Week 57

Mission Conference

It's Hunting Season!

Hola Fam!!

This week has been fantastico!

To jump into the week, we had a sweet Halloween celebration on Tuesday. We kicked it off with a huge mission-wide conference, and we got to hear from a general authority of the church Elder Michael T. Ringwood. He served as a mission president in South Korea, and he spoke a bit of Korean for us it sounded crazy! haha. It was an amazing spiritual experience and we learned a ton from him. He talked about the importance of planning and goal setting - something I realized is so vital to missionary work! Well, it was just what we needed to get motivated to hit our goals for this week, and we crushed it!! We'd been struggling to get more people to come to church. So, we set a solid goal to get 4 nonmembers to church on Sunday. We beat it by 1 and got a grand total of 5 to church! (That's a really great week for us!!) It's always a huge testimony builder to have your prayers answered and see some fruits from your labors.

Oh, and after the mission conference we had a multi-zone P-day and had a gigantic dodgeball fight it was absolutely mad😂

Some other good news, Derek's baptism this week! We went over to review the baptismal covenant and prepare him for his interview. We had a pretty cool object lesson. We got two clear plastic cups and filled one with a pinch of dirt/mud. We had Derek pour water into both of the cups, and we explained that the dirt represents sin, it makes our spirits unclean. But, when we are baptized we are washed clean from our sins and become pure like the cup of clean water. Then it was as if he read our minds and knew exactly where we were going with this, he asked the perfect question! He said, "What if I have a cup of dirty water, how do I get the dirt out?" Well, you can't just pick up the dirt and take it out.. You can't just pour more good water into the cup because it will never be fully clean like it was.. The answer? Through repentance and renewing our baptismal covenant by taking the sacrament, Jesus Christ can heal us and literally give us a new cup of clean water - a clean slate! As Alma in the Book of Mormon explains it, we "must repent, and be born again." Through Christ's atoning grace, we become new creatures in Christ! What an amazing gift.

Saturday we went on exchanges again with the elders in Mankato. Seriously, I can never leave that place!! Haha! It's always a good experience talking to a couple investigators and members from the past. Granted, it's a bummer having two days this week not in our own area. But it was a blast! We did some tracting out in the cold which is always fun😂. We handed out a couple Libros de Mormon. One guy answered straight up wearing a shirt with a naked lady on it... super awkward!! Hahaha😂 but we ended up talking to him (covering the shirt with our hand of course lol) and he was really intrigued by the Book of Mormon. He committed to read it. You never know who is going to be receptive to the gospel!🙌🏻

Funny side note. Deer hunting season just started here in 'Sota and they have deer literally everywhere! So, of course, being down south in the boonies almost everyone we run into looovvees to hunt. It's actually been a really great conversation starter and has led to some good discussions about God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a good thing that my companion Elder Nielson is obsessed with hunting!😂 I can't really contribute much to the conversation, but I’m definitely putting that on my bucket list of things to do when I get home!

Have a fantastic Monday my friends. I love you all!

¡Dios bendiga!

-Elder Bolinder