Happy Memorial Day!

     So this week was FULL of service! A member of the ward needed to start getting firewood for this winter because these winters are so dang cold. But the way he gets them is by picking up the leftovers or rejects from the logging companies. So to get them we drive all the way out into the boondocks where theres nothing but trees and random people who enjoy their privacy and live off the land. So we took all the dirt back roads and because it rains a whole lot in Maine we hit lots of mud puddles. So technically we went off-roading and hit lots of dirt bumps and it was really fun haha. We also encountered a large snapping turtle and we slammed on the brakes and ran out of the car to pick it up. I got pictures with it.

Samples of the local signage!

Snapping Turtle found along the way...

     Another service activity we picked up was while we were out tracting and  this younger looking lady was outside spreading hay on her lawn and we offered to help and to our surprise she said yes. So we helped her and asked if there is another time we could come back and help her out some more so she invitied us back to help her paint her porch. That took about 2 hours but we did it and left her with a family proclamation and our number. She might call us up again to help but you never know.

     Also this past week we have been going over to a Less-Active family called the Sargents. (You will hear about them alot because we help them alot.) Every night we try to go over and help them read scriptures as a family. We can tell a difference in their family when we do it. They also came to church this sunday which was really awesome!!!

     Elder beck and I were going through the potential investigators and we found one named Paul and we met up with him and he is a gun enthusiast! He loves guns. He isnt all that interested in our church but he likes what we as missionaries go out and do. We did not shoot any of the guns but i couldn't help but ask if i could get a picture holding some of them.

Great!  Just how I picture my missionary...

     The weather is getting much better here and its raining about 3 or 4 times out of the week. Which is better than 7 out of the 7 days haha.  Thats all i have for this week, if you have any questions for me feel free to email me!

Much love

Elder Dahlberg

While we're having a drought, they have rain all the time...

(I told him about our week of fire-watching...)

Glad im out here in Maine where i don't think a fire could start if i tried. It has been super rainy all weekend and its still going on now. 3 days of non stop rain. I'm not sure which extreme i like more. Super hot or super gross.... Hmmmm which one has the beach??? I choose the super hot one.

Big News!!!!
    SO i am not getting transferred out of Old Town Maine, neither is my awesome cowboy companion Elder Beck! We were so happy we got to stay another transfer together. This last transfer we set a record for number of Less-Active Lessons with 48. Although numbers don't mean anything its just fun to count them.

     Usually for these big emails i have things written out on paper that i want to talk about but im just winging it this week because i didn't have time to make a list. So i will go through the days. Last Monday we got to go to a potential investigators house who loves biking and is into skateboarding. his name is Paul and he is a math teacher at UMaine. he has a bike course in his back yard and we rode bikes on the course and hung out there the whole rest of P-Day. Then we finished the night at the S******* house and read scriptures with them as a family. They are a part member family, the father isn't a member but he joined us which was wicked cool.

     Tuesday we met with a less active who bought us Chinese food and told us he doesn't exactly believe in God. That was a shock to us because he is a member of our church and believes that.

     Wednesday, we helped put together a bed for a member of our ward who cant physically do it himself, Than we went to the MacDonald's for dinner and they had us make home made ice cream. It was fun and super good!!! I cranked for a good 30 minutes for that.

Making ice cream at the Macdonalds house.

     Thursday- we had district meeting and than helped a member out with his truck, we put brake pads on his car, than had dinner at one of our investigators houses and the dessert was s'mores and they challenged us to do the chubby bunny challenge with marshmallows so we did after the lesson haha.  (I have a video but its too large to send over email so you will have to wait until i send the SD card home)

     Friday- we had a great day, we tracted into a really nice guy who wants to know the purpose in life but doesn't want to give up drinking at all so we will see how that works out. Than we had the family scripture study again at the S******* and the father said the opening prayer which shocked all of us.

     Saturday we split lots of wood for a member of our ward, in the pouring rain and we felt like super lumberjacks because we were chopping wood in the pouring rain!

Here is the family that we helped split wood for. 

We did a lesson on the armor of God and had his kids dress him in Armor. 

     Sunday- i was asked to give a talk with less than 24 hours to prepare and i literally got up to the pulpit and spoke for 15 minutes all about my experiences and from what i felt the congregation needed to hear. Spirit helped me with that. I wasn't nervous one bit, i am actually getting super familiar with standing in front of lots of people and talking. than we had a lesson with one of our internigators, (investigators who have been investigating for a long time) named K**** F*****. He is a 50ish year old man who just finished his PhD in why people act on their feelings. He is very smart and very logical in everything he does. We talked about baptism and he told us he is ready to be baptized so we asked him the questions and it went amazing. He is so knowledgeable of the church and bible, he should be the one teaching me! he knows that much. But the sad thing is he is moving to Washington D.C on Thursday to be involved with politics. We are handing him off to those missionaries... But its all good. 

     This past week was so good. I am really enjoying my time here on the mission even when the weather sucks. Plans for this week:
Mon- P-day, play basketball go out to eat steak bombs haha
Tuesday- service at thrift shop, go to boy scouts to help teach/ see a 12 year old kid who is somewhat interested in learning about the church
Wednesday- Dinner at a members house who cooks great food (same one where we made ice cream), not a whole lot else planned.
Thursday- lesson with an investigator, dinner with an investigator.
That's my plans for the week.

And i found that plaque thing at a thrift shop and they gave it to me for free.!!! 

Isn't that cool!

All love, Elder Dahlberg 

I am enjoying my mission so much, i never knew i would be enjoying it this much.

We were able to Skype with Elder Dahlberg for about an hour Sunday evening...  We even "facetimed" his friend DJ.  Talk about use of technology!!! 


After that Skype call i was so motivated to do missionary work. That is a much different feeling from the Christmas Skype. After that one i just wanted to go home. But its so much different now. I am enjoying my mission so much, i never knew i would be enjoying it this much. But my feeling might change in a week because Elder Beck might get transferred. Transfer calls are this upcoming Saturday and i hope Elder Beck and I get to stay together for another one because i love that kid to death. He is by far my favorite companion.  I am enjoying my mission so much, i never knew i would be enjoying it this much. I'm attaching pictures i took right after getting home from the Skype call. I wanted to show you how tired i was. This past week we did so much service and physical labor to last me the whole transfer. Plus we had to wake up at 5:30 to go to church since our ride needed to get there that early.

(He doesn't look that tired to me...!)

This week we did a whole lot of biking around and going from project to project from lesson to lesson.

Before....

After...

Before...

After...  (They got to use sledge hammers!!)

 I also went on an exchange with a missionary who is going home in a week. I learned a lot about myself this week because i am beginning to see what i want to become by the end of my mission. Something funny that happened this week was when Elder Beck and I had to start biking to UMaine to meet with John our 19 year old investigator. We started out biking and i wanted to jump off the curb a little bit and so i did but the chain snapped as i did it and i flopped onto the ground. I fell off the bike and flopped on the floor and the way i landed reminded me of a dance move called the worm. I pretty much did the worm when i fell. I got back up on my bike and i wasn't physically hurt but my pride got shot down hard. Haha

Also along with this nice spring weather that is coming in all the trees are starting to go green and the sun is shining making everything nice. BUT!!! When you are in Maine and it all seems perfect, you're missing something because perfect never happens. When its super nice outside be careful because along with the sun comes huge bugs and gnats. I have seen some beetles the size of my thumb already and people are telling me to just wait until summer. :( awh man can i just enjoy the sun and feel perfect? (Nope, you're not in San Diego any more...!!)
Wednesday- we have to drive to Skowhegan to visit the doctors than hopefully have a lobster dinner with homemade ice cream at a family called the Macdonalds.
Thursday- District meeting and than after that we are helping the Sargents put on brakes for their car.
Friday-member meal with the Rodrigueses. young family that is really cool. (I really enjoy going to member meals with younger families because the kids make it so much fun)
Saturday- Dinner with B**** and Z**** plus a lesson.

This week we got a new car. Its a 2014 Toyota Corolla, with a touch screen system just like dads in his car. It has that brand new car smell and it smells great! plus the weather is really nice now and we can drive with the windows down which makes the car that much cooler :)

I hope you enjoyed this email and last nights Skype. I know i didn't specifically talk to you a whole lot but I hope you enjoyed the Skype call and i want to tell you that i love you and that you are doing GREAT on the WEIGHT! I am seriously so proud of you. I showed pictures of you to the other missionaries bragging how you lost 60 pounds already. Love you Mom!!!!!

Bangor Old Town Zone??

This was the first week on my mission where i got "boxed" all week. (from May 5, 2014)

 This was the first week on my mission where i got "boxed" all week. That means when i open the mail box and all i see is nothing but the inside of the mail box. AKA no letters. But whatever i can survive till Sunday. This picture is of a banana bread i made with the recipes you gave me. its the easy one. We didn't have a bread loaf pan so i used a cake pan. It was really good!!!!

Hopefully this letter comes out well because i feel kind of funny today. Not super focused because i didn't get a good nutritional diet this past week. Lots of just random food given to us by members and you cant just deny food when your at someones house so yeah. Speaking of food, this week we had a district lunch at olive garden and got the unlimited soup and salad and bread sticks. One things about this week was that this week was the first time where Elder Beck and I were able to take our own hour for lunch. This whole transfer has been so busy full of lessons and lunches with members that we haven't had our own time to eat what we want and relax, so that felt good. Also i was able to talk to brother Stinson because he was bringing us to help us move a member into our ward. Bro. Stinson is a cool guy and he is the type who doesn't like to waste time and i admire that in people because it means they are NOT LAZY! But we are 5th or 6th cousins.

(I realized that we had some Stinsons in our family line who originated from Maine before moving to Minnesota in 1848.  He said that they had a brother Stinson in their ward!  So, we emailed and discovered our link... my 6th great grandfather (his 5th great grandfather...) a man named Robert Stinson, who was born in 1736!!  So, distant cousins, but cousins nevertheless!) 

Also this week we had a lesson with a less active family, the S****** and we taught them in a members home. The members name is the Nuttalls. (Bro Nuttall served his mission in this mission, pretty cool) After our lesson they both went and played baseball at the local baseball field and elder beck and i had somewhere else to go but we told them we would stop by. So we did and they said to take a couple swings so i did and turns out i still have it haha. I hit some homeruns :)

On another note we lost 2 of our investigators this week because one of them, John (college kid) is going back home and will no longer be living at UMaine, and the other investigator named Kent dropped us because he will be moving to Washington D.C this month. But I want to tell you a little about the investigators we do have.

1. B**** and Z**** R******* B***** is in his 30s  and lives with his Less-Active member girl friend and they had a child together. Z**** is his 9 year old kid from his previous marriage/relationship. They struggle with a lot of trials and are working to get things all fixed.
2. B**** P******- Husband to a member and is currently attending UMaine to get his PhD in Marine Biology. Around his late 20s and has been investigating the church for 3+ years. His hold up is that he doesn't fully believe there is a God so its really hard to teach him when he doesn't fully believe in a supreme creator.
3. S*****- Single Mother in her late 20s and she is attending UMaine and we are still teaching her about the Restoration of the church.
4. P**** and B****- Older couple married for 48 years and not necessarily looking to join the church but they do have some interest. Haven't come to church or really anything so we will see what happens with them.

It felt like we had more investigators than that but when you have to drop some and some drop you it seems to change quickly. Do you have any questions for me because im all out of idears.

(I asked him if he needed more trail mix, one of his favorites...)

I would never decline trail mix haha. But the part that's hard is that we are never home so even if i have healthy stuff at home i cant go get it because we are doing back to back lessons at peoples houses. So i just have to hope for the best and hope the members aren't in "the fast food mood" haha.

(How about I try for a bag of just almonds this time.  You can carry those around without them getting all smushy and melty like the M&M's might get.  Sound good?)

YES! ALMONDS!!!!

(OK, dude... Almonds it is...)

We got everything arranged for the Mother's Day Skype...  Yippee!!