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.