Monday, October 28, 2013

Looks like he needed a Bath! Bath, ME that is...


Elder Dahlberg with President Stoker and his wife
Elder Dahlberg with his trainer Elder Lund

Dear Blog readers,

Elder Dahlberg sent a lot of pictures and gave me a lot of info today.  I'll be on here trying to get it all downloaded.  I'll publish bits as I go, but be sure to come back to see what you might have missed!  I did edit them a bit to make them easier to read...
A view of Bath, Maine

First of all, here is his current address (until at least Dec. 1, but most likely longer... we'll see).
 Elder Drew Dahlberg
 962 Middle St. Apt. 7
 Bath, ME  04530-2455

Google map of his apartment

     "Okay wow. this week has been one heck of a ride so if I'm all over the place, sorry I have to much info to say. I haven't been able to check my email in over a week and a half and i am LOADED with emails so thanks to everyone who sent me one! I ABSOLUTELY love it. 




     Okay so now getting to the good stuff. I am now in Bath, Maine. It is a city of ships. ships get built here and its a pretty small town along the coast of Maine  From where i am living i have yet to see the vastness of the Atlantic ocean but hopefully over the week i will be able too. Some of the favorite words people like to say are "Wicked" and "I'm all set". I heard that so many times while knocking on peoples doors which where then immediately slammed in my face. haha. SO i am living in the worst part of Bath, Maine  Where i live is where all the drug deals go down, where all the ex convicts live, and where all the troubled teens like to hang out and smoke. The apartment i live in is really crappy, stinky, and over 150 years old. No joke. It is freezing at night so i had to buy some extra blankets to keep myself warm. When the apartment needs to get warm the radiators attempt to work, by making the most horrendous sounds. For example it reminds me of when someone scratches their fingers on a chalk board. YEAH... 

     I really like how in the morning i get one hour to study the scriptures alone. It really helps get the day going. (Mom your probably like WHAT THE?!, DREW STUDYING!!) I'm saying the same thing too haha. ON my first night here in Bath Maine, my companion Elder Lund and I were driving around visiting people and a HUGE bolt of lightning went through the sky and it was  breathe taking. I have yet to see lightning since but it was epic. (Timmy is was 10x better than the ones in Arizona . As missionaries, we aren't allowed to be in the apartment before 9PM and it gets dark here around 5:30PM, And when i say dark, I mean dark. There are no street lights to light up the streets so its really dark. But if we finish our day before 9Pm we go on whats  called an obedience walk. Elder Lund and i could break the rules and go in the apartment at 8pm if we wanted to but we both didn't come on the mission to break the rules so we follow them as best we can. On obedience walks we are walking around the creepy area in which we live and its pretty sketchy the things we encounter. We already got honked at and yelled at for being Mormon.  People breathe smoke in your face to see your reaction, people say im all set while your trying to talk to them haha. I make it sound terrible, but its not THAT bad haha. I have so much info so stay with me. 

     In my area of Bath, i have yet to see a light house so i haven't seen one yet. Mom when you send a package,things that i really need here are a small hymn book, my blue pillow, an iPod wall charger and TRAIL MIX!!! there isn't a Costco to supply it so i can only get it from you. That trail mix is so good and every package you send please put that KIRKLAND trail mix in it. You can even buy two and fit it inside of a bigger bag :) i love that stuff. 

     The area in which i live is kind of like walking in Downtown SD to get to Petco. Full of trash and dirty things and the concrete is all cracked and made terribly, and the people are creepy haha. Its funny being in an apartment with one other guy because you know you shouldn't go into the bathroom when the door is closed because that means they are in there pooing or something. And you don't even have to close the door behind you when you go into it.#guythings :)   (Mother note... sorry for the graphics...)  Our light in the bathroom doesn't work so we are currently using a desk lamp to lighten up the way. Hopefully the landlord comes this week to fix it. Some statistics about our mission is that our baptism goal for our area is 6 baptisms in one year. so that helps show how hard it is here to spread the gospel. When the prophet changed the age for missionaries there were only 119 missionaries in the NHMM. Now there are 209 missionaries in this mission. Its funny here because when i was younger i was always told not to talk to strangers. but as a missionary you talk to every person possible, whether they be normal or wacked out on drugs haha. The drugged out people are the funnest to talk to. 

     We share a car with the sister missionaries whose area is Brunswick. We get the car from Monday night to Thursday night. The car is a chevy malibu. WE have bikes in the apartment, but we havent used them yet. I havent heard anything about using facebook or using ipads. For the first time being here on my mission in Bath Maine, on Sunday at 1:15 i felt a ray of sunshine hit my neck. What a great and glorious feeling that was. (DJ i miss those days while life-guarding when i wished there would be clouds to cover the sun.) Now the sun is all i want to feel. 

     When getting onto the freeway/highway you don't need to merge because there is NO traffic what so ever. Mom use any picture you want for my plaque.  Ill be sending some pictures soon so you can choose what  one you want. Doesn't even have to be one of the ones i send. I heard from some people that there is surf in Reid State Park. i haven't been there to check it out but hey, if there is talk of surf that must mean there is something. 

     A very nice less active sister in our ward gave both Elder Lund and I winter, gear from LL bean. She used to work there and she got super discounts on them. We offered to pay her for them but she declined. the gear is really nice. People wear ratty clothes here and there is no rush to get anywhere here. everyone is super laid back and if they are late, no point in trying to hurry if your already late. People here wear clothes like dads jacket that he wears when its cold. The blue, black checkered jacket that i think he got for Christmas?



Clothes drying the old school way!


That is how people dry their clothes. people don't have alot of money here in Bath :/ but some people are rich out of the wazoo hahaha







Sister who gave them warmer coats!

The warmer coats... I LOVE LL Bean!
     The members here are feeding me pretty well. And i eat at a members house about 5 times a week and they always have a dessert and they make you eat it haha. Im trying to work it off in the mornings but its hard with only 30 mins to burn off 2 dessert items in one day ya know!! im eating fine here. take all this info and make a wicked blog article!!! :) lots of people told me they love what your doing. so keep doing it!!! 

Pretty tree by the mission office
A typical Maine house







The kitchen???  Crazy small!  



        
Their room and study area



A fountain of Bathsheba in a park near their apartment
  

   












 Make an awesome blog post with all this info i gave you. Feel free to send the package sometime this week. I would love that. With trail mix!!! :) Lots of hugs and kisses for you mom and dad. I love you guys and if you are wondering how you could make drew's day. Send him a letter with a picture of yourself in it. :) it will make his day for sure. Well I'll leave you with a joke i heard here in Maine. 

So what do you get when 16 girls from Maine walk into a room?

A full set of teeth.   (ba dum pum)

Pretty gross huh? its true. They almost never brush their teeth and they smoke all day. 


The population here in Bath is like 75% old people on Social Security with 15% middle aged and 5 % young adults and 5% children. I have only seen one family that is in our ward that reminds me of MM2 ward. Oh and there are no other ethnicity other than white people. ONLY WHITE PEOPLE! And 1 random Asian guy that is in our ward, named Brother Wong. And he happened to live in Ocean Beach in SD for about 3 years. He said he loves it there and wished that he could live there. Oh and i am giving a talk about myself on NOV 17th. 

    If you do send mail to me can you include pictures of the family? 
Either that or individual pictures of you guys. I only get on the 1 time a week but i can look at that picture 24/7 if i wanted to. Thanks mom. Letters are going to be awesome!"
Until next week!  Write me!!!!!




Post Script from the editor:  He sent other pictures from the MTC that I have now posted in the previous blog entries, so you can check them out.  He saw Elder Norlund from our ward while at the MTC, so his picture is there too.  Thanks for hanging in there until the end!!!


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