District Nerf War

This week was fun, and it flew by too.
Monday- We had a nerf war for our district P-Day and that was really fun and relaxing. To end the night we had dinner at the Dawbins which was the Fish Tacos and Pina Coladas. We challenged them to pass out 10 "He is the Gift" cards before our next visit and they did it!!!

District P-day Nerf War

Fish tacos and Pina coladas

Tuesday- We went with our ward mission leader brother walker out to visit 2 less-active ladies in our ward. The first one was sister durgin who has physical problems which stop her from coming to church. We talked to her about the importance of having goals in our lives. Because living without goals won't help you progress as fast as you would like. Her goal is to get to the temple! Good goal. The next lady we visited was 45 minutes away (and still in our area). Sister Hutchins. We taught about using the footnotes in the scriptures and their purpose for being there. It was cool to see the gears turning in her head and how she slowly picked up on how to use them. It was super awesome to see her go from no knowledge of them to the ablility to teach other about them. Then for dinner Brother Walker's wife made us a super good turkey pot pie with a turkey they raised themselves

Wednesday- We had interviews with our Mission President.  I got to talk with him about the area and questions/concerns I had. He also informed me that I will be staying in Gardiner with my trainee Elder Sholer. And we will no longer be in a car share because they are closing the Augusta Elders Area. So that means we will have the car full time and we take over half of their area and all the people they teach. So that will be an interesting transition. That starts on Dec 17th. We also have to help them clean up their apartment because it's being closed. That apartment has been a missionary apartment for 7 years.  Imagine how trashy it is, then multiply that by 2 and that's what theirs looks like... So much junk! At the end of the day we went over to the Veregge family and had a really good sit down scripture reading with them. Families are so much stronger when you take the time to sit down together and talk, and they get even STRONGER when you talk about the scriptures. We are hoping to help the Veregge family (who haven't been to church in over 2 years) to get back to church because they want to, not because we tell them to.

Thursday- We helped out at the Johnson Hall and talked to Grace, the main volunteer woman who is in charge of everything. She loves the missionaries and enjoys whenever we come by to help out. She may want to learn more about Jesus Christ in the future. We're taking it easy on her because she "isn't religious". After that we helped the public library out with their upcoming book sale. We sorted and stacked and divided books for a good 2 hours... Doing that just makes me want to sit down after my mission and just read all day!! We also met with Grechen and Allison, our Rastafarian investigators. They aren't progressing atm but they still want us to keep coming by. So we hope they will continue wanting to meet with us.

Friday- We got tons and tons of proselytizing materials from the Augusta Elders Apartment so we spent a good amount of time organizing those and somehow and someway, in the jumble of things there was a condom in the box that had all the stuff. So that was quite funny and disturbing. It went straight into the trash! That night there was a community Art Walk in downtown Gardiner and tons of people were outside. We planned 2 hours of street contacting and we handed out 17 "He is the Gift" cards!!!  It was AMAZING!!! We actually felt like real missionaries out sharing the gospel with everyone haha! That never happens out here in New England. We have a solid potential investigator from that too named John.

Saturday- We went over to the P***** house. Here is all who lives in the house.
Tiffany & Rusty P******
12-Cooper, 11-Ashley, 8-Lindsey, 6-Megan, 4-Madeline.
We were able to read the first 3 chapters of the Book of Mormon with him which is pretty huge because he does not believe in reading anything else besides the Bible. So we talked with him about it and he is figuring out whether it's actually God's word or not. We told him that no man can tell you whether it's from God or not. You have to ask him in faith. It says it all throughout the bible to do that. Specifically James 1:5.
The ward christmas party was this day and it was fantastic. Best food and set up I've ever seen for a Christmas Party. The P**** came to it also! They really enjoyed it and 2 of their daughters even went up and sang with the primary when they sang in front of everyone. The 2 girls had no idea what the words were so they just tried their best and mouthed it. So cute. (Those girls softened my heart to not wanting only boys when I have kids of my own)

Here's a video from last week's visit with the Alpacas

Sunday- A former investigator named Delsa Mock who is originally from South Africa called us up and asked us to help her unload a washing machine from their car. It was like 15 degrees outside and we were literally moving this gigantic washing machine on ice and my companion is not the buffest elder haha; 125 pounds of pretty boy. So that was quite interesting and tough. It builds character is what I kept telling myself. After a long day of fasting, which I actually enjoyed, Sister Tarbox fed us Steak Tenderloin!!! So good! That was a great way to end the week.

Sister Tarbox is the best!

I'm enjoying my time out here in Maine and trying my best to make the most out of my last winter here on my mission... Even though it's freezing cold outside.

Enjoy the sunshine for me!!!

All Smiles,

Elder Dahlberg