When Did I End Up Tracting the Insane Asylum?

Hey everyone!

So this is going to be a short email. Honestly, I am getting worn out by typing out long weekly emails and with two more weeks to go, I will give you some of the highlights!

Tuesday was super fun! We had MLC up in Camp Alpine and I felt like I was going back in time! I talked to one of the senior couples that were there when I was serving in Junction City. We were able to be in our service clothes so that was super enjoyable. We did a lot of team building activities and had a super good lunch. Elder Swiderski had to shop for a new suit and so by the time we got that done and got dinner, we didn't get home until 9:40. It made for a very long night.

The only highlight from Wednesday was that Cameron from Medford messaged me on Facebook and I asked him when he was going to BYU-I. He messaged me back and told me that he was going to go on a mission instead!!!!!!!!!! I WAS SO STOKED!!!! He is going to be such a great missionary!

Friday we had my last ZTM and it was my easiest ZTM to teach! It was super fun. We had lunch with most of the zone and then I went on exchanges with Elder Davis in Coquille. He is a super humble kid and he is a super good missionary! We had a good long talk before we did anything though because he has had a super hard time with his companion.

Saturday was interesting! We exchanged back and taught a couple of lessons before we went tracting in the dorms at SWOCC. Everything was going good until door #9. The guy was unusual at first but then it went downhill fast! He offered Elder Swiderski $75,000 to $100,000 a year (plus dental) if he left me. The dude, who I barely talked to, kept calling me stupid and dropping f-bombs all in the while telling me to leave! It was funny at first but then it started getting pretty sketchy. We thought he was going to do something to us so we just ended up bailing.

Sunday was super awesome! We actually found an investigator at church so that was pretty cool. I got to skype my family and man I miss y'all!

That is all that I got!

Love y'all! Have a great week!

Elder Tonini

The One Where We Teach at the Golf Course!

Hey everyone!

This last week was Spring break so we had a difficult time teaching and finding people to teach but we made due!

Monday was an unusual Monday. We woke up early and went to the church with the other Elders and played some basketball before our studies. We spent the morning proselyting before taking three hours to do our shopping and emailing. Brother Blackw*** showed up around 5ish and he took us up to Eugene so us and the other North Bend Elders could ride up with the AP's to Portland. Well we get there and the AP's didn't have anything for us to do so we just walked around in the pouring rain for an hour or so. We ended up grabbing some McDonald's and that is where the AP's came and got us. They took us back to their place and the Reedsport and Florence Elders came there shortly thereafter. We had a big 'ol slumber party and we had a lot of fun!

Tuesday morning we were out the door at 7:00 am to go to Portland! We picked up the STL's from the Eugene YSA sisters apartment and after grabbing breakfast, we drove straight through to the temple. We were there pretty early so I was able to take some time and read the scriptures for a bit in the chapel. I was able to see some of my old mission friends while I was in the chapel so that was pretty awesome. We had a great session and I loved being in the celestial room! We stopped by Deseret Book after eating lunch in the temple cafeteria and I got some things from there. We got back to Eugene around 4 and our ride picked us up almost an hour later. It was a fun car ride and I got to talk to our member about Scouting. He said something really interesting. He said that the Scouting program teaches eternal principles. It really made me think and really appreciate what the Scouting program has done for me and my family. We got back to North Bend around 7ish and we went back to our apartment and got changed into P-Day clothes and played basketball at the church to end our P-Day!

Wednesday was a blur for us. We spent the early afternoon cleaning up our apartment in preparation for an inspection by our ward mission leader and then we spent the rest of the day contacting people and trying to get stuff set up but nothing much happened with that.

Thursday we headed out to the Senior Center in the morning and did our weekly service there. We had a really good conversation with the people that run the center about how Jesus Christ has changed our lives for the better. We then did our weekly planning and while we were doing our weekly planning, we got a text from a lady in the ward telling us that she has an investigator for us. She told us about a lady that is interested in the Gospel and gave us her name and phone number. We go to call her and as we introduce ourselves, she hung up on us! It was super strange. We shot her a text and the lady told us that while she does want to meet with missionaries, she was dealing with a family situation and couldn't meet with us for the time being. We messaged her the link to the #Hallelujah video and told her to watch it! After weekly planning, we had dinner at the Kozy Kitchen with the Underwo***. I managed to finish off the country fried steak! It was pretty dang good! We had correlation afterwards and Brother Leav*** came with us to inspect apartments. He was like a little kid because he felt like a missionary again, being in missionary apartments with missionaries. It got him so pumped up that he shared a Book of Mormon with a man in the other Elder's complex! It was pretty awesome! He then inspected our apartment an we flipped through the old missionary yearbook and talked about some of the missionaries that had served in the North Bend area since he moved here. It was a pretty fun correlation meeting!

Friday we only had to do accountability because of the temple trip so we did that before we did some training with Elder Davis and Elder Kroll. It wasn't as exciting as some of the previous ones because of the different role plays that we had to do but it was really good. We have some awesome missionaries here! We had KFC For lunch that was provided for us by Sister Rice since we didn't have dinner that night. Our afternoon consisted of driving around looking for the golf course that Jake worked at. The reason why we did this is because Jake said that he would not come to church until we came out to the course and saw him there. We went to the one that we thought he worked at but it turned out that he worked at the golf course on the other side of the peninsula! We had a beautiful drive by the beach and through the heart of Coos Bay so that was pretty sweet! We got to the golf course and we talked to the guy working the shop there about where Jake was. We waited for a couple of minutes and right

before we were going to leave, Jake showed up! He showed us a little bit of the golf course and then he remembered he had to do something really quick before we could teach him. Instead of having us sit around and do nothing, he gave us a bucket of golf balls and some clubs and we got to dink around on the driving range for a few minutes while Jake got some things cleared up with his crew. We went up into his office and shared the #Hallelujah video with him. He keeps bringing up how he feels good when we come by and we pointed out the fact that that was the Spirit working in him. He committed to come to a session of General Conference with us like he promised so we are pretty dang excited about that! We had dinner with the other elders and then we tried to get some lessons set up to end the night.

Saturday we picked up the other Elders to grab our keys that we left with them the night before and to take them to where they needed to go. Well we dropped them off and got to the church only to discover that they didn't give us our keys! So we drove back and picked those up and drove back to the church. We talked to the Sisters (who were on exchanges) and we talked to Sister Poulson about the ward and to the sister she was exchanging with about one of their people on date for baptism. We did some Facebook and worked through our AreaBook until the other Elders were ready for lunch. After eating lunch with them, we headed back over to the church and I got to Skype Loretta after her baptism! It was a super short phone call but I got to talk to her and her step son! She is going to be a kingdom builder that is for sure! We had dinner by ourselves so we both took some time and read the scriptures before going back out and doing the work. We visited with a less-active member who has been going through some really bad health problems before seeing Sue. She requested that we find the video that was shown on Sunday so after making a call and writing it all out where she could find it, we got her the video! We took that time we had and shared the #Hallelujah video with her. The Spirit was pretty strong, even with her husband watching TV! It was strong enough to make her cry. We drove out to see the Jeron***'s but they are on Spring Break so we came back and grabbed some milkshakes at BK before going to the church and updating our lessons to end the night.

Sunday was pretty good. Sacrament meeting was so awesome! The talks were great and we sang in the choir so that was good. That was most definitely the best hour at church. After grabbing some lunch we went and saw Patrick. He hasn't been doing very well with his commitments... That was super depressing. We taught him about the principle of obedience and then he proceeded to show us a video of a WWE Easter scene... It was slightly blasphemous but the wrestler bore his testimony of Christ so that was cool.. The stake patriarch and his wife fed us a ham dinner and then we had a long discussion with them and a returning less-active member about the Atonement. The Spirit was so strong! We had correlation with the Sisters at the church to talk about the zone but that got interrupted because we found out that AP's rode up with President and we were going to have to chauffeur them around along with the other North Bend Elders... So we managed to get all that done so we could go to bed at a reasonable time!

Monday morning we were out the door pretty early to get the AP's to the church building and to get the other elders for specialized training. We had an extremely good specialized training that was taught by President and Sister Russell and the AP's. President Russell taught us about being Preach My Gospel missionaries and the AP's taught us about the Apostasy in a more secular way as to increase our knowledge of what happened during the Great Apostasy. Sister Russell then talked to us about being a missionary on fire and then President wrapped it all up. It was a very good training! We spent the afternoon contacting and then we had FHE to end the night. I love and miss y'all! I can't believe that this transfer is almost done. Have a good week and I know that the Savior of the world lives!

Love y'all!

Elder Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission 

"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

Rough Week

Hey everyone,

So not too much to report this week. We had a lot of cancellations happen this week and we also were unsuccessful in finding.

I'll share a crazy thing from this week and then a spiritual thought in place of this weeks email.

On Friday after ZTM I went with Elder Poston on exchanges and we did a power hour right after ZTM. Basicall a power hour is an hour that the whole zone blitz's an area. So we were going to go tract a street for some of the sisters. We had barely stepped out of our car when an old man waves us over. Turns out, missionaries had talked to him before and he is INSANE. He isn't allowed to step foot in the stake center because of what happened when he came to church. Of course, we didn't know this until afterwards. We walked into his apartment and he proceeds to confuse the heck out of us. He didn't make sense at all. At the end of it all, he ended up calling himself Melchizedek... Yeah... So that was crazy!

My spiritual thought comes from D&C 121

7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.

Tough times are coming! We just need to put our trust in the Lord and stay in the old ship Zion!

I love y'all! Thanks for all the support and the early birthday wishes!

Elder Tonini

The One Where We Put Three People On Date

Hey everyone!

This is really weird emailing on a Tuesday! Hopefully y'all had a great Monday and that you have a fantastic Christmas planned because I know I do! 😁

Well, we had a super fantastic week that saw some miracles!

P-Day was good as always but ended with an interesting twist. We had a super delicious zone breakfast before P-Day got underway. We played our normal games and emailed before doing our shopping. We had dinner before going and trying to contact a couple of people. We got back to our apartment and on the way to the staircase, we felt prompted to go talk to the Caldw***'s about when trash was to come. We walked in right as Brother Caldw*** was telling Brian and Savannah that they should take the missionary lessons. Pretty good timing eh? Savannah had received some bad news and was in a low place but it brought her to the point where she wanted to take the lessons!

On Tuesday we spent a little bit of our day doing former finding before our lesson with Ron. He was feeling a little frustrated about the way his scripture study was going so we talked to him for a little bit about what he could do to improve his studies. We booked it over to the Hayden's for dinner and then we shared a message about doing scripture study with them. I had fun with it! We had them watch the first little bit of "Scripture Legacy" (if you haven't seen it, you need to!) and we watched it to the point of where Moroni dies (oops, spoiler alert). We then discussed how important it was for us to have the scriptures and that we need to devote the the time and energy to reading it. It was a fun lesson. During dinner, the Hay***'s little girl decided to use me as a jungle gym.. with her fingers covered in pizza sauce! We went to the Caldw***'s for our first real sit down lesson with Savannah and holy cow it was a crazy insane lesson! Someone was a bit tipsy (not going to say who haha), Brother Caldw*** went on a couple of random tangents, the member friend they invited to come and that I had some worry about was actually a huge help, AND a former missionary who served here showed up and ended up sitting in on the lesson. I think it was one of the craziest lessons I have been a part of! The coolest part of the lesson though was when the RM talked about baptism and I felt the urge to ask her to be baptized right then and there. She said yes and Elder Fleming almost fell out of his chair! It was awesome haha!

Wednesday morning we picked up the Newton Creek Elders and drove down to Grant's Pass for Specialized Training. There was snow all over the pass! We talked about all sorts of things, from vehicle safety to locking our hearts (thank goodness for President Kimball's talk haha), to looking at key indicators as people, not numbers. It was a pretty good training and afterwards we got pizza and took a quiz on our gospel knowledge. We also got a Christmas present from President and Sister Russell in the form of an OEM lapel pin that says "Fishers of Men" with the picture of Christ beckoning to Peter, James, and John on the shore. It is pretty awesome. We got back to Sutherlin in time to volunteer at the soup kitchen. Dinner was dropped off at our place and we gobbled it up before helping the ward with the float for the Christmas parade.

Thursday morning we were supposed to do weekly planning but Elder Fleming and I had a long heart-to-heart talk that needed to happen so we moved it to the next day. The zone leaders came up here and I went with Elder Wells on exchanges. We grabbed lunch before visiting a couple of potentials and knocking out a couple of doors in a trailer park. There was one door that we could smell the stench of weed before they even opened the door. What made that door approach fun was after they said no, we walked towards their carport and right as we passed the edge of their trailer, a huge dog let out a huge bark five feet from us! It scared the heck out of us! After we tracted for a little bit and found a couple of potentials, we drove out to Glide for a lesson with a golden internigator (one who has met with the missionaries for a long time). She comes to church each week and knows its true, she just won't get married to her ex who she is dating again. We retaught her the Restoration and it went really well. Elder Wells and I taught pretty well together and bore testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel. It was pretty awesome. The lady's ex-husband turned boyfriend sat in so he heard it all and felt the Spirit. If he didn't then that sucks for him because it was there! We tried contacting a couple of people after eating the dinner that a member dropped off us for us but that didn't work out so we got into service clothes and cleaned out the litter boxes at PetCo! It was a lot of fun.

Friday morning found us helping out the Melrose and Newton Creek Sisters with moving in one of the Melrose sisters into the Newton Creek Sisters' apartment. Sister Sowter, our sister from England, was ET'd to Grants Pass because of something that happened to the sisters down that way. I don't know all the details but that is ok! We took lunch at Taco Bell with Elder Fleming and Elder Earl before exchanging back. We did weekly planning before trying to contact people because all of our lessons fell through. Every single one.

Saturday was interesting. We helped out with the final float preparations before our lesson with Savannah. We thought it wasn't going to happen because after our lesson on Tuesday, a ton of stuff happened and we thought we weren't going to be teaching her but sure enough, she was there waiting for us! We talked about her baptismal date before talking about the Restoration. It made a lot of sense for her and she said she loved the idea of prophets! We also answered a question that she has had for a long time apparently about the relationship between God and Jesus Christ. After lunch, we had a couple of lessons set up but they fell through so we spent some time contacting people before our dinner with a part-member family. He cooked some dang good burgers and made some amazing potato salad! After sharing the "A Savior is Born" video with them, we dropped the car off at the apartment and walked over to the float! We had over 400 baggies filled with candy and pass along cards and we ran out before we got down the home stretch! It was a great time and we even won first place for non-profit organizations!

Sunday we had our Christmas program and Elder Fleming and I sang in the choir. We sang the three verses of Silent Night in English and then switched between Gallic, Portuguese, and German. It was a fun song, especially since I only had one Sunday to practice and I was sick! After church we had a lesson with Samantha and Chris and after talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them, they both committed to be baptized on January 9th by their grandpa! They both are so prepared! We participated in a potluck before stopping by the Griggs and sharing the "A Savior is Born" video with Lonnie, who isn't a member of the church. We had dinner way out in the boonies and after we came back, we talked with Savannah and the rest of the Caldw*** to end the night.

It's weird that I get to report about Monday twice in one email! We had interviews with President Russell in the morning and then we spent our day doing missionary work with little luck. At the request of the second counselor, we took some presents with us to dinner. We talked about having faith in Jesus Christ and watched President Hinckley's testimony of the Savior with the Hayd***. We taught Savannah about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she recommitted herself to be baptized on the 30th of January!

That was our week! We saw a lot of good things happen and we now have three people who are wanting to be baptized with a couple of other people on the horizon. I am so excited for Christmas! I know that Jesus Christ was born so that we could live with Him and Heavenly Father again. I know that Jesus lives!

I love you all and have a merry Christmas!

Elder Tonini

The One Where We find All Week and Go To Fuddruckers!

Hey everyone!

So despite all the cancelations and the other things that we had going on this week, we had a pretty solid week!

Monday was P-Day! We didn't do anything too crazy! We hung out at the church and emailed until 1st Ward Elders came and took us shopping. We tried contacting people after dinner but we didn't have much success.

Tuesday was fantastic. We met up with 4th Ward Elders and the Zone Leaders at the church and then Brother Clay*** and his wife drove us to Portland for our temple trip! I was not expecting being able to go back so soon but it was nice, especially with the upcoming transfer. We had a good session and after making a Deseret Book stop, the Clayton's took us to Fuddruckers (I have no idea how to spell it haha!). It has probably since one of my last high school away games that I had Fuddruckers. We got back and changed in time for dinner. We had correlation before going with our ward mission leader to go see a less-active family. We watched a video of President Monson bearing his testimony of the Savior and we were able to add ours to it as well. Despite the craziness of the kids, the Spirit was there!

Wednesday morning found us out in Walterville chopping wood again. Unfortunately, the fun ended when the last axe broke. They were old and going to break anyways so the less-active told us not to worry about it if it happened. We got back into Springfield and got cleaned up to go into Eugene to run some errands for the zone. We got back and I went with Elder Adams to go teach Georgia one last time before they take full responsibility for her. The reason they didn't this lesson is because Elder Adams was concerned she was going to ask some questions that she had hinted at in the last lesson and wanted me to be there if those questions came up. Thankfully, they didn't come up and we had a super powerful lesson with her. Unfortunately, she didn't accept our invitation to be baptized but I know she will one day! After we got our companions back, Elder Bowers and I did training and took dinner before our lesson with David and Leighanne. We watched the second half of the movie "How Rare a Possession" and they were actually pretty into it! It probably also helped that both kids were fast asleep! We talked about what Parley P. Pratt and Vincenzo Di Francesca went through and did when they received a witness of the Book of Mormon. We committed them to read a verse a day and they accepted. I almost had to break some kneecaps but they accepted.

Thursday was another good day for us. The 4th Ward Elders dropped us off at Hometown Buffet so they could take the car to Roseburg and so that I could have lunch with Sister Pope and her brother Allen! They were able to tell me so many stories about Grandpa Ben and Allen even gave me a dog tag of sorts for Howard Tonini, a brother of Benjamin's! It was such an awesome experience. The zone leaders came and picked us up so we could go on a day exchange. President Russell is trying this new thing where missionaries from different areas go into one area and tract all day long. Well, we went out with the Spanish missionaries! Elder Adams and I tracted almost all afternoon and found two new investigators! Tyler is retired Air Force and although he is somewhat agnostic, he said that he would read the whole Book of Mormon before we came back! Austin was the other investigator we picked up. She (yes, Austin is a woman) seemed pretty open to the idea of having an eternal family so we got a return appointment for Wednesday. We had dinner in Santa Clara and gave a blessing to someone out there before coming back into Springfield and tracting until the end of the night.

We had district meeting and training Friday morning and then we hopped on the bus to go pull more weeds for Bonnie. Hopefully we can start sharing the message of the Gospel with her. We got dressed in proselyting clothes and Brother Whi*** picked us up because we missed the bus. We talked about all sorts of things with him but we tried to focus it on having love and charity to those around us. We had a super fun dinner where we played a game called Pie Faced when we finished up our meal. You will have to check the videos out. The zone leaders dropped us off at Traci and Dwayne's right before our member got there. We had a really good lesson about the Law of Chastity and Dwayne and Traci said they would look into what they could do so they could be living the Law of Chastity. Our member was a huge help in this lesson! He was a former bishop so he had some really valuable insight that we did not have!

Saturday the zone leaders picked us up so we could go help out at the home food storage center. A non-LDS church group was coming in and the people at the home food storage center wanted us to be there. They were a friendly bunch and we got along quite well! We did our weekly planning after lunch before hopping on the bus to go to our lesson with the new investigators we had met on Sunday. Drake, one of the young adults in the ward, ran late because of his truck battery and after the investigators canceled on us, his battery died again! I was given the wonderful opportunity to push start his truck! It was a lot of fun! We visited with Brother Half*** and read some of Hebrews with him before taking dinner and doing training to end our night.

Sunday we got out of the apartment early so we could show up for a correlation meeting that ended up not happening! After church, we went with Marcus and Monica to see a lady that the Spanish missionaries had tracted into to see if we could teach her but she wasn't feeling good. Marcus ended up taking us to his place and BBQing for us. It was super good. By the time we got done with that, we had to plan and do training.

That is how our week went! We have a lot of good things going this next week! Thank you so much for all your prayers and your love. It is greatly appreciated! :)

I know that this church is true! I know that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet on the earth! I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God alongside the Bible. There is no doubt!

Elder Tonini


Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

Did You Know That Eugene Is Ranked As The Least Religious City In The US?

Hey everyone!

So this was a good week for us! We were able to teach quite a bit so that's awesome!

Monday was P-Day. We weren't able to get much done in the evening because Elder Bower's bike conked out on us.

Tuesday the district leaders were invited to go to MLC so that's where I was! All of MLC was about finding and some new things were introduced during this MLC. I really learned a lot about how I could be a better finder! By the time it was over, it was time for dinner though haha! We headed over to the church to go on splits and our ward mission leader came out with us. We went out and attempted to contact a recent convert who was engaged to a member in the ward. He wasn't at the members home but we talked to her mom and her non-member boyfriend. We had a super good conversation but the boyfriend is going to be interesting to work with!

Wednesday the 4th Ward Elders took us over to the church for a correlation meeting for ZTM. Afterwards, we went over to the Salg***'s for lunch and we were able to provide some service for them. In their convenience store, they don't have any shelves for their number one selling item; alcohol. So, Elder Perrine and I helped Marcus put together a set of shelves to make it easier to move it all and Elder Bowers and Elder Strech went and did missionary work! We watched a talk from General Conference with Marcus and Monica before heading back to our place to do training. We then had a lesson with Brother Whi*** and we talked about the importance of controlling our thoughts and the things we say. We really cracked down on that with him because sometimes the things he says detracts from the Spirit and we have been working hard to help him understand the importance of the Spirit. The zone leaders took us over to the Half***'s for dinner and afterwards we read scriptures with Brother Half***. He took us back to our apartment and we got out bikes to go see David and Leighanne. We shared the talk about ponderizing the scriptures and invited them to do that. The thought had come to us to share that scripture because they are lacking in their spiritual progression and if we could get them to do that, that would be the jumpstart they needed.

Thursday morning was spent in planning for zone training meeting and doing weekly planning. We pretty much spent all day trying to find people but we didn't have success. We had a weird experience that afternoon while trying to find people before dinner. We biked over to a certain street and when we got there, we just didn't feel right but we didn't feel any impressions to go anywhere else... So we just tried to contact the people we had in our areabook before taking dinner. We had a funny experience right before our lesson with Tim and Courtney. We knocked on an inactive's door and a lady started talking to us... through her bathroom window. He wasn't home so we started heading over to Tim and Courtney's apartment complex and as we were walking, a girl yelled out "I love you guys!". That was a nice change compare to most of the nonsense that we get haha! We then tried to contact a potential but his grandmother said he wasn't home. She then asked us how we knew her grandson and we told her that he had talked to missionaries in the past and she told us that he said he was always confused when we came by because he hadn't talked to the Elders ever; he had only talked to the Sister missionaries! We then went to Tim and Courtney's place and as the conversation went on, we started talking about the Roseburg shooting. That lead to a conversation about why bad things happen to good people and we shared a little bit about the Plan of Salvation. It was a super good lesson but they got distracted at the end because of their cat... The 4th Ward Elders picked us up and we finalized our plans for ZTM before calling it a night.

Friday morning we had training and then we dove into ZTM! It was a super good ZTM! Me and Elder Eldridge did a super good job of teaching about teaching when we find people. There was a statistic that we shared that shows that while Provo/Orem are the most religious cities based on church attendance and members living what is taught, Eugene, Oregon is tied with Boulder, Colorado for being the least religious cities! Fun stuff haha! After ZTM, we exchanged with 1st Ward and Elder Huntsman came into my area. After lunch we headed out to go teach Brother Whi***. On the way to the church, we OYM'd a guy named Jesse and he seems pretty interested. We watched Elder Christofferson's talk with Brother Whi*** before taking dinner. We went contacting before our lesson with Traci and Dwayne. It went super well! Dwayne didn't do the reading because of his sight so we read Alma 40 with them. We had a discussion about how Jesus Christ is the only way back to live with our Heavenly Father and we asked him to be baptized when he came to know that the things we were teaching him were true. Without hesitating, he said yes! He just needs to start coming to church and he is golden!

Saturday morning we went to the church to do an iPad check before trying to see Jesse. He turned out not to be home so we went back to the apartment and waited for our companions to show up. After that, we contacted people until about 3 and went home to do training when the Duck game started and also to take dinner right after. Right as we got home, it started pouring buckets! Luckily it was over by the time we finished everything up! Other than that, we just tried contacting people all night!

Sunday we had church, lunch, and then we went out and tried contacting people! We ended up helping a lady move some groceries into her home and we left her with a picture of Christ and our number. We visited Brother Half*** on a hunch and it turned out he need some support! He took us to dinner and afterwards we did training to end the night.

That's all I got! Thanks for all you do for me! I know that this church is true!

Elder Tonini

Oregon Eugene Mission
"Days Never to Be Forgotten"

The One Where I Ride The Bus!

Hey everyone!

This was a good week for Elder Bowers and me! We didn't teach a whole lot but we had a ton of fun doing it!

Monday was the good 'ol normal P-Day activities! We went to the mall and hung out there and then went to the church to go email. We walked over to dinner and then we headed out to go contact some potentials and other investigators that we have in our area book. We attempted to contact a family that was investigating the church at one point or another and the father told us that he wasn't going to entertain us and that he really didn't want us to come by. Nice guy. Not! We basically spent the rest of our night.

Tuesday morning we spent doing training and other things before lunch. We headed off to go contact some people but we always seemed to leave something behind at the apartment. Luckily for us, the zone leaders needed something from us and we gave it to them in return for a ride. We tried to contact JayDaQuin but he wasn't home. We were looking through our areabook for someone to go contact and JayDaQuin happened to pull up as we were doing that! We taught him outside and despite him being totally hyped up on sugar, we were able to have a lesson about charity. He is a super good kid who wants to know who God is. He told us some stuff about his old church and we talked to him about our missions and what it is like. It was super fun stuff. We had a lesson with Robert Wh*** before going back to our apartment for dinner. We then went on splits with a guy named Jacob and we went to go teach a guy who is technically outside of our area but he forgot about our lesson so we went back to the church and waited for Elder Bowers to get back.

Wednesday was crazy! We did some training about finding people to teach before going with the Spanish Elders for lunch at the Salgado's store. Elder Strech and Elder Perrine had a lesson with Marcus and Monica, some recent converts that are going through the new member lessons, so Elder Bowers and I spent the next area in that area contacting people. We didn't have any luck unfortunately. We got a ride home and we weekly planned due to the temple trip on Thursday. After we weekly planned, our day got a whole lot more interesting! Instead of riding our bikes, we took the bus! We bussed on over to the west side and contacted a lady named Latefah and she said that we could call her sometime this week and get a lesson set up with her. We also talked to an investigator named Alyssa and she said we could come back Friday. We got on the bus to go back to the east side of the area and at one stop, this guy almost got on the bus and started yelling and swearing at the bus driver! It was crazy! We got dinner at the church before getting on the bus (yeah, we rode the bus a TON that day) and went over to an investigators home. Thankfully they were home so we were able to get a lesson set up for the next day. We caught the bus over to David and Leighanne's home and had a lesson about the Atonement. It went well, it has just been tough being able to have the Spirit while we are there due to screaming children and things like that. We got back on the bus to go home and man it was so sketchy... Everyone was staring at us and all the lights were off! It was a fun bus ride haha!

Thursday was something that I needed; a trip to the Portland temple! I haven't been at the Portland temple in over a year! It was a super good session. Something that was cool was that there was a man there who was confined to a wheelchair and it sounded as though he was on an iron lung or something. Despite his limited physical abilities and limited speech capability, he was still able to go through the session! It was a neat experience and a good reminder that I shouldn't have any excuse for not going to the temple. Another cool experience happened after the session. I walked out of the dressing room and there stood President and Sister Young, the former mission president and his wife! I couldn't believe it! It was good being able to introduce them to Elder Bowers and telling him how my mission was going! We got back from Portland in time for dinner and then we had a lesson with Tim and Courtney. We talked about trials and enduring to the end and it went pretty well!

Friday Elder Strech and Elder Perrine picked us up for training/district meeting. The district meeting went pretty well, and I taught my portion using a CES devotional talk from Tad R. Callister. Afterwards, I went on exchanges to the Spanish area with Elder Strech. We went and knocked a couple of doors and we talked to a guy named Alan. He seemed pretty interested in the message that we had so we were going to give him the Book of Mormon that Elder Strech had but it turned out to be misprinted! Luckily, I had one in my bag so it all worked out. We then headed over to Marcus and Monica's place to watch the talk called "Sleeping through the Restoration" by President Uchtdorf. After dinner we had a couple of lessons planned but they ended up falling through so we went tracting in a trailer park. We taught a kid named Alfonso about the Plan of Salvation but other than that, we didn't have much luck. To end our night, Elder Strech did language study and I studied out of Gospel library.

Saturday morning Elder Strech and I attended to some zone leader business that Elder Strech had to get taken care of. We exchanged back at lunch time and then we spent pretty much all day contacting people. We weren't really able to teach anyone though so that was a bummer... We were able to contact a referral that we had received so that was pretty sweet!

Sunday was Fast and Testimony meeting. We had some awesome testimonies and I loved the Spirit that was there! We came back and exchanged with 4th ward so Elder Eldridge and I could go to Stake Correlation with the zone leaders. We had some good discussion with President Ennis about the work in the area so that was good. We got back and exchanged back to bike over to dinner. We didn't leave until a little later than we thought so we went to the church and did some training to end the night.

That is how my week went! I love y'all and thank you for all the love, support, and prayers!

Elder Tonini

The One Where I Have Meetings For Days!

Hey everyone!

So, we had a ton of meetings this week. We managed to get some missionary work in though so that is pretty sweet!:)

Monday was the normal P-Day festivities. We went to the mall and window shopped for a little bit before going back to our area. We then spent pretty much all night contacting people in our area book.

Tuesday morning we did some training before going to the church and setting up Elder Bowers' Facebook at the church. The zone leaders picked us up from the church and we had a lesson with a returning, less-active member named Brother Ud***. He fed us lunch and then we read through the Articles of Faith with him. He had some questions that we were able to answer. He is a great guy who wants to get back on the right path! We then spent the rest of our day biking and trying to contact people but with little luck. The members that we were supposed to have dinner with had to cancel but they gave us 20 bucks so we went with the zone leaders to Giant Burger! Elder Perrine and Elder Bowers both got the Inferno burger! It basically has jalapeños and habanero peppers cooked into it! After dinner we went to correlation before going on splits. I went with Gregorio to visit a couple of people that the bishop asked us to visit. We struck out with one lady but we were able to schedule a return appointment with another!

Wednesday we got haircuts and then we weekly planned. Just like in days previous, we just went out and contacted people. We were able to see David and Leighanne at the end of the night. We were able to schedule a church tour with David and Leighanne for Friday.

Thursday was crazy! We got the Springfield stake center set up for zone conference for four different zones and right before it got started, we were told that we got set up at the wrong building! So we pulled everything down and got everything set up at the other building in 30 minutes. It was pretty impressive. Zone conference was pretty awesome! The AP's, President Russell, and President Cropper went over our purpose as missionaries. I really enjoyed President Russell's segment about repentance. We then had a short meeting afterwards for district leaders, zone leaders, and STLs (Sister Training Leaders) before going back to our areas. We gave a blessing after dinner and then we went to the church and contacted some people in our area book to end the night.

Friday we were out early to go to Winston for a district leader training meeting. Elder Workman took me, Elder Perrine, Elder Strech, and Elder Eldridge there. We had so much fun haha! When we got to Winston, we got down to business. The AP's went over our duties as district leaders and we watched some videos that President Russell and the AP's made. It was a good meeting and we set up some new things for the district leaders to do at district meeting. We hung out at the mission office and the Spanish missionaries got a new phone. We got back in Springfield and I found out that our 4 o'clock appointment fell through. We headed back to the apartment so I could change out of my suit and we headed off to dinner. We did a church tour with David and Leighanne and it was AWESOME! The members that came with us basically did the whole thing and the tour brought back memories to Leighanne, who hasn't been back to the church in a long time. We then bolted for our lesson with Traci. Her non-member boyfriend was there and we taught them about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It went really well! We really felt guided in what we said and hopefully the Spirit hit home with them.

Saturday we went to the church and watched the dedication of the Melchizedek Priesthood restoration site. It was super cool to watch and to hear the dedicatory prayer by President Russell M. Nelson. We had training afterwards and then we went off to a barbecue at a recent converts house. It was SO good! We then contacted people pretty much all day. Unfortunately we didn't have much luck once again.

Sunday was the Primary program. It went really well! I just wish that our investigators were there haha! The zone leaders took us home and we tried some hot sauce that Elder Bowers had and MAN it was hot! I have videos of us doing it! We had an early dinner that ended up dragging on. We walked back to our apartment afterwards and grabbed our bikes to do some work on the west side of our mission. We weren't able to contact anyone so we biked over to the east side and ran into Jaydaquin, our 12 year old investigator. We had a fun time with him, racing him on bikes and stuff! We got a lesson set up with him before we went to the church and synced up to end the week!

That is all I got! I love y'all so much! Thank you for all that you do! I know that the Church is true and that the Book of Mormon is true!

Elder Tonini

The One where the Smoke Clears!

Hey everyone!

So this was a slower week for us. We had a lot of things not happen that were supposed to so I might be jumping around from day to day.

Monday was good! We had P-Day activities which involved silly games and playing soccer with a big yoga ball! We then had dinner and then we did an FHE with the McHat***'s. We talked about the Holy Ghost with them and then we played SkipBo!

Tuesday we correlated with the old YSA ward mission leader and tried to figure out who we could try to go and see. We had lessons set up but everyone fell through. We tried contacting Kendra but she wasn't home. We waited on the doorstep for a minute or two (her car was out front so we thought she might've been home) and when we turned around this guy started asking us questions about why we were there haha! It was super funny! We also talked to a Jehovah's Witness lady and she tried using the Book of Mormon against us. It's the same lady that we talked with at the airport the week before! We had a super solid Book of Mormon class! Elder Taito and I taught about agency using Alma 30 and we watched the video depicting Alma teaching Korihor! It was super good!

Wednesday was filled with cancellations. We did a companionship study and training with the 6th Ward Elders before calling some people from the YSA Ward. Not a whole lot of them wanted to even talk to us on the phone! We were able to have a lesson with Sister Mo*** and that went really well. We were able to get in with a less active who is starting to come back. His wife (who is a member) is pretty against the Church but he still believes that it is true. It's tough on me to see someone who has had the truth start believing in lies and doubting the light that they had received. Other than that, we spent most of our day contacting people

Thursday we were supposed to do platform picking at the pear farm but the harvest wrapped up on Wednesday! We did weekly planning and tried contacting some people before going to lunch with Riley. He is such an awesome kid! I really hope that he can go on a mission! If I stay for another transfer, we will be doing a mini mission with him! It would be so awesome! We had a surprise lesson with Michelle! We were driving by and we saw her car at the Robert's house and so we stopped in and taught her about the Word of Wisdom! It was an awesome lesson despite it being kinda on the spot. The Spirit is really working in her life right now and it is pretty awesome to see the steps that she is taking right now to follow Jesus Christ!

Friday we had new missionary training in the morning and district meeting. We did a power hour over in the Medford 8th area but we didn't have any luck. We talked to one really nice lady but we had a ton of rejection. I then went on exchanges with Elder Poston. He has only been on his mission for 5 weeks but he is a super good missionary! We had a solid day planned but then as we got closer to each teaching appointment, they would cancel. We ended up contacting a couple of former investigators and had a lesson with an agnostic lady named Angelina. We had a super powerful lesson with her and she said she would study the Plan of Salvation pamphlet that we left her. We did an iPad inspection before pretty much OYMing to end the night. We were able to talk to a couple of people and give them some material but they really weren't interested in meeting with us. We still invited them so that is what counts!

Saturday morning we went to the church so I could delete some people off Facebook! We have more rules about who we can and cannot have on Facebook so I had to delete some people that added me or I added them! We exchanged back at lunch and then we took off with Sterling, the YSA ward mission leader, to Eagle Point for a baptism of a YSA aged kid. It was a good service and it had some awesome talks but there was like no one there! We then went over to the stake center and participate in the reception of a couple that Elder Taito worked with in Jacksonville. We took dinner and watched the Joseph Smith Restoration video during dinner. We then went to a baptism for the 8th Ward Elders. It was really good and the Spirit was really strong!

Sunday we had PEC in the morning before church. We had a couple of investigators there but Wade, Pearl, and Michelle were not able to make it. We talked a lot about Sabbath Day observance! It was good stuff. We shared a message about faith with the Peter's and committed them to come to the Book of Mormon class next week. We were also able to sit down and talk with Sherri about what is going on with her and we shared a message about how our faith can help us get through some of the harder times. We then contacted people with Riley and update our lessons to end the night.

That's all I got!

I love all of y'all! Thanks for all that you do! I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the whole church with the fullness of the Gospel and that the Book of Mormon is true! THERE IS NO DOUBT!

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

We Have Someone on Date!

Hey everyone!

So this was an interesting week taking over Gold Hill and Central Point 2nd. It's been pretty decent and we have had some good things happen!

Tuesday morning we went and shared a message with Brother Mad*** over in Gold Hill. We had a good conversation with him and then he took us out to eat afterwards. I had a pretty dang good country fried steak! We came into Central Point and exchanged with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Taito in my area. I actually replaced Elder Taito in Central Point so he knew a couple of people that we had scheduled to go see! We went and saw Adam and that went well. We talked about trials and what we can do to push through the trials. After Adam, we went and visited a man named Masood. His wife was a member and she passed away a couple of months ago. We ended up teaching him a little bit and he said that we could come back the next week! We grabbed dinner and then we saw a couple of members to finish up the night.

Wednesday Elder Taito and I headed over to Sister Par***'s home to help out with some service out there! We pulled up and I got an up close encounter with her pet emu haha! It was super cool to be around it! We helped Sister Par*** move some stuff out of a storage shed and into a trailer. It didn't take us too long and we were able to exchange back right after. We didn't have much go on for us until later on in the evening. We had a lesson with Kevin at the Cop***'s home. Kevin is a pretty sweet dude! We taught him about the law of chastity and word of wisdom and he accepted all of it so that was pretty good. Elder Porter was able to Skype in so that was pretty interesting.

Thursday we had a service project over at Sister Duf***'s home. We pulled out weeds with Elder Pease and Dave and then we pulled a motor block out of her shed so that was fun haha. We did weekly planning and then we drove out to Eagle Point to help out with a move out there. It was a super easy move and we finished a lot quicker than anticipated! We had dinner out there and then came in to teach Samantha only to find out that she wasn't feeling good so we tried seeing a couple of different people before going to correlation. It was an interesting correlation and we had a ton of fun!

Friday morning we had district meeting in the morning. It went alright haha it was tough to get conversation going when you are missing a companionship! Outside of district meeting, I don't remember much what happened that day... I do remember that we saw Mike and a member who just moved into the area. He is inactive and attends another church but says that we are welcomed to stop by so that is good haha! We had a knock out lesson with the Crowes! We taught them the plan of salvation and then Samantha committed to get baptized on the 20th of June! We even have Eric committed to work on being able to baptize her! It was a super solid lesson and I am so excited for the next lesson!

Saturday morning we went over to the church for Dave's baptism! It went really well and the Spirit was so strong there! Afterwards, we had lunch at his house! It was super good haha! Other than that, we weren't able to get much missionary work done... Our Areabook app is acting up and we don't have anyone in our areabook's so we are unsure of who to go visit! We did try our best but it was tough. We had a service project over at Sister Del***'s house. The front and back yards looked like a jungle so we went out there with the sisters, the Thurm***, Brother Sta***, and the Sum***'s to go help cut it all down! We had a ton of fun and we got most of it done! We had to bail though to go to correlation over in Gold Hill.

Sunday we had church all day long! We had Samantha and Kevin come to church so that was pretty dang awesome! We tried contacting a couple of less actives but outside of the people we knew from memory, we weren't able to go see anyone else. However, we were able to get in contact with a couple of investigators and get things set up with them!

That is about it! I love y'all so much! Thank you for your prayers and your love!

Love y'all!

Elder Tonini

So, about my week....

This week has been the hardest week of my mission. Just letting y'all know. However, we did have some stuff go well for us.

Tuesday morning Brother Froe*** came and got us to help out with a service project over at a widow's house. The Gold Hill Elders came also and we cleared away a ton of brush and took it over to a burn pile. While we were doing that, the zone leaders called us and told us that an elder in the zone had to go to the hospital for a possible case of appendicitis so they had to cancel the exchange. However, they wanted to talk to us later on that night so we planned accordingly. We then helped out Gold Hill with a service project that they had. After we cleaned up and had dinner, we headed over to the church and meet up with the zone leaders and they had to talk to Elder S. and they found out about something he and Elder P. did. They took us back to our apartment and we visited with a couple members before coming back to the apartment. That is when my week went downhill fast. Due to Elder S's conversation with the zone leaders, he had to call President and President was pretty mad.... So that is how my night went.

Wednesday morning we walked over to the Central Point 1st Ward apartment to go with them to a service project but there was some miscommunication and we ended up not going. We instead walked over to Brother DeK***'s brother's house and helped him move out. We got free lunch out of it so that was a bonus! We got back to the apartment and got into our proselyting clothes and tried contacting a few people before dinner. After dinner we walked around and tried to contact some of our potential investigators but they were all a no-go. Elder S had to call his stake president that night so we came in early so he could call.

Thursday morning was not my ideal way to have my day start off. Elder S. and Elder P. had to apologize to the whole zone for making the Sisters move because of the prank they did to them. Not fun. We grabbed lunch before going and helping a member in Gold Hill with some stuff. We ended up on top of this huge hill and it was such a beautiful sight that we had to stop and take some pictures before we left. We came back into town and Elder Best and I went to dinner before I had to go to stake correlation. We canceled our ward correlation because of the situation that happened.

Friday morning we had zone training meeting. President Russell came down for that and it went really well. We had a fun role play where we went outside and talked to some "random people" about the gospel. After ZTM, we grabbed some lunch and then Elder Seymour basically spent the rest of the day packing and we helped Elder Porter pack as well.

Saturday morning the AP's came and picked up Elder P. and Elder S. for their new assignments up in Eugene. Elder Best and I are taking over Central Point 2nd Ward and the Gold Hill area for the next couple of weeks. I get to drive a truck around! That is super awesome haha! We had dinner with the Bri**'s family and their daughter brought a non-member friend to dinner as well! We watched the "Because He Lives" video with them and it was just super powerful! It was a great experience. We drove into Gold Hill and taught a less active family about faith. It was a great time with them and we read Ether 12 with them to drive home that principle of the gospel.

Sunday was super long but freaking awesome. We had church from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. It made for a long day, especially without lunch. Both church meetings were great and we even had some investigators come so that was sweet. We had a super cool experience after dinner. I felt like we should go visit a potential part member family and we ended up committing her to be baptized! We have a lesson on Thursday with her and her family so we are super pumped!

I love all of yall and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Tonini

Just another week in Central Point

Well folks, I am serving in the Central Point 2nd ward for a fourth transfer! Because of the transfer, I wasn't able to write as much about it as I wanted to. I am super excited for this chance to be in Central Point for almost six months. It is so crazy for me to look back and realize that I have been a missionary for almost a year and I will have lived in Central Point for almost half of it! On top of that, I am also a district leader so that has been fun as well.

Well this week was a slower than usually but that is ok because it was spring break out here so hopefully things start to pick right back up! You ready for my week?

Monday was transfer day. The one good thing about staying for a long time in a area is you get to avoid packing up! We were at the transfer spot around 11:30 and I got to see some old missionary friends and picked up Elder Seymour. He is from Tucson, Arizona and I served around him when I was serving in Philomath. He is a goofy kid! Anyways, we dropped off his stuff and went grocery shopping before heading over to the church to email and play some basketball. Brother Hea*** picked us up for dinner and then afterwards drove us to Brother Thur***'s home so he could meet Elder Seymour. He took us to see Bishop but Bishop had gone to get some frozen yogurt with his kids (which is ok because I was the son of a bishop and it was always awesome when we got a chance to hang out!). So Brother Thur*** took us back home and Elder Seymour unpacked for a little bit. We then headed out to teach the Couvre***'s about family mission plans. It was great being able to be in their home and answer the kid's questions about missionary work or even our life back home.

Tuesday we headed over to the temple in hopes of helping out on the grounds but it was too wet for us to be effective so we signed up for a JustServe project and did some other stuff on the iPads before heading back to the apartment. We finished up lunch and headed over to Don's home. We had an interesting lesson with him. He had a ton of questions, some doctrinal and some historical but we were able to answer them and teach him about modern day prophets and the significance of the Book of Mormon. His only hold back is the limited archeological evidences we have. So we will continue to press forward with him and see what happens! When we finished up there, we were walking back towards the main part of town to contact people but we got a text from Bishop asking us to visit Dana and to get to the local hospital to give a sister in our ward a blessing. Seeing Dana was the easy part. Getting into Medford without a car was a bit tougher. Thankfully, Brother Reitt*** was able to take us there in his truck and we were able to administer to her. When we had finished up there, Brother Reitt*** took us home and we got a ride to dinner. We came back and walked over to the Cro***'s to share a Easter message with them.

Wednesday found me at the stake center doing district leader training with the zone leaders and the two new DL's. This was the funnest one I have been to! We played Jeopardy and just had a ton of fun while learning how to be better district leaders. We grabbed lunch before changing into service clothes for a service project with Elder Pease. A widow's yard had gotten out of control because her lawn mower broke and so Elder Pease fixed it up and we worked on her lawn for a few hours. She had a really big lawn! I spent most of my time weed whacking and trimming bushes. The funniest part was when Elder Pease got his truck stuck in the mud and Elder Seymour tried to help get the truck out and he got covered in mud. We got cleaned up and went to our dinner appointment. After dinner we went to the church and met with Bishop before going through our ward list and figuring the people I didn't know!

Thursday we had weekly planning in the morning and figured how next week was going to go for us. Elder Seymour ate some frozen pretzels that were pretty out of date so he wasn't feeling too good. He was able to get out of the apartment though and we walked over to Central Point East to talk to the members out there. We ended up talking to the John*** for a while. They are a great couple and he had a sick trike! I'll attach pictures! We talked to a couple other members before going back to our main area for dinner. The Couvre*** fed us tacos and then took us to correlation. Brother Sta*** wasn't home so we talked to the Huef***'s and they got their mission call to the Texas Houston Mission as CES specialists! We had ward correlation to finish up the night.

Friday we had good 'ol district meeting in the morning. It went ok, it was just super interesting with having new people in it. When district meeting was over, I went on exchanges with Elder Best and we went to go help Elder Christensen, our housing coordinator, move some people. When we got there though he didn't need our help. However, I got to see Elder West! The Spanish elders dropped us off at Taco Bell and we walked home to grab my stuff. On the way, some people in car made a dumb joke about Mormons and tweakers. It was so dumb it made me laugh! We walked over to Central Point East and shared the new Easter video with Mike and Kenny. We walked back over and headed to the church so Elder Best could meet the members of his ward at their ward party. After we hung out there a bit, we headed to dinner. When we left, I got my hands on a piece of granite from the same quarry that the SLC temple was built out of. I have since forgotten what we did haha! Maybe I will figure it out:)

Saturday we did a food drive at the church and we were there for a while! We tried seeing some people but nothing happened. We were able to talk to Adam but that is about it. We did get Hawaiian hut so that was good!

Sunday was the same story. People are out on spring break and we got ditched for a dog training class so that stunk.

I love y'all so much! Have a great week! This church is true!

Love y'all!

Elder Tonini

"I am the Master of my Fate and the Captain of my Soul"

Howdy Howdy!

So this week was rough because I was sick all week long! However, Elder Galloway and I were still able to go out and do some stuff!

Monday was good ol' P-Day. We did our shopping in the morning and hung out with other missionaries at the stake center. I also got a hair cut so I am back once again to my short haired self. Throughout the day I was feeling achy and coughing but towards the evening it just worse and worse! We had dinner/FHE with the Hea***'s and I was just coughing a lung up! I ended up taking some meds that ended up just completely knocking me out after we planned and I wrote in my journal!

Tuesday was a little better health wise but not by much! I was still achy but I felt well enough to go to the Medford temple and do our weekly service there. It was probably a bad idea haha! Elder Galloway and I took out some stumps while the other Elders worked on some plants that the Sister who runs the whole thing decided should come up. Elder Johanson was working on one of these plants and when he took it out it looked like Mickey Mouse's head! After service and getting cleaned up, we tried to go out and do stuff but I was attacked by my cold pretty badly. I developed a bad migraine and it felt as though my nose was running the Boston Marathon and my throat was the Sahara! We had dinner and then we headed over to the Steb*** family for a FHE. I was doing pretty bad so Brother Steb*** took Elder Galloway and I over to Walgreens so I could stock up on some cold meds and cough drops.

Wednesday I started feeling a little better compared to the last two days thanks to the medicine I picked up at Walgreens. After studies we headed out in service clothes to help Brother Sta*** take care of Sister Win***'s lawn. Somehow I ended up on the roof holding onto this huge limb that had potential to do some damage to this sister's house while Elder Galloway cut the limb off. I then cleaned out the gutters while Elder Galloway helped Brother Sta*** take care of some old blackberry vines. Afterwards while we were taking lunch and getting cleaned up, we got a call from Sister Cavan*** about helping her and her husband move a mattress and a box spring to someone's home. It was a piece of cake to get the mattress and box spring out of their house and into the truck but it was a totally different ballgame when we got to the house. It was one of those mobile homes that are surrounded by an electric fence and a ghetto sign on a truck that says "No Trespassing"! When Elder Galloway and I stepped into the "house", we got hit by this stench and it made me horribly sick. The state of the house was terrible and it did not help. I got outside after we took in the mattress and I was sweating and woozy and just not doing very hot! Sister Cavan*** (who had no idea it was that bad in the house) is a nurse so she was kinda worried I was going to pass out! She told me to go home and rest for the rest of the afternoon but I couldn't stand being in the apartment asleep for three hours so I took a power nap and we kept going until dinner! We had dinner with an older couple who had actually served in the OEM (Oregon Eugene Mission) and the husband had a sweet OEM tie and pen! Since we were right next to the church, we went into the family history center and I read and printed some talks about the Atonement for a talk that I might have to give in the next zone conference!

Thursday we were out the door pretty early to go down to Medford for a specialized training meeting that was called originally for the missionaries going home in May, June, and July of this year but decided to make it for everyone. It was a great meeting that focused on not wasting this time allotted to us by the Lord to serve a mission and to be obedient. I thought it was well done despite being planned this past Sunday! We came back to the apartment and had lunch before we did weekly planning since we were not able to do it that morning. We tried seeing Gene but he was sick with the flu and we tried seeing a less active named Joe but he was going out the door. We walked around and tried to OYM but nothing much happened. We had an awesome dinner though! The Stan***'s feed us tri tip! Oh man I hadn't had that good of BBQ since Philomath! We walked over to the other side of our area for correlation and it was a really good one! We had some funny moments but we were able to really make plans for those that we are seeing. The funniest part of correlation was when Brother Sta*** got tired of Elder Galloway "mistreating" his pillows and gave him a teddy bear to hold instead! Oh man it made for a good photo!

Friday we had district meeting, our last one of the transfer! The Gold Hill Elders came early so Elder Porter and I could make a pre-district meeting treat! We made some home made biscuits and gravy and MAN it was good stuff! After district meeting and a quick lunch, we went on exchanges with Gold Hill. Elder Porter came to my area and after discussing what we would be sharing with the people that we were trying to meet with, we headed out on foot. We were almost to Mike's house when this little old lady hails us over to her. It was M&M, the 97 year old great great grandmother that works at Calvary Temple food pantry, out on her knees weeding! She talked to us for a full thirty minutes about Paul, the pastor/singer(?) at Calvary temple who died of pancreatitis last week. It was a good conversation and we were able to talk about the Church a little bit with her but she wasn't interested in what we had to say haha but she absolutely loves us missionaries! We finally managed to pry ourselves away from M&M and taught Mike a lesson about dealing with adversity and it went great! I had planned on Elder Porter and I to stop by a member who is a loony bin (I don't know what else to call it) but we were not able to because of my cold... After dinner we had a really weird thing happen to us! Elder Galloway had left some stuff he needed for tomorrow and they were going to the church to pick up a package for Elder Madsen so they asked us to wait at the apartment after dinner. While we were waiting, we both heard a distinct knock on our door. We went downstairs and opened the door expecting to see the other Elders only to see nobody. We thought they were trying to scare us so we locked the door and just sat there for a second. We then heard another knock.... UPSTAIRS!!!! It was so freaky! As soon as Elder Galloway showed up to get his stuff we were out the door! We were able to talk to Sister Cro*** and schedule a time for us to come by and see her and her family so that was how we ended our night. I also managed to fill out my whole journal! I am now on my second journal on my mission!

Saturday was a pretty sweet day! Elder Porter and I had a great study session and then we prayed that there would be people out and about for us to try to talk to about the gospel. We took a different route over to the west side of the area and as we turned up the street dividing the CP1/CP2 wards, there were eight people all walking towards us! Although none of them were interested in our message, it was an awesome experience to see Heavenly Father place people in our path so we could invite them to receive the gospel. After that happened, it was about time to exchange back so we headed back to the apartment to wait for the other two Elders to show up. After we exchanged back, Elder Galloway and I went and shared a message with Adam. He throughly enjoyed it! It was a Mormon Message that used clips from a talk by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin called "Come what may and love it". We walked over to Abby's pizza and had dinner there with a member couple before heading over to stake conference. It was a great stake conference and Elder Bruce A. Carlson of the Seventy (and a retired four star general in the Air Force) spoke to us! I got the opportunity to shake his hand afterwards! It was pretty cool!

Sunday we had stake conference and it was packed! Once again we were able to hear from some members of the stake, youth and adults alike, and then from two of the stake presidency, President Russell, and Elder Carlson. It was just awesome! We then had a lesson with Angelo and Spencer about the Plan of Salvation and that went well. The afternoon was weird though. We did a temporary exchange with the Elders in the 1st ward, mainly because of me and Elder Johanson. The chiropractor in my ward who has been adjusting me said he was only really available sometime this afternoon and would let us know and Elder Johanson was having some tightness issues in his back so we were together for a few hours. We went and taught a lady named Claire who has some memory issues and it makes it difficult for her to remember if she read or not and also to retain the information she had learned. It turned out to be a great lesson despite her memory loss! We then saw some members who were in an assisted living facility on our way to dinner. The facility was under quarantine to protect the residents against a flu outbreak but we were still allowed in. We had to wear the nursing masks and man I do not know how they can wear those all the time! We got back to the apartment to grab a quick bite to eat before heading out again when we realized we had locked ourselves out! The back window was open but Elder Johanson and I are both big guys and there was no way we were getting in until I saw the skate ramps that were in their backyard. Using that, I basically walked right in through the window and let Elder Johanson in! The chiropractor finally told us we could come by and so we walked all the way there in the pouring rain haha! When he popped my neck, my nose just cleared up in an instant! It was great! We exchanged back right after and we put in lessons into the iPad to end the night.

During the specialized training, President Russell shared a clip from the movie "Invictus". It was when Matt Damon, the leader of the South Africa rugby team, went with his team to the jail where Nelson Mandela was held. President Russell read the poem that Morgan Freeman recited during that scene. In it it says "I am the Master of my Fate and the Captain of my Soul". I am grateful that I am the master of my fate. What I do determines who I am today and who I will become. Because of this gospel I am someone that fears the Lord and turns to Him everyday in hopes of becoming someone better. This Gospel is true. There is no doubt!

Love y'all!

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