email: June 10, 2013

Alright so, here was my week:

Monday was an awesome Pday. After we emailed and got our stuff done, I went to Ross and picked up some speakers for my new iPod for my study room. I found a 5.1 surround sound for it for pretty cheap! I was super stoked, I love it. I finally have music back in my life! Don't worry, it's all mission approved :). We then ran to the driving range to go hit some balls. The same member that gave me the other set of clubs gave me a $25 gift certificate to the driving range. Seven bucks for 75 balls! It was super fun. I needed it badly after the whole thing last week. I don't know why people don't like me too much here. I guess because I'm not the "robot" missionary. But I got it resolved later this week with President. I will explain more later. We also had our mini missionary with us so that was kind of a struggle this week. By Monday, he was already driving me nuts and we hadn't even had him for two weeks. But it all worked out in the end; it was good to have him there with us.

We gave some service on Tuesday for Sister S*** and her family. They are kind of less active and we don't go over there much. Sister S*** is a pretty cool lady though, she was super appreciative for us coming over and helping to move some rocks in the backyard. After that, we cleaned up and got ready to teach little Miss Stevie K****. We did the hard-boiled egg lesson: where you boil an egg and use rubbing alcohol to create a vacuum to suck the boiled egg into the Gatorade bottle. It was kind of a batched object lesson but it was still good haha. Our lesson with JayR went well too. He is progressing super well. Our dinner with Sister M**** was kind of interesting... She liked to talk and it really wasn't too fun to sit there and listen but I did anyways. Aaron R**** is doing well, we saw him that night. We are working on getting him back to church.

President Smart came down to give our interviews with us and that was super nice to get to talk to him. I brought up the issue with the missionaries backbiting behind my back and my issues with what is going on. I told him that this usually doesn't bother me but I do represent my family as well as the Savior and I don't want to tarnish my family name either. But what he told me gave me some comfort. He told me that I am accountable to him and to the Savior. So I gave him my accountability to him and that really helped me feel better. I am going to do me and work the hardest I have ever worked. I love President a lot; he is the man. Come to find out, I am on special assignment; he didn't send me here to Hemet just because. So that answered a lot of questions and doubts too. After interviews, we went and visited the two high school girl graduates that we picked up. They are hopefully going to start progressing nicely. Besides, one of them is pretty good looking so that is always a plus :). Our dinner was a little weird. It was with a recent convert and her family. Sabrina B**** was just baptized like 6 months ago and she is an interesting lady. She doesn't have any teeth... And her family is super loud and crazy! It was interesting. Our lesson with the B**** family went well too. They are an awesome family!

We did the usual weekly planning on Thursday and we went to seed Matt, he lives with the B****’s, to come teach him and help him gain his testimony. It is coming slowly but surely. Funny story though while we were over there. Our mini saw one of the young women there helping to babysit the son. He goes up there to talk to her and comes to find out that she's only a sophomore! Haha it was super funny; we gave him a hard time about it. Other than that lesson, we weekly planned all day.

Friday was our temple trip! It was a much needed trip to the Redlands Temple. I got some crazy revelation in the temple though that I can't really talk about here in the email. Jake knows about it but that is about it. He knows the story about it. After our session, one of my contacts in Beaumont picked us up and brought us to the Sandwich Stoppe in Beaumont. Victor came and so did the O'Harra's! It was so good to see them. I get to go and see Victor at the temple here in a less than a week! It will be hard to see him go because I won't be able to call him up when I need someone to talk to... But it will all work out. We went and saw Stevie K**** again and taught her to get ready to be baptized. We went tracting and found a very cool potential family to teach! A family of almost 5 people! We had dinner with the Bickmore's and got to talk some more deep doctrine with him. They are former temple president in Mexico so he was very knowledgeable about the temple. It was fun to pick his brain and to get some new knowledge from him.

Saturday was filled with helping a family in the Fruitvale ward move into our ward. The husband has a 2012 Ford Raptor! It was super legit. None of our ward showed up to help so it was good that we showed up. We helped transporting Fruitvale around and even when to their DDM as well. Afterwards, we went to McDonalds and I got two McGangBangs! It’s a McDouble with a McChicken in the middle of it. Super good haha. It was a good day even though it was kind of slow.

Sunday was filled with meetings and going by to see people. We taught Ross again and that went well. One of the member bought him a quad! Very nice. We got our OYMs and had our mini go home. We then took studies and called it a night. We celebrated Elder Albright’s birthday that night and it was a blast. I love my mission and the guys I serve with!

Well, that was my week. I sure do love y'all and miss y’all tons. I am doing well, I think I am going to get my headaches checked out though. They are starting to get bad. I will let you know how that goes. I love you! Have a great week.

Elder Tonini