Saturday, September 30, 2017

Outgoing and Incoming Missionaries: Times of Tears and Joy!

This is an edited version of the post on the California Riverside Mission blog:

Monday and Tuesday have been days of outgoing and incoming missionaries, full of tears and joy! .....
             
Tuesday, September 26, 2017—The leaving and the coming

...Soon, the 25 new missionaries began to descend the chairs and escalator. What a grand sight. Think of it: 25 new missionaries. Three had arrived the night before from the Mexico City Missionary Training Center (MTC), which we didn’t get to meet because we were with the outgoing missionaries. We greeted them all warmly. They looked great! 

And here are 25 of the 28 who arrived! 
We whisked them off to the Mission Office where they ate a delicious lunch, participated in a truncated training because of the lateness of their arrival, had interviews with me, ate dinner, participated in an “unveiling” of who their new companions were going to be, shared their testimonies with all of us, then loaded all of the belongings and bikes in their companions and district cars, and headed home. There was no time for them to breathe, from the moment they landed until they entered their cars for the long ride home. We can tell you, though, the energy with these missionaries coupled with their new companions, was high and contagious. We love them already and will grow to love them even more! (Note: * means new missionary)

Hermanas Tonini and Sorensen*

Hermanas Harper y Caldes*

We love these new missionaries who have arrived. Stay tuned for information about the missionaries who have arrived from Puerto Rico.


Monday, September 25, 2017

When the Phone Rings

Sorry, I have zero time to write because we are doing transfer journal signing! Just know that lots and lots of tears were shed this week because I am leaving the best area, comp, and ward ever. My heart truly is here in MoVal. I am really nervous about doubling-in to Corona AND training...so prayers and advice would be wonderful! I am excited for the new challenges ahead of me and I know I will grow a lot. I can't wait to meet my trainee and hopefully set the pace and tone for her whole mission...it's a lot of pressure but if President and the Lord believe in me, then I will not doubt.


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SPANISH CREWWWWWW. Elder Spittle (far left) and Elder Parson (far right) are both going home and I am super sad. The older you get in the mission, the more people you know who go home..

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THE ZONE ❤









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THE LOVE OF MY LIFEEEEEE! (pizza, not my companion) (jk, I love her more than pizza)



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MY WARD!!!!!

Monday, September 18, 2017

J-Shon 2.0

Investigator update:

With the Ni*** family we celebrated Angel's 10th birthday with them on Monday and had a lesson afterwards. We have taught them everything already, so we are just really focusing on the Book of Mormon and helping them gain a testimony. They were really good at reading the children's one for a really long time but every since that threeish-week break when the grandpa was in the hospital, they stopped. We had invited Karly to read the actual Book of Mormon because just reading the kid one wasn't really going to help her get a super strong testimony, but she hadn't read. So for the lesson we read 3 Nephi:11 with them and it was super powerful. Hopefully when we stop by this week they will have read some. They didn't come to church on Sunday which was strange because they have come nearly every Sunday since we have been teaching them... It's difficult because they want to wait until November to get baptized because they want the dad to take the charlas (discussions) and get baptized with them but it's nearly impossible to find him home and we have made little progress with him. I love this family so much and it's going to break my heart to leave them next week.... (95% positive I am getting kicked out of MoVal)

With Destiny, she was supposed to have her baptism interview yesterday after church, but they didn't go to church...? We don't know what happened....we have an FHE with them tonight because Liz wants to know how to do one. We had a cool experience with them last week! So we are teaching Liz separately from Destiny because Liz has been inactive for nearly all of her life so she wants to be taught h everything but not in the child/simple version we give her kids. So when it was just the three of us, she asked us a bunch of questions and somehow patriarchal blessings came up and she was very interested. We went by later that week and she was so happy when she told us she talked to Obispo and she is going to receive her blessing!1 When she told us I felt the Spirit so strong. It has been so rewarding to help reactivate her and help her daughter prepare for baptism. It's incredible the changes that are happening in her family right now..

Man, I love the work.

Then we had a lesson with Olga Me***, who is a recent convert of about 9 months. So when I first got here to MoVal, she was not coming to church. Her son Kai was baptized but never even got confirmed. So at the end of my first transfer we finally got them to church so Kai could be confirmed. He had gone about two months without getting confirmed. With Hna Moran, we have made sure we got her a ride so she and her son can go to church and they come almost every Sunday. Then, with our CR lesson this week, she has kind of just kind of spewed out everything that is going wrong in her life right now. It was super sad really. In the  middle of her talking, a question came to my mind: "Have you thought about going to the temple?" I pushed it aside because she was still telling her stories but the question came to mind again at the end of the lesson and so I asked her that exact question. I asked her if she had desires to prepare herself to go to the temple and  she said yes! And I was all, "Like, you want to meet with Obispo and do the interview this Sunday?" AND SHE SAID YES!!! I am so excited that Hermana Moran is going to be able to help her do family history work and plan the temple trip so she can go for the first time :) So many great things are happening here, and I know I am leaving everything in good hands. (she couldn't make it to church bc Kai has bronchitis but she will have her interview next week)

Then I had ANOTHER COOL EXPERIENCE WOOOOOOW. So, we went to go seeking Friday morning but the place we chose ended up being a neighborhood we sought like a week ago. So I grabbed the gps to find another neighborhood nearby, but we had hit this section of our area pretty hard this transfer. I finally found an area that had streets I didn't recognize, so I was all, "Let's go seek there!" Well I found out why once we got there, I had chosen a neighborhood just outside of our area. I was getting a little frustrated because we had wasted so much time so I handed the gps over to Hna Moran and she picked ANOTHER neighborhood for us to go seeking in. However, there was no parking because there were street signs everywhere saying "No Parking Fridays from 7am-2pm for street sweepers" So then we drove over to a gated complex kind of nearby where one of our members lives and parked there. By this time we had wasted like half of our allotted buscando con fe time and I was feeling VERY frustrated. Not to mention, after walking for 30 minutes we hadn't talked to anyone. There was nobody outside. So, I did what I always do when we go seeking and there's no one outside. I prayed. I said a fervent pray in my heart that we would find at least ONE potential or referral so there would be a reason why we had to go through everything that morning. Why we ended up in this neighborhood at this time. Not even five minutes later we turned the corner and found a man in his garage who we almost didn't even see. After I contacted him and asked him if we could share a message of Jesus Christ he said, "Yeah, come on in, y'all want some water?" It was just so easy. He accepted us in with such love. Jonathon was SO nice and has such a strong faith. He ate up everything we taught him and he accepted a baptism date for October 22nd! He truly was a miracle and an answer to a prayer.

The reason for my subject title is because our Zone Leaders here also taught a Jonathon, a 9 year old boy, and in district meeting they would always call him j-shon....? Never figured out why, but now we have another j-shon in the zone and we are pretty excited about it.

Oh, yesterday I hit my 8 month mark and we also went to a reception of someone in the ward because the mom and signed up for our dinner that day, so we snagged some tacos and made a new friend named Nancy who LOVES missionaries and wanted to take lots of pictures with us :)


Love y'all! Big changes are coming next transfer...I feel it.

Hermana Tonini

P.S. So since my comp is an STL she has to give a training in Multi-Zones. Since there wasn't another STL in the other two zones, guess who had to train with her? Me.  It was terrifying. We worked really hard on it though, and I think it went pretty well!

Monday, September 11, 2017

Where's Your Faith?

We have to leave here pretty soon for Riverside for our Multi-Zone activity so here's my favorite experience from the whole week:

So, we had the coolest experience last night. We were so close to hitting standard three weeks in a row but we didn't have time to fit language study in during the day so we headed in a little early so we could be obedient and get all of our studies in. So we sent in our accountability to the zone leaders and they sent us a text back saying to go back out and work for an hour. We explained we had language study to do, but they were like, "And? Y'all need ONE more investigator until you hit standard." So at first I was a little angry, I am going to be honest. However, anger fires me up so I was like, "ALRIGHT LET'S DO THIS. I WILL BE DOING LANGUAGE STUDY UNTIL 10:30 BUT THAT'S OKAY. LET'S GO." We knelt down to pray after choosing a referral to go see and I don't think I have EVER prayed with that much passion before in my life. My faith was on fire. I knew we were going to find another investigator. Another child of God to bring back into the fold.

So we ran out to the car and went over to the Santiago Trails and guess what??? We had a lesson and picked up TWO new investigators. The whole time I just had so much faith. When she opened the door and we were talking with her in my mind I was all, "I have the faith. You will let us in and let us share a message of Jesus Christ." After we were done teaching I was all, "I have the faith. You will let us come back for a return appointment." AND THEY SAID YES. My chest was on FIRE and I just felt a burn inside of me like I have never felt before. It was incredible. I am so grateful for our incredible zone leaders that push us harder than we ever thought we could go. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have hit standard three weeks in a row and I wouldn't have had that faith-building experience. I am so grateful for these miracles and blessings that we get to see each and every day.

Also, if this picture doesn't explain STL/half companion life I don't know what does. So proud of my companion for completing two transfers of being an STL, she killed it.


Monday, September 4, 2017

#classic


❤ TEMPLO ❤

So I don't have much of an update because I just emailed on Friday. Just know that I feel the most blessed than I think I have ever felt in my life. I love my companion. I love Moreno Valley. My ward is incredible. We are now working with TWO incredible families plus Destiny and a new investigator Norma who came to church yesterday. I love this work with all of my heart and I learn something new every day. I am nowhere close to the missionary I need to be. I falter every day. Sometimes I feel like I still belong in training. However, I am learning to have patience with myself and just learn and move on. Progression truly is such a beautiful gift. I love being able to grow WITH my investigators. I know I am leaving in three weeks and it breaks my heart. However, I am going to make the best of the next three weeks. I love this Gospel and these precious children of God. How did I ever get so lucky to serve a mission? I loved being able to go to the temple this week. The Spirit is to tangible in the temple and I received revelation like I never have before. Oh how I long to be in the temple again...but I know there will be time for that after my mission. It was beautiful to be reminded of the sacred covenants I have made with my loving Heavenly Father.

Hermana Soto is the love of my life and she took us to not only the temple but CAFE RIO!


Isn't the Redlands Temple just stunning? 


My cutie comp let me steal her dress for the day and it was an honor to go to the temple with her. Not only are we doing work for the people that are living, but dead as well. What an honor to work together on both sides of the veil.

Friday, September 1, 2017

Friday Pday = TEMPLE!!

So, we didn't have Pday on Monday because we get to go to the temple today!!!! I am so so so excited because it has been around seven months since I got to go last!





Here was our recent MFAM project.....repainting a helicopter! I had to paint the inside of the door frame but the door wouldn't stay open so I had to get a little creative.







Here is the aftermath:



Our little Familia N is progressing super well! We taught them tithing this week and Angel comes up to me, drops two quarters in my hand, and said, "Here is my tithing!!" They come to church every Sunday and last Sunday during church, we finally taught the dad and he is willing to listen and give us a chance! It was a miracle because he is never home so the only time we see him is when he goes sometimes with the family to church! So that just means we will have to teach him and his wife during second or third hour, because that is the only time out of the week he has. Also, the little three year old Penelope picked a bunch of flowers for us and Hna Moran attempted to make a flower crown...which kind of worked?

Had a ton of testimony-building experiences that I wish I could share but they are kicking us off early today. Love y'all!

Look up 2 Nephi 4:20...it's my new favorite!

Love,
Hermana Tonini