Another Transfer in Rio!

 Hola a todos! 

Hope you all had a great week and enjoyed Thanksgiving! We sure did! 

On Tuesday we drove to McAllen for exchanges. I picked up Elder Jordan and we came back home. 

Wednesday we met as a zone over zoom and got to know each other. Then we went we taught Leo and his sister Kassy. They were both on date for the 12th of December but they didn’t come to church yesterday so we will have to move that. Then at night we had mutual but no youth showed up so we just made turkey hands and put them on a door of a member to tell them we are thankful for them. 

 Thursday, we had Thanksgiving dinner for breakfast at Elvira’s. And then Thanksgiving lunch and dinner. In between those three meals we were able to have a few lessons which was good but most the day was going around super full and it hurt jaja.

 Friday, we went back and taught some people. We helped Leo move apartments. Then late that night we had a super cool lesson where we had started teaching this guy and his girlfriend. Then one of their neighbors walks up and asks if he can listen. We tell him yes and he is pretty interested. Asking a lot of questions and stuff like that. He said he wouldn’t be able to come to church, but he would read the Book of Mormon. 

 Saturday comes and we had lots of meetings. We had a lot of good lessons and good contacts. The Lord really has been blessing us with success. Our last lesson of the night we went back to teach this family after already sharing President Nelson's message of hope. They loved it and when we said he was a prophet there was no objection. We started teaching the restoration and they immediately started telling us we were wrong. But we kept explaining. Read some scriptures in the Bible. Showed them some pictures of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. Then they gave us time to explain and as I shared the story of the first vision, I could see the husband's demeanor had changed. I had his full attention, and I could tell the spirit had softened his heart. We finished and invited them to pray and ask God if it was true. The wife was still stubborn and stated that she already knew they weren’t so she had no reason to ask God. But the husband turned to her and said "it says that there are in the Bible, I believe it." It was so cool but funny at the same time. Cool that the spirit had touched his heart but funny that he, who didn’t know as much about the gospel, was questioning why she didn’t understand when it was written in the Bible. We are excited to go back this week!

 Sunday, we went to go wake up some investigators and while we were there, we found the guy who had walked in on one of our lessons. He told us he ended up not working and he would come. It was so sad at first but a cool experience. The Lord definitely works in mysterious ways. He came to church and a less active we have been helping also did! We talked to them after and gave a blessing to another member after church and forgot we had to fill a font for some other elders that were going to have a baptism. So, we hurried and did that. We had to start late, but the baptism went very well! Then we headed over to dinner with some members and we planned some activities for the branch. Then we had some more amazing lessons with other people we had found. It’s just amazing how many people the Lord is leading us to!! We are so blessed!

 I hope you all are able to see the Lord’s hand in your life as you give thanks for the blessings you have! I was feeling sad a few days ago. I said a prayer ONLY giving thanks for my blessings and I felt a ton better after. So, I know it works and invite you all to do the same! Have a great week!

 Elder Tolman

 Hola a todos!

 So, Thanksgiving is coming up and we have already had like 3 Thanksgiving meals. Lol. 

 Highlights this week are that we passed by this guy who was being taught before. He is super cool and understands the gospel really well. He has a baptismal date for December 12. 

 We found a less active member and his son is 12. He loves learning about God and asks a lot of good questions. The only problem is he goes to Mexico every weekend. He came to our youth activity which was awesome. 

 Wednesday was my dad’s birthday! Also we were contacting at night and walking down this street. All the sudden I turn and look into this field and there is a tree stump glowing. We went to check it out and yep, it was a burning bush lol jaja but it was kind of weird. 

 Thursday, we had a movie night and all of the people there were our investigators and a less active family.

 Friday and Saturday basically were just a whole bunch of meetings, but even with that the Lord blessed us with time to find new people also! Also, our other person on date tested positive for covid so that's a big rip. We are praying everything is ok with her and her family.

Funny story: Saturday morning we are planning and then we hear an explosion outside. A guy carrying a ton of tile had blown his tire. There was nothing we could do to fix the tire. Then the guy who bought the tile came and we offered our truck. So, we loaded half the tile on our truck and took it to his house. Then other workers got there with their truck, so they did the second half. Then we helped them put on a spare. We got to teach lessons to 2 of the guys and have a return appointment with one of them. 

 Sunday, we got transfers. But before that, we went down this road to visit a guy. They ended up having covid so we left real quick. We followed the road all the way down until it came to the Rio Grande. Had a good old photo shoot. And I touched the water🤫 Elder Allred is leaving and I will be staying. I am sad to have him go. We had a lot of fun together. I will be getting an Elder named Elder Jordan. 

 Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!🦃
 Elder Tolman

"Thanksgiving Dinner"

Sunset over Rio!

Burning Bush

Rio Photo Shoot

More Staples

 Hola a todos!

 Hope you all had a great week! I feel like I was writing last week’s email just two days ago! 

 

Monday, we had a cookout with a member family that hadn't been coming to church. They came to church on Sunday so that was awesome! They made us tacos and they were so good. Then after that we drove up towards Zapata so we could do exchanges with those elders. 

 

Tuesday I was with Elder Anderson all day. We visited some recent converts and had a few killer lessons. It was overall a successful day. Oh ya, we had one guy try and bash with us so we just left him with our number and then the next guy told us we could come back a week ago so we stopped by and he was outside working in the back. He heard us knock and poked his head out and saw it was us so he went to hide. What he didn’t know is that I saw him poke his head out so we went and followed him. But then he got mad and started yelling at us that we were trespassing and stuff. It was kind of funny and sad at the same time because he wanted us to come over but then something changed. 

 

Wednesday we had service at Casa de Esperanza. We went to Walmart to load a truck with food and take it back to start storing it. As I entered the building, I hit the top of my head on the entry way and ended up splitting my head so we had to go to the ER and get that fixed. It took them forever and so we wasted our morning. I was mad. We got some food at 2 and then had to hurry to Roma to do interviews with President. After interviews we switched back. We also found out that Carina, who was going to get baptized got in contact with someone who had covid so we couldn't go visit her and she hasn't been answering her phone. That was sad but we are still praying for her.

 

Thursday, we had breakfast at Elvira’s. She is such a sweet lady. Then we had a few return appointments, and they all went pretty well. The Lord has been blessing us a lot!

 

Friday, we had a really cool lesson. This guy struggles reading and comprehending but wants to keep learning more. And even though he doesn’t understand he still reads. Well we showed him the Ask of God video and the spirit was so strong and we set a date and he was so ready for it. We had some other lessons, but that was the highlight of the day. Then we went back on Saturday with a member and he came out almost crying and trying to give us all his books because his family members had come over and yelled at him for talking to us and said they would disown him if he got baptized. That was super sad to see. 

 

Sunday, we had a less active family show up and two investigators! We were so happy. I wish we could have sat by them though. That's the only downside to having a small branch. We bless the Sacrament every week. But after church we ate at fam Peñas house and that was a blast. They had us laughing the whole time. Later we went and visited a few people and had a super long lesson with a woman we found this week. She is going through a lot and so we are trying to help her take steps to change it. It could be a long process, but I trust the Lord will be able to help her because he atoned for all the sins and afflictions of the world. Because he suffered in the Garden and later on the cross and then was resurrected on the third day we all have the possibility of returning to live with our Father in Heaven and I am so grateful for that great and everlasting sacrifice. 

 

Hope you all have a great week!

Rio Grande

5 Staples!

Horse Jockey

 Hola a todos!

 So this week went by crazy fast! I'm not sure what exactly happened to the time!

 

On Tuesday night we did exchanges. So I went to another area with some Elders for the day. We ended up having to drive to Brownsville to get their car fixed and that took up most of our day. We got home and had 2 lessons before we drove back to Rio. On the other hand, Elder Allred stayed in Rio with another Elder and they found a lot of people and had some pretty good lessons!

 

On Thursday not much happened. An older lady in the branch made us a cake! We had a lesson with Carina though and she is super prepared. She made plans and backup plans to make sure she gets to church. Then we had dinner with a senior missionary couple who is also our Branch President. Then we had a movie night and watched Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but everyone left early so we never finished it. Then we started other exchanges with some Elders in Roma.

 

So all day Friday I was in Roma with the other Elders. We walked the streets for a bit in the morning and met some cool people. Then went to the store to buy stuff for their Branch activity. Later we had a lesson right before dinner and we tried to set a baptismal date. He accepted it at first saying he wanted to be baptized. In fact, he brought it up himself but then after a few minutes totally changed and had no desire to be baptized. That was sad. Then we ate dinner from a member, they bought us Little Caesars. Then we had a lesson with a guy named Jorge. We talked about baptism and he accepted a date and wants to go to church and for his family to come! So that was a huge blessing, and the spirit was soo strong! 

 

Friday night I was back again at our apartment. Saturday went well. We played some soccer with some kids. Then had some lessons and invited a ton of people to church. Also, an investigator family was cooking outside so they invited us to eat with them. There is this street where everyone on it seems to be interested and we are teaching almost all of them. 

 

Sunday Carina came to church. Sadly, no one else did. But we were super excited for her. After church we visited a few people and had some good contacts. We are hoping all the people we are teaching can progress! Because we have found a lot of families recently!

 

Well that's all I have for this week! Hope you all have a great week full of miracles! 

 

Also, I want to challenge all who read this (which at this point might just be my family) to a Facebook challenge. I'll send a picture with instructions!

 

Los quiero mucho! 

Elder Tolman 

Happy Halloween and Feliz dia de los Muertos!

 Hola a todos!

Happy late Halloween! 

So last week we played kickball in the morning. Then that afternoon the assistants came and picked up Elder Loo to take him the the airport. That night we cleaned the house and found our we have an ant problem. 

Tuesday we had zone conference. Part of it was online and the other part in person. It went super well and after we got Little Caesars. We went contacting later that night and passed by this creepy abandoned house and we got all spooked so we just went home after that. 

Wednesday we did service at the Casa de Esperanza. Then did some contacting before we went to the church to watch a movie. Only one person came and we ended up watching Halloween Town. Then we had exchanges with the APs. 

Thursday I was with Elder Bake all day and we went and visited a few people. We did service at the Casa de Esperanza again and they gave us two boxes with ton of food in it. At one point in our day we couldn't get into some lessons cause people either weren't home or there were big dogs. Also we were on bikes. Elder Bake said a prayer and then we felt like we should go to this one house. We get close and a whole bunch of dogs came out and he got scared but we went anyways and it was a less active member who didn't know if we still had church or not. Then we ran into this family who had talked to missionaries before and there are like 20 people in this household so we are excited to teach them. Later that night we switched back. 

Friday, went by super fast. One highlight is we went by this family for dinner and they were talking about an activity we could do to help get members active and we asked if they would help us and quickly said no jaja. It was pretty funny. 

Saturday we contacted these guys playing drums and long story short this guy thought we were angels and was crying and said my companion looked like his dad who had passed away. He gave him a five minute hug and then we invited him to church. He said he would go but wouldn't see us there because we were angels and that he wouldn't be able to see us anymore after that day.  We also started doing some contacts in the cemetery to help people with family history. We took a less active member and he loved it. He knew like everyone there and did the contacting for us which was super cool!

Sunday we had an extra hour of sleep cause of daylight savings. But instead of that being a good thing and making it easier for people to get to church they were all confused about the time so just never came. We had a lesson with carina and set the 21st as her baptism and later Ruperto was a new we found in that household of 20. We asked if any of then had been baptized and he said him and his kids weren't but that he wanted to so we set a date with him for the same day too! God was definitely working his hand in our life this week and it was a privilege to be a part of it.

Monday we did some service and taught a few recent converts. It was weird not having p day. We went to contact in the cemetery again but with a different member and it was so funny having him start conversations but hey it worked. We did that and went home to this huge ant problem and so we had to by ant traps. 

It was definitely one of the strangest, funniest, best weeks of the mission! I cant wait for the next.

Have a great week!

Elder Tolman

My Golden Ticket to come back and visit a member's daughter.