back the next day, haha, because his dad was his cayote (thats what they callum) I thought it was pretty funny.

Oh quick story so we got a member referral. her name is Margarita and she has three sons. two of the son's names are mario and luigi. hahah so funny. but that luigi is a demon child man, it is so hard to teach while he is there. the first time we came and he found out my name was Thomas and so like a clever 2 year old, he made a connection with me and the choo choo train thomas haha. so he went to go get railroad tracks to show us and he started chucking them at us and then he found a bat (i don't know where) but he started whacking us with it and i was like yeah, God wants us... (whack) ow!... to return to his... (whack) ow! ...that crazy kid. and again today he had a crayon, and made a line write by that place on my pants. and it's orange. so i have a huge orange line on my pants by my da kine, (you know where). but i must say it helps with street contact. because they look at me and instead of looking away they look right at the line and so then we start talking to them. who would know ah? haha.

But yeah, so we have done more teaching here and more talking to people so it's nice. b ut man do i suck at teaching. I don't know what it is. but i was like shoot, i got to step it up and so i need to work on that too, which will be good. my spanish will get a lot better though, because my companion doesn't know a lot of spanish either. so we are like struggling the whole time, but we will get it. it will come. i figure you know what? who cares if i am not good at teaching now. if i try my hardest i will get it later on somehow, so i just got to step it up. Oh on a good note. i can read the book of mormon in spanish now and like fully understand what's going on. so i have been reading that and working on my spanish grammar and stuff and so i try to read 10 pages a day. so its pretty tough, but its coming along slowly but steadily which is what counts. somehow i just need to be patient.

Oh church this past sunday was very good. it's funny because we meet at a elementary school right across our house, which is nice, making getting to church on time easy. but it is weird because you have all these Hannah Montana pictures and posters and stuff all of over where we have sacrament meeting, but church is church and its still really good, the parts i understand, anyways. everything is really nice and i have a lot of stuff to work on but it will be alright and i will definitely be learning a lot. thanks for all the stuff you sent, it really helps and i would probably die without you guys. oh, and please tell the Harbottles thanks! a huge thanks! because that was really nice of them, i will send them a thank you card as soon as i can. but if you could thank them i would appreciate it.

I love you all and hope you are doing good with everything. I miss you and I will talk to you next week.

Love,
Elder Thomas

yeah Dad, he was like you...big in the stomach area.

Hey Again!

So it was really nice to talk to everyone on sunday! It was dee Best (that's for you mom - nacho libre). But anyways, it was good to hear all the stories and that pretty much everything is the same, haha, from when I left. oh, but thanks for sending the boxes of stuff you guys are the best I love you! k but so as for today i am not sure really what to write since i told you everything on sunday and its only been a day, haha. but i guess, oh i can let you all in on a thought in my hard glass breaking head though. So during this whole transfer plenty of people have asked me what my vision is for my mission and I'm like shoot i have no idea. I mean I know that i want to baptize people and to be able to learn the language, and other general stuff like that but then they didn't like that answer and i still dont think i have a specific vision. but i was thinking about this and then i remembered i watched this video about President Monson, it was called On the Lord's Errand. super way good movie. I gained a lot of respect for him. he's a stud. well of course we all know that because he was called of God. but the whole movie talked a lot about how throughout the whole life of President Thomas S. Monson, he always followed the Spirit of the Lord and he was always in the right places blessing people's lives. And so i think that pretty much sums up my whole vision probably for my whole life, haha. But I have always wanted to try and follow the Spirit and just do the correct thing so that God knows he can trust me and that when there needs to be something done that i can do that. and that's what i really want to do. I mean i am sure that's what everyone wants to do. but yeah so i was thinking about that yesterday.

So yeah but yesterday, was a good day, I think we had the best lesson we ever had this transfer. it was at HNO Palma's casa, he is a recent convert. it's pretty interesting because he lives with his mom and his mom talked about his conversion story and told a lot about how it happened and the background of her whole family too because her whole family are members of the church. She was baptized first though and her whole family except for Oscar (HNO Palma) was baptized after she was. so she had a strong testimony of the gospel it was really nice, but really long too like dad, haha just kidding. But so it was really nice, oh yeah i forgot to tell you about a new investigator we got. her name is Gladys. Pretty sweet ah! So that was really nice. and then another part of the day we went to go help out some English elders out in our area. nice guys, they always want to hang out with us. we are actually going to the zoo with them today. how's that one ah mom? pretty good yeah? so i'll write a letter about all the animals haha next week. but yeah so we were helping them out and we went to this brothers house and did some service and he reminded me of you dad it was hilarious. he was big in the stomach area, haha, just kidding, but he always had the dumb jokes you always do. oh you would have been laughing so hard. and then we played a little badminton. now that was a lot of fun. don't judge me haha. i guess i just like weenie sports all of a sudden, I dont know.

but yeah. what else? oh mom sent me an email that said you sent some money in the boxes, what are you thinking! haha i told you i am alright though. because i want to see if i can survive on what i have, that way for once in my life i dont have to be spoiled. plus i am trying to make my own survival story too. oh okay shoot i totally forgot to tell you about this story a couple of weeks ago my companion just reminded me. so here it is: So we were driving one day and then he starts speeding up and then cranks a hard turn and then parks the car and here i am first surprised at the sudden move of action and surprised that he is doing something exciting (remember he likes chess and video games, haha) and so he gets out of the car and grabs his bag and pretty much starts running and I am like trying to follow him and I was like where the heck are we going? i was like what did he see? a first edition Chess set made out of koa wood and handcrafted back in the 90's or something? i dont know man. then he chases down these two spanish ladies and says hola como esta and then looks at me and i looked at him, and i was oh shoot so i started talking to them about families and Jesus Christ and the Church and then i asked when we could come over and talk more about our message and then one of them said oh well my husband has a meeting with the bishop and but i think later that night we have you for dinner on the calendar. so they were members... oh i hit my companion after that one, haha, but it was pretty funny. alright, peace out my family.

Love you all! thanks for everything and good spanish on your email mom, it was funny. i'll take pictures today and send um!

Love, Elder Thomas

San Diego K5NE News

Hello,

... and welcome to the 5 O'clock hour news from K5NE, the place to be, my name is Elder Thomas and i will be the Anchor for you folks in Hawaii and Utah and other places in the world.

This past week has been very spastic as far as weather goes. starting from tuesday to wednesday and then to thursday we recieved alot of wetness and moisture in the air, for those of you who don't understand my news lingo, basically this means it has rained alot on the days mentioned above or to the right (tuesday to thursday). But then as you do know, and are familiar with the news, and our capability to tell of the weather, the weather changed (unsuspectedly) and was sunny for the rest of the week, which turned out nice for all those beach goers. On to some other business, as far as missionary work goes, it has been quite pleasant.

ok, that's as far as i can act and write like a news cast person haha. but yup so that's a weather update mostly for you mom. but yeah since it rained during the week, no one was out in the street so we hardly got to talk to anybody. but we did have alot of times which we got to meet with our investigators, haha they couldnt bluff us finally. i better pray for rain more often. but so yeah it has been good, we taught the most this week by far. it was good i enjoyed it although it was tough for me to understand and talk kus i feel like i don't even know what they really are talking about. but its getting better i mean i feel like i dont understand alot during the lesson, but then i ask my companion afterwards every time, haha. i am pretty sure he's annoyed by it oh well, maybe he's learning to have to deal with me because he's going to have a kid that acts like me, haha i dont know. but all the time, i just like look at him afterwards and say "so what just happened in there" and then he tells me and surprisingly i have the gist of whats being said so i just got to talk more. but yeah its good, the best investigators i think we have is this family of four, the dads name is Jose and the wifes name is Adela and they have two daughters, Brenda y Yoselina. Yoselina is like 10 months old but she has tubercilosus. again i dont know how to spell, but yeah so they always go to the hospital and don't have alot of time, but they are really nice and open and so we have really just been praying that Yoselina will be alright and that everything will be alright and that they can make it to church because i think they will see how nice it is and how good of a place it is especially for families.

Ok tons of stuff happened this week though, pretty funny stuff too. we get alot of people that yell stuff at us from their cars and so this one night it happened like 4 times and we were with a member, and me i got bad hearing, so i asked my companion what they said because i thought they were saying like hara hara for israel, haha you know like from Other Side of Heaven. and he said they said we were going to the devils home. so i might be going deaf... not to sure. but yeah that happens to us, but maybe i should be like Elias or who ever in the old testament and send she bears at them. haha for real its in the old testament. dad its funny kus he was a prophet and there were these kids making fun of him for being bald (not implying anything) but you should joke around with people who might say that to you. tell them you'll send some bears at them. haha.

But yeah and then we went on exchanges this week. i went with Elder Heidbrink and we found these arabian pamphlets in our apartment and so i was like ok i am going to pass these out, and he said "now i know your a greenie because you dont know how bad of an idea that is," i just laughed and said oh well lets see. haha so we went and we stopped this arab guy. then i was like hi and i wanted to know how to say hi in arab and so he was like oh no sorry, "i noa speakah da inglish". so that didn't work out to well haha and then we met this lady who did the same thing but we handed her the pamphlet anyways and she knew about Joseph Smith somehow, but then she left kus she didnt understand anything.

Oh and lets see what else can i tell you. oh P day is changing from mondays to tuesdays, so next tuesday i will have Pday and not monday. so dont expect anything on monday. this is only for our mission i think. i forget why they are doing it though, but yeah not too sure when i can talk to you guys on mothers day, but i will let you know next week tuesday. um yeah sorry i have to go i think but i will write. sorry it takes me a while to write though haha. i miss you and i love you guys. have a good week.

Love,

Elder Thomas

The disappearing snacks

Hey Dad,

I just wanted to let you and mom know that i got the box. thanks! it was really good, good snacks too! that should hold me till tomorrow morning haha, but yeah could you tell mom too thanks for sending the copies of the book. it was really good, especially the one about the language. i like the homesickness one too, though haha, but dont worry i am doing good here. i just wanted to ask if you could send my mexican soccer ball and my indoor soccer shoes, the blue ones. but if you can't its okay, i just wanted to see if i could get those so i could exercise playing soccer each morning. but i know it costs a lot to mail boxes so it's alright if you can't. i still have to mail the letter i wrote to you last week...sorry but i will get it out to you probably tomorrow. but yeah, so i will talk to you next week tuesday because thats my new P-day. I miss you guys and hope everyone is doing good back home.

Love, Elder Thomas

What not to do in an earthquake

Hey!

Oh, so yeah, it really doesn't matter to me, you can either send emails to me or write letters, whatever is easier for you. because now we just head to the library and email for an hour and so i have enough time to read and stuff, so its easier to send emails, its all good, as long as its something, haha. But yeah so week 2 out here. crazy, like it's always going by fast, i guess in a good way. But yeah, to answer your question mom, yeah we felt the earthquake it was pretty fun, we were cruising on the couch (during lunch ok? haha), and it started to shake and so i turned to my companion because i thought he was shaking it haha and i was thinking dang you are strong and then the whole apartment started to shake and so everyone dove under a desk. i was just sitting on the couch, nah jus kidding, i dove under the table too, which probably wasn't the best idea because the table was glass! haha. but yup that was the epic tale of the earthquake. but shoot, i don't have alot of time. dang i'll write letters to everyone ok? mom and dad, so expect some letters from me alright? but oh, lets see what can i, say... oh we had church yesterday and so i got to see all the members in the branch. we don't have enough members yet to have a ward. but that will change haha. and it was pretty sad because the chapel was so empty. but the members are way nice, they are awesome i just can't understand them, haha. no, but its getting better. but so i had three hours in spanish. my mind was killing...aye, but the parts i could understand were way good, it was fast sunday for them and so they bore their testimonies, i think. but yeah church in spanish is alot harder than in english so you are lucky haha. oh funny story, so we were on exchanges and i went with a ward member, and so my companion told me to just meet him in back of the house. and so the ward member took me back and i saw the car and i was like ok they are back and so i told him its all good, and so he left and so i went to knock on the door because you need a key to get in. but then i saw the lights were dark and no one was home, haha.. i freaked out! i was like dang, some mexican or black guy is going to come by and beat me up and then take my scriptures or something, or maybe they could take my planner or my pen kus that is all i have, haha. but i was like - oh man, this is ridiculous. so i was waiting for like 5 minutes by myself and then down the street i saw elders so i felt like i was rescued so i booked over to them and they were just cracking up. so there you go mom and dad, your son has been out on the mission for 2 weeks and is disobedient already, haha. another story too, we were visiting members for referrals and the mother said that she has been seeing spirits or like crazy scary ghosts at the house of her work and she asked us to pray for her and so we left with a prayer of course and so we asked to bless her house kus all we knew was that it was a house. and so after the prayer she was just laughing and she said no, no, no, this house is perfect and everything is fine here, but i need the other house where i work to be fine. haha, so hey at least we got that it was a house and not something else. but yeah no more time, i Love you all and hope everything is going good. i will write you all letters again. there will be two sets, you too Carly cause i couldn't send my letters last week becuase i didnt have stamps, so expect two. didn't forget about you guys. have a good week!

Love

Elder Thomas

Language barriers

Hey! Hows everything going back home? Well i sent couple of letters this past week wednesday because the mission president let us write you. so i hope you got it. oh and i got the packages too, thanks! it was way good and the pillow is comfortable with the hawaiian print, haha i laughed when i saw it but yeah.

so San Diego is way sweet its so nice here. the weather is so good, but like in the nights it gets pretty cold, but not too bad or at least not as bad as Utah. but i got my first companion out here in the field. His name is Elder Burnell and he's pretty cool, good guy/ elder. he is from utah and has been out for 6 months, but its funny kus he was first called as english speaking and then he got switched to spanish the first day he got here. that would be pretty funny, it would have been hard. but he's pretty good at it, he understands a lot. Our area in the mission is called El Cajon but we also cover an area called Santee. its a huge mission and the mission president and everyone says that it needs work. it's true cause its only a branch but the people in the branch are super nice. it was funny because the day of transfers i was so excited to know where i was going but i had to wait for a long time to find out i dont know why though, so i had to preocuppy myself with stuff haha, but yeah its good out here but really tough too. My companion has been really sick too so we couldn't really do any work because he had to rest, which is kind of was lame but all good, i finally read the book of mormon again. so yup i know its true haha. but so yeah really havent gotten to do any real work but we will this week. this week we have zone conference and then this thing they call MTE which is like something, i dont know haha. but all i know is afterward we have like these coaches who come and watch us for two days and help us apply the things we learned from the conference and then he like gives feedback. but our zone leaders called and told me i am going to have to be a coach, which is retarded i dont even know anything but its all good. so yup that is what we got for this next week.

But anyways Mom we went to the Mormon Battalion visitors center. it was pretty sweet, it shows like a video and what you kind of would have experienced and what they want through, its a pretty cool story and the presentation of it is pretty hilarious too, we had this old couple show us around.. oh man it was funny, but it reminded me of you. i could totally see you and dad doing that haha, but you would like that place because its exactly the cowboy and frontier stuff that you like, haha.

And then after that we went kind of street contacting. People can be jerks, so dumb sometimes, we can be smiling and be nice and they would just give you the kind look where they don't acknowledge you, but man, they are lucky i'm a missionary and have the pure love of Christ, or at least trying... haha. like this one guy, aparently there are alot of arab people here... they call um caldians i think, but yeah, they are..... and so i saw one and thought he was a mexican and so i was "hola, como esta," and then he was, "you###, i'm not a ####mexican," and i was like oh.. dang thats right people swear in the real world haha.. and then he was like yeah yeah this world is bleap bleepp bleepp,... i was like braddah you have one dirty mouth, but i couldn't say anything i just froze, it was so funny and then my companion saved me and we left and we were just laughing about it forever.

And yeah another story, so we went to a members house, and here's me thinking (oh thank you God, you are the best) and so we are talking to the member and we asked if she had referrals for like anyone we can teach. Oh yeah by the way - give referals to the missionaries we need it plus its the best way! ok, so she starts talking and talking and i thought she was talking about her friend that we could teach possibly, and while she is talking I probably got like two words, "i didn't see and i didn't feel or something" haha and my face the whole time was this :0, with my jaw touching the floor... i didn't know anything. haha so after i asked my comp so what did she say about her friend and he laughed and said she was talking about her conversion story. that first day was the day i realized i'm a dead man haha, i didnt get anything haha and so i was like yup now i know why we are called for 2 years haha. there is another story too with a investigator named Marcos, so we are teaching him and talking with him and everything and i didn't really say anything because he was talking a lot and i didn't know what he was talking about. but during parts of the lesson he would get up and act out stuff. and i thought to myself, maybe he's playing charades with me hahaha kus he thinks i don't understand, and he was right - kus i didnt haha, but his acting out didn't help hahah. so he sits back down and then tells me two words, he turns straight at me (at which moment i about peed my pants) and said "Platica conmigo" and so i got the conmigo part, but that's about it, conmigo means with me. and so i sat there and asked him to repeat it, i felt retarded haha oh man. and he said it again, and i sat there like i was like oh i am officially retarded someone said one word and i cant respond haha. and so i turn to my companion thinking he would explain it to me, but he turns to Marcos and says sorry he doesn't speak alot of spanish and then i just sat there with my smile on my face and said si. and that is about the intelligence level of a household plant. so yup my name now is elder Roca kus i am basically like a rock in the lessons, haha. I just sit there, haha. but i keep trying and trying to learn and speak more spanish to get better, but that's a couple of funny stories for you. but oh, by the way it is going good and its fun and general conference was way good and gave me a boost of more faith along with the scriptures too. so its been really good. i cant wait for this next week to prove myself, haha. oh and dad did you watch priesthood? it was so good yeah! so sick i liked the talk about paciencia by President Uchtdorf and yeah, general conference was really good, it was funny though i fell asleep while they were sustaining all 1000 people of the 70 it seemed like so i missed the first talk haha i felt bad. but yup all is good, hope everything is good back home, praying for you guys, and you too carly - hope school and finals are going good. i thought i would throw out a shout out for you haha. but I love you alot (thats directed for everybody).

Love, Elder Thomas (who is trying to learn the language so needs a lot of prayers and pray that the mexican people will speak slower too. one or the other or both are good haha. Thanks!)

Arrival in San Diego

From: Lee Donaldson
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 11:24 AM
To: Thomas, Chris (USAHI)
Subject: Your son has arrived in San Diego

Greetings from the California San Diego Mission!

Your son, Elder Thomas has safely arrived in the mission field. I am delighted to have him serving with us among the wonderful people of Southern California. In addition to the tremendous weather and scenery, we have remarkable missionary opportunities.

Thank you for sending such a wonderful missionary to our mission. I am confident that with your prayers and his hard work that he will have a rich experience here in San Diego that will bless both him and those he teaches.

I have attached a couple of pictures that were taken this afternoon at the Mission Home.

God bless you for your sacrifice in sending us your son to labor among some of Heavenly Father's choicest spirits.

Lee Donaldson

President, California San Diego Mission