Miracle Week

On Monday, November 14, 2016 3:51 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Hello everyone!

I hope you have all had a great week. Mine was fantastic. I have so much to tell. It all began Monday with a pretty darn smooth transfer cycle. I moved Chino, no problem, and we got our p-day going. In the evening, we had a Family Home Evening where we experienced miracle one. I am new here so every face there was new to me. But, to other people there was another new face as well. Leanna was this new face. Three weeks ago she just showed up in the church building to check out a worship service. She enjoyed it and got in contact with our Young Single Adult ward mission leader, Chaz, and they have been in contact about church. She liked the family home evening. It was so perfect- there are like 5 returned missionaries there, so they took her in and made sure everything made sense.

Tuesday was pretty fun as well. We had our district meetings, and it was a little weird to not be running it like I did my last area. But the one I was in was run by Elder Klineman, and he is a stud missionary. I learned a ton. Then we had to run up to Rancho Cucamonga to pick up bikes and ferry things around. That seems to be one of the Zone Leader responsibilities. So we got that done which took way too long and headed off to dinner at the Jones family home (they hosted FHE as well). On Wednesday, we finally had the chance to settle down and unpack a bit. It was really nice to have a moment to breathe. We then got in contact with a less-active family, the Pitos. The husband is Samoan, but he had no culture at all, doesn't even know how to say hi in Samoan- haha. They are a super cool family, and it seems they each have a testimony, but he works a lot on Sundays, and she doesn't go to church without him. It was cool though, they were both at church on Sunday. Our dinner was with the Mautz family. Brother Mautz is the leader in the area over missionary work, so we ate and had a little meeting with him. As a zone leader, we meet on a regular basis with area leaders to talk about missionary work, so having Brother Mautz in our ward is really awesome.

Thursday was amazing. The leaders of the mission all got together in Rancho in what is called MLC (Mission leadership council). It was a really really productive meeting. We touched on what we feel the mission culture is and how we can improve it, the 2017 training platform, and a chapter out of Preach my Gospel. We talked about so many great things, and I really feel that we with a good deal of effort and love can launch our mission into miracle mode. After this meeting (which was like 5 hrs long), we got some dinner and then saw two less-active members. The first was Sister Bean. She is the cutest old lady ever, and she gives us something to take home every time we come over. Then it was to Sister Barron. She loves the church, but she works as a cop in LA county and works most every Sunday. Our focus is to help her kids come unto Christ a little more. We will hopefully get through to them a little more in our next visit.

Friday we will visit miracle number two. There is a man named Jose. He was taught by missionaries in the past and then just vanished. We got a call on Friday from him, and he wanted to meet up. So we went and got to talking with him. He was struggling with some things and checked himself into rehab. While there his Catholic mother dropped him off the Book of Mormon so he could read it there. He read from the beginning to Alma chapter 42!!!!!! Holy cow, that is amazing! But not only that, he wants to be baptized. He literally called us, we had no idea that Jose existed. The Lord is so good.

Saturday I spent the day in Rancho with one of the Assistants to the President, Elder Badoni. He is the coolest person ever in the world. We talked for a long time about the MLC meeting we were both at and how we can help the missionaries we serve reach their full potential. We talked about how to inspire someone to do their best you must have really high expectations all the while showing forth mass amounts of love. That is the formula that can bring an individual and group to perform at their best for the right reasons. All the things we do as missionaries, the rules we follow, the sacrifices we make are done because we love Jesus Christ. The principals we in turn learn will help us later in life and into the eternities. I learned a lot from this great elder. One of my favorite things I heard was in a talk by Elder Bednar. He said "you need to prepare a multitude of people to replace you." That is great advice.

Sunday was miracle three. First, Jose was at church and all the people in the ward surrounded him and loved him the whole day. After church, we had some dinner and headed out to see Alex (a recent-convert) and her mother Betty. The meeting was quite amazing. We took our ward mission leader along and got the lesson going. We taught the message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I feel Elder Jeppsen and I taught really well together and Alex, only baptized one month ago, helped out in our teaching a ton. She bore such a strong testimony to her mother. The spirit was so apparent in the room, and her mother felt it. I just love being a missionary- weeks like this one really make me appreciate the hand of the Lord in this work. It would not work without him. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that fact can bring so many blessings into so many lives, we just need to find and help them realize that reality. I love you all so so much, and so does your Father in Heaven.

Scripture of the week is from 2 Nephi, Chapter 9, verse 21, "And he cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam."

Love,

Elder Thelander