High Speed Chase = Church Change

On Monday, January 25, 2016 1:52 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:

This week was a little slow... We had a lot of great plans, but some things just fell through on us. On Wednesday, we saw old Brother Soloman, who when we ask how he is, he is always "blessed". He is a less active member, and he just doesn't want to come out to church anymore. We just wish to start a fire under him, so he will have that motivation to come to church each week. On this day also, we went to Ranch Cucamonga to watch a special missionary broadcast from the missionary department of the church and the quorum of the 12 apostles. For us missionaries, there was a lot of speculation on what would happen here- they haven't had a broadcast like this in at least 10 years. So when no huge announcement came, we were a bit disappointed. The whole message of the broadcast was great. We got training on the basics that we need to use in order to best teach the gospel to others. There were a lot of things talked about that I can do better and that I have worked hard on to incorporate into my daily work.

Thursday, we had another meeting with Kevin. He is really doing great things. We taught him about faith in this lesson, and with that, along with his past lessons, he has a great base of knowledge. He is really working hard to overcome his issues. In fact, out of the blue, he asked us for the address to a building in the stake that holds addiction recovery classes once a week. Kevin is really committed to making a change. He, this week, attended the young single adult ward in hopes of making some friends- maybe even a lady friend. The only bummer about this is that we may end up having to pass Kevin off to have the YSA elders to teach him. They will be getting a solid guy if that is the case. In our last lesson, we proposed a baptismal date for him, and he accepted that to be baptized on February 20th!

Saturday, we had a really cool ward party. The whole theme was family history. There were displays all around the gym of family heirlooms, there was a pot luck dinner, a talent show, and the family history center was open for people to sign up. It was a really cool night, and we had a lot of non-members there in attendance. It was also a great time for us to get to know the youth in the ward better- they are awesome. There are a couple of Samoan and Tongan families, as well as a bunch of other youth who are great people. Sunday turned out to be pretty interesting. We usually get up at 6 and leave our place by 6:50 to get to meetings. Well, right after I got out of the shower, we got a couple of calls that church would be moved to another location. We found out that there was a high speed chase that night in Upland that resulted in the driver hitting a power poll taking it down as well as the two power polls right next to it. Our church building was without power, so we joined another ward at their building. Pretty crazy. We will be looking forward to having another great week this week, and hopefully not having people cancel on us.

Scripture of the week is out of Mosiah chapter 4 verses 11-12 "11. And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have tasted of his love, and have received a remission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls, even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering toward you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel. 12. And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true."

I love you all very much. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Thelander