On Monday, May 1, 2017 12:49 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:
Alright- another week down. This one was very interesting- haven't had one quite like it to date. I'll begin with Tuesday. We had our district meetings which went very well. We have some new members of the zone, so it was nice to have everyone in one place and to build some unity together. Then we spent the next good little while running bikes around to their various owners. I am now also going through this program called MyPlan which is a church thing for missionaries who are going home soon. It pretty much maps out your goals and how you can stay active in life and in the church when you get home. So, I did a bit of that as well. Following that we walked around for a little while and came to the home of Ovionna. We finally caught her home, and we had a wonderful lesson with her and most of the family. It was the restoration lesson, and we had great participation from everyone. Ovionna committed to have her baptismal interview done and to be baptized before I go home. What is also awesome there is the fact we have a set time to catch her home- Tuesday afternoon. We ate dinner with the Zavala family and then went to the church to talk with the kids in the young men's program. We talked about what helped us get on missions, why we serve, what we love about it, and how we came to our testimony of the church. It went really well. I love working with the youth. While there, Brother Rasmussen, a K-9 police officer showed us some pictures of what his dog Yarno did to a guy. He responded to a call and this guy had beat up an older lady pretty good. The guy was yelling at them, and they couldn't go inside due to fear he was armed. So Brother Rasmussen yelled, "I'm gonna send the dog". The man responded, "send the dog!" Brother Rasmussen was like, really?! That guy must be crazy. Then he proceeded to unleash the hound. Yelling from inside ensued, and then they ran in to find this man's right leg spewing blood. The dog filleted the calf muscle and did damage to the other side. Let it be known to all the world, don't mess with a police dog! What is amazing is that the dog goes everywhere with him including home. And, he is the nicest dog ever. His kids play with him, and he is so, so good with them, and with us. We played fetch for a solid 15 min.
On Wednesday, we helped out with a move which actually ended on time. We usually go and get out hours after we anticipate, but this time we moved some of the bigger stuff and got out of there!!! Then we walked around a lot and had nothing much going. So, we headed in at nine and I got going on some exercise. A little core synergistic's P90x action. And during the warm up, we got a call from some Elders. I answered and some of the worst words you can hear came back to my end. My companion left me. Ugh. So we hopped into action and got over there to be with him and called our leaders to alert them. He ended up showing back up, only to leave again when he didn't get what he wanted. Tender mercy is that Elder Lanier has a great relationship with this Elder, so I threw him in the car with him so he wouldn't be alone again. I stayed behind with his companion who is a good buddy of mine. It was a pretty random outburst with no good cause. So, after having called President Taylor, we agreed an extended exchange would be best. President Taylor himself had to go to LA for a while and couldn't properly handle the situation. So the exchange began (meaning I left my companion, Elder Lanier with one of the missionaries and I took the other one with me to our area).
Thursday Elder Hurren and I went up to Rancho to pick up supplies, and then we headed to Cal Poly Pomona to talk to people. We had a great time there. We ended up meeting this guy named Austin. He wanted to interview us (which scared me, a previous Elder who went there said there is a guy that loves to bash with us) and we said sure after confirming it was for his dance class. Mind you, this guy is in pretty old clothes and is wearing no shoes. And the first question was, "Is the body political?" Yikes, that's a bit out there. I pulled some answer out of the air, and we moved on to some more normal questions. After talking to him for a little longer we found out he was previously a member of the church. Then he insisted on buying us lunch. He was such a nice guy. Then we ended up teaching Billy, Jose, and the Peck family. Pretty darn near a record for teaching in one day for me here. It was an awesome day.
Friday the exchange continued. The other Rasmussen family in the area needed our help in the morning. We went over just expecting to move an old bed out to make room for a new one. Well, we did that in no time flat, and then we got asked to help with the small back yard. No big deal. I got the lawn mower going and got most of the yard done. Well, I then noticed a big patch of knee high weeds I missed. I took the round about approach to dominate this small band of weeds and began to do so when, bang! Something flew left out of the bottom of the mower and a liquid seemed to be gushing from the bottom. My first thought was gas, not good. Then it became apparent it was water, and it flew about waist high. Yep, I demolished a sprinkler main. They got the water shut off, and we then helped move the new bed in. I have been assured the problem has been resolved at really no cost to them, thank heaven. I felt terrible. We then weekly planned with our regular companions which was helpful for the troubled bunch. After that, we taught the Tunnell family about prayer.
Saturday began with a pancake breakfast put on by my old ward here, the Carbon Canyon ward. We ate our fill there and then taught a lesson to Kate. We haven't met her before, but we had a really good visit. She suffers from social anxieties and thus has trouble coming out to church. We taught about peace, and she related a really cool story. She often has sleep paralysis, and she sees some pretty dark things while it occurs. To make it feel better, she hums a hymn or says a scripture she remembers, and it always helps. It is another evidence that the light that Christ brings to our lives always overtakes the darkness from the evil one. Then we had a meeting with Christian Zavala, our ward mission leader. That took a good while, and then we headed to our Los Serranos ward party. We had some great meat and pies there. And I played a little catch with some of the youth, a good get to know them moment.
Sunday was incredible. We got a new bishopric in the Los Serranos ward. The new bishop is Bishop Hawes, and his councilors are Brothers Larson and Inskeep. I know each of them well and am so excited to get to work with them. And it also means that we will need a new ward mission leader in the ward... again. My third in as many months here. While they were being called and asked to stand before the congregation, I felt a very strong spiritual confirmation that these men are called of God to lead this ward at this time. I know the Lord works through ordinary men to do His great work. And then I felt very strongly this- I will accept any calling that the Lord gives me in my life, and I will do exactly what He needs me to do within that calling. I knelt in prayer later in the night and made that promise with the Lord. I felt so strongly His love for me at that time. I know He accepted my prayer and will use me how He needs my to further His work. We re-exchanged after church, so I have Elder Lanier back. We had a great dinner with the most of the ward at the famous lunch bunch and then headed home to do our studies. It was just a great spiritual day.
Scripture of the week is from 2 Nephi, chapter 30, verse 5, "And the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be declared among them; wherefore, they shall be restored unto the knowledge of their fathers, and also to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which was had among their fathers."
Love,
Elder Thelander
