Week 2

Hola,

So much has happened and I hate having one day to tell you all about it. Last Saturday we went to the temple and it was awesome. It seemed so old though and everything was rickety. We did a session and the officiator was like brand new at it, so he messed up a lot. It reminded me of being an ordinance worker and I miss it. Elder Moala fell asleep during the session and I had to wake him up so that was funny.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get a picture so hopefully today we will.

At exercise time I ran but the track sucks. We taught a guy named Scott. He was our teacher but acted as an investigator but felt the spirit way strong. Sunday was full of devotionals and meetings, but they were super good. We watched “Match His Message” and it was a very cheesy video about "locking your heart" and not flirting with other missionaries. Then we watched a devotional with Elder Bednar called “Character of Christ”. It’s about turning outwards and focusing on others. Really awesome things I learned.

I said the sacrament prayer in Spanish, but it felt weird because I didn’t know where to pause. Someone shared a cool quote "if we are obedient our faith will increase" never thought about it that way.

Elder Coles was here about a week or two longer than I have been here and he left the beginning of the week to the Mexico CCM and so said goodbye to him. He shared Alma 48:17, great scripture. There is a picture of that.

Me and Elder Coles

We had choir practice and practiced “Be Still My Soul”. The choir director Brother Egget is super cool and shares some awesome things in between us singing. It’s like a mini-devotional.

Every Sunday we also do a zone walk where we walk halfway to the Temple and sing hymns in a circle. SUPER COOL. Oh, we also had a devotional where our sister training leader sang like opera in it. Super cool best part of the devotional. They said in the devotional that Jesus is the silver refiner. When silver is heated up it has to be watched. He watches us as we get heated up in trials but will help us and take us out before we get too brittle and break. Loved that message. Then had FHE and that was fun.

On Monday we had our first TRC where we teach someone who could be a member or not. Her name was Taryn. We taught her twice and we thought it went pretty well. Elder Fatiaki shared the first vision our second visit and the spirit was pretty strong. Then we had another TRC named Daniel who was a little bit weird. Our first lesson went better and afterward Elder Eatiaki and I got mad at each other. We talked it through though and we are going to try better to get along. I made him promise to take companion study more seriously, so we actually get stuff done. Our second visit with Daniel was better. We also had a member TRC where we try and strengthen their faith and it was awesome. We challenged him to go on dates more because he wants to get married. We were laughing like the whole time.

Happy Birthday to Grandma Eskelsen on Sunday and to my mom on Tuesday!

Our classes and teachers are awesome, and we always have amazing discussions. Elder Cox shared something the other day I really loved. It was in Matthew somewhere I can’t remember but he said that as we take Christ’s burden upon us, which is missionary work, he can take care of the rest and help us. A counselor in our branch presidency shared an experience of this lady he ministers to. She was called to be an ordinance worker in the temple as a supervisor. One day a sister looked really sick, so she sent her home and then looked at the sick ordinance worker’s schedule which had like an endowment session and two hours of initiatory and a bunch of other stuff. She went into a room and prayed for help. When she left the room a sister from a different shift just walked in to help and had received the prompting to come even before the supervisor had prayed. God has a plan and he knows us all.

I’ve been playing lots of volleyball and am pretty much the best! All the hermanas where mad when I played basketball instead yesterday, but I still wrecked in basketball soo it’s all good. I ran again on like Tuesday but somehow wrecked my ankle so now it hurts all the time oh well.

We had to wake up early on Thursday for service and we are in charge of cleaning a residence hall every Thursday now. Yesterday was Brother Porters second to last time teaching us before we go to Spanish next week. At the end of class we knelt down and he prayed for us. Felt his love so strong and I’m pretty sure it was very similar to when Christ prayed in front of the Nephites. The spirit is so strong here and my testimony is strengthened every day. I wish I could share every single moment with you but that’s too much typing.

One last thing, last time I mention I met Hermana Tolman. Her dad is dad’s cousin. Anyways backtrack a few days ago to Wednesday, I waited at the front where all the new missionaries come through for Connor and saw him and gave him a big hug. It was awesome. Anyways here is a picture of all three of us.

Mucho amor, 

Elder Tolman

Our room

Me and Elder Perterson

First and Second Cousins!

Week 1

Hey,

Hope everyone is doing well! I am very excited to be here in the MTC. My compañero is Elder Fatiaki. He is from Oceanside California. He is like part Samoan or something so he yells stuff out to other Samoans and Tongans but I don’t think he knows what he is saying. The other people in our district are Elder Singleton (his dad is a chiropractor) Elder Cox, Elder Ward (our district leader), Elder Nyberg, Hermana Garcia, Hermana Johnson, Hermana Huchinson, and Hermana Ross.  Most of us our going to Quito but my compañero is going to Guayaquil, Hermana Ross is going to France and Elder Cox and Singleton are going to El Salvador and Belize. I’ll include a picture. 

Me and Elder Fatiaki

My District

First day the elder took my bags and I walked in a room where they give me all my stuff except they mixed up my badge with Hermana Tolman’s. So then I had to wait for them to fix it. I got back in line for the rest of my stuff and then Mary Meyer came through the door. Really fun to see her. Then right behind me ended up being Hermana Tolman. We don’t know each other but it was funny when the workers kept asking us if we were related. 

After I got my room and went to class we had lunch and I accidentally dropped my tray with all my food and glass plates. It shattered everywhere. Whoops. Didn’t get any sleep the first night but these last two have been pretty good. 

Our schedule is pretty much the same each day for the first week and I would dash boring. We are in a pilot program and are in like the third stage of testing. We are doing a 10 day English learning with like 30 min of language study and then the rest of our time will be in Spanish. I just want to learn Spanish then get the heck out of here. 

We do get to teach people. It’s called TRC. We have 3 people we are going to be teaching and I think we will get one more. It’s fun teaching except the planning is the hard part.

My compañero doesn’t seem to listen much in class and he does not help
plan very well. He is the senior compañero for the first 3 weeks so he
is supposed to lead discussions but usually I do and when I do let him
it is totally off topic. We are also always late to our study times because of him. Like yesterday we had BOM study but because he had to mail stuff home and he didn’t know how it took us the whole hour. A little frustration with him but I hope we can work things out. 

Our second day we met with our branch presidency. They are pretty cool but
one of them is scary. I asked the president to take the picture of our district. He was very reluctant for some reason but took like three photos and they are all bad. I asked for one with them but he declined also. Our teachers Brother Porter and Holland and Sisters Blau and Giles are way cool so that makes class better. Our zone leaders Elder Johns and Elder McNally are so cool too. Elder Johns has a music YouTube channel so check it out and tell me if it is any good. Also
Elder McNally is British or something and has the coolest accent. I also met Elder Mefau. Probably spelled that way wrong but he doesn’t have a companion. So the first day he hung out with me and my compañero. He is Australian and it’s so funny to listen to him talk.


We had our first exercise day on Friday and we played volleyball but there are so many people who suck so it is a lot of rotation and and boring. Definitely going to start running now. We have temple time and exercise time today and the rest of p day is kinda do what you want.  We got emails yesterday saying that we can email call or Skype family on p days and on parents' birthdays as well as Father's and Mother’s Day and Christmas so let me know a time you want to Skype and we can try Skyping. I’m so glad I have this opportunity to serve. I know this gospel is true and that God has a plan for each of us to return to live with Him again. I am so grateful for this gospel.

I love you very much and miss you!

Elder Tolman

I made it!!!

Hey, Just made it. I saw Mary Meyer within 5 minutes of being here. I have more stories to tell already but I will email more on Saturday. That is my p-day while I'm here in the MTC. My teachers are Sister Blau and Brother Porter. 

hasta luego

Elder Tolman