Hurricane + Tornado

Hola a todos!

Ya so if you didn’t hear, hurricane Hannah hit on Saturday and Sunday. We also had a tornado touch down nearby. All while I was sleeping, it was rather disappointing. But I can now say I have experienced both I guess. 

This week we had transfers, so we went to the mission office to pick up my new comp. I got a tiwi which is a card that allows us to drive a mission vehicle. That was cool so now I am driving a Tacoma. 

Other than that everything is the same. Grinding, trying to offer service to anyone and everyone. We have been pushing a family history service too.

Just a little thought I wanted to share is a little thought from last week’s come follow me.

 Alma 33:23 says "And then may God grant unto you that your burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son. And even all this can be do if ye will."

I love how it says that our burdens will be made light through the joy of his Son. That doesn’t mean that our trials and afflictions will be made less painful, but that the Lord will give us more joy than our pain was and so it will make it seem light or less painful. That is the power that comes through the Savior, but it says at the end "if ye will" which means we have to do our part and have faith and trust in the Lord and his power to help us in our trials. I know the Lord paid not only for all the sins of the world, but for all the pains through his sacrifice. That means we can also receive strength through the atonement of Jesus Christ to overcome whatever hard times come our way! I invite you all to come closer to our Savior and Redeemer and receive of his strength and Joy!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Tolman

Tiwi

Elder Cookston and I

New Transfer

Hola mis amigos y familia!

Hope you all had a great week!

Some highlights from mine,

On Tuesday we had a random house inspection and got some new knives and towels! Then I made some banana bread for the first time. It turned our pretty well.

Wednesday we had lunch and dinner with two different members, but we had to pick up lunch at 3 and dinner at 5 so that was super weird. Then we went on exchanges with the Zone leaders and so that was a good opportunity for us to learn different ways to contact in the streets. We bought DQ afterwards.

Friday, we had a lesson with a former investigator. She has reached out to us and was ready to talk again so that awesome! Then we had a lesson with this cute older lady who had no clue how to use her phone. We had given her a Book of Mormon and tried reading it with her over the phone which proved to be super hard! Then we went out to the streets and we ran out of pass along cards too early so that was a bummer. 

Saturday, we worked on some more videos so get ready for those. Hopefully they drop soon! Also, we have been going out on our breaks to a little resaca (that's what they call the bodies of water here) it's a pond/river type thing and we fish for a bit but unfortunately never caught anything.

Sunday, we got asked to speak but for next Sunday so yay! But we also got transfers today and Elder Pico is leaving, and I am staying and receiving Elder Cookson who came out the same time as Elder Pico. 

Here are some pictures of the week!

Slug we found in the resaca

The resaca

Old Brownsville cemetery

Funny meme in Spanish 

Elder Pico almost lost an eye!

Hola mis amigos y familia!

This week was very interesting and full of surprises so let's get into it!

So on Monday we were finishing up our day with a service. We were mowing this lady’s lawn and helping her throw away a whole bunch of old junk she had piled up in her garage. About 10 min into it Elder Pico was weed whacking and a big object flew and hit him in the eye. So we called Sister Ocampo and the next day, his birthday, we went to a doctor to see what's up. They said there is no scratch or debris so that was good. Because it was his birthday Sister Tejada wanted to give us a special lunch. Well we already had a lunch that day so we had to pick up two lunches and the second one took too long so we didn't even get to eat because we had a zone meeting to get to. We got there late and stressed and then the meeting went on forever and we still had to get info to Sister Ocampo. After all of this, the district wanted to shove Elder Picos’ face into a cake but because of his eye they volunteered one of our zone leaders as tribute!

The rest of our week was good. We had a district meeting with president there so that made me a bit nervous, but it went well. Then on Saturday I was messaging a guy on facebook and asked if he was interested in family history. He was and got super excited and we set up a return appointment which was such a cool miracle since we had not found anyone else that week! On Sunday we also had a zone come follow me study which was fun and very insightful. I love reading from the Book of Mormon. I also started a study of the 4 gospels which is cool too! 

I hope you all have a great week!

Les quiero mucho,

Elder Tolman

Our district minus one sister

Happy 4th!

Hola mis amigos y familia!

Happy 4th of July! I hope you all had a fun time celebrating! We went out into our complex parking lot and watched a few fireworks from our neighbors as they played some reggaeton! They also gave us some of their cookout! So that was a fun time!

Last Monday we met with our district and played some kickball. We had teams of three and tried to keep social distancing so basically it was a lot of home runs jaja. 

We were able to find some cool people this week that seemed prepared to hear our message, but then we couldn't get in contact with them which was disappointing. We did a zoom call with some members and tried to hype them up and do a video with us for our Facebook page. So hopefully they will start sending in their videos and you guys can see it! Also if you have any suggestions for our videos feel free to let us know! I also made snickerdoodles and brownies for my district and am planning on making some more treats this week. It's been fun jaja and they actually turned out! 

Wednesday we woke up to this really cool text that a person had seen that we offer service and it reminded her she needed God back in her life as she was a member. So cool to see our efforts working! We have hit a huge roadblock and both of our Facebook have reached a point where we can only add like 20 people and then it blocks us for a while. So that has made finding a little harder. We have been going out at night to talk to people in the streets (with social distancing of course) and try and set up return appointments. That has been fun and we've seen a lot of success in doing that! One family we gave a card to that had our number and they didn't seem interested and then down a different street they pulled up next to us and were asking more questions! They asked if we could say prayers at funeral services and so we got the chance to talk a little more! The work here is definitely slow for us, but I have seen many miracles in our district and zone and so I know they are out there and that there are people prepared to hear our message! This is the Lords work!

I hope you all have a great week!

Les quiero mucho!

Elder Tolman 

The ASL Sisters bought us fourth of July shirts!

Food from Sister Tejada