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!

Burger King is amazing!..until I think of you guys eating In-n-Out in Cali..

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 26^th

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