Monday, January 5, 2015

Happy New Years!

Hey everyone!

I hope y'all had a great New Years! This has been a good week for us despite the holidays!

Monday was transfer day. We had a couple of hours in the morning before we were to be at the transfer spot with the other Elders so we helped out the Central Point 1st and Gold Hill Elders get ready for the transfer. Each of those companionships had one Elder leaving! Luckily, Elder Galloway and I were staying together so that was good. After transfers, we did grocery shopping and I finally got my haircut! It was a pretty solid day despite transfers!

Tuesday we tried to do some service tracting but no one was out-and-about due to the cold and when we talked to people they just shut us down. We then tried to contact people all afternoon but we got nothing... That was a huge bummer because we had some high hopes for the day!

Wednesday was New Year's Eve! We had a solid service project lined up with an investigator but he had to cancel because of the cold weather so we went with the Gold Hill Elders to go help them with a service project that was close to our area. After we cleaned up, we tried seeing a couple of people but no one was around to hear our message. We had a great dinner with a couple of members and we played Skip-Bo afterwards! The two ladies that were there just dominated all of us! It was quite embarrassing to say the least! However, I was able to win the last round! Huzzah! I didn't get swept by the two elderly sisters in Skip-Bo! We came back to the apartment and played some games to finish the night. We didn't sleep well that night because our neighbors or the people around us were popping off some big fireworks!

Thursday we were up early to go play some basketball with the zone. It was a great way to start off the New Year! The Gold Hill Elders hung out with us before we went to the stake center and watched "The Lego Movie"! It was funny that this was my third time watching this movie while most of the missionaries hadn't seen it haha! I was quoting from the movie (quietly of course) and it was pretty great haha! Elder Galloway and I couldn't stick around to help clean up because we had an appointment set up with Jay P. I had my doubts that he had remembered the appointment (we had set up the appointment two weeks prior and we had no way to contact him). When we showed up at the complex he is living in, there he was with his Bible and Triple combination opened and ready! We had a pretty awesome lesson! He had a couple of questions about Sabbath day worship and scriptures in the Bible that foretell the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. We were able to answer his questions through scriptures and the knowledge we had and that satisfied him! The best part of the lesson was when he brought up baptism and coming to church! Although we were not able to put him on date to be baptized, we feel that the Spirit is working hard in him and he knows deep down that this was the path for him. We had a lesson with Jay H. before dinner. The family feed us deep fried food! Oh man, it was like being back in Texas!

Friday was an interesting day! We had some tentative appointments set up but they fell through. We had planned on biking over the interstate to the other side of our area so after lunch we geared up and headed out on bikes. It only took a few seconds for things to start going wrong! As we were going, I noticed that my left pedal wasn't as smooth as the right pedal. I pulled over and I realized that my crank bar was coming loose! We were heading over to an area where we had members who could fix the problem so we kept moving. We were approaching the Sonic driveway and Elder Galloway was about seven feet or so in front of me. As he crossed the Sonic driveway, a lady in the turn lane shot the gap...into the same driveway I was in the process of crossing! Luckily, I had enough distance between myself and the car to slam on my brakes and avoid a collision (although I still kinda fell a little!). These two elderly ladies who had been waiting for me to cross in front of them rolled down their window and asked me if I was okay! Thankfully I was and we were able to make our way over to Central Point East. We were able to read an Ensign article with Mike and help him with some things that he couldn't do. He lives in a care home(?) with three other people who aren't able to take care of themselves. We had recently learned that another member of the Church had moved in so after we saw Mike we tried to see her but she was super sick so we couldn't see her. When we left the care home, we went by the member who fixes bikes but he wasn't home! Luckily for us, there was a member family who lived not too far from where we were so we left our bikes there and got a ride from Brother Whit***. We shared a message with Dana before dinner. Since we both still don't know very many members in the ward, we spent our night contacting the members we had no idea who they were!

Saturday Elder Galloway had district leader training in the morning so we spent our morning walking over to the church and talk about how he and the other district leaders can be better district leaders. We had a lesson with Adam about looking forward towards the future over cranberry juice, pineapple, and cheesy bread. We had a lesson set up for 2:00 with a potential investigator but she texted us about an hour before saying she was getting ready to take her daughter to Portland for surgery! Although it was a bummer, the investigator asked us to pray for her daughter so I guess that is a good sign that she recognizes the power of prayer! We had another lesson set up with Larry but he got super busy and never texted us back to tell us he was busy... so we ended up just trying to contact people before dinner! After dinner we were walking around Central Point and a man came up to us and said that he just moved into the ward and wanted to know when church was! It was pretty great timing for us to be there to help this brother out!

Sunday we had ward council bright and early in the morning! Thanks to the new year, our ward meets at 9! I was just starting to get adjusted to afternoon church! We had an awesome ward council! The ward is planning on doing an emergency preparedness fair that involves zombies! It is going to be awesome. Unfortunately, I probably won't be around for it since it won't happen until October. We had a great fast and testimony meeting. Right before Gospel Principles started, a man who comes all the time but isn't a member gave us his phone number and said he has some questions for us! We are pretty excited for the opportunity to help this brother out! After church, we waited and waited for Angelo and Spencer to show but they didn't... Although it was disappointing that we weren't able to teach them, we received news that Angelo is going to do whatever it takes to get baptized so we will see what happens! We had a huge break the fast dinner with Bishop and his whole immediate family! Oh man there was some good food! After stuffing myself with delicious food, we went out and set up some appointments with members for family home evenings. Along the way, we knocked on a couple of doors but no one was interested.

That was our week! Although we had a holiday in the middle of our week, we had a pretty decent week. One thing though that stuck out to me was our lesson with Jay P. Someone told him that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn't believe in the Book of Revelations. I don't know how anyone can say that when Revelation 14:6 says:

"And I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people".

I am forever grateful for this gospel! There is no doubt!

I love y'all! Have a great week!

Elder Jacob Tonini
“Do your duty, that is best. Leave unto the Lord the rest.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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