Hey everyone!
So this was a pretty interesting week for us. We had a ton of service
and we were able to get some good lessons in. You ready for this?
Monday after P-Day ended, we had a lesson set up with Brad. We had a
good lesson about eternal families and the role as a parent with him,
mainly because his daughter just gave birth to his first grandson and
he was SUPER pumped about that! That lesson went pretty long, mainly
because he was talking a ton and showing us gospel country songs! When
we got out of his home, we had just enough time to pull our stuff
together to go spend the night in Gold Hill.
Tuesday morning I was waiting for the district leader conference call
when I was told there wasn't one that morning! It was one less thing I
had to worry about that day! We had a lesson in the morning with
Brother Mad*** and that went really well. He had some questions about
the Lamanites and about the curse that was put on them at the
beginning of the Book of Mormon. It was pretty cool to teach about
what happens to us when we lose the presence of God in our lives!
After we had lunch with him we tried contacting a couple of potentials
with no luck. We were supposed to met up with President Russell to go
teach Samantha and Eric at 6 o'clock but dinner was pushed back till
5:30 and then we helped out one of our members move in a couch and a
love seat so we didn't get over to the church until 6:40! Luckily, our
lesson with Samantha and Eric was at 7 so we got there right on time.
It was a pretty awesome lesson! We had Eric, Samantha, Eric's parents
who are members, and President Russell all in this lesson! We taught
them about the Restoration and Samantha really liked it! She also said
the closing prayer and that was just awesome! It was interesting
having President Russell there to help us out.
Wednesday we had specialized training in the morning and had
interviews right after that. The specialized training was all about
obedience and then in my interview, I had a good talk with President
Russell! It was good being able to talk to him for a bit. When we got
done with that, we attempted to get in contact with a couple of less
actives but nothing happened with that. We were able to get a few
lessons set up so that was good. For dinner that night, we had it with
a former member of the Seventy! It was super cool to be able to talk
to him and get to know him a little bit. We had a lesson scheduled
with Kevin but he wasn't able to make it because of work.
Thursday we shoveled horse manure for a widow in the Gold Hill ward.
It took us a long time because there was a ton! Sister Stam*** is a
funny lady and feed us corn dogs and chips outside on her patio
afterwards. We got back to the apartment and did some weekly planning
before trying some of the people in the Gold Hill area. We were able
to talk to a member named Heather and she asked if we could come back
and see her later on in the week. She had some interesting thoughts
about different aspects of the Church. We went back into Central Point
and met up with the Sta*** to talk about a couple of things pertaining
to missionary work. After dinner we booked it back to Gold Hill for
our lesson with Kevin. It was a super short lesson but we were able to
teach about keeping the Sabbath Day holy so that was awesome.
Friday morning we were over at Sister Par***'s home moving some more
stuff around. We had a ton of fun moving pipes and throwing old
barrels around! When we were finished, Sisters Hagamann and Park met
us up at Burger King and feed us lunch! We got cleaned up and went and
saw Mike. We watched Elder Holland's talk from this last General
Conference and he really enjoyed it. After dinner, we went and saw
Samantha and talked to her for a few minutes. She was doing well and
is making some awesome progress! We were planning on going to see
Heather that night but she had to cancel. We stopped by Brother
Reitte***'s house and ended up talking with him and his less active
aunt for an hour! It was awesome!
Saturday morning found us at Twin Creeks helping out at a MS Walk! It
was a ton of fun and I got a free t-shirt! We helped out on the
walking path to make sure that people went the right way! After the MS
Walk we helped out with a move in our ward. It was fun, considering
the storage unit was a lot smaller than what they had! After we helped
there, we went over and shared a message with Adam Barge before going
to dinner. I got a speed Rubik's cube from a member! It is super
sweet!
Sunday I gave two five minute talks and they both went pretty well!
Samantha came to all three hours of church so that was pretty awesome.
After church we had dinner with the Idiart's and then we met up with
the Cole***'s to finish up the night.
I love all of yall! Thanks for all that you do! This church is true!
Elder Tonini
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
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
Hey everyone!
So this was a bit of a slower week for us.
Monday after P-Day was over, we had dinner with the Cro*** and we
shared the "Because He lives" video with them. After that, we tried to
contact some people but nothing much came from it.
Tuesday we had temple service in the morning. We walked over to the
church with the 1st Ward Elders and we worked on digging holes and
moving some bushes around. We had to go through a ton of weed block
and it was a pain in the rear! We came back to the apartment and
changed before walking to our appointment with Don. On the way to his
home, a member from the 1st Ward saw us and picked us up!
Unfortunately he drove away before we knocked on the door and
discovered he was not home! We walked back to the apartment and took
lunch. We walked over to Central Point East and met with Mike. Due to
a mix up, he wasn't able to come to church this last Sunday so he was
pretty bummed about that. We read some chapters out of 1st Nephi with
him and it was a good visit. We then tried to contact a couple of the
members over in that area that I didn't know before having dinner.
When we finished up there, we headed off to go back to our neck of the
woods to contact a few people but no one was around.
Wednesday morning we did weekly planning because I was not going to be
around on the day we normal did weekly planning. When we finished up
with that, we rearranged our apartment for our lunch. One of the
members called us and asked us if we could help him with his food run
and we said yes. He even took us to McDonald's for lunch haha! We
helped him out with that and then helped out the Gold Hill Elders with getting
their truck into the shop. When we were done with that, we went to our
ward's silent auction for Girl's camp and Scout Camp. Elder Seymour
walked away with a board for a skateboard and I got a BYU blanket from
a member as well as a back massager haha! It was super fun! We then
helped the Sister missionaries get the couch a member got them into
their apartment with the help of Brother Thur***.
Thursday I was up at 5:15 to get ready for my first ever missionary
leadership council. I went up with the zone leaders and the Medford
3rd Ward Elders and I slept almost the whole way there haha! It was so
awesome seeing all of my former companions! We were instructed from
some of the people in the Missionary Department about finding and
asking for referrals. We didn't get home until about 8ish and then I
had ward correlation to end the night.
Friday morning I had district meeting. We talked about our study
habits that could be improved and then did some activities, such as
biscuits and gravy!:) It was so good! After district meeting, the
Sisters did an Easter egg hunt and then did the activity where we had
the eggs with different items in it that represented Jesus Christ's
last week. It was awesome, considering we did it in front of the
temple! After that we and the Gold Hill Elders did some service for one of the
Gold Hill members. Elder Porter and I painted, move a washer, and
worked on a dam haha! It was a ton of fun! We even had chimichangas!
We then saw the Froel*** and got Elder Porters finger fixed up! He
dropped a trailer on it a day or so ago and it was swelling bad so
Sister Froel*** fixed it up for him!
Saturday was General Conference! I stayed in Gold Hill and watched it
with one of Gold Hill's members. We hung out and had lunch before the
afternoon session with the Ward Mission Leader (WML) in the Gold Hill ward.
The WML was one of the contractors to build some of the temples out
here! It was super cool seeing the pictures and stuff! After the
afternoon session, we came back into Central Point and went to the
Priesthood session. We got pizza with the ward and then I got Sonic to
keep up with tradition! It was great!
Sunday was filled with conference. We watched it at the church and
then passed out at the Stam***! We then contacted a couple of people
and shared an Easter message with Joe and a family history message
with Adam. That is pretty much how Sunday went!
That's all I got! I'm grateful for this wonderful conference we just
had! I know this church is true! There is no doubt!
Love y'all!
Elder Tonini
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
Hey everyone!
So Monday was definitely a little more exciting than we expected it to
be! We were out the door around 9 to go to a zone breakfast that
President Thompson, the Central Point Stake president, was hosting for
us. We had an excellent breakfast and then he talked to us about Ebenezers and how it can help us. I really really liked what he said
about how these Ebenezers are "a stone of help". When he finished
talking to us about that, we played some volleyball! Oh man I have
missed playing some good 'ol volleyball! I had some sick plays too!!
We went grocery shopping soon afterwards and then played some
basketball at the stake center. When we finished up with P-Day, we had
dinner with the Thurman's. We had Thanksgiving in March! We had
turkey, potatoes, stuffing, the whole shebang! It was super good!
After dinner, we decided to go see a couple of people before getting
an ankle brace for Elder Ellsworth. We were going to talk to a less
active but we had the feeling that we shouldn't do it but continue on
to Wal-greens instead. When we were walking there, a lady crying in a
parked car asked us if we were the guys that had talked to her
boyfriend a few days before. We recognized her as the girlfriend and
we told her that we were the guys who had talked to her boyfriend. She
told us that he is bipolar and he snapped so she ran away with the
kids. We tried to help her as much as we could but we knew we couldn't
get involved so we said a prayer with her and some advice. That was an
interesting way to end P-Day.
Tuesday we were over at the temple shoveling dirt into wheelbarrows.
The temple landscape people had dumped off all this dirt on a patch of
road right next to the back gate and we moved it onto the grounds.
When we finished up with that, Sister Clayson asked us if we wanted to
plant the Japanese Thunderheads that we had dug the holes for. We
gladly said yes and by the time we were finished and got home, it was
about 1 o'clock! We had a tentative appointment with a Jehovah's
Witness guy that ended up with us talking on his doorstep and talking
differences between our church and his. I learned a lot about the
Jehovah Witnesses from him! After we talked to him, we biked over to
Sonic for half-off milkshakes for St. Patricks day! When we were done with
that, we decided to go out and tract some apartment complexes around
our apartment. We found a potential investigator but he was half
asleep when we knocked on his door. He took a pamphlet and I think
went back to bed haha. We paid the Sta*** a visit and they told us
that one of the people we were going to try and see was dead so we
went and grabbed a member's new address in this super expensive
retirement home. While we were in there, we talked to a guy who said
he knew all about the history of the Church. It turned out that he
knows all the anti-Mormon history haha! It was interesting. We biked
out to the Nada***'s for dinner and on our way back, Elder Ellsworth
ended up behind me and noticed that my back brake was moving side to
side! Turns out, I had two broken spokes somehow.... Luckily my tire
didn't turn into a taco! We were able to see the Shi***'s and set up a
family mission plan so that was good. However, we ended up having to
walk our bikes home because of my tire!
Wednesday was weird haha. We tried getting my tire fixed first thing
in the morning but the bike store closest to us was closed so we ended
up mowing Sister Winter's lawn instead. It was a good way to take out
my frustrations haha! After we had lunch, we had a lesson with Angelo
and Spencer at the DeRura***'s home and that lesson went really well!
We taught them the principle of the Sabbath Day and it went really
well. When we finished up with that lesson, Brother Sta*** came and
picked us up to go to the bike shop again to see if it was open.
Thankfully it was and I was able to buy a new rim for my bike. We
tried seeing a couple of people out in the boonies but nothing really
happened with that. That was it for the day haha!
Thursday we had weekly planning in the morning but we took a break
half way through and met up with Jay P at McDonald's. We shouldn't
have done it though because he ended up dropping us... That really
sucked. That just put a whole damper on the day haha. We biked out to
Central Point East and tried to see some people but no one was around.
We headed back to our area and tracted Crest and found a potential.
Other than that we have nothing else happen except for transfers! I am
staying for my fourth transfer in central point! It'll be fun with
Elder Seymour!
I love you all!
Elder Tonini
