Monday, May 6, 2013

email: May 6, 2013

Subject: Onward to Hemet!

As you have heard, I am going to Hemet to serve there for the next little while. Anita called me to tell me that she had talked to Mom and it just made me chuckle. Yes, she buys me all sorts of stuff and it drives me insane because I feel like I'll offend her if I say no. She replaced the old weight bench that I had with my weight set. I am not exactly sure how I will get that home but if we want a weight set at the house, I have one! Sounds like the move is coming up quickly! Can you make sure to take a lot of pictures and mail them to me so I can have them? One great thing is that I can think about home and not get trunkie. If y’all could do that, that would be wonderful! Ready for my week? Leggo :)

Monday we taught a less-active girl that we tracted into a while back. We are so close in getting her to come back to church. Plus, her dad's family aren’t members so that would be awesome to get them into church! They are Hispanic so the Spanish-speaking missionaries will take care of them but still, that would be ideal. We ate dinner with the H****'s and we sang happy birthday to Elder Coleman even though it wasn't his birthday. The kids think that anytime Mom makes a cake, it is someone's birthday so it turned out to be Coleman's birthday that night :). I got really close with their four-year-old son and I brought my Rubix's cube to show him. He carried that thing around all night and was really upset when his dad made him give it back to me. I had the thought to give it to him because it meant a lot more to him than me so I did. He gave me a big hug before I left. The cube is replaceable but that hug wasn't so it all paid off.

We taught LQ again on Tuesday and that lesson went well. We talked about baptism and what made the true form of baptism true. It really made me realize how grateful I am to be enlightened with the truth. She is having a hard time with some issues that we found out about later this week. I then had the craziest food experience. Have you ever heard of balut? It is a Pilipino dish that is basically a ten-day old fertilized duck egg. I ate it and boy was it gross! I got it on video so beware whenever that comes home! We stopped by Lisa and her family and had a quick lesson with them. We found out that their 19 year-old daughter is expecting her SECOND child now. Holy crap! She's not married either so that was kind of upsetting. Our lesson with a hopeful part-member family went well. They are a Samoan family that has been having some issues so we started teaching them in hopes to help them feel the Spirit again. It was a good way to end the night.

I went on exchanges with Elder Moss and we had a pretty good day. We had a lot of appointments fall through so we started to go through the unbaptized members list to try and find some part-member families. We gave a blessing to these four African-American young people in their garage and that went well. It is amazing how addictive gaming can be. Some of the kids were playing Minecraft and they told us that they could play it for four days straight. NOT COOL! Huge waste of time. We then stopped by to see Ken and have dinner with him. I love that man so much, it was super hard to say goodbye.

We had our last true ZLC on Thursday and it was always an interesting experience. I don't like the bureaucracy of the Church sometimes. The Church is true but the people aren't. We then had the most interesting lesson with LQ. We decided to teach her about repentance and that did NOT go down well. We found out her real concern: she hasn't forgiven the person that murdered her nephew over 10 years ago. She can't let go of it and she has a pure hatred for that person. So needless to say, the lesson didn't go as well as we would have hoped for but we aren't going to give up on her. The A**** family took us out to eat at Five Guys for the last time that night as well. I love that family dearly as well.

We had our usual meeting with Anita on Friday and she kept asking me if I was going or staying. I didn't have any gut feelings yet so i couldn't tell her yes or no. Our ZDM went super well, we did a really cool activity. We blindfolded the entire zone and led them into the chapel with the lights off and music playing. I then played DJ and played the clip from Finding Faith in Christ when Christ goes through the Atonement for us. I dubbed it back to some dramatic music and read from a talk about the Savior. We then had them take the blind folds off and we talked a little bit more about what the Savior did for us and how we can apply that into our missionary and personal lives. I thought it went super well. Of course, I got emotional but I have accepted the fact that I am that way. We saw Gracia again and had dinner with Anita as BJ's Brewhouse. It was super good, my last supper with sweet Anita.

Saturday was kind of a botched day with our appointments falling through again. We did though get to see another part-member family and teach them. They didn't come to church but we had a good lesson with them. Transfer calls came and I am leaving to go to Hemet in the Diamon Valley Ward. At first, I felt like I got demoted but then I slept on it and those feelings went away. It will be good for me to be a "regular" missionary. Plus it sounds like that area is dead so I will have my work cut out for me. I called Anita and she just cried and cried. I felt so bad for her... But I am needed in Hemet.

Sunday was super hard for me because I had to get up and say goodbye. That was so hard to get up and bear my testimony. I was a blubbering mess... But I got through it. I waited until the end so Jeffrey and Blake could hear it. I had so many people come up to me with tears in their eyes and give me a huge hug. This ward really felt like home. We then made visits all day and also got to see Weylen (a super famous horse trainer) start the process of breaking a Mustang. There was a film crew filming it and it will be on the air sometime later this year. They are following a couple horse trainers across the country and I got to see firsthand how it works. It was super awesome! Dinner with the R*****'s was super fun, we watched their little girl slide down the stairs in a cardboard box into her mattress. Super hilarious! I said goodbye to Ken, the Baugh's and a few other families. Brother Baugh gave me a "father's" blessing before I left so that was much needed. It was so hard to leave... I loved the people I served with and they will always have a piece of my heart.

Well, that was my week and my last chapter in Moreno Valley. I loved serving here and I am truly going to miss it. I love you y’all so much and miss the kids a ton. Love y’all and can't wait to talk to you on Mother's Day!

Elder Tonini

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