Chapter 22: When Things Just Align

Ok, first things first, I have a story from last week that I didn't get the chance to share. We were teaching an object lesson to a younger family where we had each of them go retrieve an object they've lost before and tell everyone the story of how they found it. I call this type of activity a show & tell lesson, and I find it's a great way to help families share more about themselves and relate their experiences with the principles we're teaching. It was actually that very family that gave us the idea, cause we once had dinner with them, and as we got to know their kids, each of them in turn ran off and got something of theirs to show us (a watercolor painting, a story they wrote, a lego Frozen castle, etc.). We just spent the whole time thinking "This is fantastic!" and later used their enthusiasm as inspiration. So, the theme of this lesson was "recovering what was lost," and we invited them to think about how the joy and relief they felt when they found their possession is the same feeling God has when we repent. We followed that up with a readthrough of the story of the Prodigal Son, focusing especially on the father's joy, and we ended with a discussion on what it means to repent. It all went very well, and we loved hearing their stories. Everyone except their dad chose stuffed animals as their object, which was adorable, and the story their mom shared was just too good not to relay to you.

She absolutely loved The Lion King back when it first came out. Right around that time, her older brother was heading out on his mission, and as a parting gift, he bought her stuffed animals of Simba and Nala. She adored them. At night, she would fall asleep with one in each arm, and whenever she especially missed her brother, they were what she would cling to. However, a day came when she went to play with them and got Nala as usual, but Simba was nowhere to be found. She searched and searched, but in vain. It was as though he had just vanished. She was devastated. So, she decided to turn to someone who knows where every stuffed animal in the world is. She knelt down in prayer, asking God for help finding the other half of her brother's lost gift. Some time later, she and her sister were tossing Nala back and forth when one of their tosses went wide, flying across the room to land in an obscure spot. When they went to retrieve her, they found she had fallen on another small object on the floor. It was Simba! Nala rested right on top of him. Not only had the prayer been answered, but it happened in a way that perfectly matched a scene from the movie. "Pinned ya again!"

This made me reflect on the testimony-building wonder of seeing your prayers answered as a child--having those first few experiences where you think "Wait, prayer works for me too?" They lay crucial foundations for us, but they also show who God really is. Think about it. The innocent requests of little children, trivial as some may seem, are answered by the powers of heaven. Within the grand scheme of His eternal plan, working toward the salvation of billions upon billions, God made way for a young girl to find her lost stuffed animal. It goes to show a tender truth. He is not only our God in Heaven. He is our Father in Heaven. Can I say that with any more affection and reverence? Not just God, but Father.

While I'm at it, there's also an insight from a couple weeks ago that I meant to share but didn't get to. We were having dinner with our ward mission leader (who is awesome, by the way!) and he shared an outlook on the miracle of Jesus transforming water to wine that I had never heard before. We find multiple examples of faith in this story. Mary's faith that Jesus could provide more wine; Jesus's faith as he performed the miracle; the servants' faith in obeying Jesus's instructions. Brother Millard drew particular attention to those servants, specifically to their faith right as they served the wine. Jesus had instructed them to fetch water with pots that people normally used to wash themselves, and they were about to offer the contents to the governor of the feast. John even pointed out their awareness of what they were serving. "When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom". How would he react to this questionable refreshment? Brother Millard talked about how their nerve-wracking act of faith is just like missionary work. It is having the courage to step forward and boldly declare what Christ has asked you to, even when you don't fully understand it all. As missionaries (set apart or not), we don't always know what impact the gospel will have in others' lives. We promise blessings to those we teach, but we don't often see how those promises are fulfilled. Some of us even struggle with our own testimonies as we press forward, simply doing the best we can. It's just as scary as it is joyful. Just as uncertain as it is crystal clear. But that doesn't make it contradictory. It simply means we're being stretched in the faith we exercise. And after the servants' faith, how was the wine received? It was esteemed better than the wine they had served before. Christ offers the best gifts through those with the faith to give them.

Alright, now I'll finally actually get into this week. 😆

It's been a rainy one. Sounds like more so than usual for San Diego. At the same time, each time it starts to storm, it won't commit. One morning we were driving over to the church, and on the way it started coming down pretty hard, but by the time we arrived, it had stopped completely. It wasn't so much rain as it was God kicking over a bucket of water. A member later told us that of all the times for her to go on a morning walk that day, it was right then. It's like the sky was singling her out and playing a practical joke on her.

We had a mini zone conference on Friday to hear from Elder Slaughter, an area seventy. We packed almost the entire mission into that chapel. 7 out of 8 zones. Imperial Valley was the odd one out, being the farthest away, and they were definitely teased. Lovingly, though. And they still got to join via Zoom. Lots of great wisdom from that conference, but the highlight for me was a discussion on the spirit that our testimonies can invite when we keep them concise. It's subtle, but church lingo can sometimes weigh down a simple message. "I want to bear my testimony that these things are true, and I know that Jesus Christ lives." vs. "These things are true. Jesus Christ lives." Can you feel the difference?

Mini zone conference. "Mini" only really applies cause we were just there to hear from Elder Slaughter for a couple hours. We'll be having our usual longer zone conference this upcoming week.

Also on Friday, we were visiting a man named Stanley who was referred to us, and as we walked to his condo, we settled on visiting a nearby member afterward. Seconds after deciding on that, we saw that very member getting her mail, and we invited her to join us on our visit. She agreed! Stanley answered and we had a friendly conversation, enormously helped by having his neighbor there with us. Afterward we headed over to her house and had a wonderful lesson on the light Christ provides.

We went on exchanges with our zone leaders on Saturday. I stayed in Rancho Peñasquitos with Elder Barker, and we had a pretty good day. We taught two more lessons than we originally planned, and they were great opportunities to work on applying what we learned in zone conference. It was also raining pretty hard through most of the day, and we were worried we would have to just make phone calls in the late afternoon instead of doing the tracting we had planned, but we decided at least visit a previously taught friend in the same apartment complex we hoped to spend time in, and as we walked away from her door, the clouds parted and the rain stopped!

Tolman & Barker in the rain

A family in our ward had dinner planned with us, but they were also planning dinner with their next door neighbor, and our schedules all happened to align, so they decided to do both at once. Thus, their neighbor joined us for our lesson that evening! She was Muslim herself, but she contributed so much to our discussion about seeing God's hand in our lives, and we shared a message about the personal nature of Christ's atonement. We then discovered that she needed help with her yard, so we got to set up a time to see her again and help out with that!

We were driving through a neighborhood on our way to visit someone when Elder Meilstrup spotted a giant moving trailer and an open garage filled with stuff, clearly about to be loaded. Naturally, we made a U-turn, walked up to the overflowing garage, and asked the guy hidden among the piles of stuff if he needed help. There we met Lewis, who we learned was a videographer moving out of state. The garage was mostly filled with massive lighting and audio equipment. He had asked a few people for help moving, but none of them were available, so we found him trying to do it all on his own. We had a half hour before our next lesson to help him out, and then we scheduled a time to return with another pair of Elders the following day. As we worked during that first impromptu opportunity, a couple rolled down their window as they drove by and asked "Do you always wear white shirts and ties when you move?"

Helping Lewis (the second day)

I wish I got a picture of the whole garage,
cause it was a jungle of equipment.

Here's something for my family of Trekkies. We were having dinner with our ward clerk and his family when the topic of our conversation somehow turned to Star Trek. That's the second fan I've found in the ward! From that conversation I learned he was involved in a stage re-creation of an old radio play, for which he performed with Armin Shimerman (Quark) and a few members of the Voyager cast. It was fun hearing his wife talk about how excited he got at that opportunity.

We finished off the week by going on exchanges with our neighboring Elders in Black Mountain. I went to their area with Elder Rogers. It was a pretty weird day for an exchange because we had district council, and we had that second service opportunity with Lewis, and we needed to give the Rancho Bernardo Elders a ride toward the end of the day, but we still had a good time. Elder Rogers taught me a little bit of ASL, and we went around tracking down uncontacted members. Just before the end of the exchange, a ward member invited us in, and during the long conversation that followed, he told us a story from his mission in France. Someone once angrily told him and his companion "I am going to throw you off this balcony." It was a tiny Frenchman, and his companion was 6'3". 😆

Thanks for reading to the end! I wish you all a pleasant week.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Chapter 20: Third Time's a Charm

Good day! Or night! Or wherever in between! Sorry this email's being sent a day late.

I have some bullet points to fire at you. So....prepare to be hospitalized?

• We received transfer news on Sunday night! I'll be staying in Rancho Peñasquitos with Elder Meilstrup, so here goes round three! This is the first transfer where everything has stayed the same, and I'm quite content. 



Companionship study on the grass








• I appreciate how familiar I've become with the ward and area, and there are things we set out to accomplish last transfer that still need more work. The entire Peñasquitos zone does have the challenge of struggling to find new people to teach, but this is well counterbalanced by just how dedicated the members here are to missionary work, between supporting us, reaching out to their friends, and using their Ward Mission Plans.
• More stuff about transfers: Elder Meilstrup is our new district leader! Also, Elder Moulton, who has been in my district for past couple transfers, is moving out of the zone and will be paired with Elder Hansen, my MTC companion! I'm now seeing that part of the fun with transfers is watching different missionaries meet each other when you know them separately.
• On Sunday, our Bishop hosted Ward MTC (a.k.a mission prep) to help the youth get acquainted with teaching gospel principles and start thinking about their missions. We got to help out with that, and there was such a strong spirit in the room, especially at the end. I really enjoyed talking with the youth afterward too, and the whole experience made me reflect on how much I appreciated attending mission prep before my mission. Those classes were honestly just as helpful as the MTC was.
• We had a very successful transfer of social media work! Elder Meilstrup and I were on the graphic design team responsible for making posts and stories for our mission Facebook page, and as a mission we got over a hundred more social media referrals than our previous transfer!
• A friend named Jeff asked for help loading his truck with the remnants of a monstrous tree he cut down in his backyard. 



The first half of the work load at Jeff's



Truck fully loaded!
(You may think my tag is crooked, but in actuality,
it's perfectly level, and we, the camera,
and the rest of the universe are tilted at an extreme angle.)



• We enjoyed talking with Jeff, and our casual conversation turned to several deeper topics, including what we believe God has in store for us following this life. Jeff hasn't ever been interested in receiving lessons, but I think what we said about the degrees of glory really resonated with him. Our final destination is not about being sorted into a category. It's about how close to God we want to be. Afterward, as we drove away, we saw some of Jeff's neighbors walking up to him. The next morning, he sent us a text saying we came up in their conversation, and he had given them our number!
• As we walked into a lesson with Brother and Sister Bush one evening, their cat came charging at us (well, charging in a leisurely sort of way). Brother Bush punctuated that with a "Get 'em, Kib!" And called her their attack cat. I asked about the name "Kib", and learned that the neighbor who they received the cat from had a little daughter who pronounced "kitty cat" "kibitty kabidit". This somehow caught on, and the cat was thusly named, Kibitty, or Kib for short. That got some chuckles out of us. Our lesson with them went really well and branched out into many discussions, from temple work to navy stories about triangulation. On one such tangent, we talked about the learning process we go through on missions, and I remarked, "I guess I never fully realized that feeling inexperienced is what makes you experienced in the end". Brother Bush replied, both ominously and insightfully, "That never stops. And though you're each facing difficulty right now, you're going to look back on this and miss how much easier it was. Always be grateful for what you have now."
• I went on exchanges to Rancho Bernardo, north of our area, and during a period of feeling discouraged while tracting and street contacting, I fell into the classic missionary pitfall of expecting rejection from people. But, right as we were heading off to a lesson, we passed by a man walking his dog. At first, we only greeted him and wished him a good evening. Then Elder Blake, my companion at the time, stopped, turned around, and told him we share messages about Jesus Christ. A conversation unfolded out of nowhere, and the man, who we learned was named Craig, opened up to us about his relationship with religion and his pursuit of drawing closer to Christ. He ended up accepting a Book of Mormon from me, heard our testimonies, and committed to reading the introduction. Often times you don't see tender mercies coming. This makes doubt a very difficult experience, but at the same time, it introduces a crucial hope. You never know when you're about to be thrust into the light. At any given moment, it is a possibility.
  
  

Why am I using bullet points if I'm just going to write a full paragraph every time, you ask? I couldn't tell you. Maybe I'm just tricking my brain into thinking the task is smaller than it really is. Pretty handy, now that I think about it. May you find similar tricks to lighten your own tasks this week.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

The sun hasn't stopped setting, so I have not stopped admiring it:

Finally remembered to include this pic of me and Eric Weddle back from last zone conference 😆 

Chapter 21: The Father of Lights

 A spectacular Tuesday to you! Here's the latest episode of Time Seems to Have Lost All Meaning. Contrasting the final weeks of last transfer, this week has gone by a lot slower, and I can't really say why. I feel like my brain just flips a coin after each P-day to decide how it's going to perceive the day to day progression. I suppose that does provide some contrast in how I reflect on my time here. Sometimes my memory gives me a condensed view of the week as a whole, while other times I can look back on individual sprawling days.

As far as the content of the week goes, things have been pretty good. No sudden momentum in nonmember lessons, but we've had some cool opportunities all throughout. We also set up exchanges with each member of our district and got the first pair of them done with the Rancho Bernardo Elders this past Saturday and Monday. I went up to their area both times and bade our car goodbye. RB is small enough that though they have bikes, they prefer to walk everywhere and focus on street contacting along the way. That's always a refreshing change from RPQ, cause between studies, driving, and lessons, we sure do spend a lot of time sitting, which is only broken up by a little time walking around parks and between doorsteps.

On the first exchange, Elder Cox and I were sitting down at a park to start a brief companionship study when a member walked up to us and asked if we wanted play baseball with her kids. We said absolutely and walked with her over to a nearby baseball field where her son and 2 daughters were waiting, all of them elementary school age. She proclaimed "I've recruited some Elders!" and we spent the next part of the afternoon hitting over-dramatized homeruns and turning a blind eye to everyone's numerous strikes. It was lots of chaotic fun. A pleasant little highlight before the main chunk of our proselyting time. I spent part of the walk to our next destination learning some baseball lingo from Elder Cox, who played in high school.

Getting to go on a another exchange to the same area just a couple days later was a cool opportunity, cause it provided some second chances. Elder Cox and Elder Blake had been trying to reach their progressing friends Tristan and Maya for a while, and we stopped by their place on Saturday evening with no answer. BUT on Monday evening, right at the end of the day when we were playing the "hmm, we should probably head home about now....ooor we could knock another door" game, we were in their same apartment complex and decided to swing by once again. They were home! We had such a fun conversation with them and we got bit more info about their schedules so they could meet Elder Cox, who was in RPQ at the time. Speaking of which, I gotta say I'm a little jealous of the stuff going on in RPQ when I was away. They had an awesome service opportunity that we spontaneously set up with a member Sunday night literally as we were heading out of a lesson with them. A tiny downside of exchanges is not seeing the payoff of events you set up. I also missed out on a long anticipated lesson with Brother King on Saturday and then again Monday.😢 I'm certainly glad they happened though!

Ok, one other thing from that Monday exchange. We had a dinner lesson with a member who served in the Tokyo South mission and was also into anime, and he shared a pretty funny set of experiences as a result. Every time his favorite shows would depict Tokyo, he was literally watching an anime version of his mission! He talked about various moments where he would think something like, "Wait, that library in the background....we did studies there!" The idea of watching a story play out in an animated version of areas where you've proselyted is just super disorienting to me.😆 On a different note, I'm still feeling spiritual aftershocks from the topic of that lesson. We discussed how the first principle of the gospel is faith, but not just faith as a general concept. Specifically, faith in Jesus Christ. We read the account of Christ walking on water in Matthew 14, and how it was Peter's focus on Christ that allowed him to step out on the water too. Peter didn't just say "I want to walk on water, and I believe I can do it!" As we read in verses 28 and 29, his express purpose is to draw closer to Christ. In Moroni's discussion on faith in Ether 12, he lists various examples of miracles throughout the scriptures and points to faith as the means by which they were worked. But in verse 18, he expounds on what exactly he means by faith. "And neither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they first believed in the Son of God." Straightforward? Yes. To be taken for granted? Not at all! We use faith everywhere in life, but the message of the gospel is that the most powerful place to rest it is in Jesus Christ.

We got to help set up for a service project with Days for Girls at the stake center, and it's been really cool seeing each new event increase in scale. Rather than having a few groups of tables here and there like last time, the gym was absolutely FILLED with them by the time we were done. Various expanded stations for materials, sewing machines, sergers, quality control, and so on. Nearly a hundred people made it that evening to help assemble feminine kits, and there was a pretty good nonmember presence as well! The event was not specifically run by the church, but Sister Bush took special care to arrange the layout so people would pass by pictures of Christ as they entered, as opposed to prior layouts that had people enter through the church kitchen for convenience. It was a great subtle way to bring the Savior to the forefront of peoples' minds as they, knowingly or unknowingly, accomplished His work. We weren't involved in the actual project since the Days for Girls organization is modeled around women and girls joining together to support other women and girls, but we appreciate being able to contribute in our own way with each new event. Sounds like they anticipate around 300 people at the next one!

That same evening was a memorable one for us. We had a dinner lesson set up with Bishop Hilton's family, but he unfortunately couldn't be there due to a meeting. Since we're not allowed to enter someone's home without another man present, we ended up having dinner with the rest of the Hiltons in their backyard, with ribbits from a nearby pond providing some nice ambience.

The next day as we did visits between lessons, we dropped by an absolutely awesome member family to see if we could liberate a youth for an important upcoming lesson. We pulled up to their house and as we stood by the driveway doublechecking something in the area book, Sister Crowther came out to greet us. She teaches seminary and was the mastermind behind that awesome airplane lesson I mentioned a couple months ago. We've continued to let her know we love participating in classes like that, and as we talked with her, for whatever reason, the first thing that came to mind was to ask again if she needed any help with seminary, even though our primary purpose for visiting was different. She replied with a, "Yes actually! Would you be available tomorrow morning?" Apparently we caught her at a time when that exact topic was on her mind. She would be teaching two classes combined into one and planned to divide the students into discussion groups, but was a little concerned about running all of them singlehandedly. It worked out perfectly! We headed out bright and early the next morning and got to go from discussion group to discussion group, helping the students deep dive into scriptures and teach each other about them. We also had the opportunity to share a couple of our own insights, and Elder Meilstrup shared something he's told me about before, but it felt especially powerful in the moment.

A hasty picture as we walked out of seminary

His favorite name for Jesus Christ comes from James 1:17. The Father of Lights. Not light (singular), though that's also true (He is the Light and the Life of the world, and our source of light), but lights. This could be interpreted in multiple ways. For example, there is considering the various forms of light we see and knowing He is behind them all. But I especially love when you combine this with Abinadi's insight that Christ, in a way, is our Father (Mosiah 15:2-3). He is the Father of Lights, and He stands as a Father figure to us. So what does that mean about us? We are the lights to which that title refers.

Our ward's primary president invited us to join the junior and senior primary classes on Sunday! We helped out with a couple of the activities, sang with the kids (there are few things better than jumping up to Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam in missionary attire, tie and clip-on tag flying about), and got to share simple testimonies about how we shine our light as missionaries. My invitation to the kids was to shine their light by smiling at everyone they pass. It's something I sometimes need to be better about too, and though small, it can work as a tender mercy in anyone and everyone's day. I'll extend the same invitation to you!

I have a really cute story to share with you from a lesson that evening, but I'll have to promise to throw it in my next weekly, cause I'm out of time!

Final tidbit: we got to attend the temple this morning! I had a LOT to think about in the Celestial room after the new presentation of the endowment. We also ran into two youth from our ward there bright and early at 5 AM to do baptisms. And two ward members happened to be in our same session! 

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Stars & Palm Trees

This tree was simply begging to be posed with.

Chapter 19: Seeking the Spirit

Good day to you! I'm out of time to write all I wish I could, but permit me a frantic spouting of words! It's been a busy week with lessons, for which Elder Meilstrup and I have been grateful. We also had exchanges with our district leader on Friday (I stayed in RPQ with Elder Spencer) and then with our Zone Leaders on Saturday (I went to Scripps Ranch with Elder Ulibarri), so we had to bid each other adieu for most of the weekend.

Whenever we do exchanges we set a few goals beforehand, and for one of mine on the first exchange I specifically wanted to recognize the presence of the spirit in each of the 3 lessons we had planned for that day. Pretty straightforward, but I wanted to give it some extra attention. Long story short, it was a success! But what especially stood out to me was how it was fulfilled in that first lesson. We were meeting with Brother King to review the gospel of Jesus Christ through 2 Nephi 31 and discuss how enduring to the end relates to priesthood and temple goals. We love talking with Brother King, and the discussion went well, but I struggled to find and feel that inspiring power the spirit offers. At the start of the lesson we had asked if he would be willing to offer the closing prayer, and he gave us a slightly timid maybe. He's been working on building confidence praying with others. When we ended the lesson, however, he accepted our invitation, and it was in that moment as he prayed that I really felt the spirit, who was surely already there. Perhaps witnessing his courage caused my own spirit to take heart and reach out. Or maybe it's that I got an inkling of how much God's love for him swelled. Also on that exchange we had a great contact with an inactive family, and they made it to church on Sunday! We also got to have a very successful lesson with them afterward.

In the second exchange, one of the main things we did was tract in an ENORMOUS apartment complex the members and missionaries refer to as "great and spacious" (as a name, not just an adjective 😆). Those apartments seriously do look exactly like the great and spacious building in that well known painting of Lehi's dream.

Another thing: we had interviews with President Merritt this week and roleplays with Sister Merritt. The focus of the roleplays was teaching difficult commandments, and Elder Meilstrup and I had an awesome companionship unity moment teaching the notorious law of chastity. Roleplays in district council the following Monday also went very well with asking inspired questions and teaching the Plan of Salvation. So, in addition to being a good lesson week, it's been a good roleplaying week.

Aaah many other things to say, both trivial and deeply meaningful. But I'll limit it to a couple.

Quote of the week:

(As we walk out of a member lesson.)

Elder Tolman: *glances down at doorknob* "Heyyy, that right there is a Juniper 107 11P vintage br-"

Elder Meilstrup: "Shut up."

*both of us burst into laughter*

Endnote: Sometimes we can be so resistant to what the spirit would love to offer directly to our minds and hearts that God must use another of His many instruments to deliver personal revelation. In my case, it has been about 10 different mentors offering the same inspired message over and over again until my stubborn brain has begun to yield to their encouragement. I can testify that not all angels reside in heaven, and I'm grateful to have them patiently at my side.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Finding moments to appreciate God's creations:

Elder Meilstrup and I, both quite obsessed with the Stormlight Archive, have taken the Knights Radiant personality quiz before the mission and entered the field bearing more titles than Elder. I'm a Windrunner and he's a Truthwatcher. Somehow this came up in one of my calls home, and my family sent us challenge coins with our respective Knights Radiant orders! We feel cool.

Moving a friend in Mira Mesa

A hike from this afternoon.
We reached the top and were shocked at how still and peaceful it was.
It was a well needed break from the noise of our areas.

Squirrel is enjoying the scene too!