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