Monday, March 21, 2016

Another Week in the Life of Elder Tonini!

Hey Everyone!

Monday was our P-Day. We dropped off our laundry first thing in the morning and went to the church to throw the ball around for a bit! We then did our studies at the other Elder's apartment before doing our grocery shopping. We also went to Ross and I finally got a new belt I had been needing. We headed over to the church and although they were doing the carpets, the carpet cleaning guys said we were fine to be there! So we played some basketball and did our emails as they cleaned the church! After that, we didn't have too much go our way. We had dinner with the family that fed us chorizo and then we found out that FHE was canceled when we showed up to the church and no one was there. We tried contacting people before going and getting our laundry.

Tuesday morning was rough. I was so tired and worn out for no reason... We went over to the senior center and helped out there. It is so much fun serving there! We went by the church before I got dressed in my suit and we drove the hour out to Florence to do a baptismal interview. This woman had been investigating the church for 11 years and after some experiences she has had recently, she decided that she wanted to be baptized before a couple that were influential in her conversion moved to Utah. I did her interview and it went extremely well and she passed the interview! After the interview we got talking to the couple that were moving to Utah and the wife turned out to be an RM that served in the OEM and went home last June! It was pretty fun being able to talk about missionaries who have gone home and what has been going on with other people! We booked it back to North Bend for dinner with the Bro*** and we went to a place called the Cozy Kitchen. I ordered a country fried chicken breakfast style and it came out on two plates! It was so much food! Almost all of us had to use the restroom so we drove to the church and used the facilities there. While we were there, we got to share a spiritual message with the Activity Day girls and eat cookies with them! We had plans to go contacting but Elder Roller was feeling pretty bad so we went home and I gave him some Doterra stuff to help him with his upset stomach.

Wednesday we started off our day by heading over to the church to help the other Elders look for some keys that they has lost the previous night. We searched around for a little bit but couldn't find them. Elder Carter and Elder Rawlings headed out to go contact people while Elder Roller and I stayed at the church so I could get a couple of things downloaded onto my iPad. I had just finished downloading the Elder Holland Face 2 Face (with the number 2) when we got a call from Elder Carter informing us that Elder Rawlings just wrecked on his bike pretty bad. We hopped in the car and got down the hill to them. Elder Rawlings had taken a bad angle while getting onto the sidewalk and wrecked, cutting up his hands and knees pretty bad and hitting his head in the process. Thankfully he had a helmet on! We thought we could just patch him up and get on with our plans to go tracting but he told us his vision had gone black and he was feeling dizzy. After a phone call to the mission nurse, we drove him and Elder Carter to the emergency room so Elder Rawlings could get checked for a possible concussion. We spent an hour there waiting for him to get checked in but they were so slow! We actually taught a lady there a little about the church before she had to go to her appointment so that was a bonus. We ended up leaving to go grab lunch and we made a couple of stops before the other Elders called us and told us that they were finished. We picked them up and took them back to their apartment for a 3:30 lunch! We took them to go get some stuff for Elder Rawlings (like a new helmet) before taking dinner at the apartment. We met Brother Hol*** at the church and he took us to our lesson with the Jeron*** family. We shot some hoops with Alex before watching the Follow Me video with Brother Jeron*** and his kids. It went really well and he brought up coming to church once again! Hopefully we will see them there in the near future! We ended our night updating the Areabook and getting on a conference call before our nightly planning.

Thursday we headed out to the senior center to do our thing there, making coffee and tea and cutting up desserts. We had a delicious St. Patrick's day lunch and then after we cleaned up we headed to the church to do our weekly planning. We ended up helping a member blow up some balloons for the Relief Society birthday party that was taking place that night. We did our weekly planning and I was in a SUPER bad mood for no reason... And my head was just pounding so I took a quick nap before dinner to get my head back in it. We had pretty much the same meal that we had for lunch but it was still super good. We didn't get too much done the rest of the night except for getting adjusted by Brother Blackw***. My back was killing me and Elder Roller had some issues with his body so Brother Blackw*** helped us out! They are probably my most favorite family in the ward right now! He told us all about the different kinds of chiropractic and we talked about our missions and stuff like that. It was relieving to have a member who remembers and understands the stress we go through as missionaries!

Friday morning we had district meeting and it was all focused around being better at doing our studies. We got some KFC before we got out of our proselyting clothes and doing some service at the Kid's Hope Center over by the hospital. This center provides counseling and help for children who have been abused and they were needing a work crew to pull the carpet out. Elder Roller and I managed to get one room done without too many issues but in one of the main rooms the carpet there was a pain in the rear! Luckily the other Elders showed up and with their help we managed to get it all pulled up. We got cleaned up and took dinner afterwards. We did some training with Elder Davis via Skype and it was a lot of fun! He is going to be a really good missionary! We were all so tired that towards the end of training we couldn't concentrate very well!

Saturday was an interesting day. We didn't get too much accomplished in the morning despite our efforts to contact people or the early afternoon because of some assignments that were given to us by the assistants. We went and saw Sister Wilma*** and we had a really good conversation with her. Her husband just passed away a week ago and we talked to her about many different things, all on a spiritual level. She has gone through so much in her life but she has remained so strong because of her deep faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We had dinner afterward and then we worked through our Areabook to end the night!

Sunday we had ward council in the morning and like always, not too much happened or got accomplished. We had Sue come to church and man that was interesting. She did fine during sacrament meeting but flipped out after Gospel Principles because she thought the other Elders, who were teaching about scriptures, were "pushing" out the Bible but when she walked out of Relief Society she was fine.... Church as a whole was super good though! The talks in sacrament meeting were about Joseph Smith and to wrap it all up, the Stake President just pounded the message home of Joseph's mission here on earth. For third hour, Elder Roller and I got to go help in the Laurel's class. The Young Woman's president had set up the room to look like a mini visitors center and she wanted us to be there like a real one would. At the end of it, we had the opportunity to bear our testimonies of the Atonement and of the Savior. I love talking about the Atonement and talking about the Savior! We had lunch with the Hii***'s and then tried to contact some of our investigators. A huge storm rolled through during dinner but it cleared out by the time we finished dinner. Because of us going to the temple tomorrow, we took our laundry over to the lady that does our laundry right before we headed over to the church for correlation and getting a conference call. You gotta love the ZL life! #calls4days We collected numbers to end the night!

I love this Gospel and I have truly come to love my mission. It has been a tough two years but it has been the most satisfying. I'm grateful for the opportunity that I have to go to the temple tomorrow! I know that the church is true! Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet and Jesus Christ, my older brother and my best friend, is my Savior and Redeemer! Love y'all! Have a tubular week!

Elder Jacob Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission 

"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

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