Chapter 9: Rancho Peñasquitos

Alright, I've gotten through the small talk with this new area and have begun the real conversation. It's been a pretty jarring week here following my previous transfer. Rancho Peñasquitos might be the complete reverse of Calexico. The work here is moving pretty slowly with barely a handful of nonmember friends we have to visit (unlike the looming list of well over a hundred potentials in Calexico). There hasn't been a baptism here in years, and last transfer apparently didn't yield a single new person being taught. Pretty tough. So many of the residents are just content with their lives, not believing in or even hoping for anything greater. However, the ward here is big, dedicated, and involved, which has been very refreshing. I bet in this first couple weeks I will have doubled the total member lessons I've had on my mission. Another stark contrast: this area has SUCH nice neighborhoods. With each house that I enter I'm blown away by how blessed the people here are, and so grateful for their charity in welcoming us as missionaries. When I first arrived at our apartment last week I thought "whoa, this is a paradise". Pretty roomy, the tap water is drinkable without a filter, and we even have a gym in our complex! Then when my companion introduced me to one of the families in the ward, the first question they asked was "are you still living in that ghetto apartment?" Heh, guess my first area set a good standard for keeping me grateful.

My new companion is Elder Creasy. He's from Las Vegas, and it's funny hearing him talk about the casinos there (his family would go for the movie theaters and pools and such, not for the gambling XD). A couple other characterizing features:  firstly, he got a record player on the mission and has been building a record collection on the fly. There is something about hearing Christmas music on a record player that just hits different. Secondly, he's a saxophone player and got to bring his saxophone with him, so we periodically set time aside in our schedule for him to practice (extra study time for me! That's been nice).

When I arrived at the mission office for transfers last Tuesday, I happened to run into Elder Welker, my predecessor from this area. As I asked him what to expect, one of the first things he told me was "You'll get to try the Boedy Burger." This intrigued me, but he wouldn't let on any more details. "You'll see", he said. Whatever this Boedy Burger was, it was shrouded in mystery, and it seemed to be the stuff of legend. As the day progressed, even more people made mention of it, building the suspense. Our agenda for that evening mainly consisted of a member meal with the Jack family, and when Elder Creasy and I arrived at the doorstep, I discovered what was on the menu...the Boedy Burger! The Jacks just happened to be the keepers of this hallowed recipe. Not even a day had passed and the honor was already being bestowed upon me. Boedy, turns out, is the Jacks' son (I think about 14--Teacher age), and in the midst of COVID lockdown, in the fires of Mount Doom, he forged, in secret, a master burger to control all others. Into this burger he poured his creativity, his talent, and his will to dominate all missionary meals. One burger to rule them all. He's been perfecting it over the past couple years and makes it for the missionaries every time they come over, asking them for feedback. It's really good too! Featuring bacon, carmelized onions, lettuce, tomato, a special sauce of his creation, and a fried egg. Its one drawback: SUPER messy. But nevertheless. There's actually a paper hung up in our apartment's closet with every past missionary's rating of the Boedy Burger.

The Boedy Burger rating sheet

After my initiation into the Rancho Peñasquitos area via burger, we taught the Jacks the Restoration with a special focus on asking them how it has blessed their lives. There's definitely a power that comes from reciting the first vision in Joseph's words, and I'm glad I committed them to memory (at the airport actually, cause we didn't do that in the MTC). We also had a great discussion with Brother Jack, who has served as bishop twice, about how all things in the church must be done in love. At the end of the lesson, one of the kids gave the closing prayer, during which she, in innocent adolescent fashion, said "Please bless that the Elders...can have a nice time." These words, though I'd usually be inclined to smile at them without taking them altogether seriously, honestly touched me at my very core. Please bless that we can have a nice time on our mission. Feeling connected with others and just learning how to have fun have been so much more challenging than I thought they would be, and it's hard to shake the nagging anxiety that I'm constantly missing out on just enjoying everything that's around me. I carry that same prayer in my heart, especially leading into the holidays when gratitude should be at the forefront of our minds.

I've already written a lot on this one member meal, but I've just got to include this last bit. Last transfer, for whatever reason I had this constant craving for a milkshake. But, all throughout, I refrained suggesting that we stop somewhere for one. Guess what the Jacks made for dessert though?? Milkshakes! Tender mercy if ever I saw one.

On Thursday, the ward held a turkey bowl which was SUPER well attended. They split it into 2 games and each half of the field was still packed. Bit by bit I started to learn the members' names. 

A squirrel at Squirrel Park where we had the turkey bowl.
I didn't catch a picture of this, but there was a huge pack of them
 that kept darting back and forth between congregating in the field and hiding in the bushes.

Later, we had Thanksgiving dinner with Bishop Hilton and his family. They've got 8 kids, so it was a lively household. We got to play Dominion with them and participate in their new tradition of Thanksgiving bingo. We also watched a heartfelt message from President Nelson afterward about the healing power of gratitude, and we got to teach a lesson on that very theme at the end. In our companion prayer that evening, we followed through on the very invitation we gave in that lesson, and said a gratitude prayer, during which we only focused on what we'd been given rather than requesting any blessings. The list was long and the spirit was strong.

In light of Thanksgiving, as a way to give back to the Lord after all He's done for us, the entire mission settled on making Saturday special. We decided that rather than spending any time on studies or scheduled lessons that day, we would spend the whole day, from 9 AM to 9 PM, just finding new friends to teach. This could consist of anything from tracting to playing sacred music in public to social media finding. We started off with a mission-wide devotional at 8:45 AM, met for lunch as zones to share miracles we'd seen so far, and ended off with a devotional at 9 PM. As a part of our lunch break, we went with another companionship to Golden Spoon where we can get frozen yogurt for free as missionaries! It's owned by a member and he's incredibly generous. My companion and I spent most of the time tracting, walking around parks, and visiting members to ask for referrals. Doing this in an area that was still brand new to me was a little rough, and I gotta admit it would have been nice to spend that day in Calexico where I was more familiar with the people and places, but nonetheless Saturday gave me a headstart on learning the area. Tracting isn't the most effective over here, so not a whole lot happened on our end, but we still saw tender mercies, and the mission as a whole shared some pretty incredible stories from that day. The work in the San Diego mission really got a boost.

Most of the work this past week has centered on the ward. We've been doing A LOT of visits to introduce me to everyone, and I've been frantically trying to memorize names. Hopefully I'll be an expert by the end of the transfer. Our goal has been to help the members do missionary work themselves, since they have all the connections with the area. For most of our member lessons, we give them a Book of Mormon at the end and invite them to pray about who they could share it with. Similarly, with a lot of our visits we'll hand them a ward Christmas party flyer and invite them to pass it along to a nonmember friend. On one such visit, Sister Bair invited us in and quickly began giving us a tour of all her elaborate Christmas decorations, featuring a huge nativity collection that blew our minds. The Bairs also have a special display in their living room of bear themed Christmas decorations (har har). Bear nativities, Santa bears, and a bear tapestry. I got strong Brave vibes. Bairs and bears aside, I've been grateful to gain more experience working with members, and we've got service opportunities in the works, so I'm looking forward to that.

The Bairs' nativity collection.

I just finished the Isaiah chapters in my new reading of the Book of Mormon, and while all the name dropping and metaphors are certainly disorienting, I understood more from this readthrough than I have in any of my previous ones! It stands out to me seeing just how much emphasis is put on the scattering and gathering of Israel when the book containing these chapters is instrumental to that very gathering. I've been marking every case where the Book of Mormon prophesies about itself or directly addresses us in these latter days, and it's more common than I thought. Also, I absolutely love 2 Nephi 22 (Isaiah 12) and the confidence in the Lord it conveys. Another highlight was 2 Nephi 20:15, which uses analogies to show us that we must remain humble when doing the Lord's work, and that our successes belong to Him. "Shall the ax boast itself against him that heweth therewith? Shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? As if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself as if it were no wood!"

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Best of luck with everything!

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Chapter 8: Climactic Farewells

Good day! Hope everyone's staying warm. Imperial Valley is quite the refuge in the late fall and early winter. There was an evening where my companion and I remarked that it was pretty chilly as we went from door to door. Then we checked the weather app. The temperature? 68 degrees! XD Guess growing up in Utah didn't give me much resilience after all. I'll just be grateful it's not below freezing over here.

It's been an uphill battle of a week. Lots of difficulties for the first half, but significant payoffs by the end. Here are the highlights.

My companion and I joke that there are actually 3 predominant languages in Calexico. English, Spanish, and voicemail. Boy are they fluent at that last one. We hear it a lot when we make calls.

We had a zone service project on Wednesday, which was actually the first I've participated in. We went to the IVC campus and helped assemble and distribute food packages from the Food Bank. It was SUPER windy that morning and we stood in it for over an hour waiting for a truck with the food to arrive before we could start. We had a great time though, and it sounded like the service project had its highest turnout yet (it happens once every month).

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that the stake rallied with the missionaries to invite everyone to that big musical devotional. Turns out the miracles are still flowing from that, because we had 2 this past weekend! Back when we were inviting everyone, some Sisters in our zone covered part of Calexico and visited an inactive member named Joseph. He is actually a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ, but hasn't been able to make it to church in a while due to health issues. He was delighted that the Sisters came by and filled with emotion as he expressed what he's been going through of late. He kept saying to them, "I need to see the Elders". Ever since then we've been trying to set up a meeting with him, and on Saturday it finally worked out! I gave him a priesthood blessing and we had a meaningful gospel discussion that held important insights for each of us participating.

Again, back when we were inviting everyone, Elder McLean and President Merritt visited a young man named Angel. He was a member in his youth but the gospel hasn't been a big part of his teenage and adult life. He didn't make it to the devotional, but afterward Elder McLean and I wanted to involve him in the ward, so we returned a couple times to extend invitations to him. He was friendly but quiet each time we visited, and he didn't seem particularly interested. On Saturday, we made plans to visit a BIG list of people to check in on them and try and set up lessons. Only a little ways into that list, Elder McLean decided to pause our progress to stop by Angel's. I was a bit skeptical because we didn't have a particular purpose in visiting other than "checking in on him", and I didn't think he'd be that interested in talking. We knocked, he opened the door, and after a little small talk, he starts UNLOADING stories on us. The first of these is what really gets me though. He said he had recently prayed to God for a sign. A message showing him that God is there and has a purpose for him. Then, around a week after his prayer, Elder McLean and President Merritt showed up. "I don't believe in coincidences" was what he had to say about that. Pretty soon he invited us in, and we talked for over an hour. He told us about his former jobs, his hopes and worries about the future, namely about a job he had applied for and was waiting to hear back from, and how he brings God into his day. At the end we said a prayer with him, and he was brought to tears for the first time in 3 years, he said. He also accepted a Book of Mormon to keep in his truck! We met with Angel again last night and were overjoyed to discover that he got the job he wanted! And, what was more, he said he's been wanting to give back to God after all his blessings, that he'll only work 6 days a week, and that Sunday is his day off! He's working on building spiritual confidence, but he wants to eventually start coming to church! And all this from someone who seemed disinterested during our first few meetings.

Me and Angel

This has been the final transfer for a whole bunch of missionaries, so there was a departing testimony meeting we got to watch over zoom, which was a well-needed break for me. Most of the departing missionaries were sisters, so now the whole mission is a lot more Elder-heavy. One of them was Sister Jensen from our district, so many goodbyes were said.

We've been having a cool experience getting to know a new family member by member. It began when we met a guy named Noe after he knocked on our window and had a conversation with us. We got his address then, but when we visited him, he wasn't home. Instead, we met his sister, and began discussing questions about why there is suffering in this world and when it will end. After seeing Noe one more time, we returned to visit her periodically and were getting excited about her comprehension of the gospel, when on our 4th visit, we met her mom instead. After talking with her about her belief in God and revelation, she directed our attention back to Noe and urged him to learn from us about prayer. There are now 2 Book of Mormons in that family, and we hope they'll be interested in having a lesson all together. It's been special seeing things progress bit by bit.

Speaking of families, we've been noticing a funny trend where the most friendly nonmember families we know who always want to have us over are simultaneously the most difficult to teach. This is both because they spend all the lesson time chatting away with us, and because they often already feel and demonstrate a strong love for God, so they don't see much of a need to learn more, and they favor what they're already doing above the invitations we extend to them.

Our friend Mark (the library genius) still wouldn't respond to us throughout the week, and by the weekend I decided to let it be. But, I kept in my prayers the hope that he would follow through on his conviction to keep coming to church. And guess what?! This past Sunday, there he was, walking into sacrament meeting! Turns out he spent the last week in Mexico, and he's been having phone troubles. During second hour we had a class about Wilford Woodruff's search for a church with apostles and proper baptism, and it really resonated with him! We loved hearing him ask questions and watching ward members jump on answering them.

This was the last week of the transfer, and we got news about next transfer this past Sunday evening. My time in Calexico has already come to a close! I'm being transferred to Rancho Peñasquitos, an English area that is way closer to San Diego. It was kind of a funny experience leading up to the news. I spent a lot of time over the past month convinced that I wouldn't be able to handle spending more than one transfer in Calexico, struggling to learn a language I wasn't assigned to speak. But, I've also become so much more invested in increasing the spiritual power of the ward, and in the progress of all the people we were teaching. It was to a point where I would have been both happy and sad either way. So, I'm happy and sad! I'm bidding Calexico goodbye and Elder McLean will be training a new Elder there. I was looking forward to one last lesson with Lalo, but it ended up falling through. Same with Mark and one other friend. Lots of goodbyes I wasn't able say. But, the senior missionaries made me peanut butter cookies, so it balances out!

I STILL have more I want to write, but I'm out of time! I'll resort to bullet points:

• I've been working on memorizing my testimony in Spanish throughout the transfer, and I was able to deliver it to the Yearsley family on Sunday evening. It led into a discussion with a powerful, tangible spirit. Also, the Yearsleys are wonderful. They had us over for dinner periodically.

• We had breakfast with our friend Victor at 5 AM this morning at Denny's XD Glad I got to see him at least one more time.

Us and Victor at Denny's

• My new companion is Elder Creasy, and I'll probably have more to write about him next week.
• We saw Mitt Romney today! We spent our p-day in his son's backyard.

Ok, that's all for now! I'm always praying for you wonderful people back home.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

A Council of Cats

Chapter 7: Some Suspiciously Convenient Music

Happy Tuesday! It's been a pretty weird week with some big events and not a whole lot in between.

On Thursday we had a Zone Conference Tour with Elder Gary B Sabin of the Quorum of the Seventy. Half the mission was there that day, and the other half met the previous day. That was all the way over in San Diego, and it lasted a solid 6 hours. Combine that with mingling and a 2-hour car ride there and back, and those of us from Imperial Valley basically had to give up the day. 

Wind turbines and the moon on the drive to San Diego.

It was kind of funny spending so long talking about missionary work without actually doing missionary work. Nonetheless, the doctrine shared there was powerful and the spirit was present.

Our zone with President and Sister Merritt and Elder and Sister Sabin.

I even had a small personal breakthrough because I spent the first portion of the conference very distracted by some intense personal worries, but I came to the realization that we are instructed by Christ to "doubt not, fear not", and that we are justified in following that counsel because of His atonement and the promises he has given us. So choosing not to focus on our fears becomes a sacrifice we need to make. It doesn't take away the anxiety, but it does help us let go of the feeling that we need to focus on them. That even came up during the conference. Elder Sabin affirmed that the scriptures don't say following Jesus Christ merely gives you a better chance. It gives you an irrevocable promise. "[Christ is] a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." (Helaman 5:12). Among many other things, Elder Sabin also relayed to us the simple, beautiful essence of the Plan of Salvation and the celestial steps we take to return to our Father in Heaven. I'll avoid dumping my whole study journal into this email, but here's one more epiphany I had: "Perfection cannot be obtained through perfectionism. Furthermore, it is okay to have joy when you are imperfect." I hope to learn how to live that truth, especially while still maintaining high standards.

Waiting in line for lunch.

I got to give the closing prayer at the end of the conference, which was a special experience, especially after getting a thank you from Elder Sabin. Last Thursday note: I may or may not have spent the full 2 hours on the way home discussing Brandon Sanderson books with Elder Larson, a member of my zone. It's always a joy finding another dedicated fan, cause there's almost as much to talk about with that book series as there is with the whole gospel (kidding!).

On Sunday evening we held a devotional at the Stake Center in El Centro, where President Merritt and 3 recent converts shared their testimonies, and we had a musical number between each testimony. As a missionary choir, we performed All Creation Speaks His Name (an absolutely beautiful song) and a special arrangement of We'll Bring The World His Truth, both of which we've been practicing all transfer. A smaller group of missionaries also performed Peace in Christ in Spanish, and 3 talented missionaries came from another zone to join us with guitar, cello, and violin. The guitarist and cellist actually sang together before the mission, and they blew us all away.

Singing All Creation Speaks His Name for the other zones.

The devotional was a great success, though I was a little discouraged to see that we barely managed to fill the chapel even after personally inviting every single inactive member in the Valley in addition to nonmember friends and ward members. Want to hear a crazy coincidence though? Earlier that week I was listening to a recording of Music and the Spoken Word to help me get going in the morning, and as I did so it struck me how much I loved the testimony of the hymn I Know That My Redeemer Lives. I had also independently developed a new appreciation for I Stand All Amazed, and I kept both of these hymns in my heart for the next couple days. Now, fast forward to Sunday. Guess what the opening hymn to the devotional was? I Stand All Amazed! Guess what the closing hymn was? I Know That My Redeemer Lives! And, as Sister Merritt introduced All Creation Speaks His Name, she shared Alma 30:44, which happens to be one of my favorite verses, and the one I chose for my missionary plaque. Though we didn't have numberless concourses of attendees, the devotional held a lot of personal significance.

That Sunday as a whole was bittersweet. The sister missionaries were teaching a guy named Angel, and he had come to 2 sacrament meetings before, but reportedly decided that he was unimpressed, and didn't turn up this last time. Our friend Mark, who we met at the library the week before, also didn't turn up and hasn't been responding to our messages since our last meeting Wednesday. I'm especially sad that he missed the devotional. Fingers crossed that we'll be able to check in with him soon.

We had another great lesson with our friend Lalo! He told us a lot about his past, the improvements he's made in his life, and the worries he has moving forward. We've had such amazing discussions about repentance and overcoming temptation with him, and during this last one the scripture Alma 13:28 came to mind from my studies, so we read it together (first in Spanish, then in English). The truth contained therein was just what we needed at that point, and I got a strong sense that he believed it was true. Our testimony that the gospel brings families together also felt so relevant to his needs. We asked him what he wanted to learn about next, and he decided on the Plan of Salvation, so we're looking forward to teaching him about that this Thursday! As an aside, he has a little kitten named Princess, and during the lesson she tried to climb onto my lap, then hopped on the table and began nuzzling up against each of us. Whenever one of us stopped giving her attention, she would charge at the next person, going around in a triangle. Lalo had to set her back on the ground many times.

Speaking of cats, their presence in my mission is escalating. Yesterday morning when my companion started the engine, not one, but three of them ran out from under our car. 

A kitten that was yelling at me near our apartment.

In addition to being full of cats, that day was also full of meetings. We had our weekly mission devotional over zoom, a mission skills class, and district counsel, which meant that we had to drive to El Centro (only a 20 minute drive, but the time and miles add up when you're going there and back almost every other day). All this took a big chunk out of our day, and by early evening I was feeling bad that the only work we'd managed to do was pay an inactive family a casual visit. I was also really letting the adversary get to me with the idea that I was bad at starting conversations. Elder McLean and I began walking up to a new set of apartments for another visit, and just as I was letting all this bog me down, we passed by a guy carrying a bunch of fishing poles out to his truck. I looked at those fishing poles like I would an oasis after wandering in the desert for 40 years. "It's...it's...something to talk about!" I struck up a conversation even as he passed by, and we transitioned to the topic of belief in God. He told us some crazy stories and revealed that he actually owns a Book of Mormon. We're planning on visiting him this weekend. Afterward we went to visit a woman we'd met once before, but never seemed to be home thereafter. We caught her just as she was heading out for the night. She literally opened the door right as we were about to knock, and we just about gave her a heart attack. At least we were memorable! Once she got out of fight or flight, we got to schedule a return visit. Two tender mercies, just as I worried the day was a waste.

Consistently enjoying my time here and having a brightness of hope has been a struggle for me, but the importance of the atonement and the goodness of God have been apparent. I hope you all can see the constant presence of tender mercies and the ways in which the atonement is relevant in your day to day life.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Chapter 6 : God is Gracious

Hello all! Looooong email today. Maybe grab some popcorn or something. I'll start off with the shorter things and leave the sprawling narratives of Wednesday through Friday for the end.

A member of our stake has a pizza oven in his backyard which he made himself, so last p-day we got to make pizzas there. It blew my mind, cause they only take about 90 seconds to cook. 

Pizza!

That day also happened to be the bishop's birthday and he invited us to go driving around some nearby dunes. We spent quite a while trying to fix up a dune buggy, but in the end we just took his truck. Lots of wild (yet cautious) nyooming around. We caught some air at the end too.

Bishop Miles and a couple of his friends working on the buggy.

Guess what? Some Jehovah's Witness missionaries visited us the other day XD. My companion and I were in the middle of personal study when I looked out the window and saw a couple well-dressed women walking up to our door. At first, I thought it was apartment inspections, but the moment my companion began to open the door, I suspected it was something else entirely. We had a friendly conversation with them and they said they admired what we were doing coming out here in our youth.

I discovered a really cool deeper meaning behind my name! It's almost a poem for the apostle Matthew's identity. Matthew was a tax collector, and was viewed as a traitor to his people. But despite this, the Savior saw his divine potential, and called him to be a teacher and to hold the priesthood despite his reputation. Now, my last name is Tolman, quite literally meaning "toll man", which is to say, tax collector. Not the best of titles, if you ask me. But my first name, Daniel, means "God is my judge". Just as Christ saw Matthew's worth in the midst of those who harshly judged him, I can value my standing before God more than my standing before man. The world is not my judge; God is my judge. And how will He judge me after all my shortcomings? My middle name is John, meaning "God is gracious".

Daniel John Tolman: God's grace allows a public traitor to turn upward and be judged worthy of apostleship. Thanks Mom and Dad!

On Saturday the whole zone gathered together with the members for breakfast and then split off for a "Blitz", where we invited every single inactive member we had records for to a devotional next Sunday. We missionaries will be singing a beautiful song called All Creation Speaks His Name there, which we've been practicing all transfer, so we're excited. For the blitz, I went on an exchange with President Clyde, a member of the mission presidency, up in Brawley, the northmost area in our zone. Elder McLean in turn went with President Merritt down in Calexico. Being farther north gave me some more English opportunities, which was great, and President Clyde is very energetic and encouraging. He served his mission in Argentina, same as my dad, sister, uncle and cousin. As we reconvened for lunch, some of the other missionaries got me rattling on about Shakespeare, and I discovered that Hermana Neves, a member of my district, is the granddaughter of the founder of the Utah Shakespeare Festival! Her parents help run it! That had me absolutely fanboying. "I loved your grandpa!!!"

Sacrament meeting attendance went from 65 for the primary program back down to the 30's for the past couple weeks. This made me really sad, though of course it's a comfort to discover that 30 people can invite the spirit just as well as 300 can. It is hard to have a strong support system with so few though. I've felt immense gratitude for the enormous wards I've seen or been a part of back at home. Only now do I realize what a miracle they are. By extension, when I think of other missions in the world that struggle to even get 10 people to gather on Sunday, I think of what a blessing the faithful members in Calexico are. At least we have a dedicated bishop, and 3 young men to help with the sacrament, and a wonderful primary president, and so on, and so on.

Wednesday was filled with the wonders of second tries.

• We attempted to visit a friend named Marlen, but we got no response at her door. Normally that means we'd try again a different day since we have so many people to get to, but I was really hoping to see her cause we'd had a promising contact with her the week before, so I asked Elder McLean if we could come back later that evening after some other visits. When we returned, voila, she was home! And she was willing to hear a mini lesson at the door!
• Later, we were sitting in our car preparing for a visit when a guy in a dark hoodie tapped on our window and asked if we could give him a ride to pick up his bike. We had to say no due to mission rules, and he said goodbye before we could strike up more of a conversation. As he left I thought "Oh man, did we just miss an opportunity?" Following our visit, we got back in the car, only to hear a tapping on our window again. He had returned. When we rolled the window down, he asked us if we knew where he could buy a Tesla. Yes, you read that correctly. We couldn't offer much help as far as car shopping goes, but we got to talk with him more and found out that missionaries had met with his family when he was younger. We got his address and have since been able to visit him and his sister!
• Finally, after we had returned to our apartment, we decided to give our friend Rudy a call. I mentioned him a few weeks ago; he was a guy we miraculously ran into as he visited Calexico due to a tragedy in his family (We followed up with him later and discovered that he read Alma 40!). So I dialed him up, but he didn't answer. We normally call everyone twice just in case, but it was pretty late in the evening and we had unsuccessfully tried to call him pretty recently, so I got really worried that we were only bugging him. But, just as I was about to move on, I thought "aah, I'm going for it" and called again. This time he answered! We got to check in on him, invite him to read more and pray, and ask him what blessings he needed us to pray for for him. He expressed a lot of appreciation to us for keeping in touch. Third second try of the day!

I have a grand tale to tell you all, and it begins in the MTC store several weeks back. Each week there, we were given a little bit of pocket change to spend on extra supplies or snacks, and I hadn't spent any of mine yet. Elder Hansen and I were taking a look around the MTC store when I decided to buy a hardcover Book of Mormon to get a fresh start on marking scriptures. As we left, we started talking about how it was also a good idea to have an extra Book of Mormon on us for our flight out into the field in case we found an opportunity to share it with someone. I thought "huh, maybe this purchase won't be for me after all".

At the airport and on the plane, I let my timidity and the anticipation of my mission get the better of me, and didn't end up finding an opportunity to give the copy away. Once I began proselyting, extra copies of the Book of Mormon became commonplace, but my MTC copy felt special, firstly because I bought it myself, and secondly because it was a hardcover, whereas the copies provided for us to hand out are paperback. I resolved that it would be the first Book of Mormon I would hand out in my mission (makes me think of The Polar Express when Santa shouts "The first gift of Christmas!!" Just substitute the bell for a Book of Mormon, I guess).

Now, I've mentioned in previous emails that the work here in Calexico has been a struggle. To put that in Book of Mormon terms, in my first 3 weeks, we managed to hand out a grand total of 3 copies, all of them in Spanish. I carried my copy wherever we went, sometimes thinking "today is the day", but to no avail. This past Thursday morning, we finally had the opportunity to sit down with a nonmember and teach a full lesson! I got to teach a good portion of it, which felt fantastic. However, we had planned on having Elder McLean extend the invitation to read the Book of Mormon at the end, so it was his that we ended up giving away.

Afterward we planned on going to a park to do companion and language study, but it was super windy, so we decided to go to the SDSU library instead. As we sat there reading from Preach My Gospel, it struck me just how simply and beautifully the authors lay out the gospel of Jesus Christ there, and I began secretly hoping that someone would overhear us and ask us about it. God basically told me "I'll do you one better", because no one overheard us, but a bit later a young man saw us, walked right up to us, and began asking about our belief in God. Pretty soon, he launched into an in-depth discussion about Christ-like figures in Greek and Roman mythology, the parallels between different cultures' beliefs, classical literature, and the second coming of Christ. My liberal arts high school brain lit up (Paradigm!!!). But it gets better.

As we discussed Christianity, he mentioned that he thought it was interesting that the Bible was written about one specific people–the Jews, and he wondered whether God had prepared that same gospel for other nations. I told him He has!! And that in these times He is gathering together all people to be one in Christ, and that He prepared the Book of Mormon to accomplish this work. Then I whipped out my hardcover and opened to the title page where it says "Written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile…And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations." When he heard that he said "Gentile! That's the word I was looking for." It still gets better.

The discussion drove on and we circled back to Christ-like figures in history, and how great men can have a form of godliness in them. He pulled out a book about Cyrus the Great and started talking about his amazing qualities in scriptural terms, and how he freed the Jews. And then it clicked in my brain. "Hang on," I said, "Cyrus, who freed the Jews from their captivity following the invasion of Jerusalem?? The Book of Mormon prophesies that!! The fall of Jerusalem is where it all begins!" The book our friend held was directly intertwined with what we were sharing with him. It still gets better.

Our new friend proceeded to explain that he is a former Catholic, that his life recently took a drastic turn because of signs God has been giving him, and that he's been having revelatory, even prophetic experiences (some of the stuff he was talking about was pretty out there). For this reason he's been reading a lot about Christianity, looking for someone to talk to about it and perhaps a church to attend. He said the day before, he went to that very library hoping to run into someone, but didn't find who he was looking for. So, he tried again the next day and…there we were. After all we had told him, he showed a keen interest in the Book of Mormon and asked where he could get one. I looked down at the copy I had been carrying around for the past 3 weeks, told him I bought it in the hopes that I would some day give it to someone who cares deeply about what it says, and then slid it over to him. He accepted it and promised he would read it! There honestly could not have been a more perfect person for me to give that special copy to. Our lessons with him get pretty wildly off-topic, but he has an incredible mind and love for God, and he made it to church on Sunday!

Thursday as a whole was a miracle day for me and Elder McLean. We did actually see it coming because of all the plans we made for that day in the week leading up, but many of the blessings were still unexpected. Some of our exciting plans fell through, only to be replaced by more exciting coincidences. One of our lessons threatened to fall through, then blessedly worked out. That was our friend Lalo. Super friendly guy. 

Our friend Lalo

We planned on having a lesson with him for that evening and confirmed with him in the morning, but when we came to his door, no one answered. We knocked, rang his 2 doorbells, waited in the car trying to call and text him, passed some time by making other calls, knocked one last time, and then tragically started to drive back to our neighborhood. Maybe about a minute into our drive, he called us back, declaring that he was home, and that he just got out of the shower. Delighted, we returned and had a great lesson (in English! Elder Tolman's favorite candy!) where he told us his incredible journey of repentance, overcoming hopelessness, and holding fast to the Bible. At the end, he happily accepted a Book of Mormon from us and committed to reading about Christ in 3 Nephi 11 and meeting with us again. That day, we handed out the same number of Book of Mormons as we did in our first 3 weeks. I also got to teach lessons rather than just smiling and nodding! That felt great. It was honestly the first time I felt genuine joy in doing this work, and like I had a grasp of what exactly we're doing out here.

I was a little worried that all that momentum would die down on Friday, especially because President and Sister Merritt were coming out to the Valley that day for zone conference and interviews, which would take a huge chunk out of that day. Plus, a lesson we were looking forward to ended up cancelling, and an activity we had planned with a nonmember friend ended up falling through. But nonetheless, we were able to schedule a same-day lesson with another friend, taught him the restoration, and did some great tracting in conjunction with nonmember visits that evening. By the end of the day, we had handed out 3 more Book of Mormons with plans to follow up with 3 more friends.

Alright, there's plenty more I could add, but that'll do it! Thanks for reading to the end. This week was just such a dramatic contrast from the first half of the transfer, and I wanted to record the miracles in detail. Finally having the chance to actually start teaching people and have a hand in their journey closer to God has helped me grow more invested in this area and have hope for the future. After a lot of pressing forward feeling a little useless at times, it feels like God has been paying me back by letting opportunities fall into my lap. I hope you can endure to find the same blessings in your life.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Palm trees make the houses here look so picturesque.

Border traffic. EVERYONE heads down to Mexicali before the weekend.

That cat darts out from under our car every morning when we start the engine.

We've been getting some beautiful sunsets. And God made them for us! "Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart." D&C 59:18

Chapter 5: Happy Halloween!

Hello! 

It's gonna be a quick one today. I feel like this past week has been a whole lot of nothing. At the end of each day I feel like there's so much more I could have done, and overall I haven't had a lot of teaching opportunities. 

Nonetheless, likewise on each day I find that there's at least something--some tender mercy or small opportunity--to provide at least temporary relief from the worries of the day. After an evening of seemingly fruitless door to door contacting, we came across a man named Juan pulling things out of his truck in the dark. In a sort of a last ditch effort for that day, we asked him if he wanted help. One of the first things he said to us (in Spanish) was "You guys work for God, right?" That started a great discussion in which we found out that he collects different denominations' books of scripture and that he owns a copy of the Book of Mormon. We got to set up a meeting with him to learn more about his beliefs, and we're really looking forward to it. Through a seemingly mundane week, little miracles have been just around the corner all throughout.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

We mainly celebrated on Saturday at a Stake Fall Family Festival where there the bishop brought some Captan Moroni Armor that Elder McLean obligingly modeled (wearing the bishop's hat as an extra touch).

Lastly, there have been many more cat encounters, 

and I finally got a picture next to the border! 

There's plenty more I could write about, but alas, time does not permit. Maybe that's a tender mercy for those who endure my unrelenting monologues XD.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman