Genesis 7:12 "And the rain was upon the earth..."

This past week was awesome! Christmas was fantastic. We got together as a zone and ate breakfast and celebrated together. It was fantastic to be able to call home and talk with my family! I hope you guys all had a great Christmas. 

As you can probably guess from the subject line, it rained a lot this week. Everyone tells us that once the rain starts, it doesn't stop until April. We've had a few rainy days here and there, but they are balanced with sunny days. Well this week the rain started.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, President has asked us to visit members of the branch, and share a quick spiritual message, and ask them to pray for us to have success. Elder Coons and I felt that we needed to visit a family that we've never visited before. So we dropped by their house, but the father wasn't home yet, so they told us to come back in about a half hour. So we came back. I felt prompted to share my favorite scriptures, 1 Nephi 3:7, but I always follow it up with 1 Nephi 4:6. Which reads:

6 And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.

So we shared this scripture with them. We finished our thoughts and bore testimony, and the father just looked at us and said, "Do you know what's going on in our family right now?" He shared some of the challenges that they were going through, and how much they needed to hear this message. It was a really cool experience and the Spirit was present for sure.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true!

Elder Tobler

Merry Christmas! (And it's a good thing a picture is worth a thousand words.)

Transfers!

Well, this week I officially finished my first transfer in the field! It has been a good one and I've enjoyed it a bunch. Tomorrow (December 18) will mark 3 months out. Some of it has gone slow, but for the most part, I can hardly believe that it has already been 3 months.

Elder Monsen and I (we're from the same stake at home)

Last Saturday, we received a phone call from President Leishman. He told us that Elder Skousen is being transferred to Port Angeles and that we would receive a brand new missionary. Wednesday was the actual transfer day. We went and picked up Elder Clay. Elder Clay is from Lindon Utah. He took four years of German before the mission and he likes to fence. He's pretty cool. I had the opportunity to knock doors with him and do a little bit of contacting. We're getting along pretty good here.

Elder Clay and I

Last night, the Graham Stake held a multi-faith music fireside. There were many people there from many different religious backgrounds. It was a fantastic program. All of the music that was shared focused solely on Jesus Christ. It was awesome.

Also you probably know about the Light the World initiative that the Church is putting on. We use the LtW videos frequently. If you haven't seen the videos, I'd encourage you to go find them and watch them.

The Christmas season is a busy time, and sometimes we lose focus on what really is important. I know that this Christmas, as I've focused more on The Reason for the season, Jesus Christ, that I've found more peace and happiness, and I'd encourage all of you to find ways to focus on the Christ in Christmas.

Elder Tobler

Fun Fact: The Hendersons were former mission presidents of my mission. They live in my ward at home.

December Brings Cold!

This week we woke up and it was 19 degrees outside. It was way foggy outside. Luckily by five o'clock, when we got to knock on doors, it had warmed up to a solid 28 degrees. Layers work wonders.

This week we got transfer calls and I will be staying in the Graham Spanish area. One of my comps is being transferred to Port Angeles, and we will receive a brand new missionary to train him.

This week I did a door approach over the phone. Some English elders called us and said that they were standing on the porch of a Hispanic man that spoke zero English. So I talked to him a bit and got his name and phone number. The Spanish is coming slowly but surely. 

We had a cool experience at church on Sunday. We have this investigator that has been meeting with missionaries for almost a year now. She has attended sacrament meeting consistently for about a year as well. People just thought she was a member. She hasn't been baptized yet because she lives with her boyfriend. We've never met her boyfriend. We've tried to set up appointments to meet him and they never go through. We weren't even sure that this dude existed cause nobody had ever seen him. So we sit down at church. The meeting starts. And she walks in and her boyfriend is with her! We were so excited. We caught him right after sacrament meeting and set an appointment with him.

The work is good here. The church is true!

Elder Tobler

Today we convinced some members to take us to Mt Rainier. There was a ton of snow. It was super pretty.

Promise. There really was snow.

Mom's Note: I don't think he's even seen The Karate Kid. ;)

See.

Tender Mercies 12/3/2018

This week has been pretty fun.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I don't have much to report on this week. We had interviews with President this past week. Where we have so many new Spanish missionaries, and where we're going to be getting two more Spanish elders this next transfer, he said that it's likely that we will stay the exact same. But he doesn't know where any of the new Spanish elders will go. All of the Spanish missionaries in the mission are in a foursome. He wants to get us all trained, and then send us to a zebra area. Where one comp is English and the other is Spanish. Apparently Elder Nash praised my Spanish in his interview so I may be moved to a zebra zone quicker than I feel comfortable. At that point its sink or swim. And sinking isn't an option. 

We had a zone meeting this past week where we set a goal to have 20 baptisms in December. Our mission goal is to have 100 baptisms on December. So our zone is trying to be 1/5 of the entire baptisms in the mission. We are also trying to stay super motivated as a zone, and we have a Facebook messenger chat. So everyday we have a companionship that is in charge of pumping everyone up. It's been going really awesome.

A tender mercy we had this week was that we set our goal to find 10 new people to teach this week. As of Sunday night, we had only found nine, and we had to report on our goal that night. We had no luck. We called our DL to report our numbers, being one short of our goal. Then we were trying to visit some potentials. We ended up visiting a potential. The only info we had on this potential, was that they were newlywed and their last contact was in 2014. We stopped by, and we found our tenth new person for the week. 

This week Elder Coons and I were knocking on doors and we knocked on the door of an obviously Hispanic guy. And we talked to him all in Spanish. And now he's one of our new investigators. So my Spanish is improving enough. 

A funny thing that happened this week actually happened at the door right after that one. We felt really confident in our Spanish after that point. So we knocked on the next trailer and another Latino man answered. Elder Coons started speaking in Spanish and was stuttering and struggling a little. The man stopped him, looked at us and said, "We can speak English if you want." In perfect English with no accent whatsoever. So we had a good chuckle about that.

The next trailer we were going to knock on was completely dark and neither of us felt real good about it. So we skipped it. We knocked on the next trailer, which happened to be a member. We talked for a bit. And she mentioned, don't knock on the trailer next door, the one we had just passed over. Apparently the lady that lives there likes to throw bricks at missionaries. It helps to pay attention to the promptings of the spirit!

That's all I got this week. Thanks so much!

Elder Tobler

Thanksgiving! 11/26/2018

Well Thanksgiving was this week. I had the opportunity to attend an authentic Mexican Thanksgiving dinner. Which turns out is really similar to an American one.

We got a free turkey from Winco this week, so we also had a learning experience. None of the Elders in my house had ever cooked a turkey before, myself included. So we did some research, mainly consisting of emails to our moms, and we cooked a turkey.

This week, President gave us a talk to read from this last General Conference, entitled "The Role of the Book of Mormon in Conversion" by Elder Shayne M. Bowen of the Seventy. He shares an experience of his MTC teacher, who prior to becoming a member, studied the Bible with the sole purpose of bashing missionaries. But then two missionaries knocked on his door, bore a brief testimony of the Book of Mormon, and left. He then read the entire Book of Mormon in the next two days, and was later baptized. I encourage you to read this talk. The Book of Mormon is true! The Book of Mormon was translated by Joseph Smith! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church on the earth today!

Elder Tobler

Report from Tacoma 11/19/2018

This week was super fun! Being in a companionship of four keeps things really interesting. We also live with our Zone Leaders, so six teenage boys living together really keep things fun.  Our latest game is to lock each other in the bathroom by putting a chair in front of the door. The current record is just over a minute. We keep life interesting.

Oftentimes when we tract, we tract in English, because the majority of people that live here, speak English. It makes it a little bit frustrating, because when we find someone that is actually interested, we have to refer them to the English Elders. We also don't get referrals very often, and, if we do, usually it's something weird. I kid you not, we got a referral once that said, 'house smelled like beans.' Or another classic is 'couldn't understand, probably Spanish.' Anywho, this week we actually got a really solid referral from a member of the English ward. We also got dinner out of it too, which was a huge blessing.

We were able to meet with our new referral, as well as the English Member, who also speaks Spanish. The referral and his girlfriend both had a lot of really great questions and we think that they have some really good potential. 

This week, being the week of Thanksgiving, I just would like to share a few things that I am grateful for. I am grateful for my companions. They're awesome. They are always joking and making missionary work fun. I'm grateful for great friends and family back home. I'm grateful for all the support that everyone has given me over the years. During this Thanksgiving season, I challenge you guys to also share something that you're grateful for. 

Elder Tobler

Fun Pics: We caught a frog in front of our house.

Report from Tacoma, Week 2

This past week has been awesome! All the weeks here are awesome. It's gotten super cold, as well has foggy. One morning we woke up and the fog was so dense, you could barely see across the street. It definitely made driving fun that day.

I had my first opportunity to attend a Branch Council meeting this past Sunday. Our Branch President is awesome and he's super excited to have four missionaries. He is from the DR, which makes understanding him a little bit challenging, but it is slowly getting easier and easier. Spanish is coming slowly, but surely. It is funny because we have a Spanish branch, but almost all of the members speak English as well, which takes a little pressure off, but a lot of the members know that none of us speak Spanish very well, so they enjoy speaking very quickly to us and then seeing our faces because we only caught two or three words from the whole sentence.

Anywho, our Branch has been focusing on Alma 5 for a while, and the Branch President regularly calls branch members up to bear their testimony regarding this chapter. In Branch Council this passed Sunday he shared Alma 5:38-39 with us. Those are some really great verses and I would invite you to read them. He then talked about how in God's eyes, there is no gray area. I also read a talk about the four types of missionaries. It talked about how if there was a straight line, between God and Satan, and you were on that line, you are always moving. There is no standstill. You are either progressing towards God, or regressing to Satan. We need to make sure that we are always growing closer to God.

Elder Tobler

Tacoma Week 1

I arrived in Tacoma last Monday! I flew from Mexico City with five other Elders. We met President and Sister Leishman at the airport. In addition to the six elders from Mexico, we arrived with about 18-19 other missionaries from the Provo MTC. 

My companions are Elder Nash, Elder Skousen, and Elder Coons. Elder Coons and I were in the CCM together. We are in the Graham Spanish area, which covers from Spanaway to Eatonville to Ashford if you look on a map. It is ginormous. Most of our work is in Spanaway and surrounding areas.

Elder Nash and I had a neat experience while knocking (on doors) this week. Earlier in the day, we prayed over an area and felt that we needed to knock a certain trailer park. We began knocking a few doors and I mentioned that I just didn't feel super good in the trailer park. I kind of felt that we weren't supposed to be knocking there. We knocked a few more doors, and Elder Nash expressed a similar feeling. We decided that we would knock a different trailer park nearby.

We drove into the other park and immediately we felt better. We knocked a few doors, talked to a few dudes in Spanish, but we were having no luck. We knocked on the next trailer, and we heard a dude yell, "Come in!" So we cracked the door, and talked about how we are missionaries and he invited us in. We talked for about a half hour about faith and repentance. His name was Walter and he talked about how he always just did what he felt he needed to do. He pretty much was following spiritual promptings without even knowing what they were. He said that since we knocked on his door tonight, that he felt that it was God's way of telling him that he needed to listen to us. Unfortunately, this was all in English, so we had to refer him to the English Elders that we live with, but he committed to reading the Book of Mormon right then and there. Talk about Golden. We continued to talk a little after our lesson, and he mentioned that he was an amputee, something we hadn't noticed because he was sitting under a blanket. He was super cool. 

This experience strengthened my testimony of following Spiritual Promptings. The Lord will guide you to those who are ready, but only if you let him!

Elder Tobler

Leaving the CCM/Arriving in the Washington Tacoma Mission

A picture says a thousand words...

CCM Semana 5

So I'm writing this on my phone. The power went out and there's only a tiny bit of Wi-Fi. There's been some crazy power outages this week. It's been exciting.

This week has pretty much just been focused on getting us ready to enter the field. We've had classes everyday about expectations and whatnot. It's been pretty fun. Pretty much I'm just super excited to be leaving. So that's neat.

I gave my first talk in Spanish this week. It was on families, and the importance of teaching about families. It was supposed to be 5 minutes long, no more, no less, they were very clear about that. So I prepared about a page in my study journal, thinking that it would take about 5 minutes to read through. I severely underestimated how fast I could actually speak Spanish. I blew through my prepared thoughts in about two minutes, and I still had three minutes to kill and it had to be in Spanish. So I just started going, not really knowing where I was going, but I was definitely going. I bore my testimony and closed, then went back to my seat, where Elder Atkinson informed me that I spoke for 7 minutes on the dot, whoops. But the next Elder's talk was about two and a half minutes, so it evened out. 

This Tuesday we had a devotional streamed from the Provo MTC with Elder Soares. It was really awesome. He told about his parents' conversion story, and how he still remembers it, despite only being five at the time. He read some excerpts from the journal of one of the Elders that taught his family. It made it more spiritual that it was almost 54 years ago to the day that these events took place. It was fantastic. He is a man called of God.

The CCM is awesome! I fly to the mission field next week! 

All's well here in Mexico City!

Elder Tobler 

CCM Semana 4

This week, the CCM suffered a power outage. We didn't have power for a good 14 hours. It was awesome. It wasn't a huge problem until night. We had to shower in the dark, which was an adventure, and some of us had to take cold showers, which also was an adventure. Most of the missionaries just busted out their own personal flashlight and went on with their merry way.

We were told to pack flashlights in our packing list. Many of the missionaries here are headed to countries that might not always have electricity or warm water, and they were warned accordingly. Some of the missionaries chose to not include a flashlight in their bags, and I'm sure that they all regretted this decision as we went to bed on Tuesday night. Some were well prepared and brought bright lights, one Elder in our room even had a lantern. But unless you had a lantern, it is tough to share a light.

In life, we are all told that the dark times will come, and it's our choice to prepare for them or not. During the day, we can get by without having a strong testimony, or without deep roots in the Gospel. But when those dark times come, we have to be ready, and we have to be prepared, and have our own testimony to help us through those dark times. And just like it's tough to share a light, it's tough to be completely reliant on the testimony of others in those dark times.

Another week down, Only about a week and a half until we fly out to the field. I love it here and couldn't be happier.

Elder Tobler

CCM Semana 3

Well, this week was awesome!

Pretty much a bunch of classes, just like every week. 

There are so many mosquitos here. After we do our laundry, they ask us to leave the washers open so they can air out. Well it's so humid, I don't know if anything ever dries out completely. We all learned that you can't do laundry first thing in the morning or else you will be swarmed by mosquitos. Literal swarms of 'squitos. Millions of them.

It rained super hard yesterday. And a tree about forty yards from our classroom. The top of the tree is now just charred branches. Our hallway flooded, waterproof shoes for the win tho. 

There's not a lot to report this week. Our Spanish is getting mucho mejor. 

Elder Tobler

CCM Semana 2

This week was incredible! I learn so much every single day!

I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to come to the Mexico CCM, it's so beautiful here. There are parrots flying everywhere. One day there was a moth, about seven inches across, in our classroom. That was pretty cool. And I'm learning so much Spanish. Sometimes it is a little frustrating, but my companion and I work through it.

We were supposed to have a live broadcast from the Provo MTC with one of the General Authorities this past Sunday. Turns out he got sick, so instead we had the CCM president, President Bennet and his wife give us a devotional on The Book of Mormon. In my personal study this week, I´ve been studying Preach My Gospel, Chapter 5, as well as reading some of the Saints book.

This week I'd just like to testify

of the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon. As I've studied it daily, and feasted on the words, my testimony has grown so much, and I'm grateful for the knowledge that I have of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the CCM, we talk a lot about our purpose, and why we are here. Our missionary purpose is to Invite others to come unto Christ. But why are you here? I have heard many answers to that question, some good, some alright, and some mediocre. One of the best answers I heard was, "This Gospel has brought me so much joy, how can I not share this Gospel with the world?"

This Church is true! President Nelson is the Prophet, and I look forward to hearing from them this weekend!

Much Love, 

-Elder Tobler

These green circles are all over. They're earthquake rendezvous points.

And some pictures of the facilities here: