Chapter 65: Meta-service

Olo. I've quite thoroughly lost track of all stuff, past, present, and future. But the stuff is definitely there if ya know what I mean, poor in mind as this eyewitness is.

Here’s a cool thing to recount: at the GSD, we did another service project for Tiny Tim’s Workshop, but this time we got to go on-site! I really appreciated seeing a map of the countries they’ve touched, hearing about the immense needs they’re helping to meet, and getting a tour of the process they go through to make their toy cars—using recycled materials, no less! And to think, all that wood would just be sitting in the dump otherwise.

There were a variety of tasks to do on this “field trip”, including tracing car templates on wood to prepare it for cutting, painting faces on the cars, and fitting the cars with wheels. I spent the whole time waterproofing the faces, which was surprisingly fun. One amusing detail was that they had a “wall of shame,” displaying examples of what not to do when painting faces. There are quite a few considerations Tiny Tim’s had to bear in mind to make the toys work for any given country. New cars worthy of the wall of shame are put in the “witness protection” box to have their faces sanded off (very accurate to real witness protection, I’m sure).

It was a funny situation serving there, because Tiny Tim’s is its own service site (I know of at least one missionary in my zone who has served there), yet we were serving there as a part of our service for the GSD. 'Twas an onion-like situation, having many layers (two, to be exact). Meta-service!

A class we held as a continuation of July’s many special events featured “Stories of Faith and Courage” from missionaries’ family history. Before entering the MTC, I was encouraged to have family history stories on hand for my mission, so in preparation for the class, I grabbed one of those to share! Keeping with this email's multi-layer theme, it was sort of a meta-story written by my dad about how three stories from our family history gave him peace and strength during a difficult deployment to Afghanistan. It was awesome having a venue to share that.

Friday was just a fun day. The sun cooked us, but, by the power of being missionaries in Utah, we were insistently provided with popsicles on two different occasions. We also had some fun little encounters while walking between houses. 

Basking in the lovely blazing sky radiation.

Pausing our stroll for a bit of rocknopoly.

One of the more interesting doors we’ve encountered.

No huge updates as far as our friends' progress goes, though.. We sadly might have to stop teaching Vanessa and her family since they've been suddenly unavailable over the past few weeks, conveniently after we extended a baptismal invitation. I thought that last meeting went well overall, and we were on very friendly terms both during and after, but now we're not sure what's going on on their end.😞 

In other news, another awesome missionary just finished! *many tears* That's all. The mortality rate is getting crazy around here.

A small epiphany/observation/thingy from this past week: It's commonly understood that we call something a miracle or an act of God when it is unexplainable. We marvel because it is beyond the scope of our understanding. Yet on exquisite occasions I find myself marveling at something precisely because I do understand it. Having a clear picture of how something is brought about doesn't prevent it from amazing me. Enjoying nature, solving a math problem, manifesting creativity, and pondering the simple intricacies and intricate simplicities of the gospel of Jesus Christ—all of these are things I marvel at, and to me, marveling is another way of glorifying God.

I'll use this subject matter to share one of my favorite talks from Elder Soares, In Awe of Christ and His Gospel. I could go on about that one for ages. 😆

Hey! I also realized a lot of this connects back to Stand Forever by Lawrence E Corbridge if you remember that BYU devotional.

Hope you all have a great week!

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Elder Castro and his new temporary companion.

The grill cat returns!! This time beside the grill instead of on top of it.

An update. . . 

It’s awkward when there are multiple doorbells and you're not sure which to press.
There's a meme template that perfectly matches that situation,
so I had Elder Siddoway recreate the panels a while back
and finally got around to putting them together.

Chapter 64: Charity & Explosions

 *ragged gasping* How many unique beginnings/greetings must I commission myself to come up with? The number of emails I’m writing doesn’t even match the number of weeks in my mission, and already my idea spring is drying up! I shoulda made these consistent a long time ago. Here, just imagine this as the most riveting, original hello you’ve ever heard:

Hello!

The momentum of the service ever escalates! As my days are increasingly numbered, I’ve found myself wishing, if only a little bit, that I had the chance to transfer between more service sites in my mission adventure, simply for a greater variety of experiences and for a broader reach in the service I offer. But the site managers just love holding onto their missionaries too much, and in church office building assignments it’s especially difficult to have missionary turnover due to all the training and permissions necessary to bring a missionary up to speed. That’s been especially true of the positions I’ve filled in department comms and missionary media, so much so that my release date has adopted titles such as “the dreaded day” between me, Elder Lee, and Emily. Putting all your responsibility eggs in one missionary basket definitely creates a lot of inertia when filling soon-to-be-vacant assignments. Divvying things up has put me and a few others on red alert over that few weeks, but, thankfully with each new week I’m more confident in the future.

There may be a bit of opportunity cost staying at the same assignment most days, but the upside is the depth of relationships you get to form and just how firmly you’re able to get entrenched in what you do. My time at the GSD has answered my prayers in small ways and fulfilled promises from the Lord in HUGE ways. This past week I’ve been especially grateful for the incredible people there—the caring senior missionaries, the diligent employees and young missionaries, my edifying (and ZEALOUS) supervisor in communications, and so on. They all strike a beautiful balance between focus on the work and focus on the fellow workers. 

Immediately after a “Celestial Zone” (a sendoff ceremony we do for departing missionaries)

An explosive highlight—quite literally explosive—from this past week was a 4th of July party hosted by Elder and Sister Cima (a senior couple at the GSD). …It was held on the 3rd of July, but we can go ahead and move past that plot hole. Many missionaries and former missionaries from the GSD came, and afterward we walked up to Eaglewood Golf Course to watch a spectacular firework show they put on each year. I think I heard that 30,000 people attended. Traffic was terrible afterward, so a lot of us stayed at the Cimas’ to wait it out until a VERY unmissionarylike hour, sitting in their front yard in an undead stupor. BUT, things were livened up when a New Zealander named Aidan and his girlfriend strolled up to us, asked what we were all about, and conjured up a deck of cards for an impromptu game. As that happened I sat among spectators to simultaneously be shown butterfly comb tricks by the appropriately named Elder Coombs (I literally only just made that connection 😆).

Waiting for the roads to be drivable with a dandy NZ duo

My teaching area had zone leader exchanges last Friday, so I got to work with Elder Chatterley and Elder Mackay! It was fun having the latter gent back in the area. The dude’s memory is on-point, so he was right on top of our resurrected inside jokes. It was also pretty interesting seeing the intersection of two different halves of companionships I’ve joined before. Guess that’s always been the novelty of exchanges/transfers.

Friday proselytizing time (we finished off the day by knocking my family’s door 😆.
We pride ourselves on how exceptionally hilarious, clever, and original this joke was)

Between Independence Day and Pioneer Day, we’re in a month of honoring the sacrifice of those who came before us. At the same time, I’ve been reflecting on how, in a positive way, I’m not only blessed by, but made up of charity from those around me—family, mentors, friends, etc. In cases where immense discouragement weighs me down and I can’t see the worth of my effort, this thought has helped me keep going: “Honor the gifts you have been given. On a temporal level, other people have toiled, building you up to be who you are, and on an eternal level, you are not your own.” (See 1 Corinthians 6:19)

Remember too that the incredible sacrifice of those who have given us the lives, culture, and possessions we enjoy is only a darkened reflection of our Savior’s sacrifice, which encompasses every blessing and every hardship, even extending infinitely beyond them (2 Nephi 9:7).

God be with you,

Elder Tolman

Keeping up the bulb light obsession (the other elders have to remind me
that I have this quirk…when they don’t, my bulb light selfie collection stagnates :P)