Week 95

New African Shirt From Friend Derrick in Faribault!

Feliz Lunes!

Hola friends and family. Cómo están? 

Another week in the books!

The Lord has really blessed us in our efforts this week because we’ve had some sweet lessons with lots of families! We found this family through someone the Sisters used to teach way down in the south part of our area. We taught the wife, Emma, and Abuela. There were friends and family milling around in the house/backyard, but it was super cool because when we said the prayer it was just the two of them and when we finished the prayer and said amen all of a sudden there were like 8 people standing there who all joined in! I love how inviting Hispanics can be!

We also had a sweet family home evening with a family in our ward (The Cisneros) and the Flores family. And they invited their friends!! It’s been amazing to strengthen our relationships with the members this transfer and help them find opportunities to share the gospel. If you have any hesitation with sharing your testimony, inviting someone to a church activity, whatever it may be - go for it! You will be blessed!!

Ok, last one. We had a lesson with our recent convert Israel and his son. Half way through his Tío walks in named Pepe, who used to take the lessons last year but then moved and didn’t really have contact with the missionaries. But now he moved back in with Israel! So, now we are going to teach him from the beginning again and we’ll see where it goes. Super exciting!

Other highlights from this week:

We had exchanges with the Hmong elders. Learned a new phrase - Kuv tshaib plab.. 😂 Had a bomb day of finding, we went to this trailer park and made friends with this little Hispanic dude on his bike, Geo, and he was just telling us where all the Hispanics lived it was great haha. 

There was also a Quinceañera for someone in the ward that we were invited to para comer. It’s basically like a wedding without the groom! It was cool to see a bit of that part of Hispanic culture on my mission. I also ran into some members from New Brighton I haven’t seen in forever!!

I’ve been pondering recently about a scripture I’m sure most of you are familiar with.

James 1:5

“5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”

We share this verse with people almost every day, but this week I’ve just been thinking of how grateful I am for the principle of revelation. God loves us all and wants to give us the knowledge we lack. He will always give us answers to our prayers if we turn to him in faith. There is such a difference between the people we teach who are willing to pray to seek answers and those who aren’t willing. I am forever grateful for the things I know to be true through prayer. I truly do know that God lives and answers our prayers!

Well, the grind continues. Hope you all have a wonderful week! I apologize for the lack of pics this week, but more soon to come next week. Stay tuned.

Con amor,

Elder Bolinder

Land of 10,000 lakes!

Week 94

Elder Cross and Elder Bolinder with the Karen Elders

Go Pack Go!

A super cool moment from this week was when we felt like we needed to visit this older member, Hermano Jimenez, who lives on the edge of our area. His wife is bed-ridden with countless health problems. The husband humbly asked us if we could offer her a priesthood blessing. Afterwards, she grabbed my hand. Although she couldn’t talk or hardly move, she just looked into my eyes. And at that moment, a warm feeling filled my heart and I could tell just by her looking at me how deeply grateful she was. It was so sweet. The eyes truly are the windows to the soul. I’m so grateful to have a chance to be out here serving others as Jesus Christ did!

Some stories from this week:

We’ve been toning up the legs, hitting the streets on our bikes this week. So, we’re biking down this hill, picking up speed. All of a sudden this dog from a driveway next to us just bolted towards me. It was an absolute beast of a Rottweiler charging at me!! I thought for sure he was going to leap and bite me! I was freaking out a bit. So not thinking, I swerved into the lane of the road and on my left a car and I almost got side-swiped. In a matter of like 10 seconds all of this went down, and it scared the snot out of me! Hahaha. Definitely grateful nothing happened and that we prayed for safety that morning!

So, funny story while we were out tracting. This Hispanic guy answers, and we strike up a conversation. He’s from El Salvador. He wasn’t too enthusiastic about talking to us, but we asked what his name was. His response was, “Bendecido por la gracia de Dios!” Which means “Blessed by the grace of God!” Wait what? We were a bit confused. But I guess he heard us wrong. Turns out his real name is Felipe, but it was just a funny moment.

Also, I went to Wisconsin this week!! We saw a Hispanic lady way out in a town called Stillwater, right on the east boarder of Minnesota. She used to be taught a while back, but then kind of disappeared. But on Saturday she texted us and told us to come by! She had some really good questions about God’s plan of salvation and it was a really cool lesson. Well, anyway, our mission covers the western third of Wisconsin, and in our area we cover all the way out there since we don’t have an eastern border. We had some extra minutes before the appointment started, so we took 10 minutes, drove across the bridge, and knocked a couple doors in Wisconsin😂 and, I found a fellow Packer fan! So, basically I can say that I served in Packer territory - I’m happy👍🏼

Just another week in the life of a missionary.

Well that’s all I have time for, but I hope you all know how much I appreciate you guys! Until next time.

Cuídense,

-Elder Bolinder

Weeks 92 and 93

Ice Cream Challenge!

The Dominican food hit me hard...

[Two updates this post]

Update From 7/9/18:

Well, I just emailed on Wednesday. The rest of the week felt like the blink of an eye!

Things have been going well in our area, still trying to build up our teaching pool. But we’ve been teaching lots of member families! We had zone conference on Thursday and President Barney has been wanting us to focus on teaching as many lessons as we can so we can become master teachers. (And help practice more Spanish!!). So that’s been a blast!

Well, not much really to update on this week because it was pretty short. We contacted a couple new people, and Saturday we helped a part-member family tear down a tree house! We’ve also started teaching the son of a recent convert who’s 9 and just a ball of energy. Its super fun haha.

I dont have a ton of time, but I just want to bare you all my testimony of this work. I know God lives and is in the details of our lives. He truly does love us! I know it. He loves us enough to “prune us back” so we have the capacity to grow even more. The mission has not been easy for sure, but it’s helped me realize I can grow through Christ’s atonement. We can all be instruments in his hands to lift those around us if we let him. Go make someone’s day brighter! 

I love all you guys and hope you all have a super week.

-Elder Bolinder

Update From 7/16/18

Overall it’s been a good week. Went by super fast again! We’ve been working with a lot of our members and recent converts still. The Flores familia is still doing wonderful! We are also working with another brother to help prepare him to enter the temple! Had exchanges this week with the Karen elders, and interviewed someone they’re teaching for baptism. Exciting! We’ve also been doing some heavy biking lately, man I forgot how out of shape my legs are! Haha.

We are finally meeting with our Dominican friend Jonathon again! It was really cool, we watched the restoration video with their family and his eyes were fixed the whole time. He even asked some questions at the end which was great because he usually doesn’t open up much. We can tell that he is feeling the Spirit testify to his heart, but he still says he wants to take his time with baptism and continue learning. We will just have to be patient. So before we went over, we had just got done eating a rica hispanic dinner with another family. Right when we get there, they say “Come on in! Sit down!” And they load up a huge plate of Dominican rice and beans with fried bananas! So, the whole time during the movie I was just trying to keep everything in my stomach and not throw up from having double dinner😂

We had a really awesome experience afterwards. We were walking to our car to go home when we walked past this woman in the parking lot. We waved, said hi, and walked right on by. Didn’t think anything of it. Then we hear very quietly from behind us, “Hey, um.. can I talk to you?” We Came to find out that she was baptized a member of the LDS church when she was 11, and she hasn’t been to church since she was that age. She got emotional and told us how her grandpa had a strong testimony of Christ and the church, and she wants to find peace and the love that she knew she felt as a child. It was such a sweet moment to be able to comfort her and testify to her that God placed us in her path for a reason. She then told us how she wasn’t going to say anything when we passed by, but that she felt something inside telling her she needs to turn around. How cool!!! We referred her to the English sisters, just another experience to testify that God directs this work and prepares hearts to return to Him!

We also got to go back and see our Puerto Rican friends Evelyn y Angelo. We went with the new Hermanas and gave them a priesthood blessing of comfort and peace. Her brother was deported back to his country and she was absolutely devastated. It’s super sad. She’s been struggling a lot lately, so keep her in your prayers. Angelo is still progressing super well and reading his scriptures! 

Well that’s basically all from this week! The mission has just been flying by. I am enjoying every minute of it, and I am so grateful for the chance I have to serve my Savior Jesus Christ - serving Him by serving others.

Cuídense mis amigos!!

-Elder Bolinder

Elder Cross (far left) and Elder Bolinder with the Karen Elders

Week 91

4th of July BBQ!

¡Vive América! 🎉

Happy 4th mis amigos!

It’s been a hot and rainy week. 104 degrees on Friday and with the humidity blasting it gets pretty rough. haha! And we helped this member move a ton of couches that day! Elder Cross and I have had another good week here in St Paul. To be honest, it has been a lot slower because last week was transfers and we gave half of our area to the new Hermanas covering Frogtown. So now we just cover the eastside. Unfortunately, most of our work was in Frogtown, so we are starting basically from ground zero again! We’ve also been trying to have more teaching lessons with the members, and we’ve started teaching a couple new inactive families and part-member families!

So a couple weeks ago Elder Cross got a nametag approved that says ‘Elder Cruz’ (Cross in Spanish) so that the Hispanics have an easier time saying his name. As you could probably guess, people have an even harder time trying to say “bo-leen-dare” so to go along with his name, I’ve adopted my own fake Latino name: Elder Boliche. Which means Elder Bowling. Our investigator who suggested it thought it was hilarious 😂. So there ya go, I have a new name!

Some other highlights from this week: We had a super good MLC (Mission Leadership Council) with all the mission leaders in Bloomington. Exchanges with the assistants on Saturday, so I got to spend another day in Bloomington. Super fun! Although it’s been slower, it’s been super great to have super inspiring meetings and exchanges that always pump you up.

Lately I’ve been reading about Captain Moroni in the Book of Mormon, and my goodness he is such a beast! Here’s a scripture I thought was fitting for today:

“And it came to pass that he rent his coat; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it--In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children--and he fastened it upon the end of a pole.”

“And those who did belong to the church were faithful; yea, all those who were true believers in Christ took upon them, gladly, the name of Christ, or Christians as they were called, because of their belief in Christ who should come. And therefore, at this time, Moroni prayed that the cause of the Christians, and the freedom of the land might be favored.”

Moroni fought all his life for his God, family, and country. Just contemplating how much Moroni valued freedom makes me so grateful for the liberty and religious freedom that we have today in this country. I hope we all carry this gratitude throughout the year and not just on this day of remembrance.

I hope all of you have a wonderful week. Enjoy the fuegos artificiales!

God Bless America!

-Elder Boliche

Grillin' With The Boys!

Family Time

More Family Time!

Week 89**

"Sota"

Party Crashers!

[**Note from the Minions: We missed posting this update for 6/18/18, but we didn't want you to miss some good stuff, including the making of a potential new nickname for Elder Cambo... "Mango!"]

Hola todos!

Things have been muy bien here in St. Paul. Our Spanish ward received a new bishop on Sunday, originally from Puerto Rico! We are super pumped about that. Speaking of Puerto Rico, Evelyn and Angelo are still doing great! Angelo has been reading the scriptures and progressing pretty well. Evelyn couldn’t make it to church because of some health issues, so keep her in your prayers!

We also went on exchange with the assistants. It’s was suuuper hot! It was 97 with humidity blasting, and we were outside all afternoon on the find grind. Still not used to humidity yet lol. But it was really good because we found a couple new people to teach!

Ok so a funny story from this week. We were out talking to people sharing la palabra in this trailer park. We came upon these two families and a couple other of their friends and kids, just a big group just chilling on their porch. They were having a good time, pulling out some Coronas and had a huge plate of mangos sitting on the porch rail.

We started teaching them the message that we bring to the world - the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was super cool! Not all of them were too intrigued, but two of the guys accepted copies of the Book of Mormon to read!

So, at the end we offered a prayer with them, and afterwards we got talking a little bit more and we were about to say goodbye. I step back to lean against the rail because we had been standing there for a while… Well, I totally forgot all the mangos were there so I knocked it off and it all spilt on the grass below! Haha I felt so bad!! I thought, oh great, now they aren’t going to let us back for sure! Fortunately, they just laughed and didn’t get too upset, and they also gave us their contact info to talk in the future. I’ll definitely remember that lesson for a long time - the time we crashed someone’s fiesta! 😂

Honestly, I am so grateful for my mission and the opportunity I have to meet so many people from all over. The Latino people have a special place in my heart now. I know this is where the Lord wants me to be, and I thank all of you for your love and support!

Con amor,

-Elder Bolinder