On Monday, January 9, 2017 2:34 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:
On Tuesday after we emailed, we taught a pretty good lesson to Kimberley about prayer out of the book of Enos in the Book of Mormon. Oh, hello everyone, forgot to greet you and say hello. The book of Enos is really focused on prayer. This man "wrestled" with God in mighty prayer for the remission of his sins. The Lord answered his prayer, and he was forgiven. One thing I have realized is that the Lord is so quick and willing to forgive. Think about it, His singular purpose is to bring us back to His presence. Would He make it some complex algorithm to repent? I really don't think so.
On Wednesday, we helped a family in Diamond Bar move to their new home. It was a pretty easy move, and I got a ton of baseball cards out of it. Some of them are pretty darn cool, but I have no way to check values on them. Hopefully, they will grow in value over the next 6 months, and then I can take care of them. Following that we went over to the home of Betty. She is the mother of Alex who was baptized into the ward about 4 months ago. We invited the Tanner's to the lesson (President Tanner is in our mission presidency), and it went pretty well. Betty's brother was there who is currently struggling with cancer. He talked a ton. It didn't necessarily talk away from the lesson, but it did take the focus off of Betty a little bit. All in all, it went pretty darn well. She felt the spirit for sure.
Now begins what was possibly the greatest day of my mission. I will refer to it as day one. We had a visit from the mission department, and it was incredible. They retaught us how to be missionaries. The biggest thing covered was how to build faith. The first building block of faith, as we were taught, is prayer. If you don't pray then you won't likely read the scriptures (and then if you do it will be without the spirit), and spiritual growth won't happen for you. Our new huge focus as missionaries is to teach people to pray. When we teach the first lesson now, we teach it with the intent to get people to pray about what we teach. We don't do the teaching really, we give them what they need to hear and then the Holy Ghost does the work to give them the feelings that tell them what we say is true. This meeting was such an eye opener. The two men were Brothers Jarman and Donaldson- both of them master teachers. We also learned the best way to study the scriptures ourselves and then how to read them to investigators. So my studies the last couple of days have been awesome! One thing I have done that has really helped me is I have put myself in the story. I will say this again, they taught us how to be missionaries again. Not to say I was doing it wrong for these 18 months, but I have not been doing it the best way. I am now. Every time we see someone, our purpose is to build their faith. I have included a picture of a chart of sorts that explains exactly what we need to do to get back to our Father in Heaven. Study that chart and apply it in every situation in your life. They taught us that our families will be taken care of while we are on our missions, they taught us how we can help our future families, and a ton more. Okay, here comes the humdinger. At one point Brother Donaldson was reading out of the Book of Mormon, and he needed some readers. He came to my side of the room and pointed at me, "could you read Elder..." I said Thelander. He paused, "do you have relatives in Illinois?" I do. "What part?" At this point his glasses are off and his jaw is on the floor. I say Crystal Lake. He asks "What is your dad's name?" I said Matt. His jaw is now lower than the floor. "I was at your dad's baptism!!!" I couldn't speak at this point. "Your dad's father was a principal in the community right?" I finally could speak and said, you have the right family. He then said that we need to talk after the meeting. I was in shock, and he was totally thrown off after that. Turns out, Brother Lee Donaldson was a bishop the same time as my Grandpa Milner in Crystal Lake was, and he was in the Stake Presidency when my dad was baptized. Like he really knows the family. He asked at one point, your mom still has curly red hair right? It was so crazy. I know a bit about my dad's conversion, but he was able to give additional insights and background I didn't really know. What are the chances? He was just elated when I reported to him that my Dad is a fantastic member of the church and has served in a bishopric and more amazing callings. I could say more, but I have written a book already. Suffice to say I still can't wrap my head around what occurred. He did tell me I have some big shoes to fill because I come from an amazing family. Later that night we taught Paul and Paula using the method for teaching we learned, and it was amazing. I am certain their faith was built.
Now that I have reported that day, I will move right along. Friday we weekly planned, and it was the most effective weekly planning session ever. We set specific plans to help everyone we will see to build their faith. How? Get them to pray!!! Prayer is so dang powerful. We taught Jose about prayer, and he did a great job. He is committed to baptism for the 21st if everything goes well. He wasn't at church which is a bit of a concern, but we are hoping that he will get it together.
Saturday I was on exchanges with an Elder Ethridge from Alabama. He has a really thick Southern Accent- classic. We played some basketball in the morning, played football with the other elders' investigator, then helped out with a move. These people had some dang good furniture (heavy). Then we talked all day about our Thursday training. We really uplifted each other and also taught a couple of great lessons with our new pattern. One was to less active, Jesse, and he loved it and felt the spirit so strongly. He was at church on Sunday as well!!! Sunday, we had a long day at church. We had to leave Carbon Canyon early, but we made it to the YSA ward where they called a new bishop that day. The new bishopric is really amazing and will do great things. Paul and Paula were at church and it was so good, they heard a lot of great testimonies. We then had a lesson with them at our ward mission leader's house that night. We resolved a lot of their concerns, and they were excited to pray about getting baptized on February 11th! I love this work. My email title is day 4, because I am on day 4 of being a better missionary than before!
Scripture of the week is from 1 Nephi, Chapter 1, verse 12, "And it came to pass that as he read, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord."
I love you all so so much. Have a great week.
Love,
Elder Thelander
photos- me with Lee Donaldson and the flow chart
