Chapter 46: One year done!

We open on the final battle scene of Return of the King. Aragorn stands before his small army as they face the legions of Mordor. He rouses them with a mighty speech.

“A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day! A day may come when Elder Tolman starts releasing his missionary emails on a consistent schedule, but it IS NOT THIS DAY!”

Salutations! It’s been a couple weeks! Plenty of time for some *~stuff~* to happen. Allow me to elaborate.

Things have been steady at the Global Services Department and projects on the media team have continued to pop up. It continues to be a nice balance between routine work and creative opportunities.

The Road Home has been a combination of processing donations from the ever-replenishing pile outside and trying to organize and make sense of the bins upon bins we’ve already accepted so they’re not a nightmare for people to search through. Sometimes we’re joined by volunteer groups, and this past Wednesday was my first chance to serve at the same time as one. It was a trio of guys from a tech company, and they were a spirited bunch. Among the donations were two adult-sized onesie pj’s–one with a rocket ship across the front and the other with Deadpool. It was not long before two of these fully grown men donned them and posed for a picture (wish I had it on my phone 😆).

As for my third assignment, the last shift I served at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple was a couple Saturdays ago and we’re now in a multi-week break in light of some maintenance. A few things are being replaced on the inside, but the main feat will be power washing the outside. There’s this mineral inside the stone that seeps out over the course of years, so they need to engage hydraulic warfare with it every once in a while to keep the building looking pristine.

This meant I found myself with some extra time this past Saturday afternoon, which was the perfect opportunity to execute a plan I’ve been brewing—to set out and obtain an item of mechanical majesty, infused with velocity and riddled with missionary vibes. The great two-wheeled dreadnought of the commuter’s world—a bicycle. It’s made transportation way smoother already, but the main reason I got it was to step up to an opportunity just yesterday. I shall explain in a few paragraphs.

A couple Thursdays ago we had zone conference! The moment we entered the meeting house we knew we’d be eating well. Fried chicken for lunch!! The gratitude of a pack of busy young adults for charitable members to volunteer to provide food simply has no end. During lunch, each table was given a little cup of skittles from which each of us selected one. Based on the color we selected, we each shared something about our mission with the rest of the table (funny story, most embarrassing moment, a trial we overcame, etc). After everyone shared, we ended up just sharing embarrassing moments, and I realized then that I’ve got a story or two that will remain well-guarded….

The service missionaries in my area after zone conference

Fried chicken and skittles aside, the feast was spiritual too. In one of our service missionary breakout rooms I was given a needed reminder about the insights contained within the Doctrine and Covenants. One in particular.

“And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness.” (D&C 50:23)

It’s a straightforward and widely understood concept. God is good, God is love, etc. Things that bring out these qualities are of Him, and things that attack these qualities are against Him. That phrasing in verse 23, though, felt significantly more applicable than a general association with good and God.

The understanding that coming from God, reprimand and chastisement are good things can easily convince me the harsh, unappeasable critic in my head is God guiding me. “It may speak with mostly exasperation and disgust, but it’s pushing me to be better. After all, good isn’t necessarily synonymous with comfortable and nice, and scripturally God does get quite angry.” But to me, the key word is “edify”. It means not just to help improve, but to encourage and build up. In other words, the only thing you should be giving divine authority is that which enables you to love God and leads you to anticipate happily living with Him again. If the dialogue in your head makes you feel dark and despicable, it's declared in standing ink that that is not of God. Now, despite that scripture, my brain is fighting with me as I write this, so let's disarm a couple Book of Mormon """counterexamples""" that come to mind.

What about Alma the younger? Wasn't his torment set forth by divine intervention and didn't it ultimately end up being for his good?

We could delve more into whether his torment was God's will or fundamentally self-inflicted, but this is the thought that came to my mind prior to writing this. Putting aside the extraordinary scale of his iniquities that make his case quite unique, Alma was operating under the assumption that there was nothing to stand between him and the full demands of justice, and when he accepted the reality of the Savior, whom he had fought and denied before, his torment was relieved instantaneously. He was filled with joy and hope, and when he envisioned God his "soul did long to be there" (Alma 36:22). He was edified. We have the privilege of already knowing we have a Savior, so, no “everlasting chains of death” required in this life.

But what about the congregation who heard King Benjamin and were "awakened...to a sense of [their] nothingness, and [their] worthless and fallen state" (Mosiah 4:5)? Wasn't that the Spirit mortifying them?

I think it's pretty self evident in context that that was a description of them letting go of their pride, not dismissing God's love and demeaning their identities. This was them "[coming] to a knowledge of the goodness of God, and his matchless power, and his wisdom, and his patience, and his long-suffering towards the children of men" (Mosiah 4:6), not fearing that His goodness had no claim upon them. They anticipated their salvation. They were being edified.

I'll leave that thought there, cause it's not what I was planning on monologuing about for this email, but huzzah for ongoing revelation, am I right? Numerous scriptures offer much needed reminders and clarifications for us, and the Doctrine and Covenants stand right alongside the others.

Back to zone conference, the grand closing remarks with President and Sister Kotter focused on faith. They opened with a comedic bit by the AP's where Sister Kotter gave them baking ingredients and left them to their own devices, expressing that she had complete faith they could make some cookies…without instructions. The sugar-to-flour ratio was astonishing, and vanilla was added liberally on the basis of it smelling nice. The Kotters went on to discuss the components of faith, and what most stood out to me was that such a foundational and simple topic can be looked at from many different perspectives.

I had another opportunity to sub in primary, and when I entered the classroom, I heard the exclamation "It's Magic Tolman!" It seems I've been dubbed something of a wizard by the little ones. Who am I to deny? They are the leading authorities on the topic. What an honor! 😆 Even more so because, so I hear, one of the more critical lasses in that band was the first to declare that I am, in fact, "magical". Not sure if this is because I lean heavily on object lessons when I teach, or some other contrived reason, but whatever the case, it was extremely tempting to title this email "Magical Me" after Gilderoy Lockheart’s narcissistic autobiography.

Hey, remember when I mentioned getting burned for not keeping a Book of Mormon on me? Well I ameliorated the issue, and the other day I talked with a gentleman named Wilder most of the way from Salt Lake to South Jordan, and after bringing up the topic himself, he gladly accepted a copy! He mentioned meeting with sister missionaries in the past, and I hope his request is an indication that some conviction has endured from those meetings.

A small note: I finally got around to sprucing up my desk at the Global Services Department and I now have a Shakespeare Insult Generator book on hand. So, to my fellow missionaries...tread carefully.

Ok, back to the topic of the nyoom device (bike). I was considering grabbin' meself one for a while, but one thing pushed me over the edge. Yesterday I got to join the proselyting elders after my assignment! I asked if they could pick me up, and they revealed that it’s a biking area. Say less! The service-proselyting integration has come slowly, but at last I was told to set up a day to join them, and based on how things went, I can work with mission leaders to set up a consistent schedule. And it went great! Pretty bizarre knocking doors as a missionary just blocks away from where I live. I joined Elder Bennet and Elder McKenzie and we made some visits, taught a couple member lessons, and had a great conversation with a man named Randy.

Elder Bennet & Elder McKenzie

A couple weeks ago I finished reading through the Lectures on Faith. I was about to grab a copy from Deseret Book, but then I saw it just happened to be one of the fancy ornamental leatherbound books on my family's bookshelf, so I snagged it from there. What a win! There's plenty to discuss (pff, there's always plenty to discuss), but in particular I wanted to gush about lecture six: the Law of Sacrifice.

It's funny. A few of the prior lectures beautifully articulate epiphanies I came to during and soon after high school (e.g. everyone is exercising faith in something, God designed mortal life to hinge upon faith and He communicates with mankind in ways that maintain that), but the sixth lecture seems to be in direct answer to a question I've been having. It's like a future, more studious version of me wrote the book to compile years of key realizations, and I just got to reach forward in time, pluck the book from the future, and read ahead about conclusions it should take me years to come to.

Lecture six argues that one cannot truly have faith in God (the kind of faith that enables salvation and fuels miracles) without a knowledge that they are living life in alignment with His will. Seems like just another way of saying keep the commandments, right? I say it runs deeper! A concern that's been on my mind of late has been how we can really consider ourselves to have a relationship with Christ when we are separated from Him. I've lately been feeling like it's not so much a relationship as it is a tedious balancing act of trying to develop the right conception of Him and act on it. I start to believe what we call a relationship with the Savior is more a relationship with our own mind—the Savior we choose to imagine, and how we interact with that idea. Much of this concern can be alleviated by a confidence that prayers are heard and answered, which confidence leans on faith, but there still looms the feeling that something is missing.

I wrote in my journal, "How can I build a relationship with someone when I am left to assume what their reaction is to me?...I need to be able to know what God's evaluation of me is....When is He pleased with my effort and when is He not? When is He angry with me and when is He not? What does it look like for a God to love me?"

I haven't been too vocal with this question because I've had a growing suspicion that it's a matter that leans completely on faith and our limited capacity to just evaluate ourselves. Assume that you’re being guided by the Spirit, so your evaluation is also God's evaluation. In other words, there are no more steps to take in this quandary. The path ends, and it's a leap of faith from there.

The dialogue goes,

"I need to know."

"I'm sorry, but you can't know. It's just faith. Your expectations for the foundation of your relationship with God are too high."

But, look at what Joseph said. "An actual knowledge to any person that the course of life which he pursues is according to the will of God, is essentially necessary to enable him to have that confidence in God, without which no person can obtain eternal life. It was this that enabled the ancient saints to endure all their afflictions and persecutions, and to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing, (not believing merely,) that they had a more enduring substance."

That hooked my attention. How is it done? Could there be a way of gaining this knowledge other than "Pray about it and I'm sure you'll eventually get an answer.", or "So long as you're keeping the commandments, it's a pretty safe assumption He’s pleased with you." Those aren't necessarily bad answers, but for various reasons they just haven't worked for me.

Here is what Joseph says. "When a man has offered in sacrifice all that he has, for the truth's sake, not even withholding his life, and believing before God that he has been called to make this sacrifice, because he seeks to do his will, he does know most assuredly, that God does and will accept his sacrifice and offering, and that he has not nor will not seek his face in vain....Those, then, who make the sacrifice will have the testimony that their course is pleasing in the sight of God."

This isn't just a matter-of-fact idea, this is huge! In the course of knowing God, we work with means like reading the scriptures, praying, and meeting together to worship, but here we identify what all these things point to: the repeated act of letting go of something you want in favor of something God wants and your soul needs, to the extent of all you have. Lehi's riches, Abraham's son, Joseph's life. Isn't it fitting that the building blocks of our relationship with God must be our own sacrifice when it was His sacrifice that laid the foundation for it?

I've continually pondered on the idea that faith is only realized when you act on it. What then is the issue when all you're doing is acting on it, and yet faith seems to be the thing you lack most? How is it that one can diligently and consistently pray, study the scriptures, strive to repent, take the sacrament, go to the temple, write about the gospel in flowery language, proclaim Christ's name, and even serve a mission, and yet, when it comes down to it, struggle to just have faith? Doubt persists. Belief and hope remain stagnant. How can diligent effort gain no purchase? Well, I think I have my answer. The question is not, are you acting on something you're trying to believe? It's, are you letting go of something for God's sake, even though you really don't want to?

A final item of significance: today marks one year from the day I started online MTC, and yesterday was my set-apart-as-a-missionary anniversary! Woot! It would not do to say "That went by so fast." or "Time is barely inching forward.", so I'll let the two cancel each other out and say nothing. But here we are!

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Hiking on Elder Sahlin’s birthday

Chomp