Week 12

Week 3 in Oakland 10th!

Hello!!  I hope everyone is doing well!!  Fun fact: Missions are amazing

This week was pretty rough numbers wise, especially because we worked our butts off every single day.  We met with almost every non-active member in Oakland, San Leandro, and basically everywhere except Antioch.  It was crazy.  We met with people that haven't talked to missionaries in years today though, we are so happy with what we accomplished!  Even if the numbers don't show it!!

On Monday we went and had dinner with a member family whose son is 17 and wants to serve a mission, I got to speak a lot of Khmer there so it was awesome, and she sent us off with some awesome grilled fish.  Next we went to a less actives house named M..., he's awesome.  he needed help moving stuff, and he went quiet for a minute, then told us he needed to come back to church, to help his family if nothing else.  it was super cool, I have such a strong testimony of how the gospel changes families after being here.  There are broken families everywhere, and we will like hear a dad screaming at his family, then go knock on the door, and everything stops, we just tell them about the love God has for them, and always at least one person will be paying close attention, it usually ends with the door slammed in our faces though, but we know we are helping someone feel something that wasn't there before we came.  Tuesday we had a district meeting and we had a training on contacting from our sisters, and it was way good.  We went to meet B..., but he wouldn't listen to us, so we taught his sister and his mom a lesson instead, his sister is C..., the one who's super helpful.  It was super funny what his excuse was though.  We asked what was wrong and B..., in all honesty says "I have a really bad cough from smoking too much weed, you guys can take my bag for today if you want, there's no way I'm hitting it today".  Elder H... and I busted up laughing and declined, but told him our next lesson would be on the word of wisdom.  We love B..., even if he ignores us!  We just went contacting the rest of the day and had a couple real solid English referrals we sent to the English Elders.

Wednesday I had a new missionary follow up, and we had some really cool training sessions on contacting that Elder H... and I killed it with, we were so proud of ourselves and grateful to God for allowing us to have so many opportunities to practice contacting.  After that, the lesson we had didn't follow through so we went and had an awesome conversation with these six black guys that loved to talk about religion, and we told them where their nearest ward was and committed them all to go to church and read the book of Mormons we gave them, and to call the missionaries in their area, and they all followed through!  It was awesome!  We were pretty disappointed we couldn't count them.  Ha ha!
We had dinner with a family that had been dodging the missionaries for the past 9 weeks, they're less active, but want to come back now.  The wife is one of the new investigators we got this week!  We had a super powerful lesson on families and the atonement, it was so awesome.  Thursday we went less active hunting!!  It's one of our favorite things to do because we get to meet so many people all over the mission.  We got invited to lunch by this one member that works in downtown Oakland, and she took us to this super cool Vietnamese restaurant, it was so good!  We met these way funny old ladies sitting outside the old folks home downtown, and they loved us, it was cool!  Whenever we go around the streets downtown, people yell at us from their cars, just stuff like "go back to Utah!", it's not anything we can't handle, but this group of guys drove by and were swearing at us while we were talking to the old ladies, and they started freaking out, they were so mad!  Ha ha!  We were so happy that someone downtown liked talking to us for a change!  Ha ha!

On Friday we had a service project with our zone in Walnut Creek all day, so we didn't get to proselyte, but our zone is awesome, they have all been out at least a year except me!!  I'm the only new one, ha ha!  It's awesome!

Saturday was an exchange with Elder L..., and it was good to see how another Elder does his work, but I'm glad that Elder H... is my comp right now, it's perfect!  I got home a couple minutes early that night, so we went contacting in an apartment complex close to ours, and we found like ten Cambodians!!  it was so cool!!

Sunday was great as usual, but this Sunday was special, because I gave a talk!! IN ALL KHMER!!  I had prepared so much for this talk, I was super happy with it.  You have to be super careful about what you talk about with the branch, because they don't have a very big knowledge of the Gospel, it was all about prophets and general conference, it was great.  The Best part was that afterwards people told me that my Khmae was fantastic, and that they didn't think they would be able to understand me speaking, but that it made perfect sense, I was beyond relieved.  The Gift of Tongues is real!!

I love this Gospel more than anything, and I have been humbled so much being able to see the lives people live here and meet people that have lived through things that most Americans have nightmares about.  The Cambodian people are so special, and as cool as it sounds to go to Cambodia, I LOVE the Oakland/ San Francisco mission.  It is the perfect place for me.  God knows where I need to be, and I am ready and willing to work and do everything he requires of me.  Stay true to the faith!!   It changes your life once you let it take over!!  Let it become the thing you base your life off of, I promise you will receive blessings you've never seen before!!  Thank you all for the emails and love you send me, it helps me so much to know I am loved and missed!!

With love, Elder Cameron Tolman