Baptism on Christmas!

Mom's Note: She sent this on 26 Dec 2016.

 

Hello! I hope that y'all had a Blessed Christmas! A few weeks ago, I prayed to God and asked for a baptism for Christmas, and then I totally forgot about it. But like always, I try to commit everyone possible to baptism. So, about a dozen days ago, Sister Hyer and I were talking to our mission president, and we were discussing L, and long story short, we knew that we should have her baptized sooner rather than later, so we offered to her mom to have her baptized on Christmas Eve, and then finish off the baptism by "fire" (receiving the Holy Ghost, a member of the Godhead as a constant companion) on Sunday, Christmas day. She accepted after discussing it with her husband, who works out of town, and BANG it happened. It was a beautiful baptism, and we had about 50 people attend! That is almost double the size of our branch! Some of the other missionaries in our district even brought investigators, and it was all rainbows and butterflies! But, my favorite part, was just feeling the Spirit (or Holy Ghost) so strongly because I live for those moments! I think that some hearts will be changed after watching the baptism. 

After the baptism on Christmas Eve, we went out tracting, and the first 4 houses that we went to would not deny our Christmas message with the #LIGHTtheWORLD. It was so cool and a tender mercy! Down the street, these young teenage girls yelled from their carport (wall-less garage) for us to come over to them, and of course we did and they wanted to go to church tomorrow with us. But, they wanted to be picked up by our church bus; and the problem is that we don't have a church bus like many of the baptist churches down here. So, we told them that we would see them on Tuesday.

After L's confirmation, we ate, and of course I, of all people, got food poisoning. So I spent the majority of my Christmas at our apartment. We had other people who we had promised to go see and had to postpone our visit. I prayed a lot to just be able to drive the car to the members house, so at least my companion could Skype her family. And I really wanted to Skype my family, so later that night, we went to Skype my family, and as soon as I Skyped my family, I felt better for the rest of the evening. It's crazy how it all worked out. 

I hope y'all had a Merry and Christmas and I hope that y'all have a Happy New year!!! Love you!

Sister Toomey

Sister Hyer, L, and Me

L and her family

us literally filling up the font

It's December!!

Mom's Note: she sent this on 13 Dec 2016.

Hey Y'all!! Today was transfer call day, and I found out that I get the opportunity to stay in Amite for another 6 weeks!! But...I'm getting a new companion. Sister Scott has officially finished training and will transferred to another part of Louisiana.  I got to Skype my family's wedding and finally get to meet my new siblings. 

In case you lost my address(It's starting to get pretty cold here + 100% humidity *cough cough*)

10453 Pinelands Dr. Apt. A

Amite, LA 70422

This week we have spent a lot of time finding. We meet a teenager who told us that he wanted to be a Pastor when he was older. I told him that he could do that in our church. I didn't tell him that all callings are unpaid or anything. I gave him a Restoration pamphlet and told him to read it, and if he was still interested, then to give us a call. The strange thing about being here in the Bible Belt is that being a Pastor is actually a career, outside of our church. If I had to guess there are probably 2-3x as many churches than stores in Louisiana. 

We started to teach a 9 year old, L, and she loves church and everything! She will probably be baptized in the next few months. 

One family tradition that I always loved was reading the 12 days of Christmas with my family! Below is a nice link to one of the many different scriptures that you could read. This one is different from the one that I grew up reading, but it still is pretty awesome! 

https://www.lds.org/new-era/2005/12/idea-list-the-12-reading-days-of-christmas?lang=eng

I love all of you!

Sister Toomey

#LIGHTtheWORLD

As an update, I celebrated Thanksgiving 7 times. Only 3 of them were on Thanksgiving day. 2 of them included serving the homeless/elderly. 

The day after Thanksgiving, we started handing out the next #LIGHTtheWORLD Christmas pass-a-long cards. I preferred Restoration tracting because it is a lot easier to get into their doors. But there has been some success with the cards. We went to a grocery store in Hammond while we were going down to the church with all the other missionaries in the district, and we ran into Elder Moody(one of the senior couples) as he was on his way out. We grabbed the forgotten ingredient for making pizza, and then we went to check out. While we were checking out, the cashier asked us if we were Mormons, and then proceeded to show us the #LIGHTtheWORLD card that was given to him only a few minutes prior from Elder Moody. The Cashier said that he will definitely watch it now :) It's one of those just really funny things that motivates me. A few months ago, I gave out a Restoration pamphlet to a guy at Walmart names Amos and told him that there was a scripture in there that was from the book of Amos. We talked to him a few times after that. 

Shout out to Sister Scott for placing a Spanish #ILUMINAelMUNDO card to a spanish woman in Independence. 

It has been raining the past few days, and people think that we are crazy for tracting out in this weather. 

Also, my camera just died so, next week, there will be pictures! 

Also, if you are going to my Mom's wedding, I will be skyping in, so feel free to say Hi!

Love Y'all!
Sister Toomey

2 Investigators

This has been a great week! We have been focusing more accomplishing our weekly goals and making them happen. On during Saturday's daily planning session, we realized that we had not found a single new investigator all week. So we were determined to find the 2 that we had set as a goal. So on Sunday, after church, we were going to find an investigator who had moved, but he only gave us a bad description of where he was moving too. So, we park our car in an empty parking lot in the middle of the hood, and as soon as we got out, this guy comes out of his house and yells, "Are you a Jehovah Witness?" Sister Scott yelled, "No" and tried to walk away, but I know that when people ask us that, it always end up with us either teaching them a lesson, or at least us giving them a pamphlet or Book of Mormon. So, we walked over there and told them that we were with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and were NOT Jehovah Witnesses. Then there was this drunk neighbor who came out and sat on the bed of his truck and talked to us (he ended up being the cousin of the investigator we were looking for) and then there was a mini van full of other neighbors and as soon as we talked about prophets, a woman from the van tried to anti us and it was weird. But, we did get to talk to A and made a return appointment. He seems like a nice humble guy who really wants to learn. 

As for the 2nd investigator, we went tracting down an inspired street, and at first it looked like it was probably a short street full of abandoned houses, but as we got past the curve in the street, we found another 2 houses, and meet R. At first he thought that we were crazy for going all the way down his street and made comments on how white we are. But, we did talk about the gospel and got a return appointment. So, that was exciting!

We got in contact with a less-active member of the church, and she invited us to help out with a new charity that she started. So on Friday, we spend a few hours feeding the homeless and elderly Thanksgiving dinner. It was great. Since she had so much family, we just greeted people at the door and all of the people were super surprised when we held the door open for them. It was a lot of fun!

Also, my Sister Amanda is coming home this week on Thanksgiving day!! If you see her, give her a BIG hug for me!! There is so much to be thankful for!!! 

I hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving and eats a lot of delicious food! I love y'all!!

Sister Toomey

Samuel the Lamanite

Mom's note: Sent on 14 November 2016.

Does anyone have any non-typical tracting/finding ideas? Amite is a work in progress. 

I have been thinking a lot about how I can teach the restoration a new way, like Samuel the Lamanite--who is my scripture hero. Samuel was a prophet, and God sent him to a wicked city, was rejected, and while he was on his way home, God commanded him that he should go back and tell them to repent and be baptized. Samuel knew that he could not go back like the 1st time that he was sent. So he found a new way in and climbed up the wall, and taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They threw rocks and arrows at him, but they did not hit him because he was protected by God. Then the people realized that Samuel really was sent from God and they repented and were baptized. Helaman 13-15. He truly is inspiring as a missionary.

Good news: one of our members Sister R is successfully in the middle of the Stop Smoking Workshop. 

Anyways, that basically sums up the week. I hope that you all enjoy this super-dramatic painting of Samuel the Lamanite! 

I love you!!

Sister Toomey

 

I hope that you all enjoy this super-dramatic painting of Samuel the Lamanite!

 

 

 

Waterfall

Congratulations to my Mommy for now being engaged to Kent!!!!  While all this is happening, I'll just stay here in Louisiana in my little branch. 

So funny story, a few days ago, we have been telling M that if he just invited his friends to meet with us, then the false ideas would be cleared up and that they would be able to understand why he is trying not to break the word of wisdom and why he is also trying to keep the 10 commandments. So, his friend C went to his house Sunday morning, and told M that he wanted to go to church with him. So, the joke is now that C took M to church, and everyone was super friendly to him and he really like the fast and testimony meeting. We taught gospel principles...well, that will be another story for when I come home...but anyways, I learned a life lesson at church: If you really love somebody, then you can tell them what you know will be best for them and that they need to pull themselves together because you know that will be thanking you down the road. There is an analogy that my mission president taught us a few weeks ago: Imagine yourself, sitting on the side of a river, dangling your feet in the water, and then you saw someone you love, (i.e. investigator, companion, family, friend...) and they were enjoying themselves in a tube floating down the river, and you saw a big waterfall downstream. Now what do you need to do? Do you not want to tell them because they are happily enjoying themselves on the tube and it might inconvenience them? NO! That is not going to help them. You need to tell them to get out of the dangerous river and then help them to safety. You may think that is it the nice thing to do to just leave them there and not bug them about what is going to come ahead, but really you need to tell them to get out before it's too late. The same thing goes with your friends, or in my case investigators, who are straying from the strait and narrow path that you have showed them, and it is your job to straight up tell them. 

This week have have done a lot of tracting (door approaches) with lots of success. We have been told nearly countless times about how beautiful we are, and it is hard to find people who are really interested in the gospel and committed to learning more, not just learning more about us. So, that is our struggle. 

Also, I will be sending out Christmas cards soon!! So if you want one, then send me your address, and I will get one sent to you! 

I love y'all!! 

Sister Heidi Toomey

I'm a little time crunched right now

Mom's Note: She sent this on 1 Nov 2016.

I'm a little time crunched right now, because we told a member of the church, who hadn't been to church in a very long time, that we would play basketball with her and all of the other missionaries in Hammond. So here is a bunch of pictures with some explanations of what has been happening here in Louisiana:

-The only place that I have seen in America, where the fire danger is low.

-My companion wanted to make cookies, and she blew the outlets in the kitchen with the mixer, so she unplugged it, and went into her clean bathroom and continued mixing. It was also the night of her first hard Louisiana rain storm.

-I saw both of my MTC companions at the Zone meeting and I didn't think that would ever happen it was a 1 in (4x4x4) 64 chance. 

-Also, in our zone, there is are 2 other "To" sisters, Sister Toner and Sister To'o [Too] and I was not going to miss that opportunity to have a picture with some awesome missionaries who have a similar last name to mine. 

This week, we have been chasing people down, only one was literally, and for others, we have been using out missionary skills to the MAX. We have spent a lot of time doing addiction recovery and the stop smoking workshop. We have set goals and have great plans for these people. We went tracting in a trailor park, and we had a lot of lessons within the hour or two that we had there. 

The past few weeks, I have been reading in 3rd Nephi, and wow! It's crazy to see how far some of the people go before they repent, and there is so much gray space, and it always goes downhill from there, then the prophets/missionaries go and call them to repentance, and then they prosper, then...there is this huge pride circle going on, just read the Book of Mormon and you will understand it. But what I wanted to point out, was that even the smallest things, or acts of rebellion, offend God, and if you think that you can repent later, you can, but it is going to be VERY HARD and is not worth it. To quote someone whom I cannot remember, "wickedness never was happiness." 

Anyways, stay on the strait and narrow path! Happy November & I love y'all!!

Sister Toomey

The only place that I have seen in America, where the fire danger is low.

My companion wanted to make cookies, and she blew the outlets in the kitchen with the mixer

I saw both of my MTC companions at the Zone meeting

I saw both of my MTC companions at the Zone meeting