email: November 25, 2013

I am glad to hear that everyone had a great week! I can feel for Mom with the headaches, I have been battling one for almost a week that won't go away. Jake told me that he is getting close to getting his papers started! I am super excited and proud of that boy. He is going to be a wayy better missionary than I ever was. Corina told me about her birthday and I am glad she growing up so quickly. Everyone is getting so old except for me! I love that Carson goes and plays in the snow. That'll be my favorite thing to go do with him in February. Hopefully there will still be some snow. Ready for my week? Shake and bake!

I got my haircut on Monday and I was looking fresh! I got a fade from one of the sisters in my ward that does hair and it looked good. I get my haircut every two weeks; I gotta find a girl who can cut hair otherwise I am going to spend some serious money on my hair haha. We actually played football with the other Elders so that was fun. I was sitting with the Elders when one of them pulled me aside and we started talking. He asked me what I thought of him and if I thought he was dorky and geeky, if I would pick on him with we were in high school and stuff like that. I told him of course not; I'm not like that at all. He thought that because he labeled me as a "jock" and he didn't have a good high school experience with kids like that. I reassured him that I wouldn't do that and that I loved him a ton. After that talk, we went and played football with him and on the last play of the game, he caught the winning touchdown pass. It was so awesome to see him get like that, all excited and happy. It made my Pday. After that, we emailed and had lunch. We hung out and I worked out that afternoon until we had dinner with the P**** family. Their kids make me laugh, their youngest is such a sweetheart - she makes me smile every time I see her. We then went to a part-member family (PMF) to give the wife a blessing and taught more about the priesthood. One of the sisters in our ward told us that her husband really likes us and so hopefully we can start teaching their whole family soon. A pretty productive Pday :).

We had our usual meeting on Tuesday but Elder Thurman got pretty sick so he had Elder Coleman train and it was really good. We made goals and set plans to help ourselves become the best missionary we can be. It was super inspiring. I actually miss training every week. I don't think my Sisters do because I tended to talk a little deeper topics than usual district leaders do... Whoops! We then had lunch and finished our studies. As part of our studies, Elder Anderson and I had a really deep companionship inventory. We talked about our weaknesses and what would keep us from baptizing in this area. We wrote it all down and made a system to keep ourselves accountable to each other. It was much needed because we are imperfect but yet we can make those weaknesses become strengths. We are gonna really focus on this this last week of the transfer. We made visits in the afternoon and then had dinner with the J*** family in our ward. It was a fun dinner; their kids are pretty crazy sometimes though. When we were leaving a quick lesson, their one-year old daughter walked up to me and sat next to me and I read her a book while Elder Anderson taught. Goodness, it makes me ready for a family! Time will come though. We then ran off to teach Kale, one of our PMF we are working with. The family loves us - we are actually having Thanksgiving dinner with them so it'll be exciting. We taught the first part of the Plan of Salvation and they understood it really well. The homework we left with them was Alma 40 to get them ready for next week when we come and teach the rest of the plan. Our goal as a companionship was to get five member present lessons this week and we got it! It was awesome to feel that accomplishment. Our goal is to get seven this week so we're gonna have to work pretty hard to make that happen!

We started off our Wednesday with a super big deep clean of the apartment. We are starting fresh and cleanliness is close to godliness so we took that as our fresh start. It was a good thing too because we felt refreshed and ready to make big things happen! We made a visit to a less-active member who is super sick to see how she was doing. We talked with her and made sure she was doing okay and left a brief lesson with her before she left for chemo. The only downfall was that my gastritis was acting up and it was become quite uncomfortable so I didn't eat very much that night at dinner at Farmer boys. We then rode to Dale’s house to have him ride his bike with us to our appointment that night. We taught Richard again and it went well. Dale and I have some conflicting doctrinal views but I put that aside and we taught well together. As we were leaving the house, Elder Anderson went to OYM this guy walking down the street and they almost got into a physical confrontation. The guy said something provocative about his sister and he about freaked. I had to jump in to cool him down before he did something stupid. And that's why we roll together in pairs :). And then to make matters worse, it starts to rain. Not just rain, POUR. And we were 15 minutes plus away from home so it was quite a fun ride. #WifePoints When we got back to the apartment, we were soaked. I showered and then went to bed. I was freezing cold! I am gonna die in Minot for sure...

We had our lesson with Ivan that went really well. We both testified and taught the first half of the Plan of Salvation. It was awesome to see the Spirit prick his heart. He started to ask us questions about our missions and about the purpose of life and everything. He really is a good kid, I love him to pieces. Right as we rolled outside to ride home, it started to rain again! It poured all day and we worked in it all day. Awesome! Our dinner went well and went to go see Kale and check up on his reading. It's not happening yet but hopefully soon.

Friday was temple day! I needed to go to the temple so badly; I have had a lot of things on my mind that I needed to go talk to God about. I got an interesting answer in the temple that I will have to tell y'all about when I call home for Christmas. It has a long back story and is super, super personal to me. After the temple, we had our temple nap for lunch and then went out to make some visits. Pizza was dropped off for us for dinner and then we went and saw Carmen again to try and set something up for us to come and teach her. Her six-year old daughter drew me a picture that I hung up on my wall. It was awesome!

All we do on Saturday is make church visits and try to get people to come to church. We stopped by Ladio's house to try and see if he would come but he's working on getting over being sick and so that might not happen. The afternoon was kind of shot due to the fact that I really rolled my ankle during lunch. Elders Thruman and Passmore came over for lunch and we started dancing and I rolled my ankle when I stepped on one of my dumbbells. Yup, I'm a dork I know. It killed all day and so we didn't go everywhere that I wanted to but we made calls to those people we missed. We saw this referral that we got from another missionary and we could tell he was on meth and so we'll see what happens with him. Anita took us to Claim Jumper for dinner because we didn't have anyone sign up so she took us. It was quite an adventure with her that night, it always is with her :). I love her to pieces!

I was pretty dead on Sunday because I started to come down with a sickness so it was a slow day for us. Both Elder Anderson and I came down with something. It was probably from the cold and rain earlier in the week. I still am sick so it'll be a fun week working through it all. Kale came to church so that was good! Our dinner made Thanksgiving dinner early for us so that was good. The only downfall was that I had gotten progressively worse so I didn't eat too much... We played some Uno and got to know the family. We did however, have two lessons with Eddy and Tom, some new people we picked up this week and last so that was good. Overall, it was a good week besides the physical ailments I am working though.

In closing, I want y'all to know how much I love MY Savior. I am so grateful for daily repentance; it is something all of need to learn and master because that is the only way back to the Father. I have grown to love the scriptures and the doctrine within its pages. I love that we have modern day prophets and the power and love they have for us. This is the most important work we can do. I'm not a full time missionary, only part time. Y'all as members ARE the full-time missionaries because y'all live in the area and make huge impacts. Keep opening your mouth and share the good news of the Gospel! I love y'all and I'm counting down the days until Christmas time!

- Elder Tonini