Week 34 pictures

in the Cambo crib.

 dinner at Bonaths

chicken feet in my curry.

weird tapioca pudding stuff with Asian bananas

 

in other news, the cambodian buddhist temple in oakland burned down this week because they left some candles burning, so now all our less actives don't have an excuse not to come to church!

 

 it's hard to see, but this is a bentley that popped up in this super sketchy area behind our house. pretty sweet.

 out huntin' some Cambodians

 walking out from Phoeuns house

 on the way to San Francisco

I got a selfie stick in the mail. Shout out to the fam.

Elder Marcello in the Office.

Washin' the cruz.

we came home last night, and Elder Hibbert had left a window open, and our apartment was freezing, so I made some Hot chocolate and got in bed while he made calls.



Week 34

Alright ladies and gentlemen, let me just tell you about how awesome the work of the Lord is.

Monday was killer as usual. After emails we went and taught Anthony about the Restoration, and he knows a ton about the gospel, so we can go a little deeper than we normally would! tons of fun! He just needs to come to church.. after that we went to Bonaths house for dinner and taught Bob a lesson and ate some nasty super Cambodian food. It wasn't actually bad, I really liked it, but it looked nasty. 
Tuesday we had our combined district meeting/ZTM, and our training went awesome. It was super cool, the spirit was so strong. All we did was teach how to use the Pamphlet for Lesson 2, it was so cool. we finished the example, and it was totally silent. super neat. Heavenly Father helps those who prepare. After that we went back home, ate dinner, and finished the night teaching prim!

Wednesday was rough, we had our 5 lesson day totally fall apart, and we literally only saw ten people the rest of the day trying to teach. Our lesson with Saroeuth was really cool though, He asked if there was anyone in the branch who could be his friend and we told him to come to church and find out, but then he left to Cambodia
Thursday, so we will see what happens when he gets back.

Thursday was also rough, but ya'know, trial of your faith and all. It was a good day in the end, we worked really hard and ended up sending 6 referrals to other missionaries from contacts we had, we were happy with it!

Friday was crazy. We were only planning on 2 lessons, because we had Dance Practices and Weekly planning, but we got a call from Samey who we haven't heard from in almost a month, asking us to come and meet her at the Temple. She told us that she had totally lost control of her life and told us there were things going on in her family that she just wanted some kind of help with and we ended up having a super super powerful lesson on the Atonement. After that, Thorn called us and asked if we could come meet him at his girlfriends house, so we called Jonathan and went over to teach him! Turns out, he has started praying for a job, and he decided he is Moving out of his girlfriends house, because she is really just using him to take his welfare money, and that he got a call for Job interview at a funeral home that needs someone who can speak Cambodian! It was super cool, and he asked if he can keep learning and apologized for not listening to us as much as he should have. It was sweet. After that, we didn't have time to finish planning before our dinner appointment, so we drove home, and by some miracle there was no traffic at all which is super abnormal going into Oakland at 4:30, so we had a half hour to go teach. we went to this one less active named Sok Khom, and he almost never answers, but he did!! He let us in and we shared a really awesome lesson on the Restoration (using that cool training we got on pamphlets) and headed to dinner. Our dinner was super cool too, Their names are Ramona and Sanyun, and Sanyun has one of the strongest testimonies I have ever seen, but is blind and has really bad health. We got there and Ramona asked us if we could give him a blessing, and he heard that and got himself out of bed so he could come see us, he was so excited, I love Sanyun! They are both in their 60's, and love love love the missionaries. But anyway, we ate and the whole time Sanyun just wanted to talk to the missionaries, because he never gets to really leave his house because he is so sick, it was great. After eating, He asked me to give him the blessing, and I had not ever given a blessing in Cambodian before, so I was really nervous, but he started crying and before we left said that it was perfect for him, so the Lord definitely helped me out! After that we went to dance practices and taught Jonathan. good day.

Saturday was super cool! We got a referral to San Francisco on Monday, and we went to teach him! We met him at his house, and he was so excited to see us, he was just waiting for us all week so head could learn about Christ. We shared an awesome awesome lesson on the restoration just in front of his house, because his land lord didn't want us inside, and he asked when we could come back, and promised he will read the whole pamphlet and start the Book of Mormon, I couldn't believe it! That was the first person that elder Hibbert and I have found, so we were pretty excited! After that we went to see some other potentials, but no one answered, so we got dinner and went to teach Prim! Prim was great, he told us about how he has been trying to read the book of Mormon story book, but that it is really hard, and we told him about how heavenly father just wants him to at least try, and he will be blessed, and he thought that was the most amazing thing ever, then we talked about how he can pray for help to understand too, it was awesome!

 Sunday was cool too. we started a Gospel principles class, and Jonathan is going to be one of the teachers haha, it's super cool! We were really bummed out though, we didn't have any investigators at church this week, and we had had such awesome lessons with our investigators!

ah. but it was ok, church was great anyway! After words, we went to visit this guy we met on 90th, but he wasn't home, but when we turned around, Torn was standing right on the other side of the fence smiling at us!!! We were shocked, I looked at him and just said "where the heck were you today??" and he had a crazy reply, he said "I'm real sorry elders, but when I was leaving Holly's house yesterday morning, she got mad and called the police on me, and apparently there was a warrant for my arrest from 5 years ago when I broke my dads windshield when I was drunk, they hadn't been able to find me because I haven't had a set address since I graduated High school, so they came and had me spend a night in jail, so I couldn't come to church, but everything's cool now". We were totally shocked and busted up laughing, because that is totally something that would happen to Torn, it was so funny. After that we went home to finally finish weekly planning, it was a great week

I love being a missionary so much, I am always happy! Even if stuff doesn't work out, or people are rude or obnoxious, I don't ever feel angry or anything, it is literally the best. I Know the church is true, this gospel is so special. I hope everyone is doing well and has an awesome week!!

Love, 

Elder Tolman

Week 33 Pictures

 

Hell's Angels of Oakland had a huge motorcycle rally this weekend two blocks from our apartment.  Pretty Cool!

 

Here's a Porsha Carrera that someone crashed into a huge Oak tree Friday night

Cool Graffiti

Cool Apartment! (Mine :)

 

 

 This sweet knife we found on the street in front of Pamrongs house



Week 33

An average week in Cambodian Bay

 

Hello Hello all you wonderful children of God! What a great day to be alive! This week was pretty good, not a whole lot happened, our week picked up a little bit though! Good stuff!

Tuesday was awesome. I love the Temple. I love to see it and all, but going in side is the good stuff. Temples are the best. We got to go downtown with Elder Apostolos and the new ZL Elder Crump, it was pretty fun. That night we went over to Prims house with Sean again, it was good. Prim's baptism has been rescheduled for March 27th! We are excited for him!

Wednesday we went to service, then went downtown with Moley for Lunch! we went to this cool Cambodian restaurant! pretty neat since we speak cambodian and all. they liked the two whites guys that spoke their language. After that we went to Teach Torn. he was happy to see us which was nice, and we managed to catch him while he was alone! so there weren't any crazy kids running around the whole time, and the spirit was really strong! He apologized for how super lame he has been acting and asked to try again, so we said that we are good as long as he means it and asks God to try again and not us! Later that night we stopped by Bonath Kongs house, which was super nice, cause it's been like two weeks since we saw him. We taught his room mate Bob the beginning of the first lesson, and he has an even harder time understanding than prim does, so we will be going really really slow for him, but he is really excited to learn, so we will trust in the Lord and see where the spirit takes him!!

Thursday we got to go to MLC! There we some guys from the missionary department that came to see our mission, and they gave on awesome training on having shorter lessons and using pamphlets to teach. I learned a ton. One of the Guys was the mission president for the San Diego mission while they were filming The District, he was really loud haha. After that we went and ate dinner. The rest of the night we were trying to contact people and teach, but no luck. 

Friday was the usual once again, except today we went to teach Torn after lunch! We took Jonathan with us to teach, it was pretty cool to have him with us! Torn promised he would come to church on Sunday if he had a ride, so we called prim to take him! It was awesome to hear him get excited to help! We planned our week then went over to dance practices! It was a great night! we finished the Recent convert lessons with Jonathan too, and he is probably going to be a Gospel Principles teacher in the branch, we are so excited for him. He is almost done with Alma too, and he works 70 hours a week, so no one has an excuse to not read if he can. (:

Saturday was supposed to be packed full of appointments. We had 7 lessons planned and confirmed for the day, but as per usual our plans got dropped on the ground and we were left picking up the pieces. We went and tried to find Cambodians on 65th ave, we have heard there alot there, and we found one family there! We are going back to teach them this week! but! after that, we got a call from our zone leaders called us and said we had to have emergency zlc to plan a big training for the zone, that we have to give on tuesday. So we called, apologized, rescheduled, and drove to Walnut Creek for a planning meeting. Two hours later we went home to eat dinner with Chantha. It was really cool, she was telling us how grateful she was that we were obedient missionaries, and that we weren't out to just have a good time on our missions. She was saying how she could tell the difference between us and other missionaries. This was an answer to prayers for Elder Hibbert and I, we weren't sure if the members realized how much we want to help the Cambodian Branch grow, but we know now that they are very VERY aware (:

Next, we went to visit Om Channy, who gave us the biggest Orange I have ever seen in my life, super cool. Then we went to Siphals house to teach prim! super fun!

Sunday was awesome, We didn't have any investigators at church two weeks ago, but then this week we had three! It was a super awesome surprise! And Prim was going around telling everyone he was going to get baptized on March 27th after he stops drinking coffee! It was awesome! After Church, a returning less actives 8 year old daughter we have been meeting with got baptized, it was so awesome, Brother Lang baptized her! THEN he came with us and basically re converted a less active man named Om Dii. It was amazing, he bore his testimony on his conversion to the church, and how Om Dii could change his life so much. It was amazing. We went to look ta Khvan's house next, then tried to meet with former investigators. It was a great night!! 

I love missionary work. It is sooo hard, but it is incredibly rewarding. My testimony has never been so strong. I love the Church of Jesus Christ. Our savior lives and LOVES us!!! There's nothing but good things coming when you're on the path of Christ!! Go do something awesome, My new favorite thing to say...

Plan, prepare, and EXPECT to accomplish the impossible!!!! I love you!

Love,

Elder Tolman

Week 32 Pictures

 

Post #1 (Monday)

Here is the evening in Oakland

Here is the Bay



This is all my area.



 

Woooo San Jose! Only missionaries in the mission that get to proselyte outside of the mission!

San Francisco.

Here's us in San Jose.



 

more San Jose. 

 At stake conference, the Bilsbouroughs drove their 64' corvette. needless to say, we were excited. there was a crowd of like 10 missionaries all around it taking pictures, it was hilarious.

 

ALSO!! We are going to San Francisco tonight. expect a ton of pictures of our adventure on the West Side of the Bay

 

 

Post #2 (Tuesday)

 

on the road to San Fran. 



getting closer.

 

The bay bridge is crazy awesome.

San fran sunset.

Look at that! It's been a while San Francisco..

heading back.

 The cranes!

made it home. Here is saxolin boy.