response to Mom's questions

Dear Mom,

It sounds like you had such a fun week!! I'm glad that you all enjoyed yourselves! I hope you took some good pictures of the "air chair." That sounds pretty exciting. 

I'm pretty impressed with Trinsica making big decisions like that on her own. I've thought a lot about the importance of being proactive and learning to act for ourselves and it seems like Trinsica is a good example of being able to do that.

As for your questions...

Along with my companion, Elder Paskett, our main responsibility prepare and give trainings and help President Shin with any other projects or tasks that he needs. There are 4 Elders total in the office. The other 2 Elders are more in charge of ordering materials, helping with financial, translating, etc. President Shin has a hard time traveling alone and isn’t super fond of driving a lot, so we almost always go with President to Zone Conferences, Firesides, interviews, etc. I’ll be getting my Korean driver’s license within probably a week or so. On normal days, we are in the office until 6 and then we go out and do “normal” missionary work. But this past week was super busy with incoming missionaries, outgoing missionaries, our Mission Leadership Council, and preparing for the Zone Conferences that start tomorrow. The mission home and the mission office are right next to each other inside the same fenced plot of land, but we live on the 2^nd floor of the mission office, not in the mission home. We usually eat meals at our home, but this past week was full of events and special situations where we had quite a few meals with President Shin in their home. It is definitely different, but it’s lots of fun. In lots of ways, I feel like a student, which isn’t really a bad thing because I love being a student.

And just so you know, I found some deodorant and will probably have enough to last me until I go home, so you don’t have to worry about sending it anymore… Thanks for being prepared though! Packages are great just because they are fun, but I know how expensive they are and there isn’t really anything else that I need that I can’t get here, so I will be happy if you don’t worry about sending a package at all. You can just save the goodies for me when I get back instead. ;)

I love you and am so happy to hear you are doing well!! I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love Elder Tolman

First week in mission home

This has been an interesting week!

This past week was super busy as my new companion, Elder Paskett, and I helped with incoming missionaries, outgoing missionaries, our Mission Leadership Council, and preparing for the Zone Conferences that start tomorrow. So we didn't really have a lot of time to go proselyte on the street or teach lessons, but we still got a lot of good things done in the office. 

It was a really neat experience seeing the new missionaries come in and the old missionaries heading home within just a couple days. The difference is so apparent. We had a testimony with the new missionaries on Wednesday night and a testimony meeting with the outgoing missionaries on Thursday night and it was so amazing to see what I imagined as the "one day mission," seeing the changes that happen across 2 years all within 24 hours. It wasn't a situation that you could say one set of people was better or worse than the other, but if I try to express the difference in words, I think I would say that you could tell the outgoing missionaries had made an exchange. They had sacrificed 2 years of time, thought, effort, and soul, and in return you could feel that their "confidence [had waxed] strong in the presence of God" and they had gained a deeper conviction of the reality of their Savior and His love for them. They gave lots away, but the result was priceless. It really was a testimony to me that this is God's work and that when we give our all in the work of the Lord, lives change, almost always beginning with our own. The more we lose our lives in service to others, the more value and fulfillment our own life gains. 

I am so grateful for my Savior and for the opportunity to represent Him in this work! I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored and that lives change every single day as people accept Christ as their Savior and come unto Him. I know that God truly gave us families for a reason and that there is nothing more important to Him than us and our families. Our priorities ought to be the same!

I love you all! Have a splendid week!

Love, Elder Tolman