Whaddup!!

South Man!

Guys. I am so tired. Holy. I don't think I've ever been this tired.
You better believe that my love for diet coke came back with a vengeance this week. I spent the last two weeks of Middletown almost-sick and the city kicked my butt enough for a full fledged cold, so that's pretty awesome too.

Thursday we pretty much planned all day. I needed to learn about the people here and also about the sisters we are over. We planned our splits. We have to go on 5 splits in 6 weeks and do 5 interviews.
So... That was fun. And a little stressful. We had to get groceries too. I was formally introduced to Trader Joes! It's so awesome. But then we had to carry our groceries on the subway. Not so awesome. My arms were SO tired.

We went to dinner at our ward mission leaders house. His last name is Amiolemeh. Say that 10 times fast! His wife served in the Ogden mission and she spent a lot of time in Logan :) they have three of the cutest little boys I have ever seen.

Friday we had a district APF so I got to see some of the missionaries I am serving around. I don't actually know any of them so it's fun to get to know them. Before the APF we went to a less actives house in the projects to help her clean. The projects here are much nicer than the Bronx, so that's nice. Her apartment was something else though.
Wow. That's all I can say. She is so so so sweet though. Friday we also saw Breena who is one of our investigators with a bap date. She's really spunky and she loves the Book of Mormon :)

Saturday we took our other investigator to a baptism!! They are both teenage girls that are so amazing :) Lilliana is 16, she is the one that came to the baptism. She loved it!!! She told us that it wasn't scary at all. We told her of course it isn't scary!

Saturday we also had our first STL interview with a companionship in Harlem. One of them is a brand new missionary. I'm sure to her we seem like we have been missionaries for forever but really... We still have no idea what we are doing. I feel like I can relate to her a lot because I feel like such a NEWB here. I am so directionally challenged... I never have any idea where I am going. I don't know any of the people still. But it's fine. I'm learning :)

Sunday was so crazy. We had to pick Lilliana up for church and the train was down so we had to leave really early. Well we ended up being
15 minutes late for sacrament which was crappy for two reasons. 1: I didn't get to meet ANYONE and 2: it's hard to be spiritually prepared for the sacrament when you make it for the last verse of the sacrament hymn. But it was fine. Then after sacrament we had to teach gospel principles. What an adventure. Our class had two investigators in it... Both of whom had just walked in from the street practically. One of them was missing a few screws and kept talking about how he was coming out of being homeless... "Being homeless is NO joke" oh really?
And the other one knew so much it was like he didn't know anything at all.. You know what I mean? So we tried to teach them about the Holy Ghost with the help of two members who were visiting from France and didn't speak hardly any English.

After gospel principles we had to take Lilliana home so I also missed relief society... So I literally know like no one! We have met a few families from dinner appointments. The ward is really really young and there are a thousand screaming kids. All of the parents want us to teach the kids at dinner appointments, which sounds nice in theory but it's always insane! I haven't taught one child over the age of seven so their attention span is approximately 2.7 seconds. This ward is probably the best birth control. Ever.

Monday we had about 1000 meetings. We left our dinner calendar at the church and the temple closes at like 3 so we left our apartment at 8:30. We had a conference call with president at 9:45 which lasted an hour and then we had district meeting at 11 and then we ate lunch as a zone and then we had to meet with the zone leaders to plan our APF so we didn't do any real work until 3. :/ we met the Fords who are a less active family. Sister ford is so sweet. When we got there she was packing up food to take to some people in a nursing home, so we didn't stay too long.

Our dinner appointment was someone that sister Campbell didn't know, so it was an adventure for both of us! Turns out her husband was out of town so she invited us over for FHE :) she is SO cute. She just barely got married and now they are living in a tiny apartment that costs an astronomical amount. She was born and raised in Utah. It was such a tender mercy to meet her because I feel like the ward kind of hates us. Or is very indifferent to us at least. That's a HUGE adjustment from Middletown.

Then we went to do a less active look up. We went to an apartment with a doorman, so he had to call up and tell the lady we were there. She said she'd come down and meet us and I was so surprised. I was waiting for her to tell the doorman to tell us to get lost :) anyways, she came down and introduced herself and then asked us what she could do for us. We told her we were trying to get to know the members on our list and that we'd like to share a message with her. She was pretty hard to read but I felt like she was just looking for an opportunity to tell us off.

We asked her a few questions and found out she had been baptized when she was 12. Then I asked her what role religion has played in her life since then and she just looked at me. She said "how old are you?"
"What was your name again?" "Do you REALLY think this is the best environment to ask me that?" I was kind of terrified so I just apologized and told her if she wasn't comfortable then she didn't have to answer it. Then I told her that our purpose is to help people come closer to Christ (because you can't help someone if you don't even know where to start, right?) and then she asked me if I thought she needed to be closer to Christ. By then I was plum annoyed so I told her everyone can be closer to Christ, it's not like there's a limit.
She stopped after that :)

She ended up being really sweet and opening up to us a little.
Hopefully we will be able to go back and visit her again soon. I'll be sure to keep my mouth shut this time :)

Tuesday was kind of a bust. Here are the highlights:
I ate street meat and YES it is as sketchy as it sounds.

We celebrated Karens birthday with her. Karen is the sweetest craziest black lady. Almost crazier than sister Griffin from Olmstead.
She didn't want a cake for her birthday so we took over fruit and dip and she loved it :) I can't even remember all of the crazy things she told us. She made rice and she needed a guinea pig to test it. There were four of us in the room and when she asked for someone to try it we all just looked at each other. She ended up making EVERYONE try it even though we told her every time that it wasn't quite done and it needed to cook a little longer. :)

South Manhattan is going to take some adjusting. I like it... But I'm not sure that I love it yet. I love sister Campbell. She's great :) I don't know what I'm doing as a sister training leader still... But so far it has been fun :) the other missionaries here are awesome and they work super hard.

Ooh! I found a relative! There are Toones in the Morningside Heights ward! I talked to brother Toone and his family is from the Toones in Canada.... I think he said he is from the first wife of John Toone that crossed the plains. Small world, no?

Anyways. That's really all I have to say. That, and I love you all :) time sure does fly. If you could find the "slow" button I would sure appreciate it.

Love,
Sister Toone

Transfers!!!

Well hello!

I'm sure many of you are wondering where I am headed this afternoon.
What kind of new adventures are in store for me, what kind of people I'll meet and so on. Well, let me tell you. It's gonna be big.

Like huge.

I've pretty much waited my whole life for it.

SOUTH MANHATTAN!!!!

86th street to 125th, the west side of Central Park. Some of the best features include parts of Harlem, plenty of project buildings, all of the coolest parts of manhattan, and my church is held in the same building as the temple!

Aaannnddddddd......

Wait. Let me tell you a story first.

So, shot calls (or shock calls, whatever) come Saturday night...
Usually pretty late. Your zone leader calls your district leader, and then your district leader calls you. Saturday we came home and we sat down to plan. I was praying to start our planning session and I heard our phone go off. I silenced it, and assumed it was the elders calling us about our plans tomorrow.

I finish the prayer and look at the phone, and we missed a call from the mission office.

My stomach drops.

President Morgan had called.

A million thoughts run through my mind, and the only one that made any sense to me was that I had done something stupid and was getting sent home. So of course I'm in a panic and I call the office back. One of the APs answered, and said that president was busy and he'd call back.

In the mean time I listened to the voicemail he had left.

"Sister Toone, I need to chat with you. Call me back" that's about
10000 times worse than hearing "Carlee Rose!"

So president finally calls us back. I take a deep breath before I can answer the phone. I put on my most professional and innocent tone of voice because I'm pretty sure I am in huge trouble.

Turns out, I wasn't. He asked me if my bags were packed and I said no... And then he told me to start packing. He said I would be going to the south manhattan zone. I was so excited, but I still didn't know why president had called... It should have been elder Palmer. Then he said that I would be companions with Sister Campbell, and he asked me to take the position of a sister training leader.

I'm not in trouble.

I'm going to live in manhattan.

I'm a sister training leader. What the heck??

So for those of you who don't know, a sister training leader is the leadership for the sisters in the mission. We go on splits and help train all of the sisters, and we get to be a part of Mission Leadership Council. I'm so scared I could die, but I am also so so so so so excited. :)

We spent the first part of this week saying goodbye to people. Man.
That was harder than leaving all of you. I'm not even kidding. My favorite people just cried. I felt like I was taking away Christmas or something... And there was nothing I could do about it.


I can't remember what happened between Wednesday and Saturday...

Sunday we had church and I said goodbye to some members there. Then I went to go see Zuley and sister Sorensen. They both cried and cried and I felt horrible. The we had dinner at the Lennons. I love that family so much!

Monday we saw sister Font, Helen, Abi, Miguelina, and bishop. There were a few more tears and I'm pretty sure my heart was in pieces.

Tuesday I packed all of my crap because I have to take it on public transportation which is seriously the biggest nightmare known to man.
Then we saw Marjorie, the Phillips and the Portugals. We also stopped by Zuleys one last time. Then we met the elders at the church so sister Orme and I could each get a blessing. I haven't been sleeping well or been able to eat much the past few days... Go figure. Anyway.
I am so so so sad. I love Middletown and I LOVE this district so so much.

Look forward to some crazy adventures. Sister Toone is back in the city. Watch out world. :)

Love,

Sister Toone.

Bueno!

Guys. It has been a pretty legit week. After Pday was over last week bishop pulled us into his office to talk about some sisters in the ward. Mid sentence he looks at me and says, "I get the impression that you are leaving us" jeez bishop... Give a girl some warning before you drop bombs like that!! I love Middletown.. But I have been here a while.

Thursday we went with Louise (an amazing sister in the ward) to visit Helen, my favorite less active. Helen called me out mid lesson and basically told me that I'm more stubborn and persistent than she is so that's why she's coming back to church. I call it diligence, but whatevs. It's working. :) sister Orme and I were "blessed" with two dinners that night. Lucky us. ;)

Side note. Louise served a mission in Italy. She OPENED Italy to missionaries, along with a few other companionships. She almost died there. They didn't even have a mission president at the beginning of her mission. Now look, they are building a temple there.

Friday we visited pretty much all of the Spanish sisters I consider friends. First was Zuley. She is a recent convert that has been through so much. Her life is still crazy pretty much all of the time, but it's okay. :) she's Puerto Rican, so that might be part of it ;) she is a single mom and is going to court this week for full custody of both of her kids. Then we visited Miguelina. My favorite Dominican.
What is there to even say about her? She was telling us how much of a difference the Holy Ghost has made in her life, and how she knows that she always needs to live worthy so she can feel it. I'm pretty sure she is better at discerning the spirit than I am. I was crying by the end of her telling us about it. :)

After that we went to dinner at the bishops house. I had been thinking a lot about another recent convert in our ward, Abi, so I texted her and she said she was too sick for us to come over. I asked if she needed anything and she said no. Being the "persistent" missionary that I am, I asked if her front door was locked because we were going to come and do her dishes. She said no so we went over. We ended up sitting on her bed and just talking. She is a single mom of four and has been through every possible crazy/sad/scary situation you can imagine. She is SO strong, it's amazing. I have learned so much from these three about being independent and strong and overcoming hard things.

Saturday we visited Eileen. She pretty much breaks my heart every time we visit... Which isn't often. We talked about the sacrament and why it's important and at the end she said something to the effect of "thanks for coming, see you in a couple of months" I think the real issue is that she doesn't want to feel like someone's project and she wants to do things in her own time. She is really sweet though.

Saturday night we all came to the church and spent an hour calling anyone and everyone to invite them to come to church on Sunday. We didn't know 75% of the people we called, but it was still fun.

Sunday we had meetings and then church all day. After church we went to do our studies and our phone rang. It was the elders from Monticello. Elder Sullivan has some health problems, so he called to tell us he'd be going home to get them checked out :( so sad. He said he might come back but it could be up to six months before he's back to normal. We had just gotten back to our studies when the phone rang again and it was Miguelina! She called to tell us that she got her temple recommend and that she was really excited to do baptisms.
Hopefully we get to go in the next week before transfers happen. :)

Monday was kind of horrible so I'll spare you those details. Sullivan called us after district meeting to tell us he was leaving :( Ben and Jerry kept us company that afternoon if you know what I mean. ;)

Tuesday was an AWESOME DAY. It started with a blue sky and the first warm weather I've seen in years practically. We went to Warwick, and we had 30 minutes before our first appointment so we went contacting.
We talked to a few people and on our way back to the car this guy said something to us so we stopped to talk to him. He had a tick accent so I asked him where he was from. He said he was from Israel. I asked him what brought him to the United States and he told us a pretty amazing story.

He was raised Jewish. After 13 years they started saying the rabbi of his congregation was the Messiah. He didn't think that was right, so he got a hold of the New Testament and read it... Which is against the law. He converted to Christianity and persecuted for years, until he left to the United States. We just listened and told him we were Christian missionaries and he said "wow, I'd love to talk to you more!
Do you want to get coffee??" We told him we had an appointment but we got his number. I'm pretty stoked.

After that we met with our investigator Kirsten. She's sweet. Her daughter was going crazy so it wasn't the best lesson.. But that's alright. After that we went to the courthouse to fold and unfold some papers. I don't know if I told you about that. They are old documents family search is taking pictures of so people can index them. After that we visited Helen who is just my favorite. Then we went to see Marjorie with a member from the ward. It was.... Eventful.

Marjorie has been reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning. She is having a problem with the way they refer to the lamanites as a dark and loathsome people. She is from Barbuda, so she has dark skin. She has asked us about it before, but we aren't much help obviously. She asked the ward mission leader about it too so we were kind of concerned. Anyway, the member got a little zealous and I think ended up hurting Marjorie's feelings. It was one of the only times in my mission I felt the spirit leave a lesson because of contention. By the end of the lesson things were okay I hope. :)

Then we went to check on someone the Spanish elders found, who speaks Spanish but wants to be taught by sisters. She hadn't returned any phone calls so rather than waste a members time by going with us to find her not home, we just went by ourselves. Well, turns out she was home and then we had to teach her about the Book of Mormon in Spanish!!

After that we went to dinner at the Phillips house. It was just sister Orme and I, and it was nice and quiet :)

Anyway. I think that's all that happened. Wow. The mission is great. I love it. I am due for a transfer I think. So.. For the next week pray that I get sent to the city ;) and send any mail to the mission office
:)

Love you all!! The gospel is true, the book is blue.

- Sister Toone
Zazuetas birthday and what I was doing on Mom and Dad's anniversary :)

HEY!!!

Sorry this is late. I was too busy eating s'mores on a frozen lake in the middle of no where. Pday is almost over too! Sorry! Love you all!

Okay. I need to repent for my last email. It was pretty horrible.
That's how my last couple of weeks have been though, not great and nothing interesting and just meh. But, I realized that I am only here for a short while and you guys are making a big sacrifice for me to be here... And the only way I can really repay you is to share my spiritual experiences with you :)

Friday was zone conference. I love missionary meetings. It's one of the few times we are spiritually fed rather than feeding. They talked about consecration a lot... Which is what I needed. I've been feeling just kind of stuck here. I don't know how else to help the people here or how else to help sister Orme or how else to be a better missionary.
Everyone had to prepare a 10 minute talk and then president called on a few people to share theirs. I love zone conference because you get to see all of the people you have served with in the past. I'd tell you all of their names but I don't think they'd matter much to any of you :)

Saturday we had a poop day again. All of our plans fell through so we picked up Yasmin and then went to Greenwood Lake. It's pretty much in the boonies... The ward members don't even know where it is. We have 5 less actives that live there. It's on the border of New Jersey... We got a little lost or may or may not have left the mission... But ignorance is bliss, right? Then we went to dinner at the Portugals.
They are AMAZING. They always make us legit Mexican food. We had this corn soup and the corn kernels were HUGE. I was kind of shocked.

Saturday was also Sandra's birthday. No one ever visits her... She is confined to her house and she can barely walk. We bought her lunch and visited her for her birthday :) I think she really appreciated it. As an investigator she is not progressing at all... Which sucks. But she is so sweet, and we don't feel like we can just stop visiting her. I think it's part of our call as representatives of Jesus Christ to love people like He would, and to lift the hands that hang low. She has no one else. None of her family visited or even called for her birthday.

Sunday was fast and testimony meeting. It was pretty good. We had some less actives come that we haven't met with in a long time, so that was pretty sweet.

Monday was zone meeting. I had to give my consecration talk there instead of in the zone conference. I still get so nervous talking in front of lots of people. It was good though :) I made brownies with marshmallows and chocolate-peanut butter rice crispies on top. Two elders proposed after so I think they were a success. We made two pans of them and there were only three when the meeting was all over :)

Our split was awesome. I have such a testimony of splits and learning from other missionaries. We taught this investigator in Poughkeepsie that is SO awesome! She is so ready to change her life. You can tell that she is scared of the big changes but the gospel has already changed her life so much. It was her birthday this last weekend, and she asked the sisters if she could drink on her birthday. They were like uhh.... Not rreally.... Because they hadn't taught her the word of wisdom yet. After they left she went to her neighbor and was like I can't drink!!! The neighbor said think about it. Christ suffered so much for you, this is one sacrifice you can make for him. So awesome!!

The rest of the split was awesome. I was reminded why I wanted to serve in the first place. I know I've seen miracles in middletown, but sometimes it just takes a change of venue to realize it. I learned so much about being a missionary and truly coming into the mission from Sister Cole. There are a lot of things I need to work on. Like... A LOT. But, it's okay. We are always learning and growing and progressing. I think that's how life works. You don't wake up one day and say "man, today I know how to be a mom" it's the same with missionary work. I'll never be a perfect missionary, but each day I can try a little harder to be a little better, and hopefully when I get home I'll have a small idea of what it means to be a true disciple and representative of Jesus Christ.

Okay. That's all I can write because we are in the car and I might throw up. Love you all! See you next week!