Sunday, September 18, 2016

Take the gift and be happy

Hello Everyone!

So I suppose I owe some news. We have been incredibly busy. My son and I get along famously, (in the mission, if you are training a new missionary, he is referred to as your son) I really enjoy this companion. We are learning a lot together and working really hard

Random story, yesterday we found some people playing ping pong outside the house, I offered a challenge, if I won they listen to our message. Needless to say, they listened to our message :)

While it is really tiring, I am enjoying immensely what I´m doing. Holy cats batman I am learning so much. It seems that every time I figure I'm doing ok, I find out I'm not! I suppose that isn't a bad lesson to learn.

This weekend we have a wedding planned. I figure that by the end of my mission I´ll be able to just move into that line of work, it seems I do it a lot. Three people will be getting baptized. Yader and Susana, who are getting married, and Adrian, who is a miracle (well all of them are miracles.) We found him on a bus, and he invited us over. Turns out his wife is a member of thirty years, but has been unable to find the church after she moved. She told us that she had been searching for us, and when she saw us on the bus she got very excited. (We knew she had to be a member or crazy cause the only strangers that talk to us are members or people asking for money. Just so you know, if you are American, it means that you are rich here, even if you´re not)

Random thought, in Poás there is a LOT of coffee plants, like you wouldn't believe, there is so much. Its like Indiana, but with coffee instead of corn, I like it!

My first day in the mission
There is a family here that has two sons who are members, but the parents are not. The mom has been an investigator for a while, almost a year, and has a testimony that the church is true. But she has no desire to get married, and in the church, you are unable to get baptized if you are living together but not married. I don´think I have ever wanted to help people so bad. I've been brought to the point of tears (almost) upon begging for help from my knees, and I am motivated time and time again to just keep trying. It hurts an awful lot when you just can´t help someone, it hurts a lot more when you love the someone (or family) so darn much.  When you see the solution to all of the strife, contention, and anguish in the home, and you say, "here, here it is, take the gift, be happy" And they refuse. But I know that everything happens in its due time. The pain comes less from my inability to control things and more from the emotional exhaustion of seeing and understanding what failure means.

That isn't to say that I´m depressed or anything, just that I care for them a lot and I believe that its a by product. Truth be told, I am enjoying life a lot, it isn't ever easy, but ay vamos.

Unretractacbly,

Elder Noah M. Toney



Some sisters in my district
 
Pizza day!

We got soaked!

Subway!

those are mamones chinos. They are like grapes without the skins



Pancakes!




My greenie making fun of me


Long day at work


Catan. I would be red! 



I learned

Hey!

So it has been rather crazy.  I have never had so much responsibility in my life. I worry about my district, new companion, and my little group. All of them need my constant attention. So I have been stressed. If I don´t perform well, neither does my district, nor does my greenie get a good start, nor does the group flourish. But at the same time it is invigorating.

Did I also mention that I learned how to handwash clothes?

But that being said, I know that it will be alright. My poor greenie falls asleep everytime he sits down, We´re working hard :)

Not a whole bunch of time today,
but something that I learned, I AM NOT ALL THAT AND A BAG OF CHIPS. I learned :) Took me a while, but I´m learning that I need lots of help haha. Luckily I have it.

Transiently,

Elder Noah M. Toney









My poor greenie. So tired!

Trainers and children!

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Ever Rewarding

Howdy Hey!

Life in the rich coast is good. Ever challenging, ever rewarding. I like being challenged, I like new things that make me think hard and grow. The sister missionaries do indeed wear pants now, and it is mighty weird, I feel like we have been changed to a mission of all elders...just kiddin, but those poor sisters. Then again, I ain't never had the chance of walking around in nice breezy skirts, so maybe it´s just equal, but hey, you got to be protected against them mosquitoes, they do bad stuff to you.

Speaking of new and challenging things, transfers are today! And I am going to be changing a new, fresh, innocent, corruptible (just kidding) missionary. I am honestly so darn excited. I have wanted to train for a long time. When my leaders told me that I would be training I had a small fist pumping fit, (yes I was that excited) Here trainers are called fathers, and the greenies, sons. So I´m gonna be a dad! I´m too darn excited to be nervous, so we´ll see how this goes. I don´t get my companion until Wednesday, and I don´t even know who he is so that´ll have to wait until next week. But please, pray for this poor unfortunate soul who will be my posterity. I have got a lot of ideas, but better yet, I have good leaders to help me out when I don´t know what to do, and an ever attentive Father to correct me. Turns out that my brother Austin is also training the same time as I, we seem to be copying each other, isn't that nifty?

You could say I´m pretty pumped.

I will be staying in Poás as district leader, which is pretty awesome cause I LOVE Poás, it is pretty much the prettiest place you ever did see, although it has got a LOT of hills. I´m gettin pretty lean, I have also started doing better exercises.

We contact like normal, talkin with everything that moves under the sun, knocking a billion doors, saying a bunch of prayers, bothering a whole lot of people :) This past week we did an activity en Alejuel central where everyone in the zone (16 missionaries) went to one park to hand out books of Mormon, I was talking with this man an he just up an agrees to be baptized. Cool stuff.

Small miracle, yesterday they advised us of transfers pretty late, and we had to leave Poás at 8, so that left almost no time for my companion to pack, cause we had to catch the bus. Right when he finishes, I manage to break the window (Master of Disaster I am) Not the glass part thank heavens, but I managed to get it pulled off track, and for the life of me I could not get it to shut right. And people have already tried to break into the house before (not while I was there) And we were gonna be gone for a good three days, so I had to get it shut. But that dad-burned window would not shut, stubborn thing I just about broke the whole thing I was so mad (why can´t inanimate objects just cooperate?) So my companion took over, trying to get it shut, to no avail. So I said Elder, hold up a sec, it ain't working. We´re gonna say a prayer. Prayer said, I grabbed a hold of that infernal contraption, and with one jiggle, it got back on track and shut right nicely. One second. That is a right quick answer.

We get up at 6:30 usually, although I like to get up an hour early to study a lil bit more. We get up pray, exercise, eat, shower, and study. We arrive at the house at nine o clock, plan, and then I´m making calls an doing district stuff until 10:30, when we turn in. And we do not have mediodias :/

I love you all! Keep me in your prayers that I may do well as a trainer for the sake of this poor young man who will shortly be in my clutches.

Inscrutably,

Elder Noah M. Toney
Book of Mormon fair

We took pics with the people that accepted a Book of Mormon

Yes. Those are police!

My zone!

My district!


Old friends from Santa Cruz

Old friends from Santa Cruz


Beautiful landscapes


Beautiful landscapes

The little street you see leads to our house


Soccer field that is really high up

Transfer day!


Enjoying the sun

Another beautiful day

Kicking butt in Risk (yes I took Asia in the 2nd turn)

Old friends

Transfer day

Old friends

Old friends

Old friends