On Monday, April 3, 2017 12:53 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:
Let's see, I wish not to sound redundant, but a lot of time early this week was spent at Moses' Tabernacle. I'll skip to Tuesday. We had our district meetings as normal, but what was cool is this Asian man, probably 20 years old, showed up to the church. He was at the Tabernacle the day before and was loaded with questions. Now, the meeting is typically for missionaries for our training and spiritual well being. But, he was there and we didn't want to turn him away. He not only was there for 30 min of the meeting, but he participated and had great insights. The Chinese elders then told him some things that I didn't understand. Then we made Olympian time and finished our stuff at the library, meeting with the district leaders, and eating lunch in 45 min and got to the Tabernacle. A little into the day, I was running around outside taking care of stuff when I was informed that I was requested to take a tour through. Hmm.... So, I entered the room to find the Patten family from Crystal Lake sitting there. I got to join them on their tour, and we took some pictures afterward. It was great to see them. We also had the Hayes family come out and they had a great experience. This event brought the spirit into a lot of lives, members of the church or not. It is special to realize how much our temples of today are of a divine design, one that was reveled to Moses a good time ago.
Speaking of the temple, I had the amazing chance to go on Wednesday morning. I have taken a long time to prepare myself spiritually for this trip and to be totally focused on Christ. It made a significant difference in my experience there. I felt the presence of Christ with me from the moment I entered the temple doors (which symbolically face east, Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden to the east, thus walking into the temple to the west signifies that we can return to the presence of God). So, I went in looking for an answer from the Lord as to what I should go into General Conference seeking. I had a neat experience. I was led to a scripture which led me to think that I needed to go into conference seeing how to become a better leader, and upon that thought I prayed to seek the Lord's will. I got a not so good feeling, hard to describe, but I knew that was not the right question. So I looked back at the scriptures and came across a verse on patience. I prayed about that and got an overwhelming feeling of peace. That is the question I went into General Conference with- how can I better develop patience. I left there feeling great and feeling closer to God than I ever have. Then we went to the ancient temple for it's last day. The event was so amazing, but every missionary was just about done with it. So, it was nice to see it conclude.
Thursday was a day of normal missionary work. We got after it with some vigor seeing as it felt we hadn't done it in weeks. We made our trip to Rancho Cucamonga to pick up supplies and then saw Veronica. We taught her on missionary work, and she is doing it so well. She just wishes everyone to find the happiness she has found. We then stopped by Tony's house for some food, and he gave us a ton of stuff. It amounted to nothing. But he has a good heart.
On Friday, we headed over to the library to learn a little more about the new church Easter Initiative all about the #PrinceofPeace. The video and supporting videos are amazing- the best I have seen yet. I exhort you all to go to mormon.org and view them and apply to your lives the principles of peace. I know we each seek peace in our lives, and that comes through the Master. We showed this video to Jose, and he loved it. He felt strongly that Christ can fix any broken thing. We then attended a baptism for a man named Chris. He has been coming to church for 7 years with his wife and just recently decided to get baptized. Elder Lanier conducted his interview, so we had to attend to bring the record for his baptism along. Saturday and Sunday were filled with General Conference and I was inspired. So many messages on Christ and His Atonement and feeling of His love. I loved the message of the Prophet to read the Book of Mormon every day. Simple.
Scripture of the week is from 2 Nephi, chapter 9, verse 18, "But, behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever."
Love,
Elder Thelander
