"No matter how much you polish a terd... It's still a terd!" -Elder Anderson

Ready for my week? Leggo!

Monday was a crazy Pday for us. We emailed for an hour and then ran off to lunch with Dean and Pat C**** and they showed us this super sweet diner that we both love now! They are really a neat couple. We ran back to the library to finish emailing and after I got done emailing, I taught a lesson to these teenage kids in the library that the Foothill Sister's were teaching so that was pretty cool! We than ran home to work out and chill until it was dinner time. We had KFC with the P**** family and had a FHE lesson with them over justice and mercy. The kids were asking about it and so we had a lesson over it. I honestly didn't understand it for the longest time until my mission. I love that those kids were asking those questions! Before we left their house, we contacted their neighbor that was getting home and he actually accepted a blessing from us! More details to come about William and family :). We then got our OYMs on the way home and while we were at the mailroom, I contacted this lesbian couple that were walking by and we had a nice conversation that turned into a brief lesson with them. Teach when you find, find when you teach works! We didn't get a return appointment but we did have a positive impact on them so that was good!

On Tuesday, we finished some weekly planning from the previous week and then we went out to work. We saw Tom for a brief, daily contact lesson and then we ran off to dinner with the J**** family. That was super good! Anyway, we went to go teach Cale but then we got there and Sister Cl*** said that they were at the 12 step addiction recovery program thingy that the Church puts on so that was awesome to hear! We taught Sister C**** at the door and then taught Jimmy and Kyle when they got home. We then booked it to go see William again and left a really good blessing. We tried to invite him to baptism but we kept talking about history and his past and stuff. He even talked about taking a dead body over the border of Mexico and how it was legal to do so. Kinda creepy but he is a good man. He has two daughters, 10 and 7 so that will be good for them! William is from Guatemala and he talked about an oral tradition that his people saw a white man descend out of heaven and talk with them, ascend back up and that now they are waiting for Him to come back. BAM! The Book of Mormon is SO TRUE! It was a great segway into introducing the BoM. It was super cool way to finish our night :) Two new investigators!

Wednesday was when I started to get sick again... I woke up and worked out but then I started to tank. We still taught four lessons but I was not feeling good. We went by and saw Paul R*** to talk with him. He owns his own company reloading ammunition so that was pretty cool to see that process. He can ship ammo now so when I get some of my own firearms I am going buy from him! Before dinner, we went by to see Nick and Allison. We taught them about the pre-earth life and how we can overcome tribulations. We gain patience through going through tribulations! We then had dinner with the Cl**** again and we taught Cale there too. Elder Anderson taught a lady on the street named Tracy and got a return appointment for today that we are hopefully gonna see today so that was good! But my health was not good that day but I just kept truckin' away.

Oh man, Thursday was not good. We weekly planned and then we went out to go see Tom again and when we got back to the house, I took four Benadryl thinking that it would help with my sinus and flu symptoms even though its mainly for allergy. Yes, I know it makes you drowsy but I thought I could fight it. Yup, I was wrong. After dinner with Brother H*** at Amy's Diner, I crashed HARD. I fell asleep at around 6:30pm and I didn't get up until 6:30am the next day. Yup, I was pretty sick and I knocked out. I still don't feel the best but I am working through it. So needless to say, we got behind in our lessons and we had to play catch-up for the rest of the week.

Friday was zone meeting and that went well besides the fact I was still feeling crappy and I got the biggest migraine on the planet. Plus we had a huge scare on the way home. Since we still don't have our phone, the office was trying to get a hold of us because the management at our apartment called and said our apartment was leaking and that we had to get all of our possessions out ASAP. Well, that was the message that got relayed to us by another missionary. We booked it home right as maintenance was walking out of our apartment and the Cle** walked up too. There was a leak in the guest bathroom upstairs that had leaked slowly into the downstairs apartment. It was nothing big, just had to fix the tub real quick and then dry out the bottom apartment. We did have a good talk with the Cle***, which I guess Mom knows because they knew me when they saw me. So that was cool and then Marco, one of the maintenance guys that came to fix the leak, talked to us about the church and we taught him about the Book of Mormon and gave him our info so we can stay in touch. Pretty funny how the Lord works sometimes haha. After that settled down, I have to take care of my migraine so I showered and slept again. We missed dinner but they dropped off money but missed a dessert appointment. However, we did see Allison and Nick to see if we were good for Saturday but Nick has to work... We then ran off to P**** to see him and his family. We taught the kids about Lehi's dream because that's the missionary slang for sleeping during studies haha. I thought it was funny and the kids learned a lot! Even though it was kinda a batched day, we made the best outta it.

Saturday morning, we visited with Sister Sanchez at her salon to see how she is doing. Since we don't have our phone, it's been hard to see her husband because he doesn't like drop by's but we're gonna start doing them anyways. Anyways, we went and saw Ivan again even though we dropped him and invited to come to church. Did he come? No, but we still tried. We were on our way up to Jean's house when Elder Anderson contacted this lady on a bike and we ended up having a lesson with her and bearing testimony of our purpose. We had her in tears, the Spirit was so strong. Even on the street, we can still bring the Spirit! She is up to meet with us again so that will be super cool! Jean wasn't there but we didn't go there to see her, it was for Jody. The cool thing is that I prayed for a miracle to happen because things aren't going how I want them to in the area and now we found her. It was a pretty small but really powerful miracle experience! We went to go see Cale but he was wrapped up in taking care of a sick baby so we taught Jimmy instead. He's wanting to come back to church and I love that about him! Even if I don't baptize Cale, at least I could re-activate a family for life. We then ran back to the apartment to grab my Nerf fun that I promised Allison's son, Ryker, if he was good this week. We had a brief Sabbath Day lesson with Nick and then we had an all out Nerf war with the kids. Yup, I'm still a big kid at heart haha. I modified my gun that I gave Ryker and I forgot how hard it shot until he shot me! Ryker hit his sister from across the room underneath the table through chairs which was a pretty dope shot! Poor girl haha she's only two but she is fearless. Yup, a super fun way to end the night.

Sunday at Church was good, we had Cale come but that's it... We had ward council in the morning and then made church visits until sacrament meeting started. I was actually a good testimony meeting! That was my last testimony meeting as a missionary... Oh man! Crazy! I got up with Noah Tanileu who is fixin' to turn eight on Saturday and be baptized. He was scared to go up and so I told him I would go up there with him and so we did it! He got up to the pulpit and said "brothers and sisters... TALOFA!" and the whole congregation said it back! It was awesome! It was just like being back in Moreno Valley :). I bore my testimony on being missionaries and the Savior. Brother H*** got up and spoke about his missionary experiences and told the whole ward how great of a time it was having us in his home to teach John. It was awesome! That was a basic theme in the whole testimony meeting, it was so sick! Then the fireworks happened... Cale dragged us into a discussion about marijuana and the church's stance on it. Now mind you, Elder Anderson wants to be a narcotics cop and get drugs off the streets and so he has done his research on everything. He told Cale what was up and then he even dragged Dale P*** and David Pu*** into the discussion after gospel principles. Needless to say, Cale is justifying smoking pot even though he has a medicinal card for it. So we gotta help him overcome that. We finished church and then went over to the Cl**** for dinner to break our fast. They had the Super Bowl on and so we watched it with them while we ate. We taught Cale about the Word of Wisdom and the promise of "running and not be weary and walk and not faint". They wanted us to stay but we told them we had to go out and make some more visits. We went to see Rodney but we only taught him briefly. I want him baptized so much! I am make it happen before I leave. Before that though, we got into a bash with their neighbor downstairs about the Book of Mormon but the lady wouldn't listen to us so it was pointless. Plus I didn't want to leave a bad impression by telling her she was wrong so we just left it at that. After that, we rode to Gawry's to see what was up with Melissa. I guess she has gotten kinda scared when we invited her to baptism and when she was feeling that it was true so she kinda back off... That sucks but we won't give up. However, Dalian got into the marshmallows are we starting trying to throw it into each other's mouths which turned into Dalian throwing them everywhere haha. I threw one into Anastasia's mouth on the second throw! Yeah buddy haha. We already got our OYMs and so we rode home for the night. I made calls to the district and zone leaders and we called it a night.

So these last few weeks have really interesting for me. I am frustrated with the area because it always seems to not go our way when we are working has hard as we can... Of course we are working on being obedient, repenting daily and trying to make things work but I keep getting frustrated because I haven't seen it yet... But I am gonna be that closer that comes in the ninth inning with the bases loaded, up by a run to save the game. I think about Lights Out Lidge when he played for the Astro's and how he was clutch all the time. I gotta be clutch now and finish it off. I am trying to keep that mentality as I keep working these next few weeks. Keep me in your prayers and always know that I love the Savior and that He is MY Personal Savior. I love y'all and we will talk soon!

- Elder Tonini