Transfer time again... Good bye Ascutney, Vermont (from Sept. 22, 2014)

   


 Well I got transferred... I am going down to Manchester at 7:50 am Tuesday morning and I will be sent somewhere from there. IDK where I'll go and it's hard to guess. I am going to be a Co-Senior Companion, which is pretty much like being Junior companion just in different words haha. I'm cool with it. All I care about is if I'm doing my job as a missionary by helping others to learn more about Jesus Christ and what he did for all of us. Looking back on this area, I was here for 3 months and we were able to find a total of 6 new investigators! That's HUGE for New England! This area was so prepared to hear the gospel and it's sad to say good bye to it and all the awesome people here. I said lots of Good byes yesterday and I have more to do today... Plus pack all my bags again for the 7th time in 1 year.

     I got a lot of pictures of the people we went and taught and now you can hopefully put a face to the names. This past week we were able to go over to Glen's house and we taught about Faith and Belief. He had tons of insight and I think I learned more in that lesson than he did! Which I think is how all lessons should be.

The Ward family

Anthony Halley-- Ill miss that kid!

The Macenfish family

I am going to miss Glen a lot, he is a solid investigator and he is so legit! Yes looks can be
deceiving but under all that biker garb is a man with a big heart! 

 

      This past Monday we had district P-Day and we were invited to a members home in Lebanon where they had a whole obstacle course made up in the woods. There were trails and obstacles and ziplines and trampolines and tire swings. The whole 9 yards! That family had a lot of younger kids and they were doing it with us and they literally are jungle monkeys! So quick and agile, I tried my best to keep up with them and realized that at 19 years old I can't do everything they do. Which was sort of an eye opener for me. I want to be able to do all that stuff just as agile as they can!

     This week we also had zone conference at the JSM with a general authority. He is a 70 and his name is Elder Larry Wilson. He is from California and used an analogy about Half Dome. I felt special because I was probably the only one in that room other than Elder Max Jensen who has seen it. Elder Wilson taught all about the Book of Mormon and its importance in our faith. It is pretty important because logically, if the Book of Mormon isn't true than this whole Mormon religion is claiming false claims and is false.  I'm really glad that I had that powerful spiritual experience when the missionaries came over to our house and taught about the first vision. If I wouldn't have had that I don't think I would be sitting here wearing a name tag that says Elder Dahlberg.  It was also really cool to be able to talk about the Book of Mormon with the General Authority in the birthplace of Joseph Smith. It was pretty awesome thinking about how much history was made in the New England area and I get to serve here.

     We also did service for Bob Porter this week and he took us out for ice cream. Bob Porter is a great man. To give a little bit of background on him he:
-Was the mayor of Claremont when he was 33, and is now on the city council board and pretty much is like the mayor now.
-Had a stroke and is half paralyzed on the entire right side of his body
-EVERYBODY KNOWS HIM!
-Served in the Army
-Owns a self sustaining farm, meaning he cuts his own wheat, grows his own vegetables, and raises his own meat.
Bob is a great guy and I'm going to miss him when I leave. I'll actually miss a lot of people in this area.  I have enjoyed this area so much and it is by far my most favorite area.  I hope I can love my next area as much as this one.

Gretchen, 900 lb pig.  Date for slaughter:  Oct. 29 

Enjoy this funny story ; Out here in the mission field we were told to go contact this guy out in the boonies of Vermont and so we went. Out in the middle of the forest there was this huge apartment complex off of a dirt road and we came to the house number and when we knocked on the door this guy answered. (We were looking for a black guy named Vinn) Well it wasnt Vinn, how could we tell? Well this guy wasn't black and this guy just looked at us in the most surprised/ concerned look. Here we were in our suits out in the middle of nowhere in Vermont and his face was priceless. He was like WHAT THE HECK?? On top of all that, we asked him questions and he didn't speak. He just shook his head with a yes or no and would NOT break eye contact. As we left he said "Have a nice day" in the most calm normal way ever. Strange yet funny. My companion and I got in the car, looked at each other and just died laughing for a good 5 minutes. It's moments like those that turn the semi-sucky moments into memories that you will NEVER forget!

     I hope everyone is doing okay and from all the emails I'm getting it sounds like everyone is doing just that. Remember that I'm getting transferred so Winter street is no longer my address.... sadly.... Well, fall is coming up and it's getting colder and colder as the days go on. Pretty soon I will be putting my winter jacket on and carrying a snow shovel around to help people.

We went to a hibachi restaurant

All Smiles,

Elder Dahlberg