Chapter 53: Mission Boundaries? Hah!

Good evening!

I am surely freaking out right now because, as I forgot to mention in my previous emails, the sisters that flew out from the MTC with me are already dead! *cough* Home, that is. That difference between mission lengths is so disorienting. For elders, the 18-month mark is a grim reminder of the mortality of a mission calling. I feel like I'm going to blink and my remaining 6 months will be gone. I'm dying!! 

Kinda sorta on that note, it's taken me this long to learn that a missionary serving in San Diego with me transferred to a service mission in Utah in January! We were both serving in Imperial Beach before, and now our assignments are both in Salt Lake City. Funny, how it all works out.

The bulk of this past week was encompassed by quite an abnormality. In service missionary standards, we're allowed to join our families whenever they go on trips, so I spent Tuesday through Saturday in California! It was a particularly convenient week for this since the Oquirrh Mountain Temple is currently closed for maintenance, and we recently got over a big hurdle at the Global Services Department, so requesting time off there worked out.

The prospect of taking time off on a mission--especially solely for recreation--definitely made the "be thou diligent" phantoms in my head shriek, and it was a bit of an internal battle both leading up to and during the trip, but I had a conversation with my service mission leaders about it, and in addition to simply getting a thumbs up from them, we concluded that as I've chosen Sunday as my p-day (which is to say, the day I don't have any assignments), which sometimes ends up getting swamped with meetings anyway, this trip can even things out a bit. I do definitely feel a lot more at ease after having a few days to just breathe (as much as I could, anyways, with how much we Tolmans like maximizing our trips).

In addition, I had a bit of work to do on the car ride, and I used our new goal setting program to set some service goals for the trip. Keyword set. They were hard to meet, haha. I also met a few preparing missionaries and RMs while out there! The tag definitely draws attention.

Overall, I'd say the trip was a great chance to practice allowing myself to enjoy something for the sake of enjoying it. It's funny, I don't intuitively think of that as a virtue. I'm often ruled by a strict security guard who says, "You only have permission to enjoy something if you've earned it, and if you've done all you're supposed to do." Recent conversations have led me to admit this is, in fact, self sabotage. I even stumbled across an article with studies suggesting that recreation before work is just as enjoyable as recreation after work. Delaying gratification is still great, but it isn't always necessary.

Tuesday was my day to lead gospel study, so I ended up doing that from the car during our extensive drive over, and we conveniently drove through a cell service thieving canyon halfway through. I suspected something like that would happen, so I had enlisted another missionary as my backup and shared my presentation with him. However, Microsoft pulled a Brutus and dun diddly betrayed me by refusing to give him access! So...they had to do a bit of improv in the lesson and I reconnected by the end.

On the way home, we stopped at the Redlands Temple to spend some time in the Celestial room and do proxy sealings. We ended up having enough people to seal a family of 9 all at once! That was a special experience for everyone there, and definitely a lot of work for the sealer, matching all the names up XD.

At the Redlands Temple!

Let's backtrack a bit though, cause a crazzzy thing happened! We walked through the gorgeous and frankly awesome looking doors of the Redlands Temple, and as I stepped into the foyer, I heard an "Elder Tolman!" to my left. I looked and discovered Bishop Rider, Tareva, Sister Espinoza, and Sister Fisher, all from the Imperial Beach ward!!! They were there for a youth temple trip since the San Diego temple is currently closed for renovations! I could hardly contain my excitement in the reverent atmosphere of the temple. We had only a few moments to briefly catch up, but it was awesome to just happen to run into them there! What are the odds, right? And, get this! We had miscalculated the travel time to the temple, so we accidentally arrived an hour earlier than our appointment was. Ultimately, this unlikely meeting was because of that mistake!

I'm back into the fray this week and I arrived at the GSD to find a huge load of emails waiting for me. Elder Lee and I also started our week by diving right into taking photos at a presentation one of the division directors gave. Let the peril begin once more!

Final thoughts? Hm. Well, there's always plenty to monologue about, but I'll keep it lighter this week. I've lately been realizing with increasing intensity that I really need to work on two attributes: being punctual and being concise. You...probably won't be seeing much of that with these emails, but I've been striving and continue to strive to make that a principle I reliably uphold. I wanted to find a third attribute so that I could turn the trio into a fun acronym, and I settled on one: being gracious. In particular, being gracious rather than defensive or withdrawn when I'm at fault for something.

How shall I break graciousness down? Off the top of my head, I say we can divide it into being kind, appreciative, and courteous. It's pretty interlinked with charity, come to think of it.

Concision, graciousness, and punctuality give us: CGP. That sticks in my head because of an educational youtuber and podcaster named CGP Grey (He's got a great video about tumbleweeds! Tangentially, Elder Galata in my zone has been spending the past couple weeks at his assignment removing tumbleweeds after recent winds, armed only with garden gloves! Last time I saw him at district council, he spent the whole time scratching his severely irritated arms. We pitied him, but it was also hilARious). Anyways, I encourage you all to set aside a minute or two to consider what the most important attribute or principle for you to develop is right now. A vision for who you want to be is a helpful tool.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

The rule in San Diego was that the mission boundaries end where the sand begins.
I have now transcended those chains! Behold!! There I am, tag and all!

Random cat photo (the photo is random, the cat is not)

Chapter 52: A Mess of Busy

OKAY, things are getting absolutely insane. Eek!

Hello everyone! I wish you a splendid Tuesday (perhaps even THE BEST Tuesday). I come bearing updates. Haphazard ones.

Firstly, there is an armada of tasks ‘pon the seas of my assignment at the Global Services Department. Each new day there is like taking a deck of card’s worth of projects, responsibilities, and upcoming presentations, shuffling it, drawing a hand of like 6 cards, setting those as my goals for the day, and maybe getting like half of them done before getting caught in a 1-2 hour discussion with someone, followed by frantically realizing I have no time left in the day and staying overtime to barely finish something. Am I at peek efficiency? ….nooo, buuuuut….

…heh, yeah, I have no defense. I will say everything’s a tradeoff. Some days, my unconquered to-do list truly condemns me, but at the same time I walk away with some crucial insight gained, or a stronger sense of purpose in my personal life. I’ve found everything at the GSD from a dedicated ongoing conversation about the uplifting of missionaries to a solid network for career prospects after the mission.

Wait, back up, I DO have a defense in the face of not getting everything done each day, and that’s that I’m doing so much more lately than I’ve done at any prior point in my mission. I may be relying on grace about the same amount all the way through, but I’m shouldering an increasing amount of weight. That’s the purpose of grace, yah?

If nothing else, I’ve secured the title of Mr. Busy from our director. I’ve had a song from the VeggieTales rendition of the Good Samaritan stuck in my head for some time now. It was sung by those in the story who passed the wounded man by, but I’ve tweaked it so it better serves as an anthem for service:

“I’m busy! Busy! Dreadfully busy! More than a bumblebee, more than an ant. Busy! Busy! Shockingly busy! But not too busy for you.”

—> meaning, you can easily distract me

I shan’t ramble about all the particulars of the work right now, other than to say that the GSD newsletter team has at last stabilized following our last designer’s departure, Elder Lee and I once again got to independently edit and publish department-wide communications last Thursday, we launched a new announcement campaign on Monday for an upcoming change in how we release news (the flyer design we’re using for that took an unreal amount of banging my head against a wall to crank out), and we’ve got some exciting plans as a communications team moving forward.

What’s really struck me lately is just how interwoven this spontaneous communications role is with my missionary purpose. I sometimes worry that a significant portion of what I do for my assignments is closer to “full time desk job” than it is to “missionary service”. But our team recently held a couple meetings specifically devoted to discussing our vision and purpose, and beyond placing a strong emphasis on the Savior and His teachings, these discussions showed me that we do not merely set out to provide information for church employees or build a positive work culture. Our purpose is to minister to individuals and labor with them to further the mission we all share: bringing souls—our own included—unto Christ. These things have been articulated in standing ink from the beginning. They directly overlap with my service missionary purpose, which is to “…minister in [Christ’s] name to the one, just as He did.” I might add that the focus of my service at the GSD happens to line up perfectly with what I’m trying to do for my zone right now! 

Over on the proselytizing side, aside from a little bit of car intervention to speed up an inter-area excursion, we’re back into the full swing of biking! The wind chill thankfully doesn’t make us go numb anymore. Though, I was still charged a fee of pain. After that winter break, and having no padding on my bike seat, I was wincing internally every time I took a seat during my temple shift the next day.

We did have a really cool experience in our afternoon visits. One of the advantages of being a trio of elders is that we are allowed to visit homes with only sisters present—without having to stay on the doorstep, this is. Normally, companionships are required to have another adult of the same gender present at lessons. A couple weeks ago, when we told one of the ward mission leaders in the area this, he lit up and said he had a list of something like 40 widows and single sisters in the ward that would benefit from visits.

We were setting to work on that list when, between visits, we took a quick detour to knock on a door we had no record of. A sister answered, let us know she was a member, and invited us in to share a message. Just as we began to launch into a spiritual thought, she asked if she could pose some questions for us to answer. She pretty quickly let on that she was a returning member and had some deep personal concerns, even electing to share the specific experiences that led to her struggling to remain active. She asked us, “What do I do if I feel like God has abandoned me?” She told us about her prevailing feelings that God had forgotten about her, and that her prayers simply weren’t reaching heaven.

Her worries had me sitting there pondering for a couple reasons. I first thought about the challenges of faith. If people come to believe in God by a testimony from the Spirit, and God is ever-present in all of our lives, why are so many of His disciples left feeling abandoned by Him? I’ve gradually come to accept this as a necessary condition of mortal life, but if that acceptance has been such a challenging and uncertain process for myself, how could I possibly help someone else along it?

Secondly, I noted that as she told the story of her challenges in the church, she spoke with complete confidence that God had been acting in her life. She highlight a tender mercy He gave her, and later highlighted a slightly bitter irony, and said He must have a sense of humor to have orchestrated that. Her belief in providence suggested to me that she had no gripes with the idea of who God is or what He is able to do. The mountain she climbed was that of connecting this great idea with realities of her life. (Between you and I, let’s call that trail a group hike.)

In particular, I wanted to address this notion that God had forgotten her. This is what came to mind to share:

It will not do to say that Jesus Christ performed the atonement for everyone except you. If He truly suffered in Gethsemane, everything we learn of that event declares He did so for each and every one of us.

Therefore, the events that shattered your trust in others and in God were seen and felt by Him just as well as they were felt by you. Their burden and price left a scar upon His heart and nail prints in His hands.

Could He possibly forget that event? Is Christ a forgetful person, particularly with regard to an event that almost seemed to rival His endurance? No! He can’t so much as stretch forth His hand or look down at His feet without being reminded.

Therefore, He will never forget you or what you’ve experienced. Every part of your life is inseparably bound to Him.

All of this was a preface to a well quoted passage of Isaiah,

“But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not.

{I’ll interject here and say this first verse stands out to me because it shows that in spite of resounding truths, the very elect are subject to a sense of abandonment at times. We must be willing to endure instances where evidence seems to support that feeling.}

“For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel.

“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”

(1 Nephi 21:14-16, compare Isaiah 49:14-16)

These verses compare Christ’s remembrance to the strongest bond known to humankind, that of a mother to her child, and tell us that where the worst of circumstances can break even this profound maternal bond, Christ’s bond will not fail.

The sister remarked that that was the first time she actually understood those verses, and by the end of our visit, she was smiling, enthusiastically writing scriptures references down from the three of us. In her, we saw a renewed confidence in moving forward, and she told us we had answered her concerns. As we wrapped up, we were surprised to learn that she normally worked on Friday. She just happened to have that day off, able to answer the door right when a temporary trio of elders unwittingly came to call. I may not know exactly how providence works, but in this, I don’t think God has forgotten her. 

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

I’ve developed an obsession with bulb lights.

I asked for Elder Siddoway and Elder Mackay’s cheesiest, most overdone “friendly elder” faces,
and they delivered. There’s a lot of joking done before door knocks, and at this one we were
talking about how off-putting it would be if someone answered their door to the three of us
on their doorstep with smiles like this plastered on our faces even as we talked.

Chapter 51: Wind-induced Comedy

WELL, this week has already gone mad. Hectic busyness all around! I’m once again writing much later than I had hoped, but I’ve got about 45 minutes on the train (a meager sum of time for the overthinking mind), so, write I will! Here’s a recap of last week.

Since Elder Lee and I are assisting the communications coordinator at the GSD with reaching out to church employees, we decided—or rather consented to—introduce ourselves to the whole department via video. No pressure, right? But, better than people constantly being like, “Who is this guy?” whenever we message someone. Filming it was hysterical, and people responded to it well!

On Thursday the two of us had the opportunity to put together and publish the week’s announcements and articles independently. Training wheels off! It’s definitely encouraging to have confirmation that we can confidently take over in that area by ourselves. Shows that we can take more responsibilities on and thus further lighten the load of the team we’re serving.

That day, for our weekly missionary devotional, Elder Stafford, one of our technical support missionaries, was leading the meeting, which had the assigned topic “Finding Joy in Missionary Service” (or somethin’ to that effect). His message focused on the likely accurate speculation that Christ found and expressed joy in all he did. The idea He went about His perfect life with rigid posture and stoic mannerisms is quite the assumption. Rather, it seems in line with His character that He would be approachable, relatable, and a joy to be around. Naturally, a clip from The Chosen served well to illustrate this. Thus, a part of following the example of Jesus Christ is to rejoice in good—an attitude with no small precedent in the scriptures—and even to embrace the lighthearted side of life, so long as you are grounded in truth.

This message was actually the concluding note of the presentation. The bulk of the time was spent watching a montage of funny videos from our missionaries that Elder Stanford compiled. We had everything from proselytizing shenanigans to a GSD Missionary “Among Us” sketch. At the end, we all voted on our favorite submission, and the winner, unsurprisingly, was a Rick Roll that was sprung on us during the devotional, featuring Elder Neville, one of our senior missionaries, who performed “Neville Gonna Give You Up”. Tangentially on that note, someone made a fake, but high quality “Elder Astley” missionary name tag some time ago, and it resides within the West Office Building.

We held mission leadership council for our half of the zone that evening, and there’s always so much to cover and not enough time to cover it. Beyond the usual matters like figuring out how to make service missionary companionship study work well, we’re figuring out how best to brief incoming service missionaries on the craziness that is their calling, and how best to introduce our new goal setting program to them. Speaking of incoming missionaries, we’re getting a new sister in our district soon! And on a similar note, we got a new district leader in Elder Galata! Last month we lost our STL to an assignment transfer and one of our district leaders to the end of his mission, so Elder Unsworth and I have been running the show lately as district leader and zone leader, respectively. I’m glad to have the extra support so missionaries can be ministered to more individually.

After MLC we went straight into district council, and our discussions lately have just been so good! Elder Jager, Elder Galata, and I had an awesome conversation in companionship study the day before, and it totally resurfaced in district council (we raised our hands a lot XD). Also, I made a bunch of peanut butter bars (my kryptonite) for afterward, and only about half of them were eaten, so I was left to afflict my family with the remainder.

(I have just been informed that the train I’m on will be “going dark”, so it looks like I’m walking the last few blocks :P. I will attempt to not crash into anything as I write & stroll, and also smile at people. Multitasking activate!)

Speaking of affliction, I got a deathly plague leading up to the weekend, and was passed out / shivering in bed for most of Friday after some busy prior days. The need for rest eventually triumphed, I guess. Still, I got to join the teaching Elders for a few key visits that evening, so that’s something—if anyone would answer, that is. *angry eyebrows*

Aaand I've arrived at my destination. I shall find time at some point today to finish this at my desk.

(Just kidding, this is Elder Tolman from 9:30 PM! I wrote a bit at my desk and then got longwinded and busy, so NOW I’m finishing and proofreading. Anyways, carry on.)

As those living in the valley are aware, it was insanely windy last Saturday, and an unexpected comedic blessing that day was my assignment to east foyer reception in the temple. That 35 minutes felt like a slapstick sketch. I got to reverently watch the following items of entertainment:

• The groundskeepers were out removing leaves in front of the temple, but the leaves were taking flight and evading capture. Through the window the two of them could be seen chasing the leaves around with a dustpan and leaf blower.
  
• The pressure difference between inside and outside meant that whenever someone entered through the outer doors, the inner doors would dramatically fly open with the same flare as Dumbledore bursting into the Great Hall in all his glory. Imagine that same scene looping over and over again for half an hour. It was like angels were holding the doors open for patrons XD. Though it'd have to be a particularly discourteous set of angels, because the first time it happened, the sister assigned to the vestibule had to ninja dodge the doors as they flew toward her. The ninja dodge is an exaggeration, but I'm including it anyway. 
• We locked one of the two entrances on the east side of the temple and put a sign there saying to use the other doors. This was to prevent a cross-breeze from holding the doors open, and it led to several patrons having to divert course. One episode in particular still baffles me. A couple was headed straight for the unlocked doors when the husband suddenly split off from his wife to cross the front of the temple and make for the locked doors. He went out of my view, but presumably discovered that that side was locked. After a longer wait that I expected, I saw him cross back over to the unlocked doors where his wife had entered, and after stepping inside, rather than proceeding to the recommend desk, he beckoned for his confused wife to join him, and they went back outside and around to the locked entrance again. I glanced through the vestibule and got a glimpse of him standing in front of the doors, presumably trying them. After another slightly drawn out wait, the two of them came back around and entered through the unlocked doors. His expression was blank, perhaps a bit resigned. There's almost certainly a key detail I'm missing here, but it's so funny to imagine he was just determined to specifically use that entrance. Maybe the Spirit's particularly strong on that side.

Hang on, the title of this chapter can totally be compressed into "WINDuced Comedy". This is most excellent.

Anyways, I was away from the foyers for the rest of that temple shift, but when I saw the outside again as I headed out for the day, I discovered that it had suddenly turned into a winter wonderland. Pretty jarring, I gotta say.

That’s all the events from the week I have. Now to convey a HUGE topic. Of late, I've been clumsily wrestling a topic many members of the church have a run-in with at some point, to varying degrees of turbulence. The battle of coming to understand Moroni's promise at the end of the Book of Mormon.

"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." (Moroni 10:4-5)

The latter-day context of how these verses are used is crucial in any discussion about them. In particular, they are the concluding note in missionary lessons on the restoration, and they are often brought up as a central source of personal testimony--the sincere request for a spiritual witness of truth. It is also noteworthy that this promise has many a time been shared along with personal experiences where the request was met with some manner of spiritual experience, whether a distinctive comforting warmth, a still small voice, a sudden recollection of confirmations already received, or perhaps a firm realization of the truth.

So, whether it is formulated simply or with a great deal of logical craftsmanship, a good portion of us ask the question, "Wait, I read the Book of Mormon cover to cover and prayed, but nothing happened, big or small. What does that mean?" Beyond that, we may ask, "I continue to search, ponder, and pray about this, and I have for some time, yet I cannot in good faith say I have felt a specific communication from the Spirit that answers my questions."

Any who wonder about this and search the words of the prophets, or simply discuss this with those around them, will likely discover a plethora of answers. Here are a bunch you've probably heard:

• “You need to be more diligent than expecting an answer the first time you ask. Continue to read, continue to ask, and if you keep that up with patience, it will eventually come.”
• “Most spiritual experiences unfold gradually or are only realized in retrospect. Just because you don't get an immediately discernible answer does not mean the Spirit isn't communicating with you. There's a great talk by Elder Bednar, you should listen to it!”
• “Stop worrying so much and just move forward. If you overanalyze, it will be impossible for you to discern anything.  There's a great talk by Elder Bednar, you should listen to it!”
• “Well maybe you weren't sincere enough when you asked, or you just don't have a strong enough desire.”
• “Did you word the question in your prayer the same way Moroni did?”
• “Rather than asking for the answer to be handed to you, you need to study it out yourself, come up with your own answer, and then take it to the Lord and ask if it is right. Then He'll answer.”
• “Feelings from the Spirit are not all that different from everyday emotions, so long as they lead you to do good. Therefore, if you've ever felt positive emotion while reading the Book of Mormon, that was your confirmation that it is true.”
• “You're probably already getting your answer but you're failing to recognize it. Just look harder.”
• “How dare you expect a spiritual experience! You're just seeking a sign from God because you lack faith.”
• “You don't need confirmation. It's obvious that all of this is true.”

Now, I didn't phrase all of these answers favorably, but many of them really are helpful in resolving a concern like this. The lifeblood of the gospel, in addition to the Savior's central role, is finding out how it interacts with your life such that you know how to lean upon it. Many are able to do that with the insights above.

However, for others, each of these answers expands into a web of intricacy with too many threads that just don't connect, or the answers otherwise simply yield no experiential difference. When this is the case, one is left to just hold on and do their best (a trademark of mortal life). Those on this course may feel spiritually broken at times, cut off from God, barely and rarely seeing the healing and love they are repeatedly promised, and wondering whether the spiritual medications they are handed are nothing more than placebos.

I recently came across two apostolic replies to these troubled thoughts in the same study session.

"I don’t know why the answers to our prayers are delayed at times. . .But, my dear friends, one thing I do know: the process of communication between mortals and heaven is not broken. It is real. It is available to you and me!" (Elder Dieter F Uchtdorf, "Can You Hear the Music?" BYU Speech)

"I don’t pretend to know why faith to believe comes easier for some than for others. I’m just so grateful to know that the answers are always there, and if we seek them—really seek with real intent and with full purpose of a prayerful heart—we will eventually find the answers to our questions as we continue on the gospel path." (Elder M Russell Ballard "To Whom Shall We Go" October 2016 General Conference)

Distance from God is a very real experience and we can’t necessarily find a definitive cause for it each time it appears. I think it is more comforting to hear this acknowledged than it is to hear yet another idea for a solution, especially when after the acknowledgement, the promise of relief is nonetheless affirmed.

As with any other persistent misfortune in life, we demand to know, “Why me??” when the Heavens seem closed off. We blame others, blame ourselves, or blame the very conditions of our existence. Our highest concern is putting an end to the suffering. Yet in trials like this, the question asked of us is not necessarily, “Will you figure this problem out?” I believe that instead, the question is, “Will you endure this well?”

Every pain has a unique character, but the pain of chronic doubt is particularly cumbersome, the way it threatens us with a fear that we are suffering for nothing. Imagine if every difficult step you’re endeavoring to take is secretly a step in the wrong direction. It’s upsetting. It’s scary. What doesn’t occur to us at the height of this fear is that though the doubt may have a line of logic on its side, ultimately, it is just another thing to be endured.

There will always be unknowable possibilities to worry about in this life, but so long as you see the potential for truth in each of them, the choice of which to pursue remains yours. Doubt is like physical pain in that it is not always avoidable as you press forward, and though it tells you to turn back, you retain the option to keep going.

So, back to Moroni 10. What can I say about searching for the end of that promise?

Firstly, Moroni declares in no uncertain terms that the Spirit will manifest truth unto us, but he prescribes no time table for this. My guess is that doing so would frustrate God’s purposes. Do not dismiss the significance of the Lord’s timing.

Secondly, receiving an answer is contingent on faith in Jesus Christ. What constitutes sufficient faith? I don’t know. Why, then, do some come to believe in Jesus Christ because of an answer to their prayer? I also don’t know. But the principle I see here is that faith is more fundamental than receiving answers, though we are right to seek the latter.

Learning how to faithfully navigate a lack of answers from Heaven is just as important as learning how to recognize them. In the end, I may come to learn that those two processes were really the same thing all along.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Porch 1: Dramatic & harsh lighting from a porch lamp.
(The ring doorbell was quite deceased, so we had to take a moody, contemplative photo)

Porch 2: Dramatic & harsh lighting from these curious lights placed on the steps leading up to someone’s porch, shining directly into our eyes.