Chapter 50: Graphic Content (no, not that kind of graphic)

Remember that scene from polar express where the train conductor (a.k.a one of the many forms of Tom Hanks) walks down the aisle saying, "Tickets! Tickets please! Tickets!"? Reimagine that scene, but the train conductor is the personification of this week's email, and he's saying "Highlights! Highlights please!" He looks down at me and I stare blankly at him. "Try your pocket." I discover that my pocket has a hole in it. "Try your other pocket." I reach in skeptically and am astonished to pull out a few paragraphs printed on mysterious gold paper.

The following are those paragraphs. Also, here's a friendly, dream-crushing reminder that it's not actually Christmastime, no matter what movie references I make. :P

It's been a good week! Though it's had its fair share of chaos. I'd firstly like to mention that last week I forgot a crucial detail when I talked about that off-site meeting I joined in the Conference Center. I mentioned some topics we covered, our profound discussions, the work we geared up to do, and the fact that the managing director joined us for part of it. What I did not mention was that Oreos played a major role in that discussion, had a significant impact on the course of the meeting following Jeff's inspiring insights on them, and will be an instrumental factor in our vision moving forward in the Global Services Department. Onions too. Oreos and onions. I will offer no further explanation.

On with this week. Service at the GSD presses on! We've begun developing a video project (2 others are already happening, but thankfully they're delegated; woot woot team work!) and we're scrambling to get everything ready for the start of March, both on the missionary and employee side. With each new month comes more posters, fliers, table tents, graphics, and announcements, as well as the missionary newsletter. I say scrambling, and that's mostly referring to the missionary side, cause my newsletter designer just transferred to proselytizing in a sudden instant (big yay for her & California; big oof for us), and our software decided to wage wars and rumors of wars against the sister who graciously agreed to fill the open role. We'll get it figured out soon enough. On a brighter note, I got to lead our daily gospel study meeting today, and I must say Isaiah's words make my outlook on the coming forth of temples go from ~miraculous~ to ~~~positively epic~~~.

On Friday, I temporarily consecrated a family car for the mission and drove the elders around the area. The perks of a service-teaching trio include being able to transform a biking area into a driving area. I've been able to do this a few times now, and it's so funny how mad with power the elders get. Elder Makay longs for the day when a transfer delivers to him that deep joy of the soul: driving. Tiwi will be there waiting for him on that day. Hehe.

That's another note. Since we don't have a tiwi when I drive, it's become tradition for someone to fill in for her. "Readyforlogin". . .*daDA!* "Driverloggedin" . . . "cHecK yOUr sPeED!"

Driving aside, we spent a good portion of the afternoon talking to people around the lake, and we could actually feel the warmth of the sun once again! We're coming out of winter faster than I expected (that's not to say that we won't dip back into frozen death about 20 more times though, considering how indecisive Utah is). In that same afternoon, we ran into two different neighboring companionships, so the imposing but brief sight of 5 roaming missionaries could be seen a couple times that day. In the evening, four lessons fell through :(. STILL haven't met Alex yet. But, we did just happen to knock on the door of--and set up a return appointment with--someone the teaching elders recently street contacted. We barely caught him before he headed out for the evening, so I'll call that a silver lining.

Elder Young, a fellow missionary in my zone, just started on my shift at the temple! Missionaries, pre-missionaries, and return missionaries now make up about a third of the shift, I'm told. Soon we will take over. Elder Lee recently started on Fridays, but if he decides to go up to 5 days at the GSD, he may hop over to ours.

And finally, the service missionary goal setting project continues to establish itself! We had our second weekly planning / accountability meeting on Sunday, and the missionaries did great with the accountability portion. I loved hearing Elder Sahlin go into elaborate and enthusiastic detail on all the service goals he set, and everyone else chimed in with their own successes. Helping everyone to attend consistently and really make this a part of their missions will be a process--probably a consistently challenging one--but so long as this practice simply happens each week and is understood by leadership, I'm confident there will be a lot of growth ahead.

A word of advice for you, and myself, as we move into the thick of this week. Uplifting messages and invitations are not meant to have only a pedestrian role in your life. Stop, and read them! Stop, and take an invitation seriously! Be at peace with spending an extra 30 seconds from time to time to look deeper into what at first appeared to be mundane. The flier on a church billboard. The daily quote a friend posts. Be prepared to see something you haven't seen before. Yes, even in what you have seen before. Be prepared to feel power in what you never thought could evoke emotion. And when someone ends a talk or lesson with a challenge to do something, realize that that is important! Important enough to care about following through. Don't let this light spill out into the void of an indifferent world. Collect it, and reflect it.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

The GSD in-office missionaries after a morning devotional.

Ok, these probably need some explanation. I was designing a flier for the new month on Canva, and I settled on a picture of Christ I wanted to use. Only, He was centered in this scene, and I wanted to put a graphic beside him, but there wasn't enough space in the background.

Suddenly I realized, "Aha! Canva has a photo expanding feature." This just takes whatever pattern is along the edge of the photo and continues it. Just as the newly expanded portion was loading, I thought, "Oh, hopefully Christ's robe doesn't get mixed in with that pattern. . ."

I. . . severely underestimated what was about to happen. Canva did not just bring Christ into the pattern. It went so far as to use A.I. to generate an entirely new person with features roughly inspired by Christ. And it's... um, yikes. The scriptures did prophesy that false Christs would emerge in our day. What they didn't mention was these false Christs' curious fashion statements.