Monday we had our P-day shorten because of the temple "trip" we are making so with P-day ending around 2 pm, we decided to do our shopping in the morning before emailing. We did a ton of shopping and had a good lunch while we were out and about. On our way to the church, we got rammed from behind. We were sitting at the stoplight on the off-ramp and the Elder who was driving happened to look out of the rear-view mirror to see this guy not slowing down behind us. Before he could say a word, the guy hit us square on the corner of the trunk going who-knows-how fast and that jolted us pretty bad. We traded information and checked out the car. Luckily, no one was hurt and nothing in the trunk was damaged so that was good. We emailed and Elder Galloway got his haircut before we tried seeing people. After dinner, we got a text from the Sisters asking us to give a blessing to a less active in the ward and we happily obliged. That was a good way to end the night.
Tuesday was pretty rough! It started off well though! We headed up to the temple to do our weekly service on the grounds. We managed to get two huge bushes out so they can plant some new ones. After lunch and showering (we got pretty dirty!), we biked around the rest of the afternoon and tried setting up lessons with members. We had a couple of lessons set up with investigators but they had to cancel so that was unfortunate! Thank goodness for back up plans! We really didn't have much go for us that day... After dinner is where my day went downhill. After dinner, as we were loading our bikes onto the member's bike hitch, I heard a small pop come from my bike. I did not think anything of it until I got home and I could feel my tire rubbing against my brakes. When we got back into the apartment to drop off our bikes and take a quick stop before heading back out, I turned my bike over and tried to figure out what that popping was and why my tire was rubbing. Turns out, when we had put the bike on the bike hitch, I broke a spoke on my back tire! The second time my bike has broken down in two weeks! Lame sauce! After I finished fuming about that and made a few phone calls to a brother in the ward who fixes bikes and an investigator who knows bikes, I felt a little better. Not a ton better, just a little. We tried contacting more people but................ nothing. Again! Ah, the life of a missionary!
Wednesday we did weekly planning in the morning due to going to the temple on Thursday. After weekly planning and lunch, we went and saw Brother Ba*** for a little bit before our lesson with Jay. It was a solid lesson! Although the kids were going in and out and he was SUPER tired, we had a good time watching the talk that Elder D. Todd Christofferson gave about mercy and justice. We came back to our apartment and Elder and Sister Pease came and gave us a ride to a local bike shop to get the spoke on my bike fixed. Luckily, the guy was able to find a spoke that fit my rim and we were in and out in about 15 minutes. We contacted a couple of members to set up appointments to come do a family home evening with them and their families before dinner. We shared a Christmas video with a less active member after dinner. He was a really cool guy! He works as Santa around this time of year and talked about how service makes the true Christmas and the origin story of sorts for Santa. Pretty cool story! We then contacted members to set up the FHE for the rest of the night.
Thursday was super awesome! We got dressed in our suits and headed off to the temple! It was my first time going into a smaller temple to do a temple session! It was super great! I really needed that time in the temple to ponder and pray to my Heavenly Father for guidance. After lunch we went and contacted a man that the Sisters had been teaching for awhile but handed off to us. Although we weren't able to set up an appointment with him, we are excited to teach him based off what the Sisters told us! We tried contacting two other potentials but neither one of them were available. We shared a Christmas message with Dana and he really enjoyed it. We walked over to dinner and then contacted members for the rest of our evening before correlation. When we arrived, Sister Sta*** had some things she wanted to talk to us about before we got into correlation. She went over the missionary dinner calendar and then said the temple had a referral for us! We thought she was joking at first haha but it turns out that a man had called the temple and asked for the missionaries to come teach him the discussions and he lived in our area! Happy day! We had a great correlation meeting to finish up the day! It was probably the least stressful day of the week haha!
Friday we had zone training meeting in the morning. We had an hour's worth of announcements, especially on the "He is The Gift" initiative that the Church has released. The Church is going all out on this! It is pretty awesome! We had a really good Zone Training Meetings (ZTM) and we learned a lot so that's good. After lunch we went and tried to contact some of the people in our Area Book and although some people were not home, we were able to set up some appointments with investigators! We had an early dinner with a family at some pizza place and they asked us if we wanted to tag along for the parade and activities that were occurring. We happily agreed. We had stocked up on "He is The Gift" pass-along cards and we passed out a ton! It was pretty awesome being able to talk to people about the Savior and about the Christmas spirit! We did that pretty much all evening!
Sunday was pretty great. We were planning on going to ward council but our ride canceled right as the time for ward council rolled around so we were not able to make it time... shoot! We had a wonderful fast and testimony meeting and the two hours afterwards were pretty enlightening! We talked about the organization of the family in Gospel Principles and then we talked about how the Bible came to be in Elder's Quorum. The Day family took us to their home after church for a break-the-fast dinner and then to watch the Christmas devotional! I love the Day family! Ever since I have come to Central Point, Sister Day and I have really connected and she and her husband are just awesome people to be around! After dinner we tried contacting some people but no luck on that end. We were getting ready for our lesson with Brad but he texted us right as we were heading over to his place and had to cancel.
So, to sum up this week, we had a lot of cancellations haha! However, we were able to get a new investigator and a solid investigator from the Sisters so that was pretty huge!
I want to mention a couple of things before I end this email. First thing is that I want all of y'all to share "He is The Gift" with everyone! The Church is really putting an emphasis on this and when they are asking EVERY SINGLE MISSIONARY if they are having success with the new initiative, it's a huge deal. Please help people remember that we have to keep Christ in CHRISTmas! It is a great time of year to serve others and help them feel of the Savior's love.
Last thing before I close. I was reading in Alma 32 Sunday morning for my personal study and this chapter has so many awesome things in it but for some reason this really never stuck out to me. Alma is talking about faith to the Zoramites who have been kicked out of the synagogues because of their poverty. In verse 27, Alma says that "if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words". As many of you know from science class, a particle is pretty tiny, yet when we go to the Lord in earnest prayer seeking for the truth with that particle of faith, He will help us come to a knowledge of the truth of all things.
I love all of y'all so very much! Have a wonderful week and have a merry Christmas!
Elder Tonini
Sent from my iPad
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