Poole Food Challenge

On Thursday, September 8, 2016 4:17 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:

It feels like forever since I have been able to email. Our regular Monday P-Day was disrupted by our temple trip. On Tuesday, we had a pretty regular district meeting, and then we decided to go Apollo Burger. It is famous for it's out there burgers. Somehow Elder Pooley found out there was an eating challenge. It was a stupidly huge burger and a whole basket worth of fries. The challenge is to eat it in 20 min. If you do it, you get your money back. If you don't, you just paid 35 dollars for lunch and a stomach ache. He gave it a good effort only leaving about half of the fries uneaten. This only angered Elder Pooley as the restaurant owner laughed at him as he counted his money. So, Elder Pooley has been training since to expand his stomach so he can try again next Tuesday. Me, I just got a good ole double cheese burger... and finished it. After that was over, we went to Cencere Jackson's to lift weights then teach a lesson. He is pretty quiet, but he opened up a little to us, and we had a great lesson with him on the importance of church attendance. On Wednesday, I was on exchanges with Elder Wells, and it went quite well. We saw Sister Ingram and had a great lesson with her. We also had our last official lesson with Levi before his baptism. We had some fine Costco pizza for dinner, and the day was done. Not much to report for Thursday.

Friday, we saw Levi again- this time with the baptismal program in hand. I spent the majority of the afternoon making it, printing it off, and calling around to make arrangements to make sure everything went off without a hitch. A bit stressful, but it got done. We also saw the Tupai family to review the program with them as well as their son, Poasa, would be getting baptized as well. He just recently turned 8- that great age of accountability when we believe baptism should be performed. All were very excited about the service. In what seemed like an eternity, Friday turned to Saturday, and we headed out for the baptism. I felt so honored as Levi asked if I would baptize him. We got there, and all got dressed in baptism white. The service went off without a hitch, and the baptisms for both were done perfectly. The spirit was so strong at the meeting. The Liehr side of Levi's family came out in force, and we had about 60 people at the baptism. We had to add chairs to the back of the room to fit everyone. It was an amazing sight to see so much support for two young men who choose to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by proper authority by full immersion. We also had a miracle visit with the family of Va'a in the evening. He actually wasn't home, but we talked to his mom for a while. Va'a has an 8 year old brother, and while we were talking to mom, he entered the room. She then, out of the blue, asked how his baptism would work. Just weeks before she was leery of Va'a being baptized, now here she was asking how a service would work for her other son. The Lord really has the ability to soften hearts. Sunday was the confirmation of Poasa and Levi, thus completing their baptisms. We believe in the baptism by water and by fire (receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost). The presence of the Spirit during those confirmations was amazing, especially when Levi's grandfather confirmed him. Weekends like this make every single hard day worth it. Missionary work is the best!!

Monday, oddly enough, was just a regular day. The Samoan youth went to play basketball early in the morning, and we joined them. It was some good ball. We then taught a lesson on the Atonement to the Enos family. Then we had a great visit with brother Iloilo. This was a bit of a miracle as well. We had no plans to see him, then some appointments fell through, and I just punched his name in the GPS. We had a great lesson on the baptismal covenant. It just so happened we caught him the night before he would have been going out of town for 3 weeks. Pretty cool how the Lord will lead us where we need to go. I'll skip to Wednesday as the other days had some good things but nothing drastic. We went down the hill for a meeting in Rancho for the new missionaries and the trainers. We met with president and had a great meeting, really uplifting. All of the new missionaries are doing well which is great to hear. By the way, I still think I got the best new missionary!!! Today, we had the really special chance to go to the temple. There is no better place on earth than the House of the Lord. All people should strive to get there because the peace and power of the temple can be reached nowhere else. It is literally the Lord's house, and he walks those halls. A member of the ward drove us there, Brother Miava, and he loved the experience as well.

Scripture of the week is from Alma, chapter 42, verse 15, "And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also."

Love you all so much!!!

Love,

Elder Thelander