Guatemala City North Mission

Guatemala City North Mission

Monday, November 1, 2010

Tikal!!!

Tikal
Amazing
Familia Jaurez

Hello!

We only had two baptisms last week instead of three because a birth certificate could not be found for the eleven year old daughter. That would be Guat for you, everything else went better than planned. Around 30 people showed up for the baptism which is more then usual here. Lazero, the dad, baptized his two children. It was really special to see him use the Priesthood to baptize is own children. Elder and Sister McBride came to the baptism too. They are the couple missionary's here in Sayaxche, they are super sweet. Both of them gave talks and also our branch President. Afterwards we had sandwiches and soda and a bunch of fun:)

We finally got microwaves for the house! I am so excited to use them… we just have to find a converter because they are 3 pronged.

The perfect P-day started by going over to the zl´s house at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday. The next morning we wake up at 5:00 and leave to go do the activity. Yes, that’s right, we went to TIKAL one of the most famous ruins in the whole world! it was seriously the coolest experience of my life. The temples are huge and they are everywhere! The weather was perfect, cloudy and sometimes rainy all day. We saw around 20 monkeys climbing in the trees. I even saw a toucan! Elder Smith and I were walking around we saw some animal that looked kind of like a ant eater and racoon mixed. It is called a white nose coati. It just ran up to us looking for food, so we pull out some cookies and it would run up eat them out of our hands! Elder Drach came and he put the cookie in his mouth and the thing came up and took it!! Then Elder Pierce came and put a cookie on his back and made it climb up him to get, haha it was seriously so funny because it was wild but so tame. We climbed some temples that are like 150 ft high and as we were up there you would see other temples just poking out of the jungle, coolest thing I’ve ever seen! There are l12 temples that are huge, then a lot of little house ones and sacrifice ones. it took about three and a half hours to look at everything. We een saw some other gringos there who were cool to talk to. Most of the tourists are from Europe.

It’s good to hear that every one is doing so well. I love and miss you guys so much!

This church is so true and my mission has genuinely changed who I am for the better. I am having the best time of my life here.

Love, Elder Toolson

ps. holy cow I cant believe Jess and Colbi are pregnant! It’s so crazy to think tthat there are gonna be a bunch of new little Toolson’s running around when I get home!

Blessings

Hey Family!

This week Elder Smith and I worked really hard and had some good success! Elder Espana baptized a family a few months ago but not every one got baptized, just the parents and two of the kids. Me and him tried to get the rest of the kids after but they never were really interested. Elder Smith and I went over there and got to know them better. we played some games with them then asked them if they wanted to be baptized and they said yes! So we have 3 baptism dates for this Saturday! There is still one more girl in the family not wanting to get baptized but we will work on her. Right now we are just trying to complete the whole family because they are really sweet! It’s going to be a good experience to see them get baptized.

Last week and this week we have been contacting so much! so this week we are going to work our butts off to find some people that are ready and excited to except this gospel. I’ve been praying really hard to find the elect people here so I have faith that if I work hard enough that it will happen. Me and Elder Smith are doing great! We get along together perfectly and nothing is in our way. Did I tell you that his grandma is actually from Guatemala? That is so cool.

For P-day today we watched "The

Work and the Glory"( which is an amazing movie by the way. It is really cool having a house full of gringos… but for my Spanish? not so good.

Our neighbor is LDS but is pretty much inactive and goes to another church. She has a handicapped son who is about nine. two days ago he was freaking out and had a huge fever si she called us to come give him a blessing. Elder Smith and I went over there and saw that he poor boy was laying on the bed rolling around and moaning uncontrollably. Elder Smith did the anointing and I did the blessing. Literally right when I put my hands on his head he just stopped moving and sat there. His mom just started crying. I gave a blessing for him to get over his sickness and then we told her that it depends on their faith, then we left. The next day we went out to work and she comes up to us and starts crying again and starts to kiss our hands and tells us that the boy has been fine since the we began the blessing. it was an amazing moment to see this lady find out how powerful the priesthood is. Hopefully she starts to go to church again!

I love you guys so much and miss you!

Love, Elder Toolson

My New Companion is Elder Smith

Hola familia!

To start off, my companion is FREAKING SWEET! His name is Elder Smith, (and yes, his mom is on the missionary mom sight, because Elder Fast’s mom is bff’s with her already, so look her up). Elder Smith is seriously just like me and would fit in with my group of friends so easily! He has a change behind me. I have 7 months and he has 6 months. This week has been kind of slow because Monday we said good bye to all the families for elder Espana then Tuesday he packed all day and we went to the zone leaders house, then Wednesday me and elder Mcfee went back to Sayaxche to pick up an Elder coming from Coban, and being sent him to another area. Me and him slept in our house that night. then Thursday we finally got our companions. Mine is elder Smith and elder Mcfees is elder Drach. so now we have four gringos in the house and its like a party every night :) haha just kidding. Don’t worry we are all good missionaries and going to work hard! All of Thursday we had district meeting then we had to go buy all our food then they had to unpack so by the time that all ended it was like 7:00 at night . We didn’t even start working until Friday. Elder Smith and I work very hard together and oh you don’t have to worry, we will have lots of fun and success! I am so excited for this change, and most likely we are going to be companions for next change too but we´ll see on that. Elder Smith was a quarterback in high school and is athletic so we always talk about sports. My biggest worries ate since my area is so big and stuff its sometimes hard for me to remember where all the houses are. Sometimes we are just walking around trying to find the houses:) haha it´ll get better. We set 3 fetchas on Saturday. so we will see how that goes. This Sunday went pretty well we had 4 investigators in church but we don’t have a speaker system in our branch and the latino’s giving talks dont talk loud enough so some times we can not hear anything they are saying so it seems pretty boring to the investigators. We are going to talk to the branch president about that soon.

about your question dad, regarding the kek´chi people, all of the husbands can speak spanish. and in there culture if the husband says they´re getting baptized then they get baptized. but no, me and elder Smith don’t speak it...i really don’t know what to do.

I miss you guys so much. I love my mission more than ever and it keeps getting better and better. The Lord has really blessed me with some good companions who make me want to be my best, and in the mission that is like a HUGE deal. It’s just another testimony booster for me because I am always praying to get a cool comp that will help me out :) I love you guys and hope all is well.

Love, Elder Toolson

August 16th, 2010


Hey family!

It was good to hear that the funeral went really well and every thing was "grandpa" style. That makes me smile. Sean sent me the whole talk he gave at the funeral, it was amazing. I just wish I had been there to say good bye to grandpa and see the funeral. 



This week went pretty good, I didn’t let me comp. get baggy and we worked really hard and found a sweet kek´chi family that is a good possibility because they all came to church and really liked it. We finally went to that place way far away called "paraiso" and we visited a few less active members and found some other new investigators. Literally all the lessons were in kek´chi so I didn't understand a thing. The place is in the straight jungle, like deep deep jungle. The people all live in bamboo huts and eat corn all day every day. It was so awesome to see how they really lived, and how they are all so happy running around having a good time. We got lost for a good 30 minutes because some of the houses we would just see smoke and start climbing over these huge mountains with no trails to get to it. so coming back we got a little lost :) but every house we went to there gave us something to take home, ha mostly avocados because it’s the season for them. It is cool to see the poorest people ever always give you the most. The only thing that stinks is that my companion is leaving, most likely my new comp wont know kek´chi and we will never go back. It is really sad for me because even though I have no clue what they were saying, just the fact that they are so humble and nice I really want to go back!

I guess the missionary department wants the missionary's to stay in their areas longer, so I have a feeling that I'm going to be here for a while. I should get my new comp Wednesday night. I am kind of sad, Elder Espana has been my best comp in the field so far. He has taught me so much! my Spanish is so much better now and I actually know how to work with smarts, not just have a lot of lessons which is what like all the missionaries do. I just hope that my new companion is a good worker and we get along, there are so many people here that need to hear the gospel, and we have some sweet family's that are good possibilities.

Family, I just want you to know that I am having the time of my life and I am learning stuff on my mission that I would never have the opportunity to learn other wise. It is weird to think how much I have changed already and its only been 7 months and then to think what I am going to be like in 2 years, no wonder all the missionaries are weird when they come home! :) but I am glad every one got say good bye to G pa before he passed away. I love every single one of you :)



Love, Elder Toolson

Coolest thing I have ever seen!

Buenas!

This week went pretty well, my companion was sick one day so I had to sit around all day which stinks, but I got a lot of studying done so that was good. Remember that monkey I was telling you about? I don’t know if I told you this, but we went and contacted the house finally and we taught them the first discussion...and they were totally gay :) haha I was hoping they would be as sweet as their monkey but I guess not hahaha ! my comp. and I worked really hard and met all our goals, he’s starting to get a little baggy because he’s been in this area for 6 months and only has like a month till he goes home. Don’t worry I make sure he doesn’t get too lazy.

It continues to be cloudy and rainy for the part of every day but the sun finally comes out and kills us by 3:00. The nights here are amazing! The clouds come back and its always breezy. The other night we were walking out in kek´che land where there are no lights at all and we couldn’t really see anything, and we were wondering how we were going to find our way home because there are no street lights, and we just wander around in the jungle looking for our little signs to the next house, but it was too dark. Then, out of no where, no lie, thousands of lighting bugs just started doing there thing and lit the path for us. Really! they would only go over the grass so it literally was a path that led us straight to the main road. It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!

Yes I got my package finally! man did that make my day! I am about to go chow all the candy! I haven’t had any in a while. Thanks for that,

Fam, I am so sorry to hear that Grandpa B is doing so poorly, and that his life will soon come to an end. I know he has been struggling the past couple of years so where he is going will be a nice break. Especially since we all know that he has worked his hardest in every aspect of his life. Just tell Grandpa that I love him, and to send me some blessing from heaven :) I’m pretty bummed I won’t get to be there to say good bye to him personally, Mom, please give Grandpa a huge bear hug from me and tell him I will work extra hard on my mission just for him! Wow, I’m getting all emotional just writing this so I’m going to have to go. Just know that I love you all so much and pray for you every day.

Elder Toolson

Baptisms!

Hola Familia!

hahaaha

I’m so glad that there was no sun this year for you guys :) I know that’s mean but it makes me feel SO much better about not being there with you!! but you guys still had fun so that’s good, and of course Johnny and Livy go to the San Diego Zoo, I’ve only wanted to go there my whole life and still haven’t gone...thanks! hahaha

This week went really well. We had interviews this Thursday and they went pretty well. There is this new rule that interviews cant be longer then 10 minutes, so I got asked about 2 questions and then it was over. Botta bing. We stayed in a hotel with AIR CONDITIONING! in Guatemala (that is huge for us missionaries!). I think that night I slept better then ever! . We got to stay there because Sayaxche is two hours away and we had to be there early in the morning the next day. Two other districts stayed ithere with us so we all ordered Pizza Hut. An Elder had a birthday so he bought a piñata and we all took a turn and hit at it until it exploded! haha even the A.P.s came over to tell us to stop and go to bed...and then they joined us in the piñata thing :) The next day we went to zone conference. We got some new rules, the whole interview thing, then zone conference is every other change, we can only have one zone activity a change, and now president has to interview every one 17 years and under...how ever that’s going to work. ?? some missionaries are freaking out about the new rules. I guess change is harder for some. I guess I haven’t been out long enough for it to seem too weird.

Baptisms!

In the morning we went to clean out the baptismal font because it is outside and there was a tree that had fallen over it and vines were growing every where. It hasn’t been used in like a year because we usually baptize in the river. No problems, we just borrowed two machetes and literally chopped this tree in half and took down all the vines. ha probably the most physical labor I’ve done in my mission :) Then we went over to the Vanessa’s house, and helped her mom make all the sandwiches for the baptisms.

The baptisms was supposed to start at 5:00 ... in Guatemala time that means 5:45 so that’s when we did it. My comp didn’t want to do them because apparently he doesn’t like getting wet, so I did both of them! haha i had no problem with that. Can I just say that doing the baptisms was so amazing! To see these people change there lives and come into this church was so amazing to see. The Spirit was so strong , around 35 people were there to support them. . both of them when they came up out of the water with huge smiles on there faces. Both Christian and Vanessa are really sweet and going to be good members of the church.

Ugh! On Sunday there is this new "school" that is free, and teaches dancing and guitar and stuff like that so we literally can’t get any investigators to come to church. OK, we had one but if it wasn’t for that school we could have had like 5.

This week only 29 people came to church. The guy who was supposed to give a talk, wasn’t there so who does the Bishop choose to give the talk? Yep, that’s right, me! I had to give a 15 min talk about faith. It’s just a good thing I am dang good at talking about faith. I got up and told a tiny joke spoke on faith with out works is dead and how we need to have a testimony of this church. I talked for a good 16 min I was actually really proud of my self :) haha in all honesty I was freaking out, but I said a little prayer in my heart and the lord truly helped me out so much, stories and scriptures just kept popping in my head. even my Spanish was way better! It was amazing to see the Lord help me in my time of need. Just another testimony builder :)

Dearest family, I love you guys and I am glad every one had just a semi good time in cali ;) haha no just kidding...but seriously! the mission is gettin better and better every day and I love being here and wouldn’t want to be any where else!

Love, Elder Toolson

Working hard pays off!

July 26th

This week went really well. I was kind of sick on Tuesday so we missed out that day, but I told my comp that we needed to work harder for missing it, and what do you know? we totally rocked it! Christian and Vanessa, two investigators that my comp has been working with for a while have been going to church and everything but just never wanted to be baptized. So I tell my comp. we need to have a movie night with them and watch the Testaments and we can make them some brownies (thank you mother :)) He thought it was a good idea and we totally did and it turned out perfect. at the end we set dates with both of them for this Saturday!! I am so stoked for that! Haha. The only bummer is that Vanessa is scared of the river so I cant baptize in the river :( which is like one of the thing I really want to do in my mission so bad. but its no big deal, I am not whining! we just have to find out some other way now cause the font in the church (house) doesn’t work. well the river keeps rising. Its finally reached all the houses on the beach, even like the hotels and stuff there, and I’m pretty sure its only going to get higher from there to. I guess there’s like a whole little town for the people when the river floods there houses, so that’s good to hear.

The other day the sun was unreasonably hot, like I couldn’t even look straight with out my eyes watering, it was so strong, and let me just tell you that I have been walking in the sun for the past 4 months with out sunscreen! But today, by the time I finished the day and went home and took a shower I was FRIED! who would have guessed that the sun is randomly way stronger one day then all the others. so that was horrible to walk around the rest of the week burnt and sweating. haha and I also burnt my hand on the stove pretty good too, all blistery and pussy, good times. other than that we had a dang good week and had a lot of success, and still ended the week with over 100 percent animo.

This p day we had a zone activity at the zl’s church. we played tug-a-war, jello eating contest, three legged race, water balloon toss, then the final game was capture the flag with water balloons. haha it was so much fun, and yes of course my district won baby!! then we all ate sloppy joes and went home. It all turned out really good.

well that’s good to here that every one is having a blast at California!

I love you guys so much and hope the best for you. I know this is the true church and we have a living prophet on the earth today :)

Love, Elder Toolson

I love this place!

Can I just tell you how amazing my new area is?!! We have some sweet investigators in this area and they are all really cool. My comp and I teach really well together and he's super good with people and the investigators so I am learning a lot!

This area is actually freaking huge! Last week we didn't even visit like two thirds of it, because we are going to go over there this week. It's about a 20 min. bus ride, and we have to leave at like 10 in the morning to this new area and wont return until nine at night. This area I'm talking about is full of kek´chi people, They would be like native Americans in the US. They speak their own language and are jungle dwellers. My comp told me there are some investigators that don’t even know spanish so he’s going to have to teach them by him self. There are actually a lot of kek´chi people in Peten, but most of them can speak spanish so its ok. In Sayaxche it is seriously straight jungle. Except the houses here are actually better than in the capital because the people actually build the houses so they will last, and in the cap. they are just tin all around. Way out in the jungle they're wood huts with palm tree leaves. Every one has hammocks here :)

So I was talking with some members who told me that my comp and them killed a 9 foot alligator a month ago and my comp got to eat some of it he says its really good. there are allot of alligators in the river so I guess you just need to know how to find them. Or not let them find me :) but get this, me and my comp were contacting by the river and we hear a howler monkey so we run over to where we heard them and sure enough there are like five monkeys just jumping around having a good ol time! haha but those stinkin howler monkeys are so scary sounding! I about pooped my self being up close and seeing them. I was about 20 feet from them. I remember the ones at the PHX zoo had to be held off with a cattle prod from the zoo keepers that were trying to feed them on that little island, so we didn't get to close, scary but so cool!!!!

I sweat so much here that my companion taught me and sweet trick, we take our name plaques and wipe off all the sweat on our faces like a window wiper. It works really good actually.

It turns out that our house has rats we have killed two since I have been here, ha but it's fun to kill them so I don't even care :)

We have some palm trees growing right by our house and they have coconuts on them so when they fall I go and get them and put it in the refrigerator then cut it open with a machete and drink it...might be the best thing I have ever had!

This week we also saw a sweet yellow and black snake and a big turtle in front of our house, don’t worry my comp taught me all the poisonous snakes so I'm good there mom :) but there is so much wild life here I love it!

Attendance at church this week was a little low, a whole..34 people showed up, haha but its because the soccer final game was Sunday so nobody wanted to miss it i guess. but the ward members are actually really sweet and I love all of them, and since its a small branch I got to meet and know every one, I like that much better!

Ok so now i have to tell you about my p-day.

Today We went and explored gigantic caves in my zl´´s area, and they were seriously amazing! like three different times we had to army crawl to get by, its so big you have to have a tour guide so we bought one, and we kinda got lost and took a detour and we start seeing all these bats so we look up, and no lie or exaggeration, about 4000 bats were swirling over our heads, good thing the cave went really high up. It seriously was like the coolest thing I´ve ever seen! oh and you guys remember in Peru in those glass things seeing those bugs that were like half scorpion and half spider and were huge...yeah we saw 5 of those and they were literally as big as my face! took us 3 hours to start and finish the whole thing, those caves were so sweet. I got a lot of cool pictures. we had to get up at 3 in the morning cause they were far away so I’m so tired right now!

Well everything is going great, and I'm lovin life right now :) even tho its like the hottest I have ever . This church is amazing and I don't want to be anywhere else in right now :)

ps. mom and dad in Peten there are amazing ruins, one named Madador, and its suppose to be the biggest temple in the world, but you have to take a helicopter so I wont won’t be able to visit. but when you guys come we have to be able to go ok!?? but yeah I’m supposed to be going to some cool ruins this change. I'll send pictures!

Love Elder Toolson

My First Ruins

I love this Monkey!
We visited the sweetest caves with bats and really cool bugs..

This thing is the size of my face!
Mm's note: these are called Tanzanian whip tail scorpions
The First Ruins
I think I read about this place in Third Nephi

Buenas dias familia!

So sorry for being late again, but we didn’t even get home last night until about 8 o’clock so we couldn't go to the internet place. Last week went really well and we worked really hard. We are finding more and more great investigators here but the only problem is that in Sayaxche , no one is married! OR they have wives but they don’t live with them and they live with their girlfriends. Dang, we have two really sweet couples but they both are married to different people. Ah, no worries we have some other cool investigators that are progressing very well. This week we had our stake conference, actually, it's called district conference here, and it was really good. We had six investigators show up! This is amazing because it was a 2 hour drive to get to our district center. Get this, pur branch ordered 2 micro buses so we crammed about 50 people into them :) haha that's Guatemala for you! President torres showed up and he and his wife gave amazing talks! All of our investigators loved it so that was awesome.

The other day my companion and I were contacting and I get to this house and there's a little spider monkey leashed to a tree so of course I tell my comp that we have to play with! At first I was kind of nervous or scared because I didn’t want it to bite me, but I just picked up the monkey and within like 30 seconds it was giving me hugs and crawling all over me :) haha I love monkeys! so now every time we go past it me and my comp play with it for a couple minutes!

This month it is the rainy season and the river next to us no lie and risen like 9 feet already and only getting higher. It's just about to flood all the houses that are next to the river. Some of the houses are built on stilts so they will be fine, but others will be toast if it rises another couple feet . The worst part is that we have a sweet recent convert family that lives on the river and their house is not on stilts. My comp said that they just live in their lanchas or those little boats, which to me is crazy and don’t really believe him but there's really nothing else they can do.

ok so this week for p day guess what I did? yeah that’s right, I got to visit my first ruins! :) They are called Yaxcha, and it was SO Sweet!!!! there were some giant temples and they are right next to the river so it was so beautiful! , all together there were about like 15 different temples We got in free because I guess the governor is Mormon and he hooked us all up :)

Well family, I love you and I'm glad to hear every one is doing so well :) love you guys so much and miss you!

Love, Elder Toolson

Monday, October 25, 2010

I'm in the Jungle!






I got a change to PETEN!

Peten is out of the capital and in straight up jungle! Seriously, it’s the prettiest place I have ever seen. Tecal and all the sweet ruins are in this area! All of the cool pictures you see of Guatemala are of this place My area is called Sayaxche. it is really sweet and supposedly one of the best areas in Peten. All the areas in Peten are HUGE! my area reaches the Mexican border. It’s like size of the whole capital almost. The one bad thing about this area is that it’s very hot and humid. On average it’s about 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity. haha so I’m going to be sweating a lot this change! but my comp is elder España, he is way sweet and a really hard worker, They just baptized a family of 5 last week. He says now that they don’t really have any good investigators so we are going to have to contact and work really hard these first couple weeks.

Oh my gosh I cant even begin to tell you how excited I am to be in Peten and out of the capital. My house is pretty cool, but kind of ghetto, we dont have any thing to wash our dishes except a pipe out side pocking out of the wall, and our shower is also a pipe sticking out of a wall, but its really hot here so I don’t even care if its cold water. we live with the district leader and his comp, both gringos...which kinda stinks because I want to work on my spanish and it will be hard with two gringos.

Let me tell you how I got here! First we get on a big tour bus and its really sweet! it had tvs, reclining chairs, air conditioning, and there weren’t very many people in there so we got to have a spot all to our selfs, haha but the ride was 10 hours long! but we came up as a group of six so we just talked all the way up there and slept. then we get to Peten at like 10:00 at night and we go and sleep at the zone leaders house, then in the morning we get up and me and my comp get in a micro bus and take a 3 hour ride to this river, load up all my bags on this boat and we have to cross this river to get to Sayaxche, it wasnt very big tho. then we walked with all my suit cases like a half mile to the house. haha I literally sweating from head to toe and it was like 9:00 in the morning.

My area is very green and jungley, but luckily there aren’t any mountains, its pretty flat, but the scenery is absolutely amazing!!!, I wish you guys could see it!

Oh and my companion says that there are wild monkeys here, and every one gives you coconuts because they grow every where around here, and there’s some big snakes :) so I’m so stoked to see some actual wild life! well family I’m doing better then ever right now! my stomach problems went away too ( thanks to Mckell's chinese stuff ) love you all and I know this church is true :)

Love, Elder Toolson

Bits and Pieces of May and June

Bits ad Pieces May and June

This week we had interviews with President, zone conference, then two really big service projects that lasted 5 hours in the after noon. Our first service project we went to a warehouse and packaged food all day, then we played ultimate Frisbee. Our second project was on Sunday in the afternoon it rained really hard that morning and a house was going to get crushed by a mountain of dirt so 50 people had to go and remove all the dirt by their house. No lie when I say mud came up to almost the middle of my shines, my shoes got ruined and I was covered in mud! But we really did save this house from getting destroyed so I didn’t even care

So last week I got to eat at Pizza Hut and KFC all in one week and its never tasted so good!!! haha its funny how here, Pizza Hut is amazing and some of the best pizza I have ever had but then in the states its like the worst pizza, I enjoyed every bite of it let me tell you!

Ok, so the other day we were teaching an investigator who lives on a little farm on a hill so when we teach him we sit on buckets, right side up, and we taught him for like 30 min and I was thinking dang my foot fell sleep from sitting on this thing, so I get up to shake off my sleeping foot and it turns out that it wasn’t just my foot but literally my entire right leg, and I dont know if you guys know how it feels to have an entire leg that fell asleep! It was like being paralyzed, so when I stood up and couldn’t use my whole leg I start to fall and tried to catch my self...yep didn’t work and I fell straight on my butt, hard, and it was all muddy and I’m pretty sure there was some cow urine mixed in there with it, haha so I felt like a total tard, and they both just sat there and laughed at me, and the worst part is i just had to sit there for a little bit because my leg had to get some feeling in it before I tried to get up again!! :)

This Sunday was actually kinda cool, we were teaching a kid named Rony the plan of salvation and he understood it all and liked it (which is rare) and after I asked him if he knew if this church was true,( I usually don’t asked that by the way), Rony just started crying and said this was the church that he has been looking for his whole life and it was amazing! so I asked if he’d want to get baptized but he has to ask his parents first, even tho he’s 22.

OK, I will start with last week: We worked really hard, especially with our new and old investigators. so this week at church 7 investigators showed up and had an amazing time! then on Sunday me and my companion went back to visit them and we set 3 fetchas for next week!!! a mom and her daughter, then a 22 year old kid, and seriously they will all be sweet members. We really ended the change amazing! but one of the bad parts is.....me and my companion had changes. haha so two new elders will show up this week and just get 3 baptisms, guess I am a sower, just not a reaper :)

The busses are running again!

"I don't know if it's poisonous.."


Mom looked it up, it's a "coffee" snake. they are really small and eat worms and bugs and are common pets in Guatemala. :)

What’s up family?!

To answer some of your questions, all is well in Guatemala now. The bridge is fixed and all the buses are getting through. They actually fixed it really fast, ha just poured some dirt and packed it over all the water, but its been working all week!

Yes I saw the pictures of the sink hole in the city, that thing is so big, and it’s like a perfect circle. It hasn’t really rained too much, about every other day for an hour or two, but clouds are always here, it will be bright sunny then literally 30 minutes later its covered in clouds again!

I thought that maybe with all the destruction in Guat. that it would make the people more humble, like you said mom, but it didn’t. It didn’t really do too much in this area. The people actually don’t even talk about it much., I even try to bring it up all the time and they just say a couple words about it. The only thing they want to talk about is the big sink hole thing. Maybe volcanoes and hurricanes are normal around here!

This week we went on changes with some priests in my ward, thinking it was going to be for one lesson or maybe two, but my companion told me that it was going to be for like 4 hours, which kinda scared me because I’m used to starting off the lessons and asking a whole bunch of questions and all that stuff, so I thought it would be pretty awkward, especially when I don't understand the question or something. I'm not gonna lie it turned out really well, we taught 5 lessons to all investigators and the kid I was with ( oscar) was actually a really good help and pulled out great scripture references and helped me understand some of the questions in spanish better. The Lord really helped me out and I understood a lot more then I usually do. At the end of the day me and my comp ended up with 13 lessons all together!!! so it was definitely a success. We might do it again this week so we will see what happens.

And mom, about drinking coke to get rid of parasites, remember another one of those different rules I told you about that this President has? well he said "your not allowed to drink cola or pepsi at all" and being the obedient elder that I am, I’m just going to have to live with all the parasites. Today me and my comp are going to Pizza Hut for the first time, and pizza hut here is literally a restaurant with waiters and menus and everything. so I'm pretty excited to go eat there cause every one says its really good :)

Hey this week I finished D&C and the pearl of great price. I never realized how amazing D&C was. I loved every page of it and learned so much about our church that I didn’t know before! Now my task is to read the mission library then the New Testament. but that might take me while because I’m going to read the mission library in English AND Spanish, except for Jesus the Christ cause that book is so long.

oh and I totally caught my first snake this week. it wasn't very big, only about 8 inches long and pretty skinny. but it was all red with a black head and black spots on its back. I don't know if it is a dangerous kind but I picked it up and it didn’t do anything so I just played with it and chased my comp around cause he's a huge girl about snakes.

I am loving my area and companion and mission so much more with every day. Its weird cause some days I'm like freakin out because the language is so hard and I cant speak it well, and its rainy and gloomy, but then the next day I'm like so excited to go talk to people about the gospel and I have all this confidence and loving life!. But don’t worry the bad days are getting fewer and fewer every week. and they don’t really even last the whole day so that’s good.

I have really felt the hand of the Lord in my mission more then I have ever before, I can literally tell and see all the things that he has helped me with. It’s amazing what the mission can do for you :) well family I love you so much and hope your having fun this summer in that good old Arizona heat!

Love, Elder Toolson

Sink Holes , Hurricanes and Volcanoes! What a Month!

A giant sink hole in down town Guatemala City.
Between the rain, flooding and ruptured water/sewage lines, these things will happen :)
Handfuls of Volcanic ash. I will be sending you some soon!

Never a dull moment in Guatemala!

No busses due to major flooding during hurricane.

OOPS No Buss for You!

What’s up friends and familia?!

This week as you probably know, was way crazy here in Guat! Let me start off by saying this entire week I saw the sun once. It was cloudy, windy and rainy all week.

On Thursday night it was about eight thirty at night, the companion and I were heading home from our last lesson and it starts to rain, and I look at my companion and I'm like "dang this rain is really dirty"...then it keeps getting dirtier and thicker so it finally dawns on me, freak, this isn't rain, it's ash! so we just start sprinting home . It starts raining ash harder and harder and it's making our clothes all black.

We get home and call the Bishop because this just isn't normal! He said a volcano exploded and it is pretty bad, our entire city got covered in it, but not too much lava rock hail like other cities, because luckily my city is pretty far from the volcano. So the next day the whole area was completely blanketed by ash, it looked like it does when it snows except it's a few inches of black, and not so cold!. So all morning we went around asking people if we could help them clean, and let me tell you guys what, ash is not the easiest thing to clean. a little while later 4 other members asked for our help so almost like the whole day we did service. I sure wish I had gloves! I have like 5 blisters on my hands from using a dang broom all day!

The next day it rained ALL day and I was thinking that dang I haven’t seen the sun in so long! On Saturday, no joke the rain did not stop again, it continued to rain harder than the day before, and it wasn’t like a little rain it was pretty dang solid hard. so we knew today is going to be hard doing out tracting because the rain is getting harder and its really windy. I'm not lying when I say that I have never been so wet in my entire life! I was walking up these hills and no lie the water was hitting my shoes and splashing up to my belt! the water was totally over the tops of my feet as we walked. My companion and I just looked at each other smiled and said ´oh the blessings of the mission´ and just kept walking… oh and on top of it, it was the coldest I have been so far, cause usually it doesn’t get cold when it rains. By the time we got home we were soaked from head to toe..literally. I kept seeing the video Sean and Ryan sent of the rain.. of course they sent the video form inside a nice cozy room! hahaha and when I got home I called another group of elders and they were like," dude we are in the middle of a hurricane so we didn’t even work today cause the rain was so crazy!" haha

But dont worry, our hard work paid off, because we worked through the rain and every thing so we got 6 new investigators!, so other then the ridiculous rain it was a great day:)

That night we get a call from the zone leaders and they said that we aren’t suppose to work tomorrow on Sunday and that church is canceled in all of Guatemala because the hurricane is supposed to hit, haha me and my comp had no clue about the hurricane until that night! so I was like freaking out a little because guat isn’t the best built country, and if the rain and wind we had already seen was going to be worse, oh man, we were in trouble! I was so afraid that so many of the houses here would seriously destroyed.

On Sunday we wake up in the morning and I see light in my room, and I am thinking what the heck?!?, I haven’t seen that kind of sun in a while, and I look out side and its a sun shiny beautiful day! . which is so weird because the area president canceled all church in all of Guatemala. No missionary could work, even though it was like the best day of the week by far! oh well, I'm not sure what happened about the hurricane, no one here gets the news paper, so we only go on what we hear from people on the streets. I do know that because of all the rain, a lot of peoples houses were flooded or there walls caved in and stuff. We ended up on Sunday doing service all day long.

THEN, this morning me and my comp go to get on a bus to go do our shopping and there are no buses to be found, which in Guatemala is very rare! so we walk like a mile down this road and we see a bunch of people and policemen so we go over to where they are and the ONLY street that leads out of our little city had fallen down and was washed away by the water...so no cars could come in and no cars could go out! so we had to just sit here all day go shopping at all the little tiendas here, (the little shops in peoples houses) so that wasn’t the coolest thing ever, haha these past couple of days have been a real treat :)

oh , now let me tell you about my little miracle that happened on Wednesday. so my comp was making french fries. He was chopping up potatoes and putting them in a pan full of hot oil. I was pretty cold and the house was really cold so I put my hand over the hot oil pan..pan to heat up you know, but not too close cause I didn’t want the oil to splatter on me and burn me, so I was just chilllin, I mean heating up one of my hands and then all of a sudden a potato explodes and boiling hot oil just explodes up out of the pan and it covers my hand in oil! I totally freak out cause I'm thinking I'm about to have third degree burn and stuff all over my hand, so i rush over to my sink and run my hand under the water and I'm like waiting for the pain to just hit me like a brick. after about 5 seconds later Im like...Where's the pain, oh this is bad, I must have burned it so bad there is no nerve cells so there's no pain, and I look at my hand and seriously nothing was wrong with, it didn’t even feel hot or burn or anything, and my comp comes running over looked at me and was like are you ok, and I showed him my hand he was like ´"dang man how are you not burnt right now?"´ so I dont know what happened there other then my own little miracle becuase, that oil was hot as it could of possibly have been and it did nothing to my hand.

so yeah this week has been really crazy.. and great and crazy.

I’m so glad to hear that dad and Chase’s talk went really well, so wish I could have been there! Chad, you and Dyl should have spoke, (Monstars rule!) You both need more practice before you come out here! I gotta say I'll take Guat over AZ for the next two years.. you should too! hahaha no serioiusly, let me know what I have to say or do to help cuz i'm kind of a retard when it comes to motivation. I know you feel it from me too, always have. The love is here in the service, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I am seeing some crazy shiz I'm not going to lie, it's not easy, but it's so cool. Love you like bro's i love my mission and Im so glad that I have the opportunity to serve the lord in Guatemala! I love you guys so much and pray for you every day, hope all is well and all are safe, love you !

Love, Elder Toolson