Here we are in the last few days of 2022! Time really does fly, but at the same time it really doesn't. I've been looking back on events from last winter as if they were only a few months ago, but then I think of events not much earlier than that and they seem years and years old. I'll revise my statement to: time takes its sweet time, but memory blends together. That's been the pattern on the mission. Days and weeks feel looong, but when I look back on them I have no sense of what happened when, giving the illusion that it all flew by. Bottom line: time is weird. Maybe that's all I'm trying to say.
This week started off with exchanges. Elder Creasy stayed in Rancho Peñasquitos with Elder Moulton, our district leader, and I went to Black Mountain with Elder Tausinga, his trainee. It was a pretty new experience being in a companionship where we were both greenies (I'm in my second transfer and Elder Tausinga is in his first), but it was ultimately a refreshing change that helped me push myself. It was also the first time on my mission that I was made the designated driver, and it's been long enough since I've been behind the wheel that it took a lot of adjusting. We survived though! I now know what it's like to drive under the...*ahem*...LOVING supervision of a Tiwi device. Avoiding the little warnings it gives is a bit more challenging than I thought it would be, but I managed to escape with only a couple. Elder Tausinga was a joy to be with that day. He has an enthusiastic all-in mentality, and I learned from him about recognizing spiritual promptings with confidence.
We had a pretty cool moment in one of our lessons where, leading up to the end of the message we were sharing, I began thinking about inviting the family to say gratitude prayers and find a new way to focus on the Savior this Christmas, then soon after I thought about that, as Elder Tausinga talked, he suddenly said "...and I feel inspired to give you guys an invitation" and paused, not having a particular invitation in mind. I stepped in and voiced the one that occurred to me, and we finished off strong. Now, extending invitations and challenges is a pretty standard thing to do in a missionary lesson, but for that particular lesson, we hadn't made any plans beforehand to give one. Initially, I viewed this moment of heightened unity only as a minor coincidence, but afterward, the two of us discussed how if the adversary is indeed present in our lives, disguising divine inspiration in a veil of insignificance must be one of his uttermost concerns. What seems on the surface a simple event valued only by the whims of our reasoning may instead host a battle between the Source of All Joy and the deceiver. I've continually remained cautious when it comes to declaring what is and is not the Spirit, worried about being overconfident, but that night I asked myself, "What if there is something subtly pushing that caution just a bit too far?"
Other highlights from that transfer included meeting and chatting with a couple friendly people while tracting and setting up a return appointment with one of them. We also had a lesson with an elderly sister (& poet!) in the Black Mountain ward, during which we met her cats Lucy, Murphy, and Otis. The lesson paused many times so we could pull Otis off the counter, and it came to a complete halt at one point when I had to retrieve Lucy from off the top of the fridge to prevent her from knocking Christmas decorations over. The cat theme of my mission lives on!
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| Me and Murphy the cat (to my family: he kind of reminds me of Tux)
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One evening while the sun was setting we noticed a faint haze in the air as we looked over nearby hills. We drove to Brother King's and sat with him on his porch to review the Plan of Salvation, continuing to help him prepare to go through the temple. We talked till past dark, and when we turned back toward the street, we were surprised to discover the entire neighborhood covered in fog! This created a mesmerizing effect with the Christmas lights and street lamps. I wish I got better pictures, but I'll include a couple!
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Fog! Where's a mistcloak when you need one? |
I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Though the past few weeks in San Diego have been a little chilly, it was a whopping 82 degrees on Christmas Day, apparently making it the warmest in the country! What a surreal winter. The highlight of the day was definitely being able to video call with my entire family visiting together on the other end, but a close second was spending the evening with Bishop Hilton and his family. We've been able to join them for both Thanksgiving and Christmas now, and their rascal-filled home is a prime place to spend the holidays. They also had the Hansen family over from the ward, so there was a lot going on. Right before dinner, we all shared our favorite name of Christ, which was a great way to take the enormous scope of His goodness and personalize it. I chose Advocate with the Father, because He stands in our defense, always asserting that we are worthy of love and opportunities to improve, even when we don't appear to deserve it. Sometimes He has to be our advocate when we ourselves are our own prosecutor. Thank goodness there is someone who will always step into that loving role.
We asked a couple of the Hilton boys what they got for Christmas, and with a slight grimace, they answered "underwear and deodorant". I laughed and told them there will come a day when they'll be overjoyed to receive stuff like that, and candy and cookies will become a source of stress (yes, goodies from the ward have continued to multiply). Good will become bad and bad will become good...in the best possible way 😆. They also received some pretty awesome presents that we loved hearing about, but the kicker in this story is that the Hiltons were super thoughtful and gave Elder Creasy and me presents containing pure gold! Pens, a journal, peppermints, and, you guessed it, deodorant! Hopefully they weren't trying to tell us something with that... They also threw in toothpaste, which had to have been divine inspiration, because I was literally about to run out. We enjoyed finishing the night out with games and a Christmas message.
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| A mini miracle in the form of toothpaste (with our compactable 5-foot-tall Christmas tree in the background) |
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| 4 out of the 6 Elders in my district playing Kendama at district council |
One last thought. It recently occurred to me that while we must be observant where we place our faith, faith is a more sure foundation than reason. I have proven to myself time and time again that I can think myself almost into oblivion, going around in circles, each new circuit more anxious and complex than the last. Faith, though it has no airtight justifying defense, simply is. We have only to look to where it leads and what it creates. There are many unanswered questions we have the right to ask in this life, but when those questions make everything seem dark and warped, we must ask ourselves, "After all is said and done, where does the light shine?" I've seen that light in my family. I've seen it as we've been united in the gospel. I've seen it in living righteously to the best of my ability. What can I say more?
God be with you,
Elder Tolman
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| Palm tree silhouettes during visits one evening |
il.
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