Week 21 Pictures

Post-Thanksgiving dinner at Boston Market

 

 

 

Sunrise in Oakland

Jonathan called us and asked us if there were any members that didn't have turkeys on Thanksgiving, and handed off Three Huge Turkeys for us to go give away!!!  They will go to use pretty quick!

Week 21

I Love being a missionary. This last week has been one of the hardest and one of the coolest yet.

Last monday, we finished off a lesson with a less-active named Phouen and her two kids Tyler and Nathan. It was so cool, we had been trying to meet with her for about a month before then, and lots of different things kept happening to keep it from working out, but then she finally called us back and said she could meet! We called Siphal to come with us to fellowship her, and he said he had just been let off work early so he would be right there! We taught an awesome lesson on having faith in God and really following the commandants and living the gospel. It was awesome, and Siphal said he was super grateful for the opportunity to feel like a missionary again. It was the coolest.

Tuesday we had a Zone Training and then got Panda Express with some Elders for Lunch, then went to teach some people back in Oakland. We also got to teach Prim that night, which was awesome. He is progressing really slowly, but it's really cool, cause the way we teach him is exactly how we would teach in the MTC, just better, and We always know exactly what to say! He has a really hard time understanding the Gospel, but he is doing awesome!

 

Wednesday we had some service, then got to teach a less-active named Saroueth, and we taught about Jesus Christ and he cried so hopefully It was because of how strong the spirit was haha! We went to ZLC after that, it was good! That night we didn't have any success trying to contact, it was a little rough.

I Already talked about thanksgiving, I hope everyone elses was awesome too!!

Friday we got back to work right away!! And by that I mean we went knocking doors all day because all three of our lessons fell through haha! It was a long day, but we kept going!! we met some nice people, but no Cambodians unfortunately!

Saturday was great. We had been praying all week that we would be able to find more people to teach and more opportunities to teach the people that met with us. One Less active named Daven (The super crazy one) said he could meet with us, and we went over, and he told us that he tried praying to get the people to go away, and it worked until he did crack again, then they wouldn't leave him alone. He freaks us out a little, but it is really cool to be able to come to him with the power God has given us to bring light into his life that hasn't been available to him for years. After that, we got to go meet with one of the Young men in our branch named Sean. He is 17 and wants to get ready for a mission, so the mission president started these things called "mini missions" where he will be able to go out with the missionaries for a couple days! We taught him about how to use preach my gospel, it was really cool. Next, we met this old guy that we had never taught before!! His name is Om Lim, and he is a mechanic in Oakland. He gave us a bunch of fruit and said he was too busy for church, but that will change soon. He was way cool. after some dinner at Boston Market from Chantha and Jonathan, we went to see the lights at the temple!! Prim and his daughter Melissa came to meet us there, it was so fun! I can't quite say it's as cool as salt lake, but it was super neat. There were probably over 1000 people there! Lots of Missionary work!! 

Sunday at church, our branch presidency asked us to get up and tell the branch what we need from them, and we ended up getting 13 lessons scheduled from it. God answered our prayers!!! after church, we went to teach a recent Convert at Chanthas house in East Oakland, and Her non-member brother came in while we were all bearing testimony, and we invited him to sit in with us, and he did!! I felt like I should ask him to share his Testimony, cause he has been taught by missionaries in the past, and he did!! He said that he knows it's true, but that the kind of person he is isn't the kind of person God needs. We talked with him for probably an hour and ended up getting a new investigator too!! Heavenly Father took care of us this week, but only because we did our part in doing his work. 

I know that Prayers are answered, and I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who wants to speak with us. I know that he is looking out for us, and always making sure we follow his plan. never doubt that he will answer you. Never have too much pride as to not turn to God with any and everything. I love being a missionary!! The Church is true!!!

Love, 

Elder Cameron Tolman

Week 20 pictures

 

It's getting really cold in Oakland any time past 5pm now. So I got this sweet coat!

 

Here's my zone at "Zone Training", everyone is dong the Walnut Creek zone sign

 

When Elder Apostolos was with us we went to dinner at our super rich member's house and they showed us their brick oven pizza oven

 

 

And his train collection, the Halloween set.

 

Elder Apostolos and Elder Hibbert and the bay

 

The California Oakland/San Francisco mission

We went out to eat at McDonalds.  First time I've had fast food in months!

 

I got this new beanie a little while ago too, I'm pretty excited!

I finally used my Chick Fil A gift cared after Zone Training

 

 

We got haircuts, Elder Hibbert didn't like his. . . . 



Cool sky outside our apartment

This sweet corvette we saw in the dumpiest part of Oakland

Downtown Oakland





One of our less active members got back from Cambodia and got us each one of these beauties

 

 

Some well cooked TURTLE for ya!



And we met this crazy guy named Calvin about a week ago, and we went back to the place where we met him and we saw this sign:

A cool mural we went by

Here's a crack house we walk past pretty often.  There's this one guy who walks outside and pees every time we go by.

And a more pleasant picture of the sky

the Oakland Temple!

 

Dinner with the Hung Family, Grandma Hung sure can cook!

 

We decorated this tree at the visitors center, Khmer style!

We saw this awesome car in the least likely place, a really bad neighborhood!

Downtown Oakland

Turkey Bowl with my District, totally work getting up at 5am on Thanksgiving!  Love these guys!

Week 20

Monday

I don't have a lot of time today, but I do have a lot of pictures! 

I love you all and hope everyone is well and safe!!  Happy Thanksgiving!

We have an all day P day on Thursday for Thanksgiving, so I will probably get on sometime then!!

The church is true!!

 

Elder Tolman

Thursday

Nov 26 at 12:29 PM

Wow!! How thankful I am to be a missionary this Holiday season!! A Savior is Born!! I am so grateful for the undeniable love that God has for Everyone. Take the time to thank him for all the things that he has provided you in your lives. I love this Gospel with my whole heart. I love my Savior. I love the people that I am able to meet and serve and teach, and I am grateful for the guidance that I continually receive from my Heavenly Father. I know this church is true. I know that I am a part of a work that is bigger than I can possibly Imagine, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill the commandants of my God.

This Thanksgiving has already been exciting! We woke up at 5 to go to walnut creek for a Turkey Bowl with our Zone, It was a blast, I love the Elders I get to serve with. We will be going to the Hang's for Thanksgiving dinner, so we will probably set up like 10 lessons tonight, which will be amazing. After that, we will email more, then go to the Institute in Walnut creek for a missionary party! I hope everyone has an amazing Thanksgiving!! I love you all!!

Elder Cameron Tolman

Week 19 pictures

*this picture was actually taken before Cameron left.  He didn't included any pictures this week.  Now we'll really be hoping for lots of pictures next week!

Week 19

Exchanges Galore and Satan and THE POWER OF GOD

Wow. I freaking love the Bay Area. Oakland is insane. Monday night the street in front of our house was closed because of and attempted armed robbery haha, and we went a week without hearing gunshots, granted I was only there half the week, still a blessing!

Monday was the start of a crazy week. We had a lesson with a less active family that lets us come over, and we had a super cool lesson with their family. next, I went to Walnut Creek to start and Exchange with Elder Pike, and Elder Apostollos surprised us and came too!! It was super fun, Elder Apostollos and I played guitar with each other and it was the coolest.

Tuesday we went to work! We had service in the morning and then went to a lunch appointment that ended up falling through, so we went and ate in the car haha! next we tracted a bit and then went to a lesson with one of their investigators that is doing really well, she was super nice and like to talk about music a lot! after that we went to the local college for elder apostollos to do some work, cause his companion Elder Jensen got moved up to the new AP! we had a lesson that night with their progressing investigator, and God sent elder apostollos and I to teach her, I have no doubt. The spirit was so strong when we shared our experiences with confirmation from the spirit. I'm so grateful for the ability to be guided by the spirit, she told us that she knew God wanted her in his church, because we told her exactly what she needed to hear without ever meeting her before and not even knowing the questions she had, It was awesome.

Wednesday I was with Elder Rowley for a day, and not too much happened, but we did get to go to Sister Sally's house for lunch and it was really good Khmer food, some type of neat soup. We also met this one less active that owns a Laundromat, he was super nice and said to stop by as often as possible!

Thursday we had Zone Leadership Conference, then Zone Training right after. It was a good training on family mission plans! After that, Elder Jensen and Elder Apostollos came with us to a dinner appointment at a members house, we had a meat fest! It was a great dinner.

Friday Elder Apostollos was with us in Oakland for the day, and we had an awesome time meeting cambodians and making fun of him with them in cambodian. We taught him how to say "I'm a dog" in Khmer and he just said it to every cambodian we met, it was hilarious. He did Jonathans baptismal interview that night too, we were super grateful he was there!

Saturday we went to Walnut creek with Elder Apostollos and we went to teach one of his investigators named chris. He was kind of crazy but he was awesome. We went back to Oakland to teach Saroueth, then went to contact for a while. Later we went to teach a less active named sreng, and he just had found out that his friend died when we got there, it was perfect. After that we went to teach prim again! It ended up being a day full of small miracles!

Sunday was great too! The Hells Angels headquarters is in Oakland, and they all drove by our apartment during personal study, it was pretty cool. We had one investigator we dropped come back to church on his own, it was super cool, and we are going to teach him on Tuesday. We got to go eat dinner at Chanthas since Jonathans baptism got canceled because of scheduling conflicts on several different accounts... it was good though! We went to teach a less active member next, and it was really strange.

           We have been to his house before, and not had any necessarily bad experiences, but we went in to his house and it felt weird. His mom told us he couldn't see well and that he would scream all the time and she didn't like it. He came down, and when he walked into the room the spirit left immediately, and we could tell he was super super high. He sat down and didn't really talk, and I told Elder Hibbert we needed to leave, so he said a quick prayer, and then The mom asked us not to leave until her son went back upstairs. She tried to feed him and had to hand feed him, and when he took the last bite he just stared at her and screamed, it was really weird. But he went back upstairs and she thanked us and said that when we came inside she felt safe. It was an incredible experience

 

             God is so real. I have a perfect faith that I represent his son and His Church on earth. I have the power of God on my side as I do his work. I have no fear as we go to teach after dark in the most dangerous parts of Oakland every week. I am just a piece of Gods plan, and I have a purpose for being on a mission. I know this church is true, and I see the blessings of it on a daily basis. I love you all, have a great week!!!

Love, 

Elder Tolman

Week 18 pictures

 

 We found these cool mats in our apartment when we were cleaning, we have seen them in a bunch of members houses. 

We are pretty excited to say the least!

 

 

 

 

 Here's a better picture of my district after stake conference, Sister Jarvi and Elder Rowley will be leaving next week,

but sister Jarvi goes to temple square!



 

 

 

 

 We were waiting for some Elders on top of a parking garage, and took a picture of Oakland

Week 18

just a couple days to cover today!

Friday was awesome! We had our studies and then the ever so wonderful weekly planning! about three hours after that we left to go eat dinner with some of the service missionaries from Walnut Creek that serve in our branch, the Olesons! They took us to this place called Round Table Pizza, and it was super good. They are so awesome! They only wanted to talk about missionary work and it was a super fun dinner! After that we went over to Jonathan and Chantha's house to teach Jonathan the last lesson before his interview! We talked about the temple with him and Chantha, it was a great lesson! He said he just wants to never stop learning about the gospel. He understands everything we teach him and relates it to what is taught in the Old Testament, cause that is what he is really familiar with. He can see correlations in everything, it's amazing!

Saturday we had a lesson with a less active named Sareouth, and he is really similar to this one Investigator in the MTC named Om Tawn, except he has already been baptized. He Never wants to do anything because he thinks god doesn't like him and he is always sick and uses that as an excuse not to go to church, but he likes having us over to his house, so we aren't sure what exactly his real problem is, so we just need to keep working with him to feel the love of christ. Next we went to Yiay Sokham Pleks house! She is this super sweet old little cambodian lady, she is like 4'10 and is really funny and gets mad when we don't call her grandma haha! All her family are nonmembers, and she is the happiest little lady! Her 82nd Birthday is coming up soon too! Brother Oleson went with us to her house, it was really awesome! We talked about the plan of salvation with her, she loved it haha! after that we went to find some less actives, because our third lesson fell through, and after visiting some houses in Oakland, we drove to Walnut Creek for Stake Conference!! There was a dinner we were invited to go to at some other service missionaries house near the stake center, and it was amazing. They had an awesome Brick-oven pizza dinner with the branch right before the conference, and then we went over to conference! It was a great conference, they talked a ton about member missionary work, Which we loved!!

Sunday was day 2 of Stake conference! We got to go to the ISC next to the temple for our conference, it's like a mini Conference center and it's really cool haha! we were on the third speaker though, and in the middle of his talk, the Power went out!! It was hilarious! It was just pitch black and people started to panic a little, and then all of a sudden the speaker just yelled "Well I can't have been that bad!" it was hilarious. We just all started singing hymns and the stake president bore his testimony yelling and it was the best stake conference I've ever been to. I really wanted to take a picture or something, but I mean it was dark and you couldn't see, so I didn't. We went back to our apartment after that to finish our studies, then we had a lesson with Lyana at the Visitors center before the "Why I Believe" fireside. The fireside was super cool, cause this one guy told about how he got taken prisoner by the Russian Government and tortured because he refused to conform to society, and then he came to America and some sister missionaries found him and he got baptized! It was awesome. His testimony was awesome. The church is true. It has answers to every individuals specific questions and can help everyone know that God truly loves them. I love going and helping people find those specific answers they need and showing them that Love, theres no where I'd rather be!! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Cameron Tolman

Week 17 Pictures

Here's me and elder Kloosterboer a while ago doing some service on exchanges

The street outside our apartment

Prim's house for the birthday party

A neighborhood we spend a lot of time in

A neighborhood in West Oakland

The super sweet, super Cambodian picture we found in the garbage

Our tiny little sick apartment!

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints"

Literally the most Cambodian Picture a member ever could have given us,

Angkor Wat

We went downtown for a lunch appointment with one of our members who is the administrator for the downtown business area

The members name is Moley Doung lang, and she's the coolest

This building is super neat, even though I don't know what it is!

Left to Right:

Elder languide, Elder Rowley, Me, Elder Hibbert, Elder Pike (He went to Herriman with me, woo!), Elder Weaver, Sister Pann, Sister Jarvi

This is my District!

Here's President Frandsen, Ballin' with the Elders

Another picture of President Frandsen

My nice and organized desk!