On Monday, May 22, 2017 12:57 PM, Dustin Thelander <dustin.thelander@myldsmail.net> wrote:
A week ago today we had the chance to have our family home evening at the bishop's home. We had a great lesson, and then we had one of the cooler activities I have done. It was a personality test. So it basically gives you a situation or question and gives you 4 options. Your choice plays a part in your overall personality profile. So, I ended up being Red Yellow, with Red being predominant. It means a natural born leader, task oriented, and fun loving. It was fun to see what everyone else was as well. We knew it, but the test confirmed that Elder Lanier and I have the most opposing personalities possible. He is a White.
On Tuesday, we were able to teach Veronica and have district meeting. I'll talk about district meeting first. It was pretty darn normal, until Elder Liu, our Chinese Elder gave a short thought. He talked about diligence and how important that is in doing the Lord's work. He paused toward the end and said, hmm, I'll share an example. Ok, so when you go home from missionary, you need be diligent- find girlfriend or girlfriends, haha just kidding, one girlfriend. You set goal, go find girlfriend, be diligent, you find her. It was up there with funniest moments on my mission. Then, later when we met with Veronica, we talked about prophets and how they can bless our lives. It is a great comfort to me that the Lord has a man on the earth today to whom He speaks to direct His church. She loves that as well, and finds a lot of good advice in their messages. Following that, we tried to teach some people to no avail and then drove to Rancho to go on exchanges with the Assistants to the President. I got to spend the day with Elder Wilhelm, literally one of my favorite people. We had an amazing conversation over our studies in the morning, and then we headed over to Cafe Rio for lunch. We met up with Elders Kleinman and Low, another of my two favorite people. Twas a fantastic meal full of laughter and joy. We were also able to teach this girl named Rea, and she was way funny. She is just 20 and living off on her own and in a way looking for religion. They talked to her on the street the previous week and set a time to come back. Well, we went back and began teaching the message of the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was so fun to teach with Elder Wilhelm, he is one of the best teachers I know, and we were just in sync. At the end of the lesson, we asked her if she had any questions. She just kept saying that she doesn't want to offend us (she was very charismatic and talked really fast), and so in the midst of her saying all this, Elder Wilhelm blurts out, no we don't have multiple wives! She got quiet for a moment, and then we all simultaneous busted into laughter. Following that amazing lesson, we had dinner with a Tongan family, the 'Unga's. They are a ton of fun!!! All of their 5 boys played college football, and two played professionally. One had his final season cut short due to injury, but he played a decent amount with the New York Giants. We had a classic Poly meal. Chicken Curry, Grilled Chicken (yes two chicken dishes) and white rice. I felt back at home, made me miss the Samoan ward. Again, it was great to be with Elder Wilhelm. He goes home right around the same time I do, so it was fun to be with him before we both head home.
On Thursday, we went over to Cal Poly Pomona to do come contacting. In the past, we had just talked to people and handed out cards and things like that with moderate to little success. So this time we went armed with a little survey. It had a couple of easy yes/no questions and then asked people to rate their relationship with God on a scale from 1 to 10. Then there is a slot for a name, address, and phone number. We just asked people to fill out the survey, and many did, and we have now an address so we can go visit them. What was really cool was how easy it was to spark up a gospel conversation. No one who filled it out rated their relationship with God at 10, so the question that came to my mind to ask them was, how can you increase your relationship with God? Amazing conversations followed. One guy that we talked to was interested in us coming over, and lucky for us, he lives in our area. On the evening we visited the Tunnell family home and had a great talk and lesson with them. Another really cool thing happened. We got a call from a Sister Z. She is not coming to church much right now, but she called and asked if she could feed us once a month. She was in a pretty bad accident a couple of weeks ago and her and her daughter got out of it pretty much unharmed though the car was basically demolished. She knows that God was watching out for her and she vowed to help out the missionaries from that point on. We went over there and had a great talk. She is not ready to come back yet but said in time she can see herself at church again. A great tender mercy getting in contact with her. Friday we had our weekly planning session and then tried by some people. Not a ton going on and we ended up getting dinner with another set of missionaries to celebrate his birthday.
On Saturday, I was with Elder Ward for the day. We got up early to play some basketball and it was really fun. I am happy to report I didn't completely stink like last week. It was really good basketball all around. Then we did all of our studies and went to go get lunch at Chipotle. Well, at the shopping center it is at there was a car show going on. So we took some time to look at the large gathering of nice vehicles and to talk to people about the church. We had a fun time there, the only bummer is that is was at least 95 degrees. We taught Billy again, and she just eats up the Book of Mormon. She isn't feeling lately, which kept her from church this week, but she does a great job of applying the scriptures to herself.
On Sunday, we had a great day at church. I loved every minute of it. I just felt a great peace. I know I can find that every time I walk into church on Sunday. Following our church services, we jetted off to Diamond Bar for Pancake Sunday. It will be my final Pancake Sunday 😢. I ate way too many pancakes, but it was well worth it. As many of you know, pancakes for me are the vehicle by which syrup is to enter my mouth, and the Kilburn's have maple syrup, so my control is non-existent. We then studied for a while, and then we to Bishop Taccone's to watch a church training with him concerning the youth and young single adults of the church. It really helped us both and we had a great conversation on how to help build up our little YSA ward. It was a great way to end the week.
The scripture of the week is from 2 Nephi, Chapter 9, verse 45, "O, my beloved brethern, turn away from your sins; shake off the chains of him that would bind you fast; come unto that God who is the rock of your salvation."
Love,
Elder Thelander
