Nov. 14th, 2011

buenas tardes huecos :)

ok well last week was super fast again. it feels like that when Pday is on Tuesday. but it turns out that I got sick on Thursday, probably the delicious "gringas" here in guat. gringas are pretty much a big quesadilla filled with good meat and then you add your own toppings like lettuce some suaces and then my favorite pineapple. but i chose this seasoned pork meat...not a good choice. me navas and jensen and stone all ate there, haha and me and stone got really bad b.u. and our stomachs were about to explode. so me and him stayed home on Thursday and navas and jensen left to go out and work. it was kinda good though, I got a lot of studying in. but no worries all is well now and im healthy and strong, I think it threw my shot off tho...explain that later.

well on Saturday my comp elded navas had to go to an area called durazno (peach) to do a interview. Usually we don’t do divisions on Saturday but it was the only day this woman could do it and the d.l. couldn’t do it cause he had a baptism. so my comp went over there with them and I did divisions with elder jensen and stone. haha well they have to start over in this area cause they are both new and let me tell you...it’s HARD! all we did was contact and pass by what we thought were investigators, even though they all denied us. It was so good to work with them but to do that every day would be hard.. good thing the Lord knows me so well :)

Well this morning, now that we have 4 good basketball playing gringos in the zone, we started playing some good ball. We played 21 and two on two. It was super fun...except I was SO OFF!!!!!!! even the others were like " dude elder Toolson you suck" yep made me feel real good about my self. By far the worst I have played in my entire mission. I was even missing lay-ups and everything. but then towards the end I started sinking some shots. Then of course every one else came and started playing. lets just say I don’t even like playing basketball when they don’t knows how. other then us 4 the rest just pick up the ball and chuck it from half court and they never dribble and I am horribly scared to go in the center because they hang on you like wild monkeys. so I just stayed out and shot the 3 ball (or at least tried).

I can’t believe this week is the last week of the change! crazy how fast time flies. I love my comp but 6 months is a LONG time :) but we`ll see what the Lord has in store for elder toolson. love you all and don’t be dumb.

November 8, 2011

Why am I writing on Tuesday and not on Monday? Well, it’s because we went to the temple today and on Mondays it is closed.

Last Tuesday we went to concilio with president and it was super powerful. haha I don’t know why but I love when people just give it to you! OK maybe not when its directed personally at me :) but this last concilio presidente talked the majority of the time and just reamed us on how the mission is failing and how God is not pleased with our work. The guy is the most spiritual guy ever. he cried like 3 times and I almost did once. it was an amazing experience. So my comp and I talked to our zone and told them we need to step the game up from now on. What do you know. we actually did super good this week and presidente congratulated us!

An up date on my back. yeah as of right now it feels normal. I can play sports with out pain. I can do sit ups too, I am just scared to do push ups because that’s what hurt me so I `ll wait a little longer.

Hah well we FINALY FOUND THE APARTMENT! haha the ap`s got mad at us for not finding one so they put the other elders with us and the next day we found a house. it just so happened the apartment right next to us just bacame vacant. so when I called up the ap`s and told them the good news about the apartment like how the new one is bigger than the house we had and super nice and super close, EW says "well why don’t you guys move

into that apartment then since its bigger, and you are the zl`s" haha so it turned into us changing the house. yeah the house is way big and cool...but I like the other house better. It was perfect for missionaries and way up high so we could look at our whole area, but now we are down below and its boring. but the new elders are super cool, EJ and ES. both like basketball and EJ is in my group when we leave so we get along just fine :)

On Saturday we had a baptism!! it was amazing! . This kid is super cool and loves the church, and told us after his baptism that he wanted to become a missionary so he could tell people about his conversion and so they could feel what he felt on his baptism. It made me almost cry!

As for P-Day, we went to the temple, yep last time in my mission! It was a great experience. Afterwards we went to an import store where they sell American stuff and I bought Nutella, a 24 pack of root beer, peanut butter, and some Pace Picante salsa! (yes dad your favorite) then we went to Wendy`s and enjoyed an amazing hamburger and a potato with chili and a frosty :)

I love you guys and I know this church is true I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t :)

Elder Toolson

October 31, 2011

October 31, 2011

Family!

Dang, its weird to think that it is Halloween right now!! I didn’t even remember until yesterday at church when the kids were talking about all the parties that were going to be going on. Halloween is definitely not the same here in G town they don’t really trick or treat. I guess there’s some kids that dress up and just walk around in the street screaming "we want candy" but no body gives them any thing, and pumpkins don’t even exist here. pretty much all they do is have a bunch of parties and get wasted. And get this! the school system is different and every one here has break now until January!! so today should be really crazy at night. Supposedly it’s the day of the dead here but only the old people do that. Every one else is partying it up.

Well last week went by pretty fast. My comp and I have still not found a house yet for the other elders. Even presidente called and was like "hey how’s the new elders doing" and then I had to tell them that we haven’t found the house...he seemed a little annoyed but just said to keep looking :) haha I really think the lord just doesn’t want them to come here yet because its almost impossible to find an apartment. Last Wednesday we did divisions with the assistants. I guess president had a week long meeting far away in guat and didn’t need the assistants help with anything so they decided to do divisions with all the zl`s. it was actually really fun. the AP’s are elder W, whos in my group, and elder Gallo who is super cool as well. we both were working in my area. I went with elder W. and my comp went with G. haha its funny how we segregate like that every time :) but in all honesty its what we both want so nobody says anything. Me and elder W worked are butts off. He was in this area before I was. I am the one who took his place. So we worked hard and visited some of his converts. ha it was kind of sad because they are all inactive now... but it was a good experience. we started Tuesday night and ended Wednesday night and it was a fun sleep over.

haha mom funny story. Well I was listening to an EFY cd today in the morning when I was cleaning the house. it was a really old one, ll of a sudden one of my childhood memery songs came on "you dont have to walk the planes to be a pioneer" hahaahah made my whole day! i dont know if you remember that mom but we use to listen to that all day every day and you would make me sing out loud just so you could laugh :) (In all fairness I made him do it so we could all laugh, he was just little and would nod his head to all the words – withough singing them_ until the last word of easch phrase..”trains..planes.. names..) a member gave me a cd with all the EFY songs since like 1994 until now. good times back in the day.

Well I love you all hope all is well in the United states of America!!!

Elder T

October 24th, 2011

October 24, 2011

I`ll just start off by saying last week was...horrible!!!! since the car got robbed presidente wants us to find an apartment for the new elders in the area that we don’t know, and then move everything over there. Well usually its not that hard to find an apartment...haha I swear the lord just doesn’t want them coming right now. me and my comp looked for a total of like 20 hours last week and found NOTHING! well we found some but they were over prices (cause I’m a gringo) or there are already people living in them for another month. then finally we find one just barley over the budget so I ask presidente and he says its ok so we call back the next morning...I guess a woman came by right after us and bought the apartment! just my luck. So all that searching was for literally nothing. and two sweet gringos are coming too, one is named elder J, hes in my group and the other is brand new.

With all that going on we had a sweet baptism planned, and this time I was like, hey I am gonna plan this perfect so we don’t have to run around all day saturday..well it turn out that he didn’t pass the interview, even tho we went over it with him 4 times before his actual interview. and to add to it, i was

sick with a bad caugh and runny nose. it was just a bad week :) I think I am being tested right now haha.

The last three weeks it has been raining non stop. A couple of members houses got swept away and we had to do a lot of service. And of course a cold front comes in and its seriously freezing. Especially because its super humid. every morning I wake up to drops of water dripping off the windows because its so cold and humid. When I go to bed I have to wear a jacket and sweat pants and socks and a beany!!! And we are only in October!!...I have no clue how I am going to last in Utah! I hate the cold with a passion. My comp and me are even working with sweaters because it is so cold outside. The good thing now is that the rain is dying away and it hasn’t rained in like 5 days! So hopefully I can survive these last couple months because I am dying right now with the cold. I did enjoy a nice cup of hot chocolate :) but now the members always want to give us “morcaf” which is a mormon coffee and its disgusting. I put like 5 spoonfulls of sugar in there just to choke it down. Well as far as the work is going...we didnt really work all that much with all the service for the members and the searching for the apartment. We had like 15 lessons and we usually average more then 30

every week. But I am hanging in there and I love my mission. there’s nothing better then the mission. love you all.

Elder Toolson