Elder Dahlin in Lima Peru Central Mission: December 7 2015

Hola!

Wow the weeks are flying by. I can’t believe that it’s almost Christmas again! The traditions here are the best haha. Something that I’m going to miss for sure. So here in Peru there are a whole bunch of different districts. Like Cuzco, Iquitos, Tacna. Anyway, there are coins with pictures on them, like there are in the United States. I have been collecting them for a while but I noticed that they were kinda dirty. So I did something really dumb haha. I figured that a little bit of coca cola would do the trick. I put them in coca cola and was going to take them out after like 20 minutes. I forgot about them! For 5 DAYS!! When I found them and took them out of the coca cola they were stained brown and the picture wasn’t even visible anymore. And I couldn’t get it off. I tried everything, thinner, gasolina, Clorox. They were pretty much trashed, and I even started to spend some of them haha cause I figured it was pointless to keep them when I could buy like chocolate or some crazy fruit that doesn’t exist in the states. I was pretty bummed haha. I was talking to a guy in my ward and he told me that he had a cream that would help with taking away the stains! I was super excited and was anxious to receive the cream to try it out. One day he called us and told us that he was outside out house. I ran downstairs and got the cream and went back inside. After putting the cream on the coins and rubbing it in and scrubbing it, I removed the coin from the cloth and it was super super shiny. And the picture on the coin was so detailed and perfect. It was much cleaner and much much better than it was before the accident with the coca cola. Now my collection is looking good :) but there more to the story than that. I think of this story and it makes me remember our savior Jesus Christ. We are all imperfect and we do things that sometimes we wish we wouldn’t have. Sometimes we do everything we can to take away the stain, or the memory, but nothing seems to work. When we discover the gospel of Jesus Christ and the redeeming power of his atonement, we get excited and want to learn more. And when we finally understand how to repent and understand that it’s a change of heart, we can be clean. Not just clean. But better and stronger than we were before. Just like my coins. If they never would have gotten stained, I wouldn’t have seen the need to clean them. And it turns out that after cleaning them, they were much better than before. Every experience that we have it to make us better. We all do things that we need to change, and when we apply the atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives, we can turn our weaknesses into strengths and be better than we were people. I know that the Atonement is real. And I love this time of year because it helps me reflect the hope that was born into the world more than 2000 years ago. I’m running out of time but I’m going to put in some pictures here. I love you all and I’m grateful for your support. We should always remember that this time of the year isn’t about gifts and presents. It’s about the birth of Christ. The only person that can cleanse of imperfection and help us live with God again. Next week I’ll tell some crazy stories :)

Love Elder Dahlin