Winter seems a lot milder this year... I'M DOING SO GOOD!

Well friends and Family! Its Monday again and i got to hear how each of you are doing. its always good to hear what your up to and what activities you are doing. Now its my turn to tell you how im doing! I'M DOING SO GOOD! This week was full of great days, but also full of some bad times. But you cant always have good days or else they will get dull and boring! So here ya are!

Monday- On Mondays in this area we go to the Dawbin home in the morning and do laundry and do family scripture study with them and their kids. The kids are home schooled and do online schooling. Interesting stuff, i would still rather go to public school but that's just me. This day it was snowing all day. As we were leaving the Dawbin home, brother dawbin walked us out the door in his bare feet and i said "Butch, your in bare feet! Isn't it cold?" he replies with a huge grin on his face. "its the test of a true MAINAH!" as he wiggles his toes in the snow haha! Then for dinner that night we had dinner with the Mcnaughton family where we taught them and their kids how to tell the story of the Book of Mormon using a single piece of white copy paper.

Tuesday-  We had zone conference this day where we got so see President and Sister Stoker, and I got to see Elder Dean! Elder Martineau! Elder Harrington! and Elder Truman! It was a good ole reunion. But i have reached the point in the mission where all the Elders that i know will start to go home and pretty soon all the missionaries that i knew are all home and than i make new friends with the younger missionaries and than i go home on them. its a never ending cycle. This was Elder Dean's last zone conference he flies home on the 28th of January, so does Elder Beck and so does Elder Hansen! 3 of my past companions are going home next week! At zone conference we learned a lot about obedience and why we should be obedient to God's commandments. Short answer is, if were not obedient we are denying ourselves blessings that can help us. So all we are doing is stopping our progression when we disobey God's commandments. After conference i hosted an exchange with Elder Liljenquist who has been out for almost one and a half months. We had a great exchange and he is going to be a leader in the mission. I have no doubt about that.

Wednesday- This day was full of cancellations and we tried stopping by a total of 8 people and none of them were home so... we decided to go tracting. We brought a member of the ward with us, Armando, out tracting. It was cool tracting with him and talking with him and what he thinks of tracting. We didn't find anyone interested in hearing about God or Jesus Christ, but Armando told us he is freezing cold and wanted to go back in the car haha. It was probably 10 degrees outside and he was freezing, so was i but i was used to it. We also did service at Johnson hall and helped set up 125 chairs. I took before and after pictures so you can see what we do there. We met a juggler named Shane who can juggle 8 balls at once. He is super good and is very dedicated to his career of juggling. He practices from 10-4 almost everyday, just juggling and balancing and stuff. At the end of the day we exchanged back.

Thursday- This may have been the busiest day of my mission. From 8 in the morning till 9:30 at night we were out of our apartment and doing work. I can't go in detail of all that we did but we went out with Bishop Abbot to visit members of the ward and sat down and talked with 2 of them for a good while. We stopped by around 10 families in total. We also had lunch with a LA family and also Dinner with a LA family. So we were really really busy running to and fro. Lots of missionary work got done and by the end of the night i laid in bed and i don't even remember pulling the blankets over me... KNOCKOUT!

Friday- We had a lesson planned with one of the LA families and had a struggle finding a member to come out with us because the lesson was at a single lady's home. We ended up getting Bishop to come with us again and as we were getting into Bishops car to head to the lesson she called and cancelled on us. So we decided to stop by the Peters family with Bishop. He invited them to come to church and they said they would. They also wanted us to come over after church to have a scripture study and lunch. We accepted! That night we had a lesson with a former investigator named Richard Shaw. He is from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and he is fully active in that church. He had a friend named Blaine that was also there. We watched Finding Faith in Christ and it was very powerful and we all felt the power that Christ can bring into our lives. They openly said they will NEVER convert and we knew that before even going to their house but it was a great lesson on how everyone is brothers in Christ. When everything boils down to it, we all need Jesus Christ.

Saturday- We helped down at the Food Co-op again destroying walls and helping pull out nails. We also had a couple of lessons set up to have with investigators but they all cancelled except our one with a LA named Peggy lane. She was able to come to church this past Sunday for the first time in 4 years and she loved it.We had a great talk with her and she wants to be fully active. !! Music to a missionaries ears. That's what we want to help everyone do! For dinner we were invited over to Sister Tarbox's parents house, the Brills and had a wonderful meal with them and they are also Seventh-Day Adventist. We talked about Joseph and the Coat of Many Color's and talked about how great of an example Joseph was of forgiveness.

Sunday- Elder Sholer gave his first official missionary talk this day. he talked on how his testimony affects his missionary work. he did a great job and i always give him a hard time because he doesn't talk a lot in lessons, but during his talk he wouldn't stop talking. he did a great job and im proud of him for sharing the thoughts of his heart with everyone. Well the peters family never came to church and cancelled our appointment for scripture study after church. that was a bummer but we ended up receiving a referral to meet a man named Paul in a motel in Manchester Maine. We met him and he drove all the way from Barrow Alaska to Maine. It took him and his wife and daughter 32 days to drive that far! THATS SO FAR!! Talk about are we there yet! Sheesh. But this man Paul is very prepared to hear the Gospel and wants to better his life and knows the only way to truly do it is through Jesus Christ.

That's my week and this upcoming week
mon-wednesday i will be in Topsham on exchange with Elder Hudson
Thursday-hospital service

I got to play some interesting instruments this week. :) That is a sweet jacket a person gave me that i have been trying to get for over a year now!

Remember, they build ships in Bath, Maine...

And all these were taken this morning. As you can see its a really nice day today and all the rain this past weekend wiped all the snow out. So there is actually grass outside!!!!!!!!!

This winter is so much better than last years!

That's all for now folks! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!!

From Jan 12, 2015 Great time back in my first area!! The word of the week is... STEAK!

This week went by really fast because i went on 2 exchanges and i was only working in my home area of Gardiner for 3 days out of this 7 day week. Also the temperature reached -16 degrees one night and we could totally feel it the next morning!

Monday- I spent this night in Topsham (my first area in the mission) with Elder Penverne. he is from france and he taught me some french while i was on exchange with him. he doesnt live near any of the beaches in france so sadly he didnt know much about surfing or the ocean in those parts of the country.

Tuesday- This was the big day that i was excited for! I got to go see Sister Youland!!! We actually had lunch over at their house and Tony made a huge feast for us. She of course had some banana bread for me because i love that stuff so much. We as well taught her a short lesson on how important it is for us to read the scriptures Daily. they have a big impact on our daily lives if we read them and seek for the principles taught in them. We also got to see June wing! She is the same as we left her except she is smoking again.... Darnit June! Overall, this exchange was interesting because i got to see spiritual progression with the people we visited with and that was really cool to see. Seeing growth is one of the coolest things in life. It feels good to know you helped someone along with their lives by teaching them correct doctrinal principles found in the scriptures and in Jesus Christ's Example.

Wednesday- Got to teach district meeting again and it went really well. I enjoy teaching those lessons because you help your district learn and you learn in the process. So its a win win situation. After district meeting i went off exchange to go on exchange. Immediately after district meeting i went to Dameriscotta with elder herring (a spanish speaking missionary). Dameriscotta is a very pretty area. its right on the coast of Maine and we got to go down into probably the richest lobstering town in Maine. Its called Booth Bay Harbor. We taught a lesson to a man who just recently lost his wife and also just found out his best friend died this exact day that we met with him. He was never into God or religion before all these deaths in his family and than he started to question the purpose of our existence. To just live and die and that's all? NOPE! God has a plan for us and you can know that plan if you listen to and follow Jesus Christ and his teachings. This night we had Moose Steaks! Super good. I took pictures of it because it was just that awesome.

Thursday- It was -16 degrees when we woke up this morning and we had to get out and walk to the library in it. Its a really unique feeling having your nostril hairs instantly freeze the second you walk outside. Elder herring was able to say its cold out here when we walked outside and my mouth was pretty much frozen shut haha. My jaw became stiff as we walked. We visited some of their investigators and less-actives and taught a couple of really good lessons. This was a very good day for missionary work because every door we knocked on, people greeted us nicely. (Maybe it was because they thought we were crazy for being outside in the frozen tundra of Maine!) For dinner that night we had it over at a members home and they fed us STEAK! She told us that her freezer broke and  "its as if it (the freezer) knew you were coming, there's just too much steak for us to eat" haha so that was great! than we exchanged back and now i finally got to be with Elder Sholer again.

Friday- We weekly planned for a while than we did service at the local food pantry and it was super busy. usually we help the homeless people pick out food but this time we were out in the kitchen literally cutting the cheese! haha after cutting the cheese we stocked shelves. I enjoy doing volunteer service because anything you do someone is grateful for because its all voluntary. Everyone there WANTS to be there and it just creates a nice enjoyable atmosphere. We tried visiting some former investigators and we had some extra time before going to Applebys for dinner. So we tracted some houses and one guy opened the door and goes, "Im going to let you in to get warm but im just going to kick you back out." So we accepted the boot and talked with him. he was mean at first but than i told him how we as 'Mormons' believe in Jesus Christ and that HE IS OUR SAVIOR, NO ONE ELSE IS. His heart softened a little bit and by the end of our 25 minute talk he accepted a book of Mormon. He didnt want us back but he took one. That was cool. Oh and at applebys the member told me to buy a steak so... I HAD STEAK AGAIN!

Saturday- For breakfast we walked to a local diner because we got a gift card to it so i had steak and eggs for breakfast just to keep my steak eating streak alive. (its 4 days in a row of eating steak). than after that and while We were in our apartment studying and than we get a knock on the door and its the food co-op guys (alex and Max) and they invited us to help them downstairs with the demolition of the interior. They are stripping it clean. So we took off our white shirts and ties and put on service clothes and went at it with hammers! I loved it so much! They were really appreciative of us helping them out. We than showered and changed and headed off to do missionary work. We tried stopping by some less- active members and investigators but no one had the time to visit with us. We tried a family named the Johnson's 2 kids (14yr old girl and 11 yr old boy who was for some reason in a Halloween costume dressed as a piece of Bacon haha) that we were told to try by a member. Turned out they needed our help moving some boxes upstairs from their basement. So we helped them and than got to the point where they enjoyed us and wanted to take us out to dinner. They took us out to eat at a convenience store haha. that's Maine for you. But hey its the thought that counts. We are going to try and meet weekly with them.

Sunday- We got to see a missionary farewell talk in our ward. He is an 18 yr old kid named Vee who is going to Macon, Georgia on his mission. He leaves in February. That was cool to see a soon to be missionary and i could see myself in him. I have grown alot over my mission.... Its really strange to say but ive grown alot!! We were invited over to a less active members home to eat dinner and guess what we had for dinner..... It starts with an S and ends with Ache... STEAK!!!!! 5 days in a row! At the LA members home we taught him about the doctrine of Christ is 2 nephi 31. If you want to learn about Jesus Christ. Read that chapter. As well as St. Matthew chapter 5 in the Bible. But that was my week!


This upcoming week we have zone conference on Tuesday and than ill be on exchange till wednesday night. And thats all we have so far.

The missionary work is progressing up here in Gardiner, maine. I am loving being an advocate of Jesus Christ and going out and fulfilling his statement of "Feed My Sheep"
http://www.mormonchannel.org/bible-videos?v=3904254760001

Love you all and i hope you stay safe and i look forward to hearing about your lives next monday!!!

All Smiles, 

Elder Dahlberg

Caught up!! Happy New Year 2015!!

Big Kahuna!!!!

This email has some days that took place last year so its hard to remember exactly what we did but here goes nothing.

Monday- This day Elder Sholer and I just took it easy and than while we were in line at Walmart to buy our food a member of the ward named Lupe (he is back in California at 29 palms atm) He invited us to go workout with him and his friend at a members house. So we accepted and Elder Sholer and I went over to a members 'cabin' and he had a really nice set up to bench press as much weight as you wanted. So we were there and witnessed a 25 year old guy named Alex bench 310 lbs 1 time for his new all time max. That was pretty epic. The metal bar he was lifting was bending under all the weight. meanwhile i tested out what my max was and it was 180lbs. Which is equal to my body weight. Not too bad but not some 310 pound lift at all.

Tuesday- We did our first day of doing service at the MaineGeneral Hospital and we are working in the Maintenance division. Which means we will help when there is a snow storm or help clean floors or do general labor around the hospital. We ride around in that cool quad thing that i took a picture in. After that we helped out again at the Johnson Hall where one of the volunteers showed up in a surf shop jacket and i couldn't help but talk to her about it. She is a avid beach goer but doesn't surf. She likes the whole surfing culture just doesn't do it because its to cold up here in Maine.

The cart they could drive if they weren't  missionaries and aren't allowed to drive it.....

Wednesday- This was New Years Eve even though it just felt like any other day.... I taught my 2nd district meeting ever and i included a picture of the whiteboard after we were done. I think you can tell what my lesson was on haha. Than we had a great lunch provided by the senior sisters. I went on an exchange in Winthrop Maine after District meeting and spent the night there.

Thursday- New Years Day even though it just felt like any other day..... I did my first baptismal interview this day. I interviewed a man named Terry who was totally ready to be baptised. he was humble and had all of the qualifications to be baptised. I really enjoyed doing the interview too, wasn't nervous one bit. We were out tracting in the outskirts of Winthrop and got to a summer home type area and we tracted a couple doors and realized there was no one here. It was right next to a lake that was frozen over and it was super cool to look at. I had the bright idea to throw some rocks out onto it because the rocks just skipped along the top of the ice and both Elder Sowby and I were really amuzed at it. Than we heard someone behind us yell "DO NOT THROW ROCKS OUT ONTO THE LAKE" To make the story short we were escorted out of the area and left on good terms :) hahaha he sadly didn't want to hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ.......

Elder Dahlberg and exchange Elder Sowby

Friday- We finally met up with a potential investigator named John that we met a long time ago during an artwalk. He is interested in meeting with us and we have a day set, Sunday January 11th at 3pm when we will be going over to his house and talking with him. He is an organic farmer and is around the age of 26. He also helps run the soon to be Food Co-op which is replacing the Magic game store below our apartment in Gardiner. We also went over to a family named the Veregge's at the perfect time where we helped their  27yr old son, Andrew stack 2 cords of wood out in the freezing cold windy weather. They had us over for dinner and we shared a lesson but for some reason none of them wanted to stay around except the mom.... Darn teenagers.

Saturday- This was super service saturday. Started with us going downstairs to help the Food Co-op begin their remodeling of the inside of their newly aqcuired building. We had hammers and helped take out shelves and book cases and all sorts of fun stuff. This was a kids dream, going in and just breaking things :) We met a guy named Esben, who is from Denmark and he is a pro piano player and we had the bright idea of giving him one of the portable electric pianos in our apartment since we have 2. So we gave it to him and he was super appreciative of it and we exchanged contact info and we will hopefully be seeing him in the near future! He also was wearing a super cool hat that had a hawaiian hang loose sign on it. Cool guy! Than we helped a member move a giant family heirloom piano out of their apartment. That one piano took 1 hour to move with 5 guys working on it.... Yeah that was huge... Than we helped a deaf man move into the ward and we helped unload his huge Uhaul full of stuff. Than after that we went over to the Peters house to help Rusty cut and split and stack wood to prepare for the coming storm. Needless to say we were beat at the end of the day.

Sunday- We woke up to a winter wonderland and it snowed 6 inches over night. That caused alot of people to not come to church so the building was almost completely empty and none of the people we committed to come to church came... But i don't blame them because i told myself if i wasnt a missionary it would take alot of guts to get up and brave this huge storm that just happened. We had a lesson with the peters about the Plan of Salvation where we opened up the pamphlets and read word for word. Rusty was very combative because he wanted proof of everything we told him in the bible. We proved everything we taught with the bible but he was still semi unaccepting. He Is a very smart man and we arent telling him his beliefs are wrong, we never do that. We are just telling him and everyone for that matter that there is more to learn. Life keeps progressing, we should never stop learning. We finished the night at a members home, the Maschinos where we had hawaiian haystacks at my request :) Great way to end the night!


So this week i will be going on 2 exchanges. From Monday night to Wednesday at district meeting, i will be in Topsham with Elder penverne and than after district meeting i will be going to Dameriscotta till thursday night with Elder Herring.
I am really excited to be in Topsham tomorrow, that is the area i started my mission so i will get to see all my old friends and see sister youland!!!! WOOOHOOOOOO!!! Im excited!

Thank you all for your Christmas Cards! I have a ton of them and i feel loved.

All smiles, 

Elder Dahlberg

Backlogged from Dec. 29, 2014 Merry Christmas

Big Letter

So this week i got to skype my family for Christmas! That was the best Christmas Present i could ever have gotten! I love my family so much and being out here in Maine away from them for the holidays helps me to realize how much they mean to me. Family is what makes the Holidays worthwhile. Being out here i see and meet people who say they had the Worst Christmas ever because they have no friends or family to spend it with. Its really sad talking to those people because they are usually very depressed and sad. (also because of the wintery weather out here)

Monday- Did shopping and bought more apples!!! woohooo and got haircuts. woohoo exciting

Tuesday- We went to the most expensive hospital in maine. Its called MaineGeneral and it has one of the prettiest/ most well kept facilities ive ever seen. It was a big beautiful building with fountains and walk paths and its just really nice. We are going to be volunteering there on Tuesdays from 8AM-12PM. Its the first actual service we do here in this area because all the rest is just random spur of the moment service. We also were able to head over to Grechen's house and have a very good sit down conversation with her. She is still searching for her spirituality and isnt super into organized religion. She loves the devotion part of it but she doesnt like the religion and the whole Joseph Smith seeing God and Jesus Christ part of it...

Wednesday- (Christmas EVE) We had a big zone meeting where we learned about the power of committing someone to do something. If we teach someone and leave without telling them to do anything we didnt do our job. We need to help people because better and more like Jesus Christ. Christ commits us to do alot but he also gives alot if we follow through with it. So we need to do the same. We need to motivate these people to act by inviting them to change. We were also able to watch a movie called Its a wonderful life. I had never seen it before and i really really liked it. I sat there and about half way through the movie i caught myself thinking about how weird it felt to be watching a real movie while being on my mission. I felt a little strange to be watching it but i just enjoyed it and relaxed. After the movie we had a dinner with our ward mission leader who stuffed us to the brim with his homegrown 36 pound turkey. He raised it this past summer and was waiting for a day to cook it up. So that was a great dinner.

This man's birthday is Dec. 24th...

Thursday- (Christmas DAY!!!) We woke up at 5:45 and drove over to the tarbox's to open our presents with them and that just gave me the Christmas feel because we were all gathered around talking and having a jolly time haha. Than i got to skype which i was super excited for, so excited i went to the bathroom like 3 times because i had to pee haha. But like i said earlier, that just made my Christmas. I actually felt like i was part of the family talking to everyone and seeing friends and family. And i didnt cry the whole time which made it all that much better. We could actually carry a conversation. After the skype we went over to sister Tarbox's parents house and ate lunch and than went on a walk and talked to Sister Tarbox and her husband Bob. We than had dinner with the Peters after that and that went really well.

Some of Elder Dahlberg's Christmas gifts

Grandma sent a "beach in a box" for his Lego dude to enjoy!

Friday- we had another orientation at maine General and than we stopped by a Less-Active sister cadawallader who was already wrapping Christmas Presents for next year. She is a bargain shopper and buys all the leftover toys that were overstocked and marked down because the stores needed to sell em. While we were at her house a car ran off the road just outside their house and it was in a ditch. The lady driving it was super drunk and had a big .270 rifle in the back seat of her car. IDK where she was going but i think its good that she crashed because she wasnt saying nice things about her boyfriend.

Saturday- We helped move the Tarbox's out of their house. Its interesting moving someone out of their house because you walk in at the start of the move and it just looks like a normal house and than before you know it the house is barren and your scrubbing walls, and cleaning toilets and vacuuming! I love the Tarbox family and i am excited for their bright future in Grenora, North Dakota. We stopped by a recent convert member and turned out he was moving too! So we helped them out even though we were in our white shirts and ties. I just rolled up my sleves and took off my tie. We lugged chairs, tables, beds, cabinets down super steep stairs. it was physically tough but thats why i eat my Wheaties in the mornin :)

Sunday- I gave a talk in Church about the scripture Alma 5:14. In my talk i concluded by using Romans 8:31 which says What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

And after my talk a man who i had never seen before came up to me and asked me for a scripture. I told him and than he thanked me and left. SO right after church as we were driving home and on our way home we always pass a Seventh Day adventist church and on their sign was the scripture Romans 8:31. And that wasnt there before i gave my talk in church. So that was a cool experience. I wasnt nervous to give my talk either. I am pretty comfortable up there on the stand talking to a big group of people.

Well thats all i can do for now.
This upcoming week for new years eve and new years i will be on an exchange with the Zone leaders in Winthrop Maine.

LOVE YOU ALL HAPPY NEW YEARS

All smiles, 

Elder Dahlberg

Letter to Santa from Elder Dahlberg

His letter in return...

Backlogged from Dec. 22, 2014 Elder Dahlberg is a District Leader!

(Still minimal editing...)

Gigantor letter

Monday- This was my last day with the Augusta Elders. Elder Stauffer and Gray. They were spending the night at our apartment for 5 nights so i got to know both of them really well. Elder Stauffer and I had a great connection and it was almost like losing a close friend when they left. We baked them a cake at our member meal that night and had Elder Stauffer and Elder Sholer shove their faces into it haha.

Tuesday- We dropped off the Augusta Elders at the church where they would head down to Transfer Meeting in New hampshire and Elder sholer and i spent the day doing missionary work. We stopped by a potentials house named john, but he wasnt home but his 2 room mates were. Alex and Veruniche. They have 2 kids together and are all into organic farms and into natural foods. NO PRESERVATIVES!!! They are pretty hipster and relaxed, which is completely different than most maine folk. This is the day i had my first up close and personal woman breast feeding. During dinner she just pulls down her shirt and brings her baby to her chest. Elder Sholer and I just immediately stared right down at our food and tried our best to inspect each bite as it went into our mouths haha.
(I was laughing so hard as I read this!!)  This couple isnt interested in investigating our church but they like to philosophy and learn about it. After that we had another dinner with a member who is going on his mission to Macon, Georgia leaving on Feb 18th and at the dinner he had a nonmember friend whose name is Tori and she is graduating the year, of 2015 (sounds like another Tori i know!) But this Tori was interested in us and wanted to learn more about our beliefs. She told us she didnt want to make any commitments but was willing to listen to our message. We taught her the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation during the dinner. She agreed with all of it and as for if she wants to continue to learn we know not.. She wouldnt say...

Wednesday- This day i taught my first district meeting and it went really well. I wasnt all that nervous i just wanted to make sure every missionary in the meeting felt needed and that they werent there just to waste time. In our district is 4 elders and 4 sisters. Here are their names and their areas.
Farmingdale 1- Elder Dahlberg and Sholer (sholer is a newer missionary)
Farmingdale 2- Sister Collins and Bee (Bee is a newer missionary)
Dameriscotta- Elder Herring and Liljenquist (Liljenquist is a brand spanking new missionary)
Topsham 1- Elder Hudson and Penverne (penverne is from France)
Topsham 2- Sister Farr and Edwards  ( these are senior missionary sisters.)

As you can see i have my first area in my district and i will be going on 2 exchanges there. Which means i get to see all my old less-actives and investigators from the first 6 months of my mission!!!

Thursday- We did service at the public library like usual on this day and also helped out at Johnson Hall. Those are our only 2 community service things. We are looking for another to go do. This is also the day we went to Peter C***** house, (The nazi guy) He is heavily into chewing tobacco and is in all sorts of body pains and takes all sorts of medications. He is a fairly immature man and pretty inappropriate with his words. He doesnt have a filter from his brain to his mouth so it makes our visits interesting..... After our visit there i got picked up to drive down to Manchester New Hampshire for Mission leadership Training tomorrow.

Friday- Spent all day on my butt today. I got tons of information that will totally help me in being a leader in the mission and in life. I learned all about what qualities a true leader has and what is expected of me as a leader. I also saw all my old mission friends and its crazy to think how we are all in leadership positions now.

Dahlberg & Jensen (his MTC roommate)

Dahlberg & Dean (his 2nd companion)

Dahlberg & Beck (3rd companion?)

Dahlberg & Lervold (4th companion)

Dahlberg & Hansen (5th companion)

Saturday- We didnt leave our apartment until 4pm on this day.. Which means i was on my butt again all day haha. So you may ask why were you in your apartment until 4pm? Well let me explain. 6:30-10AM we did exercise, breakfast, and personal and companionship study. 10-11 we did new missionary training called 12 week. from 11-2 we did weekly planning where we plan out our whole week and what lessons to teach and who to see and what new efforts we are going to try and evaluate on the last weeks efforts. 2-3 we ate lunch and 3-4 we had an apartment inspection... So there is why we didnt get out of our apartment until 4pm. The sun was already down by the time we left... CRAZY!!!!!! Needless to say my butt was ready to get up and get moving! We were able to bring Armando (member of our ward) to visit some less-actives and one of them named David Raftus answered the door and talked to us outside in the freezing cold for about an hour. He wasnt interested in coming back to church this instant but he wasnt against the church which is the normal response we get. After that we had dinner at the Dawbin's home who gave us vegetable stir fry! They are very good cooks and great members of the church!

Sunday- We were able to have 2 less actives at church. One of them was raymond our 86 year old less active who has been wanting to come to church but hasnt been feeling well and the other named Greg Helm. A man who we tried contacting a couple of times but never had the time to meet with us. It was great to see him and he enjoyed the Christmas Program!

As for the peters family, we werent able to see them at all this week. Things just didnt align and they didnt come to church... So we will work even more diligently on meeting with them this week


My schedule for this week is
tuesday- go to hospital to apply for service
wednesday- go to a zone meeting where we will get to watch "its a wonderful life!!!" than have dinner at Brother Walkers house (our WML)
Christmas day- skype and go to peters at 3 than back to tarboxs

thats all i got for this week!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!!! THANKS FOR ALL THE LETTERS!!! I am getting so many and i just love opening them every night!

ALL SMILES,

Elder Dahlberg

This is the grave of one of our relatives:  1st cousin 8 x removed. (for Elder Dahlberg)

Back logged from December 15, 2014 Closing up the Augusta Elders' apartment

(Since I'm a bit behind, I'll leave the editing to a minimum...)
Big Letter!!!

This week went by so fast and it was such a good week! Are you ready to hear about it? Im ready to tell you so buckle up and enjoy this email.

Monday- This was P-day and did all the normal junk we do. We did a nerf war again but it wasnt as fun this time so we got bored of shooting eachother with plastic darts. After P-Day we went to stop by a potential investigator that we talked to on that night where we talked to a ton of people. He wasnt home but his room mates were and we talked with them. They were super friendly and werent interested in what we had to share but they are opening up a local Food Co-Op for organic foods just below our apartment in Downtown Gardiner and they wanted our help with Demolition and stuff. So we will be helping them with that once they give us a call and tell us when. Also at their house was the first time i declined going into a Sauna in my life. We as missionaries cant go into one and he invited us into it and said he has extra Hurley Boardshorts and it was so enticing because it was FREEZING COLD outside but we held our ground and didnt go in......

Tuesday- The roads outside were SUPER ICY. There was a 1 inch coat of ice on the roads and from our apartment we could see tow trucks and fire trucks heading out to the local wrecks. We were told to stay inside because the roads are terrible so we went to the library to help serve there and watch some mormon.org videos and become familiar with the web site. On our walk back from the library which is .1 mile away from our house, 7 fire trucks passed us with their sirens on and blaring their horns! It was crazy! Not alot happened this day because the sidewalks and roads were layered with ice and elder sholer and I tried to walk to the Veregees home to visit with them and we were literally ice skating. It was really tough getting up and over a small hill that Elder Sholer fell 2 times on haha! We eventually got to the Veregees and helped them put up their Christmas Tree and read scriptures with them. We are hoping to motivate them to come to church as well as help them out in their faith in Jesus Christ.

Wednesday- After our District meeting and going to District Lunch at Red Robin, I went on an exchange to Augusta with Elder Stauffer. Elder Landen Stauffer is going home to Layton Utah on his birthday, which is on the 17th of December. He is so excited to see his family and it was fun talking with him about what he learned on his mission and what he will apply to his life. It rained all day and we were walking around Augusta visiting people and trying our best to talk to everyone we walk by....  (who on earth would be out walking in 34 degree weather with pouring rain?) But if there was someone as crazy as we were we would talk to them. We had Tacos for dinner that our Ward Mission Leader Provided for us since its Elder Stauffers last Wednesday night as a missionary. At night time we normally go to bed and sleep at 10:30, Elder Stauffer and I stayed up till like 1 or 2 in the morning just talking about life. I havent had one of those talks in a LONG TIME and it was really enjoyable.

Elders Dahlberg & Stauffer

Thursday- The Augusta Elders area and apartment is closing down so all day we pretty much cleaned up the apartment. I tackled the dirty dishes which filled the sink. (i do NOT do that by the way mom, and i am about to explain one of the reasons why) So i was cleaning the dishes, there wasnt any dish soap left so i used hand soap... hope that wont hurt anyone... But i got to the bottom of one of the sinks and this TERRIBLE smell just starts oozing out of the sink. It was putrid, rank, disgusting, and foul. I havent ever smelled a smell like that in a kitchen, That smell belonged in an abandoned porto-potty out in the desert of Arizona! This smell hurt my nose physically. We opened windows and used fans to blow the smell away. I ended up finishing the dishes after losing my sense of smell for about 30 minutes. That was hilarious but also disgusting... And i was cleaning it in another missionaries apartment.... I guess i was given a blessing that night because a member took us out to dinner at Applebee's and urged me to get a street steak and so i did. That was marvelous! It also rained all day today. 3 days in a row of non stop rain.

Friday- Friday Morning we met up with Elder Sholer and Elder Gray and we had a ward work party on cleaning out the Augusta Apartment and making trips to the Goodwill and to the Dump. There was 4 full trash bags of empty tupperware in their apartment. so if your ever looking for your tupperware, go to a missionaries apartment and im sure they will gladly give you theirs. Now that we moved them out they are living with us for the rest of the week. A member took us out to Denny's for lunch and than for dinner our Ward Mission Leader invited us over for a Lobster, scallop, and crab dinner. I forgot my camera which sucked! We got fed really well this week.

Saturday- It snowed during the night so after our studies Elder Sholer and I headed out in the snow and shoveled out some members of our ward and the surrounding houses in the neighborhood. I really enjoy snow shovelling to be completly honest, tons of people hate it and say you only love it because your a beach bum from California. haha. We also met up with a man named Rick p****** who is one of our new investigators. he is heavily into drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. and on the coffee table that seperated us from him was all that plus more... Illegal drugs... Vodka... Cigarettes.... The whole nine yards. But what we talked about was helping him find Christ in his life. He wants to become better through Jesus Christ but it will take alot of effort on his part and its almost to late. he has so many physical problems due to a life long career of drug and alcohol abuse.  We also met up with the Peters family and read from the scriptures with them and invited them to come to church, they said sure thing!

Sunday- To our surprise the Peters texted us saying we woke up a little late we wont make it to church... What time does 2nd hour start? haha how awesome is that! They came to 2nd and 3rd hour and brought their 5 kids. It went really well and tons of people fellowshipped them, we hope they felt good in the church. We also were introduced to Sister Tarbox's parents who invited us over to dinner that night. They came to church and we sat next to them all sacrament meeting. For dinner we had yankee pot roast and fruit salad. After it we talked about the Restoration of the Gospel and where the Book of Mormon comes into play. he is Seventh Day Adventist and believes only in the bible. At one point in the lesson he held up his bible and said "Show me in the Bible where is says Jesus visited the American continent, or show me some indication of why i would believe in the Book of Mormon at all". So, i opened up my bible to Ezekial 37:19 and also to John 10:16. After reading those scriptures he had an almost immediate change of heart. He was no longer hostile against the book of mormon, instead he was reasonable and said you know what, "ill give this book a shot, i mean i makes sense that he would visit other people other than just the Jews."  That was the first time in my mission where i saw an immediate change of heart. it was really awesome to see and i just felt like an actual missionary seeing that. Being a missionary out here in New England is rough when it comes to teaching and getting people to change their lives according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This mans name is Ed B****. Hopefully we hear back from him as to what he thinks of the Book of Mormon.

If you don't know much about the Book of Mormon its another Testament of Jesus Christ and his visitation to the inhabitants of the American Continent, AKA the american indians. There is a good scripture in the book of mormon which shows how much Christ is talked about.   2 Nephi 25:26

 26 And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for aremission of their sins.


Well i got to get going, I hope you all have a good week and i am not getting transferred so im saying in Gardiner with Elder Sholer at least till Febuary 1st! I am also now called to be a district leader and that will let me learn and grow even more as a minister of Jesus Christ. Hope all is well and thank you for all you do for me. I enjoy getting Christmas Cards by the way so if you want to send me something, That would be what i would ask for.

ALL SMILES

Elder Dahlberg