Soccer Ball Sniper

On Monday, June 6, 2016 1:09 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Hello All,

Last week after email on Tuesday, we basically had dinner and that is all. We tried to stop by to visit some people in the evening, but no answers came. On Wednesday, we studied from Mormon.org, and I learned a great bit on how we need to love God. If you put God first in every aspect of your life, you will see huge blessings come. We need to love God more than all worldly things and even family and friends. In fact, people around you should be incredibly happy if you love God more than them. That thought came from a talk given by President Ezra Taft Bensen, former prophet of the church. We taught Brother Soloman as well that afternoon. He just loved the verse out of the Book of Mormon that we shared with him and had us mark it down in his book. All the while, there was a movie playing in the background, and it was just about the hardest thing ever to not just sit there and watch. He loves his movies, so there was no turning it off- haha. This day was also really awesome because we finally got Elder Mitchell's bike fixed. The guy at the local bike shop has serviced missionaries bikes for a long time and basically did a 50 dollar tune up on the bike for free. So, we got biking around a little bit.

On Thursday, I was on exchanges with Elder Yang. He is from Taiwan, but has spent time in the states so his English is pretty good. We had a great day and got a good bit of work done. Elder Yang began his mission as a Chinese speaking missionary in an area called Diamond Bar where the population is 50% Asian. He has a cool story as well. He wanted to go big in tennis, so his dad sent him here to the states in his Sophomore year of high school. He pretty much lived here alone and through some real estate deals supported himself. It paid off as he won two state championship titles in singles tennis. Anyway, we, together, found a new investigator named Sylvia. She was just sitting outside her home right by our apartment. We talked with her, and she accepted a Book of Mormon to read and we read to her Ether 12:27, which talks about how we can turn our weaknesses into strengths. Then we did a lot of walking and talking with a lot of different people. It was, on this day, beginning to be really really hot. In the evening, we had a fantastic Book of Mormon class. We read together the Book of Mormon and discussed whatever came to our heard and mind. I conjured up an analogy that I really like (pat on the back). Think of yourself in the weight room. You are doing a lift and using very heavy weight- let's say on the bench press. As you lift, you begin to lose strength, but you want to build muscle so you keep going to almost failure. This is where a spotter becomes very important. He or she, with just a couple of fingers lifts a little bit, maybe takes off 5-10 lbs off the weight of the bar. This is not much, but it gives the lifter the boost he needs to finish the lift. Christ is our spotter. Just when it seems too hard, or too heavy, He puts his fingers on the bar for us. He doesn't carry all the weight, because if he did, we wouldn't learn, but he does help. He stands there and makes sure that the weight doesn't crush us.

On Friday, we saw Brother Cook and some of this grandchildren. We had a great lesson and are doing our best to get his wife out to church as well. Then we got to participate in sports night. The Spanish branch began this, and we have a kid named Nick in our area who was interested in coming. He is less active in the church and his family has attended the Spanish branch in the past. So this was perfect. We played some soccer, and then half way thought Nick said he couldn't come, so that was a big bummer. Saturday we taught Floranette. She has come to just really love me. I don't know what I did, but she calls me her boy, and she gives us really good soda. She is a really cool African American lady, and she loves the word of God, but has some interesting beliefs- head scratchers, if you will. Then in the evening we were walking down in the Ghetto, for fun, and there was this kid sizing up a soccer ball. He was to kick it a long distance to his buddy who was a ways off. In the middle of the two of them were some smaller girls playing. So this kid gives the soccer ball a boot- I mean this ball took off at a great velocity. It was bending a little to the left, and we could see in slow motion the poor girl this soccer ball was about to hit, but there was no time to react. The ball made flush contact with the dome and her head did the classic snap back, her hair went all crazy, and she cried her way into the house. This was just classic as we were literally feet from the incident. She was okay- just stunned her and maybe left a little mark...

Then Sunday, we had a really good fast and testimony meeting at church. Our Bishop gave a great testimony and said something that really stuck out. He said that a testimony has a shelf life. Something we believe at one time can go away if we do not renew it, or strengthen it. It is so true, things that we believe one day can be thrown to the side the next. So, we need to turn our testimony into conversion. Conversion is firm, and takes a lot of work, study, and prayer. We saw Sylvia again that day, and she actually read out of the Book of Mormon, but the wrong chapter. So we had to clear up some confusing things, and then she kinda began to understand. She had really out there interpretations of the Bible and other things. We are doing our best to clear things up and steer her toward the truth. So, that was the week!

Scripture of the week is from 3 Nephi, chapter 22, verse 10, "For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee."

Much Love Y'all,

Elder Thelander

photo- me with another maserati