Monday, April 25, 2016

Another one bites the dust!

Hey everyone!

So this was a decent week for Elder Swiderski and I. Somehow, we still have not taught a full lesson together! We have gone out and contacted people but we have been teaching our investigators when we are on exchanges haha! Elder Swiderski was sick all week but we managed to get out and do missionary work.

Monday was a pretty fun P-Day! I got my hair cut first thing in the morning and then we went to the church to grab some emails before heading out to the beach! That was super fun. We threw the frisbee around on the shoreline and we also took some time walking around the cove that the beach is in. We were only there for maybe an hour or so but it was fun and the water was FREEZING! We finished up emails at the church and then I worked on MyPlan (a new program for missionaries going home) while the other Elders took our car to go grab laundry and some dry cleaning. The Lopez's fed us dinner and I talked to Pablo, the foreign exchange student that lives with them, about basketball playoffs a little bit. We headed over to FHE and played some dominos and I lost both games that were played...

Tuesday we headed out to the Senior Center in the morning and I did a lot of the dish pick up so Elder Swiderski couldn't possibly pass whatever the heck he had. It was a fun time as usual and the lunch was excellent. We spent all afternoon going through our potentials list and we had no success. We had a couple of no answers and a couple of not interested people. We had dinner way out in the boonies so that took a little while! After dinner we took some time and went through the part members to end the night.

Wednesday morning (which was 4/20.....) we got suited up for some service for a widowed sister in the ward. Before we went to her house, we took over a gallon of ice cream to the sisters because one of them was celebrating their birthday that day. Elder Rawlings and Elder Carter were with us and so we had Elder Rawlings leave the ice cream on the front step, ring the door bell, and then RUN! We didn't get caught so that was exciting. We got to Sister McDon***'s house and we proceeded to clean out her gutters and figured out what was causing her gutter to leak onto a mini fridge she has outside on her covered patio. It was a fun time, especially when I found out that Sister McDon*** is a life timeMLB.com subscriber and is a huge Braves fan! After I got cleaned up (Elder Swiderski wasn't feeling too good so he didn't participate), I took Elder Swiderski to the Instant Care and he was diagnosed with a premature form of bronchitis. We went to Walmart and it took FOREVER to get his prescription! By the time we got back to our apartment so he could take his meds and rest, it was almost time for dinner. Elder Carter went with me on our mini exchange and we went to dinner and taught some lessons together. I felt like we should try to see Patrick and lo and behold he was home! We talked to him for a couple of minutes and he told us that he isn't going to be able to get Sunday's off anytime soon... So that means that he won't be getting baptized in May. That means we have zero people on date... Bummer. We drove out to the Jeron***'s and we caught them home as well! We taught them about making the right choices and using our agency in a way that Christ would want us to and Sister Jeron*** said that she was going to try to come to church! While we were talking, Alex, the nine year old, figured out that I know some stuff about the Halo video game series and he started pulling out all these Halo Lego things and asking me if I knew what they were. I got all of them right and he was so put out because "I know everything about Halo"! That was pretty fun!

On Thursday Elder Swiderski was feeling good enough to go do the Senior Center. A kid who has been showing up almost every Thursday for the last couple of weeks did most of the pre-lunch stuff but got the boot after he was done with it so we took the brunt of the work. I even got to work the cash register for a couple of people! We got it all broken down on time too so that was good. We picked up the other Elders before going to the church and doing our weekly planning. We attempted to contact people before and after dinner but didn't have too much luck.


Friday morning we had to do some training and then we had district meeting. Friday was another bust for us. We had nothing go on for us and no one signed up for dinner so we took dinner at our apartment again. We had a correlation meeting at Brother Leav***'s workplace and he had a really nice view of the airport and the bay so we took some pictures before we did an exchange. I went with Elder Carter in his area and Elder Rawlings went with Elder Swiderski in our area.


Saturday the others came and picked us up to go to the church to go do Facebook. We walked from the church and tried to contact a couple of their investigators but we had no luck. We met the others at the apartment and we took lunch with them. We had a lot of phone calls in the afternoon and we were supposed to go to a hand-off lesson with the Sisters but the people ended up not being home so we got BK. Mind you, we are biking and man, North Bend is super hilly! We contacted people all afternoon and then we took dinner by ourselves. Elder Carter had contacted a PM (part member) family who said they would bring us food if dinner canceled so we did and we got pizza!

Sunday was Sunday. We had our first ward council with Bishop Holt and it was super good. Church was pretty good but we didn't have any investigators show up.

That is my week! I love y'all! Have a good week!

Elder Tonini
Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

Friday, April 22, 2016

An Elder Tonini Sighting!

Sister Ranae Christensen is in our ward and her mother-in-law is an office missionary in the Oregon Eugene Mission.  In addition to her mother-in-law, look who else she ran into!  Okay, it really wasn't an accident.  Sister Christensen (the missionary) has a soft spot for Elder Tonini and arranged the meeting so that Sister Christensen (from our ward) can bring back some of his stuff.

Monday, April 18, 2016

The Week Where I Get Sick...

Hey everyone,

So this is going to be a pretty short weekly email.


Tuesday we canceled our service at the senior center because I felt super sick. We went to the church instead and cleared missionary pictures off of the Family History Center computers. I still felt pretty sick and I sounded like a lung was going to be coughed out! In fact, I sounded so sick that when President Russell called us to talk about some of the people we have had on date, he told me to go take an hour nap! It was super nice but I didn't sleep much... I was coughing the entire time. We went over to the church in the evening and introduced Elder Swiderski to Brother Her*** and then we met Brother Leav*** at his house to end our day.

Wednesday was rough. I got maybe two hours of sleep the night before and I finally decided that I needed to go see a doctor and so after getting permission from Sister Phipps, I went to the Urgent Care and they gave me a prescription for some heavy duty nighttime cough medicine for my upper respiratory infection. We hung out at Walmart for half an hour waiting for my prescription and then I spent the rest of my day indoors! Elder Carter stayed with me while Elder Swiderski went with Elder Rawlings and did some work in our area. He found a new investigator named Cougar (yes, the kid is Native American) so that's good. Elder Swiderski stayed in with me after dinner so not much was accomplished. We tried to get lessons set up on the phone though so that's good.

After taking my meds on Wednesday night, I slept through the whole night and I felt loads better when I woke up on Thursday! We were able to go volunteer at the Senior Center and then we spent the afternoon planning and going through our areabook. We had a short correlation meeting and then Elder Swiderski wasn't feeling super hot so we took the evening lightly.

Friday we had training and district meeting in the morning. Elder Carter's district meeting went really well! We went and helped the Lopez's move some cabinets out and I did most of the grunt work because I was the tallest and the strongest! In return, they fed us lunch! However, all the work reactivated my symptoms so that made the day somewhat difficult. We made some contacts but we weren't able to teach anyone.

Saturday we called the family history center directors in our stake with the STL's and talked with them about what we could do to be better about using the family history centers. Elder Swiderski showed a former investigator some of his trumpeting skills before we took off for Coquille to give some supplies to the Sisters. We made some contacts throughout the evening but nothing was too fruitful.

Sunday was pretty good. We finally got a new bishop and he is one of the members that loves the missionaries so we are pretty excited! Patrick canceled our lesson for the day so we went out and contacted before dinner. We dropped off our laundry and then correlated with the sisters to end the night.

That is all I got for you this week! I love y'all and have a good week!

Elder Tonini
Oregon Eugene Mission 

"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

Saturday, April 16, 2016

A Parental Confession

I have a confession to make.  I am trunky.  You may have noticed the countdown clock that I have added to the blog.  I didn't realize how excited I am for Elder Tonini to come home until I watched this YouTube video this afternoon.  



The Nashville Tribute Band performed here in Minot last night and Jason Deere, the front man for the band, made reference to this video during the concert for the missionaries.  The song itself is from their Trek CD but certainly has application to missionaries "Coming Home."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQcSGVmXKNQ

Monday, April 11, 2016

Last 6 on the Coast!

Hey everyone,

This is going to be a super short email. I spent most of my day in the car traveling to and from Roseburg. Elder Roller got transferred to Roseburg and my new companion is Elder Swiderski! I am pretty pumped up about that! I have served around him before and he is a hard worker!

To recap the week, we had MLC and spent the week planning or trying to deal with canceled lessons. It was a bad week teaching wise but we are going to change that this week! We also did a hike for P-Day so that was pretty awesome!

I love y'all! Thank you for all the support and the love! I know that the Church is true! There is no doubt!

Love,

Elder Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

April 5, 2016 MLC

There are a couple of pictures on the OEM blog of Elder Tonini:


More Elders, and Elder Halam can really get around.


Elder Huntsman, Elder Tonini, and in the back, Elder Blackwelder.


Monday, April 4, 2016

General Conference Weekend!

Hey everyone!

Don't y'all just love General Conference? Because I do! We had a pretty good week, even with Elder Roller struggling with sickness. We don't know what is going on with him but he is still trying to do missionary work so that's good!

Tuesday was our P-Day! We didn't do anything too exciting, just our normal shopping, playing basketball, and emailing. The lady who normal does our laundry couldn't do it so we asked the Blackw***s if we could do it at their place and they said yes. Elder Roller and I went over there first thing spin the morning and left after putting in our laundry, talking to Brother and Sister Blackw***, and being fed breakfast. I also got an email notification notifying me that I was "enrolled" in the MyPlan course for soon-to-be RM's.... So that was fun!

Wednesday we had some lessons set up but they all fell through so we didn't have too much luck teaching or finding anyone new to teach. One funny highlight of the day though was that after dinner and sharing a message with a member family, we were messing with a cat using a laser pointer. The family's youngest child gets outside to where the cat is and without any warning drops his pants and takes that time to use the restroom! It was pretty funny. All throughout the day, Elder Roller wasn't feeling too good so it was a pretty tough day (and week) for him.

Thursday was pretty awesome! We had our service at the senior center but we had an awesome experience that happened after we got done cleaning up. We got talking with Sonya and Jennifer, sisters who work there and they started asking us questions about why we were on missions and what the Church really believed in. We taught them a very basic Restoration lesson and then we left them the times for the General Conference sessions and they said that they would watch it. It was pretty awesome! We did our weekly planning afterwards and then we had an awesome dinner with the Blackwe***! They are such a cool family!

Friday we didn't have district meeting due to specialized training on Monday so we did accountability and then we were supposed to do training but the Elders had to run and get a prescription so that didn't happen. We had a lesson with Jake and that went super well. We went over the first couple of points in the Plan of Salvation and he is starting to get a hang of what we are trying to teach him. He has some really good questions but because of the time we weren't able to answer them as clearly as we wanted to but he committed to come to the priesthood session of General Conference. We had dinner way out in Hauser with a single sister and her less active son. We had a feast and then we shared the Follow Him video with them. The son was pretty into it and the Spirit was there so maybe he will feel the need to make some changes in his life. We tried to see the Jeron***'s but we just missed them according to the baby sitter who was watching the two kids. We spent the rest of our night out contacting people.

Saturday was jam packed with General Conference! I have come to really love this special time of the year. We showed up at the church for the morning session but to our dismay no one had set up the projector in the chapel. We got it pulled up on the family history computer and we watched it on there until the member who does all the tech stuff showed up and set it up for us and the couple of members that were there. We got lunch from KFC and took our lunch hour before the afternoon session got underway. When that session finished, we drove over to the stake president's house and picked up his son so we could go have an early dinner with Sister Wilma***. She had a ton of soda and pizza for us! We took Dan over to the church and we watched the priesthood session there. Right as we got to the church, Jake texted us and told us he wasn't going to be making it so that was a bummer but hey, there were some pretty good talks at that session! When the priesthood session was over, I kept with tradition and got ice cream! It may have not been Sonic but it was still really good ice cream!

Sunday was just another packed day of conference! I loved the talks that were given, especially Elder Holland's talk to end conference. When conference was over, we had a conversation with the Sisters and it turned into a discussion about why we came on missions. This district has been one of my favorite districts on my mission. We are super tight and it has been a great transfer. We had a conversation with the the stake president before visiting with a less active member for a few minutes. We ended up taking dinner at the other Elders' apartment before taking our laundry over to our laundry lady. We synced up our AreaBooks and correlated with the sisters to end our week.

So with this being General Conference weekend, here were a couple of my thoughts from General Conference. 



  • Sometimes we forget that we are Heavenly Father's sons and daughters. When we run into those trials, the first thing that needs to happen is that we need to remind ourselves of hour divine heritage. 
  • "You can have what you want, but you can have something better" -Elder Holland 
  • Without the proper priesthood keys, we would still be locked out of the vehicle that will take us to eternal life and exaltation. 
  • Humility will open the floodgates to a happy marriage, better relationships with those around you, and a happier life. 
  • The closer our heart is to the Savior, the more gratitude we feel and we will also feel an increased desire to repent. 
  • Not only is Jesus Christ the greatest leader to walk this earth, He is also the greatest follower! 


Just a couple of my thoughts! I love y'all and have a great week! My last transfer call is this week but more than likely I am staying to finish up in North Bend! 

Love y'all! 

Elder Tonini 

Oregon Eugene Mission 
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"