week 66: goodbye, Senahu

So I guess the big news this week is that I am getting changed! I cried! I will be super sad to leave Senahu, this has been by far my favorite area with some of the most special people I have ever met. These goodbyes have been pretty hard. I will be going to Teleman, which they say is a really hard area. My companion right now was there for a change and he says it is pretty miserable there and he is a pretty positive guy so I am a little worried. I will be in the valley again (thankfully there are still some mountains) so it is hot as really hot things. It is really close to my old area, Canlun, so they are like the same temperature, I think it averages in the mid 90s. I will be serving with Elder Lara. He is from Ecuador. He is probably the best missionary I know, like a picture perfect missionary. Which will be nice but I'm worried about how serious he is. He will go home in September so I have like one or two more changes than him. He has already been in Teleman for a change or two. I know everyone in our zone, but I don't have a lot of buddies there. But I'm sure I will make some. Elder Bos got made ZL this change which is awesome! He is going in to replace me so I know Senahu will be taken care of. 

On the bright side though, the Teleman Zone Leaders cover Sepamak and Canlun so I will get to do divisions in two of my old areas! There are two girls that we baptized in Sepamak, Igliana and Vidiliana, it will be good to see how they are doing. And then I don't know if you remember Ramona, it sounds like she dropped off the map so I am going to go try and get her to go to church again. So for that I am excited to go back.

This week I got to go up and do divisions with Elder Mendoza in Yalijux and he is one dope guy. I am going to miss him when I go to the other zone. Yalijux is the best mountain area I have ever seen, and I actually think I might have seen them all, so it is the best haha.

Besides Yalijux, I didn't go to a lot of places this week because we had our leader meeting so we got back late. Oh I forgot to mention I got called to talk there so I had to give another talk. The Mission President asked us to pick a topic about how to better the mission and I felt like I should talk about always keeping the Atonement of Jesus Christ in mind. I tried to use the example I did in Family Home Evening like forever ago. It was the one where you are on a plane and you have to imagine you are going to crash and you have a minute or two to write a note to the people you love. And then I tear it up, and relate it to when we don't use the Atonement, that is what we do with Christ's gift. It wasn't super well prepared and people didn't take my example seriously so it didn't go that well.

We are in Senahu today, I will go to my new area tomorrow. It looks like I'll be saying goodbyes today.

My spiritual thought this week come from an experience in Yalijux. Me and Mendoza walked the entire area, which is about seven hours of hiking, so we were pretty tired. When we were about 45 minutes or an hour away or so from home we found a lady and her two kids trying to carry these big ole sacks of watermelons. They were so tired and super tiny little people and I could tell they weren't going to get far. So we felt the impression to ask if they wanted help. We started carrying them and right away I thought "there is no way I am going to make it all the way there" haha. There was a part where me and Mendoza both felt like we were about out of juice and we were saying little prayers that we could help this lady and make it all the way. Then we felt like there were people pushing us up the hills, and it got a lot easier all the sudden. It was dope! 

I hope you have a good week this week, I love you!

Love, Elder Toolson