January 19th

Hey, the investigator we put on date name is Otis. He is a great guy and he is black. This p-day I was able to go the oasis fun center which a bishop owns so we got to play laser tag and race go karts. I finally got my bike. With the mount of biking we do everyday, my lower body is always sore. My mission president said he would call you back to get the info and then let me call the insurance company.  Things are going pretty good here. I think it finally hit me that I'm out on my mission. Tell Hannah I hope her baptism goes well. Tell everyone I'm sorry if I couldn't email them back since the wifi is being stupid right now. Talk to you later.

Letter from the Mission President

Dear Family of missionaries,

We are now just catching up with long needed emails from December.

This past few weeks have been so wonderful as we celebrated the Christmas season sharing the joy of the birth of Jesus Christ. We had the opportunity to participate in the “He is the Gift” Christmas Initiative by the church to let the world know of the birth of the Savior. In our mission alone we distributed over 36,000 pass-a-long cards and invited all we could to share in the greatest gift of the season. Many people were blessed by receiving this gift.

Our mission was incredibly blessed by having your missionary arrive in the mission.   They brought with them an energy and excitement to the work and to the missionaries serving here.   After prayerful consideration they were assigned to training missionaries and sent to their fields of labor here in Northern California.

We love them.

My responsibility is to teach, train, guide and love and protect them.  I promise to you that I will do my very best to accomplish this great assignment.  Our mission vision statement is to “Connect Others to Heaven” and we start with ourselves and are developing each day an inward power of prayer.

This new year will be one of progress and happiness and joy as we serve side-by-side as missionaries.

If you ever have any questions or thoughts or concerns about your missionary,  please feel free to call me. I may not answer the phone right then, but leave a voice message and I will return your call.

Again, we are so blessed to have your missionary. We love them, we pray for them, we serve along side with them, and we will treasure them.

 

Attached is are files with the arriving group of missionaries, and also a group picture with the new missionaries and their trainers.

You should receive emails from us so please confirm that we have the best email to send home details and updates from the California Roseville Mission

Best regards,

President Michael F. Marston

California Roseville Mission

January 5th

Me and my companion were able to pick up what seemed like some pretty golden investigators which is awesome but haven't got a chance to teach them yet. I'm really enjoying the area and have a hard time believing that the next ward will be as good let alone any better but you never know. It would be nice to be in a car area rather than a bike area because biking is tiring definitely when it is raining. Not much else to talk about. I've gotten a lot better at basketball because I play so much now but so the NBA better be ready for me when I get back. Crazy I have been gone for over a month.

Talk to ya later

Elder Tomlinson

December 29

Things haven't change much since we talked on Skype and it still is
going pretty good here in Redding. I'm kinda getting tired of being a
greenie. The rest of Christmas was a little weird. We went to a
member's house for dinner but they had all of their family there so it
was a lot of people. We got a lot of gifts from people I hardly know.
They had us play a card game called Play Nine which I won at and they
accused us of having played the game before. We shot off plastic
rockets and I accidentally hit a car luckily no damage was done.
Something cool that happened the other day was we didn't have a dinner
for that night and we were meeting the zone leaders and then an old
lady calls us over and says she is the grandma of the missionaries and
when she found out we didn't have dinner she gave us money to buy
dinner. It was either a huge coincidence or a blessing, that was
pretty much how my week went. Remember ties, sunglasses, and cookie
recipe.
And here are a few pictures pick your favorite.

Skyping with my Boy on Christmas!

Letter from Ward Family

To The Families of Elders Kokkola and Thomlinson,

Thank you for sending your sons on a mission.  Considering you will see your sons via Skype on Christmas, this photo may serve little purpose, but while our son was on a mission he was not allowed to Skype so photos like this were exciting to us.

We appreciated having your sons in our home Christmas eve, they are both impressive young men that were enjoyable to talk with.

They are serving the Lord with honor.
Thank you again.
The Ogden Family of the Redding Second Ward, of Redding, CA

Text from Ward Family Member

Hi! Just wanted to send the moms a picture of their wonderful sons! We love having them in our ward. They said miss you and love you so much!