Chapter 3: Calexico

I'm out of the shallows and into the deep end! Well, the next deep end, anyway. I'm sure there will be many more.

Firstly, there's the last few days of the MTC. That Sunday included some cool experiences, foremost of which was our fast Sunday testimony meeting with our branch, where each missionary bore their testimony in the language they'd be speaking, from Spanish to Japanese to Mandarin. The meeting itself was a witness that the gospel is for all nations, and the spirit is the same wherever it's invited.

Our last devotional with President Porter was an animated one. During his discussion on accessing Heavenly power, he began talking about the importance of having virtuous thoughts, and offered a method of eliminating unclean ones, which was, in a word, *PEW*. Right there on the pulpit in front of hundreds of missionaries he began pulling out little army men and recounting the glorious battles of his youth, describing each soldier's tactical role. The idea was to imagine unclean or negative thoughts as enemies and then energetically blow them up with your mind. He demonstrated, sound effects and all. Once a tank got involved the tech crew obligingly blasted the room with light for each of the explosions. He told us a Sister Missionary once asked him "What if the thoughts just keep coming back?" After a slight pause he pulled out another army man, this one like a foot tall, plopped it down on the podium and said "Go big or go home." While I do think that message has the danger of conveying to someone "You're just not trying hard enough," (not a helpful thing to say), I appreciated the comedy. Good stuff.

Also, with it being my last opportunity, I did my duty afterward and gave President Porter his hug. I will not be hunted down and kicked. Apparently some Elders once entered a member's house in another state where they were triumphantly joking with each other about how they avoided hugging President Porter, who unbeknownst to them happened to be the member's father. The member made a phone call afterward, and the next time the Elders visited, they each received a kick in the shin. President Porter lovingly rules by fear.

The rest is a blur. We watched a fiery MTC-exclusive devotional from Elder Holland where he DEMANDED that we use our mission opportunity to its fullest, had one last practice Teaching Opportunity which went pretty well (confidence in teaching is going up), packed up, got up early on Tuesday morning, bade Floyd the tree goodbye, and were off to the airport. Tragically, the Tuesday evening devotional we barely missed just HAPPENED to be Elder and Sister Rasband. Oh well. :(

I was pretty spooked when I first arrived in San Diego. It is way more hilly and dense than I imagined it being, and it was a day of low overcast, giving me the impression of a foggy jungle. Arriving at the mission office with no idea how anything worked, having to wait a few hours for the trainers and more new missionaries to arrive had my nerves a bit high. Didn't help when I was eventually surrounded by seasoned missionaries, all with close relationships. The sheer amount of things I knew I would have to learn was definitely looming over me, and I wanted nothing more than to be around people I knew again.

The mission leaders reveal assignments in a dramatic fashion, first having a trainer present their area, then after a drumroll, showing the new missionary's picture on a slide. As the different areas were presented, I noted that some were English and some were Spanish (one was actually Arabic!), so being an English speaking missionary, I sat there getting more tense with each English area and relaxing with each Spanish area. After quite a long while, Elder McLean went up and presented Calexico, the southmost area in the most distant zone, literally right up against the border. "Be ready to speak a lot of Spanish" was one of the main things he said. Just as I was beginning to think "Guess I'll be the next area" Elder McLean said "and I think there's only one Elder left who hasn't been assigned an area." Yeah...I went pale. On the inside, at least. There my picture was, up on the screen. English speaking. Spanish area. I couldn't help but wonder whether there had been some sort of mistake. To those of you who are familiar with Ben-Hur, I felt a bit like Judah being taken out of his prison cell for his sentence. "Tyrus? I've had no trial! I'm to be sent to the galleys without a trial?!" But that was that. For clarification, I am still technically considered an English speaking missionary. Not sure whether that's going to change. But for the time being, I'm WAY out of my depth, and I'm having to scramble to start picking up on Spanish. 

The San Diego California mission has many merits, and two of those are President and Sister Merritt (teehee). I'm grateful for having them as our mission leaders. They have a devoted love for us, they've offered me support already, and though strict, they're very reasonable. Since Calexico is about a 2-hour drive from San Diego and orientation at the mission office was going to be the following Thursday, my companion and I spent a couple nights at the Merritt's house and did a bunch of finding on the day in-between. Funnily enough, we were invited in to teach a lesson on the very first door we knocked. The family only spoke Spanish, so all I could do was greet them and sit next to my companion, smiling and nodding. I've had to get used to doing that a lot, unfortunately. I feel bad for my companion that I can't be much of a support to him in those situations.

Elder McLean is great. He happens to be district leader in Calexico and is very welcoming. I appreciate the contrast of having a friendly trainer after feeling a bit disconnected and aimless at times in the MTC. Nonetheless, I felt a pretty overwhelming sense of loneliness entering Calexico, having that language barrier there between me and many of the people. Thankfully, one of the first things we did when we arrived was meet the ward council (who speak English) and discuss weekly activities we could organize at the church building. Sitting there in the foyer with friendly members alleviated some of the initial stress I was feeling. Even out here, I could feel at home in Christ's church.

Speaking of the members, turns out I'm not just on a mission. I'm on a rescue mission. Ever since COVID-19, this whole stake has been struggling. In our ward alone, church attendance went from over 100 to only around 30 because of the lockdown. As a zone, we need to get 400 baptisms, or this stake will be combined with one in Arizona (which would be rough for everyone). It's one of those cases where the task before us seems unreachable, but we need to remember that through our faith, God can accomplish anything He needs to. And for whatever reason He believes I have something to contribute here.

Quick side note: our apartment in Calexico is surrounded by stray cats! Apparently one of our neighbors won't stop feeding them. That made me smile when we first arrived.

Elder McLean, the sister missionaries in our area, and I were all assigned to give talks this past Sunday, so with my companion's help I got to prepare a little blurb in Spanish, and I followed that with my testimony in English (shared Ether 12:27, which felt very appropriate to my predicament). The other 3 missionaries, being fluent in Spanish, gave longer talks, so I guess that made me the youth speaker!😆 The bishop complimented my accent afterward, so there's that. We had about 42 people there that day, which was good to see. My understanding is that about 75% of the ward is Spanish-speaking.

We've been doing a lot of door-to-door finding, doorstep visits, and calls. We try to schedule visits each day, but most of them fall through in our zone. I haven't actually been able to teach a single lesson with my companion. BUT, from Sunday afternoon to Monday morning, we did exchanges with the zone leaders farther north in El Centro, and that was a relief. I got to teach 2 lessons that day! With Elder Clifford's help, I felt inspired to share Mosiah 24 with a struggling friend named Paul and we discussed how faith in God can strengthen us to bear our burdens. We also shared the Book of Mormon title page with another friend named Heather.

Elder McLean and I were also part of a small miracle yesterday when we met a man named Rudy, who's briefly visiting Calexico because his grandpa is in critical condition. He was very genuine and receptive to our discussion about hope and eternal families. He told us he believed it was no coincidence that we found him that day, which we were overjoyed to hear. We left him a Book of Mormon with Alma 40 marked so he could learn more about resurrection.

So already, some pretty incredible things have happened. I'm only really seeing that in retrospect, so I'm glad I'm able to write these emails to give me hope for the upcoming week. I'm not gonna lie, this has been hard already, and not for the reasons I expected. Home is where the heart is, and my heart is honestly still back in Utah. It's been a struggle letting go of that and focusing all of my love and effort on where I am now. I hate to quote the Star Wars sequels, but... I know what I have to do, but I don't know if I have the strength to do it. I've been praying for the gift of charity, cause my goodness, I need it. Guess we'll see how this week goes.

Quick tidbits about weather and then I'm done.

1. I'm lucky to be going to Calexico in the fall, cause apparently the summers are well above 100 degrees (120, I heard from someone). Apparently missionaries who serve through the summer get custom "I survived" t-shirts.

2. We got hit with a CRAZY rainstorm last week. It came and went so quickly, but it blew down a few trees and flooded the street next to our apartment.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman