Week 72

Minnesota State Capitol - St. Paul

Transfers!

Hola! Transfers are this week. Yikes! Probably the fastest transfer of my mission. Luckily, I am staying another 6 weeks here in New Brighton. I'm getting another companion, so I'm sadly saying goodbye to Elder Barrett. 

Today, we just got back from the St Paul Cathedral and Capitol Building.  It was great! And very spacious. Ha. I got lots of pics for ustedes.

This week was pretty slow because of appointments that fell through. Sadly, all our citas with the cute family we found last week, the couple from Cameroon, and the Hispanic guy named Jose we invited to be baptized last week. There's nothing more frustrating! But the work goes on. We saw our blonde Peruvian friend Cristian and his wife. We talked a lot about covenants with God, and how important they are in our lives and for our eternal families. They've been struggling to keep commitments but we were blessed because this week they came to church!

Some good news, our date set Alana is doing a lot better! She came to church, and we had a lesson afterwards. We worked through a lot of struggles she's been having and she's still progressing well towards her baptismal date. She told us, "I know I've made some mistakes recently, but I need to be baptized on March 10th. What do I need to do to be baptized?" Her desire is so strong. We are so blessed to have the atonement of Jesus Christ to rely on him and his grace to heal and change us. Keep Alana in her prayers!!

Other highlights of the week: Wednesday we had exchanges with the elders in St Paul. Found 2 new investigators! We gave them a Book of Mormon, and they gave us some deer meat!! Get this… we set up a return appointment to have a barbecue and a lesson with them. Haha! We also gave a powerful healing blessing to their investigator who accepted to be baptized. The spirit filled the room! Thursday we had another noche de hogar (Family Home Evening). Pretty good turn out again!

Also, a sister in our ward is the daughter of the mission president in Australia (President Norman) who broke his neck and is in critical condition. So, keep them in your prayers as well!

Thanks for all of your love and support! I say is often, but I really do mean it. I know God lives and loves us. Have a good one!

-Elder Bolinder

Noche de Hogar

Elder Bolinder and Elder Barrett

Capitol Building - St. Paul

Inside the Capitol

Week 71

River Walking...

Muchos Grandes Milagros!

This week went by way too fast! Another great week in the MMM. It was jam-packed, so let's get right into the meat and papas. 

Some highlights… We found 5 new investigators this week! One of them was an Ecuadorian named Luis. He is so humble and lives in a tiny house. My 6'3" companion had to bend down because the ceiling was too short! He opened up to us about hitting a turning point in his life with his struggles drinking. We were able to testify of Christ and his transforming power. We mentioned how the Book of Mormon, as a companion to the Bible, brings us closer to Christ and he was like "One sec.." He walks to his bedroom and pulls out a copy of the Book of Mormon!! He had been taught by missionaries about 6 years ago and (even though he didn't read much) he kept it all those years! Super cool. We are excited about him.

We taught this young couple who met with elders in the past, and they are from Cameroon!! The diversity is amazing in the cities! 

On Wednesday, we had some great exchanges with the APs. We also had 3 district meetings this week, just going around giving trainings for the zone. It's a busy life!

On Thursday, we had our kickoff for our weekly Noche De Hogar (Family Night) with some of our Latino crew. It was a blast, and we're expecting a lot more people to start coming this week.

On Saturday, we had a zone P-day since half of the zone is in YSA (Young Single Adult) wards on campus and have their P-day on that day. We had a blast bowling and playing games! That evening, we had a super powerful lesson. This was our second time meeting with the husband of a Hispanic family that was taught back in the summer. They hadn't been keeping their reading commitments, so we actually planned on discontinuing the lessons. We went in with this intention. But, as we started talking the Spirit was very strong and prompted us to teach him about the 'doctrine of Jesus Christ'. Right when we started to talk about the first principle of having faith in Jesus Christ, I instantly felt the Spirit whisper, "You need to invite him to be baptized.”  And good thing my companion and I were both on the same page because Elder Barrett invited him, and he committed to pray with his wife about it! Experiences like these are always amazing -- being led by the Holy Ghost to be instruments in the Lord's hands. We'll see what comes from this guy!

Lowlight of the week was not having any of our investigators come to church this week. It was a big blow, especially since out investigator who just accepted a baptismal date has been struggling a ton. So, the rest of the day we were just feeling a little down. But I have a huge testimony that if we press forward with faith through the hardest times, the Lord will always be there to shower blessings upon us. We had no success finding the whole day. But, at around 8:30 at night we had a classic "4th floor, Last door" experience.. We found a super-golden Hispanic family! They have three cute kids, and actually lived in Salt Lake City for 2 years. They told us that earlier that night they had been talking about looking for a church for their family to start attending – there are no such things as coincidences!!

I love being a messenger of Christ! I know God loves us and is in the details of this work and all of our lives. Thanks for every single one of you guys! Les amo!

-Elder Bolinder

Noche De Hogar

Winter Skyline - Minneapolis

Week 70

St. Paul Temple

A SUPER Busy Week!

Hola todos! This week was jam packed. Unfortunately, we didn't have as much time this week to be working in our area. But we still saw some miracles happen!

So, check out this crazy week… On Tuesday we had interviews and district meeting. Wednesday, we had an exchange with a missionary in training. Thursday was MLC (Missionary Leadership Conference) which was all day. There were some amazing trainings, and revelation from the Spirit! Great experience. Side note - at the conference they gave us all smartphones!! Our mission has been approved to start rolling them out, so we are the batch of guinea pigs to test them out. Loco! Then, on Saturday we had a ward temple trip. We brought all our recent converts and also the Spanish crew, and we even got to take our amigo José Rojas who we've been helping return to activity and it was his first time attending in 21 years! The sweet spirit there is always so strong. And to top it all off, it was super bowl Sunday here in Minneapolis!! Something like 60 different police departments from all over the state came to the cities for the weekend. President Barney texted and said all missionaries in areas in the twin cities were not to be outside proselyting unless we had set appointments. The two appointments we had that day cancelled on us, so it was kind of a bummer day. We enjoyed the warmth indoors and made tons of calls, typed lesson reports, and recorded numbers for the zone. Such a blast! Jk haha. It was cool though because on the drive home, we could see the lights on US Bank stadium changed to green, so we knew that the Eagles won! Lol 

Despite the busyness with all he meetings we've had, Elder Barrett and I have seen the Lord guide us in our efforts this week. One highlight and some good news is... we set a date for our investigator Alana to be baptized on March 10th! First off, on Friday while we were planning our day, we both felt like we needed to see her that day. Turns out when we went over there, she told us her friend wanted to take her out partying that night. Our lesson was so timely. We were able to help her remember the blessings of choosing the right. We shared with her Mosiah 2:41, and talked about the happiness that comes from keeping the commandments. It was really a sweet moment, when she made the realization, "Wow, so that's why since I've been coming to church things have been getting better and I've been happier!" The sweet spirit was so strong. She also told us she received an answer to her prayer to break up with her boyfriend who hasn't been a good influence on her. She's been taking some great steps in the right direction, and we are super excited to see her progress even more!

Another spiritual highlight of the week was a really powerful training that was given during MLC. They talked about our desire to find new people to teach. A quote that resonated with me was, "Our desire to share the gospel directly corresponds with the depth of our witness of Christ and his atonement." Being a missionary can be hard. Sharing the gospel with others can be hard. Being obedient can be hard. Whatever the case may be, if we strive to strengthen our conversion to the Savior and His gospel, our righteous desires will increase!

I love you all! Thank you again for all your love and support. Dios les bendiga.

-Elder Bolinder

Ward Temple Night

The Spanish Crew

Elder Buhler Returns to Visit (red hoodie)

New Smart Phone :)

Week 69

Elder Barrett and Elder Bolinder

MinneSNOWta!

This week started off pretty wild! First off, Monday night we had a "snow emergency" declared and it snowed about a foot in a matter of like 8 hours. Luckily it was P-day, so during the storm we were huddle in the church enjoying the warmth. We got a text from President Barney saying the cars were "grounded" and to go home and park immediately. It took us about an hour just to get drive home and find a parking spot because the roads were so terrible. We got stuck a couple times and also stopped to help a push a gentleman's car up his driveway. 

Well, we finally made it home! Since we couldn't drive anywhere, we were thinking of what we could do. Then instantly a light bulb went off. Let's just trek out in the storm and help people get unstuck from the snow! So, we got our gear on and headed out. We ended up helping a total of 6 cars get unstuck and handed out about 4-5 pass-along cards. One of them was this guy who got stuck in a huge pile of thick powder about 4 feet tall on this freeway exit. He told us at first he couldn't even get the door open! We ran out there and shoveled him out, and it took about 30 minutes to dig all that snow. So, he drove off and we started walking off the exit and he was sitting at the red light. He came up to us and offered us a ten dollar bill for our kindness. We gave him a pass-along card.

The next day all was fine and dandy when we walked out to our car to leave for the day. Then, to our horror, we see 6 huge tow-trucks just going to town! They were towing the side we parked on so we booked it to try to save our car. Then I said to Elder Barrett, "Hey isn't that our car on top of that truck?!". Haha, oh no. We sprint to the truck before it pulls away. We stop the driver, and he rolls down his window. We tell him, "Hey, that's our car man. Is there any way you could take it down? We'll give you five bucks. Please!?" He paused for a second and said, "It'll be $15.." Haha. Elder Barrett reached into his pocket and miracle because he had the extra 10 bucks from the guy we helped the night before! The tow-truck driver just wanted to milk us for money. But, hey, $15 is a lot better than a $300 towing fee! Haha we were so lucky we got our car back!

Well, with that crazy start to the week the rest of the week flew by! I apologize for the long story haha. This week's been a another busy one. We had two exchanges with some teams in the zone. One on Tuesday to the Twin Cities YSA Ward. It's a little different since they don't have cars or use bikes. We just roamed around UofM campus on foot and contacted peeps. It was sweet! Then Thursday we had a blitz in Blaine which is north of new Brighton. And we found two new Spanish investigators, Fabian and Manuel. Both super solid and committed to come to church this next week! It's pretty sweet because since we are a "magnet ward" we don't really have boundary lines for Hispanics.

Friday we had a rico dinner with our investigator Alana. She's actually half-Mexican and half-Native American, and she made us tinga tostadas. It's this super good chicken tostada! And it was sweet because during the lesson Alana's aunt and her 8-year-old son joined in! We had a really awesome lesson about personal revelation and receiving guidance from God through prayer. She really opened up to us about the hardships she's going through right now with addictions and financial problems. We committed her to come to church and feel of the peace there. She came!! And the cherry on top was that all of the talks were themed "My Peace I Give Unto You." 

Some extra miracles from this week. One, we were knocking doors because our appointment with the Catholic minister and his family I mentioned last week fell through. We accidentally ran into some former investigators named José y Maria Flores (classic Hispanic names lol). She instantly let us in and told us she used to slam the doors on missionaries like us all the time, but one day her heart was softened and she started taking the lessons from Elders about 3 years ago. And they want to start having lessons again! Okay. Second one. We went over to teach this guy named Christian Prado, who is this light skinned, blonde hair, blue eyed Peruvian who I actually met way back when I was here last year. Side note, in that time he's gotten married and we've also started teaching his wife! We had a good lesson on modern day prophets and apostles, and after the closing prayer Chris said "You know guys, I really feel like I need to start going to your church again. You guys visit me and do so much to me and I feel like I need to return the favor." The Spirit has really been pushing him to come back to church. Unfortunately he didn't end up making it, but we can sense our message is stirring in his heart. 

If any of you remember, back in General Conference of 2015 there was a talk about “ponderizing” scriptures - a mix of memorization and pondering. One of my goals for 2018 is to ponderize a scripture of Christ and his atonement every week. This week's was from the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 2: 6-7) This scripture is so powerful:

"Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth.

Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered"

I know Jesus Christ is our savior and Redeemer. He lives!

Love you guys so much, and hope you have a wonderful week.

-Elder Bolinder

Overnight Snow!

Close Call!