Chapter 34: A Surprise

Hello! There's another week gone by for all of us! Another week enjoyed/endured/conquered/survived/experimented with/humored, whatever the case may be for you! Okay now I'm experiencing some serious wonder considering the vast disparity between peoples' differing perspectives of the same week... yikes that was cool. Moving on...

A lovely park we stopped by to make phone calls.
We revisited it for p-day today to play ultimate frisbee with half the zone.

This week was pretty alright! Though, let me expound on what pretty alright means. To be totally honest, as a missionary thus far, it's been hard to feel like I've experienced much momentum in the work. Aside from in my first area, it has been pretty uncommon for us to find anyone new to teach in all my time in San Diego. We have good conversations here and there and opportunities to help people in ways other than teaching them, but we rarely (and I mean RARELY) meet the weekly goals we set for finding people, even when those goals are as low as one person. I can't say whether the hang-up lies in the disposition of the people, our mindset, our methods, or our dedication, but whatever the case may be, we do our best to serve with love as our motivation, and most of what we do consists of supporting the ward, helping part-member families and inactive families, producing content for our mission Facebook page, and teaching a few select people willing to listen. This week we've continued to teach Myron, Francisco, and Ariel, and in each case, things are going pretty well. That's the first great thing. The second is that there have been many mini-miracles throughout the week. I'll share a few of them here.

The week kicked off in a funky fashion. We had 4 lessons scheduled for Wednesday and none scheduled for Thursday, but then 2 of them rescheduled for Thursday. *Thanos voice* Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

One of the lessons that rescheduled was with Ariel's family, and as we texted to coordinate a time for the next day, Sister Ramirez hit us with a "I have a surprise for you guys". We went "ooOOoo" and told her we were excited, but didn't really think too much about it. They've given us treats before (cuz they're wonderful!), so in the back of my head I expected to be loaded up with brownies or something along those lines. The time for the lesson arrived on Thursday, and we biked over to their house to discuss the Law of the Fast and the Law of Tithing.

We knocked on the door, it opened, and we were confronted with...cardboard. 2 big narrow cardboard boxes, to be exact. As we entered and took in the full scene, we discovered that Brother Ramirez was hard at work assembling something. Now, I won't reveal what this contraption was just yet, but it didn't connect in our brains at all that this was in any way related to the impending surprise. We just made small talk about the item in question with Brother Ramirez as he worked. The family caught us up on how they were doing, and as we neared the opening prayer and start of the lesson, they broke the news to us. Those two items WERE the surprise! "These are for you!" Want to know what they were? Electronic bikes! The Ramirezes bought us electronic bikes! We were absolutely stunned. Our immediate reaction was one of both overwhelming gratitude, and worry that we wouldn't be allowed to accept them. I mean, this seemed like exactly the sort of thing mission standards would veto. But even the thought of rejecting this immense charity was pretty disheartening. We texted our senior missionaries, who redirected us to the AP's, so we sent them a message and held our breath. Their response was, "Well Elders, today is your lucky day!" We were approved!

Henceforth, Imperial Beach will be an e-biking area! Every missionary who serves here in the future will have the Ramirezes to thank. We've been riding them ever since, and they are so much fun! We're able to get to our destinations so much faster with them, and they've already been a life saver for our schedule. The best part isn't even the speed though. It's the baskets! They have baskets on the front! I was almost more excited about that than about the bikes as a whole😆. We can actually bring stuff with us as we travel rather than having our options be between traveling light or slinging our bags over shoulders and letting them swing around awkwardly as we ride (which we've just completely avoided doing). Paper scriptures in lessons are BACK! Boom baby! AHahahaHA!

E-Bikes!

Update on Myron: we have a fantastic member fellowshipping him, who we actually also met with and gave support to a couple times this week. He gave Myron a ride to church on Sunday! It's incredible the difference having a friend to go to church with him has made.

Another quick tender mercy. We had a dinner appointment scheduled with a family one night, but the husband was deployed, so without another man present we couldn't hang out there. The wife arranged to have us just drop by and pick up dinner from her, which we've done with her in the past. But, we determined that we wanted to still share a message in that short time, even if it was just a quick verse with an insight. I had recently reread the Sermon on the Mount, so what came to mind was to share a selection of Beatitudes that we felt applied to their family.

"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." (Matthew 5:4-7)

We focused our brief message on how though these statements talk about eventual gifts from God--a promise that all will be made right in the end--they say that we are blessed in the present. It isn't "Blessed WILL BE they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." But rather, "Blessed ARE they that mourn..." This slightly changes the outlook we can have on the Beatitudes. Perhaps Christ is not just saying he will provide relief to the afflicted in time, but that afflictions, when viewed with an eternal perspective, coincide with being blessed. Not "There are those that mourn?! How horrible!" But instead, "Blessed are they that mourn. God is with them." The gospel can sometimes relieve pain in the present, but often times, it doesn't. What it does do is change that pain to be far greater in meaning (2 Nephi 2:2). Trials become blessings not just when they are relieved, but also when they are taken before God and humbly placed in His hands.

After we picked up dinner and shared the message, the member told us she would be sending those verses to her husband along with that insight. She said it was exactly what she thought he needed to hear at that time. It's incredible to see little things positioned just in the right place at the right time.

One of the many gorgeous flowers we pass by as we make visits.

Much of Friday was consumed by helping set up for a huge ward activity. It was cruise themed, featuring 3 stops: Greece, Italy, and Hawaii. These stops manifested as elaborately decorated tables in the gym with food and dessert samplings from each country. Before the gym, however, everyone was given tickets to the cruise, got photos with the cruise ship (a booth depicting it, anyway), and watched a funny little walk-through sketch with various characters played by many of our favorite ward members. To give you an idea of the tone, they passed out those paper toilet seat liners for everyone to put around their necks as life preservers😆. It was a great time, missionaries were seen dancing, and we came home with a lot of leftover food thrust into our possession.

Our tickets for the cruise.

  

Vacation pic during the cruise activity! 

Reenacting Hercules as we helped set up the Greek booth for the ward activity.

For my family: "BAK-lava!!"

The latter half of Saturday was absorbed by...baptisms! The Spanish missionaries had 3 happening that day and they requested that Elder Rhodes play piano at 2 of them. They were an honor to witness (well, I wasn't one of the witnesses, but you know what I mean).

Another mini miracle! I have a theory that sometimes a confirming revelation comes in the form of a "theme of the day". Sunday was a prime example. I once did a study looking for scriptures that stand as evidence for every single individual's value to God (rather than the value of mankind as a whole or the value of certain important figures). This study filled a page in my journal which I titled "Our Undeniable Value". On Sunday, during companionship study, we were planning a lesson for that evening, and Elder Rhodes said the topic that came to his mind was God's personal relationship with each of us. I pulled out that page in my journal and we selected a couple scriptures from it to use. A couple hours later at church, we joined the youth class where the teacher started off the lesson by discussing...*drumroll*...how God loves each of us personally. She went around the room and asked each person if they believed that for themselves. The day went on and our lesson in the evening went very well. We shared Luke 12:6-7 as a part of what we had planned. After the lesson, we went to the church at the end of the day so I could virtually attend a memorial for my recently deceased cat, Tuxie, who has been an emotional support to my family for the past 14 years. My dad prepared some remarks at the beginning of the gathering in which he shared two scriptures that put the lives of animals into perspective with the gospel. The first was D&C 77, a scripture I happened to turn to for comfort the evening I found out our cat was going to be leaving us. The second....was Luke 12:6-7, a scripture about the value of all God's creations, which we happened to have shared in a lesson barely an hour before.

I've got a final thought, and I'll see whether I can dress it up in the right words. I've been reflecting on the commandment we've received to be a light to the world. To show forth good works, to stand for truth, and above all, to love others. The prospect of shining as a beacon to numberless concourses of people in desperate need of that illumination is a pretty delightsome thought, right? So why doesn't it always feel that way when we are doing just that? Why do acts of charity sometimes just feel silly? Why doesn't truth always resonate proudly in our hearts? How is it that we can sometimes feel so bad when by all accounts we're doing so much good? What I keep coming back to is that it's easy to enjoy light when we're surrounded by it. We can see its splendor and the ways that our own light fits in with it. However, we are not just called to shine light into light. We are called to shine light into darkness. This light is venturing out into an abyss. It doesn't receive a warm welcome from the environment around it. But it is light nonetheless. It may be at uncomfortable odds with the mist of darkness it penetrates, but it is changing that darkness for the better. There are times when light is there to be enjoyed, but there are other times when it is there to be wielded. Venturing into darkness makes one feel dark, but soon enough, that venture will bring the darkness to light, and at that day, we can bask in its glory.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Photos:

There was a basketball half-court right next to the beach,
so we decided to play some speed there for our exercise one morning.
Very memorable.

The Lovely Park

Chapter 33: Gotcha!

Good aftermornoonevening! Wanna hear something that I've already gone off about numerous times before and that really should go without saying at this point? Time is weird! I couldn't tell ya whether we're halfway through the transfer at this point or whether it's about to end. But, in fact, it's just begun! We're only a week in, whatever that means. I'm really enjoying biking thus far! It takes a lot longer, obviously, and fumbling around with bike locks every time we stop isn't the greatest, and our pants are constantly being decked out with a trendy tire mark pattern, but despite all that, it's a real treat. Something about it just makes travel time more meaningful, and waving to people as we nyoom by has a real charm to it. It's also just been a while since I've ridden a bike, so the first day was very exciting for me. I have to constantly fight my 11-year-old "No hands!" impulse, and sometimes I'm successful.

This message on the side of a church we were passing made us happy.

This week had a few exciting highlights, foremost of which was that I stitched together a new word for the sake of describing myself! I'm such a fumblemouth! Now that we have that out of the way I'll share a few of the real highlights. 😛

We had a couple lessons with Myron! He's a friend who has been taught every once in a while for the past year or so, and we were continually trying to have a lesson with him all of last transfer with no success (we finally got a lesson set up at one point but he didn't show up). This past week, we decided to give him one more shot before moving him to the backburner on our areabook. We set up a lesson for Thursday, and...he showed! We retaught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and he had some genuine questions about waiting on the Lord that we helped him resolve. Elder Rhodes said that was the most engaged he's ever seen him. We set up a follow-up lesson for the next day, and he made it to that one too. With some potential momentum building, we had plans to meet every Monday and Friday. Monday arrived, and... he unfortunately cancelled on us. BUT, later that day, we were at a park making calls, and as we left, we ran into him walking his dog! AAAhahahaHAA! Gotcha! We had a friendly conversation, and though the context made it a bit of a funky dynamic, we're just glad we at least had an in-person contact with him that day. We're hopeful for the future, in any case! He just about put himself on date to be baptized in that first lesson (we put the brakes on that 😆). Much of his progress is going to be oriented around helping him keep commitments.

We also had a small miracle in the ward. We made a group in our areabook for all the unknown member records we have so we can crack down on verifying their addresses and activity status more easily. After calling several of them, we came across a sister who told us her son was in desperate need of a lesson from us. We heard a bit about the challenges her family was facing and set up an appointment with them. It was a timely call. After the fact though, we realized something. That particular record wasn't actually supposed to be in the group by the criteria we were using to add records to it! By our standards it was an accident, but by higher standards it was completely intended.

This next story is of a sacred nature, so I'll keep it brief, but a few different members have been calling us from outside the mission about their friends in Imperial Beach who need service, a Book of Mormon, or lessons. One such call came from Sister Riches, who told us about a family friend she was extremely worried about. On top of her concern for him though, she told us about a deeply spiritual experience she had that gave her the impression that his family on the other side of the veil urgently wanted to be united for eternity. What was more, this matched what his father said before his passing. Sister Riches has been prayerfully pondering on how best to support him, and is sending us a note she'd like us to deliver to him in person with the intention of opening the door to teaching him in the future. We've felt a distinct spirit about this special task and all of Sister Riches' efforts, and we're currently waiting for her note to arrive.

Partway through the week we locked our bikes at the pier to talk to some people there and then we decided to just walk to some of the nearby visits we planned to make. They were a little farther than we originally judged, so after 10 minutes or so of walking to the first one we discovered an apartment complex with a locked front gate that we had no way of getting into. Not an uncommon occurrence, but certainly not ideal with the extra time we were using. On the way back we went to the next dot on our map, an address that was so kind as to not exist. Silly people, wiping themselves from the fabric of reality. We walked farther North on the map for another visit, and guess what? Locked apartment complex. How about East? Did East have anything different to offer? Nope. The main front door was more locked than Gilderoy's heart. Or Davy Jones's, for that matter. And now I'm forgetting whether it was three or four apartment complexes, but rest assured, it was enough to be outrageous. By the second time, we began singing from Hamilton, "Alexander, I came all this way!" The silver lining? Near the end of our visits we talked with a couple on the street that just got out of their car after a long road trip and we shared a scripture with them and got their number!

Sunday was of course Mother's Day. As a result, we didn't have Ward Council that morning, so while we did graphic design work I got to watch my mom on Music and the Spoken Word! Perfect for the occasion. I'm so grateful for my mother's kindness, love, virtue, and talent. She has always been a central figure in the success and joy of my family, and I always brim with pride at the chance to talk about her. I love you mom!

Our new missionary in Imperial Beach is Hermana Archunde. She's been temporarily reassigned to San Diego, waiting to go to Lima, Peru (same mission my trainer Elder McLean was originally assigned to!). We've been excited about welcoming her here, and there have been a lot of sarcastic episodes of British accents among our two companionships, so if that's not a sign of missionary unity, I don't know what is. Amid seeing her get introduced to the ward and area, what we've been most excited for is seeing her attend the Wisdom Club for the first time (ward FHE held every Monday among the elderly members). The insights and humor therein are simply golden. And speaking of insights, a member named June gave the lesson that evening, and she shared something that blew my mind!

Various times, cunning people approached Christ and posed questions to Him in an attempt to find a contradiction in His words or accuse Him of blasphemy. On one such occasion, the Pharisees and Herodians asked Him whether it was lawful to pay taxes, in an attempt to trap Him between loyalty to government and loyalty to God. He made quick work of them, but the words He chose say more than what was in the matter at hand. He had someone fetch Him a coin and asked,

"Whose is this image and superscription?"

"Caesar's." They replied.

His response: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s."

And they marvelled at Him. (Mark 12:13-17)

I'm marvelling at Him too! His words harken back to Genesis 1:26 "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The coins were made in Caesar's image, and thus were to be rendered back to him. But the people possessing the coins? They were made in God's image, and are to be rendered back to Him. How telling, that the equivalent of God's currency, the thing that He ascribes value to as we do our precious metals, is us. We have an inherent value to God, but another prophet takes this further,

"And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

...

I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?"

(Alma 5:14, 19)

In one sense, God has already marked what is His. But nonetheless, He gives us the opportunity to mark our own faces, just as the face of a coin is engraved, rendering ourselves unto Him according to our love.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Garages that exemplify San Diego.
These people have a vacation for work and then pull into a vacation when they get home!

    

Chapter 32: May the Spirit Be With You

Another transfer begins! I'll be staying in Imperial Beach with Elder Rhodes! Not what we were expecting, but we're rollin' with it. Elder Rhodes only has a couple transfers left in his mission and he's been here for the past two, so we were pretty convinced someone was going to be swapping him out, but nay! That had us cancelling some farewell visits we were planning to make to a few families. False alarm! We did still get together at the Riders' to give Sister Snow a send-off since she's headed up to La Jolla. Imperial Beach will miss her, members and missionaries alike :(. BUT, a brand new missionary will be arriving in her place, so we're excited to meet her and get her acquainted with our inside jokes! 

Ward FHE ("The Wisdom Club")

Also at the Riders', for this week's dinner, they gave us the opportunity to cook! They had us tell them the ingredients we needed and we showed up ready to impress. The mission has been a great opportunity to learn some new recipes (courtesy of my mother of course!), so I had a Tuscan Cream Chicken recipe in mind, and it didn't end up being a horrifying catastrophe! In fact, I found myself subject to much flattery afterward (see Jacob 7:4)! Which is to say, they liked it! Elder Rhodes came out swinging with his peanut butter bars, and they were divine. I may have eaten 3 1/2....I should not have eaten 3 1/2....

Dinner at the Riders'

Beyond losing one of our missionaries, there was another tragic transfer...our car! Our zone exceeded its allotted miles last transfer and mission cars are a little scarce right now, so we're back to using bikes. I'm excited about the sheer novelty since this will be my first time biking in the mission, but we're definitely concerned about productivity. Some of the lessons we have require a 40+ minute ride, so a lot of time normally spent contacting and finding will instead be spent on travel. What's more, the other elders in our apartment complex were also switched over to bikes, so we can't ask them for favors. We'll probably be mixing up how our area is run over the next week so the Sisters can cover more families that live on the far ends of the area. This will be an adventure.

Soccer on a rainy morning

As for the week as a whole, it feels very long looking back, and accordingly I think we got a fairly good amount done. We had a final whiteboard finding session on the pier as an Imperial Beach quad, lots of lessons with members--active and inactive, and kept up our routine meetings with Ariel and Francisco.

We taught Ariel the Word of Wisdom, which was my first time teaching that particular commandment outside of role plays, so it was rewarding. I appreciate being able to start with a fundamental doctrine and then let principles and applications spring forth from it. We began by talking about how we should treat the gifts we are given, then taught that our bodies are gifts from God, and should be given the reverence of a gift. Then we introduced the idea that the spirit dwells in us just as it dwells in a temple, and discussed the specific commandments we were given regarding how we should nourish our bodies. Though there are some specific practices we follow almost solely on the basis that God asked us to, the ideas in the word of wisdom flow from one to another so naturally. For this reason I am immensely grateful for the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet and the way it presents the standards we follow. Begin with truth and show how it connects to applications.

Francisco continues to tell us some wild stories and fun facts relating to his job as a night shift police officer. While not the most reverent of topics before a lesson, we're always asking him more questions about it, and it has a unique way of putting what we teach into perspective. We live in a fallen world where injustice and suffering are very real. Francisco has witnessed that to a greater extent than Elder Rhodes and I probably ever will. But our hope is not a naïve one. Our hope, by design, shines into the most profound darkness. We focused on this topic in our final District Council. What came to my mind from that discussion was that hope is joy in future tense. Our faith points to an eventual joy that is eternal, complete, and perfect. Is it any wonder that the hope we are admonished to have isn't subject to the flickering uncertainty of our mortal condition, but is instead described as a perfect brightness (2 Nephi 31:20)? This striking contrast adds to the privilege of teaching Francisco--watching his faith grow in these things despite what is constantly before his eyes. I don't want to put words into his mouth, but consider this testimony, "I know all injustices will be made right, and the injustices I have seen are neither tame nor few."  It's the same hope Mormon, Moroni, and Ether each proclaimed as they watched the destruction of their people. It still exists today.

Francisco also told us that his testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown as he's seen more ways it goes hand in hand with the Bible, so we've had a good time upping our game with the daily verses we'll text him. We now do a Book of Mormon verse and then a parallel Bible verse to go with it.

Thursday was May the Fourth, a.k.a. Star Wars day, and we had dinner scheduled with a family featuring four notoriously rambunctious kids. In light of the occasion, we decided to have a bit of fun with the lesson and made it Star Wars themed. We walked through each step of the gospel of Jesus Christ and used examples from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away to explain them. Luke's reliance on the force over his targeting computer related to faith. Darth Vader's redemptive arc related to repentance. The commitment of the Jedi Code related to baptism. The incredible influence of the Force related to the Gift of the Holy Ghost. And the importance of progressing from Padawan to Jedi Master and staying vigilant against the Dark Side related to enduring to the end. It was an animated lesson! Want to know the kicker? They had never seen Star Wars before! 😆😆😆 But nonetheless, they were able to recount some of the events and characters to us. It's pretty incredible how much of our storytelling is modeled after the life and doctrine of Christ, often times without even meaning to. This is a whole tangent, but I'll save some time by inviting you to search on YouTube for the LightBreaksForth channel and watch the video on Evangelium. My cousin expounds on this idea beautifully.

During the weekend we got to do some service for the family member of a friend the Sisters are teaching. He collects various kinds of palm trees and ferns, and his yard is quite the exotic jungle. He needed help cleaning up a bunch of trimmings, and my goodness, the spines on some of those things poked through our jeans and gloves like they weren't even there!

Saturday and Sunday were Stake Conference. We had so many fantastic speakers, including a youth from our ward (who Elder Rhodes and I have dubbed... *Snape voice* "our new celebrity"). Our Stake President kind of reminds me of Neil A. Maxwell as he talks, and I was struck by how in tune with the congregation's needs he was. President and Sister Merritt also spoke during the adult session, and afterward we tried unsuccessfully to pry transfer information out of President a day early (it comes out the Sunday evening prior to transfers...although, on that topic, from now on transfers will be done on Fridays instead of on P-day, so the Sunday night email might change).

I was searching for something on the church's website earlier this week when I came across a cool little article on the Tabernacle Choir blog. I wanted to end by sharing it, cause it sheds some light on the underlying meaning of a word we use on a daily basis.

"It’s amazing how words and phrases can evolve over time and take on new meaning—for instance, in the 1300’s, the word “nice” meant “silly,” or “ignorant.” “Egregious,” which now means “outstandingly bad,” used to mean “remarkably good.”

"While the evolution of “goodbye” isn’t as dramatic of a shift in meaning as the previous examples, it has quite an interesting background. The first known use of the word “goodbye” was recorded in 1573 in a letter by English writer and scholar, Gabriel Harvey, which reads: “To requite your gallonde [gallon] of godbwyes, I regive you a pottle of howdyes.”" “Godbwye” is a contraction of the phrase “God be with ye.” Throughout the years the word “good” was substituted for “God” due to the influence of phrases such as “good day” or “good evening.”

"The hymn “God Be With You Till We Meet Again”, which was written by Jeremiah Rankin, was composed so his church choir could have something to sing when they parted each week. Rankin said this about the hymn, “Written…as a Christian goodbye, it was called forth by no person or occasion, but was deliberately composed as a Christian hymn on basis of the etymology of “goodbye,” which is “God be with you.” He got the idea for the first stanza of the song when he saw the dictionary definition of "good-bye" was short for "God be with you." The song was written in 1882 when Rankin was 54 years old."

So, goodbye for now!

Elder Tolman

Photos:

The gate to the church parking lot sometimes doubles as a ride.

Someone one the beach was unleashing massive bubbles
and they drifted in our direction as we walked away from the pier.
I didn't get very good pictures, but it was picturesque nonetheless.

Chapter 31: A Gift and A Place To Offer It

 haHA! You thought I was gonna write another 2-3 page monologue, didn't ya? Well you'd be wrong! Cuz today I'll just be garnishing the previous week with a handful of bullet points!

(...in other words, it's only going to be a 1-page monologue with dots before each paragraph, and some of the paragraphs will be slightly shorter...)

(Q: Has Elder Tolman figured out where bullet points should be used yet?

A: No.)

• Quite a few opportunities to give blessings have come up both in this week and in the transfer as a whole. The first one arose during our proselyting hours after p-day time last Tuesday. The hermanas asked that we join them for a lesson on the priesthood with their friend Myra and she requested a blessing on both her and her house. It went delightfully well, and we left with an air of having left her place better than we found it. Similarly, the other opportunities happened in the context of very successful lessons. Those were definitely the highlights of the week, and it's such a privilege to be entrusted with authority to offer healing and comfort and to be placed in situations where it is not only needed, but specifically requested.

• A member outside of our area texted us, letting us know her nonmember friend Beverly needed help with some yard work. We got to meet her and her drop-dead adorable baby boy and then tear down the base of operations for a mite infestation (a.k.a a bunch of weeds). We really admired that member's dedication in reaching out to us. She's taking things slow in introducing the gospel to Beverly, but she's convinced she'll be baptized one day. We connected Beverly with the Sisters on the chance that she'll eventually take interest in lessons. (One of the big advantages of having both Elders and Sisters in an area is that we can pass men and women living alone off to each other so we don't always have to find another adult of the same gender to be present.)

After service with Beverly

• Ariel is on date to be baptized next month! Her family is absolutely wonderful and continues to grow closer to the ward, and she just lights up whenever we mention her baptism to her.

• We've been in charge of making short video ads for Facebook, and I've appreciated being able to apply some video editing skills to the mission. Amid the torturous perfectionism, pained groans, and violent hair tussling, it's a jolly good time!

• There were some tragic lesson cancellations and we had a referral that was looking super promising but didn't end up going anywhere. *sigh* Wish I could say that was unusual.

• This transfer in particular, I've been enormously grateful for my district. Let the record show that they're fantastic!

Whiteboard finding!

• We had a pretty unique p-day today. We started off by visiting a cemetery so Hermana Garrett could find an ancestor of hers that happened to be buried there! This worked out perfectly cause Elder Rhodes happened to want to visit that very cemetery so he could find Sam Brannan's grave. He gave the rest of us a mini lesson on Sam Brannan's role in church history.

Visiting Sam Brannan's grave

• We spent the next part of our p-day on Coronado Island and enjoyed the shops and architecture there. We indulged in some gelato as well!

San Diego as we crossed the bridge to Coronado Island

Rendering ourselves fancy dancy at a hat shop on Coronado

Gelato on Coronado. Their flavor of the month was horchata,
and it definitely exceeded expectations!

• I've recently been thinking about the comparison between Lehi's family in 1 Nephi and Jared's family in Ether. Both were set apart from a calamity among their people and given a land choice above all other lands. And in both cases, it all began with a singular faithful plea for mercy. The Lord expects us to pray, and He works wonders on the condition that we do.


God Be With You,
Elder Tolman

Selfie amid Coronado Shores after a lesson there.
Probably the fanciest place I've been on the mission thus far.

There was a pathway coming out of Coronado Shores that led right up against the beach!
We're not allowed to go on the sand, but the concrete allowed us to get closer than ever before!
The pier is up over the beach, so it feels a little removed from it.

We had no idea the pyramids of Giza had counterparts in San Diego! Amazing! (Dirt.)

The flowers around here have been blowing my mind!