Trebal 2!

Just poking a little fun at the locals.. aren't these the hats from Jamaica?

January 30th, 2011

Hey family!

This week was so busy! Our goal this month as a zone is to baptize 25 people. So me and my comp were working really hard on our familes because one of them was supposed to be baptized on the 29^th, but then a problem came up...his old girl friend came back and wanted to live with him. You know the rules, now they have to get married. It kind of made me sad because this family is super cool but now we just have to wait to see if they are still ready. The rest of my district did really well, we had 6 baptisms! my district had the most baptism dates in the mission, we had 36!

Well we got our changes on Sunday. it turns out that I got a CHANGE! But it’s because I am opening Trebol 2, We are splitting my old area in two and I am going to the other one. I don’t know my comp yet, I will find out Wednesday. Now we have to search all day tomorrow to find another house! I am not looking forward to that. I am kinda sad because two of the families that are going to be baptized are in Trebol 1. Oh well, at least I’ll be able to be there for the actual baptism.

Last change was the fastest change so far, I know I say that every time, but it seems the more time I have the faster it goes! For p-day today we went to "Rio Dulce" as a zone for getting our goal. It was really cool. There was this huge castle in the middle of an island that had all these artifacts and stuff. I got some really cool pics!! Rio Dulce is not in our mission, its actually in Ryan’s old mission :) is was so cool because you could see where the lake connected with the sea, haha That made me totally baggy tho because it reminded me of Cali.

Well I hope all is good . It sounds like every one is doing amazing. I love my mission more then anything. I am so glad for this opportunity to share this amazing message! love you guys!

Love Elder Toolson

January 24th, 2011

January 24th, 2011

Family!!!

Hey, this week was really good. Me and my comp are working so hard in this area. This past week we have been focusing on the families we have found and they are really progressing. We have 4 families right now that are super sweet and they are coming to church and everything. We put baptismal dates with all of them, but we will have to wait and see if they are willing to progress to the date we put them with. This is the last week of the change. This change is by far the fastest change of my whole mission, which kinda of scares me because I don't know the area too well and the chances are my companion will have a change.
I had divisions with one of my people in the district named elder Orosco, he's 26 and from Costa Rica, and lets just say he's one of those missionarys that doesn't really want to be there. We had a good day and we taught this really cool family and we totally put a date with all of them to be baptized in February.
For p-day today we played "uno" as a district and the ZL`s. As we played I threw in some peanut butter cookies :) haha it started off really good and I was winning every game and eatin some cookied dough waiting for the other cookies to bake, then the 3rd game got really intense and I almost lost (we play that you get slapped on the hand by every one if you lose) then I get up and check the cookies....yep burnt!!!!!!!!!!! that sucked, so I sit back down to play the last game of uno and LOSE!!!!!! which means by now every one gets to hit me 4 times. haha and yes I literally have a huge bruise on my wrist where they slapped me. Then we all went to Burger King and that made it all better :)
well the change has gone by so fast but its been really fun. Maybe my favorite change yet.

This gospel is amazing and I love finding and teaching people the trueness that we have. Here in Guatemala I have realized that alot of people are so lost in the things of the Lord and what actually is His real church. Actually, when I find some one to teach it makes it that much better.
Well love you guys. hopefully every one is doing good and I miss you!!!!!

Love Elder Toolson

January 17, 2011

See-thru bats! hahahaha

A little Spelunking on p-day!

January 17, 2011

Familia!

Well this last week me and my companion worked the hardest we have worked yet and it totally paid off! On Sunday we had 12 people come to church :) it was amazing, they all loved it. We have so many cool investigators, now we just need to get them to accept a baptism date. No one is married in Guatemala so that is kind of a hard thing to get past! The weather is perfect here right now, it was probably about 75 to 80 every day with a little breeze. Every one says that its going to heat up here really fast.

1/1/11

January 11, 2011

hey family it’s 1.1.11!

Last week was good, we found some good possibilities and had a district conference with president Torres on Sunday. We had more people come this week then ever before. It was all the branches in Peten. There ended up being 615 people in the chapel, haha and the Peten chapel is not all that big so they had to take out all the missionaries just to try and fit more people in, so I didn’t get to hear all the stuff but my investigators said it was a good message.

We have a sweet family who is investigating the church, the only problem is that he is a drunk and he wants to stop drinking but he cant. To help him out we bought these pills from the pharmacy, when you take the pill, it makes you throw up every time you drink beer. The next time we go back to their place we ask him how it is going and all that, haha and he said he kind of slipped up one day and tried to drink a beer and just the smell of it made him throw up all over the bar!!! hahaaha so he told us he loves the pills and he and the family are progressing really well :)

We had interviews yesterday with Pres. so that is why I didn’t get to write, sorry. We didn’t have a zone conference because I guess the Christmas thing was it. The interview went really well, nothing exciting. Pres. told me that me and my comp will be together most likely next change, which I am very ok with because he is pretty cool. OH and I got the SUITCASE!!!!!!!!!! thank you so much for all that stuff holy cow! (A wonderful friend Terri Thomas and her son told me they could take a “suitcase -50lbs- with them when they went to Guatemala on Christmas day and would drop it off at the mission home. ) I am going to be eating really well these next few changes :) I wanted to go on a little diet to lose this fat that I got but I guess not now. haha even Sister Torres loved it and ate some candy. she took some pics and said she would put it on the blog .

For p-day today we went to Petencito (little Peten) which is a zoo¨!!! haha it was actually pretty cool, not a whole lot of animals but the ones we saw were really cool, like jaguars, pumas, monkeys, alligators, snakes, and some deer! haha I fed the deer a cracker with my mouth! it was pretty nasty tho because it licked my lips. Little did I know their tongues are freaking long! but I got a good picture so don’t worry :) When we went to see the monkeys in their cages, some wild monkeys came down from the trees and tried steeling our food! it was pretty cool to play with those things, there were even a few with baby monkeys holding on to their backs.

I love you guys so much and I am so grateful that I have all this support in my life, especially my friends and family. I see so many of the Latinos who don’t even write their parents because their parents don’t really care. So thank you mom and dad for all that you`ve done for me:)

Love always, Elder Toolson

New Year! January 3rd, 2011

January 3, 2011

Hey Family!

It must be the season but I literally haven't made myself dinner once in Trebol. Every night investigators give us full plates of food. most of the time it’s tamales. The women always ask how the tamales in the U.S. are made and I just smile and say we don’t ever make the tamales, we buy them from Mexicans!

Well I got to celebrate New Years and my ONE YEAR mark this week! haha that was a little tough but it was actually really fun and the people here are so nice and gave me the best food ever. Really, it was some of the best food I have had in Guatemala.

New Years night I just crashed. Every night we come home around 9:20 so I am dead, but don’t worry my comp lit off "bombs" (Ryan should know what those are) all night! they are only one quetzal so he bought like 50 of them. but you know me, I am a deep sleeper so I just slept that off. and in the morning surprisingly there were no drunks in the streets, because there was no one in the streets all day which was really weird because its usually pretty busy. So that day was a hard day of work but we helped a family move there house so it took up a lot of time.

I got a package from you guys! It was the third package that was for Christmas! haha it was the one that had all the study manuals and peanut butter and superman shirts. When I got my two Christmas boxes 4 weeks ago I thought that was it. but for some reason this got here a lot later. Again, the package made my whole day!!!!!!!!!!! the book manuals are amazing, I am reading the New Testament right now so it is really helping. I seriously cant wait to use all the other ones! Thank you sooooooooooooo much. and the peanut butter about saved my life! The peanut butter here doesn’t have half the flavor. I made some cookies with the district today to celebrate the new year! They all say thanks to my padres :)

I have a ZL named Elder Jensen, He played some college ball before the mission at San Jose State! He picked up a ball and called me out to come shoot, I thought it was against the rules but he said no it was ok so we had a shoot out! holy crap it brought back a whole new world for me, I havent shot a basketball in soooo long, A whole year!!!! but no worries I totally killed him at the 3 pointers best of 10, 3 times in a row then he finally got me! it was amazing.

I love you guys, hope every one is doing well and being happy. Don’t worry Peten is about 70 to 85 degrees every day now so I am enjoying it for now, in February I guess comes the heat again. happy New Years!

Love, Elder Toolson

December 14th

Tikal

They told us that that off in the distance, everywhere you see a "bump" in the jungle, it is another ruin that has not been uncovered yet.

I love you!!

Wow it is so cold here in Peten! This is not normal. yeah I didn't think it was possible, its about 50 degrees inside and out.. when the roof on the house isn't sealed (a gaping space big enough for a 12 year old to climb up and over between the wall and the roof ) and you have two huge holes at both ends of the house, there is no way you can stay warm unless we bundle up, so I literally put on my mission clothes like normal, a sweater, and jacket, wrap my bed sheets around my bottom half, then wear my Elf hat I got for Christmas, every morning until about 10:00 sometimes I wake up because its so cold and all I have is a thin sheet and some guat blanket I stole my first change. But the afternoons are very nice! I ldon't even sweat anymore while walking which is Nice!. haha but the water is so cold so I only take a shower about every 3 days. OK give me a break I’m a missionary!!!!

This week we had 4 investigators show up for church. Then a little Christmas miracle happened. Esperanza and Erika are the investigators, that have been progressing really well, even had a date for a baptism, but then it fell because they started to make tortillas ALL day and had no time for us. They even stopped going to church, so me and my comp were really bummed and decided to give it one last time to try and help them, we pretty much gave them "cincho" (a talking too) about Sunday and keeping it holy, and then Saturday night we just passed by there place and they said they would come, but I was kind of thinking in my head "that means no" We showed up again on Sunday morning to remind them again, and what do you know Erika was making tortillas! so we just we invited them anyways. We go to church all mad because we were going to have to drop them, then about 30 minutes into sacrament meeting they both showed up!! for 2 of the 3 hours. That made my day, then we passed by them in the afternoon too just say thanks for coming, Erika was gone but Esperanza was there and she said she talked to Erika and told her they wouldn't work on Sundays any more and they will go to church every Sunday!! so it was really cool to see the faith of Esperanza when Erika told her they needed to work.

I gave a talk in sacrament about scriptures! it went really well, I focused on teaching the whole family with the scriptures, and making sure we study the book of Mormon. The members here only read the bible they don’t read the book of mormon. One investigator from the other companionship, came up to me after sacrament and said thanks for the talk, because it was exactly what he needed to hear and he gave me a huge hug. it was really cool. haha he was a big boy too, about 6 feet tall and 280 pounds :) well this weekend we have a primary thing in San Benito...we´ll see how that goes....

Yesterday we went to tikal! haha yes for the 3rd time. but it was cool, , just sat on the ruins and looked over all the jungle and other ruins off in the distance. my comp loved it, then we ate delicious Pizza Hut after, which is always good. I went on divisions with my zl and with elder Tanner this week. Both were really fun.

love you all and hope you all enjoy the holidays this season. Be grarefull for what you have in the states. Now that I am here, I am realizing all the things I took for granted. You are all in my prayers!!

Love Elder Toolson

Christmas Conference

Rockin the Elf hat!

Sister T leading music with her lolipop!

I haven't eaten this well in ages! Sister Torres made all the food.

Salad never tasted so good!

December 7^th, 2010

Family!

I totally got your packages! and loved them, haha I know I usually wait and stuff but I just sat there looking at them all night and realized if I get a change there is no way I am going to be able to carry these beefy monsters with me, so I opened them up with my companion. THANK YOU SO MUCH. The package made my whole week. I have eaten so much candy its ridiculous. This month will not be the healthiest that’s for sure. ha I’ve been wearing my elf hat every morning when I study. I even wore it at the conference we had. Thanks so much, that package will keep me going through Christmas. People here are putting up lights and Christmas trees :) ok and elder Smith´s mom sent me a package as well! so tell her thanks for me mom, she is so awesome, she sent me a bunch of candy, I just love her!

I am writing to you guys on Tuesday because we had our Christmas conference here yesterday. It was supposed to be all fun and spiritual, haha but we had a lot of problems in the mission and had like 25 emergency changes so president gave us a talking to on Monday. but for lunch...oh my gosh I haven’t eaten that good in soooo long! We had ham and potatoes imported from the states, salad, bread, fruit, juice, and apple pie, and Hermana Torres cooked it all her self!!! so it tasted amazing!!. The food alone was worth it. haha the zone leaders asked my district to sing the special hymn number, so we sang, "Regocijad, Jesus Nació" we actually did pretty well for 6 people who cant sing at all :) and then at the very end we all got a little wooden plaque that said Guatemala City North Mission, and had a picture of Tikal its pretty cool.

Last week me and my comp worked super hard again. We found a family that’s really cool, we contacted them and they let us in like before we even were done saying hello, and they told us they have seen us visiting her neighbor, who’s a less active, and they told us that they have wanted us to come over for some time now, they even found a book of Mormon from some guy and started reading it. They have a sweet desire to progress, I just hope nothing bad goes down, because our two baptismal dates fell last week, that made me sad because they were so sweet, they just cant stop working on Sundays. but all is well, the work is progressing, with Christmas coming soon and I am getting so excited to talk to you guys

I love you guys. glad you all had fun for Thanksgiving! thank you so much for all that you have given me and helped me with!

Love Elder Toolson

November 29

Well hello!

Glad to hear that all had a good thanksgiving this year beause let me tell you , I had my self a dang good tuna sandwich with a grape soda :) That’s about as good as it gets here in Guat town! Actually I would have forgotten all about it but elder Thacker reminded me. But yeah Thanksgiving was just another day.

Let me tell you about Sunday. well you know how I have been teaching primary the past month or two, and we have been learning hymns to have a little primary activity on last Saturday, well I guess the the primary teacher in my branch called up the president of the branch and told him the kids were not ready so none of them went. Then on Sunday it was supposed to be the primary program just in our own branch, you are probably wondering how many kids showed up....yep you guessed it, 1!!! . only one kid showed, even the actual primary teacher didn’t show up.

so when the district primary presidency showed up to see...yeah they were a little disappointed to say the least. So the presidency got up and gave talks the whole sacrament about how we need to encourage our kids to do what they are supposed to do and how the family is the most important thing that we need to strengthen. There was 4 kids of investigators that came, so after sacrament we just drew with them and the presidency brought a lot of food, expecting there to be a lot of kids. it was kind of interesting though, as the kids were drawing, the presidency had to like show them how to draw, they didn’t know how to hold the color pencils and to draw in the lines...and they were like 10 years old. it was kind of sad to see.

Last week we worked hard as usual, my comps feet are doing a lot better. haha its getting harder to keep working here, I am at my 5 month mark in the same area and I have contacted every house about 4 times. but my kid has a strong desire to keep working sothat keeps me in line to work really hard every day.

Ok so today I woke up and had a fever and some B.U. :) but it wasn’t too bad, I was just a little light headed. So we went to buy a new backpack because the one I had is falling apart. (a sweet nike one for 60 quetz) and as I’am bargaining with the dude I feel a little gas, I mean that’s normal right?, so I think I am going to let it slip out with out any one knowing...and yep I totally SHARTED my pants!!! I am talking to the man, so then I hurry and give him the money and waddle away all ashamed, and my comp is like, dude why are you walking like that, haha yeah it was pretty bad.

so thats my week :) hope all is going well with you all. I love you guys. only like 20 more days until we get to talk!!!! crazy right :)

Love Elder Toolson

November 22, 2010

One of the unfortunate many

Hey familly!!!!!!!

This past week went by really fast, me and my "kid" worked really hard. haha maybe even a little too hard because those blisters he had are getting worse. One day we had to walk about 8 miles and he about died. There is this street that is about a mile long and he just gave me the saddest look ever limped the whole way down, I felt really bad for him but we had a lot of good lessons coming up so we had to go. On Sunday, just walking to and from church his blisters started bleeding pretty hard, so I told him we could take the rest of the day off or they wont ever heal. Poor guy, he slept from 1:00 to 8:00 at night. Today he says that they are feeling much better.

Sunday was our "district conference" which is like a stake conference. This happens every six months...and yes I was here for the last one as well :) but the conference went VERY WELL ! usually around 35 to 40 people show up but last week we had 70 people show up! which is the record since I’ve been here. We had 5 investigators come and they liked it so that is a good start. The district Presidency gave all the talks and they were very good. They talked about obedience to the commandments, the smaller ones like family home evening, seminary, getting the whole family to show up and stuff like that. Here the thing that bugs me the most is that the parents don’t tell there kids to come with them, if they want to go that’s cool if not they don’t care, so of course the kids don’t want to come. so me and my comp are going to stop by all the members and talk to them about coming as a family and making the little kids come. Hopefully it works out.

Oh we also killed 4 more rats in the house, luckily this time the rat trap got them all. I have found that if you super glue a marshmallow to the trap they go for it every time! Sad part is that we still have a huge rat family cruising around and eating all our food at night. H Haha me and elder Thacker were talking last night on these crappy couch that we have in the house and as we are talking we hear a sound of running around coming from inside the couch...yep another rat just running around in there. haha we couldn’t get it out so we just started talking some more :) oh the things of the mission. Now I know why dad is the way he is! Remember how he would just peel off mold on bread and eat the bread?...and I always made fun of him...yeah I do that weekly here. The worst part is I even ate bread that a rat chewed through, yeah don’t make fun, I gotta do what I gotta do ok!!!!!!!!!

The water went out again. so we have been taking bucket showers all week! They’re not even that bad, I just heat up a pot of water and have a hot shower, which I haven’t had in 6 months!

It’s all good here Sayaxche with my comp elder Alvarado, he’s still going strong and we work dang hard. We have had some good experiences so far. L We gave a blessing to a member who was freaking out and couldn’t breath to well, immediately after she was fine, and with in 5 min was laughing and making jokes with every one. so it was cool to have an experience with him.

I love you fam hope all is well in az!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Love Elder Toolson

November 15, 2010 No Change

Guat Bugs are HUGE!

Elder Jennings, Elder Toolson, Elder Fast

November 15, 2010 No Change

Hola familia!

I will start off with what happened with all the changes.

haha I didnt get a change, yeah so this change I will be completing 6 months in one area! That’s a quarter of my whole mission crazy!

It turns out that I am TRAINING! ha didn’t think that was ever going to happen! but I am training a kid from Honduras. His name is Elder Alvarado and he’s actually really sweet! He knows ingles pretty much perfect, he went to a school where they did every thing in ingles, he understands everything I say so that helps, and he’s really smart He is planning on being a doctor when he goes back. I thought that because I was training I would have to do everything when we taught discussions but not with him, we split the time well

I had to go all the way down to the capital to pick him up, we left Tuesday night at about 9:00 and arrived about 5 in the morning, yeah so I only got like 3 hours of sleep, then I had an interview with president for my training, then I sat there in change conference with elder Fast and Elder Jennings, that was a sweet reunion. I also had to get an ingrown toenail cut out, so I went to the mission doctor, he needle hurt like crazy but after that it was fine. We went to the office elders house and ate pizza then went back to the bus station at about 9 pm on Wednesday and traveled all night to Peten again, haha so I was soooo tired when I got home at 6:00 in the morning. but the worst part is that since I got the toenail removed I couldn’t work until Saturday, the Dr. said to take it easy. I felt bad for my new comp cause its his first few days in the field and he couldn’t work. Ouch, but the one day we did work he got some of the biggest blisters I have ever seen. L Literally his entire heal. so now I feel even worse because he is going to have to walk a lot every day with those things. He’s a trooper and wants to work hard so I’m very grateful for that.

Now wein the house with an eEder Thacker and Elder Matus, they are cool, me and elder Thacker are like best buddies already because he was in an area called Las Cruses, which is in my district, but president Torres closed it and moved him to Sayaxche with us. its always good to have another gringo in the house.

love you all !

Elder Toolson

November 8 th, 2010 Baptisms

November 8 th, 2010 Baptisms

Baptisms!! We had two baptisms on Thursday and they were a success. We baptized a 17 year old girl named Leticia, and an 11 year old girl named Rosa. Their dad did the actual baptism so that made it even more special. We all ate sandwiches after and had a good ol time :) then on Sunday Elder Smith and I had the opportunity to confirm these girls members of the church. it was a really cool experience.

Tuesday me and Smith were walking in the streets and we see two white girls, which is kind of normal here just because there are a lot of tourists, but they are usually from Europe so we don’t say anything, but they waved us down and we talked in the streets about the WHOLE history of the Book of Mormon. I have never done that in English, so I had to think in Spanish then talk in English, but it was a really cool experience They thought it was cool because the history in the Book of Mormon adds up with history in Guatemala. One of the girls was in peace core, and the other was just visiting she was a pro. skier in salt lake city, she;s won the x games twice!

Saturday we had an activity where all the members came to the church and we cleaned the whole thing from the roof to the grass. We made it so the leaders had to actually plan the whole thing which was good, They need to learn more leadership skills because the missionaries usually do every thing, haha the leaders complained SO much but they eventually did what they needed to do. it turned out great, every one came and after we played red light green light, then some scripture game they made up, then had cookies and soda :) we are trying to reunite these people so we can have an actual chapel in Sayaxche, there used to be 400 members but only about 40 come so thats our goal as a house. and its working pretty well so far.

The water decided not to work this ...yep so I just didn’t take a shower for 5 days :) but lucky for us, this week has actually been COLD, yeah I said it cold, these past two nights I had to sleep with a sweater! Usually if I don’t have a fan on me I wake up literally sweating in my bed, I guess November is when it starts to get cold, so when we work we don’t sweat at all. so for not bathing for 5 days it wasn’t too bad.

Well I am glad every one is good. I love you more then Guatemalans love tortillas!

love elder toolson

November 2nd, 2010

Mode of transportation

O hey family!

Sorry this is a little late, haha we just had the worst luck on our p day!

we went to San Benito to print pics and eat at Burger King, Usually we just hitch hike back, today it took literally 5 hours instead of 2! so we got permission from the Zl`s to do internet today!

Last week I did my first division in Libertad with elder Castro. it was pretty fun, I thought it would be kind of dumb since it isn’t my area but it is so fun to meet other people and explore other areas! haha and I did my first baptism interview, it was some really old guy, and for those of you that don’t know anything about old latinos, they loooooove to talk, and act out what they are talking :) (sean on crack!) haha I was laughing the whole interview because this guy was crazy! but he was really cool and knew a lot about the church so it was fun. ha the other elders even came in and asked why we were laughing so hard, then they realized it was just me laughing at the way the guy was acting out everything he was saying. usualy interviews are like 20 min and this one was one hour! I couldn’t get him to stop talking. He was AWESOME! then at the very end I asked him to sign the paper for the baptism and he said he couldn’t write....and i was like what!!!? how does that work??. luckily elder Smith had seen this before so he told me that I had to write on his thumb and he had to print the page with the ink, yeah that was the first :) crazy stuff here in guat!

No worries with those gangster that were here. I dont know if they got what they wanted but I haven’t seen them since that day. I just hope they don’t come back because we have been crossing the river 2 times a day!

two nights ago at like 3 in the morning we killed 3 rats in a row! haha elder smith just straight smashed ones head out and got blood all over the walls and every thing! then I got tired and went to bed and they killed the other two :) its weird because we haven’t had rats this whole change and now we have 8 running around all night. one even crawled over elder Godfrey in the night! then the next night he saw something above the window seal and he turned the lights on and the rat was just sitting there watching him. haha so he cant sleep good any more, he`s been freaking out every night!

This week is hopefully going to be a good one because me and Smith have two baptisms for Thursday! I’m very excited to see these two get baptized! and its going to be done in the river which is super cool :) he told us he doesn’t want to many people to come to only like 8 people are coming to the baptism. the zl`s just did the interview this morning so we are all good to go.

and those of you that dont know...yes I have 10 MONTHS!!!

Halloween was nothing here. they have the day of the dead which is the 2nd of November instead, today. and they just throw parties in the streets and in the cemeteries! its kind of weird cause they do some weird dances with pig heads and blood on them and they sacrifice cow and stuff, its very old rituals they do. but that’s just what a member told me so he could be pulling my chain..we will see what happens!

I love you guys so much and glad to here every one is having fun and doing well

love elder toolson

Random Photos

Hotel Arizona?

Favorite treat!

finally caught the little "duck chicken"

Coolest caterpillar ever! I hear they are poisonous so I didn't touch it.

October 25, 2010 Zone Conference

We earned candy for memorizing scriptures!

Hola familia!!

This week was kind of cool. We had interviews and zone conference! Interviews went really well, just talked with president about the branch and how to help out my district, he gave me some good advice so I am excited to use it . In zone conference we learned A LOT about working with the members and contacting! he even pointed out my area Sayaxche because the ward is really growing but we need more priesthood holders so we can buy a chapel of our own and not have this house church we have. The district is putting in a speaker system and fans in our church right now so I am very excited for that because way to often people pray or give talks and I literally cant hear them and I sit in the front row every time! (and no its not because I'm deaf in one ear) so things are progressing here and its going really good, we had some investigators come to church and 45 people showed up so that's a good sign. This Saturday at the place where we have the Internet, we held a mini general conference for all the people that couldn't go the first time. and 21 people showed up! so it went a lot better then we thought. For some people it was the first time seeing the prophet speak ever, many of them have been members for 10 years! it was amazing to see the interest they had when they were watching it. It was one of those very good spiritual moments for me, i just hope they get out of it as much as I did. We only watched the morning session of the Saturday one, but that one was amazing so its all good.

Ok so today we are just chillin in the house, talking having fun, then we get a call from elder Bruneel my zone leader. and he says to not go near the river or try to cross it! and we are like why? and he tells us that there is a mob that has held people hostage and wont let any one cross until they talk to the governor! so if they saw some tall gringos walk by we would be an easy target so we cant go near the river until then. and its kinda scary since the river is about 500 yards from our house!

The week went well and went by very fast! I cant believe its like the 5th week already of the change, it feels like the 3rd. time goes faster the more you have! I am not even at my year mark yet, and every one says that, that mark is when time just flys by. well fam I'm glad to hear every one is doing good. I love you all so much!

love elder toolson

October 18th, 2010 Happy 20th Birthday K.C.

I Love Tikal!

We will have to go when you come to visit!

Elder Smith and I

Hola familia!

This week went by really fast! I am now 20 years of age, that still feels weird to me. I did save my package until 6:30 in the morning so I got up and carried it to my desk and opened it, holy cow I loved it all!!! those 3 pairs of grey pants are so sweet and just what I was wanting, my new big boy scriptures are sweet, I just sent them to some lady to get some covers made so that’ll make them even more legit, then I got “The Day of Defence” which I am excited to read. Then some delicious noodles in a bag, which I ate that day! so my package was amazing, there wasn’t a happier boy in all of Peten

I had a cool experience, Me and Smith were walking around at night right before we were going to go home, but I wanted to get a few more contacts before we got in, and for some reason I thought we had to go like way out of our way and contact this street which was all dark. and literally the first door we knocked we got in and taught 3 women who loved the gospel and wanted to hear more so we stayed there for a long time trying to answer all of their questions. They were really sweet and they all came to church this Sunday so that was big. I am excited to see them progress.

Sunday me and Smith taught primary and like 12 kids showed up so it was lpacked, and we literally got them to sing very very loud, the president had to come over and tell us to sing softer, which made me feel cool cause last week we couldn’t get even one kid to sing, haha....but by the end i wanted to pull my hair out!

We went to TIKAL again and it was still really cool, I got a lot of pictures that I couldn’t take before, mostly just like some crazy ones like me jumping off stuff. then we ended the day going to pizza hut :) Tikal is really amazing.

The ward here is doing good, we had 50 people show up this week which is amazing, usually it's like 30 people. And we had some investigators show! The missionary work is going very well here in Guatemala. I have interviews and zone conference this week so that will be cool to hear from president.

I love you and glad to hear from every one and their crazy coool stories :)

love elder toolson

October 11th , 2010 Bump in the road

Typical Guatemalan dog. I would feel sorry for them if they weren't' so mean..I guess if I was that ugly I would be mean too!

Hola familia!

Last week went pretty dang well! Elder Smith and I worked really hard and got a lot of stuff done. We found two really cool families this week, they really liked our message, they have some doubts and stuff but me and Smith will take care of those.

For district meeting we went to SanBenito which is like 2 hours away. We get all the districts together and the zl´s talk to us about all things they learned from there meeting with president. then we split off and do our own district meetings, it went well we talked again about how we need to ask good questions to our investigators and be friends with them. I made it so every one would participate and we teach each other, because I always hated when we just sat up there and read from preach my gospel for 30 min. but i learned a lot from that, haha i just hope every one else did :)

oh and I totally got the PACKAGE! haha but I’m weird and I like to be surprised so I’m not going to open until my actual birthday. Yep. so its just sitting right next to my bed, I am really excited to open it! thank you so much it made my whole month! I don’t even care if its just filled with news paper I’ll still love it!

Got a cool story! so when we were driving back from San Benito, we get to hitch hike in a really nice truck and we sat in the bed, and we we are all flying around these corners having a good old time, then all of a sudden he slams on his breaks and BAM! thump, thump...we all look back to see what we hit and we completely annihilated a dog! haha it was one of the cooler things I’ve seen in my mission. We all cheered for him because we all hate guat dogs :) (this coming from KC who is an animal lover made me realize how bad the dogs must really be!)

this p day we didn’t really do anything, just cleaned the whole house spotless and ate lunch out at this taco place with my whole district.

Well family I love you all and thanks for all your letter and your prayers for me!

love elder toolson

New District and FLOODING

It is the rainy season here In Guatemala

My New District. I love these guys!

The Pasion River Flooded

October 4th, 2010

Hola familia!

Wow something did change a little during change conference, me and elder Smith are still companions but now I was made district leader! I was so shocked when I heard it, I literally didn’t believe my D.L. so I called my Z.L. and they said that is what president said. so that night I was freaking out, pretty much just sat at my desk looking at the wall for a good 2 hours, but then I said a really long prayer for help and guidance and a spirit of comfort came over me, it was a good feeling :) I had a good district lesson on Thursday and it went well, we talked about asking good questions to investigators and getting to know them instead of just teaching to teach. This district leader thing is all too hard to wrap my brain around , but we will see where it takes me. It is weird because I’m not kidding when I say half of Peten got changed, which is really rare, we have a lot of gringos here now. They are saying we got “white washed” we got two new people in the house, elder Godfrey, who’s in my group, he just got out of being an office elder.

Elder Matus who’s a latino, hes 22 but only has 6 months on the mission, hes a really cool kid and hard worker so it´ll be all good.

After the hurricane the river rose a TON! If it had got a little higher we almost were not able to cross the river to get to general conference. its about 2 feet from the street and if it goes over (which it will because October is the raining season) we will not be able to cross the river. Which is scary because we have zone conference in 2 weeks. last week we didn’t get any work done except one day because we had to show the new elders where all their investigators were, and that took like 2 days because this place is huge!

General conference was AMAZING! literally every talk was amazing. its so weird how much better conference is as a missionary. I listen to it so intently and get so much spiritual insight out of it. My favorites were when they talked about following the prophets. Because that’s what I’m trying to teach the members and investigators here. Since we watched it live in San Benito, which is like 2 hours away from Sayaxche, only 17 members showed up :( it’s really sad because they don’t have enough money to come and the branch wont pay for it. so we are going to hold our own little general conference at a members house who has a really nice computer and watch it on that with all the members and investigators that couldn’t come :) so hopefully it works out and it happens cause these people really need to hear the messages! Conference was so good I cant wait to get the Ensign....in 3 months! We always get it about 2 to 3 months late. There is a lot of stuff I want to share with the investigators that was talked about.

Today we went to Libertad, and made a cake for elder Castro then played ultimate Frisbee with water balloons and the basketball rims were the goal. so it was really fun and tiring, haha I’m so lazy I barley ran and about diedbe cause I’m so out of shape, I need to start running. Then we played 3 flags up with a football. We got 4 new people in the district and they are all sweet. I am so lucky to have a good district, we all get along so well and that makes things a lot easier for me.

I love you family so glad you all are doing well I do miss you guys ..so much you have no idea :)

love elder toolson

Just a few photos October 2010

This is the building in Peten
6 foot door frames. hahahaha
Sisters Juarez. They think 6 foot door frames are tall :)

Feb. 27th 2010

This week went pretty slow it was the last week before changes it always seems to go slower then the rest! which is weird because I don’t even want a change but I get excited to hear every one else’s, I’m nosy ok!

On Saturday they said a hurricane was coming so we didn’t work and it poured really hard all day long. It was so cool, it was the first time that I felt cold in Peten!

They told us that church was canceled the next day for safety issues because of the hurricane. It was supposed to hit us at about 9:00 at night onSaturday. The funny thing was that it poured like crazy all day until 9:00 then it just stopped. On Sunday when church was Canceled, yeah you guessed it, it was sunny as can be, barely a cloud to be seen. Which was good because if I had to be cooked up in the house anotherday I would have gone crazy! And we have lamina roofs so it was so loudall day in house. I do kind of like when it storms really hard here, Probably because its so dang hot here and its a bog relief.

I´ll inform you of changes next week. Oh hey I did run into some lady’s roof and split the top of my head open :) haha I am not used to the 6 foot tall houses here. but no worries its just a little one not too bad. Just hope it doesn’t get infected.

I love you guys and hope all goes well!

love elder toolson