Good-bye Elder Martineau, Hello Elder Sholer!

This week was full of changes and I hope I can get them all in!

Starting with Monday the 3rd of November
Mon- We spent the whole day with the Augusta Elders and one of them was going home in 2 days so we kept talking about how he is going to go get engaged the day he gets home from his mission to some girl who sees him in the airport. He refused and just kept saying how he didn't want to leave his mission. We finished the night by having dinner at Bishop Abbott's house where for the lesson we recited all of D&C 4 and he and his wife were super impressed with how dedicated we are to serving the Lord.

 Tuesday- This was Transfer meeting day where we woke up at 5AM and drove down to New Hampshire. I said good bye to Elder Martineau and said hello to my brand new missionary Elder Sholer.

Elder Dylan Sholer is from Battleground Washington and is 11 days younger than me. He has an older brother who served a mission in Detroit Michigan and a 14 year old brother. He has a girlfriend that he is very much in love with and misses her dearly, he said he misses her more than his family! But he loves art, music, and movies. Not an outdoors guy or sporty guy for that matter. I mean he is only 115 lbs so if he played football he would get creamed.
On this day I also received word that Helen Stockwell passed away on Sunday November 2nd due to her cancer. That really hit me hard because I helped her get baptised and was such a friend to her. She called me Darling!

Elder Sholer also got to go to his first members home for dinner and we also got to sit in that really cool drag racer!

Wednesday- This day we got the memorial service for Saturday all ready with Gretchen, not a ton happened this day sadly. I was mostly training Elder Sholer on his first day as a missionary.

 


Thursday- So this whole week we had the Augusta Missionaries sleeping over (Elder Stauffer and Elder Gray) (Elder Gray is the bald one. He has Alopecia or however you spell it) We got the program ready for Saturday with a member or our ward named Brother Maschino. He played the guitar for us while we waited and he played any song you named. I came to realize that I really really love the Beatles and their music.  So whenever someone asks me what my favorite music is I will say the Beatles and Linkin Park. Elder Sholer also got his first taste of cancellations because our dinner cancelled so we walked around the freezing Ghost Town called Gardiner hunting, I mean looking for people to talk to....

Friday- We did service at the Food pantry and helped them serve a record tying number of families. We served 57 families in a 2 hour span. That's A LOT! We were constantly moving and helping. Elder Sholer also pointed out how the people came into the building all sad and mean but once they left they had a smile on their face and were excited. I enjoyed seeing that as we helped these people. To end the night we had dinner at a members home, the Ambrose's (age 50's) who told us all about their travels to Egypt and how he payed for both him and his taxi driver to stand and get pictures on the back of a Rhino. He payed for the taxi driver to go because he wanted to use him as a test dummy to see if the Rhino would actually do it haha. He then told us of how he gave his friend a copy of the Book of Mormon because we motivated him to want to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others.

Saturday- We raked leaves with the youth in the morning and packed them into black trash bags and brought them over to a member of our ward who used them as a wind blocker at the base of her trailer. That was all new to me because when it snows they pack snow on top of all the bags of leaves and it creates a shield for the house and keeps the heat in. Kind of like an Igloo. After that we got all dressed in suits and all pretty for the Memorial Service that we held for Gretchen's friend named Ryan.
So her friend Ryan committed suicide by overdosing on heroine and she wanted a place to hold a service so she called us and we were able to set one up for her. We had 40+ non members come to this service which was held at our church and we had bishop come and speak about the 23 Psalm.  I also conducted the meeting and it was a little nerve racking but once I sat down bishop leaned over into my ear and said "Well done bishop..." He said that meaning I will for sure have leadership positions in the future. That boosted my confidence a ton but I don't want to be super prideful so I'll just stop talking now. To finish the night we went over to the Tarboxes for dinner which was fantastic as usual. My favorite family of my mission!

Sunday- We were able to go on splits with a member of our ward who hasn't gone out teaching with the missionaries for a while and we were able to motivate him to come out more often. We also got a random call from a person in our phone contacts and it was a lady named D***** M**** who once had the missionaries over once a week. We went by and she told us all about herself. She is a chaplain for the Methodist church and told us she will never become a Mormon but LOVES what we do as missionaries by sharing Jesus's love and grace with others. She is very Christian and very nice. I have never been declined so gracefully and with love. She is from South Africa and has a wicked cool accent.

So, if you're wondering about the weather here it's sunny but it's starting to become a mirage. The sun is up but NO HEAT is coming from it. It's sad but true. There isn't snow all over the ground but there will be next week.... So fingers crossed!! Thanks for all the emails this week it was great to be able to hear about your weeks. Hope you enjoyed the email!!!  If you have questions for me to answer, ASK ME!!!!

All Smiles,

Elder Dahlberg

OK, somebody made Elder Sholer a really "cute" apron...
 (I'm positive Elder Dahlberg would NOT want one!!)