Super Spiritual Mountain Studies

Elder Dustin Thelander
Apr 25, 2016
4 min read

On Monday, April 25, 2016 2:17 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:

The rest of Monday last week went as usual- we played some chair soccer and then had a great dinner with the Eklof family. On Tuesday, we had a great district meeting. It finished up, and I just thought- yes! that was awesome. The district is super pumped about missionary work, and they are all committed to work really hard. We taught Brother Erbar, a less-active member, in the afternoon after some Thrift Shop service. It is cool because the director of the thrift shop sent an email to the director of service for our area and told them what a great job the missionaries are doing and how amazing they are at living their faith. Our dinner that night was amazing. We ate with the Spencer family. They are like super nerds, but they are so cool at the same time. We talked all about each of their missions and about Sister Spencer's time in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Wednesday was good as well. We taught Brother Soloman and Kaplan. Both of them are less-active members. Brother Kaplan is doing so much better now than he was doing a couple weeks ago. It really is the work of the Lord that has helped him to this point. We had dinner with Japhet who has been being a little weird lately. He is a good man, but he has his quirks about him. We did some tracting in the morning (going door to door), and while walking away from this house two cop cars pull onto the street and parked right in front of us. We were like, oh boy. So Elder Parry asked him if we should vacate the street and the cop responded "yeah you better run fast, don't look back, and don't make loud noises, they are attracted to that". Made for a good laugh. Thursday was slow. We taught Brother Reed in the evening, and then he took us out for some ice cream after the lesson. He is the nicest person in the world. Friday was a little slow as well, so we walked a massive amount. That was basically it for that day. We weekly planned as well, so that was very productive. Saturday was amazing. I was on exchanges with Elder Williams in my area. We had our coordination meeting with Brother Hampton which went very well, and then we had breakfast with Brother Hotzinger. It was awesome- he made some eggs, hash browns, toast, and bacon. It was a great time with him. He is doing a little better as well. His son is still acting out at school and needs some help controlling his behavior. Then we met the sister missionaries to talk with someone who they had previously talked to and wanted us to meet. So we met them down at this massive apartment complex, and the guy wasn't home. So, we knocked some doors around there. The first two doors we knocked on had living in them members of the church who have fallen away, and we didn't know they lived there. One of them wanted us back to teach them and help them come back. The other will take some work. That was a miracle! Then we ran into this other guy who was interested, and we will return to teach him this week. Later that day, we had a miracle meeting with Grimaldo. We talked to him for a while and shared a scripture and then his wife came out. We talked with the two of them for at least an hour. She is a non-member, and is not at all interested in the church, but now she knows the missionaries are good people. That night we taught Tony as well. He, in this lesson, was way more receptive to our message as we shared the message of the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. Saturday was fantastic. Sunday we had a great church and dinner over at Japhet's. He was more normal in this meeting. Then this morning we went on an amazing hike. It was a pretty sketchy, narrow, loose rock hike into the mountains. We made it to the top of the hike and perched ourselves on a rock overhanging a cliff of sorts and studied out of The Book of Mormon. It was so peaceful and spiritual. We then slid/fell our way back down, and now I am here safe and sound emailing all of my favorite people. Scripture of the week is from the Book of Mormon, chapter 7, verse 5, "Know ye that ye must come to the knowledge of your fathers, and repent of all your sins and iniquities, and believe in Jesus Christ, that he is the Son of God, and that he was slain by the Jews, and by the power of the Father he hath risen again, whereby he hath gained the victory over the grave; and also in him is the sting of death swallowed up."

Love, Elder Thelander