Week 45

When all goes down the Pooper!

The subject line pretty much summarizes every day this last week. Not that it was a bad week, but literally every thing we had planned save it be two appointments with members fell through! Pretty crazy stuff. The devil is workin' hard to keep us from having any success, but in the end we showed him...

Tuesday- Went and taught Pream and a whole lot of unsuccessful tracting and really angry Oaklandians.

Wednesday- We had a lesson scheduled with a less active that we have been working with named Penny, but when we called and talked to him he told us he wanted us to stop coming over, so that kind of sucked. We tracted for about three hours, had a beer can thrown at us, a couple people talked to us so it was a success! We ate dinner with Siphal and Jessica that night, it was awesome. We talked with Siphal about what needs to happen in the branch to help it grow, it was really awesome. Next we went and met with Brother and Sister Lang and their Daughter and Talked about the same thing and shared a message on faith and Miracles! 

Thursday- We got a notice our apartment was being inspected by the complex owner so we had to clean a bunch of stuff they asked us to clean before they got there, so that threw off our whole day. After those activities ended and our studies got all finished up, we went and tried to build some trust with the Oakland 9th members, and got nothing but a rock. Literally someone left a rock on our car, that was the most human interaction we had the rest of the day.

Friday- We did group weekly planning with all the elders in Walnut Creek at the institute, which wasn't the best Idea. We had to go to Antioch that night, but we also had to do weekly planning, so we went to Walnut Creek to save time and not drive in traffic. But that night we went to Brother Sot's house and talked with him about the branch too and got his thoughts on what we need to do, it was great, and they gave us a whole bunch of eggs from their chickens! Then we went to our Zone Leaders apartment for exchanges! We do a new kind of exchanges where all the elders go to the leaders area, so it was a party.

Saturday- crazy. I was with Elder Crump all day, and we did a blitz, which if you aren't a missionary means all the missionaries in a zone go work in each others area for an hour at a time, then switch companions and switch areas, tons of fun. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, nobody got a single lesson, it was rough. We went to eat dinner together after that at this Vietnamese place, unfortunately no Cambodians were present. After that we started a fast for the mission that the missionaries will be able to be more purpose driven and experience miracles. Then Me and Elder Crump went and taught a lesson with one of their recent converts. That was pretty much the end of the day haha.

Sunday- it was super frustrating.  First, that morning I got trapped in our parking spot by a car that parked super close behind us, so I was trying to get out and pulled in to change directions and clipped the concrete pole on one side. Then we went to church. Church was good, they even gave us cookies to eat for when our fast ended! We finished out our meetings, had one investigator show up, that was nice after the week we had. Then we went to get our stuff from the clerks office after the Oakland 9th sacrament, and our cookies were gone!!! Our branch clerk took all the food they gave us!!! I was so mad. Literally the only good thing I new was going to happen the rest of the day was go home and break my fast and eat the stupid cookies. Heartbroken we went back to the car and went home, Broke the fast, and finished our studies. That night we didn't have anyone to take to why I believe, which was a huge bummer, so we decided to go follow up with a referral we got a week or two ago, and we talked to their family for about an hour, and they invited us back and said that they would learn, but they didn't have time to go to church! So basically once they see how incredible this message is they will come to church!! It was awesome! it's this guy and his wife, the guy is a singer in the only Cambodian band in the bay area, so we have a ton of fun talking with him. Good stuff.

Blessings come from faith. God pays attention to everything happening in our lives. Nothing happens that Heavenly Father doesn't know about. Just trust him and stick through whatever bad things happen. Use your faith and invite Christ into your life. It's really cool, because once you have Christ with you in your life, you will see miracles often, because literally the natural result of the presence of the Savior is Miracles, that is all over the scriptures. I love you all! Have a great week!

Love, 

Elder Tolman