Chapter 62: Revenge of the Elder

Wazzup! Many things have come to fruition over the past week and a half, or are otherwise dramatically culminating.

First, perhaps most earth-shatteringly, the mission has officially split! President and Sister Kotter are passing into legend, and we now have the Mitchells leading the South mission and the Potters leading the East mission. Any missionaries residing in certain East areas have officially been yoinked away from us, and, tragically, I found out that Elder Boney and Elder McKenzie were among the casualties (both of whom I got to teach with). We also lost Elder Castleton, who serves at the GSD, though I wasn’t ever paired with his zone at Zone Conference anyway. Another casualty was our mission office! It was interesting meeting at a new one.

This past Tuesday we held an abbreviated zone conference to meet President and Sister Mitchell. They had multiple meetings for different portions of the mission, but I still saw lots of familiar faces in mine! The Mitchells presented an adorable introductory video with all their children and grandchildren greeting us, introducing themselves, and describing their parents/grandparents. It had lots of poysonality, and multiple recently born behbehs, so we were captivated. I look forward to learning from the Mitchells and seeing what direction they take us!

The impression they made to service missionaries in that meeting was a little rough, however. With how much work has been on their plate and the fact that at the time they had only been set apart for about 5 days, they didn’t seem to know a whole lot about our organization or the recent changes made by the Missionary Department. Thankfully, we’re in good hands with Elder and Sister Sellers, who are the Area Service Mission Specialists (Elder Sellers is functionally President Mitchell’s right hand man to manage the service side of the mission). Several missionaries in my zone had some concerns after our introduction with the Mitchells, but President Mitchell and Elder Sellers were able to have a discussion in between meetings and it sounds like things went over very well with later groups of service missionaries (a very important matter, since we made up half the congregation in each meeting; overall, we slightly outnumber the teaching missionaries).

Ran into Elder Mackay at Zone Conference (who served in South Jordan a few transfers ago)!
Elder Siddoway (who just transferred out) was present too, though I didn’t catch him.

Elder Chatterley and Elder Castro—cool people!

Sister Curtis was just recently set apart, and it was so cool to be in the same missionary meeting!
Ya never know who you’ll end up serving alongside.

After the mini zone conference, Elder Lee and I rushed up to Salt Lake City for a secret operation. It was Emily’s birthday this past weekend! We couldn’t just let that pass us by. Elder Lee is too thoughtful, and I'm too vengeful after the surprise party she threw together for me in April. We had been coordinating with the HR team for the past couple weeks or so, and they created a fake meeting for her to dutifully attend.

Some other employees wanted to join in the festivities earlier in the day, so not only did they plan a surprise party…they planned a celebratory team lunch earlier in the day, which served the double function of keeping her guard down. I mean, who expects a surprise party after already having had a party, right? They held that event as Elder Lee and I attended zone conference, which, as far as Emily knew, we would be at all morning and afternoon. We heard some funny stories about party number one; HR recently got a new manager, so Emily at first assumed it was a welcome party for him, and when she saw him putting decorations up, her reaction was, “Bryce, why are you setting up your own party?” as she passed by hanging letters that read “Happy Birthday Emily” 😆.

After phase one of the operation—the “don’t suspect another party” party—they had an actual official team meeting, and between that and the decoy meeting (soon to be turned party), someone pulled Emily out of the room for some very-official-and-not-ulterior business, and Elder Lee and I rushed into the conference with cheesecake and a party game in hand. When she returned, there were more people present than when she left, not to mention the notes of happy birthday ringing in her ears. haHA! Operation successful.

Let this be a warning to all: if you surprise-party me, my network of contacts will get you back…twice. “An eye for a pair of eyes”, as they say. (Wait…)

Better yet, between arriving in the office and rushing into the festive fray, I got to squeeze a meeting in with Brother Ward from the missionary department, and a project I’ve been working on was happily received with only some minor adjustments! The future of service missions is looking brighter than ever!

Finding and teaching is chuggin’ along. No huge updates, but we had the bishop join us for this past Friday’s lesson with Vanessa and we were able to check in with her and her daughter’s hopes and intentions for our lessons. There might be some concerns to resolve with their family, but I’ve loved all the conversations we’ve had.

Meanwhile, the media team is pOpping off at the GSD! There were a couple key positions I've been meaning to fill, and not only are those now pretty much taken care of, but we've also started up a video creation team, which brings us to four subteams! I never expected it to grow this much, but as new missionaries tour the GSD, the media creation aspect definitely catches their attention, and still more who are already well established in this assignment are suddenly revealing hidden interests and talents. I'm very hopeful that the extra work we're initiating will bring greater unity to the GSD and gather in the lost sheep we're trying to reach.

Lastly, we got a few new missionaries in our zone over the past week. One in my half and two in the other. This past Saturday I got to visit Elder White, who transferred from his teaching assignment in Florida. It's a funny feeling being able to relate with the disorienting experience of transferring, but also being so far past it and absorbed in the present. A couple assignments have already piqued his interest, and he'll be a great strength to the Salt Lake City South mission.

A quick tidbit from a pressure cooker of tidbits (aka a certain elder's rambunctious brain): there is inherent power in faith. That is evident even to those who avoid exercising it. Yet, it isn't faith alone that the gospel of Jesus Christ points us to. Faith sufficient to perform miracles is, surprisingly, not the same as oneness with God (1 Corinthians 13:2). Two important stabilizing forces keep us pointed in the right direction, contained in these phrases:

First, "Faith in Jesus Christ". Faith in general may give us confidence and enable us to reach into the unknown, perhaps drawing strength from unseen sources, but God has spared no expense in making it clear that faith will only carry us through eternity when it is placed in His Son.

Second, "Faith unto repentance." Adept as He is as our advocate, Christ's name alone does not instill approval from God (Matthew 7:21-23). Faith must point us to making our life align with what it professes, and when it comes down to it, that necessitates some degree of sacrifice. Otherwise the faith, no matter how firm, can't operate on us.

Give your faith the Best Support, and use it to become what you couldn't become otherwise.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Pictures:

We’re off to a great start...

Possibility 1: a random photo that three elders decided to take. Possibility 2: a rare POV photo of a neighborhood cryptid with three legs (possibly sitting, possibly hovering) who makes a hobby of sewing different pant legs together in a bold fashion statement.

Whenever we lock our bikes up to go finding or teaching, rather than using our individual locks, we just wrap my tire cable around all of them. It’s a sight to see, and I realized I hadn’t yet snagged a picture of that.

Game night with some zone members
(I hosted...but due to conflicts I wasn’t actually there for the full thing...😆)

 An exhibition of Elder Lee having it up to here with Elder Macdonald

Lee vs. Macdonald- Part 2

I unearthed this from a couple weeks ago.
We were wearing tHe SaMe sOcKS! San Diego Temple themed.

Chapter 61: Everything In Its Right Place

 I'm only half referencing Radiohead with that title. 😆

Good day! For as packed a week as it’s been, I’m surprised to find myself at a loss for cohesive stories. A big handful of loose details is what I've got. The narrative details mostly consist of wrestling with technical difficulties—complete with a saga of appointments to correct them—and project deadlines beating me over the head. A couple of those caught me unaware on Thursday, so that was a yucky day.

Lessons with Vanessa and her daughter continue to be awesome! They both seemed to grasp the concept of the priesthood pretty well in our last lesson, even when we threw a wrench in by differentiating between the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood. We also had an impactful discussion on the importance of prayer and scripture study, which was right up their alley. Vanessa is a prime example of praying without ceasing, always keeping a dialogue with God in her heart (1 Thessalonians 5:17, 3 Nephi 20:1).

I don't think I mentioned, we extended a soft baptismal invitation to them a couple weeks ago, and that went over very well! There was only one concern raised in that conversation, and its subject matter is perfect for them to seek personal revelation on, so I’m excited to see their journey in that. In the meantime, we're thinking at least Vanessa's daughter is ready to set a baptismal date, so we may be bringing that up soon.

As far as finding new people to teach goes, it has been UNREAL just how many ex-members we've been finding while knocking doors (and how scripted their responses sound, haha. ....though I suppose the same could be said for us too). I mean, I expected as much in this mission, but over the past couple times I've gone finding it's begun to feel like almost every time we get turned down (which is most of the time), that's the reason.

Speaking of the teaching side, transfers just happened! We lost Elder Siddoway to Riverton and Elder Castro has taken his place. It was fun getting to know him on Friday. This is his third transfer, so Elder Chatterley gets to greenie-break him.  

Elder Castro and Elder Chatterley

Back over to Salt Lake City stuff, I've got three things:

Thing one: I went to the top floor of the church office building to appease some vampires, if you catch my meaning. With the ominous ride up to floor 26, this was Salt Lake City's equivalent of Disneyland's Tower of Terror (may she rest in peace). Of course, Tower of Terror never gave me free mini Oreos afterward, so maybe this was superior.

Thing two: Preparing media and communications at the Global Services Department for when I suddenly vanish in a few months couldn't be more complicated. My head was positively spinning today.

Thing three: I made some exciting headway on a project relating to service missionary goal setting and planning and I can't wait to present it to the missionary department tomorrow. The stuff I get to be involved in won't come to fruition till long after I'm released, so I can only hope to lay a good foundation, but being a part of all this has been a privilege. It's entirely possible the things I'm working on could be completely revised or scrapped down the road, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that at least one fingerprint of mine shows in the end. Cuz tha'd be cool, right?!

With another Father's Day past us, I like to take a moment to express appreciation for my dad. Beyond being a model example to my family of a protector and provider, and for being a keystone of the gospel's presence in my family, he has been the primary teacher of work ethic, organization, and respect in my life. Wherever I thrive in those areas (and others), I have him to thank, and wherever I struggle in those areas, I shudder to think where I'd be without him. Love you Dad!

Let us conclude with a point of self-reflection I've been working on. I shall begin by spontaneously talking about The Chosen. Awesome TV series! Elder Galata, a district leader in my zone, actually had the chance to prepare the set for season 4 as a part of his service site. I've only seen the first season, and once I'm released I'm totally planning on diving back into it, but yesterday I happened to be in a nearby room as my parents watched an episode, so I was able to listen to some of the dialogue. I was struck by a scene of Christ contending with the Pharisees. It put that conflict in the New Testament on the forefront of my mind.

The Pharisees, like many over in the Book of Mormon, had a laser focus on the Law of Moses, even to the point of trampling the author of that law under their feet. They "look[ed] beyond the mark" (Jacob 4:14), and were thus blind to what was right before them—their own Creator, and a clear way to discern between right and wrong. I believe this pitfall was preserved in multiple books of scripture as a warning to all future generations, including us. We are just as susceptible to taking doctrine and skewing it by putting the focus in the wrong place.

The solution is both difficult and straightforward. A covenant relationship with Christ and a conviction to act in accordance with what He taught must be at the center of our lifestyle and intentions. Our principles, customs, and practices must be treated as appendages to that—branches extending from that trunk. Have a tree branch and tree trunk swap places and...well, let's just say yikes.

Do I treat the people around me as Christ would, and what can I do to represent Him a little better?

Do I do what I do for my sake, or for God's sake, and what does God want me to do next?

When was the last time I actively exercised faith in Christ, and how will I do so next?

When was the last time I sacrificed a sin for God, and how will I do so next?

Have I been true to the specific promises I've made with God, and what should I work on next?

When was the last time I discerned the Spirit, and how will I listen to Him more often moving forward?

It is these types of questions that further our discipleship. When other practices take priority over gaping needs in these areas, we see less clearly. Now, I'm not an advocate of cutting away all the branches to leave a bare trunk, any more than Christ was an advocate of doing away with the Sabbath day simply because it was being misused. Something does not need to be fundamental to our religion to be needed. Everything God and His messengers have offered us can be for our good, so long as we put them in their proper place.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Pictures:

Service project for the family of one of the missionaries in our zone!

Angler fish (one of many fine additions to my bulb light selfie collection)

Chapter 60: Do the Things

I begin with a sigh of resolution.

The time has come that I must write this in a single train ride (actually, I think I’ve mentioned that like five times before, but NOW is when I need to actually ACTUALLY follow though and hit send by the time I reach the last stop).

This is already a task ill fitted the author of the last 59 emails-turned-essays, and that was BEFORE I got talking with someone for half the ride home, leaving no time at all!

So, how can I sum this up in one paragraph?

I can’t.

Well I could, but we’re gonna settle for a handful.

If y’all had a nickel for every time I’ve written out this inner battle at the start of an email, you’d probably have enough for a candy bar or something. Maybe for a presta-schrader bike pump adaptor—they’re like one to two dollars. Aaaand I’m procrastinating. Let’s go.

Actually—thankfully—not a lot happened this past week storywise. My bike has been trying to give up the ghost, and I’ve been equally trying to convince it that it’s still in the prime of its life. Wait, is that a description of my bike, or me? Anyways, with one tire change (without a tire lever, I might add) and a session of myself and three other missionaries simultaneously fiddling with the derailer, we’re comfortably functional.

Beyond the bike, I had interviews with my service mission leaders on Wednesday and we had a combined zone council on Thursday. We’ll now be holding one of those every six weeks. With zone conference every six weeks as well, our zone will be together on a three-week rotation, which is an awesome step in our leadership council’s vision of better uniting the zone. I also love having all our SMLs in the same room.

Zone “”p-day”” activities are getting better established as well, with a fire pit in one elder’s backyard this past Saturday and another shenanigan in the works for the coming Saturday.

As far as assignments go, we’re starting up a new communications campaign at the Global Services Department, so we have our work cut out for us (thing is, we already DID), I’m working on creating a new media team position (which means I need to train someone on it…aaaaah), the temple’s lovely as always (I’ve also got a new position on the horizon there), and we had a great visit with a returning member on Friday.

At present, I’m more in apply-what-you-know mode than spiritual-insight mode, so I shall just share a scripture that helped me reaffirm that yesterday:

“If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” (John 7:17)

I’m sparing you the monologue, so this is the bottom line;

Remember, “What am I actually doing in my life to keep the Spirit with me, and how often?”

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

:)

Picture:

•A spontaneous selfie in the office when I realized I only took goofy videos this past week.

Chapter 59: The Cyberparrot

 Welp, it’s already been three weeks of silence from me and before it becomes four I better summarize recent events.

Brain…not working, so, list format today:

•The missionary department assembled a committee of service missionaries to work on some special **top secret** projects (SHOCKING things, I promise. Definitely not just a few needed improvements to missionary tools), and I was pulled aboard a few weeks ago! …and as of yesterday I’ve disembarked XD. Too much to do in the West Office Building. And, more importantly, the things I want to focus on with the missionary department pertain to projects the committee isn’t working on yet. Now instead of meeting with the think tank, I’ll be in separate meetings to present what we’ve been piloting in the SLC South mission.

(We’ve discussed this before; “list format” just means I put a dot at the start of each paragraph. Never trust me with a list.)

•We had Zone Conference! MORE trainings for Elder Hanson and me to give (we’ve both resigned ourselves to being zone leaders probably for the rest of time and maybe eternity). AFTER zone conference, we finally got official STLs after a long stretch of having very few sisters in the zone, so we’ll be divvying up the fun more in the future. We had a fantastic final training from President and Sister Kotter, who are finishing their callings this transfer. The topics of the day ranged from spiritual habits to centering our service on Jesus Christ to applying Elder Dushku’s talk on “Pillars and Rays”.

Sister Kotter’s mission report

•The SLC South mission will be splitting soon! I’ll remain in the South mission and in a few weeks I’ll have the chance to meet my third mission president, President Mitchell. The East mission will be led by the Potters (the Pokémon evolution of the Kotters XD; they’re even both from Georgia!). Though I won’t be under the Potters, I hope I run into them at some point, cause President and Sister Merritt from San Diego reached out and told me they know each other!

•Elder Lee and I have been thinking a lot about zone unity and culture, which is tricky since (1) our zone meets in separate halves and (2) it’s hard to gather service missionaries together when their schedules are so different. We called for a combined zone leadership council after zone conference, and it went super went! We established a needed vision for what we want our zone to be and came up with action steps to get there. And we’ve already seen some results! My own companionship has improved, and we’ve had solid attendance at zone activities for the past three weeks.

•While proselytizing one Friday, we encountered a cat that was relentlessly following a couple boys, lagging a few meters behind them and meowing insistently. This continued all the way up the street until they were out of view

•My bike became possessed in the temple parking lot and I had my first crash! *party horn* The right half of my shirt was blackened from the asphalt so I had to strategically angle myself while knocking doors afterward. We also had a lesson before I had the chance to change it, so I chose my chair with care and spent the whole time wondering if it would be noticed XD. It wasn’t pointed out, in any case.

•We’ve been meeting with Vanessa and her daughter consistently, and lessons have been going very well! Vanessa recently had a miracle take place in her family, which has strengthened her faith. At one point, we were surprised to hear her daughter recount a dream she had about interacting with Jesus, which was an unexpected confirmation of her desire to draw closer to Him. We pointed out to her that the Book of Mormon and the many miracles that take place throughout, in a sense, began with a dream (1 Nephi 1:7).

•One afternoon, we were talking to someone through their camera doorbell and only getting the occasional distorted reply that we could barely understand. It took…longer than it should have for us to realize that the sounds the doorbell was making were literally just short recordings of what we were saying played back at us. We were having a conversation with a malfunctioning doorbell turned parrot!

Found another SureLoc deadbolt!

•We had a very sacred experience one Friday evening that I won’t recount, but that I want to mention for if I ever look back on this email. One takeaway was: you rarely know what’s really going on in someone’s heart. A stony doorstep interaction is never a lost cause.

•I got approval to join my family on a trip down to St. George, and we attended an endowment session the St George temple and did sealings in the Red Cliffs temple. It was my first time seeing the latter temple, and I’m in love with it. That trip also constituted the second time I’ve led gospel study at the GSD from St George.

St. George Temple

Red Cliffs Temple

Red Cliffs Temple

•We’ve been losing missionaries left, right and center! I attended the mission reports (a.k.a homecomings) of Elder Sahlin in my zone and Sister Kotter from the GSD, and was present for the GSD sendoffs of even more (these are mini devotionals we do at that service site to recognize missionaries who served there to the end). One of the desks near mine is now a sorry scene of vacancy. At the same time, at the GSD, we’re doing our best to recruit as many as we’re losing (especially sisters, cause it’s hard enough for them when there’s only a handful, let alone like two to three). We basically abducted one missionary from the North Office Building just as another missionary was getting released, and it sounds like she’s loving it so far! Mwahaha.

•No stories from the temple come to mind, but training workers and coordinating initiatory continue to be very rewarding! To put it simply, the temple is just a good place to be. Oh! Here’s a thing. I met a brother in a nearby stake for member lesson one Friday evening, and we’re now serving on the same temple shift! That’s actually the second time that’s happened. Small world! Or rather, small South Jordan!

Missionary Temple Visit (+2 future missionaries)

•I was called to be on the YSA committee in my Stake! We’ve got quite the task ahead of us—figuring out how to fellowship a multitude of young single adults in the area who we haven’t met yet. This’ll be interesting.

•Last week I got to help teach mission prep in my stake! I talked about lifelong discipleship, the variety of missions available to add to that discipleship (from teaching missions to service missions to senior missions and beyond, each subdividing into a broad variety of opportunities), and the journey of preparing for a mission. We had an awesome turnout and the message was well received.

•Continuing a major project at the GSD, I recorded some voice lines to help inform new service missionaries about what we do as a service site. So, I’ve officially been a voice actor as a missionary! Well, it’s not quite acting, but still!!

Thanks for reading! To put a cap on the updates, here is an epiphany that occurred a few months ago and resurfaced in a recent discussion: what you see around you is heavily influenced by what is inside you. Fill yourself with gratitude, and many gifts will suddenly present themselves. Ruminate over the negative, and you will see its beady eyes glinting out of every shadow you pass. This is true down to the language your brain deciphers. Have you ever noticed that when you learn a new word, it suddenly seems to turn up all over the place?

This could lead well into a “focus on the positive” message—look for miracles, and you will find them—but, for me, it also stirs up a concern. If faith-weakening experiences turn up when I look for them just as much as faith-strengthening ones do, how do I know it doesn’t all just come down to an illusion of perception? After all, “positive” does not always mean “true”. When should someone trust what they are seeing?

God, unlike us, can see truth perfectly, and, thankfully, He actively pursues a relationship with us. Yes, whether we see His hand may depend on the content of our minds and hearts, but the greatest blessing of mortal life is that we need not be the sole residents there. The Holy Ghost, we learn, literally dwells inside us. By default, the world reflects our own paradigm back at us, but when God is within us, the world likewise reflects Him.

God’s presence in what you experience leans upon the promise that the Holy Ghost really is there. We covenant to make Him our constant companion, assuring us that when we uphold our end, He, with perfect integrity, is there upholding His.

“Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.” (1 Timothy 4:14)

What you perceive in the world is an indication of what is inside you. Through a covenant relationship, when you see God in the world, that is an indication that He is inside you.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Pictures:

A good table for Elders

Zone activity