Week 90

Ganó Méxicooooo! 🇲🇽

Happy Monday 😁

It’s been another good busy week!

Our week was filled with meetings, giving trainings, interviews with president, and we even took a guy joint-teaching with us from the Missionary Department in Salt Lake! His name is Brother Littlefield, and he basically tours all the missions in the US to see how they’re doing and how they can improve. So pretty much the boss of our boss haha! Pretty nerve racking. But it was super good, we had some great lessons and he even took us out to Red lobster afterwards!

Well, from interviews on Thursday we already know who is staying and who’s getting transferred - President Barney keeps nothing a secret lol. So good news, I’m staying another six weeks here in St Paul! Woohoo! It’s been another really awesome area, one of my favorites for sure.

Also some good news we’ve heard form practically everyone we’ve talked to recently....... Mexico beat Germany in the World Cup!!! Hahaha, seems like that’s all that everyone brings up now. Good conversation starter for contacting though!

Our investigators are doing great as well! Evelyn and Angelo have accepted a date to be baptized - The 29th of July! Angelo told us that he prayed to know if what we have taught them is true, and if he should be baptized again by proper authority and he said he felt a warm, tingling feeling from head to toe, and had a feeling of peace in his heart. Prayers really are answered!! They still struggle to come to church though because they were sick again on Sunday. But we are super excited for them! The sad news, however, is that we are getting a new set of hermanas here in Frogtown so we are splitting our area and passing them both off for the sisters to teach them. But, the work goes on! I’ll keep you updated on them.

Saturday we visited a ton of families from the ward. We were chatting with this 17 year old young man, and asked him if he is wanting to go on a mission. He said he wasn’t sure, so we all bore testimony of the blessings of serving a mission. There was a sweet spirit in the room. He committed to pray about it! But, afterwards I was just contemplating of how grateful I am for my choice to serve a mission. It has truly been such a blessing to me. But not just for me and the person I’ve become, but more importantly for the lives of those I’ve met here! It’s not been an easy journey, but as they say in Spanish it’s been “vale la pena” which means worth it. Literally translated, it means “it is worth the pain”. The pain and challenges of leaving your family for 2 years is worth it. The pain of repentance is worth it. The pain and sorrow of our life here on earth is worth it, because with out it we wouldn’t know what true joy is like. I know we can find so much happiness and joy through Christ, and it is worth every ounce of effort to grow close to Him!

I love all you guys!! Hasta ver

-Elder Bolinder

Elder Cross, Evelyn, Angelo, Elder Bolinder

Ice Cream Sandwiches!

Carne Asada

Week 88

Otra semana loca en Frogtown🐸

Hola todos😁 Had a super eventful week!

We got to teach Evelyn, the lady from Puerto Rico who showed up at church last week. We met her husband and daughter, and they live in a small basement room of this Hispanic house. They are so humble! Which is super great because they are receptive to the gospel of Christ. We found out Evelyn can’t read, so we are going over there to help read the Book of Mormon with them. When we went back the husband had underlined parts of the introduction and asked us questions about it. Super excited for them!

Went on exchanges with the Hmong elders. They were zoo heve (very good)! We set a goal to give away 6 copies of the Book of Mormon, and we hit the streets hard and passed out 7! It was sweet! Learning some more Hmong phrases, so next transfer I’m going to ask President to go into Hmong work haha😂

On Saturday we had an opportunity to go with Manuel, a recent convert in our ward, to the temple for his first time! It’s always so refreshing to feel the sweet peace that’s in the Lords house. 

Sunday was an eventful day to say the least!

First thing, we are so happy because Ashley Flores got baptized!! We originally thought we would have to push back the date, but we asked them if they were willing to make the sacrifices necessary to make it happen, and they did! Such an awesome family, and we are so happy to have helped them come back to activity and welcome them into the Spanish Ward. To see the change in them has been such a wonderful experience. Ashley was smiling during the whole thing and just gleaming with joy!

In the temple and during the baptism I had a lot of time to ponder on the covenants that I have made with God to follow Christ. I am so grateful for the promises I made at baptism and especially the opportunity to have the same feeling of being pure and clean every single week while taking the sacrament! I absolutely love the sacrament now, it has so much more meaning to me since being on a mission!

One more story from this week.

The spirit of the day took a weird turn later that evening. We just got done with a lesson in this apartment complex and we were walking back to our car and these kids run up to us and yell, hey! Are you here for Yoshi?! (This 13 year old kid who’s family is in our ward). They told us he needed help and he’s not moving on the couch. Long story short, it seemed as though he had some evil spirit inside of him that was possessing him, it was super freaky! My first time encountering something like that and it was crazy. But the weirdest part was before we could do anything he headed for the door and started running through this field and eventually across a busy street! We chased after him and made sure nothing happened to him. Eventually he made his way back to the apartment and his parents were there and they were able to get him to stay in his room. We then gave a blessing on the house to bring peace and cast out any evil spirits through the power of the priesthood, and after that there was a spirit of calmness in the house. Yoshi was pretty shaken up but he was alright. Man, I am so glad that we have the power of God restored to the earth today! Crazy experience😂

Well I don’t want to end on an unsettling note haha. So, I want to end by bearing my testimony. I know this work is truly the Lords work. I am filled with joy everyday as I serve the people here. I know Christ lives and loves us, and truly is our Rock and Redeemer. I hope all of you will find someone to serve this week as the Savior did. 

Love you all! Cuídense

-Elder Bolinder

Ashley Flores Baptism

The Flores Family

Dinner With Brother and Sister Vega

Frogtown (part of our area)

Week 87

Shirts and Ties!

Sick week turns into.. a sick week!

Hola!

I hope everyone is doing well!

This week we had a mission conference with 4 zones combined, because we got a visit from a general authority from the church Elder Timothy J Dyches! He was a mission president for the Portland Oregon mission and gave some super great trainings on how to be a 'Preach My Gospel' missionary. My favorite quote from him: "Excuses never produce results, and never correct mistakes." Powerful.

Must have been something in the lunch we ate that day, because after that day I got really sick for the first time in a long while. I was out for the count for a good 3 days, so that threw a little wrench in our week😂 luckily our two roommates the Hmong elders were able to do a little exchanging so they could still teach the Flores Fam and a couple others. But the sad part is, because I was sick I missed MLC with more trainings from the General authority! Haha. I was pretty bummed for sure.

Despite the hassle of being quarantined for a bit, the week ended with a bang! We had a sweet miracle on Sunday -- we had four investigators to church! And a member that we gave service to earlier in the week met this lady at the bank who knew missionaries in Puerto Rico. She invited her to come and she stayed all three hours and for potluck afterwards! We set up a time to start teaching her!! The Flores family also came which was super awesome because now we are moving Ashley's date back up to the 10th. We had her interview and she passed! Whooo!! She's super pumped and I am too. I have never been happier doing the work of the Lord!

I love you guys! I'm so grateful for all of your support.

Hasta la próxima!

Love,

-Elder Bolinder

St. Paul Spanish Ward - Post Church Potluck

Weeks 85-86

Building the Primary...

Time Keeps Flying By!

Hola Familia!

Since I missed my update last week, I'm gonna combine these past two weeks into one. So, buckle up!

Things have been going swell here in San Pablo, new transfer means new miracles! It was sad to say goodbye to Elder Calderwood. But, my new companion, Elder Cross, is great! He has already served in this area for a transfer a while back, so we've been trying to rekindle some progress with former investigators. We started teaching this couple named Silvia and Alejandro who had been investigating for about 4 years, and they are super hilarious! We left them with our testimonies of Christ and left them a picture of Him. Hoping to help them start keeping commitments again. Also stopped by this other former investigator in the area and turns out they moved. But the new Hispanic family living there let us in! There was a young mom, and her two parents from El Salvador. Honestly, I think it is the smoothest, best sounding Spanish out there! (So much better than our Americano accents lol). Unfortunately, they are moving back down to their country in a month, so they won't stay long.

Okay quick funny story of the week. I swear, people are going crazy at the library! Hahaha. So we were just chilling in the library typing up our stake report one morning and this lady, probably about 40 years old, next to us listening to music just starts busting out dancing in her chair, and yelling at the top of her lungs in a dead silent library! We were like what in the world!!😂 Then, the next day we sat next to this other lady who just out of the blue grabbed my companion’s pen and starts writing a note to us like we are back in 2nd grade lol. Then she just walked away! On the note it said, “I need the church, me and my friend need help, get Bishop Foster, he will know what to do.” We were like, who is Bishop Foster? She ended up coming back into the library 20 minutes later and we asked her what the heck was going on. It turns out she is an inactive member of the church in St. Paul and we got her friend’s address to send some missionaries over to try to help. It was just really freaky to have her tell us that just so suddenly and on a creepy note😂 fun times!

We got in contact again with a Hispanic lady who we found on exchanges last transfer named Reina and she let us in to teach her family! They have the cutest little four-year-old daughter ever! When we were sitting there, she would hide her face with her hands and play peekaboo and say, "aquí! aquí!" We had a great lesson with Reina on the plan of salvation, and when we left the little girl said to us, "please come back later!" Que linda! We came back the next week and gave them a Book of Mormon. We are hoping to see them progress. 

The Flores family is still doing really well! They've been reading and praying as a family, and we have gone over about 3 times in the past few weeks. We watched the restoration movie with Ashley and, honestly, I can't watch it anymore without my eyes tearing up! The Spirit is always so sweet, testifying of the truthfulness of the restoration of Christ's church. We also chalked-out the Plan of Salvation (and unfortunately forgot to take a picture, and it was washed away from a couple crazy thunderstorms!) and also taught about tithing. They've still struggled to come to church, and they missed this week because they were in Wisconsin or something, so we will have to push back Ashley's baptism a week or two. But we are still super pumped!

Speaking of those thunderstorms, we got out of a dinner and had to book it to our car and got drenched! There were trees knocked over everywhere and streets flooded. Then literally the next day was 95 and sunny. I still don't understand Minnesota weather lol.

Some other highlights from is past week - we went on Karen exchanges this week. Luckily, I stayed here so I didn't have to go eat chicken feet and spicy Thai food like my companion😂. I had a great day with an Elder Foutz from Utah, though. Spiritual giant! We also went to Minneapolis for a double baptism of investigators who Elder Cross taught. Oh, and I learned something new! Apparently the Minneapolis Spanish Ward is the biggest in the entire country!! But only because they really need to split it haha. Some other good news, our beastly recent-convert Manuel received the priesthood last week and blessed the sacrament for the first time this week! We are planning a temple trip with them in a couple weeks. We also got in contact with an inactive Hispanic lady who was converted to the gospel about 15 years ago but has had marriage and family problems. She shared about her conversion to the church, and it was powerful. Well long story short, we are teaching her and helping her to come back to church and also teaching her 11-year-old son, Manuel, who had a baptismal date last year but something got in the way, so we are teaching him again! Before you know it, we will just baptize a whole new primary for our ward😂 Also had a ward potluck last week, and guess who randomly showed up.. our investigator Johnathon!! It was awesome, we had some carne asada and played kickball. It was a blast!

I have been studying a lot about priesthood power recently, and it is such a blessing that we have this power from God given to us to bless the lives of others! Here's a powerful quote from Harold B Lee:

       "Never is the power of the priesthood, which you hold, more wonderful than when there is a crisis in your home, a serious illness, or some great decision that has to be made." 

In our moments of struggle, we are so blessed to have priesthood authority restored to the earth again to call down the blessings of heaven! I know this power is real. 

Have a wonderful week! I love you all and thank you for all your support😊

-Elder Bolinder

P-Day Games

Elder Bolinder and Elder Calderwood

Elder Bolinder and Elder Cross

The Trevino Family - "Elder" Trevino was the first Spanish elder ever in Minnesota!