Elder Daniel Tolman: 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.