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