September 28 2015

So I realized that I haven’t been writing a whole lot in these email because I always do it last. This week I will do it first :)

Wow a lot has happened. Me and my companion are bros seriously. Elder Cabrera is awesome haha and he wants to work too! We both kind of got a little sick but eh, ya win some you lose some! 

These last few weeks have been pretty rough. There weren’t too many people that were progressing and it’s kinda hard to work with the members here. I think our patience was being tested so much. But we didn’t give up! We put our shoulder to the wheel and pushed along. Doing our duty with a heart full of song (but a song in Spanish :) haha. finally this week we had a huge number of investigators come to church and just by coming they were able to see the importance of baptism and they want to get baptized. After church we were waiting outside of a members house because an hermana was going to give us lunch, and one of the jovenes that came to church saw us and ran up to us and said hey I want go get baptized! haha we were like yeah I think we can arrange that.

Some days in the mission you walk all day long. Nobody wants to listen to you. Drunk people yell at you. People might throw water or beer at you or even spit on you. You get chased by dogs that probably have several diseases. It’s hot and you get your skin burned off by the sun. Or maybe you get sick and throw up! But then there are some days where people realize the importance of this short time that we have on earth. They realize that going to church, doing ordinances like baptism, praying, and reading the scriptures are more important than any other thing we could do in this life. And it’s true! There is literally nothing more important than going to church and strengthening our relationship with God. And going to the temple as much as we can. Because after this life, are we really going to be happy that we stayed home and watched football? Or maybe slept in a little bit? Some days people realize the importance of this and they come to church. They read and pray and they really discover who they are. Which is something that I’m slowly doing every day I think. They give you food. They want to get a copy of the Libro de Mormon. They want to get baptized. Something that I learned is something that my bro Andrew told me before the mission. Enjoy the bad days because they won’t last. And it’s so true. Every bad day that we have is a test of faith. And if we get frustrated and mad or discouraged, we fail the test. If we learn from the problem and try to solve it, we pass :) simple as that!

So we learned a lot of patience cause we have had some hard experiences here haha. But now we’re seeing the fruits of our labors and people are learning through the Holy Ghost. 

If you’re reading this right now and you’re not sure what I’m doing here as a missionary, read Alma 26 in the Book of Mormon. I’m an instrument here in Lima. And through the Holy Ghost that I can maybe help the people feel, the people can learn of Christ and how they can follow him. 

So we have been teaching Isabel for the longest time. She’s an investigator that lived in California for a long time. She always had the desire to be baptized but was afraid. Finally she agreed to have the baptismal interview and directly after she agreed to be baptized that same week! #PrayersAnswered. She’s awesome though for sure. We are planning some more baptisms really soon too. But I’ll keep you all updated on them haha.

Conference is already here!!! This is my 3rd conference since I’ve been on the mission. Wow! Only 1 more :( who will be the new apostoles? I’m super animado to see the new announcements in this conference. 

Well I hope you all have a good week and don’t forget the importance of the time that we have here. Its super short, and one day we`ll be glad that we tried our hardest instead of wasting our time :) Love you all!

Love Elder Dahlin

A super cool statue that we found that kind of looks like Joseph Smith haha

We are as the armies of Helaman!

Isabel

September 21 2015

A lot of people are asking if I got hit by a tsunami! I’m okay! Our mission didn’t get evacuated. Our president hasn’t even told us anything so I’m sure everything is okay :)

Wow not a lot of time but we had an awesome experience this week. We went to a sister’s house to teach her about the word of wisdom. She’s one of the progressing investigators that we have. She’s so willing to change and get baptized. When we ask her about her baptismal date she just says yeah I want to get baptized already! I don’t understand why it has to be so far away?! Haha she’s awesome. Anyway, we knew she drinks coffee and tea so we were kinda worried about how she would react. We get there and have an awesome lesson. The spirit really taught her the importance of the commandment. She accepted to live the word of wisdom and then we closed with a prayer. She wanted to give us some sandwiches and juice so we said it was okay haha. We offered to help her wash some plates so we could use them and she said it was alright. We went into her kitchen and she had a ton of tea! I was like hey hermana what’s this? And she’s like oh yeah throw that away it’s no good. So we put it in a little garbage bag. Then we found some coffee and we also put it in the bag to take with us and throw away. Then she was like hey is there anything else that I need to throw away? I looked around and saw a big bottle of vodka haha. I was like hey you should probably get rid of this. She kind of hesitated and then said ahhh this is from Argentine and was super expensive.. Ah whatever just throw it away and she just laughed it off haha. This is a true desire to change. I’m excited to see how she progresses.

What she taught me is that we should always be willing to throw away the garbage that we have in our lives. No matter how much we like it or how much it tempts us to stay. Just like the anti nefi lehitas, we need to burry our weapons of war deep in the earth. They were willing to die before using their weapons again. They were willing to die before sinning. I think that if we all live in this same way, we will be so much happier. 

Well. This week there is a chance of a transfer. I don’t know if it’ll happen but I’ll let you all know. I have 6 months here already so we will see. I do love training and I love my companion. And I’ll miss it so much haha but if its God's plan then I’ll go where he wants me to go :)

Have a good week!

Love Elder Dahlin

September 14 2015

Aloha a todos!

Another awesome week here in the mission. I don’t think there’s a week that goes by that we don’t learn something here in the mission. Well first of all, I COMPLETED A YEAR IN THE MISSION! I feel like in the last year I have learned more than my whole life put together haha. I’ve definitely gained a testimony of this church and have come to know that God loves me. I love helping other people find this knowledge too and there is nowhere else I would rather be. So I realized that I haven’t sent pictures in a few weeks so here are some of my favorite pictures that I have taken in the last month or so haha. There’s not a whole lot of time to write right now but the mission is seriously the best. I wish there was more time cause I could seriously be here all day and tell awesome stories from the mission. Every day we see miracles because of the priesthood and the will of God. There are people here that are so prepared and I’m stoked to be able to be here finding them and teaching them how to be baptized. Well I’m out of time haha but next week I’ll tell you all an awesome story #Cliffhanger.

I love you guys! Enjoy the pictures :)

Love Elder Dahlin

This is something that doesn't need a description. People just love us as missionaries. Even 3 year old girls haha. I'll definitely miss this after the mission..

We went to the temple this week!

My one year shirt!

They don't call me pondering Peter for nothing!

Before

BURNING MY SHIRT! During.

After. haha I almost died.

September 7 2015

Aloha!
I couldn’t write last week cause I had to go in and extend my citizenship here because I'M COMPLETING ONE YEAR IN THE MISSION! How weird is that? Didn’t I just leave like 2 weeks ago?

This last week we had the opportunity to see Elder Bednar. He came and talked to us as a mission. There were also some other missions from Lima there. The day I went, the CCM went, Lima Central, Lima South, and Lima West. Sadly, I could not see Hermana Bergeson, because she was in the group that went the next day. But wow the reunion was super super cool!! When he walked into the room you could just feel the autoridad and poder that he has. Just by seeing him you can feel that he is a servant of God and that we should probably listen to what he says. It was the first time that I saw an apostle and I will never forget it.

Wow so much is happening. We are continuing to see miracles everyday here in the mission. On Sunday we were able to go by a members house and bring them the santa cena because they weren’t able to receive it because the grandma had a surgery on her hip. But let me tell ya, the spirit is always so strong in any opportunity that we have to do a priesthood service. I love doing it and we pray for experiences to serve everyday. I think that’s why we are so happy as missionaries :) Yeah its hard. It’s super hard. But once we get the hang of it, the language and new culture, and recognize that everything that we go through is so that we can learn, its so much fun. I love this.

Bueno no tengo mucho tiempo. Pero me es increible que en un año he aprendido tanto. No puedo empezar a explicar la importancia de lo estoy haciendo. Cada dia aprendo mas acerca de Jesucristo y quien era, y quien es. Aprendo cada vez mas acerca de su amor and la suerte que tenemos de estay vivos en estos dias. Y a tener el evangelio de jesucristo. Se que Dios me ha dado dones para poder compartir este mansaje con las personas aqui. Solamente a saber que puedo hablar en español es algo que me ayuda a saber que esta es la iglesia de Jesucristo y que la iglesia es verdadera. porque so no fuera asi, Dios no me dejaria aprender tanto y con tanto rapidez. ya pues, la mision es lo maximo, y estoy bien animado por servir aqui por un año mas. No hay otro lugar donde me gustaria estar.

I love you all and I can feel you praying for me! Please always keep my companion and me in your prayers so that we can help the people here come to the truth and so that we can be protected while bringing it to them.

Have an awesome week! Next week I’ll put up some cool pictures.

Love Elder Dahlin