Week 51

Ridin' Tractors! 🚜

Hola todos!

This week was filled with meetings and traveling. So, unfortunately, we only got 3 days to work in our area this week. But we were spiritually fed for sure!

To kick off the week, we headed up to good 'ol Lakeville once again for some exchanges with the zone leaders. It was great! I keep ending up going back there one way or another and it always brings back good memories. One story from that day: We talked to this African American guy named Melvin in the parking lot who was actually tinting his windows. He said, “Yeah you guys can talk to me while I work on my car!” He said he was 21. We got to know his background a little more and he had grown up going to many different Christian churches, but recognized that a lot of pastors are focused on money and there is a lot of corruption in many churches today. We told him how we have an unpaid ministry in our church and that we actually have to pay to be out here on missions. He was like, "No way man, that's dope!"😂 We taught him about what the Book of Mormon is and how we use it hand and hand with the Bible. We explained that it helps clarify doctrine that is easy to be misinterpreted through many translations of the Bible. We ended up sharing the example of God the Father and Jesus Christ being two separate beings. And he says, "Well yeah when Jesus is praying on the cross he says Father why have you forsaken me, I mean that's clear as day man!". Haha. We both just smiled and were like, "Amen to that!😂" It actually took me off guard because you don't meet too many people here who ponder seriously about the nature of God and Jesus Christ! It was a pleasant surprise lol. He said he would read the Book of Mormon, and we set an appointment with him! It's always a joy to find people who are open and seeking for truth.

The next day we drove to the cities and had new missionary training all day. Elder Nielson is a stud! We are like long lost brothers lol. We had some great training sessions. It's always good to review the basics(: Saturday was also filled with district meeting and interviews in Mankato, which is about an hour away. Interviews are always so uplifting! We received a lot of good training on utilizing Facebook in our missionary efforts, and it's still hard to get used to using it again but it's been great for contacting people and organizing events and what not!

Despite a lack of time in our own area, we've had some really great lessons! We started teaching a less active Hispanic lady in the ward and helping her and her two boys coming to church more regularly. We also taught a super energetic kid named Landon who's mom is less active, but she has agreed to have us help teach and help him be baptized! We had a great lesson with him on Wednesday and set a date for him to be baptized in 3 weeks!

We are loving the ward here in Faribault! It's on the smaller side (only about 90 active members), but they are super supportive and missionary minded. This week, we had a ward BBQ and hay ride, and it was a blast! Good food, tractors, and a live band! We got there and walked past the band and we see the first counselor in the stake presidency playing the trumpet, haha! We were like, dang what a savage!😂 Then we see right next to him, the stake president on the Guitar! Man, Lakeville stake is the best! 😂 It was good to have all the members invite their friends and introduce us to them. We had some pretty good charlitas but nothing really came from it. We are definitely excited to keep working with the members here and find more people to share our message with! And the awesome part about it is all it takes it an invitation... So be brave and invite a friend to watch General Conference!😊

Some good news though, the less active Hispanic mom we met last week came with her two boys! They had a great time. We're continuing to help them come to church and prepare the oldest who's 10 for baptism (:

I hope you are all super stoked for General Conference! I sure am! I hope we take this amazing opportunity to hear from modern day apostles and prophets with sincerity of heart. I encourage you to write down questions or an aspect of your life that you are struggling with, and promise you that as you listen to their messages you will receive personal revelation and guidance! I know that God leads us with a prophet today. What a blessing it is to hear his words!

Thanks for all your love and support, have a wonderful week!!

Cuídense😊

-Elder Bolinder

Fairbault Ward BBQ/  Harvest Party

Elder Bolinder and Elder Nielson

Faribault Patriot!

Week 50

P-Day Hockey Game in Faribault, MN

You Did What To My Name Tag??

Hola todos. Hope you all are having a marvelous week!

This week has definitely been a strange one. But don't get me wrong, it was also a great one!

As a lot of you already know, the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission has been approved to start using tools for online proselyting including... Facebook! It has been a weird transition, but it has been a huge blessing to project our voice for truth to an even broader audience. Going along with this news we had some amazing trainings given at our zone conference last Wednesday, and we are SO pumped!

Faribault has been a blast! We are still trying to get to know the area better and all of the members and investigators. We've met some awesome people this week! And also a few crazy ones! lol.

We met with our investigator Kevin on Thursday and helped him work on the house he is fixing up. We painted one of the bedrooms, and the renters who lived there before painted it slime green! haha. Looks a whole lot better now. He and his family are doing a lot better since his mom died. We invited him to come to church with us, and he said "I'm not making any promises!" Then we received a text Sunday morning saying he's on his way! It was great! He seemed to enjoy meeting new faces and feeling the sweet spirit at sacrament meeting. Kevin surprises us so much! Oh, and another thing we found out - he works as a prison guard! No wonder he's so jacked!!

We also taught the new part member family we are teaching, and it was great! They even fed us dinner😏 lol. We taught them about our purpose here on earth and the importance of eternal families. They have a super energetic little 4 year old daughter, which made it a little difficult haha. Cute family. We emphasized the divine mission of our Savior to atone for our sins and healing power he brings us. The husband, chase, really loved the concept of progression. The purpose of our life on earth is not only to accept Christ, but to BECOME like him! He invited us to come back on Saturday and help him set up a trampoline. Long story short, we started assembling it but we were missing a box of parts! So, we ended early and he offered to get us breakfast at McDonalds. Sweet! We had a nice chat with him while eating. Oh, and speaking of jacked, Chase is also huge!! Haha he told us all about how he loves lifting. He opened up to us and told us about his rough past and divorce, along with how he rediscovered God in his life. We testified to him the changing power of our message of the gospel and invited him to be baptized. He didn't commit to a date, but said if he knew our message was true he would! We are excited to help him progress more.

Now for a quick funny story😂. Yesterday after church we had a potluck with all the members of the ward. Great opportunity to put more names to faces! Anyway, this one member came up to us to introduce himself. He was an older guy with a pretty goofy personality. He said he had a tradition for every new missionary that comes to the ward. We asked him, "and what's that?" He then reaches for my shirt and steals my name tag, and before I realize what he was doing he had it in his mouth and was biting it! He bit my name Tag!! Hahaha. We were like, what just happened?! He said he does it so that every missionary will remember him. And I sure will because now his teeth marks are in my tag😂😂 it was so hilarious, me and elder Nielson were dying!

Some other great news from this week, Bob is getting interviewed next Sunday to receive the priesthood! We taught him on Sunday about what the Aaronic priesthood is and the blessings that it gives us and those around us. He's super excited! I am personally deeply grateful for this fruit of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have the same power and authority that he and his apostles had when on the earth! We use this authority to bring people the healing power of Christ through essential ordinances. What a blessing!

I want you all to know how much I love you guys! I feel your prayers every day. I know God lives and he is watching over you. He loves you unconditionally! Have a wonderful week.

-Elder Bolinder

Elder Nielson and Elder Bolinder

Group Photo During Transfers

In Faribault, MN

Week 49

Bob's Baptism

My Main Man, BOB!

What a week it has been!!

This week has been full of transitions, stress, but mostly.. Miracles! So, if you didn't get the news already, I get to train another new missionary! And, surprisingly enough, yet another English speaking companion. That makes 3 in a row now! haha. We headed up to the mission home on Wednesday and I picked up my new greenie, Elder Nielson. And no, not the legendary Elder Nielson serving in Estonia, Sadly! But he is super awesome and easy going. We are off to a crazy start going into a new area. We both took over the sister's area here in Faribault so we have been crazy busy trying to get to know everyone. But a plus, I'm pretty sure we have the cleanest apartment in the mission! We're going to try our best to keep it that way! lol. 

We've met several other investigators previously taught by the sisters. One guy, Kevin, is this absolutely ripped 50 year old man, and he's awesome. He's a little stubborn with keeping commitments, but it seems like deep down inside he's searching for more in his life. And he has been praying about being baptized on September 24^th. His mom recently passed away and we reviewed with him the principles of the plan of salvation that gave him a lot of comfort. I find it hard to imagine going through life without the reassuring knowledge of life continuing after death. We lived with God before this life and we accepted God's plan to prepare a way through his Son Jesus Christ to make it possible to return to him. There's so much comfort in this eternal truth and many of us take it for granted!

Another amazing blessing: There's LOTS of Hispanics in our area!! Whoo! I've gotten to teach about 4 lessons in Spanish this week and, man, I've missed it so much. The sisters were teaching this cute young Hispanic family, la familia Bermudez. And they have been reading in the Book of Mormon! Hopefully we can help them continue to progress and come to church.

The sisters here were teaching an older gent named Bob. It was sweet because, since the sisters were in my district, I got to meet Bob for his interview before I was transferred to the area. I was able to meet Bob and do his baptismal interview a few weeks ago and he is incredibly humble and super smart! Unfortunately, we had to push the date he was supposed to be baptized back a bit. He had some struggles with quitting smoking before he was baptized. But they set a new date for him. He wasn't sure he was going to make it the two weeks before his baptism, but we got to meet with him a few times this week and had a really powerful lesson with him on relying on the Lord. And he pushed through it and made his date! We had to rush and put together all the details for the baptismal service, but everything went smoothly! It was so cool to meet Bob and help him make the final leap of faith and see him enter the waters of baptism. Granted, credit must be given to the sisters, but what an awesome start to a new area and my companion with a baptism in the first week of his mission! Whaaa? Haha. It was a powerful experience. And another awesome miracle, Kevin came!! He said he wasn't going to come because he was too busy but decided to surprise us! He seemed really touched by the Spirit.

It was a pretty hectic and busy week with trying to meet all the people in the area and organize the baptism at the same time, so we weren't really sure how the week was going to go. But we started praying fervently for more people to teach because we don't know a whole lot of people here and we need more investigators! Well I'm here to testify that the Lord DOES answer prayers! We had a lesson with Bob after church on Sunday and we wanted to go right into the New Member lessons and reviewing the missionary discussions with him. We meet him outside his apartment at this little table, and guess what… Bob brings a friend!! We introduce ourselves, and she says "Yeah, I'm Bob's girlfriend." We were like.. "BOB HAS A GIRLFRIEND!?!?" We had no clue! She told us she came up here from Iowa to visit for a few months. We taught them both a powerful lesson on the restoration and she accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon. Now we get to start teaching them both! Then right after that, we visited this lady from the ward who told us she was inactive in the church but recently started going again. She wanted to re-take the lessons so she could get a refresh on some of the gospel principles and teach her family. Then, all of a sudden, her husband walks in and says, "Hey, I'm not a member of your church, but is it okay if I sit in when you guys come?" We're like, “OF COURSE!!” We told him our message is actually geared towards families, and helps them grow closer together. The gospel of Jesus Christ blesses families! I've seen it bless my own family and change our lives. What an amazing answer to our prayers. I know the Lord's hand was guiding our work this week. We are super excited to go have dinner with their family next week!

I want you all to know how much I love and appreciate you all! I know that our Savior lives and loves us. His church and gospel are restored in its fullest on the earth today. His gospel is the path that guides us to true joy and eternal life. With all the craziness going on in the world, the solution to all of our problems can be answered through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can impact everyone around by following his example! Go share your light with someone this week, and be an answer to someone's prayer!

La iglesia es verdadera!

-Élder Bolinder

Group Shot at Bob's Baptism

Elder Bolinder and Elder Nielson

Filling the Font

Week 48

Godzilla in Mankato!

Ayeeee Chihuahua..

¿Qué pasa calabaza?

It's been while!

Sorry I missed emailing last week! We had a sweet service project for this couple in the ward and guess how old they are turning.. 90!! Loco! I’m sure all you guys were just devastated hahaha. Nah, but all is still well here in the land of the green. A lot has happened the past two weeks, so I'll try to pack it all in.

So we'll start with a  highlight (not so highlight) from last week. I'll start off by saying I am OK! No injuries. But, last week we got in a car accident, and sadly we hit directly on the left fender so it bent the wheel axle and made the car not so drivable. We didn't want to have to get it towed, so the police officer told us to just drive slow back to our apartment. We didn't realize how bad it was until we started driving and it was pretty sketch! We almost got into another accident not even lying haha. But, with all the screeching of the bent wheel, we made it home safely. So,  the car has been in the shop for the past 2 weeks and we've been surviving on bikes and member rides, it's made it challenging but we've got a lot of good work done. 

Biking has been great, but my legs are super out of shape. And it doesn't help that Mankato is the hilliest city in the world!! Definitely gonna get some solid thighs out of it, though. One night last week we were at the tail end of a long bike ride to our next appointment and there was this giant hill, and we sure weren't going to trudge up this thing on bikes so we start walking our bikes up. All of a sudden around the corner this guy comes zooming by on a longboard. We barely saw him in time and had to jump out of the way!! Then we hear him yell from behind us, "where's my momma!?" Hahaha! We busted up laughing 😂. Probably the most random thing I've been yelled at by a passerby lol. Oh, and we got a sweet picture with Godzilla this week! It's this huge statue in the middle of Mankato that we used as a landmark to get picked up from the other elders.

Another highlight from this week is  that we had a baptism in the ward! The other Elders’ investigator, Cierra, was baptized by her boyfriend Max. They've been our best friends the past two transfers. I conducted her baptismal interview and it was amazing to hear her testimony of Christ and the change that she has experienced through His gospel, despite some doubts and persecution. She was really prepared! The baptism was last Saturday and the spirit there was incredible! And bonus, we even got 2 of our investigators to come and watch. Super cool experience 😊.

Quick update on investigators. Pam is still doing well and reading the Book of Mormon a TON! It's awesome! And she came to the baptism and loved it which we are super excited about. We've also been teaching Cathrine, the lady we met last transfer with the soccer-playing border collie. She got the news that her daughter has stage four cancer and doesn't have much time left. We had a comforting plan of salvation lesson with her and it was great. She also has attended church with us the last two weeks! I'm so grateful for the answers that the restored gospel gives us that many people don't have. Having an eternal perspective of God's plan of salvation gives us so much hope and direction in our lives! I know without a doubt that our eternal journey didn't start at birth nor ends at death - we are eternal beings!

Okay, a random funny story from the week. We were out doing some stop-by's looking for Spanish speakers and we knock on this one trailer home door. As we walked up the stairs onto their home-made deck, all of a sudden this tiny ferocious furry thing popped out from around the corner and started screaming us. It started to charge at us and, unfortunately, I didn't see it coming and so it bit my leg!!😂 After some brief commotion, the guy in the home came out the door to see what's up. The guy walks up and stomps on the deck to scare it and yells, "Aye Rambo! Cállate!" (So, this crazy little chihuahua is named Rambo hahaha best name ever) And the dog starts peeing all over the place haha poor thing. Luckily it didn't get on our shoes. But they felt bad that it attacked us, so they let us in! We taught Héctor and his son Héctor Jr the plan of salvation, so we got a new investigator out of it! Haha #valelapena

También, this week is transfers. And I got a call last night with the news that I would be training another new missionary! I guess they think Elder Woolley turned out alright, so they’re giving me another go at it. I'm super pumped! Cross your fingers I get another awesome greenie. Also, it was kind of expected since I've been in Mankato for a while, but I'm leaving and going to Fairbault! It's still out in the middle of nowhere. In fact, it's in the same district still so I'm not going far. But, I'm going to miss the area a lot, the ward here is SO great! It will be bitter sweet for sure. Other big noticias… our mission is getting Facebook approved! If you see me post something on Facebook, don't worry I'm not being disobedient! Haha. It will actually be really nice to contact and invite members and investigators over Facebook, but more on that in a few weeks!

Well today we get to go to the Minnesota State Fair up in St. Paul!! I've heard it's one of the biggest in the US so it should be a fiesta! I love all of you guys, thanks for all the prayers you send my way. I know that God lives and loves us! The church is true. Cuídense!

Pray always! (D&C 10:5)

-Elder Bolinder