From Feb. 16th "There are thousands of ways to find success but none of them work unless you do"

Maine is treating me well! This week we didn't have a huge dumping of snow in my area.  Southern New England got loaded with snow but we didn't up here in Maine. Although we still have 3 ft snow peaks all over the place and the sidewalks are literally trenches of snow. When it snows out here, the way to get rid of it fast is to spread a salt and dirt mixture in the roads so that the cars can grip the roads and not slide around. So when the snow plows come through they are always pushing this slushy brown snow around and its not appetizing at all...

Tuesday- We went out with the Bishop of our ward to visit some Less-Active members and it went really well. I have a really good relationship with our Bishop and we get along so well, mostly because I think we have the same thought process. We both think alike so therefore we are already similar in that aspect. For our dinner we went over to a Less-Active members home , the Curtis's and before we went there I was feeling a bit under the weather so I took a short nap to recuperate and right after my nap I said a prayer to help me feel good and that we can have an effective visit at the members house. I felt impressed to tell Elder Redford that we should teach them about patriarchal blessings even though we had already made a lesson plan for them earlier on that day. So I shrugged off that prompting and walked outside the room and Elder Redford had an Ensign open and it was opened to a page about patriarchal blessings and I immediately was like okay so that's no coincidence. So we taught them about Patriarchal blessings and we could tell they needed to hear it because they both hadn't read theirs in YEARS! So that was a cool little story. On my mission I have tons of those, I just have trouble remembering them to tell you every week. That's why I keep a daily journal!

Wednesday- After teaching district meeting and the Elder-Sisters' super good burrito lunch with home made banana bread, I went on an exchange with Elder McCain from Nebraska. We got along SO WELL! Almost too well. It reminded me all over again of being in high school with Taylor Dean. I also realized it's harder to do great missionary work when you get along super well with a missionary. But that could be false, who knows. But we did do some service at the Johnson Hall and the volunteer coordinator, Grace, actually read some of the Book of Mormon! We gave her one 3 weeks ago and she told us she would read some of it and tell us what she thought. She wants to talk about it some more so we hope we can do that this week.

Elders Dahlberg & McCain

OK, so that's a little bit creepy...

Good thing this house has blue shutters or it would get lost...

Thursday- We got called on 3 different occasions to help people shovel their homes and their roofs. So Elder McCain and I went and did that for a good chunk of the day. We also got to have a good lesson with Peggy Lane and we brought a member of the ward who is leaving on February 18th to Macon, Georgia on his mission. After the exchange, the moment Elder Redford and I were back to being companions, we sat down in the car and he immediately gave me a big hug and said thank you for being my companion. haha that was a cool moment. Because Elder Redford was having trouble with the elder he was on exchange with and he likes me much more as a companion. So that was a cool moment for me.












Then we went down to Manchester, New Hampshire for a new missionary training meeting.  We even got to sleep in the room that the General Authorities usually sleep in.


Friday- We had an all day long meeting this day and it was really good. I want to share one quote that I really liked that was said in the meeting.
"There are thousands of ways to find success but none of them work unless you do"
SO GET TO WORK!

Drew said this Elder looked like he could be President some day...

Saturday- This was a PDP day. (Pretty-Dang-Productive)  We stopped by a nice lady we tracted into one day and she wanted to meet up again so we will be meeting her this week on Thursday. We also stopped by a couple that we met a month ago and we shared a valentines message with them and they really enjoyed it and actually want us to come back again. They are Dennis and Ellen H*****. They are baptist and firm in their beliefs but are open minded and want to hear what we have to say. Than we had a FHE at the P***** home where they actually conducted it and made assignments while we shared a lesson on forgiveness and it was such a great lesson!!!!

Sunday- Church was cancelled and we knew it was because of a big storm that was coming our way. We didn't get much snow but the winds were in the 40 mph range and it was hitting our apartment really hard. It was really cool listening to the wind and all the sounds it made. We were able to have dinner at a members house and one their daughters had her boyfriend over and we taught about finding faith in Christ and he actually has been interested in it. So we were able to set up a day where we could teach him about Jesus Christ and his effect in our lives. We will be doing that on Friday.

That's my week!!! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Love you all and hope to hear about your weeks!!!

All Smiles,

Elder Dahlberg 

While we complain of hot winds and dry skin, New England is having one Wicked Winter!!

Well, most of you may or may not know, My parents just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary and decided to spend a week out in Hawaii as a celebration. I took it as more of a slap in the face because they went on the snowiest week Maine has seen in YEARS! During that week that they enjoyed sunshine and bliss we got roughly 3 and a half feet of snow and freezing temperatures. Haha its a pretty cool contrast that i just wanted to tell everyone.

This past week in my mission we set a goal to pass out at least one book of Mormon each day and we were able to do one every day except one. The only one day we couldn't was the day that Elder Redford, my companion had a really bad migraine and actually threw up because of how much pain was coming from it. He gets wicked bad migraines because he injured his neck one time while doing something in gymnastics.

I wont do a report day by day this week because i want to talk about some of the people we are currently working with.

The one big one we have is the P***** family. Rusty and Tiffany are the parents and There are 5 kids all under the age of 13. oldest is a boy and 4 younger girls. Their house is always full of energy and dancing and fighting and yelling and just craziness. We got information from the bishop that Rusty's dad is/was a member of our church. We haven't made contact with him yet but that was something cool to hear about. We weren't able to meet up with this family this week to do the Family Home Evening that we had planned but we did stop by Sunday night to share a short lesson about the importance of staying above the worlds influences and the ways to do that are reading the scriptures, praying, and attending church. This is a really awesome family that is very Christian in their beliefs.

Another one is a Less-Active lady named Peggy Lane. She has lived in Maine her whole life and is going through a tough time because her son just shot someone last week and a friend of hers just had her house burn down. She is divorced and her 30 yr old daughter who has a 8 month old baby still lives at home. We have been working with peggy lane for the whole time that i have been here and she is making a huge turnaround in her life. She hadn't been to church in over 4 years until last Sunday when she came and actually stayed for the full 3 hours. The next visit we had with her, you could see the light of God in her eyes. You could see that she partook of the Sacrament and did what it says. to "remember Jesus Christ" and his sacrifice for every one of us. Peggy is now focusing on trying to come back to church because she wants the blessings of God in her life. As do we all. I hope at least... Well Peggy and I get along really well because we both love the ocean and can talk about it forever, she also is a very loving woman. She takes in animals that have been abused and gives them a royal treatment for the last months of their lives.

Fred H**** is a 86 year old man that we found while tracting 3 weeks ago. He is meeting with us because he enjoys our visits as well as he wants to hear our beliefs. He is a very open minded guy and he is the pure example of charity. he loves everyone, even though they may have scammed him or burned him somewhere down the road. He is a funny man too. Reminds me of talking to Grandpa Dahlberg! Fred loves to read and surprised us by reading more of  the Book of Mormon than we had asked him too!

Those are the 3 that i wanted to cover this week. Those are our big 3 as of right now.

As for what we did this past week, we didn't have a single day where we didn't have our snow shovels in our hands. We helped every one and anyone shovel their yards and walk ways. We try to serve all mankind despite our differences. I was given an awesome present for Christmas which was electric heated gloves that my uncle Mark gave me. Those things work like a charm!!! Although my hands get cold when the battery dies, i love them so much! THEY ARE A LIFE SAVER!!!!

Ill finish with a cool quote that i learned a while back

"How can you be a life saver when you look like all the other swimmers on the beach?" Think about it, be yourself and bloom where your planted!

My birthday is on the 17th and I will be turning 20 years old!!!  I won't be a stupid teenager anymore! I have to be responsible!!!!

haha well i love you all and hope you have as good of a week as i will.

Here is how much snow came down on us.... and that is me roof raking. Yes there was so much snow that i had to rake it off of the roof or else it will collapse. 

A delicious breakfast made by Elder Dahlberg

P-day---Doing their laundry at the Dawbin's home

Elder Redford is a gymnast.  Whoa!  Unbelievable!!

It's either the P-90 X3 DVDs or all that shoveling snow... or BOTH!!

All Smiles, Elder Dahlberg

Guess What??  More snow coming... LOTS more...  He's in the 15-20" zone...

Backlogged from Feb. 3rd MORE SNOW (Postponed P-day from Monday to Tuesday)

Well there were 3 HUGE snow storms that hit us pretty hard. each one added 1-2 ft of snow on top of each other. This whole week has consisted of getting up, looking outside and seeing it crazy windy outside with snow going every direction, and it being freezing cold outside. On top of that our heat stopped working and so did our hot water and that happened right during the biggest storm named Juno. So this whole week i only got to shower 3 times due to no hot water. (its fixed now BTW) So that was quite the adventure.

Monday still w/ Elder Sholer - We shopped and stocked up on some food for the upcoming storm that hit on Tuesday named Juno. As well on this day we found a new investigator that we tracted into named Fred. He is 86 years old and interested in what we are doing while being out on our missions. He enjoys talking about Jesus Christ, which is awesome!! Not alot of people like doing that.

Tuesday still w/Elder Sholer- This was the big storm day! JUNO! We couldnt see 5 feet out of our windows because of how white it was outside and how windy it was. Snow was flying upward/ sideways/ inside out/ and backwards! Blizzards are awesome!!! We were urged over and over again to just stay inside but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me because im not planning on ever being back in a place where it can get this snowy and cold haha. SO Elder Sholer and i went walking out in it. We had to use our plastic snow shovels to block our faces from the wind so our faces didnt get frozen to pieces by the -20 degree wind that was going at 40+mph. We walked to the P**** and had dinner there with them. Walking home at 8:30PM was the most fun because no one was out and the roads were desolate. So i told Elder Sholer to sit on my snow shovel and i pushed him down a hill as if he were sledding.

Wednesday still w/Elder Sholer- We didnt do district meeting because we were still recuperating from the Juno blizzard. But we went and shoveled out some people and did it all voluntarily. I heard a really cool quote. "The best good deed is one done in secret and found out by accident" I feel like we do that pretty often and i hope that who we do it to really needed it. We had Elder Sholer's last dinner over at the Dawbins where we had Crepe's! Yummy stuff!!!

Thursday- This day we drove all the way down to Manchester New hampshire to drop off Elder Sholer, who is now in Lyndon Vermont and I got my new companion Elder Redford!
Elder Matthew Redford, is from Pocatello Idaho and is 18 years old. He is a mixed martial arts fighter, level 9 gymnist, #1 ranked welder in Idaho, and is a mormon. haha. He is a stud muffin of a kid. He has been through alot in his life but he pushed through it with conviction and strength. We get along great, even though we both like to be the ones to get the job done! We are both the type of people to act and not be acted upon. So we are working on finding the middle ground so we can become super efficient missionaries!

Friday- This day we got another 1ft of snow that kept falling all day long. After our 3 hour weekly planning we went to Fred's house and we planned on reading the introduction to the Book of Mormon with him and we read it with him. Only to hear him say, "I already read this and all the stuff after this, im in 1 nephi 11 can we start reading from there?" Hearing that just about knocked me off my socks because i have almost never had anyone actually keep the commitment of reading it after we leave. So we read from where he was. After that we went to the P**** for a dinner and then a Family Home Evening. We are trying to establish family home evenings with them on Friday nights because that is when everything is calm and non eventful. So we did it and the coolest part was when we were all singing I am a child of God and Rusty looked at one of his daughters and you could see the joy in his face. His eyes got all shiny and you could tell this was a special moment for him. That was a really cool experience to see.

Saturday- One of the things we did this day was stop by Raymond, a 86 year old man in a retirement home and talked with him. There was another man in the room named Phil who we also talked with. We soon found out he had 4 strokes and now is on the recovery side of it. He used to be a professional Guitarist and traveled all over playing and teaching for 35 years. Now he cant move his fingers on his hand that he uses to play his guitar. We left him with some pictures of Jesus Christ and talked about why Jesus is important in our lives and how He can help us through our trials.

Sunday- Elder Redford went up and bore his testimony and introduced himself with was the best thing he could have done because the family sitting in front of us just about lost it when he said he is from Pocatello, Idaho. Turned out that they pretty much knew each other and have all the same friends and stuff. Its a small world after all!!! We tracted some more this day and the first 2 doors didnt even let us open our mouths. They saw us and our nametags and walked to the door and told us to go away. I could see some disappointment in Elder Redfords face but we kept going. The next door actually let us in the house to get warm and ended up wanting us to come by again, Not to learn about our Church but to converse with each other about Jesus Christ and his Atonement. Which is what our purpose is as missionaries!!! Pretty cool!!!!

Monday the 2nd of February- We were supposed to have P-day this day but the snow storm decided other wise. It snowed again all day and put another 15 inches of snow on the ground. So the whole day we went around helping people shovel and we found 2 potential investigators from it. At one point in shoveling i had to remind myself of how this is my last winter here and that i wont see snow for a while when i get back home. But that thought was hard to hold onto as my fingers were so frozen to the point of not being able to feel the keys in my pocket, my snot was frozen to my upper lip, my toes felt like stumps, and i was tired from being out in the -30 degree weather with the wind blowing right into our faces. It sucked but it was worth it. Looking back on it im proud of myself for going out and doing it and it will all be good memories that i will cherish.

This past week was FULL of Snow and terribly cold weather and windy conditions. But i pushed through it and let my light shine.  Matthew 5:14-16.

This was the snowiest week on record in the past couple of years!!!! SO MUCH SNOW THERE JUST ISNT ANYWHERE TO PUT IT!!!

P.S. there is more to come also!!!

All Smiles,

Elder Dahlberg

Backlogged from Jan 26th Juno Storm on it's way...

So there is big news out here in New England. A HUGE Storm named Juno (when a storm has a name you know that its going to be awesome!) is going to be coming this week lasting from Monday night to Wednesday morning. Its going to be a huge blizzard that will cover the entire New England region. I'm really excited to witness my first blizzard and i hope it has no mercy and just lets us have it! I will take good videos and ill try and get some before and after pictures. We went to Walmart and stocked up on water and food so don't worry about that. We have like 10 people who told us if we are in trouble call them and they will hop to it and help us. So we are in good hands. :)
As for what we will do during the storm.... I'm not exactly sure because going out and shoveling will be pointless. We might just walk around outside depending on the severity of the storm. I really have no idea what to expect! haha im still just a Cali boy out in Maine!

The big news is that im going to be staying in Gardiner Maine again for at least another 6-12 weeks because im also Training a brand spanking new missionary again. I just finished training Elder Sholer and now on Thursday i will get my new companion who is fresh from the Missionary Training Center. I feel honored to train again because in the mission, not every missionary gets to train and not every missionary gets to train twice. So that just makes me feel good knowing that im doing a good job!

This past week i got to go on exchange again in Topsham and got to see sister youland! She pampered me with chicken salad with grapes on croissants and let me keep the left overs which didn't last another day. We helped Tony (her nonmember husband) paint the ceiling of the dining room and being there felt almost the same as when i left a year ago. It felt good to be back. Tony made me feel honored when he for the first time ever asked questions about the church! I was astonished when he asked me the questions and i was very happy to tell him the answers. I love that man! He reminds me a lot of my Dad. They have the same sense of humor.

After that we stopped by Janet Perez, the Colombian lady and she was so happy to see me and if felt good being back in her house as well.  She of course cooked us up some great food and we had a great talk about what she has been up to and her upcoming benefit dinner to help needy people in Nicaragua.

Wednesday we had dinner with a Nonmember family named the W***** that are now our new investigators. There is Randy, the father, Shelly, the mom, and 5 kids. They are a nice family and we hope to bring them closer to Jesus Christ. (That's always our hope as missionaries haha)

Thursday we got taken out to Texas Roadhouse for steaks and i felt like i got to celebrate my brother Timmy's birthday a day early. That was really cool. At this restaurant you get unlimited peanuts and you throw the shells on the floor just as if you were in Texas!!!

This week we had a couple lessons with the P***** family. We shared a lesson talking about the story in the book of mormon and how it all points to Christ. Than we gave Rusty an ensign to read the most recent talk by the prophet to the whole world, Thomas S. Monson. He talked about setting the rudder to your "spiritual boat" straight and make sure your course is set on God and no where else.

The P***** didn't come to church and neither did any of the Less-Active members that we work with. Stunk because we tried hard this week. But im not down on myself because i know that my efforts aren't to make sure they come to church. my efforts are to bring them closer to Christ.

I have to go but i want to leave with a really cool quote i learned this week.
"You can count the number of seeds in an apple, but you cant count the number of apples that come from a seed."

I'm not out here to see all the effects of my missionary labors. I'm out here to plant seeds and help people. And i love it!

Thanks everyone for all the emails. I got so many this week! thanks thanks thanks!

Oh and include my new trainee companion in your prayers because the first couple days/ weeks out in the mission field are really hard. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Thank you

Elder sholer and i found a toilet train! I mean come on! If you saw a bunch of toilets in a line like that you would want to take pictures with it!

All Smiles,

Elder Dahlberg!!!!

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