Week 56

October Snow!

MinneSNOWta

Hola Todos!

Happy Halloween!

Our ward had a big Halloween party on Wednesday that was pretty fun! We were a bit disappointed though because we had about 5-6 investigators and less active members commit to go but then they all fell through. We made up for it on Sunday, though, because we had two families come to church!!

One crazy thing from this week is… IT SNOWED!! It got cold very quickly and Friday it snowed almost all day. Only about 3 inches or so, but still crazy! I've never seen snow before Halloween, it's a strange feeling lol.

We had a wonderful trip to the temple up in St. Paul with our recent convert Bob. He loved it! He said he could notice the peaceful feeling inside. It was a wonderful experience. And the temple looks beautiful covered it snow!

Derek is still doing well and we are trying to meet with him as often as we can to make sure we cover all the material before his baptism. We had a fun lesson on Tuesday and chalked out the Plan of Salvation on the driveway! He's such a fun kid.

Sorry for the shorter update, we lost track of time! But the work it still going great here, and I am loving all the amazing people we've met! I know the message we share changes lives! It's changed mine.

Have a wonderful week all of you (:

-Elder Bolinder

St. Paul Temple

Snow in October!

Chalking the Plan

Week 55

Smile!

Fall is BEAUTIFUL!

Hola todos! It's been a wonderful fall week here in gorgeous Minnesota. There are trees EVERYWHERE here, so it makes all the fall colors just beautiful. This week has been a bit on the slower side.

But we are still enjoying ourselves out here in Faribault.

We've been able to come up with some creative ideas to find more people to talk to. This week, the weather was great, so we went around knocking doors and offering to rake leaves to anyone who looked like they needed it. And we had some pretty good success! What was really cool was we felt prompted to surprise one of the families in our ward and rake their yard while we had some extra time. Turns out, the husband had a blood vessel pop in his eye, so he was on bed-rest and she was stressing out about everything. So, we helped out just in the nick of time! It's amazing how Heavenly Father can use us as instruments in his hands to be an answer to someone else's prayer.

Some other good news from the week - Bob received the priesthood and passed the sacrament for the first time this week! We also set a day this week to take him to the temple for the first time, which should be an amazing spiritual experience as usual! He gave me and Elder Nielson both birthday presents since they are pretty close together, he gave me a packers beanie. Haha! I love him!

We visited a less-active Hispanic fam this week, and they fed us home-made flour tortillas and "frijoles de vaquero" or cowboy-beans. I haven't had home-made Hispanic food for a while, it was great!! Our little man Derek is still doing great, and we even helped him give a talk in his class at church! He's so awesome, and we are looking forward to his baptism.

I hope you all have a wonderful week this week! I love being a missionary and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone. It truly changes lives! Cuídense (:

-Elder Bolinder

Hangin' With Derek

Streetscape in Faribault

Faribault Tractor Show!

Week 54

Derek & Elder Bolinder

Transfer News...

Hola Fam! We'll start off with a bit of news - transfers are today! Elder Nielson and I will be staying another 6 weeks here in Faribault, which is great news for us because we are loving it here. And some other news... It's his birthday Today!! To celebrate I'm going to take him out to lunch, then hit up Cabela's, and go play soccer with our soon to be baptized little amigo Derek. We met with them again this week and they are such a sweet family! Things are looking good for his baptism in November.

So more about the week... We started off with some exchanges in my last area, Mankato. We spent the night there so we were there for Tuesday and Wednesday. Honestly, it felt like I never left! It was a blast, and the elders there are studs. I spent the day with an elder from Alaska, who is a convert of 4 years and the only member of our church in his family. Such an amazing example of faith! With the recent addition of Facebook and Skype to our mission, he has been able to start teaching his mom more about the restored gospel! We got to have a lesson with her over video-chat and it was the coolest thing in the world! The blessings of technology are unreal.

We've seen a lot of success in this area with part-member families! We're working with the Sando family, the Hispanic family that came to the BBQ the Chavez's, and Mary Jane Post and her non-member boyfriend. Well, anyway, a funny story. We went over to Mary Jane and Chase's for dinner on Friday. We had some delicious tacos with them, and her three daughters are just full of energy and love to talk. It was hilarious, the little 3-year-old was going off about this random dream she had and it made absolutely no sense but we just laughed along with her😂. Then Mary Jane started to tell us a different story, when Alison (the 3 year old) walks over to her and tells her, "hey mom, can I tell you something?" And she was like yes. Then she leans in and whispers, "I wasn't finished!". The sass was unreal😂😂. So,  then we listened to her crazy "dream" for another 10 minutes hahaha. We were dying😂. I love that family though. Chase has been reading a bit of the Book of Mormon and got to watch General Conference which he loved! They got in a car accident on Saturday that scared them a bit, but luckily everyone was okay. We went over there after church and shared with them a scripture.

I'm running low on time, but just a quick thought. On Sunday we had a super powerful Ward Conference and got to hear from all the leaders of the Lakeville Stake. I actually had the same conference when I was in Mankato, but it was even better the second time! The theme they used comes from a scripture in the Book of Mormon comparing our testimonies of the gospel to a living plant, specifically a tree.

"But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life."

"And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst."

What a powerful analogy! If we turn to the Lord and diligently nourish our "trees", (Pray, read scriptures, serve others, etc.) we can be deeply rooted in the gospel. And with strong roots, the winds of life in this trouble-some world will not have power over us! I know this to be true, and I've tasted of this "fruit" of the gospel and it is the true joy that is experienced through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ!

I love you guys, thanks for all your amazing examples. Have a wonderful week (:

-Elder Bolinder

Week 53

Baptism Day for Landon

TIMBER!!🌲

Hola todos! We have a combined zone P-day today carving pumpkins, so I'll try to fit in as much as I can about another great week in the mission field!

This week was a bit slow, and super-duper rainy! But we still had some great lessons. We saw our favorite Liberian family again, the Sandos. They said their transition back to America hasn't been the best, and it was great to visit them again and strengthen their testimonies of the gospel. It was funny because we asked them lots of questions about what it's like in Africa, and they were like, "We actually have this really spicy African chicken, here try some!" and it was soooo good! Hispanics trained me well lol, I LOVE spicy food now!👌🏼Elder Nielson on the other hand was suffering 😂 hahaha! He couldn't handle the heat. Anyway, I love that fam and Derek is such a stud, he sat by us at church on Sunday and really enjoyed it. Oh, and we set a date for him to be baptized on the 11th of November, whoo!!

We were able to do some awesome service this week, which is always a perfect stress-reliever. We helped our investigator Kevin build a fence on his ranch which was pretty gnarly! It's pretty amusing, too, because while we worked out in the drizzling rain, all of his sheep would just follow us around like our own little paparazzi😂 Then we also helped out some members out in Northfield on Saturday morning. It was actually the crazy guy in the ward who bit my name tag! lol. He's super nice, but just a little crazy. We helped him take down this giant oak tree in his front yard. Made the biggest crash ever, it was epic! Then we spent most of the time cleaning up the branches and what not. Good fun!

Another highlight from the week was that our little buddy Landon got baptized! The service was amazing and the spirit was so strong. His older brother was able to baptize him and they were smiling and had their arms around each other the whole time. Such a sweet brotherly bond! Landon was beaming the whole time, and he was so excited that afterwards we went over to their house so he could give us these sick shades😎 I'm so glad we got be a part of it and help their family who is going through some rough family struggles. But it was so nice to see the family strengthened by the gospel of Christ😊 I know that the gospel blesses families, and through our redeemer Jesus Christ we can have true and lasting joy for eternity!

Well we are about to head out, but I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

-Elder Bolinder

One Year Mark Celebration S'mores Cake!
(Ingredients sent from home, made by Elder Cambo :) )

Week 52

Elder Bolinder and Elder Nielson

Conferencia! Y un año👌🏻

Well, another week gone in the blink of an eye. I hope all of you enjoyed the absolutely AMAZING general conference weekend we had!! For us, it was like drinking from a firehose. So many inspired messages from our modern-day apostles! In addition to conference, the rest of the week was pretty eventful, so let's jump into it…

We met with our little ball of energy, Landon, twice this week and everything is lining up great for his baptism. We were able to actually push his baptism up a week so it will be on the 8th! We're finalizing the service this week, and we're pumped! Something we didn't really expect this transfer is all these miracles with finding all these young studs who want to be baptized. We were going through our area book and list of families in the ward and we felt like we should stop by this new family that moved in about a month ago. They moved here all the way from Liberia! Long story short, we met with the grandma and her two grand kids and had a wonderful lesson on how families can be eternal through God's plan of happiness. Afterwards, the 10-year-old grandson enthusiastically tells us, "Oh! And I want to be baptized!" We said, "Well, we can sure help you out with that!" Haha. He was wearing a Steph Curry jersey and told us all about how he loves basketball, lol what a bro. The Lord definitely led us to that family, and we had no idea that would happen! We're seeing them again this week. What a great experience!

We had dinner at our ward mission leader's house this week and had an interesting meal - Peanut Butter and Jelly Omelets! Now, I was a skeptic at first. Seems like such a bizarre combo right? But man, surprisingly it was SO good!

We also saw Kevin again this week, he's still reading and progressing well. He showed us his house out in the country and gave us a little tour of his ranch. Got some videos of these cool rams he has! He is still hesitant to set a date for baptism, but we were able to commit him to pray about a date in November. But some good news, he came to a session of general conference with us which he loved!

I'll wrap up with one of my favorite talks from conference - President Nelson! His talk was pretty much a recap of what he spoke about to us during our mission-conference back in April and it was amazing! He asks the question, "What would you lose if you didn't have the Book of Mormon?" There are so many amazing examples, and doctrines, and insights to God's eternal plan for us. I think for me, the biggest thing we would lose is the strength of our testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Because the Book of Mormon truly is another testament of Christ that not only reaffirms the message of Christ in the Bible, but draws us even closer to Him through the peaceful spirit that it brings, it truly is the keystone of our religion! I know it's true.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. Remember that God loves you and is always aware of your needs! Keep moving forward. I love you guys!

Cuídense

-Elder Bolinder

(Tambien: Wednesday will mark my one-year mark on the mission, Whoo! It's gone by way to fast, let me tell ya. Next year is going to be even greater!😃)

Faribault Rams!

 

At the ranch with Kevin...

Week 51

Ridin' Tractors! 🚜

Hola todos!

This week was filled with meetings and traveling. So, unfortunately, we only got 3 days to work in our area this week. But we were spiritually fed for sure!

To kick off the week, we headed up to good 'ol Lakeville once again for some exchanges with the zone leaders. It was great! I keep ending up going back there one way or another and it always brings back good memories. One story from that day: We talked to this African American guy named Melvin in the parking lot who was actually tinting his windows. He said, “Yeah you guys can talk to me while I work on my car!” He said he was 21. We got to know his background a little more and he had grown up going to many different Christian churches, but recognized that a lot of pastors are focused on money and there is a lot of corruption in many churches today. We told him how we have an unpaid ministry in our church and that we actually have to pay to be out here on missions. He was like, "No way man, that's dope!"😂 We taught him about what the Book of Mormon is and how we use it hand and hand with the Bible. We explained that it helps clarify doctrine that is easy to be misinterpreted through many translations of the Bible. We ended up sharing the example of God the Father and Jesus Christ being two separate beings. And he says, "Well yeah when Jesus is praying on the cross he says Father why have you forsaken me, I mean that's clear as day man!". Haha. We both just smiled and were like, "Amen to that!😂" It actually took me off guard because you don't meet too many people here who ponder seriously about the nature of God and Jesus Christ! It was a pleasant surprise lol. He said he would read the Book of Mormon, and we set an appointment with him! It's always a joy to find people who are open and seeking for truth.

The next day we drove to the cities and had new missionary training all day. Elder Nielson is a stud! We are like long lost brothers lol. We had some great training sessions. It's always good to review the basics(: Saturday was also filled with district meeting and interviews in Mankato, which is about an hour away. Interviews are always so uplifting! We received a lot of good training on utilizing Facebook in our missionary efforts, and it's still hard to get used to using it again but it's been great for contacting people and organizing events and what not!

Despite a lack of time in our own area, we've had some really great lessons! We started teaching a less active Hispanic lady in the ward and helping her and her two boys coming to church more regularly. We also taught a super energetic kid named Landon who's mom is less active, but she has agreed to have us help teach and help him be baptized! We had a great lesson with him on Wednesday and set a date for him to be baptized in 3 weeks!

We are loving the ward here in Faribault! It's on the smaller side (only about 90 active members), but they are super supportive and missionary minded. This week, we had a ward BBQ and hay ride, and it was a blast! Good food, tractors, and a live band! We got there and walked past the band and we see the first counselor in the stake presidency playing the trumpet, haha! We were like, dang what a savage!😂 Then we see right next to him, the stake president on the Guitar! Man, Lakeville stake is the best! 😂 It was good to have all the members invite their friends and introduce us to them. We had some pretty good charlitas but nothing really came from it. We are definitely excited to keep working with the members here and find more people to share our message with! And the awesome part about it is all it takes it an invitation... So be brave and invite a friend to watch General Conference!😊

Some good news though, the less active Hispanic mom we met last week came with her two boys! They had a great time. We're continuing to help them come to church and prepare the oldest who's 10 for baptism (:

I hope you are all super stoked for General Conference! I sure am! I hope we take this amazing opportunity to hear from modern day apostles and prophets with sincerity of heart. I encourage you to write down questions or an aspect of your life that you are struggling with, and promise you that as you listen to their messages you will receive personal revelation and guidance! I know that God leads us with a prophet today. What a blessing it is to hear his words!

Thanks for all your love and support, have a wonderful week!!

Cuídense😊

-Elder Bolinder

Fairbault Ward BBQ/  Harvest Party

Elder Bolinder and Elder Nielson

Faribault Patriot!

Week 50

P-Day Hockey Game in Faribault, MN

You Did What To My Name Tag??

Hola todos. Hope you all are having a marvelous week!

This week has definitely been a strange one. But don't get me wrong, it was also a great one!

As a lot of you already know, the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission has been approved to start using tools for online proselyting including... Facebook! It has been a weird transition, but it has been a huge blessing to project our voice for truth to an even broader audience. Going along with this news we had some amazing trainings given at our zone conference last Wednesday, and we are SO pumped!

Faribault has been a blast! We are still trying to get to know the area better and all of the members and investigators. We've met some awesome people this week! And also a few crazy ones! lol.

We met with our investigator Kevin on Thursday and helped him work on the house he is fixing up. We painted one of the bedrooms, and the renters who lived there before painted it slime green! haha. Looks a whole lot better now. He and his family are doing a lot better since his mom died. We invited him to come to church with us, and he said "I'm not making any promises!" Then we received a text Sunday morning saying he's on his way! It was great! He seemed to enjoy meeting new faces and feeling the sweet spirit at sacrament meeting. Kevin surprises us so much! Oh, and another thing we found out - he works as a prison guard! No wonder he's so jacked!!

We also taught the new part member family we are teaching, and it was great! They even fed us dinner😏 lol. We taught them about our purpose here on earth and the importance of eternal families. They have a super energetic little 4 year old daughter, which made it a little difficult haha. Cute family. We emphasized the divine mission of our Savior to atone for our sins and healing power he brings us. The husband, chase, really loved the concept of progression. The purpose of our life on earth is not only to accept Christ, but to BECOME like him! He invited us to come back on Saturday and help him set up a trampoline. Long story short, we started assembling it but we were missing a box of parts! So, we ended early and he offered to get us breakfast at McDonalds. Sweet! We had a nice chat with him while eating. Oh, and speaking of jacked, Chase is also huge!! Haha he told us all about how he loves lifting. He opened up to us and told us about his rough past and divorce, along with how he rediscovered God in his life. We testified to him the changing power of our message of the gospel and invited him to be baptized. He didn't commit to a date, but said if he knew our message was true he would! We are excited to help him progress more.

Now for a quick funny story😂. Yesterday after church we had a potluck with all the members of the ward. Great opportunity to put more names to faces! Anyway, this one member came up to us to introduce himself. He was an older guy with a pretty goofy personality. He said he had a tradition for every new missionary that comes to the ward. We asked him, "and what's that?" He then reaches for my shirt and steals my name tag, and before I realize what he was doing he had it in his mouth and was biting it! He bit my name Tag!! Hahaha. We were like, what just happened?! He said he does it so that every missionary will remember him. And I sure will because now his teeth marks are in my tag😂😂 it was so hilarious, me and elder Nielson were dying!

Some other great news from this week, Bob is getting interviewed next Sunday to receive the priesthood! We taught him on Sunday about what the Aaronic priesthood is and the blessings that it gives us and those around us. He's super excited! I am personally deeply grateful for this fruit of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have the same power and authority that he and his apostles had when on the earth! We use this authority to bring people the healing power of Christ through essential ordinances. What a blessing!

I want you all to know how much I love you guys! I feel your prayers every day. I know God lives and he is watching over you. He loves you unconditionally! Have a wonderful week.

-Elder Bolinder

Elder Nielson and Elder Bolinder

Group Photo During Transfers

In Faribault, MN