Monday, August 5, 2013

email: August 5, 2013

I emailed on Wednesday of last week so this may not be the longest email but we had a lot go down this week. Ready for my week? Let’s go!

So after I emailed on Wednesday, we ran off to see the R****' family. Sister R**** got Hawkins and I speed Rubik’s cubes for our Restoration lesson and so we went over to see them. I can't remember if I mentioned that the doctor's found a tumor in Brother R****’ lung so they have been struggling with that recently. They actually called on Tuesday night to have us come over and give him a blessing so we went over there Wednesday afternoon to see him and give him a blessing. I love that family; I have a huge soft spot for them in my heart. After that, we ran to get some OYMs and went to the C***'s for dinner. We ate some awesome chicken and then had correlation with us four elders. It was a long week in regards in getting the area all organized and ready to go. We did though pick up a new part member family. The G**** family has two kids that aren't baptized and have been coming to church every week since they moved in to the ward. Hopefully we can get them baptized this month! Later that night, Sam A*** called me and said he would like a blessing because he's getting anxious about leaving for his mission so I sat down with him and we talked. At the end, I gave him a blessing. It was a good way to end the night.

Thursday was planning day and we seriously planned all day long. We had to go through and split our ward list for the two wards. So we sat down and punched every address into our GPSs and made the decision if it was on the north or the south side of the 74.That took all day to get done basically. I set an appointment to go by and see John P**** again and to introduce his family to the new elders. It went really well, John said that he would be open to being baptized so they are going to keep working with him. Our dinner was good: Chinese food with fried chicken haha. That night, we sat down with the bishopric and went over the ward list again. We discussed names and families and got a lot down for the area. It was Brother P**** that sent the pictures to y’all. Stay in contact with him, his family is awesome! Although we didn't get that much proselyting in, we did get organized so it was a good use of time.
Brother Langston, Brother Porter, ET, Elder Child, and Bishop Mackie

Elder Child and Elder Tonini

Elder Wilkinson, Elder Figueroa, Elder Child, and Elder Tonini

We had our zone meeting Friday morning and it was weird having the zone leaders call me the "patriarch" of the zone. Then Johnson made some smart aleck comment and said "matriarch" under his breath. That kid... Anyways, it was a good meeting and we got a lot done. It is very humbling to have the responsibility over the two sister companionships and being the district leader in starting a new zone. We are going to work! I am super excited. I committed to the zone and to the Lord that we will have two baptisms this month so we gotta get working! After ZDM, we went to Red Robin to eat. We then had dinner with the K**** family and to see them again. Stevie is always fun to be around. We got there a little early and I sat down to play Skip-bo with her. It was super fun! She was talking some smack and it was fun to play. The ZLs didn't like it too much but they'll be okay haha. Our lesson at 7 pm fell through so we checked up on some people and then contacted down the street. We found two potential families that we are going back to see on Saturday. That night, we had a lesson with a family we thought would be a potential part member family. Come to find out, they were. The wife is super less-active and her live-in husband isn't a member. They live in the middle of NO WHERE in Winchester so it was an exciting time trying to find the house at 8 at night. We find it and had a good lesson. They are super funny together and they have 11 dogs living in the house with them! Bob is the biggest hippie and he doesn't have any teeth. It is a riot. I am not sure if anything is going to come of it but we are gonna keep teaching anyways.

Oh goodness, Saturday was busy. We went back to see the two families and got in to both doors! We left a blessing with both of them and invited them to baptism. They didn't accept but they agreed to have us come back. We taught them about the priesthood and a brief thing about the Restoration of the Gospel. We then back to the stake center to work on the ward list again. We got it all split and ready to go. It seriously took almost four hours. We forwent lunch and went straight to dinner at Hometown Buffet with the R*****'s. I stuffed myself and I felt a lot better after that. After dinner, we picked up Denny H and ran off to our two lesson for the night. We saw an elderly lady named Francis W. She has had two strokes and her body is starting to shut down. She is a spiritual giant though! We talked for an hour and got to know her a little bit more. She is almost blind but yet she can still function. I could've talked with her for hours. After her, we ran over to the T**** family to get to know them. They are an active family with eight little kids! I did the Rubik’s cube lesson and they loved it. Every kid wanted to touched the cube and play with it. It was a fun lesson to teach; it was a fun way to end the night.

Sunday is always a long day for us with meetings. We had our correlation meeting with Brother C*** and then had our ward meetings. I struggled with it for a little while because the spotlight was on the ZLs and how they are awesome missionaries and everything. I felt like I wasn't that important; that all they cared about was their work and not mine. But as church started and sacrament meeting came around, I had an interesting thought come into my mind. When Christ was in the pre-existence, He offered to go down and perform the Atonement with no glory for His name. That struck me because that is how I am kind of feeling right now. It gave me strength and gave me a lot of comfort. We all sat on the stand so we could be recognized and bear our testimony's. Being me, I couldn't hold back the tears when I got up to bear my testimony. My heart was so full and that is just came. I have learned so much about the TRUE meaning of charity and that really struck me hard when I got up to speak. After the meeting, Sister V*** pulled me aside and with tears in her eyes told me that she wishes her son could be as good as a missionary as me when he leaves in September. Now THAT was humbling to me; it showed to me that I AM making an impact on the people I meet and come in contact with. The rest of church went well and we ran home to take lunch and do some personal study. We had dinner with the V*** family and then went to get OYMs. I OYM’ed a guy outside of dinner and ended up teaching him of the Restoration. Even though he didn't accept it, we did answer some questions of his. That night, we went to Sam's setting apart for being a missionary in Portugal. I love that guy, I am going to miss him terribly! But yeah, that was my week in a nut shell. Elder Child is doing well and I love living with the Mackie's. I now live with my pet pitbull Porter! I love that dog to pieces; it's like living at home again. It is funny; Elder Child is from the Mormon Bubble so it is taking him some time to get used to everything. He is a good Elder and I love him to pieces already.

I love all of y’all and I hope things are going well. Keep me updated with everything! I want y’all to know that I know my Savior lives and the He loves everyone. He knows me personally and I am glad that I am starting to understand what charity really means. I love being here and I love all of y’all! Have a wonderful week!

Elder Tonini

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