Chapter 30: Exquisite Gratitude

 Hi! Hope you're doing well! Many things to say! 

We had lessons with 4 different inactive families this week! Let's even say 4.5, cause we had a positive contact with another and set up a lesson with them. But, alas, on the nonmember friends side, 2 important lessons with people we want to start teaching fell through, so we've had a bit of tragedy in the mix.

Someone wasn't home for our lesson, so we took a selfie with their smoker in retaliation.

We had a couple exciting interactions on the pier one afternoon. A woman named Blanca walked right up to us and requested that we pray with her, and we ran into someone Elder Rhodes had already met at a Walmart before and who had been taught by the Spanish Elders. We had a great conversation with her about having the courage to come to church and overcoming the fear of being judged by others (Elder Uchtdorf's talk from this past Conference felt very relevant). She also told me, "Tolman" sounds like "atonement". That made me smile.

We were making visits to people who had been previously taught when we met Gilbert. He was in a pretty rough situation and as that became more apparent in our conversation, we happened to turn to the topic of the missionaries who had taught him before. It turned out that he had made a really deep connection with one of them, and Elder Rhodes actually knows the missionary he was talking about! His first name is Talmage and he's home now. Gilbert really wanted to get back in touch with him, so we got his number and later sent it to Talmage, who told us he's actually been trying to get in touch with Gilbert for some time now, but didn't have his new number. That evening, we suddenly got a call from Gilbert. Talmage had called him, and he was absolutely overjoyed! He said their conversation gave him some much needed relief. Sadly, Gilbert was one of our lessons that fell through, but we're still in touch and we hope to meet with him soon. We're grateful he could have that tender mercy.

A part member family we've been working with had a trip this weekend, so they couldn't make it to church. We were a little put out, but we understood. HOWEVER, later that Sunday, they texted us some photos of them on the grounds of the Sacramento temple. It was a small thing, but we found ourselves brimming with pride at where they were choosing to spend their time, despite not being able to make it to a sacrament meeting. It just made us happy.

We and the Sisters all got to give talks on Sunday! It was a missionary-featured sacrament meeting. The Sisters were assigned to speak on the past week's Come Follow Me lesson and Elder Rhodes and I were given the more broad assignment of delivering a message centered on Christ. It went very well! The missionaries of Imperial Beach did a fine job, not to pat us on the back too much.

Sister Ward focused her message on the story of the good Samaritan (she kicked things off on the perfect note by starting her talk with an "Aloha!" which the congregation reciprocated 😆), Sister Snow focused hers on forgiveness and related it to little children, I focused mine on receiving spiritual confirmations (I'm happy with how it turned out! I'll include a link to it at the end if you're curious), and Elder Rhodes expounded on D&C 76:22 and bore a beautiful, powerful, commanding testimony of Jesus Christ. I might add that Elder Rhodes competed on a debate team in high school and is masterful at impromptu speeches, so when his turn came, he walked up to the podium without so much as a notecard in his hand and delivered flowing words, not looking away from the congregation once. 

My birthday was on Monday! We gathered for Zone Council that morning, and Elder Rhodes broke the news to everyone, so I got to witness a room full of missionaries singing the Primary birthday song. The bishop's family had us over for part of the evening and let me pick what they were going to make for dinner and dessert. I chose fettuccine alfredo and cheesecake, and they absolutely blew me away. Elder Rhodes also made me peanut butter bars! My weaknesses were being targeted left right and center. I suppose that's a sign of a good birthday.

Birthday cheesecake!

In one of our lessons this week, we decided to show the Bible video depicting when Jesus is scourged and crucified. A somber, powerful Spirit filled the room as we watched. Christ's suffering is central to what we discuss in the gospel, but it can sometimes be easy to generalize what He went through without fully processing what we're talking about. Yet, with the technology and skill available to us in video production today, we are able to see a depiction of what that suffering truly meant...

To feel a whip repeatedly cut into your back, to have a crown of thorns pushed into the top of your head, to be paraded through the streets bearing the very cross you're about to be lifted up on, to have nails driven through your palms, wrists, and feet, and then to hang from those points in a torturously painful position as your body slowly shuts down--it's almost unbearable to even watch, and yet it's somehow transfixing. Why? Because the force of Christ's resolve rested in the love He had for those around Him. From the hymn O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown, we sing, "The very foes who slay Thee have access to Thy grace."

Seeing that depiction of Christ's death initially makes me want to call upon all the pity and sorrow in the Heavens and the Earth and give it to Him. I think, "If I were standing before Him and for even a moment considered what He went through, I would burst into tears and embrace Him, crying at the very thought of the pain He felt." And yet, when I think of the motivation behind His pain, the pity grows into something more. It becomes praise. I realize that my tears before Him would not be shed in sorrow. They would be shed in inexpressible gratitude.

That depiction, already too much to bear thinking about, only covers a portion of Christ's atonement. When you bring His suffering in Gethsemane into the picture, it becomes utterly unfathomable. We ended the lesson by reading in D&C 122 about the sheer extent at which Christ can use our trials to strengthen us. Because He descended below us all, our afflictions, no matter how great and unjust, can be made to benefit us in the end. Read the second half of verse 7 to see just how far He takes this idea. The extent of Christ's suffering characterizes the reach of His atonement.

(Needless to say, that was one of the most intense lessons I've ever helped teach.)

Today was a temple p-day for our zone. This was my second time seeing the recently modified presentation of the endowment, and what stood out to me most was my gratitude for how clearly it presents the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The South Bay district at the temple!

Elder Rhodes and I at the temple!

Also, we found out this week that the San Diego temple is going to be closing at the end of July, and that the work being done on it is extensive enough that it's going to be rededicated. Depending on how long that takes, I probably won't be able to attend again for the remainder of my mission once it closes. That's a little heartwrenching for me, but I'm so glad I'm able to attend once per transfer till then. Temples radiate a singular sort of peace.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Here is that talk: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nH8ZpdH5ac_g2kBWnBIPMFtIInztlvn32-YvIUmrKZU/edit?usp=drivesdk

Pictures:

Flowerz x 2:

Late picture from Zone Conference last week.

Chapter 29: Second Hour At Last

My goodness, I feel like I blinked and the week went by. Or some malevolent interdimensional entity with psychic powers swooped in and stole half my memories. Either way, off we go!

We kicked the week off with exchanges. I stayed in Imperial Beach with Elder Jezik, our district leader, and Elder Rhodes went off to South Bay 3rd (a Spanish area; his brain was definitely fried by the end of the day, trying to follow along with the lessons). As I planned the day out that morning, it wasn't looking like we were going to have a whole lot of variety in what we were doing. The highlight was going to be a lesson with an inactive family, which I was looking forward to, but the rest of the day was going to be checking in on people previously taught, tracting, and visiting unknown member records. Not too bad for a couple hours, but when it's all afternoon and evening with nothing to compliment those things, it's a bit of a monotonous grind, and not ideal for exchanges. However, just before exchanges started, we got a call from a ward member requesting service! We got to help move rocks, weed, and empty bags of sand in his front yard, and it provided the exact contrast I was looking for. That was a nice tender mercy. The visits went really well too. The Relief Society has our ward divided into zones for when we make visits, and we knocked out an entire zone that evening. Lots of moved records identified and some good conversations had.

We drove up to the aptly named Mission Valley on Thursday for Zone Conference. Actually, speaking of apt names, guess what our apartment's street name is.... Elder Avenue! 😆 So, Zone Conference. We had a pretty pleasant set of trainings and messages for this one. Sometimes the mission leaders bring the heat and focus on where the mission needs to improve and what we can do to be more effective missionaries, while other times they have a more gentle focus on uplifting us and reassuring us that our effort is enough. That certainly isn't to say that the two are mutually exclusive or that they are going too far in either case, but it is interesting to see the flow of yin to yang and yang to yin between each of our Zone Conferences.

The theme of the first half of this one was how we can have joy in what we do as missionaries. With my own struggles and the struggles I've seen in other missionaries, I thought this was a deeply inspired topic. We discussed Alma 26, which President Merritt referred to as "Ammon's Psalm", where Ammon expresses his joy in the Lord's work, reflecting on all that the Sons of Mosiah were able to accomplish. We also discussed the dangers of placing too high of expectations upon ourselves, labeling expectation gaps as "joy killers", and talked about how Christ's expectations for us are oriented around the course of our lives, not "right this instant". The talk "Be Ye Therefore Perfect--Eventually" by Elder Holland paired well with this message. In the second half of Zone Conference, we covered a variety of things, including companionship communication, optimizing our areabooks, using social media, and roleplaying teaching commandments. Lots of good tools for us.

I finally got to attend the second hour at church on Sunday! I hadn't had the opportunity this transfer because of General Conference and then Easter Sunday, so it was good to get a little better acquainted with the flow of Sundays in this Ward. I also really enjoyed sacrament meeting. The concluding speaker had us consider how we talk about things like our favorite hobbies. We get excited. We could ramble on and on about them. We want to share them with others. Is that how we feel about the gospel? Whether or not our answer is yes, that's how we can feel as we live it and realize just what it means to us.

On Monday evening we had a dinner lesson planned with the bishop's family and then a lesson with our friend Francisco. Leading up to it though, we got a call saying that dinner would have to be a bit later, so we thought "Why not do both of them together?" The extra company definitely meant our lesson went on a lot more tangents than we planned, but we've been looking for more ways to help Francisco draw closer to the ward, and this was just what we needed. To add to that, a few members of our ward council have also offered to have him over for dinner, so we're excited to see him meet and build relationships with them! We're grateful for the welcoming love they show.

Last thought. Over the course of my life, and especially on my mission, I have heard some pretty remarkable accounts of God acting in others' lives, from sharp promptings to shining miracles to comforting confirmations. I have looked for similar experiences in my own memories, and honestly, few, if any of them, measure up to the standard some testimonies have set. Under deep scrutiny, they blend in pretty well with what normal day-to-day living looks and even feels like. Our living the gospel does not always cause us to see definitively new things in our lives, but we can be assured it allows us to see the same things with new eyes. Combined with Christ's promises, this trust is my foundation.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Picture:

Elder Rhodes and I were shocked to discover we didn't take any pictures this week (again, I feel like I blinked and the week went by). So...here's a picture of me getting a mango smoothie at the commissary today! That's all I got 😆. For a little bit of explanation, my family lived on a military post one year and we would sometimes grab Naked juice from the commissary there. Mighty Mango was always my choice, so it was fun hearkening back to that this morning.

Chapter 28: The Words of Christ

 Voila, today marks 6 months in the field for me! I can't say it flew by, but time certainly continues to behave weirdly.

It's been a dense week, primarily characterized by Easter Sunday. We had a special focus on inviting people to church all throughout. In fact, as a mission, we were required to spend at least an hour per day specifically on that, and 4 hours on Saturday. That wove pretty neatly into how we normally occupy ourselves, so it was nothing crazy. We've spent most of our time visiting people previously taught by missionaries ("grey dots" as they're known in areabook), contacting people in our member records to see if they still live there and are still interested, having enormously uplifting interactions and lessons with the Imperial Beach ward, and trying to be as effective as we can through texting and social media messaging.

Photo booth at the ward Easter activity

A couple times we got with another companionship and did "whiteboard finding" where we write a question on a whiteboard and invite people passing by to write their answer. Both times we went to the pier and did Easter themed questions. We had a few interesting conversations from that. Right before one of these sessions, the Sisters were telling us that they had grabbed every type of pamphlet they had to pass out, and they jokingly added "we even brought the law of chastity pamphlet". But then, as we talked to people on the pier, someone asked us about that very topic, so we actually ended up giving it to someone. 😆 We recentered our conversation on the core of our message and swapped it out for a restoration pamphlet, but it was funny that the topic came up at all.

Whiteboard finding with the Sisters

Whiteboard finding with the Hermanas

Forgot to bring pass-along cards with church address on them
+the pen we had smudges easily on pass-along cards
+super windy by the beach
=very occupied hand while we wait for the ink to dry

We've had a couple lessons with our friend Francisco, and he's shown great faith and understanding of the gospel. He's expressed a desire to be baptized, but he wants to be able to attend church consistently first, and his work doesn't currently allow him to. He anticipates getting a different shift in June though, and in the meantime we've been reviewing the Preach My Gospel lessons and focusing on consistent scripture study.

We're also teaching a part-member family that's been striving to attend church more often, and they're very close to picking a date for their daughter Ariel to be baptized! We had a successful and heartfelt "double lesson" with them on Wednesday. It began with us teaching a lesson on baptism, but after that lesson finished, the conversation went on and evolved into an entirely new topic. The family showed enormous courage in opening up about some of the challenges they've been facing in the church, and there was a good spirit in the discussion that followed. We ended by giving two of them priesthood blessings (Elder Rhodes felt suddenly inspired during the lesson to ask if they wanted one). As a missionary I have been learning that priesthood blessings, far from being something that should be restricted to the most dire of occasions, are meant to be offered often. We should demonstrate confidence in and reliance on the authority God has given us.

Ariel celebrated her 9th birthday on Saturday, and we were invited to attend her party. Her family went ALL IN with it. Hawaiian themed with a canopy set up in front of their house, music playing, lots of people, a taco stand with some superb chicken tacos, and a snow cone stand. We went with the Sisters, talked with some people there, and were touched when Ariel's mom told us she was really happy to see us there.

Ariel's birthday party. We saw that the cake was being cut and we were going to avoid the sugar,
but then Ariel personally walked up to each of us and proffered a slice. How could we say no?

We have a military base in our area, so some of the ward members live in military housing. This can make them tricky to visit if they're in a fenced off area, but Elder and Sister Pollock are among the senior missionaries over military relations, so they will sometimes take us on military visits. They'll also sometimes take missionaries to do their shopping at the commissary, which is such a treat cause of the better prices. This week, as they drove us along the Strand to the Naval Amphibious Base on Coronado, we realized that since I have a military ID from my dad's service in the National Guard, we can actually get in ourselves!

Visiting a military family with Elder and Sister Pollock!

Our ward had an Easter activity on Saturday which we got to help set up for on Friday. The real delight though was helping hide Easter eggs for the primary and youth. Elder Rhodes and I each hid a golden egg, and we pride ourselves that they needed hints to find them. There was also a really pretty photo booth with a backdrop looking out from Christ's open tomb.

Photo booth at the ward Easter activity

  

    

Easter Sunday featured an excellent sacrament meeting. We could feel it was going to be good the moment it began, in no small part due to the fact that the opening hymn was I Believe in Christ. As we sang, I just thought "what a perfect way for visitors to have an introduction to our beliefs". And on that note, apparently someone we met on the pier came to the meeting! Elder Rhodes and I were sitting with different people and just missed him, but we were excited to hear about it afterward. The primary sang an enthusiastic rendition of Gethsemane, which matched the spirit of the opening hymn, and we heard two talks that brought to the forefront of our minds the life our Savior lived and the death He overcame. The first of them retold the last week of Christ's life in simple, reverent words, and it was the most engaging and edifying talk I've heard in some time. A straightforward presentation of Christ's life holds the same power any eloquent dissertation on Him could. It reminds me of a principle I learned from performing Shakespeare theater.

The language of Shakespeare is difficult for most people to understand these days, so as I performed through High School, I was directed to use body language and emphasis to make the meaning of the lines as clear to the audience as possible. Sometimes this even went to the extent of pantomiming a line as much as I spoke it. Over time, I was also trained to avoid letting this go overboard with too much gesturing, but the underlying idea was the same: "these lines are confusing, so give the audience clues".

In my senior year, I had the opportunity to compete at the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, Utah, and receive professional feedback each time I performed. One of the judges said something that stuck with me. For the particular scene I was performing in, he told me to keep the body language as simple as possible, and to avoid gesturing at all. "Let the lines speak for themselves. The power is in the language, and all you need to do is deliver that language clearly and authentically. Shakespeare has done all the work for you." I see this same principle in preaching the gospel.

"Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do" (2 Nephi 32:3). While I think "the gospel as phrased by me" has an important place in our testimonies and what we have to offer others, I'll note that this scripture points to "the words of Christ". Not just the teachings of Christ, but His words.

President Oaks' talk this past conference stood out to me as a demonstration of this. To testify of Christ, he simply used Christ's words as they were written. No expounding. No ornamentation with personal experiences and analogies. He let Christ speak for Himself. That talk on Easter Sunday, though it didn't exclusively use scripture, felt a little like "letting Christ's life speak for itself". A simple description of all He did from Palm Sunday to His resurrection was all that was needed to invite the Spirit. This serves as a reminder to me that when I teach, I don't need to debrief and expound on every scripture we share. It's important to ensure our teaching is understood, but a simple declaration of Christ's words may be all that is needed.

After sacrament meeting we joined some members for a late lunch, and they had 2 other families in the ward there, so it went loooong. We're technically supposed to keep meal appointments to an hour max, but....let's think of it like this: we had 3 families there, and we taught a lesson, so it was basically 3 appointments, right? 😉After that we went straight to the bishop's for dinner, and unbeknownst to us, they invited almost the entirety of our district. It was a little bit of a party day, but I'll be more grateful than guilty. 

Guess what happened twice this week? Someone from another Christian denomination walked right up to us during companionship study and started a conversation. The first, friendly as he was, only really wanted to pose critical questions about the standard works and then switch topics when we would answer those questions, but the second shared his testimony of Jesus Christ with us and we had a great conversation about how grateful we are to worship a God who is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful. He even gave me a pen! That made my day.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Post-apocalyptic sky

We gathered at the church for district council on Monday,
and as we tried to leave, we discovered both exits to the parking lot
were blocked by mounds of tree branches.
Our meeting happened to align with someone trimming the trees outside. 😆

Post-soccer selfie. We don't have access to a gym, so for our exercise
in the morning we usually get together as a district and play that.

Chapter 27: Imperial Beach

Happy early Easter! I hope everyone can find a special deeper meaning and closeness with Christ during this sacred holiday, especially after the insightful emphasis placed on it in this last General Conference. The repeated admonition to give Easter the same love we give Christmas got a chuckle out of me. The sheer amount of tradition and excitement we stack on Christmas does create a sort of "outshining" illusion that can draw attention away from Easter. But, the truth is indeed that we rejoice not just in the fact that Christ lived, but more especially that he lived again, and lives now. Christmas points to Christ entering the world with a work to do. Easter points to the realization of that work. Considering both, the former is really a preface for the latter. I appreciated Elder Stevenson's idea of finding a scripture about the resurrection to remind us of this. If Christmas has Luke 2 engrained in its traditions, what will we give Easter? The suggestion of reading Christ's ministry to the Nephites in 3 Nephi stuck out to me, because I happened to be studying that very part of the Book of Mormon on a completely unrelated note. The messages shared this past weekend wove Easter and my studies together!

Actually, permit me a quick tangent on that topic. Isn't it inspiring when, in our daily pursuits, things are woven together like that to accomplish a greater purpose? When we need to accomplish something, we often assume "more" is required than what we already have. With enlightened eyes, however, we see certain things are far more compatible than we first perceived. Then our needs are met. Miracles often start out in separate pieces, only to transpire when those pieces combine. The pieces were always there. That's a pattern I notice in how God sometimes works blessings, and it comes back to our willingness to see as He sees.

Well, with that, here I am after my first week in Imperial Beach! It's been good! Our mission boundaries "end where the sand begins", but we're able to go out on the pier while street contacting, so that's been a highlight in our efforts to find new people to teach. Plenty of people fishing, skating, or taking a stroll. 

As for the members, I've loved each and every one I've met so far. This ward's a lot more mysterious than my last area was. We've got a hefty list of member records to go through, verifying who still lives here and searching for inactive members who we can offer support to. About 75% of the members are unknown.

Some members in our ward had us over for dinner in their SUPER nice condo where they get to watch this ocean sunset every night! As an aside, guess what their last name is? Hammond! We consulted Relatives Around Me and, funnily enough, discovered that Brother Hammond was more closely related to me through my dad's side than my mom's (unless there's a piece we're missing!).

This area is harkening back to my first area in a few ways:

• We're right up against the border. Tijuana is just right there!
• We're double-covering with the Sister missionaries. This takes extra coordination, but it's a lot of fun.
• Calexico was in Imperial Valley, and now I'm in Imperial Beach. A ward member told me the two are actually related! The beach was named after the workers from Imperial Valley who would go there on vacation.

Elder Rhodes has been awesome to work with. He's 20 months into the mission, and has actually served in Rancho Peñasquitos (my previous area) before. We've done a lot of reminiscing. Other notes about him are that he loves cross country, compulsively makes people cookies (it's a marvel to behold), is quite aggressive when we play soccer, and might be the kindest Elder I've ever met. Another noteworthy thing is that his hands-down favorite food is spaghetti with red sauce, and 3 different members fed us that this week without knowing that about him! Well, one of the meals had penne instead of spaghetti, but still! The Lord has blessed him abundantly.

We got to go to a Padres game for p-day today! It was a little surreal being surrounded by the rowdy environment of a baseball game while in proselyting attire, but we had a great time! We got to witness multiple home runs, join thousands of voices in singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," buy overpriced stadium food, and even got a moment of glory on the big screen as the cameramen singled out members of the crowd! They later favored 2 other groups of missionaries, but our group was proud to be the first.

Allow me to turn my attention back on General Conference. Two things I loved about it. Firstly, it was a great context in which to meet the ward. A different family had us over four of the five sessions, and we appreciated being a part of each of their little conference traditions (especially when those traditions were edible). Saturday evening we watched as a district, but our friend Francisco was able to watch that session on his way to work, and he really approved of what he heard. We suspect Elder Bragg's talk on spiritual poise resonated with him since he works as a cop.

Pointing out my mom to the bishop's family

Secondly, there were many well-needed admonitions and insights, but did you notice how the conference grew most powerful when its testimony of Christ was the strongest? As we watched, our souls absolutely swelled when the choir paired "This is the Christ" with "I Believe in Christ" at the end of the Sunday morning session.

Another little detail: prior to the weekend, Elder Rhodes printed out a couple General Conference prediction sheets his family fills out every time (speakers, temples announced, hymns, tie colors, etc.). I'm apparently pretty good at guessing who's going to wear a blue tie, but my prophetic powers end there for the most part. However, one of the themes I guessed was contention, and boy oh BOY did that get coverage. Elder Christofferson, Elder Soares, and President Nelson gave quite the call for introspection on our part.

I haven't got an all-encompassing takeaway from the weekend's firehose of counsel and invitations, but I'll end by choosing and copying just one thing I made note of in my study journal. This was from Elder Christensen's talk. Sometimes the problems we face in letting go of sin or enduring hardship are rooted in not understanding the gifts God has in store for us in the end. Consider how that understanding applies to Christ. He didn't suffer the atonement thinking only of the need for it. He suffered in anticipation of the joy that would come thereafter. Is that not a perfect example of the hope we need? He suffered in anticipation of joy.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Pepper, the bishop's cat.
Her whiskers are slightly shorter on one side because
she habitually presses her face up against a fan
and they poke through the guard cage to meet the fan blades.
I learned this after asking what that faint rattling sound was.