I Love What I Do!

June 20, 2016

Hey Y'all!

I keep trying to come up with new and creative ways to say my week was awesome, great, etc., but you already know it was! So I'll just get down to brass tacks. 

Tuesday we had district meeting that day and had dinner with a recent convert that night. We basically spent the whole day with the other Elders so, hey, I'm not complaining. 

Wednesday we said our goodbyes, and I am seriously having withdrawals. I loved those Elders. So just update, both Elder Stanley and Elder Folsom got taken out, so now we are the lone elders in the ward. We had transfers and me and Elder Smith are staying together again! Love it. And the area. Life is so good y'all. I can't even express via email how much I love what I do. I'm pretty much over "new" experiences so now I can just do what I know how to do best, share the gospel. 

Thursday we had another district meeting with our new district leader, Elder Knight. He is a Spanish missionary and he is going to do awesome. I'm really excited for him. But yeah our week was good. Love y'all!

Elder Toolson

 Me and Elder Stanley doing our "what in the world?" Face. We had several non-verbal conversations. Love that man.

 Perfectly describes our district.

 Me and Elder Folsom in front of the dog park.

 We ransacked the other Elders apartment when they left. I have 2 matresses now. And. I. Love it.

I went on a tradeoff win Elder Rivera! He is AWESOME. And super humble. He's from Peru.

June 6 and June 13 letters

June 6, 2016

Hey Y'all! Don't have much time and my iPad is almost dead. Soooo love y'all! My week was great! Really busy and full. We had MLC (missionary leadership council) on Tuesday and interviews Thursday and all sorts of other stuff. Sheila came to church yesterday and bore her testimony! It was awesome!!

Love y'all

Elder Tools

June 13, 2016

Hey Y'all! 

Sorry for the super lame e-mail last week... Anyways. This week! It was crazy. On Monday it POURED. We got a tropical storm and we knocked some doors in the pouring rain. It was great and we were soaking wet. We knocked on this one lady's door and she let us in and we a taught her and her daughter and they loved it. They even sent us off with some barbecue chicken and cake to take home. 

Tuesday we drove down to Chiefland and had district meeting down there. It was great and a good experience. We drove back to Gainesville and had tradeoffs with the Second Ward Elders, Elder Fadely (a district leader) and Elder Arave. I went with Elder Arave and he is the most humble man on the face of the earth. I love him. We biked super hard and had such a blast. And taught tons of people. It was great.

We got up Wednesday morning, went to the first part of another district meeting and had to takeoff for Jacksonville to go on tradeoffs with the AP's and I got to go with Elder Coy. Y'all. It's like the best thing in the world to go on tradeoffs with an old companion. We spent like the whole time reminiscing and Just teaching up a storm. It was great. It was crazy to see how much both of us have changed since almost a year ago. 

We drove back early Thursday morning and came to our district meeting. It was great and the trainings were incredible. We went to work after and taught a ton of people. 

On Friday we went out to Emmanuel's trailer park and took him out with us. It was once again pouring rain and we dragged that poor kid through it all and we all ended up soaked by the end of it. But it was a blast.

Saturday was awesome. We just had an all around good day. We accidentally ended up spending almost 2 hrs at Sheila's because as we got there she was leaving and said she would be right back in like 10-15 minutes. So we taught her granddaughter Destiny, who's about 17, and then Sheila ended up taking forever.... But it was great. We had a good lesson with her and yesterday she came to church for the third time in a row ! She should be getting dunked in the next couple weeks. I'll keep you posted. 

Some of my favorite quotes from church yesterday. "Socialism is important" (he meant to say socializing... Over the pulpit in sacrament meeting. Don't worry he corrected himself) "My knees are fiddin to get a workout" and "do you think Mormon was like, oh crap! Dang it, there's no white out! Oh well..." (Talking about Alma 24:19 with the weapons of peace) it was way hilarious. Anyways! Have a good week! 

Elder Toolson 

(P.S.: Some gift cards would be much appreciated if anyone's up for that. Also just letters in general...)

May 2016 Interviews-- FJM BLOG

May 2016 Interviews

with President Craig

Sister Craig, Elder P. Smith, Elder Toolson

Elder Toolson being taught by Sisters Elwood and L Warr

Elders Rivera, Vaughn, Smith, Toolson, Stanley

Master teachers Elder Toolson and Smith

Sister Elwood being taught by Elders Toolson and Smith

Elders Stanley, Toolson, Folsom, Rivera

Elders Smith, Stanley, Toolson, Folsom, Rivera
Sisters L Warr, and Elwood

         Elders Vaughn, Smith, Toolson, Stanley, Folsom

MLC March 2016, April 2016, May 2016 AND Gainesville Zone Conference May 2016--FJM Blog Pictures

Missionary Leadership Council
March 2016

Elder Vance and Elder Toolson

Elder Vance and Elder Toolson

Missionary Leadership Council
April 2016

Missionary Leadership Council

 Zone Leaders and APs

Zone Leaders and APs

Elder McAlister and Elder Toolson

Elder McAlister and Elder Toolson

Elder Toolson and Elder Coy

Gainesville Zone Conference
May 2016

Elder Foreman, Elder Toolson, Elder Smith

Missionary Leadership Council
May 2016

MLC May

We Hit Our Daily Goals and had some Killer Lessons

May 30, 2016

Hey Y'all! This week was super great! But seriously it's been crazy. Last P-day and Monday we spent in Ocala because we had to do a baptismal interview for Elder Boyson. So we went down and had a super fun p-day, played soccer, basketball,etc. At night we had the interview and Elder Smith did it, so I talked with Elder Boyson and Elder Moreno for like and hour and half. Longest interview ever. 

It was already like 8/8:30 ish when we got back home so we only had time for one lesson. I went with Elder Moreno and he is still relatively new so we totally got lost....BUT we said a prayer went one way and eventually ended up where we needed to be! It was awesome and we had a good lesson. So we spent the night and went to Ocala's District Meeting the next day. It was way awesome and we had such a good time. So we drove back, had a good rest of the day, and we taught Book of Mormon class that night. 

The next day we had our District Meeting and I had a trade-off with Elder Stanley and biked our tails off riding around town.

The next day we also had Elder Fadely's District Meeting here in G'ville as well. The spirit was Definetely felt and we all had a good time. We all went out to Sam's Club for lunch (I didn't even know you could do that) and I got insane amounts of food for super cheap.


Friday, we did some service with a member and we moved a bunch of wood and cleaned out their pool. Saturday was pretty amazing too. We hit all our daily goals and had some killer lessons. We were just biking along and this guy stands up and stops US and ask us if we are from the 5th ward and of course we say yes, and he starts going on about how he used to take the lessons and how he needs the church in his life. And he ended up coming to church yesterday and wants to get baptized! Woo! We are totally going to dunk him. 

And one of our gators, Sheila, I threw down on Thursday in a lesson and basically said if she doesn't start coming to church EVERY week, we would have to stop seeing her. And. She. Came! It was so awesome and she loved it. I'm so happy for her! Here's to another great week! The first picture is from P-day in Ocala, and the second is Elder Folsom and Elder Stanley taking tons of photos on my iPad. Also I've been super in love with this video this week from the addiction recovery program, makes me tear up like every time. 

https://www.mormonchannel.org/12steps
(This is the first video in the Addiction Recovery Program: 
Step One Honesty)

Anyways have a good one. 

Love y'all!

P-Day in Ocala

Elder Stanley and Elder Folsom

A Really Powerful Zone Conference

May 23, 2016

Hey Y'all!

This week has been really good. Hmm. Really good things that happened this week... We had a really powerful Zone Conference on Thursday and learned a lot about different things. The church just came out with new pamphlets for the laws and ordinances lessons so those are super fun to use. I love it because I just freestyle it and don't have to worry about getting stuck in a teaching rut because there isn't even one existing. 

We had our trade-off with Elder Boyson and Elder Moreno this week. I went with Elder Moreno and we spent basically the whole day in the ghetto (75%) of our area. We had a good time though and met some good people. It gets really hard to judge what's a lesson and what's not because people will listen to you all day and even agree but they just don't go anywhere or do anything. Very disorienting. 

Saturday we had a killer miracle with this lady we are teaching named Mel. We came over and she said she was a having a really crappy day and starts going on about the fact that she doesn't know why she's here and doesn't really want to live and we had a super powerful lesson about me and Elder Smith's conversion to the gospel and the plan of salvation and she had a piano and Elder Smith started playing hymns and she said she could really feel the spirit.

We also saw Emmanuel that night and talked to him about serving a mission. He is honestly one of the most kindhearted charitable people I've ever met. I love that boy! I hope he serves. 

But Sunday was good. We had dinner with the Ures after church and it was way fun. Bro. Ure reminds me a ton of Stuart and he asked Elder Smith and Elder Folsom what their most embarrassing stories were and it was way funny. 

Good 2 weeks. We've been teaching monster amounts of people by the grace of God. Like 27 total lessons the past two weeks! I love Gainesville.... I guess I have too if I've served here twice. 

Love Y'all! 

Have a good week!

Something he found while cleaning the apartment.  He thought it was funny.  

This Mission is on Fire!

May 16, 2016

Hey Y'all!

This week was way good. Not a whole lot of special events went on, so we had a ton of time to teach this week. We did have a Zone Meeting on Wednesday and it went amazing. It was really good, we set a Zone goal and had a bunch of good trainings. My training was called, "This mission is on fire!" And it was basically like a pump up speech to get people excited, and apparently something worked, because our Zone killed it this week! It was really good. Makes me love what I do on weeks like this.

I had a really good Trade-off with Elder Foust and we taught about a billion people. Everyone just decided to be home that day so it was pretty great and we ended up teaching most of the day. We also had a detour to go give a blessing at the VA.

Yesterday we had this investigator Josh come to church and it was awesome! The Ward fellowshipped him SO good. First time he had come to church in 2 years. It did wonders for him and he is progressing super well.

In other news we had a freak rainstorm and Elder Smith told me to take a picture of him while I was backing out the car... So I did :) 
Best Companion Ever Award? Me. 

Haha, but yeah my week was great! 

Love y'all!