Email from a Member

We got to meet Elder Tonini's new companion today! And Cameron is getting baptized this weekend! 

The One That is Really Short

Hey Mom!

I won't be emailing much today, it's been nuts. I will send out a big email next week!:) Elder Hinton got transferred and I am with Elder Taito! He was my old zone leader in Central Point! We are going to have a blast!

Cameron is still on date to be baptized this weekend! Pray for him!

Love you!

Elder Tonini

The One Where We Did Work!

Monday was the usual P-Day festivities. We went shopping and did some emailing before playing basketball with a guy who is 6'7 and has a scholarship to go play somewhere! He was REALLY good. We got cleaned up and had dinner with the Engl***'s. I connected with Sister Engl*** very well; She is a big A's fan haha so we talked trash about the Dodgers! It was super fun! :) We then spent the rest of our night out contacting people that were potentials or members we didn't know. We drove over to the west side of Medford looking for this one guy! Unfortunately.... We couldn't find him but it was fun nevertheless!

Tuesday was a solid day of teaching! We had a lesson first thing in the morning with a girl named Kendra. She is a former investigator that doesn't have much of a Christian background but wants to retake the lessons! We brought one of the youth with us and we went over the Restoration. It was a good lesson, we just hope that she took all of it in. After the lesson, we went on exchanges with Elder Eldridge in my area. That meant I got to drive the mini van around for a day! We went to the church and did an iPad check before our lesson with Cameron. We had a good lesson with him about tithing and fasting. We then had a lesson with Sister Mos*** about hope before going to the church and updating some lessons. We took dinner at our apartment because a member dropped off some pizza for us. We had a couple of lessons set up for after dinner but they bailed so we OYM'd until the Book of Mormon class. We had lesson with Brent afterwards and it went really well! We talked about the 10 commandments and we were able to have a good talk with him about those.

Wednesday morning we started off our morning chopping wood down in Ashland before we exchanged back. I was pretty dang sore and tired! We attempted to contact a couple of potentials but that bore very little fruit. We taught a short lesson to Brother and Sister Johns*** before meeting with Brother Peder*** to go to our lesson with Tammy. That lesson was the happiest I have ever seen Tammy! She connected well with Brother Peder*** and she was open to the message that we shared with her about the Atonement. After our lesson, Brother Peder*** suggested that we go see a less active youth and so we took Nathan and invited him to the youth activity that night (which was water balloon Capture the Flag by the way). The member who was supposed to feed us forgot so she gave us $20 to go to Panda Express! When we got there, Danny happened to be there as well and we had dinner with him! We met up with Brother Rappple*** for our lesson with Sherri. Although her non-member husband wasn't able to sit in, we still had a good lesson with her and her son!

Thursday we did weekly planning in the morning before going out and about for the day. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get much accomplished because we had to write out several lists of people for the senior couple in Yreka to go and see. The whole process took two hours... It took all the time in the afternoon until dinner. We had dinner with a family that just moved up from San Antonio! We had a lesson with an investigator named Bobby. We hadn't been able to meet up with him in forever so that was good. We had correlation to end the night.

I don't have much time so I will recap the rest of the week as so!

Friday: District meeting, took a trip to California! Had a lesson with Austin, had a couple of lessons bail, and the AP's broke into our apartment!

Saturday: Picked up a bike box, talked to a guy who moved to Minot, reset our TIWI, taught a couple of lessons, and talked to some interesting people!

Sunday: Church, talked to a guy who was a gangbanger, had a lesson with Cameron, and taught a couple of less-actives

That is my week! Love y'all!

Elder Tonini

The One Where We drive to the Top of Mt. Ashland!

Hey everyone!

I hope y'all had a good week!

Tuesday was pretty freaking awesome! We were out the door by 9 to go down to Ashland for my first MLC meeting as a zone leader! On the way to Ashland, we gave Sister Newell a blessing and then we headed down to Ashland. We met up with all the other zone leaders and STL's at the Ashland building and we learned a lot about being like Captain Moroni, how to ask inspired questions, etc. In the very beginning segment, President Russell destroyed a white shirt haha! It was awesome! Afterwards, we drove all the way to the top of Mt. Ashland! It was a fun drive up there! We went off reading in Cruzes and Dodge caravans. At the very top of the mountain, President Russell counseled us to always be watchmen and watch women and it was a perfect time to talk to us about that kind of stuff. We took pictures and then made the drive home in time for dinner. We had a great time with the Chaney's before heading off to the church to go try some potentials. We didn't have much luck and as we were walking home, a storm that was off in the distance started to unleash its full force upon us! We were getting hit by 48 mph gusts! It was super fun walking in the wind and the rain. We got back to the car before it got too bad and picked up progress records to end our night.

We started off our Wednesday morning by going to the Brum***'s and knocking out some cobwebs and some blackberry vines. We had lunch and then we did some planning with the STL's about what we were going to cover during ZTM. That took a little longer than expected and so we ended up just hanging at the church until our lesson with Cameron. We went over the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. We had a solid lesson and at the end we watched "Spiritual Crocodiles" with him. He is so solid, I don't think I can say that enough! I'm super excited to see where he goes in the Gospel! After our lesson with Cameron, we went with Brother Cha*** to Sister Mos***' home and shared a message about charity with her. We then drove around and got our oil changed and bought some candy for ZTM. We had dinner before grabbing our suits and heading over to the church to do stake correlation to end the night.

We started off Thursday with planning for ZTM and doing weekly planning. We had a couple of interruptions but we were able to finish up all the planning! We took lunch and then spent a good chunk of our afternoon running around and doing errands. We went and got our tires rotated and we were able to OYM a guy after he asked me if I saw a lady walked in who was EXTREMELY manly. He thought we sold food storage out of the temple and some other weird things. After that, we had a lesson with the McHat***'s about prayer and they ended up talking to a point where we were late for dinner and then in turn made us late for our lesson with Sandy! We were still able to meet up with her though and we read through the first half of 2 Nephi 31 with her and she said she would read the rest! We had a lesson with Michelle set up at 7 but she ended up having a job interview set up for the same time so we just hung out at the church until correlation.

So Friday was pretty awesome. My first ZTM as a zone leader was pretty freaking awesome! The DL's taught a great segment, the Sisters kicked butt, I did an object lesson, and we destroyed a pinata! It was so much fun but at the same time I learned a lot, especially from Elder Ludlow. His portion of ZTM was especially powerful and it gave me a lot to think about. After ZTM, we met up with Elder Christensen and his wife at Jaspers for lunch! Afterwards, they picked us up from our apartment and we drove down to Yreka to move in furniture for the Deal's, the senior couple that is reopening Yreka. I was pretty sweaty and sore afterwards haha! We had dinner with the Gardn*** and then we walk outside to sunshine and rain! It was just one of those days where it just rains even when it seems it shouldn't be! We met up with Nathan at the church and he went with us to visit some potentials and some people that the ward council wanted us to go visit. We didn't have much luck so Elder Hinton and I did a faith walk to end the night. We were able to talk to a guy named Juan. He doesn't live here in Oregon yet but we were able to give him our phone number and a picture of Christ.

Saturday was one of those days that had its ups and downs. I had a super rough morning and I don't know why! We dropped off supplies for some of the missionaries and we met up with Brother Vistau*** at the Juanipero building to obtain church keys for Geraldine's baptism. We came back and took lunch before we went out on spits. I took Landon over to the Griff***'s and shared a message with him and Kelly. They had a lot of basic doctrinal questions so we are going to have a ton to go over the next couple of visits! After our visit, I got back with Elder Hinton and we tracted for a couple of minutes before our lesson with Cameron. We talked to some nice people but no one was interested in our message. Our lesson with Cameron went pretty well. We read through the 10 Commandments found in Mosiah 13 and focused on the Sabbath Day and then we went over obeying and honoring the law. When we were going over the 10 commandments, we ended up talking for a couple of minutes about what justifies killing someone. We had a really good discussion with him. After the lesson we tried to diagnosis what was wrong with LaRee's car but we weren't able to. We drove over to Brother Robert's and talked with him about Michelle for a little bit before driving down to the church to remind them not to drain the font. While we were down there, someone told us that there has to be someone in the building while the font is full... So we recruited the Spanish missionaries to font-sit while Elder Hinton and I grabbed dinner from the member who got us Burger King. We got back to the church and sat there until Geraldine's baptism! While we were waiting, a lady in a wheelchair named Saga rolled up to us in a panic and asked us if we could get her phone out of the family history center. It took a couple of minutes but we succeeded! Geraldine's baptism was awesome! There was a lot of people from Central Point there and it was so awesome to see Geraldine enter into the waters of baptism!

Sunday was a pretty solid day. We had a good time at church! Tammy, Cameron, and Andrew all came to church! We had some good lessons and then we took lunch. We tracted and went finding for the next hour and a half and we found two prepared part member families and talked to a former investigator who wants to meet up with us again! When we talked to the first part member family, a little dog came running out and we figured out it was Nala, our less active neighbor's dog! This lady had found the dog and was trying to figure out who she belonged to! Afterwards, we had the YSA Elders come over for dinner and we were able to chat with them for a bit. After dinner, we went and talked to one of the youth about the Youth Conference Book of Mormon challenge thing and when we walked up, we found his dad smoking... Awkward. We tried visiting a couple of people before going to the church and waiting for a member to come with us to see Sandy. She ended up having family over so we tried seeing Juanita but she wasn't home. We went back to the church with the member and we went back to that part member family to confirm it was our neighbor's dog before going out with Kellin and his friend who came back from his mission because of possible back surgery. We had our appointment fall through so we went and saw a less active family that they both know and shared a message about reading the scriptures as a family using a video by Elder Christofferson. When we walked outside, we saw one of our investigators outside of one of the adjacent buildings! His name is Bobby and he had received a new phone so he lost our number! We gave it to him and scheduled a time for us to come teach him! It was a miracle haha. On our walk back to the church, some kids started yelling at us and calling us Satanic and crap like that. One of them even said "I'm telling Jesus on you!" In which Elder Hinton and I responded, "Do it, you won't!". Haha it was really funny. We synced up our area book with the Spanish elders to end the night.

We had a super awesome week. I love being a missionary! I know that this is God's true church and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God! There is no doubt in my mind of that!

Love ya'll!

Elder Tonini

The One Where I Go To California!

Hey everyone!

Tuesday morning we got into our service clothes and headed up to the pear farm to help out with a couple of things around the farm. Elder Hinton and I spent our time drilling holes and hammering metal out! We had a good time helping out! We took lunch and then we headed over to the church to do some stuff on the iPad's before our lesson with Cameron. We talked about faith in Jesus Christ and repentance and he took it in well. This time around he didn't have too many questions but he still had some good ones! We read the story of Alma and it hit home for me to read that story with him. It's amazing to read of the pain Alma went through and then how he later would become the spiritual leader of the people because of his faith in Christ and his repentance. After Cameron's lesson, we booked it to our lesson with Sister Mos*** and we took Brother Peder*** along. We read a scripture in Isaiah 53 about the Savior's sacrifice and then, to drive it home, we watched "The Lamb of God" video and it helped Sister Mos*** to really understand how the Savior understands each and every single one of us. After Sister Mos*** we were supposed to have a lesson with Garrett but he canceled... We knocked on the door and we heard floorboards creak but no one opened up the door haha. Fun times! A member in the ward dropped off KFC for us and while we were digging in, we received a phone call from President Russell telling us that the Sisters are going to be inspecting apartments with Sister Russell during interviews! So we spent a good chunk of our time cleaning before our lesson with Tammy. Bishop W went with us and we had a decent lesson with Tammy... She was confrontational but luckily we had the bishop there with us! After Tammy, we gave a blessing to Brother Hea*** due to his surgery this week. We were supposed to have Book of Mormon class but no one showed so we talked to the sisters until Joe showed up for our lesson with Sandy. She canceled so we headed back to the church and happened to run into Sergio. He is an interesting man that is for sure! We talked with Brother Robe*** and Brent before grabbing some BK ice cream to end the night!

On Wednesday we started off our day by helping Amanda, the member who lives below us, with her fence. Her dog keeps getting out so we nailed some wood planks across some of the bigger gaps. We got dressed into proselyting clothes and made a post office and Goodwill run before going to lunch with the 6th ward elders. Afterwards I went on exchanges with Elder Smith, the district leader in Medford 6th ward. We walked over to People's Bank to grab Wifi so I could do an iPad check. We got picked up by a young man in the ward and we drove over to a car dealership in the center of Medford. A former investigator called and wanted us to come see him at his work and when we got there, we figured out why the previous set of missionaries dropped him! He was super confrontational and asking questions like why we don't observe the Sabbath on Saturday and why we don't follow the days of feasts and random stuff like that from the Bible. He kept raising his voice at us and trying to prove his point.. It was a difficult situation. After that we walked over to a less active's house and we got talking and she mentioned that she lived in Texas. She told me that she lived in a suburb called Glencairn! I grew up there! We spent ten minutes talking about Houston and the Bear Creek area! It was so much fun! We then scooted over to an investigators house to grab her phone number before walking to Hometown Buffett with a lady named Sister Lar***. She told us some amazing stories about her time around some of the Apostles! When we finished up there, the ward mission leader picked us up and took us to a former investigators house. We had a good conversation with them but they are pretty set in their ways and they like the idea of not having to do good works to please God. So whatever. We talked around and tried contacting some former members before walking home. Elder Smith had to go pee so we looked up where the nearest member lived and we knocked on their door. Oh man that lady was so rude haha! I tried to explain that there is a process to remove her records from the church and man she did not want to hear it! So we moved on and about half way home a member in Medford 2nd Ward swung back around after driving by us and picked us up and took us home!

Thursday was a pretty long day. Elder Hinton came and picked me up to go and set up the stake center for interviews. We came back to our apartment and did weekly planning over at the church before grabbing lunch and heading over to the stake center for interviews. We ended up being there from 1:00 pm to almost 5 pm! President Russell instructed us a little bit and then the AP's helped us get ready for the Facebook roll out! This time is pretty different though. We can't even friend family and friends on Facebook until President Russell gives us the go ahead. In the mean time, we are allowed to use Facebook to message investigators and members along with recent converts in previous areas. When we finished with interviews, we headed over to dinner and then to our lesson with Brent. We talked to him about making covenants and going to the temple. It was a good lesson and I think he really enjoyed it. What made it awesome was that we found out at the end of our lesson that Michelle was there in the backyard! We were able to talk to her and we shared a message with her and got a time set up to teach her again. We updated our Area Book and chilled with the AP's to end the night.

Friday morning we picked up the YSA and 6th Ward missionaries for a zone service project at the pear farm. We dug trenches and worked our tails off for two hours. We grabbed lunch with YSA, Phoenix, Ashland, and 6th Ward at Burger King before getting dressed and going to our lesson with Cameron. We had a good lesson about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost and at the end of the lesson we found out that President Packer passed away. I will miss that spiritual giant of a man! We were able to get Cameron on date for August 1 though! We tracked for a little bit and then we stopped by the McHatton's and taught them about the 10 commandments and set up dinner with them for the Fourth. We took dinner and then we visited a ton of people to end our night. We talked to a guy named Warren and he was hammered out of his mind! He kept pulling random Bible scriptures out of his mind and it was super weird... Haha. It was fun though!

Saturday was Independence Day! We started off our morning at our ward's 4th of July pancake breakfast and we had a couple of investigators and less actives there so that was pretty awesome. We were supposed to meet up with Jenny and Cory in the morning but they flaked out on us so we went on splits with the 8th ward missionaries. Elder Spencer and I attempted to contact people but no one was home. While we were walking around, a member from the 8th Ward picked us up and took us back to his house for some hot dogs and watermelon! He then drove us back to the apartment in his super old car! We grabbed lunch with 8th Ward and Spanish, although us and 8th Ward grabbed McDonald's while Spanish grabbed Carl's Jr. When we went into McDonald's, a member saw us and gave us his debt card to buy food! That was awesome! As soon as we finished up with lunch, Elder Hinton and I road tripped down to California! It was pretty awesome to think that I was in the same state that Drew served in! We didn't have a ton of luck though... We tried contacting some referrals and potentials but no one was around. We were however able to teach Austin. He has had a crazy life! He's been to jail and has a parole officer but he is a good kid. We talked to him about his habits and committed him to pray for strength. We drove back into Oregon for dinner and then we played board games and watched fireworks to end the night.

Sunday morning we had ward council and church. We had two investigators come to church so that was awesome. We went on splits with the 6th ward and then with the Phoenix elders. We had dinner and then had a awesome lesson with Michelle. We went over the Restoration and she took it really well. We are going to try and get her back on date soon! We then had a lesson with Cory and Jenny to end the night. It seems as though they have been getting anti-Mormon material... It's super sad.

I hope hall had a good week! I love yall and miss ya!

Elder Tonini