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

October 17th 2011

Que Honda!?

Well to start off, my birthday was on Friday! haha funny story. The whole week has been crazy with investigators, problems, and zone conference so we had to organize all that stuff we had to do. Well when I woke up I can honestly say I totally forgot my birthday...yeah weird didn’t think that would ever happen. But we had to get up early and right away get stuff ready and prepare my talk and stuff like that so I totally spaced it. Around 10 o´clock in the morning I was looking at my agenda and noticed it was the 14th and just started laughing. Luckly it was zone conference because they brought all my packages and letters:) Thanks for the package!! it made my whole day, and I received some good letters and another package. I felt so loved! haha I am gonna enjoy the 5 pounds of M&M’s I have until the end of the mission!

OK, so zone conference was amazing. we had Elder Amado come, he is a general authority and one of the smartest people I have ever heard. He explained some good doctrine and weird random facts I didn’t know. like for example did any of you know that 80% of all baptisms of the world come from the American continent. crazy . but he talked about teaching the investigators and actually listening and answering, he explained that some times when they are talking we can perceive what they really want to know and ask but we need to just get out of routines that we have and adapt to what they actually need to hear. It was pretty good. Then he talked about all the doctrine of the general authorities and what everything meant. It was really cool to hear all the stuff they do. And of course the spirit was just amazing.

Just a quick thought. Those of you that haven’t read the Liahona or in the states the Ensign, you HAVE TO DO IT! That was probably the best one I have ever read in my life. It only talked about the Book of Mormon and I learned so much! luckily we had extra so I gave them to our investigators.

crazy story:

so we were walking home in the morning at 12 o´clock and we see the assistants in the suite store, so we go in and ask what there doing and they just stair at us with blank faces, so I asked what happened. They tell me that two guys had just stolen there car and everything in it like 20 min before . They took their cell phones, money, wallets, scriptures, packages, 5,000 quetz, and their cameras. The sisters just had a change and put in a trio and so they went to bring them desks and stuff like that. I guess two guys came with guns and robbed everything and told them if they called the police they would come back and kill them. So of course president Watts calls us right after and tells us that we have to get the sisters out of there as soon as we could. So we run over there and throw all there stuff in bags and suit cases and put it all in a members house. I talked to president this morning and he told me that he is moving the sisters to Coban (outside the capital) and putting in elders this Wednesday. haha so we have been super busy trying to find a house and get everything situated. Crazy stuff in G town.

well this last week we had a cool baptism. We activated this family and it so happened they had a 10 year old boy who wasn’t baptized so we got to baptize him on Saturday. Yes when all that stuff happened with the car and the sisters. but it all turned out good, it just started 2 hours late :)..our turn right?

Another cool story:

On Sunday we had some new investigators come to church. one of them we didn’t know, a member just brought him. After church he comes up to us and says ´hey I want you guys to teach me the stuff of your church because I want to get baptized´...what? !!! that was literally one of my dreams in the mission!! So today will be the first time we will teach him. His name is Juan, he’s 25, looks kind of scary but also really humble. The Lord is blessing us a lot these past couple of days. I love being on a mission and my love gets stronger every day. Love you all as well and thanks for your support.

PEACE OUT!!!!

ELDER TOOLSON

Changes Oct. 10, 2011

Well, I will start this letter off by telling you guys about changes. The assistants called us at 10 o`clock last night and told us all the zones changes. When they finished and asked if I had any questions... I said "oh you forgot my change" hahaha and they just laughed at me and said me and my comp were staying together for another change!! yep that means we will be completing 6 months together. I literally thought that would never happen to me in my mission. but with presidente, things are very very different. But hey if that’s what the Lord wants. Our companionship is fine, yes he annoys me sometimes but seriously, 6 months 24/7 with one person I would say I am doing pretty good with my patience right now. There is a lot of work to do here in my area and now that all the members love us its time to just dome rock the area :)

OK, well last week we had concilio with president and the assistants and of course it was amazing. we just talked a lot about the problems in the mission and what we need to do to clean it up, that includes obedient problems and stuff with investigators. and then for the best part we ate some REAL american food! sister W made us chicken parmesan with Caesar salad and garlic bread. yep she broke her own record because it was the best thing I have had in my mission. and then for desert we had cheese cake! haah she makes being ZL so worth it.

During the concilio president talked about a new rule. In this mission the missionaries cook for themselves. But president wants us to change that . we now have to find a little restaurant place to eat at every day for lunch, and only lunch. Which I am not gonna lie I don’t want to do. Because those of you that know latinos know that they put oil and butter in EVERYTHING they

eat. and I am trying to eat better and lose the fat on my belly :) but Luckily for me we have a cool place right next to our house that sells a bunch of stuff so I can choose what I want.

Well I finally went to the doctor. It was weird, usually the appointments are at like 10 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon. Well he wanted me to come by at 5 pm. its not that bad but when you live like more then an hour away by bus its kind of a hassle. So we get there and of course he shows up at 6 because he got stuck in traffic. but he told me that my rib pulled my muscle or something and that is why It is hurting by my shoulder blade and my chest. so he said the only thing I can do is just wait it out. Which scares me because he said it might be 3 months!! but i need to work out so we may have a problem. It is feeling a lot better. I am taking some pills to help and some cream. So this week and next week I am not going to work out so I can recuperate, then I am gonna to start up again.

This week is my 21st b-day :) but to be honest I think I am not going do anything. ha and I don’t like telling the members because then they think they have to feed me and now I am on a diet so its better if they dont. and we have zone conference on my birthday so pretty much its going to be a normal day. But today I felt like celebrating early so me and the zone are going to make some cakes! yes my favorite cherry chip cakes :) thanks mom! and the sisters are going to make me some pupusas. One of the sisters is from El Salvador.

I love my mission and its scaring me a little bit that its coming to an end, but I am determined to work my butt off so I can get lost in the work and not think about other things. love you family!!!

Elder Toolson

September 27th, 2011

I just want to start off saying CONGRATS SEAN AND COLBI with your

first little baby boy!!!! (They had a little girl.. I think this is KC’s way of saying “if you had written me more often Sean I would have known she was a girl “ I am so excited for you guys. Dang! everything cool is happening now! keep sending me pictures please I want to see more :) just give me a good 6 years and I’ll have a baby too!

Ok well last week went good and really fast! We found a good family this week and we brought some members to their home and the new family even showed up to church! it was amazing teaching them because we put a baptism date with them and they all excepted it...except the dad of course. but he is super cool and I know he will except it eventually. so I have some good high hopes for this family I just hope nothing goes wrong. Well this week we really worked with the ward and with our mission leader and made a really good plan to get the members more involved. ha we got a new mission leader and he is super excited to help us out and has a ton of dang good ideas to get the members going. So this week

of course to get some stuff started we all gave talks in sacrament, me, my comp, and the mission leader (brother M) . it went really well and then after church we had ward council with all the leaders and we got every one to help us out :) so the ward is really progressing and I am hoping to see some good success here.

ha-ha then Sunday as well the stake President wanted me and my comp to go to a meeting for future elders and give another talk well, not really a talk, just an extended testimony pretty much, then after that we went to a lady’s house and cast out a devil. yep I am not even lying. I thought the bishop was kidding at first but when we showed up to the house all the members were waiting for us and their faces said it all. no one talked and they all had the look of death on them. It was pretty scary actually. So we went inside this tiny little shack made of tin and we all kneeled in a circle and said a prayer then the bishop did his "thing" to cast out the devil. I guess she made her neighbor mad and that practices witch craft and now her house was haunted. yeah crazy stuff here in guat town!

Today I am writing on Tuesday because yesterday we had a surprise conference for all the districts in the zone. The ap`s call us the night before and we have to prepare talks. Monday was a long day. We showed up at 8 in the morning and literally didn’t leave until 6 at night. Luckily and thankfully Sister Watts brought us some turkey sandwiches :) I guess many in the mission were being super

Disobedient and so Pres. W wanted to talk to every one and see what is going on. I don’t know why some missionaries are so dumb! I guess pres W had to send some people home. Me and my comp talked about how we need to follow the spirit in everything we do and how we need to be worthy to have the guidance as well. I think it went really well President even congratulated us because this zone has no problems.

I don’t know what happened but I messed up my shoulder blade pretty bad. one day I was doing bench in the morning and my right peck was hurting but not that bad so I kept going and now I haven’t been able to work out or play sports or anything for a good week now. I have been taking pain pills but nothing helps. it hurts every time I move my right arm. I’m going to call the doctors because I think I pulled something really bad or a bone moved out of place cause its not getting better. No worries the lord will provide :) today we were suppose to go to the temple and have a good time but no!!! I guess one of the 70 told pres w we can only go every 6 months!!! Yeah that’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard. so today we did nothing. Every one played soccer and basketball and I sat there and read a book...lame! Well that’s about it for this week. I am so excited to see general conference! you guys have no idea!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope all of you are excited too and don’t take it for granted. On the mission I have gained a love for general conference. so watch it and learn something :) love you every one!

Elder Toolson