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)