2 Hallelujah, Holding Hands and Amen Prayers in One Day

On Monday, March 21, 2016 1:07 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:

This was another good week in terms of lessons taught. We have been having okay success in getting in with less-active members, and we have been little by little getting in with more of our investigators. Tuesday, we had an interesting district meeting. Much of it was my fault, but a training went south when one of the instructors veered off topic, and we had to take time afterward to figure things out. All is well now, but it was a stress at the time. Then later in the day, I got to have the coolest experience on my mission aside from the baptisms I have been a part of. I got to interview this kid named Christian for baptism. He is 16 and has been investigating for a while. The coolest part of it all was to hear his answers to the interview questions. He really does have a strong testimony, and he is ready to go. What was amazing was the feeling the spirit gave to me to confirm he is ready to enter into the fold of God. His baptism will be this Saturday!

On Wednesday, I was on exchanges with Elder Wilhelm. He is one of our Zone Leaders, and he is amazing. He is really good at talking to people. In Preach my Gospel, our missionary handbook, it talks about if you talk to 10 people every day, you will have people to teach. So seeing that we really do need more investigators to teach, we have been talking to many people each week. So on this day Elder Wilhelm and I talked to every living soul that we came across. The day was great! Then we taught Kai using a Mormon Message. It was the "no cussing club" video. He loved it and talked about how he would share that with his dad. I think that is a great challenge for all of us. When we can refine our language, we can definitely become more in tune with the spirit. Thursday we had some lessons with less active members and had an amazing Dutch style dinner at the Cutler's home. Brother Cutler served his mission in Holland, so we got a taste of that country, and it was very good. On Friday, we finally got back in contact with Anthony. He has been busy with work and will be for the next week, so we will see him in a week or so.

On Saturday, we had the chance to teach old Maxine, she really does love the gospel and loves being taught by the missionaries. She just loves coming to church as well. She just had her 87th birthday on Friday- bless her heart. Then we found and contacted someone we talked to on Wednesday. She is Floranette, and she is really funny. We talked with her for 30 or so min and she did most of the talking. We found some space to share a scripture and then closed with a holding hands prayer. I prayed and she just said amen and hallelujah after every couple of words- it was classic. Then after dinner, we went down the street to just talk with people as we did not have any set plans. So we came across Gloria, and she was really funny, too. She told us of her extraordinary story of her and the spirit, and then after we covered that Mormons are indeed Christians she really liked us a whole lot more. Then in closing, we had a holding hands prayer essentially on the street, and she said the hallelujah and amens just like Floranette. It was a really good day. Overall this week was really good. Pray for us that we will be blessed in our finding efforts, so we can aid in the Lord's work. I love you all so much.

My scripture for this week is from Mormon chapter 7 verse 7, "And he hath brought to pass the redemption of the world, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgement day hath it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above, unto the Father, and unto the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost, which are one God, in a state of happiness which hath no end."

Love,

Elder Thelander

Photo is me with two former companions- Coburn and Bentley