Big Wheel Hummer Fail

On Monday, July 25, 2016 1:50 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:

So, after we emailed last Monday, we set in motion a plan we had last week. At the end of our street was a big wheel hummer thing that was going to be trash, so we waited a few days and then took it over to this hill we discovered. We left it there and came back on Monday with Elders Shumway and Jarvis. A video and photos will follow, but we took it for a test run, and the results were comical. We also had a really fun activity with the zone, and then we went into Apple Valley to teach Lance and his wife. Lance is a member, and his wife is not. We will see them again tonight. They are our typical Monday evening stop.

Tuesday we had our District meeting, and that went pretty well. I remember getting some awesome cookies. It's just really nice to get together with fellow missionaries and uplift each other. We are all doing relatively the same thing, and it is great to hear what is working for them and how things work for us. There is always something to be learned. The rest of the day was slow, but we were able to help out the Enos family move some stuff and clean around their place. They are older and both pretty disabled. They were very thankful. Then later we had a great dinner at the Fabian home. Their cousin knows one of the HoChing boys, like dated him for a bit, so we had a good time talking about them. After that, we went over to the Salvas. The father is away a lot for work, and they have another family living with them to help them out. They belong to a different faith, which is fine, except the father was a pastor, and he likes to bash certain doctrines- not okay. So we try to be there as often as we can to share a simple message and make sure everything is going okay. The pastor is super fake with us and says he admires the work we do, but we know he doesn't like us around. They will be out in mid-August- thank heaven.

Wednesday is when we met Timothy or Tim. We got a referral for him that came through his brother. Tim lives in a sober living home in our area and is pretty interesting. His brother informed us that he is in remission from Schizophrenia. I don't know how that works, but that is good info to know. We sat down with him, and he is really nice. He was once on drugs and is off that now and realizes he needs to quit smoking as well. He was kept from investigating the church because of his mother who didn't like the church all that much. He lived with her and took care of her until she passed about 2 months ago. He misses her a lot, but he likes the idea he can look into the church now. We committed him to baptism, and he accepted a date of August 20th. He said he really wants to go through with it and after the lesson he said something that I won't soon forget. "Man, I just feel like I am floating right now, thanks so much for coming". The feeling of the Holy Ghost with you is so powerful. He ran into some people during the week that had some anti Mormon things to say, and we were able to clear those things up with him in our second lesson on Saturday. Dinner this night was at the Molias, and I tell you, they must prep for days for us. They have so much food when we come it is insane. Taro (samoan potato, but way filling), ribs, Palusami (don't really know how to describe this one look it up, and I guessed on the spelling:), chicken, and rice. And they expect you to eat a lot of it- haha. So I did, and basically had to be pushed out of the home in a wheelchair.

Thursday, I was on exchanges with Elder Olsen in our area. So after only 3ish weeks here, I had to take over for the day. We spent most of the day in North Adelanto in our regular ward area. We saw three less-active members, so that was really good. And then we saw our investigator, Daniel. We were set to invite him to baptism. So, we started our lesson, shared a scripture, and then his cousin showed up. He was like- I need to cut it short brothers, gonna do something now that God doesn't like. Well, dang it, Daniel, why? And then we had to leave, so we will discuss this with him next time. Theory- they were going to smoke some weed together... Later, we got taken to a buffet for dinner by Brother Sagapolu and then I got Elder Ockey back. Friday, we saw our Samoan investigator, Joseph. He was tired, but we had a good talk. We taught the Restoration (finally), and he loved the info. We also had to push his baptismal date back which he was fine with. He is super excited to be baptized, but he also wants to be ready and learn everything. We also need him to come to church a time or two more. Later in the day Elder Ockey needed to have an ingrown toe nail removed. He tried some home surgery (not recommended), and then we headed to the doctor. It was super easy, and we walked on out an hour later and laid low the rest of the day.

Saturday, we tried to visit so many people and did pretty much a circle around the whole high desert. No one was home, dang it. We drove a ton of miles and got nothing for it. But, we had a good evening by seeing the Tuatonga's and the Tupai's. Both are less-activeish families, and both offered to feed us. We gave in at the Tupai's because when their dad says something you just do it, so we accepted some pizza when he offered it. Sunday, we had a great church service. One of the talks was from a returned missionary who served in Hawaii. He talk was great, and he used an analogy to do it. He used the word Aloha. A stands for atonement, L for love, O for obedience, and HA is a phrase that means breath of life which he compared to our message of hope through Christ. Pretty awesome. He committed us all to live Aloha in our lives, and I extend that same commitment to you all.

Scripture of the week is from 2 Nephi 1, verse 23, "Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust."

Love,

Elder Thelander

photos- with my one year whoopie pie treats my mom sent, and 2 of the hummer fail