On Monday, March 27, 2017 12:49 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:
This week has been crazy, and with that it has flown by. Last week I went to the batting cages on Monday and had my best session yet. I am judging that based upon how quickly I can make adjustments, so that is coming back a bit now which is nice. On Tuesday, we had our once every month and a half or so Zone Conference. I loved it a ton, and I had one big take away I would like to share. President Taylor talked about having the faith to move mountains. Now I don't know about you, but I haven't seen any actual mountains moved recently by anyone, so how could this apply to us? Well, we each have personal "mountains," so to speak, and we need to develop the faith to move them. I know I have moved some mountains on my mission, and I know there are plenty more I need to move. Great motivation to keep the faith. Our personal time with our zone went great as well. Elder Lanier and I talked about the new Easter initiative coming out and how we can apply it in our work, as well as the role prayer plays in revelation. Also trained on was working with the youth of the church. Pretty startling stats have come out saying that less than half of adults from 18-25 in the church are active in it. We need to help youth develop anchoring testimonies that will take them through the storm that those years are. Elders Hatch and Ethridge trained on this topic and it was powerful. After the conference, we taught Veronica the 10 commandments. She is still doing great and should, as soon as she is healthy, be going to the temple. Then we had the dry run for Moses' Tabernacle. It would surely be an amazing event.
Wednesday was the first full day of the Tabernacle. There were not nearly as many people that came through as expected, but 392 was not too bad of a start. I did love the experience of taking tours through that Tabernacle though. At one station describing the coverings of the tabernacle, one of the youth (who are the narrators for each station which is amazing!!!!) made a comment that was really touching. The bottom layer is of fine linen and has beautiful angels on it, but it is covered by 3 other layers not to be seen. Why is that? Well, in typical Tabernacle fashion it is symbolic of something. It represents that there are anglels all around us, loving us and protecting us, though we cannot see them. I love that so much, the spirit hit me so strong in that moment. And I know it touched the hearts of all who came through that day. I have a testimony of temples, I know they are the house of the Lord, and that they have always been, and we are lucky enough to have them on the earth now.
Thursday, we began the day helping this guy Tony who feeds us from time to time move his storage unit. Now, he is a single man in a pretty good sized home, but we figured he wouldn't have that much stuff. Wrong. He had a good sized storage unit that was packed to the brim, and there was just him (older, not much help) and Elder Lanier and I. I went into overdrive and also did my best job of moving tetras, and we got it loaded up. Unloading was easier and all in all we got the whole job done in 4 hours, miracle. We then ate and back to the Tabernacle it was for us. We had in the midst of the evening a great lesson with the Isaac family. Brother Inskeep, our ward mission leader and friend of theirs, was there and that made a big difference. We taught the restoration to them, and they said they felt that same spirit they felt a year ago when they took the missionary lessons.
Friday was not all that eventful. We had to run to Rancho to take Elder Sabir to a doctor appointment, and good news is he got good news!! That took a good long while, and then Elder Lanier and I weekly planned. We set some good plans together to make our companionship great, and to get the area going. Following that it was Tabernacle time!! Day 2 there was 315 or so, and Friday was around the same- maybe a bit more. Still under-performing a bit, but if it just helps one person come unto Christ it is so worth it. Every soul is precious in the sight of God. Saturday there was no Tabernacle, so we took the chance to go on an exchange. I was with Elder Clemons in my area for the day. We have been on the mission together for a long time, and we finally got to spend a day together. He is one of our Chinese Elders. We taught Billy Brown a great lesson on the Book of Mormon. The greatest thing is that her grandson Justin sat in as well. The day was overall slow, but we talked together a lot about repentance. We as a mission have done a good job at building our faith, now we need to repent daily because if we do we can become great, we can become more like Him.
Sunday was a whirlwind. Church at 9, then again at 11. Both were great. We had a non-member come, David, and he is looking for religion and wants to be baptized. That's pretty cool. We will be working with him this week. Then we had "break the fast", a huge meal after church. So the Tabernacle was advertised to being at 3, but they changed it to 4 because an area authority came to speak to the leadership of the Chino Stake. Well, we had like 100 people there at 4 when we began. It was my job to get tours started and keep the flow of the whole operation going. So, we had 2 video rooms then two waiting rooms. We had to take people from waiting room to video room when a video ended to get the tour going. A tour had to be out the door every 5 min. We had people wait for an hour before they got into a waiting room. Had to keep everyone happy and keep everything going. It could be best described as running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Stressfulish, yeah a little bit, but is was awesome to have that many people experience the spirit of the Tabernacle. In all 894 officially came, and I would bet it was closer to 950. We were at the church building from 7:45 to 9:15. Today is p-day until 1:00 pm when we begin work again at the Tabernacle.
Scripture of the week is from Moroni, chapter 7, verses 16-17, "For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him."
Love,
Elder Thelander
photo- me with my mom's friend from high school, Alicia, and her family- I was their tour guide at the Tabernacle!
