Week 35

This last week was promising, not a whole lot happened, but we are happy with our work!

Monday was good, we had family home evening with the branch which is always fun, then right after started an exchange with Our zone leaders Elder Crump and Elder Apostolos!  I went back up to the Creek in the YSA once again.

Tuesday was good, we got up early to go play doge-ball with the zone, then headed home to get ready for the day! Our studies were really cool, especially language study, Elder crump used to be in the Laos Program before he was a zone leader, so I would speak cambodian and he would speak Laos, and we would see how much the other one could understand! It was a blast. After that we had District meeting, and did a practice with the sisters for an investigator they have named John Paul, who is a Roman Catholic, and it was cool, we figured out exactly what they needed to teach him!

After DM, Elder Crump and I went to the College to find some prepared young single adults, and you wouldn't believe who I bumped into.. That's right, THE John Paul. In the flesh. He wanted to bash with me, but I wasn't about to have any of that. I taught him exactly what we had talked about at district meeting and resolved the list of concerns he had and managed to get a return appointment for the sisters, It was amazing and I know for sure that I did not teach him, It honestly was one of the coolest things that have ever happened. Anyways, John Paul and I are friends now, His Dad builds really big ships and he likes classical literature and Jazz, so we get along great. After that, we headed home and ate some dinner. We found a big pile of Records at the chapel in the DI pile, and the zone leaders happened to have a record player, so we pulled out some way old MoTab records and had a missionary party for two. We finished up the day tracting out a couple apartment complex's, it was great.

Wednesday Ended up being crazy busy. We went to say goodbye to Saroeuth before he left to Cambodia, then after that we went to teach Bunthorn. We ate dinner after that and then went to see the Carson family, their mom is super active and all her kids are less-active, so she has been asking us to help her kids. It was cool, we have been trying to meet them since I got here, and they were all there in one room waiting for us to get there! They are all super nice, I'm excited to get to know them! We had splits after that, and I went with Poamrong to teach Chantha's mom about prayer, and she gave and awesome prayer at the end and asked us to come back for dinner on friday and then breakfast on saturday haha! She is awesome!

Thursday we went to this thing called "Krom" that we learned about at family home evening. Basically, every cambodian that we would be looking for to teach gather together at this random big victorian house off International Blvd. every week just so they can really act like cambodians. We decided to go join them for a day. We met this guy name Chii, but he likes to be called Cheese. he is kind of crazy and not very interested in the church, but he is awesome. After that we went and did a ton of service for two members, Ramona and Sanyun, the same ones we ate dinner with last week. It was fun, but it took like 4 hours haha, their yard looks awesome now though! After that we went and ate dinner with the new senior couple, The Nielsons, and they are awesome. They asked if they could go teach with us afterwards, and they were so awesome. They came with us to teach Anthony Sin, it was tons of fun. After that, Elder Hibbert and I went to go teach Bob. It was great!

Friday we actually got to stick with our normal schedule, so that was nice. We had a real cool lesson on Personal Revelation with Jonathan at Dance Practices. 

Saturday we went to see Om Dee, He was really happy to see us, and he told us that right now he is really trying to find a way to be able to come to church, He is just having a really hard time because he can't leave his wife alone, and she doesn't want to go with him. She is really sick and can't walk well, but has hip problems so she can't sit down for too long. She pretty much just lays in bed all the time... Sad. We went and Tried contacting Cambodians around them in West Oakland until it got dark and dangerous and what not, then we went to Walnut creek for a zone leadership council. It was cool what we did, All the elders in the zone showed up, and they took me and the other district leaders companion out on splits while they were in a meeting. Me and Elder Lemmon tracted an apartment complex for an hour and got 3 lessons, it was super cool. Elder Lemmon is a brand new missionary, so it was cool to help him learn how to be a little better in his missionary work! 

Sunday was the usual meetings and church! We had a lesson with Lyana afterwards, she has been wanting to learn about Patriarchal blessings, it was cool. The rest of the day was really slow, we sent out a couple referrals for people we met, but unfortunately no Cambodians...

I don't have much to say this week. The church is true. Joseph smith was called of God. I am super super excited for conference already. Read up on your conference notes and get pumped all you children of God, the good word's a'comin. Lots of love from the sunny side of the Bay.

Love, 

Elder Tolman