Elder Thompson, the Missionary

After we dropped Cache off at the MTC (June 27) I was reading the book 'Pete the Cat' to Tessa and Greta. (If you haven't heard it, or seen it, check out the links.) I suddenly had the idea to make a spin off of that book for Cache for Christmas. Well, busy-ness settled in and I didn't start right away. Then about mid September I started feeling spiritual impressions that it was something that I really needed to do. So I slowly got to work---but I do have 4 other children, I am the Primary President (and it is the busiest time of the year for Primary) and we were well into the Cross Country season--so it was really slow. Also, I am definitely (and obviously) not an artist so that made things really (really, really) slow. 

During much of the process I kept telling myself that I didn't have any business doing it. And I really didn't, except that I couldn't deny the heavenly help I was receiving and the impressions to finish that I continued to have. I was constantly given ideas for elements and layouts and how to accomplish the illustrations. So I kept plugging away.  Bit by bit.  Then while driving home one day I heard a snippet from a BYU devotional. The speaker said something to the effect of "Be grateful for what you have and do not focus on what you lack." I decided that I needed to apply that to my book project. After that, I let the verbalization of my artistic weaknesses be put to rest and I dug in and worked without complaint. I found it amazing how much more quickly it came together after that. All in all, the completion of this book is truly a miracle in many ways.  There are quite a few things in the book that bug me, but honestly I can't complain because of all of the help I received and the way I was expanded.  I also had so help from my family to take care of much of my home management duties so I could work on it. It was a family effort. I'm so thankful for the whole, very challenging, process. I grew a lot during it!

All of that said, I'm thankful it is finished and I can move on to other things.

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In my opinion, one of the best thing about this book is all of the elements that references things Cache likes, has done or things he'll relate to.  I definitely know the source for the idea to implement those elements!  It makes the book endearing, made it lots of fun to make and fun to read.   I hope it all makes him laugh.   

Another thing I did was alternate the use of water color and paper pieced people.  All of the pages that he is saying he loves his mission, he is paper pieced.  Those pages are also representative of 'outputs' he's done.  So I used that platform for his expressions of him loving his mission (except the final one, but what I used was fitting, I thought). 

Back cover

The man behind the red door is from Killer Bunnies, which references The Princess Bride (both of which he likes a lot).  The windows in the house are from a publication at BYU with stories he wrote.  The bushes are his 1st grade report card, the window in the car is Y mountain and the license plate says 'Boy Scouts of America'.  

Notice the gold door house--a roof from Preach My Gospel, front windows with the scriptures, side windows with his mission call letter.  The bus driver is his mission president, BYU Presdient, Cecil O. Samuelson is a passenger, the route name is a friend's name, the license plate is President Monson's signature scanned from his mission call and the ad on the bus is the oral surgeon who took the twig out of his cheek from a bike accident when he was 12.  

I will eventually get all of the book posted here on my blog (it will probably be a long time though) but if you want to see the rest of the book, I can send you an invitation to my book online.  You can either email me for a request or leave a comment with your email address so I can send you an invite.