Super Amazing Self-Playing Piano

On Monday, February 29, 2016 1:23 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:

To begin, the internet here at the library is poor today, so I will be a little shorter with this email. So transfers went smoothly last week, and I have had Elder Parry with me for this week which has been awesome. He is from St. George, Utah, likes sports, and loves working out and being in shape. Great fit. In fact, some people say we look just alike. On Tuesday, after a great District Meeting, we got to walking. Elder Parry likes to walk, so we did. It gave us the great chance to talk to everyone we saw on the streets. We do this all of the time anyway, but now we have a greater motivation. We have begun the OYM challenge (Open your Mouth). To everyone that we see, we need to share with them a gospel principal and then leave a commitment. It can be as easy as "Jesus Christ is our lord and savior, would you please take this Mormon.org card and learn a little more about our faith?" We really feel that this can get the work going in Upland, a place notorious throughout the mission as being slow.

Wednesday, we taught Kai another great object lesson. He is so smart. He can by memory spit off the 10 commandments 5 weeks after we first taught it. He is like an angel among us here on earth. We had dinner there later that night, and Kai was there for the first time. His dad got busy with something, so Kai was able to join us. Thursday, we had great success teaching and fulfilling some assignments from our Bishop. He wants us to teach a less active member, and this guy is awesome. He loves the outdoors, but he just needs to find his faith again. He served a mission and knows the church is true, he just needs to make it back into the building.

Friday and Saturday were awesome. We saw Ed Cook, our amazing friend, for some lunch, conversation, and a quick lesson. He is the greatest guy who will do anything for us. Then after that, we helped a member in another ward move their mom's stuff into their home. It is the William's and they have a sweet home, and they are super fun to talk to. In fact, for a time before they moved here, they housed missionaries at their home. So we moved everything in and got on our way. While we were there, they really came to like us and realized there were some more projects we could help out on. So Saturday we went up there and got more work done. We moved a bunch of wood beams that will be used to build a shed, got rid of a huge pile of dirt, and removed a couple of overgrown rose bushes (more like trees). We were rewarded with some In-n-Out and got to see around their home. They have this super cool player piano that is hooked up to their iPad, and it plays just about anything. Not only that, but it has a huge speaker attached so it can play music and play the piano at the same time. We jammed out to some church hymns for a while. I want one.

Sunday, we had a great day at church. We had some great people come who we didn't expect and the talks and lessons shared were perfect. Elder Parry and I taught a lesson about the Holy Ghost. I loved it, the Holy Ghost testifies of truth, that truth being the reality of Jesus Christ as our Savoir and Redeemer. The group was great, and the comments made made the lesson so great. Then later that night, we met with this guy named Randy. He literally reads his bible for 10+ hours a day. Crazy, but he loves talking to us. I just about had this big black guy in tears when talking about the Atonement of Christ. I said that Jesus literally experienced everything, and in that way He can understand us perfectly. He loved it, and I loved that I have the faith and knowledge to say it. This week was great! We taught some great people.

Scripture of the week is from 2 Nephi chapter 31 verse 10, "And he said unto the children of men: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethern, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father?"

I love you all so much.

Love,

Elder Thelander

Photos- me next to yet another cool car and me hitting at a batting cage