Sopa de Mondongo and Transfers???

    This week was super duper great!!! Im so excited to be in the mission field when there is SO MUCH to do!! HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK! Sopa de MONDONGO! Yupperdoodles cow intestine;)  and your little missionary son elder ty toolson loved it! I think i am really turning catracho because it was DELECTIBLE! ha ha. Im almost positive that this is my last week in this area but we will figure out tonight! I love this area so much and am super excited to see if i stay or leave!

    This week was full of service and a ton of lessons and baptismal challenges. In the terms of the work me and my comp are working really hard to get the people we have to come to church on their own will. Something that has been working alot for us is challenging the people to be baptized in the first lesson. It helps us know who is truly wiling to change and who isnt. We spent alot of time looking for a few families that have recently gone inactive! We found and visited them all and how extremely powerful lessons with them. We simply expressed our love and the love of our havenly father and important each of us are to him. We talked about the impportance of parenthood and how we have the home for the gospel to be taught!

    I love this work and I know it is the Lords glory! I hope we can all realize the sacred responsibility we all have to love one another especially our family. I know and testify that through the restored priesthood power we can be sealed as families for eternity. I know that after this life i will see my family. I know that if we ware faithful to this glorious gospel we will have joy (2 nefi 2 25) i hope we all look to serve one another this week and always try a little harder to love a little more!

Elder TY Toolson

AND BYU what is wrong with you. They are the biggest up and down team in college football. And LCC that score is miserable. I say more football updates are welcome!

Elder Ty's Letter and a surprise Phone Call

Last Night we received a phone call from a woman in Oakland whose mother is visiting from Honuras!! Woot Woot!:D She wanted to talk with the mother of Elder Toolson. Ty gave her my cell phone# so that she could wish me a HAPPY BIRTHDAY from him personally :) She was baptized in June by Ty and than her husband got baptized by "Toolson" as well! Her husband soooo LOVES "TOOLSON" and she spoke highly of Ty and how he is always happy and serving the people well with his BIG Heart! What a wonderful and emotional call it was. So grateful for her and her joyful way of expressing all the blessings that has come to her and her family because of the gospel in their lives.

The gospel is True and it blesses everyone that lives by its principles. Ty is loving his mission and here's this weeks update:

This week was such a good one! As I hope most all others did this weekend, I watched general conference! It was nice to go to the stake center and watch conference through satellite just like the good ole chula vista days (where i grew up) It was incredible to see our beloved prophet and president Thomas S. Monson. The reverence that the people have for him is truly piercing. When he entered the conference center I simply started to cry and as well as the people all around us. he is the servant of the Lord. This conference was focused on multiple gospel topics but what struck me was the reality of the divine calling of the leaders ofthe church! The twelve and the first presidency ARE called of god. They may be old but as Russell M. Nelson taught "we need not fear." He continued to speak saying that they are not out of touch with todays world, they are aware of the temptations of the world, one leader even said that we need not list them because they are obvious and inevitable! But they are also aware of the light we are to the world. They know our needs just as the Lord does.

 Something that is so necessary in this life is that we recognize our "divine lineage." We are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, if you doubt that, but have the desire to know, read the scriptures. Read the teachings of the prophets and think of the love in their counsel, en lo cual comes from god. Our heavenly father knows us, even by name, as Henry B. Eyring said with such emotion. Elder Bednar also spoke bastante about the love our heavenly father has for us and that we are hear so that we can recognize, obtain and finally share that exact love! If you did not have a chance to see the conference, please go to gc.lds.org and learn more about what was said and what our heavenly father wants you to hear.

Shout out to my Brother Tucker Strong Toolson for being too dang good looking (am I right hermanas??) but also shout out for having been born a loooonnnnggggg 22 years ago! Man time flies. I Love ya bro! 

Anyways apart from the conference our week was fantastic! We had fantastic baptism of a wonderful woman named Bessy! She lived the life of most Honduran youth and found herself with two babies no husband and a confused line of thought. She thought on her family that constantly were going to church every Sunday and frequently during the week, she simply said in her head 'I want that' She moved in with her aunt (also named bessy) and my comp and I had the opportunity to teach her. She was so quick to understand the gospel principles and gain a testimony of them. When it came time to talk about baptism, she accepted fearlessly and with conviction. When we went by this past week to talk about her and her feelings about baptism, it was asked "do you want to get baptised?" she sat there and then said "I am not getting baptized because i want to get baptized, i simply want to start over, i dont want my sins anymore. I have two children under the age of two and no father. I want MY father in heaven to know that i love him and am ready to change." As you can imagine, my comp and i were simply stunned and smiling. Her baptsim was beautiful and she was very nervous but very, very ready.

I love the gospel and the comfort I receive from ready the scriptures and listening to the voice of the prophet today. I love my family and know we will be together if we are worthy. I hope everyone has a wonderful week and ponders on where you are in life and where you'd like to be. After simply do it. A quote we have in our room says "You learn to be by being and learn to do by doing" many times we feel overwhelmed with the marathon so we dont take a step. Take the step, if you do so with faith our father will heighten our abilities to accomplish whatever we do in righteousness! I love you all!!!

Elder Ty Toolson 

Ty's Week for the Books :)

 Hello Eveybody

This week was just a week for the books!

The best thing was that we had three people accept baptism this week and we are so excited for them. They are truly faithful people that are truly converting themselves to this gospel. This sunday we also had 11 investigators in church! Its always great to see so many unknown faces in the ward!! Something i love about our ward is that everyone is running around talking to everyone who aren't members, even sitting with them so they dont feel uncomfortable its awesome! Something we figured out yesterday is how many inactives their are in our ward, its pretty eye opening! The bummer is that so many of those that don't come as much anymore (inactives) are amazing people that just had one little thing that happened in church and for that one comment, or even glance, they left the church.

It makes me ponder why do we go to church? The truth is, humans are humans. Not everybody is going to have a 24 hour smile and complementing everybody, it would be great!, but its just not like that. We go to church because it is simply true. We go to church to renew our baptismal covenants and to feel the spirit and fill our spiritual canteens for the week. But also in the Book of Moroni it says we go to church to discuss the well being of our souls (moroni 6:5) so if you see somebody thats a little down, talk to them! Here on the earth we have our earthly family and also our family in our heavenly father. I hope we can all try to see eachother as brothers and sisters in the gospel. I love you all and hope we have fantastic weeks!

Oh and with General Conference coming up we all have the opportunity to receive an answer from the Lord. Truly these speakers have been guided by the spirit to speak of things that are meant specifically for us. Please watch conference this weekend! It starts on SATURDAY! Watch all four seessions pleasseeee. I know that President Monson is the prophet of the Lord and is anxious to address us. I love this work and I am so grateful to be a servant in the Lords vineyard!:)

Elder Ty Toolson

Workin to Teach Men to be Men!

Hey errybody!

This week, well like every other missionary in the world says, was another amazing week on the mission, full of blessings and wonderful, hard, beautiful, crazy experiences!! We had lots of great lessons and we are looking for people to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to with open hearts!  

So Tatiana left for la USA last week and this week Catherine (catarin) came back and man its amazing to be around people you have developed such a love for. She was SOOOO Evangelical and man she did not wanna get baptized para NADA but then her dad got baptized and now whaboom! Shes a member. there whole family will be members if we get Ruben (the only son) baptized! We are working really hard to help that guy! A girl we were going to baptize on the 27th backed out and i think its good because she has never ever read the Book of Mormon and so we have some great work to do with her.

Great it is!!! I love this work. To be honest it's really hard and I have never been so tired in my whole life. But I've also never been so Happy. Its the fact that we dont do anything for oursleves other than wash our clothes haha and man there is alsways somtething to wash. I plunge and scrub alot down here. Theres very few washers here so we just wash by hand. This is probably my last change here and I am just trying to work really hard to set up the next missionaries for success. Right now there are few struggles, which is excellent! The only struggle is that men here are really hard to get to come to church! I'm starting to realize is the ratio from females to males I've baptized is pretty lopsided. The bishop is pretty concerned about that because he wants to split the ward and we gotta baptize 9 men in one part to make it an elligible area to have a ward. We are praying to find the chosen but we especially wanna find families where men are prepared as well but man o man mom that is hard!
And cambios were 3 weeks ago! So this Wednesday i will start my fifth week (a transfer is six weeks) its expected that I will leave after this change unless Pres. feels inspired and wants me to stay for 6 months in my first area

Wellll not much to comment on other than this week was really truly another beautiful week in the mission! I hope eveybody at home is staying safe and loving life and taking every opportunity to get to know the scriptures, the gospel and our heavenly father=)

Yayyy im so glad a package is sent to me??? Oooooooyyyyy that is awesome thank you so much! The video of dad going down the water slide after zip lines, repelling and all is HILARIOUS and awesome! I miss dads scream and even uncle greggs estute observations haha. And Im glad you played tennis and I hope you ripped one at grandpa, someones gotta rough him up while im gone haha. Anyways mom HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I truly cannot describe what its like to be away from you for you birthday. Ya know i will have missed three of your birthdays after my mission?? I will have some major gifting and singing and hugging to do!!!! 

Wowow weewowow you guys got a portion of that hurricane!!! Its comforting that I had family a little bit closer to me! That's great that you are practicing your Spanish! I love the effort;) Those pictures are awesome! Love the warm rain photos. Here its just normal. Normal is that it gets light at about 5 but the sun isnt out and then it gets REALLY hot from 10-3 and then it cools down and rains at about 5 or 6 and stops at 9. Its awesome because we know the weather report every day! Its like this for about two more months and then it just gets super from christmas to easter (thats what everybody tells me.) I walk in mud alot but my shoes are doing great im thinking one of em has got at least three more months and the other one about 6:)Depends on how many dogs I gotta kick! :D 

Anyways how was church in Mexico? It looks like the missionaries over there are awesome! Y con saco!! Thats bold, we never wear our suit jackets down here. that. would. be. terrible... drip, drip - drench!

I love you all and Mexico looks pretty darn nice from the photos. Its crazy how i used to think mexico was poor! I gotta start sending pictures of outside the houses in honduras because i want you guys to really get a feel of this place before i leave!

LOVE Oooooddllleesssss and Goooooobbbbbssss!

Elder Ty Toolson

It's All FALL!

Hello everybody!!

Great week full of stellar ups & screamin' downs!!  but something that I consistently realize is that when you are on a mission there is no such thing as a "down day." Sometimes the moments are mixed, one of our investigators who has been investigating for about three months went to oakland and she calls us one day and says "i went to church up here" and we say "wow hermana that is excellent!" and she says "O think im gonna get baptized as soon as possible.."  OKAY! So she is getting baptized this week up there and we will get to teach her everything again down here. I am SOOOO excited for her!

I wanna give a BIG shoutout to my mom because she kept me updated on all the football games this past week from NFL to College even LCC! I'm glad we are startng off well! But she did an amazing job giving me a quick summary of all the games I am so glad I have such a mother that understands something I love (the gospel AND football (; )  I love her.. great lady... Okiedoke!

Well apart form receiving that great news actually about ten minutes ago about the baptism, yesterday we were fasting for an hermana nemed Blanca Luna to really progres and accept baptism soon. We had taught her a gret lesson and we loved the spirit that was there. So she went to church and then after the second hour (gospel principles) she says that she wants to get baptized the 27th OKAY!!!!!!! so woot woot heavenly ather is REALLY quickening his work. Apart from that we are getting some great references right now. We have worked really hard the last six weeks to get more unity in the ward and its paying off right now! Uhhhmmm there is this thing down here thats called "Licuados" which are milk shakes but Im in Honduras so its a little iffy but man I special ordered a licuado with a banana, chocolate, and milk and it was a throwback to my dad whippin' up some shakes for us.

Well thats my week, we also had some amazing lessons I think the key right now is that we STAY HUMBLE! You dont get succes because you are a good teacher, rather you are a good medium in which the sprit can teach through you. To have the spirit should be everyones goal this week. I love you all and hope to hear from a select few to hear how y'all are doin'. :) And tell my little itsy bitsy sister to stop looking so old! IT took me about 5 minutes to find her on the volleyball team photo... just kidding  :) but man she is tall and strong! Jackson strength is really helping her! She's going to be able to beat me at arm wrestling soon...ha ha! 

So I had this dream that we opened up a visitors Center hear in Honduras and you all came down for it...We had a great time hugging hello, touring around and then...poof!  I woke up! Awwww man that was when I began doing some dishes, singing hymns, reading Jesus the Christ... LOL!  Wow! Sure do think I have the best family and Friends EVER! Gotta go! Muah!

Love

Elder Tooolson 

Fw: Honduras uPs & doWNs

Hello everyone!

tHIS WEEk has been FuLl of uPS and DOwns!

UP...We made our own VG's :) see photos

Down...No baptisms! An off week for us but we are working hard.

We passed by a lady who had a fecha(discussion) for this Saturday but she wasn't their and neither did she come to church:( but we did have 5 investigators at church and it was a great time in church.  But the real treat was that we did a drama on the plan of salvation and it was incredibly powerful! My favorite part was at the end we all sang (as a congregation) "familias pueden ser eternas" (Families Can Be Together Forever) y it was absolutely amazing! The spirit was so strong. Those uPs are so high!

One bummer is we were teaching this couple and they needed to get baptized (like the rest of Honduras, living together) but they were progressing! Then the husband had increased his drinking and there were problems, he has been in the streets drinking since last Monday... :(  but the woman left him and went to her dads house about three hours away but she is going to get baptized up there :) because she knows its the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Other than that this week was pretty amazing full of spiritual moments and great lessons! I love talking about the Book of Mormon to people that are open to the idea that God gave writings to other people! Isn't it wonderful to also have the testimonies of prophets, seers and revelators in the Americas! 

Tell Johnny he's loved by Elder Ty Toolson and that I am praying for him and that I am with him in spirit and he is going to learn SO SO much from this hardship.

Hey Mom:) What's going on with football these days? Now your gonna have to watch espn and NFL network all day for me so you get the scoop on everything! Ya know what? I love trials!!! They make you feel terrible, but right when you feel you can't go any longer, when all the personal strength you have is drained, its in that moment that you stop, let your knees buckle from the pressure of life and you simply plead with the Lord. The atonement is real, lo hizo para que el nos pueda socorrar. I truly am so thankful for every bump bruise or gash I've ever had in my spiritual body. Something that Pres Dester related to me: The healing power of the atonement is like the healing of a cut. Many times in life we fall and most of the time we can pop up and just continue on completely fine, but sometimes, when we become more daring and able, our falls are much more dramatic, we get cuts, even gashes and we still expect to pop up and continue on. But what would happen if we did just that? Our skin could still heal itself... but infection would be possible, we wouldnt receive a restoration of our original body (or innocence.) Many times in life when we fall, we need to pop up and hobble over to the doctor, y what does he do? First he examines the wound, he might even take an x-ray if we are willing to look deep into our bodies to truly inderstand what we need to do. Finally he takes action. He cleans us, he digs deep and takes out every spec of dirt, rocks, grass, and then he stitches up. After we do physical therapy, to change and form ourselves into what the doctor has recommended. Many times we need our Savior, our all knowing doctor, to examine us, to tell us what we should do, and finally he cleans us. Never have shame to go to the doctor. When we are broken we are simply broken and only Christ can heal us. I love this gospel because we have a wonderful knowledge of the atonement. The atonement wasnt given to us for just the big things but EVERY THING that we need help with.

Well changes are this week so my emails might be late, I dont really know if I'm going or not but I guess we will alll have to wait and see;) Pray for us. May you all have an amazing week and make sure you are all writing your brothers or sisters if they are on missions. You need to write to them just as much as they need to write home.

Que le vaya bien!

Elder Toolson IV