Dear Family and Friends,

This has been one of the best weeks so far since I have been here. Everything is going well and I'm loving the work. The older generation of Korean missionaries just left this week and it reminded me how excited I am to be heading to Korea in four weeks and how important it is to do all I can here in the MTC so I don't have to waste as much time learning it all in the field.

A couple cool bits of news that I think a lot of you have heard about is that there is going to be a new mission in Korea! They combined the Seoul missions into one just a few years ago, but they are re-splitting them in the near future. I have heard that the new boundaries are going to be the same as when the Seoul mission was two missions before, but I don't know for sure. I think that does mean that there is a possibility I could be transfered to the new mission. It would be interesting to be a part of a new mission, but I would like to stay in the Daejeon mission if the Lord will allow it. But I know that if I do get transfered, it will be the Lord's will, so it would be fine.

One reason that I am pretty excited to be in the Daejeon mission is that the Korean Branch President here at the MTC, Pres. Shin, has been called to be the new mission president in Daejeon this summer! He has been a branch president here for about 10 years or so and he is an incredible man. Everyone loves him and he is a native Korean, so I think he will be an incredible mission president. It will also be a cool opportunity to be able to work with him here for the next few weeks before he is a mission president in Korea. A couple other cool things about him is that he works for Samsung and I think he is like a regional CEO in America for the company, which is pretty crazy. He is an amazing man, so I hope I get to serve under him in Daejeon.

My first week of duties as a Zone Leader has definitely been a bit more busy, but it hasn't been too bad and I really enjoy it so far. It's not easy being responsible for the decisions and progression of others, but I'm excited to do my best. I had the opportunity to hold interviews with some of the District Leaders and I loved it. It was a cool experience to counsel with them to try to understand God's will for us to meet the needs of these missionaries. I am so grateful for opportunities I have had in the past to work with people and to have some leadership training. Sunday was pretty busy with all the meetings, but the hardest part was that evening. Since all the older Elders were leaving, the other Zone Leader (Elder Gardener) and I had to sign off their cleaning/checkout sheets before they would be cleared to go. They were leaving super early, so we had to get it done before going to bed. The native Korean elders were up cleaning pretty late, so we didn't finish until just after midnight and got to bed around 12:30. It was kind of crazy, but still fun to visit with them for the last time.

Our teaching has been going well, both with our progressing investigators and with the TRC. I'm getting better at needing less and less script during the lessons, which is really exciting. I'm happy to see some improvement. The Korean in general is going well. This week we were challenged to memorize the first vision in Korean, so I finished that this Sunday. It's pretty cool. I really love Korean. We also got to watch a couple church films in Korean on Sunday. I didn't understand much, but I could pick out lots of little things, which was fun. I still have a long way to go, but it's definitely coming.

One of the coolest things I did this week is that we finally had the chance to perform our musical number. We even got to do it at the MTC devotional like we had hoped. It went really well! I forgot the words for a second, but apparently nobody noticed, so that was a little bit of a miracle. Everyone said that it was amazing and I felt good about it. It was a cool experience. They record all the devotionals, so I might ask if there is any way I can get a clip of it, but I don't know if that is even a possibility. But I guess it doesn't hurt to ask.

That is pretty much it for the week. Thanks for all your love, support, and prayers! One thing that I have thought about this week is the power of the God in our lives and the way that it is manifested. For the first week or so here, I kept waiting for some huge increase in my ability to learn Korean and for miraculous experience of me saying things I had never learned and understanding things I had never heard. When it never came that way, I was wondering how much the Spirit was really playing a role in my learning or if I was just learning fast on my own like I had before my mission. But over the past couple weeks I have realized more and more that I think God usually doesn't work in ways that are distinctly beyond expectations. He usually doesn't just throw miracles in our path and allow us to stumble upon them. I think more often the change and the power is in us, not in the situation. He helps us to become better and to be more capable of fulfilling His desire for us to act and not be acted upon. He molds our mediocrity into magnificence. So even though I haven't seen surprising miraculous events, I can definitely testify that my ability to learn and serve is being magnified by the power of God. Like Ammon said, we truly are nothing without God, and yet when we rely on Him, He can do so much good through us. I am grateful for the intimate role that God plays in my life and in all of our lives. He truly is in the details of our lives and His love and His power is made manifest in everything we do as long as we humbly look and recognize that He truly is there.

I love you all! Thanks for being wonderful! Be magnificent!!!

-Love, Elder Tolman