Weeks 63 & 64

I counted all the weeks Jason has been gone. I hope my calculations are correct, haha.

September 16, 2013

Hola Familia!

How’s it going!? How was your week? This week was good. We had a baptism on Saturday which was awesome. My comp and I sang a special musical number and Sister Prince (Mission President’s wife) was able to give a talk. Her name is Claudia and we found her contacting about 3 weeks ago. She started reading the Book of Mormon and said that since that moment she has never felt so good. Yesterday she told us that her whole family won’t talk to her anymore because she got baptized and all she said is that I’m sure they´ll come around haha. She’s great. We have been working more closely with the zone and have found that there is a lot of disobedience with some of the elders haha. We got to one area´s house at about 10am and they were still sleeping. Other areas we have found have more of a friends only relationship with their investigators. The problem with that is that if they think of us as just friends when it comes time to invite them to do something they won’t do it. Tough stuff, we have a lot of work to do this week. Hey, I saw a robbery at gunpoint last night which was wild. The problem with our area is that we have a neighborhood which has almost all of our investigators in it. The government gave away all the houses and so a bunch of people came from all over Colombia. The problem is that this neighborhood borders with the most dangerous neighborhood in Palmira and all the bad people from that neighborhood come in and mess with all the good people including our investigators. They call themselves the “300.” We have to be more careful now because at night it’s not that safe anymore. It’s cool because sometimes the Colombian Army roles in with all their big guns. I want to go with them sometime haha. We are hoping for 2 or 3 more baptisms this weekend we´ll see how things go. Things with the comp are good. Nothing else to report. I love you guys soo much!

Les quiero mucho

Elder Dahlin


September 23, 2013

 

Hola Familia!!!

This was a good week. We had 2 more baptisms which were a little stressful but we did it haha Andrea was baptized on saturday. Parents arent married but we are working on that. They love the church. The husband was in the army so hes a little tough on everyone but he has good intentions. Belliy was baptized sunday morning before church. She got put on house arrest for being in a house where there were a bunch of drugs but she had nothing to do with that she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. We got a permision from the police so that she could leave from 8-10am sunday morning to get baptized and then confirmed haha Right now we have a few good families that we are teaching. Its sad when people say that they are going to go to church on sunday but dont show up. Saturday was a holiday here in colombia which means that everyone parties hard all night. Transfers got moved to next week because pres prince wants us to finish out september with all the goals that we have in the mission right now. The next transfer will only be 5 weeks. Crazy story we were in the neighborhood that borders the dangerous neighborhood visiting some converts and when we got done we decided to walk a different way to get to our next appointment and along the way we ran into a member thats a taxi driver and he gave us a ride to our appointment. We got a call about 10 min later from our convert asking where we were and if we were alright. Apparently there was a big shootout between neighborhoods and if we would have gone the usual way home we wouldve been in the middle of it.....crazy right!

I love you guys so much. Sometimes I get a little homesick but then I remember that this is where I need to be. Thanks for all you guys do youre great!

Hey if you wanna send me candy I wouldnt get upset haha :)

Love you guys

Elder Dahlin

Four Recent Letters

I feel like the last month or so has been a roller coaster for Jason. He's in a pretty tough area, and he says the adversary is working really hard on the investigators and members. A couple of weeks ago, an Elder was tragically killed in the Cali Colombia Mission. We're so impressed with how Jason handled it and his knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. We've been sending lots of prayers to that Elder's family, the Cali Colombia Mission, and all the missionaries in general. We have to have faith in the Lord's work and plan and that He looks out for His missionaries. Jason is doing great and just pushes through all his trials. He's truly an inspiration to all of us.

August 15, 2013

Hola Familia!!

How are you guys doing?!! Well this week is transfer week and I’m stayin here with my same companion. I kind of wanted to leave but I’m fine with staying too. All the other areas in our Zone have transfers so it’s going to be a little crazy this week with all the changes. And there’s a few “ify” elders coming into the zone...haha.  But I will help them see the vision haha. The zone did good this week! We had 33 investigators at church in the zone, 9 of which were from our area. We had 5 baptisms this week as well. We had 3 in our area and another couple got married and then baptized. The Florez Family is now an eternal family!! :)  They are the ones that got married last week. There are 2 pics attached from the baptism and the 3rd is me with a totally awesome kid named Edward. He’s 3 and he’s the coolest kid ever. In the middle of our lesson yesterday he threw up and then just started laughing. He talks like hes 10! I’m a little worried about this transfer because I’m not sure where we are going to find new investigators but we`re going to do it!  The Lord always provides. I love you guys soo much! Sorry this letter is so short. Let me know how everyone is doing!!

Con mucho amor!!

Elder Dahlin


August 26, 2013

Hola Familia!!!

How are you guys doing?! Sorry last week´s letter was a little bit sad. I feel like sometimes agency is the worst. haha You do all that you can to help them and they go and tear it all down.....I guess that’s why they say that enduring to the end is the hardest part. haha This week we didn’t have our baptism. The kid had some problems that we need to overcome before he can get baptized but I’m sure in September he will be good to go. Our goal in september is 6 baptisms in our area so keep those prayers coming!! haha We had a Zone Conference on Friday which was awesome. We learned about Charity, Initiative, and how to work more with the members. There is alot of excitement in the misison right now we are setting some big goals. This Sunday the mission goal is to have 1000 investigators in sacrament meeting. Its about 10 per area. We have a pretty busy week to make it happen. I’m getting a little fat again. haha  I love you guys soo much. Thanks for everything that you do :)

Les quiero mucho!!
Elder dahlin 

 

September 2, 2013

Hola Familia!!

Sad news in the mission this week. On Saturday at 4pm, 4 missionaries in Cali were sitting at the table in their house eating lunch before a baptismal service that they had when they heard a gunshot. A stray bullet entered into the house and hit Elder Encarnacion in the head and he died instantly. He is from the Domincan Republic and had the same time in the mission as I do.  We were in the MTC together in Bogota.  They are calling it a stray bullet but no one knows if it’s true or if it was intentional. The police are investigating and they still haven’t released the body to take him back to his country. This was a tough week. We had a goal as a mission for church attendance but our branch didn’t support any of the activities we did, the investigators arent progressing like we want them too, and things with the comp didn’t go so well, and we only had 3 investigators at church yesterday putting us in last place as a zone.  We will just have to do better next week. We learned a big lesson after the death of this Elder. Being here in the mission is a privilege and is made possible by our families, faithful members of the church, and by the Lord. I know that the Lord needed this Elder in the spirit world and that his misisonary work has just begun.

Elder Christopher Waddell from the 70 is coming to Cali this week he`ll be here for 3 days. We have a conference with him on wednesday. Im excited it should be a really good experience.

I love you guys so much. Thanks for all that you guys do for me and for the prayers to me and to all missionaries. You guys are the best :)

Con mucho amor
Elder Dahlin

September 9, 2013 

Hola Familia!! 

This has been a really good week. The visit from Elder Waddell from the 70 was awesome, we had a 3 day mission conference with him. We had time to talk with him and we talked a lot about how we are going to “rescue” all the inactive members here in Colombia. He said that it’s time to start baptizing converts and to stop skipping the steps of faith and repentance. It was really inspiring and this week we have seen some great progress in our investigators. We have an investigator, Claudia, that is amazing. We contacted her about 2 weeks ago and she is going to get baptized this Saturday. It’s truly amazing how the Lord prepares the hearts of his children to hear our message. Everything we have taught her she’s accpeted it without problem. We taught the word of wisdom yesterday and she’s a coffee drinker but she said that if the prophet Joseph Smith felt that it was necessary, so do I haha. Each week as I look back, it’s crazy how much we have done. It’s even more crazy how much more we can do......haha. Yesterday I had the opportunity to interview David for his baptism on the 21st. His 2 kids are already baptized and his wife and him are up next. It was a great interview. We need more people like him. He understands the Power of the Priesthood and said that if his kids have any chance to succeed in life he needs to be there as the example. He told me something that I will never forget. He said that in the Catholic church there is a priest for every 10,000 members. In a normal Christian church there is a priest for every 1000 members. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints there is a priesthood holder for every family. I loved that and will always remember that experience with him. I love you so much family. I am so grateful to be here on the Lord´s errand. I got all the letters from Tahoe and the dearelder Thia sent me :).  Also, attached is a letter from the Mission President to our families regarding the Elder that was killed last week.

les quiero mucho!!

Elder Dahlin