email: June 24, 2013

Mom and Dad,

So when I was looking through the pictures, I realized that it is only Corina and Carson left at home now! That is crazy. I saw pictures of Jake in his dorm and at BYU. I love it! He is growing up into such a wonderful young man. I am super grateful for him making the choice to not leave at 18 because I really miss that brother of mine! Sounds like things are going well there in ND. I talk with Feist about it all the time and we came to realize that we are in the same ward. Pretty legit haha.Ready, here comes my week:

So on Monday, we went to the driving range with the boys before people got transferred. I will have to send some pictures, they sure are funny. Transfers are always hard but change is good. Elder Kelley's new comp is pretty cool. Our apartment is still the best apartment in Hemet! After dinner, we went out contacting and we found this potential that had some good promise. It was the P***** family and we set up an appointment to come back on Wednesday.

Our Tuesday was filled with DDM and getting our two candidates for baptism interviewed! This area is finally going to have a solid baptism; they hadn't had one since February. Both Stevie and Ashley got interviewed and passed with flying colors. That was the bulk of the day. We then went off to see Aaron with Brother L****. It was neat to have Brother L***** there with us (he is the second counselor in the bishopric) so it was cool to see him bear testimony and invite Aaron back to church. We then went out and looked at Aaron's Subaru. Oh man, is this thing legit! It basically looked like the rally car edition. It was dope! He even pulled it out of the garage and floored it for us. Mmmmm did it sound beautiful! I'll still take my truck but I loved hearing it.

Oh my, do I hate meetings. We had a zone meeting that went forever. The longer I am on my mission, the more I do not want to teach less-actives. I know that sounds terrible but I am not paying $10,000 to home teach full time! That was what I basically felt like the zone conference was about. Doing the ward mission process and teaching less-actives. There is a time and a place but I haven't seen the fruits of it so I have a hard time doing it. We then went and got my bike fixed. The guy repaired my two broken spokes and trued them for only $15! That was such a blessing too.

So remember the P***** family we met on Monday? Well, we came back to see them on Wednesday and they let us in! We knocked on the door and the husband answered and he said "I know who you guys are, come on in!" It blew me away. We talked for almost two hours about life and his family, guns, motorcycles, football, you name it. They are an awesome family. And come to find out, all his family but him are LDS! So this would be an awesome family to teach the gospel to. We then went off to a Relief Society activity that we invited them to come to. Guess who showed up? THE P***** FAMILY! Oh man, was I excited. I love it, we had such a great time with the whole family. Plus the activity was awesome too. After we did that and came back home and Sam came over for us to talk. Sam was baptized about a year and a half ago and he is going on his mission to Portugal here in about 6 weeks. The thing was that he was having doubts and so I told him I wanted to talk. He came over and we had a big heart to heart. We talked about his struggles with his mission and I talked about my struggles. He helped me through it a lot so that really helped my mindset because it was really bothering me this week. But now, I feel great about it. Overall, it was a pretty good Wednesday.

We had our usual weekly planning session and then ran off to teach JR. The lesson went well but it wasn't until after the lesson that the magic started. I sat down with JR and we had a good heart-to-heart about him getting baptized. He has some concerns but we are going to work through them. He told me that if he was to get baptized, it would be within the next five weeks. That was awesome to hear and see how far he has come! He is really considering it now and he wants to do it. He just has to make sure that he is doing it for the right reasons. I told him to keep reading and praying. He is starting to really pray but not read. So that will be the next step for him. Hawkins and I are going to fast this week for him so I am hoping and praying that this will work. It is finding people like JR that has made my mission awesome! I love it so much. We had dinner with a single lady and we brought a priest with us and then ran off to the Park Hill building to check on the font for our baptism on Saturday. Good things are starting to happen here!

Hawkins had a DLC meeting Friday morning that I had to sit outside and wait for him to finish. It was okay though, I sat with Baltazar and we talked about cars and music haha. We were supposed to go on exchanges that afternoon but the ZLs took forever long to get to our apartment. It really bugs me when people are late and they don't give us a heads up. Drives me nuts. Anyways, the ZLs got there and I went out with Elder Parker to my area. We went and finalized the program with Stevie and made sure she was ready for baptism. After that, we went and visited a former, Glenda, from the area book. We tried to teach her but her ideas were so out there that it wasn't going to progress so we moved on. She has a Hindu philosophy and is not willing to change. We then ran to the O**** to visit them and see how they were doing. They are such an awesome family; very cute old couple haha. We ran home to eat then went over to Brother C***'s house to do the program. We got everything settled and typed up. We didn't print out the master copy because we were already pretty late getting home so we thought to do it the next day. Bad idea. But it was a good exchange overall.

Saturday was filled with getting everything ready for the baptism. However, a baptism for me NEVER goes smoothly. We went to the C***'s home to print off the program but then printer was out of ink. We ran back home to get Hawkin's flash drive to save it but he couldn't find it. So we ran off to the family history center to type up another one. We did that super quick but then the copier in the library didn't work! We only got eight copies printed off in like half an hour. That stunk plus Brother C*** wasn't going to make it to the baptism because he had to work so I was left to conduct. So we get to the building with only an hour and a half to fill the font. Luckily, Stevie is a small girl so it didn't need to be that high. But after we got all that situated, the baptism went well. Stevie's mom took pictures of the baptism (WHOOPS!) so that was the only negative thing that happened. We opened it up for testimonies while Stevie was drying off and the primary president's older son got up to bear his testimony and he had me in tears! I love that kid. JR was supposed to come to the baptism but he couldn't find the building! That was a huge bummer... But we are having another one soon so he can come to that. Our last lesson of the night was with a referral we got from a guy in Wildomar. It is one of his co-workers that lives in Homeland. We met at the DQ and tried to teach him. Greg is from Panama and is super funny. He wasn’t too receptive to what we taught but his fellowshipper is going to work on him. Overall, it was a busy Saturday haha.

Sunday's are always the longest for us. We start meetings at 8:45am all the way to 3pm. Joy. I confirmed Stevie and so it was official! After sacrament meeting, I got to teach gospel doctrine again. That was fun, as always haha. The members sure seem to enjoy it though and I love teaching it. Hawkins taught Elders Quorum while I was in young men’s. We then had that world-wide leadership broadcast to go to. But before that, we ran off to give a blessing to someone and ran back to the broadcast. I guess that we will eventually be getting on Facebook and the Internet more often now with missionary work. After the meeting, we ran to our lesson with Ross and committed him to stop smoking. He really wants to do! He is also someone we are going to fast for this week. It is going to kill my headaches but it will be worth it. Dinner was with the J****'s and that was cool to get to know them. They are a younger couple and super awesome. Our lesson after that was with Matt and that turned into a debate. I was already exhausted so my patience was running thin. It was fun though to get to watch the boys play. All in all, it was a good week and we have a lot of potential next week.

I cannot believe that it is almost July... I get to go to the temple with Victor on the 6th! I am super excited for that. We will hopefully have three baptism in July! One almost every weekend! I am super stoked. Well, that is about it for me. Me and my boring missionary life haha. Love y'all and miss y'all a ton. Don't worry about me, I am going to be fine! Love you and y'all are in my prayers.

Elder Tonini