General Conference Greatness

On Monday, October 3, 2016 5:31 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:

After an great p-day, and I call it great because I finished all of the items on my to do list, we made our way over to the Savea family home. The kids were winding down to go to bed, but we got to talk with Ana Pea and have a lesson with her. Turns out she really needed a lesson and a bit of a boost. The spirit does a great job at leading us to help others.

Oh, I guess I forgot to mention I got called as a district leader again. So I now hold the title of district leader, trainer, and senior companion. It has a nice ring to it :). So, on Tuesday I ran our district meeting that went very well. We talked together about the people we are teaching and had great discussions on goals that could make us better. We decided upon making a goal to talk to more people each day. Everyone we run across is a child of God who we can bring a great and special message to. After the meeting, we had a visit with our new investigator, Annette. She is a bit of a miracle for us. We got a call that she needed a blessing, and they are not members of the church. After the blessing, we were invited back to teach her. She enjoyed the restoration lesson and told us a lot about her. She is 25 and was into the music business for a while and got a bit caught up in that lifestyle with that crowd. She came back home to heal, she has given up that part of her life, and she wants to find Christ in her life. I'll talk more on her later. After her visit, we saw our man Levi. The family is practicing for the primary program, which is usually hard enough, but the whole program is in Samoan. Most of these poor kids don't know a lick of the language. Should be a good program with a bit of comedy involved. The lesson with him and the kids went very well.

Not too much of anything happened Wednesday aside from our visits with Sister Ingram and the Enos family. We took the time to walk around our area up there for a while and just talk to people. Elder Pooley and I set a goal for us to be out among the people more. The nature of our area makes it so we are in the car a lot, and while we are there, many pass us that could use our message. So we have some good people to stop by at a later date due to our efforts.

Thursday we did some service for a man in another ward, and he is really cool. Just helped him move his garage around. In the evening time, we stopped by Mike, our friend in the RV. He was a bit down, so we talked him up, shared a message, and said we would come back soon. Friday was pretty awesome. We did our weekly planning session to perfection, and then we got to work. We visited Annette again, and this time the lesson was on the Plan of Salvation. The fact that we can be forgiven was huge to her. She has some demons in her past that she would like to let go of. In fact, she brought up baptism before we could. At the end of the lesson we committed her to baptism on the 12th of November. We pray she can make that date and allow Christ to heal her. After that lesson, we broke out the bikes because we were totally out of miles to use (we are limited to how many miles we can put on our car...). So, we tried some people in North Adelanto. No luck really up there. Then we made the trek on the bikes over to Summer's. She is a less active member due to her work situation. I love seeing people who love church so much. It pains her every week to have to put her work clothes on instead of her Sunday best. We commended her for her faith and told her to keep on the path. Last for the day was another stop by for Mike and his wife Justina. Justina still desires to be baptized, and the 5th of November is her day. Progress on all gospel fronts are going well with her, they just need to find their way out of a bad spot. Pray for them.

Saturday and Sunday were great sessions of General Conference. What more can I say other than that they were amazing. The Prophet and the Apostles did an amazing job at helping all see that the Atonement as performed by Jesus Christ is real, it can help and heal you!!! Prayer is powerful and you need that in your life, I promise. And all of us need to help build the Kingdom of God. For more insights on this last General Conference please feel free to visit LDS.org. I love you all so much, oh, and we went on a sweet hike this morning!!!! Pictures follow.

Today in light of the conference that was just held, I will share a scripture out of the Bible. It is Ephesians, Chapter 2, verses 19-20, "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;"

Love,

Elder Thelander