This week was super exciting! We had some fun experiences!

Last Sunday, there was a super crazy windstorm. It blew over trees and there was a bunch of debris everywhere. About half of our stake didn't have power, so our church actually got canceled. One of the members in our branch had a massive pine tree fall over in her backyard. Nothing was damaged luckily, she just needed some help cutting it up and stacking the wood and cleaning up the debris. It was super crazy because the tree fell perfectly in between all of the stuff in the backyard. It was super fun!

Yesterday we got invited to dinner with our Branch Mission Leader's family. Turns out it was actually his Wife's birthday party. They fed us street tacos and we all sat and talked for a bit. Then they pulled out a big pot full of menudo. They've fed it to missionaries in the past, and most of the time, the missionaries aren't too fond of it. They just wanted us to try it. So we did. It was interesting. For those who don't know, menudo is essentially just cow intestine soup. Its super chewy and fatty. So that was an adventure. 

While Elder Clay and I were knocking this week, we were able to hand out 6 copies of The Book of Mormon! It was super cool. Usually when we knock we're pretty lucky if we hand out two or three. We had to go back to the car a few times to get more! It was awesome! We also found some new investigators, which we have to refer unfortunately. It was super cool!

Elder Tobler

New Years and Baptismal Invites!

This week was a good one. On New Year's Eve, we just came home early and hung out. We were in bed at 10:30. Probably the most uneventful New Year's Eve that I've ever had.

This week we also did exchanges with our District Leader. His name is Elder Sears and he's from St. George, Utah. He's super cool. Elder Nash and I went with him to a lesson that he had scheduled, and we put the investigator on date for baptism! It was super cool.

Last Saturday, Elder Clay and I were tracting and we weren't having any success. We started to head back to the car so we could head to an appointment. We were almost to the car, when two girls turned the corner. I asked them if they wanted to hear a message about Jesus Christ, and to my surprise, they said yes. So we talked for about ten minutes, and we taught them almost the entire Restoration. We showed them the pictures in the front of the Book of Mormon, and we showed them the pictures of Alma at the Waters of Mormon. When I showed her that picture, I felt the overwhelming impression to invite her to be baptized. I got way scared, cause we had only been talking to her for about 10 minutes. But I invited her, and she said yes! Elder Clay and I committed her to being baptized on Jan 26, after talking to her for only 10 minutes. It was so cool! Unfortunately we have to refer her over to the English Elders, but it was still way awesome! If you follow spiritual promptings, you'll never be wrong!

Elder Tobler

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