One More Week!

Hey everyone,

Wow. This is possibly the last weekly email I will send as a missionary, pending on what happens that last Monday before I hop on the plane. This is super crazy, just like how this week was!

Monday was another relaxing P-Day hanging out at the church and emailing home. It was super relaxing and a lot of fun. We picked up laundry and dinner and after P-Day ended and we were about to start eating when the AP's called and informed me that my departing temple trip got moved from Wednesday in Portland to Saturday in Medford. That threw a wrench in our week haha! We got to stay in our P-Day clothes and played badminton for FHE. Nichole, our investigator who came to church, came to FHE and had fun! I did MyPlan afterwards and I got to do some planning about how I am going to go about dating and getting married! Yay!

Tuesday morning we headed over to the Senior Center and did our routine for about an hour before heading over to our first lesson with Nichole. She is a blank slate! She doesn't know too much about the Church (or anything to do with religion) so that was pretty awesome. We invited her to be baptized but she wasn't quite sure about it so we invited her to pray and read the scriptures and she said that she would do it. She is pretty awesome and we have a super awesome fellowshipper in her roommate Sienna! We got all packed up and after dinner we drove on down to Brookings for an exchange. It was a two hour drive and man it was a beautiful drive! I loved it! We got into Brookings about 10ish and once I got settled I was out for the night.

Wednesday morning we were all geared up to do three different service projects but after we missed one because of a CO2 alarm install and the other canceled we headed over to the humane society thrift store and volunteered there. Elder Bowers and I started weedwhacking some weeds and that's where the fun began! We were obviously cutting grass and a couple rolls up in a rental Mercedes Benz and parked right where we were cutting and they asked us to not cut the grass around their car... So we did the best we could but we still ended up getting grass on the car. The lady noticed us trying to get the grass off with the weedwhacker.... Ha-ha I am totally kidding. The lady did see us trying to get the grass off and came out of the thrift store and started yelling at us that it's a rental and they are responsible and blah blah blah. I understand that it's an expensive car but there wasn't any damage yet they took the thrift store's insurance information... Some people! When we got that done, I had to go shower because I was covered in grass and I was super sweaty (I'm sure that doesn't surprise anyone!). When I got cleaned up, I headed out with Elder Christiansen to do some missionary work. We attempted to contact some of their investigators but no one was home. We drove to the church so we could do an iPad check and we realized two things; we had both phones and the other Elders had the key to the church and the apartment! The Sisters unlocked the church for us and after we did the iPad check and had dinner, I did a baptismal interview for a guy named Kurt. He is so awesome. As I sat there with him, I saw how the Atonement changed his life for the better and it was pretty amazing. Needless to say, he is getting baptized! We spent the rest of our night driving back home to North Bend. We made a stop at Cape Blanco, the farthest west you can get in the continental United States. It was super cold and foggy but we made it out there!

Thursday was a blur. We did a lot of finding after the senior center but we didn't teach anyone or find anyone. The only thing that happened was the AP's stayed the night with us!

Friday we had specialized training and then we had a zone activity afterwards. We played volleyball and signed transfer journals. We went out and about contacting after dinner but it was a rough crowd. We ended up getting ready to go to the temple to end our night.

Saturday morning we left our apartment way early in the morning to get to the Roseburg transfer spot so I could go on my departing missionary temple trip! We went to the Medford temple and I got to see some of the members that I served around in Medford and Central Point. It was the highlight of the day! We also got a referral for a lady that wants to get baptized in two weeks!

President Russell, Sister Russell, Sister Newsome, Sister Ansus, Sister Geisler. Back row: Elder Wells, Elder Tonini, Elder Roller, and Elder Fetzer. Elder Provstgaard couldn't make it as he had three baptisms that day!

Sunday was good! Nothing much to report though.

That's all I got! I can't believe that I see my family next week!

Love y'all!

Elder Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

Living on a Prayer!

Hey everyone!

So we had a slow week lessons-wise but we were able to clear up our area book a little bit this week. We will be putting more people into it this week than we took out this last week! Monday was a pretty fun P-Day. We went bowling and the Florence and Reedsport Elders came down for that. I sometimes forget that I actually like bowling a lot! I bowled a game all by myself because the missionaries on the other lane were still going. We weren't able to do anything in the gym because they were refinishing it so we spent the rest of our time emailing in the family history center. The Reedsport Elders let Elder Swiderski take their car so he could pack for his exchange with Elder Provstgaard and on their way back, the oil pan exploded and they had to park it at a dental place and call us! Thankfully a member from Florence came and got them and Reedsport so they were able to go back to their areas. We had a pretty fun FHE playing Skip Bo and Uno. I did MyPlan afterwards and it took me a whole hour to do. I'm actually really enjoying doing the MyPlan and setting some goals for myself.

Tuesday I was with Elder Scott for our exchange and it went pretty well. We had Senior Center in the morning and it went pretty smoothly. A ukulele group from one of the Lutheran churches were there and it was a lot of fun! We visited a couple of people before sitting down with Greg. He is an internigator and I could see why he is taking forever. Although he loves to read the Book of Mormon, he is pretty firm in his faith (although he hasn't gone in years). We talked to him about how families can be together forever and the role that the Book of Mormon has in our lives. We had to make a lot of phone calls so that took up some of our day. We had dinner at KFC and afterwards I did an iPad inspection on Elder Scott's iPad. He had some super funny videos! We ended up heading down to Coquille and dropping off a box of copies of the Book of Mormon to them to end our night.

We left North Bend for Reedsport early Wednesday morning to exchange back. When I picked up Elder Swiderski, the Reedsport Elders' car was fixed so we took them back to North Bend so they could get their car. We picked up the other Elders and helped the Lopez's put up a cabinet in their laundry room. I got showered afterwards (the cabinet was super dirty) and we ended up doing our weekly planning because we had a couple of lessons cancel. We attempted to contact people but it became a clean out the area book day.

Thursday morning we went to the Senior Center and did our normal thing there! We didn't have too much happen except for correlation in the evening. Brother Leav*** went out with Elder Swiderski and I and we tried to contact Pat and talked to the Malag***'s about their upcoming move.

Friday we had training in the morning and then we had a pretty good district meeting about obedience. We had a super good discussion about that. After lunch we drove out to the golf course to see Jake for our lesson but he wasn't home. We texted him and he told us to meet him at his house. We drove over there annnndd he wasn't home. We went to contact another investigator but right as we pulled in, Jake texted us and told us he was actually home now so we drove BACK to his place and had a pretty good lesson with him. With it being Elder Swiderski's first lesson with him, he was able to be super bold and ask some bold questions. It was super good for him and we have a good plan to help him keep reading his scriptures. He said he isn't going to change but we know he will if he comes to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet! We had a lesson set up but it fell through (although the person we talked to is a music major- right in Elder Swiderski's ballpark) so we went contacting the rest of the day.

Saturday morning I messaged some of my recent converts on Facebook and then after talking to the AP's about people on date, we went and contacted one of the new investigators in our areabook. It felt like a MLC roleplay. The guy was throwing out all these different concerns and stuff and we just handled it as though it was a roleplay. We dropped him afterwards needless to say. We saw a guy named Chuck who is a regular at the Senior Center. He was super chatty but we were able to teach him about the Restoration and he was super intrigued by it. He has a lot of relatives who are pastors so it is going to be fun when they find out we are teaching him!

Sunday was fast and testimony meeting and it was pretty good! Nothing too weird was said over the pulpit. Elder Carter and I went on a mini exchange and we taught the Primary during sharing time about the Restoration! We did it after teaching a Primary class about obedience and giving a lady's car a jump. We were asked to teach with an object lesson so we did the Rubik's Cube object lesson! The kids loved it! We had a conference call after church with President to discuss the people that we have on date as a zone and then we dropped off the other Elders at a lesson. We talked to Pat and he has just fallen hard from the Gospel. He was SO solid when I first came in but he has been on a downhill slide since I have been here. We might end up dropping him because he is so busy and wasting his money on cars. On top of the fact that he is moving into Coos Bay possibly... So that stunk. We tried to contact a potential but his address didn't exist so we took laundry over to April's and then we correlated with the Sisters to end the day!

I'm super excited to be able to talk to the family this Sunday! :) It is going to be weird though, considering the fact that I will see y'all in a few weeks! I am working hard and we got MLC this week so it will be a fun week!

Love y'all! Have a good week!

Elder Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

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"

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"

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"

Greetings from the Dirty Coos!

Hey everyone!

I had a pretty good week out here on the coast! We didn't teach as much as we would've liked to but we are going to make up for it this week! Monday I spent the morning leaving Sutherlin and going up to Eugene to meet up with my new companion Elder Roller. We packed up my stuff into a member's truck and headed out with the member and four Elders crammed into his truck! We got into Coos Bay in time to have a full P-Day. We got our grocery shopping done before going and playing basketball all afternoon. We got cleaned up and then we all pitched in to get some Little Caesars Pizza for dinner. We headed over to the church after dinner for FHE with the YSA group. It was so much fun and a great way to spend a Monday night! We played a different version of Uno and it was super fun. I ended up winning too so that made it even better!

Tuesday morning we were supposed to have service at the Senior Center but there were a ton of volunteers so we headed over to the church and I got my Area Book logged into the North Bend area. We went to go contact an investigator but he was hammered out of his mind before it was even 12 o'clock... We took lunch before going and helping a non-member move some stuff into storage. They were supposed to move to Coquille but their place there was apparently garbage. So we helped them move their stuff into two storage units and man it took forever! We were there for two hours and we could've put all of their stuff into one but the lady wanted us to do it a certain way (which didn't make ANY sense) so we had move the rest into the second unit. After dinner we had to figure out a miscalculation in the numbers reported the last week so we did that before our zone correlation with the STL's. We talked about the activities that we wanted to do and planned accordingly!

Wednesday we spent the morning contacting some of our investigators before heading to the church and making some adjustments to some reports on our iPads. We grabbed Elder Carter and Elder Rawlings and we grabbed some KFC! A member is the general manager there and since she is a single lady, she can't feed us in her home so she feeds us KFC instead. It was super good food. We had our afternoon lessons cancel but we were able to teach an investigator named Angela on the door step about the Atonement. She has been having a rough time but she has been reading her scriptures and the other assignments given to her by Elder Roller and his previous companion. We got picked up for dinner and by the time we got all the way out there, had dinner, and came back we just stayed at the church and organized our Area Book to end the night.

Thursday morning we didn't do our weekly planning! Instead, we volunteered at the Senior Center. It was a lot of fun! We actually got talking with the volunteer supervisor named Loni and we talked to her about tithing and why we go to church. It was a super good conversation. After the senior center we had to take Elder Carter to the bike shop so he could get his bike fixed. I ended up playing the Australian Shepard that was in the shop! It made me miss Yarra! We spent the rest of the afternoon doing weekly planning and then we picked up some pizzas that a member ordered for us and had that for dinner. We had a super good correlation meeting afterwards and we made a lot of progress on the ward mission plan and helping our ward make family mission plans.

Friday was AWESOME! We trained a new missionary and he is pretty awesome! During our district meeting, I got a text from Sister Christensen and she told me that Zowie had come into the world! I was on Cloud 9 the rest of the meeting! After district meeting we helped those nonmembers from earlier in the week move into a home they got in Coos Bay. Once again, the lady took over and we could've gotten in everything into the van but she wasn't having it! That took us another two hours.... Meh.. We got back to our apartment and found out that we got inspected... and our apartment wasn't the cleanest. So we spent the little time we had before dinner cleaning haha! We had a super fun dinner and then we spent the rest of the night trying to contact some of the members so I could get to know them!

Saturday was a bit of a slower day for us. We contacted some investigators and got some lessons set up but other than that we didn't have any success tracting or teaching anyone really. The one good thing that happened was we drove by an investigator's house and we saw that they were home so we turned around and talked to them for a few minutes. We ended up teaching Sue about the Book of Mormon and after we shot down some of her "concerns" (like the statement that Mormon missionaries could not enter a house if there was a cross with an angel that had wings on it...), she took a Book of Mormon and said that she would read it!

Sunday we had ward council in the morning before church and I got to meet some of the members of the ward council so that was good. Church was pretty good, especially the Gospel Principles class! That teacher was pretty awesome! We had a lesson shortly after lunch with a guy named Patrick! He is such a cool guy but has had some tough times as of late. Despite his now ex moving out, he is living the law of chastity and he told us he is going to be able to start coming to Church starting in the middle of March! We were super pumped! We taught him the baptismal interview and we gave him a blessing before booking it over and seeing a YSA member named Crystal! We had a super good discussion with her and another YSA kid before we had to go to dinner. We correlated with the STL's and updated the Area Book to end the night!

I love you all! I'm so grateful for all your support and your love! I know that the Church is true! There is no doubt!

Elder Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

"You Say It's Your Birthday!" -The Beatles

Hey everyone,

Monday was a pretty good P-Day. We did our shopping before hanging out at the church all day. We had a Nerf War but I didn't participate much except as cameraman! We headed out to the Hay***'s and after having dinner with them, we helped one of the boys teach family home evening. He was teaching about Joseph Smith and the First vision and he did a really good job! We hardly had to help him. It was a lot of fun!:)

Tuesday morning we did some Facebook messaging after our studies. I'm so grateful that we can message those people in my last areas! After lunch we decided to go stop by Loretta's to see if she was home and to remind her about our lesson on Thursday. We ended up staying for an hour and we talked about her meeting her missionary stepson and the gospel things they talked about. We went tracting after Loretta's and we managed to knock three doors in an hour. Yup. Three doors. The first door took less than a minute. The second door took over 20 minutes! The guy opens the door and starts talking to us and then he asks what church we were representing. We told him and he said "Oh, that non-Christian cult!" Oh boy. He was a born-again Christian and he started saying the normal stuff about how we believe we have to work our way to heaven and stuff like that. He then started to raise his voice at us and man my blood started to boil. I managed to keep calm though and Elder Andersen and I both bore our testimonies about the Restoration before walking away. I had to take a few minutes to unwind before going to the next door, my adrenaline was pumping! We OYM'd the born again' neighbor and man, he and his wife had had some rough times. Ben's wife lost both of her parents to mistakes within the last year. We talked to him about the Plan of Salvation a little bit and left him a pamphlet with our phone number on it. We offered to help him move stuff out of his mother-in-law's place and he seemed really surprised that we would do something like that. That took up our time before dinner! We ate at our apartment and then headed over to Jackie's for a lesson. We talked about Jesus Christ with her out of the Gospel Principles book. It was good, I just wish she will act in what we are teaching her!

Wednesday was my birthday!! I got three packages full of goodies! It was awesome! We volunteered at the food pantry before heading into Roseburg for a birthday lunch at Red Robin and a visit to the chiropractor. After the chiropractor we did a companionship study with Adam. We read out of Preach My Gospel, watched a District video, and then did some role plays. He is going to be a solid missionary one of these days! After the study session, we dropped him off at his house and we volunteered at the soup kitchen, pouring drinks once more! We came back to the Caldwe*** and had birthday dinner with them. Sister Caldwe*** made Mom's meatloaf and she did a pretty dang good job! We headed over to the church to participate in a youth activity before coming back and having Texas Sheetcake for my birthday cake! It was pretty dang good too!!

Thursday started out doing weekly planning before our lesson with Loretta. Sister Parker went with us and Loretta made us a negative calorie soup for lunch. When we followed up with her on her commitment that we left her, she informed us that she had read it 3 times!! We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it went really well. She enjoyed it so much she asked to keep my little Gospel of Jesus Christ thing that I drew out! We committed her to be baptized and she said she will pick a date once she can coordinate with her husband and her step-son about when they could be in Sutherlin to participate in the baptism. Sister Parker was such a huge help during that lesson! She even invited Loretta to go with them to stake conference! It was awesome. We spent the rest of the afternoon contacting before dinner. The member who had signed up didn't realize that 1) his records (along with an address and phone number) aren't in LDS Tools and 2) that there was another man with the same last name who lived 10 miles away in the sticks. Guess where we went to for dinner? Yup, the guy out in the sticks. We are sitting there in the driveway with three massive dogs barking at us and a lady trying to talk to us from the porch when this brother calls and asks us where we were! Turns out, he lives right in the heart of Sutherlin... So we were about 30 minutes late to dinner! We had a fantastic dinner of eggs, pancakes, and bacon before heading out to the Sim***'s for a "birthday bonfire" as they put it. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and talked about the Gospel. We talked to them about letting go of the past mad relying on the Savior to help us through it all.

Friday was probably the longest day but it was one of the best days! We spent our morning getting the car washed in preparation of zone conference. This was an unusual zone conference. The AP's didn't come and it was just our zone so that was unusual. It was a super good zone conference. My favorite segment was President Russell's about the Atonement. He had a couple of the missionaries get up and present a talk about the Atonement before diving into his section. He didn't teach very much; instead, he showed us a video that talks about the Atonement. It depicts the story of the Institute teacher who had a student do ten push ups for each student so they could earn a gift. It was super powerful and he had each of us write three things that we are struggling with. It was a great segment! After dinner we had a portion of our zone conference with the WML and the bishops of each ward. We separated into wards and we discussed what we could do to help the work progress in Sutherlin.

Saturday was slow. We didn't have too much going for us except for our lesson with Chelsea. Her son Gabe sat in and he had some questions that we had answers to, mainly why was he here on this earth. We covered the whole Plan of Salvation and asked them to be baptized. Chelsea told us that she would but because of her Mid Evil wedding that they did (it is called handfasting), the Church will only recognize it if she had the paperwork showing that it happened. So we are in a pickle on this one! We had some lessons cancel but it ended up working for us because a man in Roseburg called us and told us that a part- member family had been living in Sutherlin for a while and he was their home teacher. His companion had bailed on him so he called us to go with him! So we had a good chat with this part member family to end our night. We talked about focusing on the Savior and not being distracted!

Sunday was pretty awesome. We had a broadcast from Salt Lake City for our stake conference and we had some really awesome talks! We came back to Sutherlin and we taught Samantha another new member lesson and then helped her and Sister Caldwell with their family history. The bishop's family dropped dinner off to us and after snarfing that down, we went to the Lea***'s and had pie! It was yummy pie! We didn't have too much happen the rest of the night so we updated our Area Books and synced to end the night!

That was my week! It had a lot of good things happen and I learned a lot this week. This is the last week of the transfer and I have a feeling I will be packing my bags this week. It has been good here in Sutherlin but I am excited to see what the Lord has in store for me for the last 13 weeks I have as a full-time missionary! I love this Gospel and I love my Savior Jesus Christ! He lives!

I love y'all and talk to you next week!

Elder Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

The One Where Samantha Gets Baptized!

Hey everyone,

We weren't able to teach as much or find anyone new to teach but that is ok, we got this next week to do so and we also had a baptism this last week!

Let's get to it.

Monday we had P-Day. I also had a chiropractor appointment in Roseburg. My back has been killing me for a little while now and it got the point where I went and saw a chiropractor. He discovered that my hips have been out of alignment and it was actually causing my right leg go shorter than my left! So he adjusted me and sent me on my merry way. After P-Day we had dinner with the Hay***'s before contacting people to end our night.

On Tuesday we had some time in the morning so we went and did some Facebook messaging before our lesson with Loretta. We brought Nephi with us and we had a good lesson with her. We went over the Plan of Salvation with her and despite the many tangents that we went off on, we were still able to commit her to be baptized and she said yes! Unfortunately we won't be able to teach her this week but it's for a good cause; her stepson is getting off his mission and she is meeting him for the first time! Loretta's lesson went pretty long and my whole body ached from being adjusted the day before so we went to the apartment and I took a few minutes to heat up my back. We then had dinner with the Lea***'s and we had some really good fried rice! We spent the rest of the night with the Vinc***'s working on Samantha's baptismal program.

Wednesday we headed over to the food pantry and did our weekly service of handing out the fruits and vegetables for the people. We left Sutherlin for the chiropractors and my hip is starting to hold in there so that is good. I also started to develop a cold which is gone now but it started to get to me on Wednesday. We went from the chiropractor to the soup kitchen and served drinks there. We headed over to the Church and picked up our dinner. We ended up eating there and we got almost all of the stuff that we needed to for the baptism.

Thursday I couldn't function at all. I was nailed bad by my cold and my head felt like a traffic jam in Houston. We didn't get weekly planning done until the early afternoon and we spent a lot of time on the phone contacting people. We had dinner at the Simm*** and then we gave a blessing to Sister Simm***'s husband who hasn't been to church in a long time. It was one of the more unusual blessings I have given. The things that came out of my mouth were not my words! I said everything that he needed from what he told me It was a pretty neat experience.

Friday morning we had district meeting and then after lunch I had another chiropractic appointment. We spent our afternoon contacting people but we didn't have anything go for us. We went over to the Vinc***'s and picked up the programs and do a correlation meeting.

Saturday was awesome! We had a lesson with Chelsea right before going to fill the font and she is doing awesome. She has been getting fed anti-Mormon material but she is holding strong! We talked about our life on earth and the Atonement and it was just a power lesson! We committed her to keep reading and to pick a date for her baptism. We bolted to Roseburg and Samantha was baptized! It was a good short service that was pretty awesome.

Sunday Samantha was confirmed a member of the church and then after church we taught her her first new member lesson. We spent most of our time driving to dinner, eating dinner with the Pop***, and then driving back. We met with Jackie and basically called her to repentance.

That was our week! I love ya and I know the church is true! There is no doubt!

Elder Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

The One Where I Almost Get Us Stuck!

Hey everyone!

I hope that you all had a good week. Elder Andersen and I had a pretty good week and we had some miracles happen!

Monday was transfer Monday. As all of you should have heard, I am staying in Sutherlin and Elder Andersen became my new companion! I was his zone leader in Medford and I am super excited to be serving with him. He didn't get to Roseburg until 3 o'clock so I hung out with Elder Martin and Elder Holman until the transfer van came to get them. We got back to Sutherlin and unloaded Elder Andersen's stuff before going off to dinner with the Hayd***. It was fun as always! :) By the time we got back, it was late so I introduced Elder Andersen to the Caldw***'s and then he started to unpack to end the night.

Tuesday we didn't have too much happen for us. We spent our morning helping a less active move out of the place she was staying. When we showed up, it was only Abe, Sister Parker, and us! We managed to move her furniture out and then one of the miracles of the week was that we managed to fit two couches, eight things of shelves, a queen-sized mattress and box spring, two twin mattresses, and three dressers into a 10X10 storage unit! That was fun haha! After getting cleaned up, we went through our Area Book before trying and contacting people. We ended our night over at Brother Vincent's house to introduce Elder Andersen.

Wednesday we headed over to the food pantry and handed out food until we headed over to Brother Shoema***'s home to meet with our vehicle coordinator so he could fix our tiwi. We then went over to Chelsea's home and went over the Restoration. She remembered most of what we covered the last time and at the end of it, we asked if she has been getting an answer. She said that she feels like she is being drawn to the Church! So we invited her to be baptized and she said yes. We are going to work on putting her on date this next week. We volunteered at the soup kitchen and then we had dinner dropped off to us. We went over to the church and Elder Andersen met a good chunk of the ward at Mutual!

Thursday we did weekly planning in the morning and then we headed out to go contact people. We had received a referral the night before and so we headed out to go contact him. He lives out in the sticks so it took a little while to find him. When we did, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get back down his driveway so I turned off the road. Bad idea. I almost got us stuck. But I did it! Tony was about ready to go and pull us out! He is such a cool guy. He took the lessons eight years ago and he decided that he wanted to take the lessons again! It was so awesome! We had a ton of lessons fall through so I took Elder Andersen to see the Lea***'s.

Friday we had district meeting and it went pretty well. I used some fun object lessons and then we did some role plays about teaching about faith. We went to a Chinese place for lunch and then we went back to Sutherlin. We once again went out former finding but we didn't have much luck. We saw Jackie and we started talking to her about family history work and we committed her to do her family history work.

Saturday was a long day. We had our only lesson cancel so we once again headed out to talk to people in the streets. We discovered that some investigators were never actually taught so that made it a bit awkward. We were on foot for most of the night but no one was out on the streets... We saw Jackie again and we hammered down on going to the temple and also about coming to church.

Sunday was pretty fun. I had to give a talk during sacrament and in the middle of my talk, music started to play over the intercom! I just kept going through it though. We also had an ambulance get called because a lady was suffering a heart murmur. We taught Samantha after church and we finished up the lessons with her. She is so pumped to be baptized on the 30th! We had our dinner cancel so that threw us for a loop. We dropped off a couple of pans and then went and visited with an investigator that I haven't met yet. We ended up getting mauled by her bulldogs! It was so much fun:)

I love you all! Thank you for all that you do!

Love ya!

Elder Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

New Years Eve!

Hey everyone!

So I am sorry for not getting an email sent out last week, I thought I had finished it but I never did! My bad! It was a good week though, especially getting to talk to my family on Christmas!:)

This was a super slow week for us. We had some good things go our way but we also had some rough spots.

Monday was good as always! We did our normal P-Day stuff before going back to Sutherlin for dinner with the Hay***'s. Sister Hay*** wasn't there so it was a guys night out of sorts! We had a ton of fun eating pizza and sharing a New Years message with them.

Tuesday was rough. We had a lesson set up for Savannah and Brian that night and when we texted Savannah that morning to make sure we were on for that, she said she didn't want to take the lessons anymore.... So that really stunk. All of our lessons fell through until the evening when we saw Andrew and Jackie. Andrew is our ward mission leader's son and our WML wanted us to teach his son the lessons so we started with the Restoration. Afterwards, we went and taught Jackie on her porch. We talked to her about putting a stop to her smoking and she said she wanted to do it as part of her New Years resolution! It was a super good lesson with her!

Wednesday we headed on over to the food pantry for some service. It was a slow day for them so it gave us time to talk to some of the other volunteers there. They are mostly older people and it is a ton of fun being able to talk to them and getting to know their life stories! We had a lesson with Chelsea and Daniel in the afternoon and she kept her reading commitment! It brought up the question of why our baptism is the right form of baptism instead of the way she was baptized. We were able to get it cleared up for her and we focused in on the priesthood authority. It was such a good lesson that we almost missed the soup kitchen! We ate a pizza that a member dropped off for us before going and teaching Andrew again. We ended up staying a doing a correlation of sorts afterwards and had some hot chocolate!

Thursday was New Years Eve! We did our weekly planning and then not too much happened the rest of the day. We tried to contact people but we didn't have too much success. We had to be in at 6 so after dinner we headed back to our apartment and played some Battleship before going and talking to the members that own our apartment until bedtime.

Friday morning we woke up to frost everywhere! We almost got to new missionary training late because of how frosted over our car was. Our district meeting consisted of talking about prayer and how it could help our investigators. It went pretty well even though i had to deal with some missionaries goofing off during role plays. It's whatever though hah! We helped the zone leaders get set up to watch Wreck it Ralph before we went grabbed some lunch. By the time the movie and cleanup were done, it was almost 4:30! We headed straight to Oakland for dinner and then afterwards went over to the Simm*** home and talked with them about the things that are going on in their lives. We talked a little bit about fasting with them and Sister Simm*** said she was going to fast on Sunday!

Saturday was a good day for us. We helped Chris build a helicopter because he only had one hand and couldn't put the pieces together very well. We took some time to be with him because he is still on the fence about being baptized and we figured that we could connect with him more so it was a good time all around. We went over to the Od***'s and they went out with us to see Sister Lear*** and Sister Har***. We ended up helping them clean their apartment and taking their trash out... We decided that we weren't going to teach them after that lesson, considering the fact that they listen to a 7th Day Adventist preacher more than us... We went back to the Caldw***s and had dinner with them and then had a short lesson with Chris and Samantha. We talked about what they needed to do for baptism and covered the law of chastity and word of wisdom. Samantha is really gung ho about being baptized but Chris was still on the line. He has a concern about being in the water for the baptism... We are going to help him overcome that one! We then headed over to Jackie's and we talked about charity and how she was doing with her New Year's resolution.

Sunday found us nailed by ice again, this time in the form of frozen rain. This caused the roads to get super icy and in turn, a lot of the ward wasn't able to make it to church! We were still able to get Samantha to come so that was good. We had a lesson with her afterwards and we taught her the plan of salvation. It was pretty solid. She understood it all and was able to stay focused with her brother not being there and not having any distractions. That was really the highlight of the day, besides for the Nerf fight we had at dinner with the family that fed us on Christmas! That was fun!

I love this Gospel! It has been a tough 19 months but it has produced some of the most memorable experiences I've ever had! I know the Church is true! I know that Thomas S. Monson is God's prophet on the earth today! There is no doubt.

Love y'all!

Elder Tonini


Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

The One Where We Serve All Week!

Hey everyone!

This was a fun week for us! We had a lot going on so let's get going!

Monday was an okay P-Day. The other missionaries that we share the car with didn't show up until 3 o'clock... So we did some quick shopping and such before coming home and eating a pizza that a member dropped off to us for dinner. I did two baptismal interviews that took up the rest of our night!

Tuesday morning saw us out the door early to go to a service project at one of the local parks. We cleared away some weeds and such that had popped up along the banks of the Willamette River. We had some good discussions with the park lady named Vanessa that was working with us. We even managed to work some gospel topics into our conversation! We went back to our area and had lunch with Sister Pope at the local pizza buffet place. She was telling me that Grandpa Ben would come to Grants Pass, Oregon to come pick blackberries to make it into jam! I need to make sure I have these stories recorded before I leave this area! We got cleaned up and then drove into Eugene for some errands at the mission office. We taught Robert Wh*** about humility before dinner. We had correlation and then I went on splits with the Streb***. We managed to contact an investigator that hasn't been taught in forever and then we talked to the De Lu***'s about the investigator and they gave us a referral for a family that has expressed interest in home food storage!

Wednesday morning we went to another service project, this time for the lady that we chopped wood for last week. We had a couple companionships out there and we got a lot of work done. We got back into normal missionary attire and I went with Elder Adams of the 4th Ward to go teach a referral named Georgia. She had called Elder Bowers and I right before the 4th Elders got her information through the Areabook. When we showed up, I recognized her as a lady that Elder Bowers and I had OYM'd at one of the bus stops almost 9 weeks ago! That was a pretty neat experience seeing how just trying to talk to as many people can bring blessings. We talked to her about her thoughts on "Finding Faith in Christ" before diving into the Plan of Salvation. It all made sense for her, which was pretty awesome. She had some questions about Joseph Smith so we will be focusing on the Restoration next time! Outside of that, we didn't have much go for us. We had a couple of lessons cancel so we tried contacting as people as we could.

Thursday started off with us at a tire place getting new tires for our Cruze. Thankfully it didn't take super long so after our lunch at 5 Guys (first time in 18 months!), we were able to get our weekly planning started. We helped set up chairs and tables for a Relief Society activity before meeting up with Jaydaquin. We talked about making the right choices using a new Mormon Message for Youth. He really enjoyed it and we committed him to keep reading the scriptures and praying. We had a lesson with David and Leighanne to wrap up our night. They didn't do the commitment that we left them so after watching the story of Parley P. Pratt on "How Rare a Possession", we recommitted them to read the introduction to the Book of Mormon. Hopefully they do it this time around!

Friday we had zone training meeting. It was probably one of my more favorite ones! We heard a lot from a whole range of missionaries. I learned a lot and it was a good meeting that allowed me to refocus and become even more determined to finish strong. After ZTM and lunch, we bussed over to a lady named Bonnie's house and we pulled weeds for her. This was after she insisted feeding us lunch and telling her caretaker we are her "boys"! Unfortunately that ran us a little late so we were late getting to our lesson with Brother Whi***. He brought it up and mentioned how he thought it would be best if we only met once a week! That made my day! He is a good guy but we could be doing more missionary work if we met with him once a week. We stopped by Jaydaquin's and we ended up going on a walk with him. He has had a rough two weeks and was feeling pretty down. We talked to him about how God is his loving Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ took upon Himself his sins and his pains. We had a really good talk with him. After dinner we met up with William and talked to him about the talk that he is supposed to be working on and challenged him to get it done!

Saturday morning the zone leaders picked us up to go do a service project at the park in our area. Vanessa was there again so she put us to work immediately! We were weeding but she decided that we were more needed shoveling wet sand out of a water feature. That was fun stuff! Afterwards, we got pizza so that was a bonus. We had a whole day planned for finding but we ended up going to Brian and Paola's baptism because we were asked to say the prayers. We got a ride from the Eugene zone leaders back to our apartment and it was only when we got back that I realized my keys were missing! We had no way to get in our apartment! We ended up going to McDonald's and updating the Areabook on the iPad before going to dinner with the Half***'s. We read scriptures with them and Brother Half*** had some questions that we were able to answer. He took us home afterwards and we did training at the 4th Ward Elders' apartment.

Sunday morning we didn't have any meetings so we walked over to Jaydaquin's and tried to get him to church but his mom grounded him because he didn't ask.. It was weird. Church itself was pretty interesting. We talked about the law of chastity and it seemed to always go back to the new Handbook policy haha! After church we took a short lunch before going out and knocking doors. We didn't have much luck until the last door. I noticed that the car had a zombie stick figure family on the back and it said "My stick figure family ate yours" and so when John opened the door, I asked him, "Is this your car?". He said "Yeah?.." and I mentioned how I liked it and it broke the ice with him. We asked him if he thought he could be with his family for eternity and that opened him up! We left him with a plan of salvation pamphlet and a prayer! It was so cool! After dinner the zone leaders picked us up and we went to Priesthood Preview for the stake. They had asked us to sing "Called to Serve" and so we did! We got a ride home from the Gall***'s and then we updated our lessons at the church before calling it a night.

That was my week! I can't believe that I hit 18 months this week. Time is just starting to fly by and I hope and pray that I can keep moving and keep trucking on! I am so grateful for the time that I have had to be a missionary and as I approach the last six months, I am going to give my all to the Lord. There is no better time than the present!

I love all of y'all! Thank you for your prayers and your love!

Elder Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

The One Were We Pick Some Pears!

Hey everyone!

I hope that everyone had a better week than I did! We had a lot of stuff not happen but what did happen was pretty sweet.

After emailing on Monday we went to go open the Brookhurst building for President Crop*** to talk to Chris about his progress in the church. Afterwards, President Crop*** took us to Costco and got us some food from there! We had dinner and a lesson with the Gard*** family before going out and trying to contact people. We talked to Sandy and she said that she doesn't want us to come back by until the middle of September. We went to Amanda's after that with Kellin and gave her a blessing before going to the Gret***'s home to drop some stuff off at their house. What could've been an easy drop ff turned into an hour long discussion about the Book of Mormon class and what we could do to improve it. That discussion took up the last little bit of time that we had before going in so we headed on home. On the way home, I might've accidentally killed a duck... it was on the road on the backside of a rise and I tried to avoid it but I hit it.... It was a sad night for me!

Tuesday was pretty sweet. We spent 4 hours at the pear farm picking pears! We were on the platform, which involves being strapped into a moving platform and picking pears! I have pictures but it is on my camera.... So it will be a little bit before I get those home. We showered and then went and taught Sister Mos*** a little bit about the Restoration. We then tried contacting people until dinner and then we spent the rest of our night correlating with the sisters and the 3rd ward elders about what we could do to vamp up our Book of Mormon class.

Wednesday we worked on a questionnaire for a leadership training meeting we were having on Thursday and then our day went to the dogs. All of our lessons canceled... all of them. So we met up with Stirling Robin***, who is the YSA ward mission leader, and talked about some of the people that the YSA missionaries were visiting. We went by the church to map out the YSA investigators and we saw Wade on the way there. He pulled into the church parking lot and he had this big 'ol grin on his face. He told us that he bought a marriage certificate AND that after the blessing that I gave his newborn in the NICU that he was taken out of NICU and has his own room now! It's pretty humbling to see God work through you! We contacted a YSA investigator who said he was not interested so we visited with the Coom***'s and she asked for a blessing so after dinner we came and gave her a blessing. We then fixed the Sister missionaries' dryer (who knew that I could do that?) and then we ended up contacting some members near the church to end the night.

Thursday was slow. We had leadership training that took up all morning and good chunk of the afternoon. We then had a couple of lessons with Cameron and Andrew before our lesson with Wade and Pearl. It was a super long lesson, partly because they were late and then because we kept getting off topic.. Oh well! We then went to the last 15 minutes of correlation to end the night.

Friday we had new missionary training in the morning followed by district meeting. It was a decent district meeting and it ended early... We headed over to lunch with President Crop*** and he was a couple of minutes late so I decided to check our tire pressure and our front right tire was at 20 PSI. So after India Palace with President Crop***, we went to Les Schaub (I can't spell it...) and got a new tire. It took forever and so we stopped by the Johns***'s and shared a message with them. We then paid Brother Griffe*** a visit and he was watching Marcus Mariota take on the Falcons! We came right at halftime so we shared a message that tied into football! It was pretty sweet! After dinner, we visited people with Sister Spen*** and OYM'd a lady named Nichole and her brother to end the night.

Saturday was just.... meh. We did weekly planning and then afterwards everyone canceled again so we just tried to contact people. We had dinner at Jimmy John's and after dinner Tammy texted us and dropped us, saying she couldn't accept the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith. That sucked but at least she was honest. We got ice cream to drown our sorrows and then we went and talked to Melo's dad for an hour. We then visited with Brother Pet*** and made a 7-11 run to end the night.

Sunday we had church and it was pretty awesome! We had several investigators at church and it was a blast. We took lunch after and then we contacted a couple of former investigators before dinner. We got a return appointment with a Samoan lady so that will be fun! We had dinner before heading off to the stake center for a Just Serve committee meeting. We bailed early to go see the McHat***'s and we were able to get a family home evening set up.

That's my week! Take care and I love y'all! I know that the Church is true!

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 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

The One Where I Went to the Special Olympics

Hey everyone!

Well, this was a good first week as zone leader in Medford!

Monday after shopping and some basketball, we had my first dinner in Medford with the Brum*** family. They are so awesome! One of our potential investigators, Cameron, was also at the dinner so that was pretty awesome. We then went and visited the ward mission leader, Brother Hazel***. I have a good feeling that we are going to get along pretty well hah! He has seen Three Amigos and went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner right before we came by!

On Tuesday we started off our morning doing some service at the Phoenix cemetery with the Phoenix and YSA missionaries. It was so much fun! I started off with a weed whacker but then I got to do some mowing! It was a great chance to do some service. After we did that, Elder Hinton and I came back and got cleaned up to go try and see some people but one of them was sick and no one was home so we decided to go tracting. We ran into some interesting people! One lady that we tracted into actually lived next to some missionaries in Portland so that was pretty cool. We dropped the van off at the apartment and got picked up at the church by a priest named Kellin for a lesson with Sister Mos***. She is an awesome lady! She actually lived in Spring, Texas so that was fun talking about Houston. We talked about patience and it went really well. Kellin dropped us off at the church and we walked to dinner with the Schm***'s. Brother Schm*** came with us to our lesson with Brent Robe*** in the Robe**'s home. We talked about Christ's life and when we got to the end of lesson, Michelle came in. She is on date to get baptized in July and she has had a CRAZY week. Anyways, we had some time to talk with her afterwards and set a time for Saturday. After we finished talking with her, Brother Robe*** took us to see Bishop Warr and I got to meet him for the first time. We then walked home and talked to the member who lives below us to finish up the night.

Wednesday morning we went over to the Brum***'s to knock out some cobwebs around their home. When we pulled up, Sister Cla*** was there!! She is one of my favorite people here in Medford! Anyways, we also had time to pull up some blackberry vines before we ran out of time. We correlated with the Sisters and then we went and contacted a couple of members and attempted to contact a couple of potentials. We decided to go tracting and we had some interesting visits with some people! We had one guy who tried to tell us that everything in the Book of Mormon didn't happen. We had dinner and then we had our Book of Mormon class. We then walked over to our lesson with the Schreff***'s and had a good talk about families. When we got back to the apartment, Elder Best called me and told me that Geraldine is getting baptized on the 11th of July!

Thursday morning we did weekly planning and I found out how tough it is planning as a zone leader! We had phone calls off the hook! After we finished planning and ate lunch, the Spanish missionaries came over and went through the clothes that have been in the apartment for eons. We were going to go contact potentials but then our phone went off the hook and we had to meet someone named Junior at the church. That was a super weird experience. We went to dinner and taught Sister McHat*** and her son. We went out with a member and he suggested that we contact someone named Sergio and we ended up talking with his son who is super awesome! We connected well with him!

Friday morning we had district meeting and then we helped a family in the ward move. They were moving into a different house in the ward so that made the move pretty easy. We had a lesson set with Junior but he bailed so we street contacted a couple of people and talked to one of our investigators on the street. After we street contacted, we went to youth conference and got over 240 possible referrals! It was super cool! President Cropper gave each of the youth a Book of Mormon and they wrote their names and testimonies in them. It was super awesome! After dinner with President Cropper, we OYM'd a guy named Johnny and we have a lesson set up for tonight!

Saturday was just so much fun! We got to go to the Special Olympics and judge bocce ball! If you don't know what that is, you need to look it up. It was so much fun and I got a free Nike t-shirt. I got super burned though. Anyways, we had a lesson with Michelle and it went really well! She is feeling the spirit and we are super excited to keep teaching her! After our lesson, we took a road trip to Grants Pass to go pick up the YSA Elders' new car that they get to have for the transfer.

Sunday was church. It was an interesting first Sunday in my new ward! I knew a couple of people from before I came into the area so that was fun. We talked about chastity and had the same lesson that I had last Sunday haha! We were supposed to have a lesson with Juanita but she bailed so we contacted potentials until dinner. We then spent the rest of the night going around the zone and taking the missionaries their referrals.

That was my week! I love y'all and there is no doubt that this is true!

Love,
Elder Tonini

The One Where I am halfway there!

Hey everyone,

So this was a pretty solid week for us! We had some good lessons and we are getting pumped for Samantha's baptism on Saturday! Unfortunately, Kevin wasn't able to get baptized this week but hopefully he will be in the next two weeks or so!

You ready for my week?

Monday was pretty dang awesome! I got a call from President Russell in the morning and he gave me permission to call Drew and Shavaun. It was so awesome being able to talk to them and congratulate them in person on their marriage! We did our normal P-day stuff before going over to Sister Kan***'s home for dinner with Maddi, a teenage girl who has been going to church for 6 months but hasn't taken the lessons yet. We taught her the Restoration and set her on date for June 20th (although that is probably going to be moved up a couple of weeks). It was a good lesson and we are super excited for her!

Tuesday morning we picked up the 1st Ward Elders and we went and did service at the temple. We pruned some plants down to the ground and spread some dirt around. I am super excited to be able to come back in the next year or so and see all the plants that I have helped plant begin to grow! When we finished up with that, we stopped by the Family History Center and we created a flier for the Youth Sports night that we are trying to get started up. We got cleaned up and had lunch before doing car stuff all day. We got a replacement seat belt part, tires rotated, and the oil changed. It took a good chunk of our afternoon but we were able to go teach a guy named Keith. He is more into the connection between the Native Americans and the Lamanites but we were able to read a chapter out of the Book of Mormon with him. He is an interesting guy haha he sure does love his weed! We then went and saw the Zim***'s and gave Brother Zim*** a blessing to end the night.

Wednesday morning we collected two weed whackers and went to town on Nikki's backyard! It took us a whole hour to weed whack that thing! It was pretty intense haha we were finally able to get it down to our shins but that is as far as we could get with the weed whackers. We got cleaned up and tried to see a couple of people before having dinner in Gold Hill and then a lesson with Samantha and Eric. The Gor***'s opened their home up to us so we had both Brother and Sister Gor*** there and they were pretty awesome! We taught them the 10 commandments and the law of tithing and the Gor***'s shared some great insights on those two subjects. After our lesson, we went and had correlation to end the night.

Thursday was interesting. I was up at 6 and at a church building in Medford by 7 to catch a ride to a mission wide district leader meeting in Winston. Elder Carroll, Elder Roller, and I rode up with Elder Earl, Elder Lucas, and Elder Goode from the Klamath Falls zone. We had a ton of fun! Elder Earl is companions with Elder Flora, my trainer, so we had a good talk about him. When we arrived at the Winston church building, we were instructed by President Russell and the AP's about how to be better district leaders. It was a good meeting and I felt like I learned a lot from it. We had a fun car ride back which involved a pit stop in Grant's Pass for drinks and then goofing off on the car ride home haha! Elder Best came and picked me up in Medford with the 1st Ward Elders and after we dropped them off at their apartment, Elder Best and I took off for the stake center so I could meet with Elder Roller and Elder Carroll about teaching in the zone training meeting the next day. We went from there to the retirement home near the church for a dinner/discussion with a member and some of her friends in the building. It was pretty fun! One of our former investigators was there so that was cool. We wrapped up there and went to the church for the inaugural Book of Mormon class only for it to flop.... Hopefully we get a better turn out this week! To fill in the time, we made Samantha's baptismal program and took it over to her.

Friday we had zone training meeting in the morning. Elder Best and I were at the church by 7:45 so we could iron out the final details of our segment of ZTM. It was a really good ZTM. We had some fun role plays and the district leader segment went really well. Last time we taught at ZTM, people said we didn't do a good job but we knocked it out of the park on this one! We went and talked to a couple of people after lunch before our lesson with Samantha and Eric. Brother Couvre*** was able to come with us and we had a great lesson about the baptismal interview questions and then afterwards we worked on finalizing her baptismal program. We drove over to Sister Stam***'s for dinner before coming back into Central Point for our first ever Youth Sports Night. However, just like the Book of Mormon class, no one came! We knew that the Eagle Point Elders were doing theirs at that time so we talked to them and got some ideas on what we could do to make our youth sports night a success.

Saturday morning we helped Brother Wil** mix and pour cement for a garage that he is building on his house. It was a ton of fun! We got to use a mixer and I got a good workout in haha! We went to the Family History Center afterwards and put some finishing touches on Samantha's program before going home and getting cleaned up. We shared a message with Dana before going and talking to Adam. We had a good talk with him and unfortunately we took a touch too long because our dinner was supposed to pick us up at 4:30 and we weren't even out of Adam's house till 4:35! Ooops... Luckily they were still at our apartment and took us to Original Roadhouse Grill. It was super funny because the Idiarts asked us where we wanted to go and we said Texas Roadhouse (they said we could go wherever we wanted no matter the cost!) and they thought we meant this Original Roadhouse Grill! They asked us what we thought of it and I compared it to Texas Roadhouse and they said "Wait....this isn't Texas Roadhouse?!". It was really funny but at the same time it was a good thing we didn't go to Texas Roadhouse because we probably would have never made it to our split with Brother Low***! We went with him to see the Cuf***'s. Brother Cuf*** has been investigating the Church off and on for 45 years so we shared a message about the Book of Mormon with him and his member wife. We got back to Gold Hill and we drove over to Brother Vit***' home for correlation.

Sunday was a milestone for me! May 17th 2016 is the day that I get on the plane to come home so yesterday marked 365 days left on my mission! I can't believe how fast time is flying... I feel like I got out of the MTC a few weeks ago. Anyways, Sunday was like normal, just church all day long with a bunch of meetings. The Central Point 2nd Ward set a goal for 20 baptisms for the remainder of the year and I hope that they can exercise their faith and do just that! Samantha came to church but had to leave early to go get their son. Gold Hill was ok, just the normal stuff that happens in a ward filled with old people haha! We didn't even go to Elders Quorum because we had some matters of business to attend to. We had dinner with the Hul***'s and drove into Gold Hill so Elder Best could grab some stuff from the apartment over there. We came back into town and left the truck at the apartment so we could walk around and visit some people. We tried to see Angelo and Spencer but no one came to the door. We saw that Brandon, a guy that Elder Ellsworth and I ran into back in February, was working on his car so we talked to him for a little bit. We were not able to teach him anything but we left him the Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet for him to read since he read the other pamphlet. We walked back to the apartment and drove over to the church to update our lessons and sync up. That wrapped up our Sabbath!

I know that this Church is true. I know that my Savior loves me and I know that He lives. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God as is the Bible. I am grateful for all that each of you do for me and I am grateful for your prayers.

I love y'al! Have a great week!

Elder Jacob Tonini