Week 83

A Surprise Wedding!

Cinco de Mayo in the Ghetto

Hello again!!

The week started off with a bang because on Tuesday we had MLC (Mission Leadership Conference) with President Barney and it was fire! Our mission president has revamped the emphasis on the importance of baptizing converts, so we are super pumped to start consecrating ourselves more and seeing more miracles! Our zone has focused on applying our prophet's counsel to increase our capacity to receive personal revelation from God, so it fit perfectly to have a mission wide goal to be more exactly obedient and have increased purity. There is such a drastic difference when we filter out the unholy thoughts and influences in our lives and we are more in tune to receiving comfort and guidance through the Holy Spirit. Something that I have been working on recently is having more time for pondering and self-reflection. It's so hard to find time for that in this crazy world, but I can testify that it adds so much peace in our sometimes-chaotic day!

Saturday was a little hard to find people home, because all the Hispanics were out partying on Cinco de Mayo! There was a huge festival here in St Paul, and for the whole transfer we've been running around and trying to pull some strings to get a booth there. It didn't end up happening because of insurance complications. Man, we are super bummed we didn't get it! But the funny thing is, we went contacting and there were like barely any Hispanics there. Just a sea of African Americans. We saw this huge gang fight go down, so that's right about when we dipped😂 but it was great because we got two new people to teach from it and some rico tacos de al pastor. 

We went on exchanges with the Hmong elders this week. Elder Calderwood and I have been learning some phrases. And my Hmong name given to me by one of their investigators is Tub Txib Yeeb Koob, which means "God's glory." I also got fed some Asian Pho (noodles) and Thai peppers. All I got to say is Thai peppers are like eating popcorn compared to habaneros. ...😂

The work has been going well. We are super pumped to have the Flores family start coming to church and their daughter is stoked to be baptized. Johnathon is super busy with work, so we have struggled to meet with him. We've still been on the finding grind, and we've started to teach a couple other part-member families again!

Funny story from this week… After church, we were talking to our newly called elders Quorum president in the hall. A little background - we have been speculating that our ward mission leader Hno Pérez and the Sunday school teacher (she's from Brazil and we can barely understand her Portuguese accent, it's pretty funny😂) were keeping it on the down low that they were dating! So we are standing there and all of a sudden our ward mission leader walks up to us and says, "hey elders.. I need you guys to be my testigos" (Witnesses). We both were like, wait WHAT!? Before we know it, we were in the bishop’s office witnessing their marriage! We said, "So it turns out you ARE together!" Haha. The ward still doesn't even know, but it was just hilarious to have a 10-minute secret wedding out of the blue! 😂

Well, my time here in St. Paul has really flown by so far. The weather is warming up and I'm super stoked for my last summer in Minnesota. I really feel like in the last few months I have grown so much stronger and closer to my Savior Jesus Christ. He truly is the one who give us strength to do all things. I've also grown to absolutely love the sacrament during church to remember Him and renew my covenants with God and feel my heart being purified. I know without a doubt that this is His true and living church. I hope all of you will know of my love for you guys and also God's love for you! Have a wonderful week😁

Hasta la próxima,

-Elder Bolinder

Mission Leadership Conference

P-day Tennis!