New mailing address!

Here is my new mailing address! Thank you for all the support!

Elder Daniel Dahlin 
Mision Peru Lima Central
Av. Juan de Aliaga 520/Av. Javier Prado Oeste
Magdalena del Mar Lima
Lima 17, Peru

May 25 2015

Aloha!

Hasta luego Elder Avalos! Bienvenidos Elder Ramirez! My new companion is from Peru, from Iquitos. He’s sooo sick! I love the guy. He has 21 months in the mission and its most likely that I’ll be ´killing´ him on the mission, meaning I’ll be his last companion here. He started his mission in Cuzco, but he got really sick and his kidneys started to fail. He went home for a year and a half and now he has been reassigned to Lima. His desire to get back out here and work has taught me so much. And even more! He has a super powerful testimony of the plan of salvation. His mom has cancer. And nobody knows how much time she last left. His desire to serve here even though he might not see her again is something that I admire so much. He’s a stud missionary too, so powerful. I am going to be learning a lot from him in these 3 months.

I don’t have a whole ton of time! But this week we also went to the temple again, just walked around outside with some investigators and menos activos. There’s a little room where you can go and listen to the apostles. I went in there and was listening to Elder Holland. He is so powerful. He spoke of repentance. At the end of his talk he said something along the lines of ´as long as we repent and change, we will always be forgiven. But we shouldn’t wait cause we don’t know how much time we have left. Brothers and sisters, don’t delay. It’s getting late´. This is a living apostle telling us to repent NOW because the end is near. I don’t know when it will be. Only 1 person does. But I know that if we repent now, we won’t have to worry and we won’t need to fear at the last day. Porque estaremos bien ante Dios. 

Also, there’s a talk that I LOVE by Bruce R Mckonkie. Its called the purifying power of Gethsemane. It was the last talk he ever gave before he died. It’s SO powerful. I encourage you all to listen to it! Even if you’re not a member of the church. I feel the spirit and the truthfulness of his words to strong. Just go and see for your selves. I’ll put a link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCGIwzpKlak

I love the prophets. We have so much to learn from them. I love the guidance that we have in these days so that we can raise our families and not have to worry about the temptations of the world. I know that if we do what they say, we will be calm and have no need to fear. I love the church! I love the mission!

Thanks for all your support and please keep praying for me and all the missionaries in the world.

Love Elder Dahlin

A hermana that Elder Montoya and I taught got baptized this week and we were able to go!

May 18 2015

Wow such an amazing week! It started out on Monday talking to my family on Skype. I’m so grateful for you and I love you guys. I’m so grateful that families can be forever.

Well yet again we come to the end of another transfer. My companion will likely be transferred this Tuesday. He’s taught me so much but I think more than anything patience haha. But he’s an awesome guy. I know that wherever he goes, he is going to help people learn of Christ. He’s helped me learn of him, that’s for sure. 

Well there’s not a whole lot of time to write! But I’m including some pictures of a family home evening that we had where we made pizza. Also, one of the elders in my district, Elder Irving. He’s sooo sick! We traded ties this week and took a picture haha and then the rest of my district snuck in too. 

This week we also had a baptism! Little Bryan got baptized yesterday and everything went really well. He was soo afraid of the water especially cause it was really cold. But he’s a stud and has also taught me so much. 

This work is all about attitude. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s easy and people run to you asking you to baptize them. If I have a bad attitude in the hard times, then I deserve to have them, because through the hard times I’m strengthened. In Ether 12 it talks a lot about this, and the famous 27th verse has stuck out to me time and time again as I have read it. I know that God sends us tests. He knows what we are capable of and he knows, and I now know, that whatever we are faced with, we can overcome. It’s a promise that we have, and it’s always to help us. Faith and prayer can help us discover the purpose of challenges in our lives. I don’t know why I wrote all of that but I know that some of you guys will!

I’m all out of time but I want you al to know that I love the work. I’m going to be better on letting you guys know what my sector is like and how my companion is doing haha. But I love the mission so much. I love the chance that I have to be here and share with people the message that has brought me and my family so many blessings. I love the church. The book of Mormon is true. And I’m so lucky to be a part of the same church that Jesucristo established when He was here on the earth. 

Talk to you all next week! Be safe! :)

Love Elder Dahlin

A pizza we made in a family home evening

Elder Irving and some other elders

Bryan! And his family!

mmm :)

May 11 2015

Familia y Amigos,

Feliz Día de la Madre!! I’m so grateful for my mom and for her example to me. Also I’m grateful for all the other mothers out there that have helped me and or cared for me. Thank you all. You have no idea the impact you have on us! I feel so lucky because somehow I ended up with the best mom in the whole world. I love you mom, more than I could ever express.

This week has sure been exciting leading up to Mother’s Day! Getting ready to talk to my family over skype. Yesterday I got on skype and the internet in the member’s house was really really slow. So every few minutes it would lose signal and I would have to wait there for 10-15 minutes waiting for it to come back. So we decided it would be better to skype today. It sure was nice to see them though! I’m stoked to talk to them. I’m so grateful for my family! I love all of you guys so much.

I’m gonna keep this email short because I’m going to be on skype later.

Thank you for all of your emails and support for me and all the other missionaries. I’m so grateful to be a part of this work. I’ve learned that there is something that we can learn from every experience, we just have to look for the good that we can learn from everything we do. Please continue to pray for my companion and me. And for all the other missionaries in the stake and in the world. 

Have a good week!! 

Love Elder Dahlin

Ps. a cool scripture that helped me this week was Alma 13:24. in English it should say something like ´for behold, angels are declaring to many in this time to our land, and this is to prepare the heart of the children of men to receive the word at the time of his coming in his glory´.

It really helped me to remember that I’m not alone in this work. There are angels helping to prepare people. We are just here to be the mouths that share this message. Just something cool to think about.

Have a good week and remember you’re never alone! 1 Nephi 21:16  :)

A few pictures of my sector

Garrett?

My companion, Elder Avalos, and my zone leader, Elder Gonzalez de El Salvador

Another from my sector

I managed to get this picture while on Skype yesterday! Half the family is missing. But hopefully today I can talk with everyone.

May 4 2015

Bonjour! (There’s one for you dad) haha

So I’ve downloaded the conference in English to listen to it in my own language and its sooo different. It makes me think of the prophecy that every nation kindred tongue and people will hear the fullness of the gospel in their own tongue. It’s so powerful to hear it in English. I LOVE listening to our prophets bear witness and testify of the living Christ. I wonder what it would be like to hang out with those guys for a day haha.

No pasó mucho esta semana, entonces no hay mucho que decir. But there was something that was kind of cool that happened! And scary. Hold on mom haha. Okay so we were in our personal study and I was reading Jesus the Christ. All of the sudden we hear like glass being broken and people yelling and screaming outside. So me and my companion are like what the heck? We look out the window and there’s like a full out riot going on outside. People fighting with rocks and sticks. We were safe because we live in the 4th story. But it definitely surprised us. anyway, we went back to our studies and closed the window and the first thing I read from the book after seeing what was going on outside was ´there’s someone who will redeem all mankind from these things, if they will but come unto him´. Or something like that haha. And it’s so true! Yeah sometimes in this life we don’t choose the right. We make the wrong decision, we might even get into a riot haha. But if we come unto Christ with a heart broken and a contrite spirit, and if we have changed out ways, we will be forgiven. The expación is so poderoso, and like Holland said in this last conference, we probably will never be able to fully understand it. I’m grateful for the atonement and for the chance that we have to be cleansed.

Well, my mission president is going to finish his mission here in good ol´ Lima Peru in a couple of weeks. So he is having interviews these last few weeks. Our district went this week and it was so cool to just talk to him and be enlightened. It’s amazing the mantel that we have as missionaries but the president of the mission has something of the type too. He’s an awesome guy. Our new president will be coming at the end of May! His name is President Johnson! Him and his wife are super young. They’re like 45! And they’re bringing with them their little kids. So that will be really fun. I’m excited to meet them! Maybe you could google them or look on lds.org and find out more about them.

This fast Sunday I was sitting in sacrament meeting singing the sacrament hymn and once again I was shocked at how amazing this mission is. I’m in South America singing church hymns with a bunch of Peruvians! So awesome haha. 

This morning I was going to read the first vision in English cause I can’t remember doing it too many times before the mission. As I was reading it I was imagining the power that overtook Joseph Smith as he prayed. He felt like he was destined to utter destruction. When all of the sudden, he saw a pillar of light. For someone to really understand it, I think they just have to read it themselves. But after reading it in Spanish, my testimony was strengthened again. I know Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. If God has always called prophets because he loved his children, and if he loves us today, why wouldn’t we have prophets?

Well amigos there isn’t much else to say. This week we are going to a museum so that will be pretty cool! I’ll be sure to update you all with that. And the video that I was going to send last week didn’t work! But I’ll try to send it again. 

Thanks for all the prayers and support! Keep praying for us please that we can find new people to teach who can progress and go to church. This seems to be the difficulty right now. Have a good week and I love you all!

Love Elder Dahlin

Ps. sorry I didn’t take any pictures this week :( next week I’ll send double!

Also, I was reading in the Bible Matthew 6:21 called my attention so strong. 

In English it should say something along the lines of ´where your treasure is, there will also be your heart´.

We should always be focused on the things of the Lord. And always be on the search to find ways to serve him and serve better and more effectively in our callings.