Week 79

Adventures and miracles galore.

Happy New Year!

Wow, a lot has happened, I am just going to give the highlights of the last two weeks....

So, two weeks ago was transfers, and it was great. Elder Prete is with Elder Olone in San Francisco, and they are using public transportation, so they needed a ride up because their zone leaders car was full, so we got to go to San Francisco, it was cool, they have probably the coolest missionary apartment I have ever seen. After that we went and met with Brother Callaghan to do service, then went and taught Rick that night. 

The next thing to happen was Stake reports, it took a while, but we finished it and got to still have a lot of time to get out and talk to people, not any successes to report. 

Next was New Years Eve! we didn't have appointments and all our members were busy that day, so we went contacting in a park downtown, it was fun, really scary though, everyone there was crazy liberal and gave us super dirty looks and we only had conversations with a few people in the end, but it was cool. We watched Star Wars and Zootopia that night with our zone, and the Tongans were having a big party in the gym, so we could leave and get food, it was fun. 

New Years day nothing happened, our president asked us not to proselyte that day.

The next Monday we went to Pacifica and went hiking, then went to the pier and played with the waves. THEY WERE HUGE. IT WAS SO COOL. We got a call from the Tagalog elders after, and they got their car towed while they were in San Francisco, and so we had to go pick them up an take them to the Impound lot, I got to drive the car out it was fun. What wasn't fun was paying the bill, I was the only one with money haha, so I ended up getting a nice fat check from the mission. 

Tuesday we had a great day, we had a bunch of return appointments with less actives and other people we met, and all of them happened!! We met one guy named Jeff Backes, and he used to live in Grandpa Greg's house on 17th!!! It was the craziest thing, we were talking about Pocatello since we both used to live there, and he talked about how he went to visit the house that he used to live in on 17th, and that they went to knock on the door to see if they could walk around really quick, and he saw the church logo on a sign above the door, so he naturally thought it was a mission home and just walked in. He looked around a minute and realized it totally wasn't, so he and his wife took a quick picture and got out really fast. he showed us the picture he took, I couldn't believe it. There was the house we all helped remodel, it had the metal deer statue on the table and everything, I couldn't stop laughing. Anyway, he likes us now and we will be going back to get him active. That night we gave Rick a sweet Schwinn bike that Brother Callaghan gave us. Rick collects them, and he started jumping up and down and Hugged us and got teary eyed, it was so cool. He is going to take us on a bike ride in San Francisco in a few week on his bikes, we're pumped. 

Wednesday was MLC, nothing exciting.

Thursday and Friday Elder Henson had strep, so we stayed in cause he was dying.

Saturday we had exchanges, it was awesome. I went with Elder Terry, we had a blitz, then went to dinner with the Hunters, it was awesome. We went to see a guy named Matthew Colvin, and we were walking down the street looking for the address and couldn't find it, and there was a dude helping his dog and talking on the phone ignoring us, so we moved on. We walked around and couldn't find it still, so we went back and passed the guy again, not thinking too much about it. At this point I felt like we needed to talk to him, it was really weird to do that though, so being lame and not having faith I kept going and we walked around the loop one more time, and found out the building the guy was at was actually the one we were looking for, and he was still there and I still felt like we should talk to him, and then his dog ran up to us and we started talking! It was cool. We asked if we could get in somehow, and then he asked who we were looking for. We told him and he was like "OK, one sec, Hey Frank you'll never guess this, they're lookin' for me!" he hung up his phone call and explained who he was. He was super nice, he is gay and has been inactive for 20 years, but he felt like he was supposed to meet us, so he told us where his apartment is and showed us how to get in the right way and said to stop by later, and if he's there he'll talk with us. It was amazing. 100% a miracle. I love being a missionary. 

That sums up everything that has happened in the last two weeks! Lots of amazing things, the Lord is truly guiding the work in our area in the way that he needs it to go. It isn't quite what we are expecting, but we are more than ok with that. Lots of good is coming from lots of hard work!! I love you all! 

Love, 

Elder Tolman