One year

Howdy! I`m officially one year old now! The 30th of September passed pretty normally--I had a baptismal interview for a companionship in my district and they bought me cake and ice cream. That was nice :)

A good friend asked me the following question:  "Noah, you've been out for a year now--how do you feel this year of service has changed you?"

As I started pondering this question, I sat down and started penning my list.

Ways in which I have changed: 
*I can walk a lot longer
*I can walk really fast now
*I can do without food for a lot longer an it doesn't bother me
*I can keep going even when I'm exhausted
*I can fast without problems
*I'm a lot leaner (I'm really skinny, don't know how)
*I drink a lot more water
*I'm cleaner and more organized
*I can communicate better
*I can listen better (one of the biggies, listening is a superpower in my mind)
*I can think a lot better
*I pray a lot longer and a lot more
*I know my Savior more than I ever have and have a personal relationship with Him that generally entails my messing up an Him helping me out!
*I absolutely LOVE the scriptures and I learn so much every time I open them with sincere desire.
*I have been taught personally by the Holy Ghost and can recognize His influence in my life, daily.
*I have matured
*I am not so bothered by the small stuff
*I'm stronger
*I love more freely and often
*I forgive more
*I accept my mistakes and try to change more often
*I don't get as defensive as I used to
*I'm a lot more calm than I used to be
*I've learned how to take control of a situation, and how to let go of it.
*I'm better with people and have made life long friends
*I CAN SPEAK SPANISH, if not that well
*I keep my apartment clean and my room organized (sometimes) with my bed made
*I can wash my clothes by hand
*I can speak for a really really long time given very short notice
*I can feel the Spirit and receive recognizable answers to my prayer often
*Sometimes, by listening well and thinking hard, I can understand peole really well, to the point that it almost seems that I see in their heads.
*I can analyze a lot better and really get the meaning out of something
*I know that when I want something, I will give my all to obtain t;
*I will never give up on this Gospel even though it feels that I am so behind and that I will never make it because I know that He never gives up on me, and I'm almighty stubborn.


The list I just gave helped me realize some things. When I came on the mission it was with the hope that I could change and be something more. Reading and thinking on that list, I realize that I have changed quite a bit, which is, interestingly enough, an answer to a very serious and troubling question that I have been brooding over. A couple weeks ago I asked the Lord to give me whatever He knows that I need to help me change more and become more like how He wants me to be. At the time I was feeling pretty good about things, but over the past few days, that has changed. I feel like I have been taken back to square one, and have been depressed at the thought that after all this time, I am no better than when I started, that I haven't changed.  I tend to be very hard on myself. I find it exquisitely painful to accept my mistakes and faults, and truthfully, I tend to not accept them, and instead resent myself for my weaknesses. Although that I know I am human, I get so very frustrated with my seemingly slow progress and wonder when I`ll finally be a good person. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, it never seems enough.

This all happened in about a month, I went from feeling great about myself to being sick of myself. But then I remember that I asked for it, and in truth, I know that there is a reason and that the Lord is teaching me.  I never expected the refiners fire to be a comfortable or easy process, but, know it or don`t, it still hurts. I believe that what matters is how we respond to it. I find myself on my knees much more often, I wake up in the morning wondering how I got into bed and when I fell asleep because the last thing I remember doing was begging for help on my knees.   I finally have a desire to offer up a Nephi-like prayer where I know that the Lord will answer me if I'm annoying enough (just kidding).  The point is, the progress is there, just look for it; you aren't as awful as you might think. And just keep moving forward. As I told my greenie, the best thing that you can learn is to have a personal relationship with God, so go pray.

Sweetly/excruciatingly,

Elder Noah M. Toney

My District!

A past member of la familia poas!

The miracles are unceasing

Well, Hey There!

Time truly passes quickly when you are enjoying it!  Definitely an eternal truth.

Random thought: Writing is a very tiring, although cathartic process. Especially when you never leave yourself enough time to say what you want.  Please don't mind the grammatical errors--I have to write like a bat out of... well you know. Other random thought--I do not understand that phrase.

We had a smashing week!  Yet another random thought--I learned a while ago that one adds the "n" to "an" when it goes in front of a word that starts with a vowel!  Ever since then, every time I write "an" I stop and marvel at that little piece of grammatical geniousry (is geniousry a word?).   I learned that rule about eight months ago and I´m still thinking about it!  We are preparing for three baptisms this week:  Yader and Susana (who are also getting married) and Adrian.  We were going to do it last Saturday, but there was a paperwork mix up and a lawyer mix up.  I'm not gonna lie--dealing with lawyers is not my favorite part of the mission because they are just hard to get a straight answer out of and they never answer their phone.  Now, if you are a lawyer and you are reading this, I am 100% sure that this doesn't apply to you!  :-)  But it looks like things will turn out smoothly and we should have a good turnout because we are offering food (which always attracts people) and because they are a handsome couple.

There are days (and weeks, and months) where it seems as though the miracles are unceasing. There is nothing more beautiful than to hear an investigator declare in an unwavering voice, looking you steadily in the eye, "I know that the church is true, and I know that I am not mistaken." It is a humbling experience to be a part of this process.

I have also learned a lot about myself, including this realization:  Happiness is a life style and a choice.

I feel that we as humans are a fist-shaking type of breed. Something bad happens and what do we do? We start shaking our fist:  at our parents or our family, at friends, at work, at plain bad luck, and even at God. The interesting part is that as a rule, when we are shaking our fist at some entity that has "caused all our problems" we tend to neglect to remember to think of our own involvement.  I know that is obvious, but let´s take it further. For example, a child is born into tough circumstances and grows up scared and beat upon, missing out on lots of great opportunities because of his situation and he can't move forward because he feels stuck and hurt.  I believe that, individually, we had a much bigger part in deciding the trials we would have here in the life before this one. Our trials were and are tailored to who we are, built to help bring out the best in us depending on the faith and desire to grow that we had in the life before.

Miss-comprehension of this truth causes us to shake our fists at God and ask, "What did I do to deserve this, it just isn't fair!"  Or on a more subtle note, we find ourselves quietly discontented with our circumstances in life, and while we do not shake the fist or yell, we do wonder why and we never learn the lesson. We live our lives beneath our potential. We ourselves are the only real barrier to happiness, success, and more fulfilling relationships or lives. I have realized that I make myself unhappy because I have not learned how to be happy.

Anyway, enough meta cognitive stuff. If I had more time, I could make that make more sense!  As it is, if it makes no sense, just ignore it and know that I love you

Pensively,

Elder Noah M. Toney

Do you see something strange?

Sisters in my district

Hermano Adrian. He's getting baptied!

My son won at Catan!!

My son teaching the people

Teaching the people

A really big dude!

Photo bomb

We found a pet dog!

He got scared and ran off about 6 hours later. :(

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!

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