Chapter 68: Leaning on Grace

I hereby summon every remaining faculty that hasn't yet been yeeted out of my increasingly hollow skull to put forth words on a page. Wigh iz thiss sow dihfikalt? 

A week has happened this past week! I can attest. In fact, let's just contextualize this whole email by establishing that it's me on a witness stand as the week is on trial after being accused of not actually existing. We're getting abstract today.

First item of evidence, and perhaps the highlight of the week, is that I got to meet with President Mitchell and Elder Sellers (our Area Service Mission Specialist, or ASMS, because there weren't enough acronyms before with SML, OSSM, ZL, STL, DL, AP, MLC, ZLC, GSD, MWA, MWS, PSD, SPS, TSC, COB, WOB, ROB, NOB, ...and now I'm getting sidetracked. Where was I?). The purpose of this meeting was to approve the tools I mentioned a couple emails ago to help missionaries magnify their service and spend their time more intentionally. It was super helpful to get input from both of them and we are launching forward with increased momentum! We settled on a few particulars and decided to create a training video to release to the mission (since the topics of the upcoming zone conference had already been planned) and potentially to use while onboarding other service missionaries in this mission. My zone is also about to start piloting these changes in the meantime! Hopefully nothing explodes!

Beyond that, we're forging ahead with GSD media and communications. Sister Abel continues getting settled in her new position (and got to have just the time of her life dealing with a mini technical fiasco today, as is customary for getting initiated in this assignment), and it turns out my spot will now be filled by two missionaries, so we've pulled Elder Tolaini off of his position on phones and onto comms. We got four of us now!

I think I've given a similar sentiment in a previous email, but I have been overwhelmed with the love and support shown to me by the people I serve alongside, now even more so than before. This past week was not a good one overall. I'm not sure if it's burnout, or the lazy natural man taking over, or some other concern, but in the midst of a pretty sizable workload I found myself completely overtaken by distractions and downward spirals to the point where I was essentially suspended in limbo for a few days straight, trying to do GSD work remotely instead of in-person, leaning a lot on my temple shift as an anchor. When I made it back into the West Office Building, the weight of dropping the ball on so many things and the shattered hopes of holding to a higher standard had me pretty down.

Elder and Sister Cole, who are on-site service missionaries (senior missionaries who help service sites run), spotted this pretty quickly and pulled me aside to talk. Between their encouraging words and a positively rousing pep talk from Emily in our 1:1 meeting, I made it to the end of the day realizing more deeply just how much the people over me cared about the person here rather than the nametag or the capacity for work. It's a process, not obsessing over how much you feel like you haven't earned, but "unearned" is a hallmark of grace. Funny how grace is simultaneously comforting and scary. Comforting because of the gift and relief it is, and scary because you have no control over it, unable to rely on your own effort and intellect. On a broad level, the world teaches that safety lies in control, whereas the gospel teaches that safety lies in accepting grace and being changed by it. Where the one emphasizes securing what you have, the other emphasizes simply being grateful for what you've received and trying to learn for next time. I'm thankful for the adamant care of the earthly ministering angels around me.

Friday was a pretty light day of proselytizing, but it was a lot of fun going about the area with Elder Castro and Elder Siddoway, catching up a little bit with the latter. No particular stories are coming to mind, so I guess that's all I'll share.

We've officially moved from three shifts per day to four at the Oquirrh mountain temple! Pretty weird finishing the shift an hour earlier than I used to, but it gives me a bit more time to catch up on the week's work and start to get moderately sane, so that's a plus. Training ordinance workers is going to get funky now that our usual three-shift timeline has three hours shaved off of it. I was about to improvise the training for one new brother, but I think there was some confusion about which shift he was on, cause he didn't make it. Aside from a few minor hiccups like that, the transition has been seemingly smooth!

Each day since has been packed with work to do and stress has been running high, but overall things have been going okay. I got preparations for zone conference together just in time, we completed a poster campaign for President Nelson's 99+1 invitation, and I've started tending to post-mission matters. The next few days will be dense.

I'll finish off by recapping zone conference, which was today! Today being Tuesday, though I'll probably send this later. It was our first regular zone conference with President Mitchell and I thought it went very well! We started off by sharing miracles from our service over the past six weeks, then we had an impactful and detailed discussion on the service missionary purpose.

After lunch with the teaching missionaries, we went into breakout rooms which the zone leaders and sister training leaders taught. In ours, Elder Richardson and Sister Eldredge gave what might have been the perfect training on companionship study. I feel like our zone got such a boost from that and it was very needed. Sister Davis and I then taught about sharing the gospel as service missionaries. I enjoyed breaking down all the ways in which it factors into our purpose and Sister Davis went into more of the how.

We finished off the meeting with all the missionaries together. President Mitchell shared a great many things he's learned about personal revelation. It stood out to me when he touched on how our need for personal revelation is not any different on a mission when compared with regular life. My takeaway was that if certain circumstances and responsibilities cause you to feel more spiritually in-tune and reliant upon the Holy Ghost, that's not so much a singular time in your life as it is an awakening meant for your whole life.

One more note I wrote from President Mitchell in the conference: "We talk a lot about numbers on the mission, but the number that matters most is one."

We had departing testimonies right at the end, which was sweet, but also big sad.

And that's a wrap! Both to zone conference and the email.

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Pictures:

District council (Elder Alston can be seen in his pilot's uniform to the left.
He flies for Delta on top of his calling, and he went straight from the airport to the meeting.)

Another zone activity in the books. Twas a great time with these awesome people.

Spontaneous picture while heading out of zone conference.

Chapter 67: Boomerang Elder (but not Australian)

What a predicament! I’m still a week behind with these. Before the details of 2 weeks ago escape me, I’ll freeze them in bite-sized carbonate here.

“Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”

We’ve begun training Elder Tolman 2.0—otherwise known as Sister Abel—at the GSD! She’ll be filling my place on communications and we’re all blown away by how fast she’s picking up on everything. I’m glad I’ll be leaving the place better than I found it….strictly because I’m being replaced by someone cool 😆.

Speaking of which, we just got not one but TWO new missionaries at the GSD who are joining from my zone. *Emperor Palpetine voice* The Jedi are taking over! Sister Bruening from my half and Elder Pedrosa from the other half have both either begun training or will start shortly. That brings the total number of GSD missionaries from our zone up to seven!

We had a spontaneous graphic design project for the west office building that we had to blitz, so I pulled extra help on the media team and we knocked it out of the park. It was a week later that I learned the unknowable cosmic department entities actually disagreed about whether the fruits of said project should be displayed in the office building, and thus the project would shortly be taken down. Womp womp; A for effort.

Transfers happened! Alas, we lost Elder Chatterley. But, get this. In his place, Elder Siddoway got transferred from Herriman back into South Jordan after just one transfer of being away! Craziness. I’ve never heard of a missionary returning to an area that soon. On the occasions where it happens, it seems to be on opposite ends of someone’s service. I was biking to a leadership council on Thursday when I passed by him and Elder Castro knocking a door, and I just assumed he had become a DL or ZL and was on exchanges. Anyways, it’s been awesome having him back! I hope the area doesn’t get too repetitive. 😜

Saturday was the last day my shift at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple was on a three-shift schedule. The group I was mentoring had only two out of our standard three weeks of training, but most of them would be moving to another shift while I stayed on midday, so we regretfully had to bid each other farewell. But, they’ll do awesome! It’s amazing seeing how quickly new temple workers pick up on things and go from being nervous to confident.

Ok, those are the all the big things from that bygone week!

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

This (which is to say that) week’s zone activity.

Chapter 66: Secret Tunnel

(((This is last week's email, which I only just got around to finishing and sending. Doobeedoobeedoo.)))

To you who are reading this, take a moment to pat yourself on the back for taking time out of your day to humor the words of some silly dude posting/emailing in a tiny corner of the internet, solely because he wrote them. I say that not so much to hold these little blurbs up as important, but to point out that all of us are extremely guarded about our time and attention these days, and making room for the trivial little things is a good part of life to hold onto. From time to time I'll skip a turn on my way home from the Trax station and bike an extra block or so to the roundabout in front of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. I do this just to make a circuit around it and watch as my perspective of the impressive building shifts while my view of Lone Peak in the distant background remains starkly unchanged. If I pick up a bunch of speed, the force of the turn and the wind in my face can make this feel pretty dramatic. Sometimes I'm not really feeling it, and I do it just because. An extra 30 seconds used up in the day for their own sake. Whether with an affectionate grin or a neutral shrug, the most inefficient part of my ride home is probably the part I will remember best.

Anyways, I hope this message finds you pressing forward strong, or perhaps utterly worn down but pressing forward nonetheless. It's been a difficult week on my end, but we'll see what this next one brings to the table.

I think the biggest update from me is that the evolution of our mission's service goal setting program is moving forward promisingly. At its inception, I was excited about the prospect of having five different goal areas to diversify the service our missionaries accomplish, broaden their reach, and help them think outside the box with their calling. But, as much as we tried to present the structure as customizable, the feedback I'm getting has been, "This is cool, and I appreciate the opportunity to help more people, but it's hard not to load myself up with too many goals when I do it, and oftentimes the goal setting just hasn't happened." That concern is definitely understandable, and I think it shows that the goal area idea was only a start. I've found that our greatest success has been the implementation of district accountability meetings, if not to go over structured goals, simply to help missionaries be aware of each others' lives and work.

Draft two of the program dials it back a bit. We've let go of the "goal area" concept and we just have three sections for missionaries to focus on:
1. "Missionary Standards" to track important missionary habits such as personal study and companionship study, which are unfortunately about twice as hard to maintain daily with a service assignment as they are with a teaching assignment (primarily due to not living with your companion and not having mornings conveniently open).

2. "Service Outside of Service Sites" to keep an element of the old goal areas' broadened reach, but with much simpler expectations. This also helps missionaries with more time on their hands practice answering the age-old question, "What do I do after my assignment?" I appreciate that our standards emphasize that wherever we go, our calling is in force.

3. "Personal Development" to help missionaries make new efforts in their discipleship and improve in other areas in life. It's pretty cool that our standards specifically emphasize using this time on our mission to build life skills, and the variety of service opportunities available make that an incredibly fruitful pursuit.

I was nervous that we'd struggle to unify around a second draft when there would probably be differing opinions about what should and shouldn't be included, but we held a brief combined zone leadership council on Thursday, and with a few quick discussion points, it got unanimous approval! Elder and Sister Alston are helping me make the goal setting materials more accessible and user friendly to missionaries, and I've got plans in the works to hopefully involve the mission leadership in creating accountability for each zone/district to hold consistent accountability meetings (so, accountability squared).

That same Thursday, we held a combined zone council in district council's stead and we heard from a guest speaker. Brother Montoya, who has served in various capacities, perhaps most notably as a seminary and institute teacher, spoke to us about appreciating the value of our calling and defeating the tactics of the adversary. The truths he shared were spot-on for the needs of our zone, and he introduced them with a power that I hadn't felt before. A few of the missionaries in the room were former students of his, and he touched on how cool it was for him to see them as missionaries now after witnessing them grow in testimony through high school.

One of the most impactful questions for me in that discussion was, "If your discipleship and calling were to end now, what would be lost?" We brought up a handful of things, from lost opportunities to the fact that needed service would no longer be provided. What came to mind for me to share was that our personal journeys would be cut off. Everyone's journey is a "proof" of something. Paul, Alma, and Zeezrom prove to me that one can become an instrumental disciple, honored by God, even after actively fighting against Him and His people. If they were to throw in the towel partway through, not only would we lose the incredible things they accomplished, but also the possibilities their lives demonstrate. If my mission were to end, say, at its halfway mark, I would not have gone from a despairing elder obsessing over personal failings to one who has taken part in Christ's transformation of failure into success. I wouldn't have proven that my particular mess could be endured and reshaped. Such is the case for everyone's journey. It's precisely what makes a person's unique story valuable.

Apply this to testimony as well. Each person's witness of God isn't meant to be the same golden plaque, copied and pasted with the same list of "I know. . . I know. . . I know. . ." statements etched across the front. Every one of us has circumstances that enable us to glorify God in a distinct way, and that is because it is against all odds that we do so. I strive to believe in Jesus Christ; for me that has meant having a deep focus on learning (keyword: learning) how to avoid agnosticism and enduring new wrenches being thrown at me every time I'm starting to feel at peace. Consider the story Elder Christofferson recently recounted about a young family that was met with tactless reprimand from their branch president in front of an entire congregation. This upsetting situation became an instructive and spiritually-defining one because they showed God, themselves, and us that one can prioritize eternal blessings above wounded pride. They did what some might view as emotionally impossible. They have lived the statement, “I believe in God and His promises, even when I feel betrayed by those bearing His authority.”

So, the mess makes the miracle. The obstacles you need to navigate are your potential for greatness. 2 Nephi 2 and all that jazz. It's striking to me that when it comes down to it, best as we can understand, this is a core purpose of living mortal life.

Moving on to the weekend, on Friday we had a mini miracle member moment. It was a case where at the end of the day we had no appointments and were relying on impressions to know who to visit. Elder Chatterley felt to drive to a different part of the area, and we soon arrived at a house in my ward that just happened to have two preparing missionaries present. We spent the whole time debriefing our mission experiences in a nutshell, offering what support we could, and even receiving some mission advice of our own from the parents of the household. They let us know that our impromptu visit had been perfectly timed. I later learned that this was true to a greater extent than we realized in the moment. As I understand it, the week leading up to that evening was a particularly difficult one for one of the pre-missionaries where personal challenges had spontaneously magnified. Though the mere fact of our visit may have offered more than anything we said in particular, I hope it helped. In addition, it wasn't often that one of the pre-missionaries was home, and the other didn't even live there. To complete the remarkableness of the Spirit's timing (and to spin the blessings back on us), they had just barely finished making a batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies when we arrived. They sent us out with a bunch in hand, and my GOODness those were the best I've ever tasted.

The work in the temple presses on! I've begun training a group of four new ordinance workers with my partner in crime (...celestial crime), Brother Bassett. Bigger groups like this mean things get quite crowded at times, especially when training them on presenting at the veil, but I appreciate getting to know more people at once, and with four different experiences each time we have them do something new, our debrief discussions become a lot more helpful and insightful. One of the new workers in the group is Elder White, who is in my district and somewhat recently began the service portion of his mission. Temple-service missionaries for the win! We are legion.

Right after my temple shift, we had a zone temple night at the Jordan River Temple, so I felt like I spent more of the day out of this world than in it 😆. With an extra service opportunity that morning to boot, it was a good, dense day.

Lastly, Sunday evening had me in the mission office for a few hours straight. We were holding our second service mission leadership council in the transfer to prepare for our upcoming zone conference (which will be my second to last one!! *otherworldy screaming*) immediately followed by new missionary orientation, which the Mitchells are having the zone leaders and sister training leaders attend now. We've got some fantastic and deeply needed trainings planned, some great discussion on the service missionary purpose and on our roles as young missionary leaders, and some cool possible plans for the mission on the horizon. Final note: I loved seeing the new service missionaries; they'll be totally wicked (but in a righteous sort of way. Hold up...both of those are slang terms, and they both mean the same thing), and the ZLs and STLs in this mission are absolutely brilliant!

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Pictures:

We find it novel to sometimes use the """secret tunnel""" that runs from the church office building to the church history library. Those of us who are "Avatar: the Last Airbender" fans have the time of our lives with it, and those of you who are 'Avatar: the Last Airbender' fans will surely understand why.

Never seen one of these used as a beast of burden before,
but strange things happen in the church office building cafeteria.