Week 66

Zone Leader = computer monkey

 

Home of Youtube, GoPro, Pinterest, Edmodo, and then 90% of the startups in the Bay Area.... San Mateo!!! Tons of rich people, Tons of repentance preached from at the Gates of their luxurious mountain mansions and through the peephole of the bayside apartments. The Dream.

Monday was great, we had a good p day and said some goodbyes. We ate lunch with Tara, and got to finally meet her husband! Good stuff. That night I packed up and got ready to move again. I must have either not listened to the Lord at all and he needed me out asap or I worked hard enough that I had already done what he needed me too. Either way, It was a good run in Brentwood...

Tuesday was fantastic. We got to transfers nice and Early at 9:30 so that Elder Stokes and His new companion could get back to Brentwood before traffic hit. I waited at the Mission home for Elder Forsyth and all the rest of the zone to get all taken care of, then finally at 12 we started the trip back to San Mateo. Our Apartment is awesome, I can't believe it. The carpet is kind of gross, but everything can only get better after my first apartment. We dropped off my bags so no one could steal them out of the bed (oh ya, We drive a gnarly blue Nissan Frontier in this area), then went to work doing zone leader things! Which means that we sat down at computers for the rest of the day because we have to do stake reports...

Wednesday we got up and went for a nice morning run, then managed to get a couple hours of studies in before we got a call from the vehicle coordinator saying that the sisters had to take their car to San Jose to get repaired, and we had to follow them there to make sure they made it. We had a lunch appointment unfortunately, so we met the sisters and taught them how to put water in the radiator in case it over-heated and went to the famous Rainbow Pizza! The bishops wife and son took us out to eat, and it was awesome!! I can't wait to get to know them!! After that, we drove down to San Jose to pick up the sisters, needless to say, it was really strange driving back with a car full of sister missionaries (Don't worry President told us to). We flew over to Oakland after that for all the meetings with the new missionaries, and we ended up with 7 new missionaries in our zone!! It's crazy! We are really excited to get to know them and help them learn what the work is all about! We ended up getting home at exactly 9 after running luggage all over the peninsula for all the new missionaries (if you have a truck you are just a glorified bell hop).

Thursday was great as well. We did service for a ward member in her yard for a quick minute, then she fed us Lunch! Next we went and did some work at a food bank, it was fun, a couple other elders came too. After that we went and got dinner on our own, then kept up our computer work to make sure we got it all done this week.

Friday was a little crazy. We left at 10:30 to pick up a couple missionaries that didn't have a way to get to Oakland for a meeting the new missionaries had, and then went and tracted a bit in Oakland in my old area while we waited for the meeting to end. We also got lunch and looked at the Cathedral downtown after we ate, then went back to the mission home after and helped with some stuff they were doing. The meeting ended up going about an hour over, so we didn't get back to San Mateo until about 6:45, then we got a hamburger really fast and went to a Zone Leadership Council we were in charge of, then planned out the zone training that we had to do the next day.

Saturday we got to go and do some missionary work for about an hour, then went to pick up the sisters car, and then we went to hand out some papers to the district leaders, then we called the Tongan Elders to make sure they were all ready for the baptism. It was two hours before, and their investigator hadn't been interviewed yet, the font was filthy, and it hadn't been filled yet, so we scrambled to go and take care of it to make sure the baptism could still happen. After lots of delays and various problems caused by lack of planning, three people got baptized on Saturday!! It was awesome. Next we went to set up for the training before dinner, and then ate really fast, and then had an awesome zone training. All was well.

Sunday was great! We went to church, studied, and then finished up the last of the computer work. All is going well thus far.

I love being a missionary, The Lord has most definitely heard my prayers and has helped me find people who are YEARNING for the gospel, even if I don't get to be the one to teach them. I am so grateful for the miracle of the restored gospel and am totally committed to share it boldly to all the people I can. The Church is True!!!

love,

Elder Tolman