Three for One Deal

I am not going to lie- this week was exhausting! But it was exhausting in the best way possible! All three of the baptisms went through and it was AMAZING!!!!! On Tuesday we had Armi and Ivory's baptism, which was super Spirit-packed and absolutely beautiful. It was such a special day for them, and we had a packed house in our primary room! I will never forget that day! One of the coolest parts was after the service when Armi was testifying to an investigator of the other elders about how this message was true :)

Then on Saturday we had Iris' baptism in Spanish. She bore her testimony at the end, and wow she has such a powerful testimony. She was truly prepared by the Lord to accept this message, and we hope to help her go to the temple soon!

My new companion is Elder Laws! He is from Loveland, Colorado and he has been on his mission for about a year now! He is a great missionary and it has been a fun, packed week for him. We haven't had a normal day so far, and with Christmas this week it doesn't look like we'll have one anytime soon! Elder Laws is a basketball champ and he also played baseball. HE'S TALLER THAN ME! That is the first time for my whole mission, and will definitely take some getting use to. We have already had a lot of fun, and it is going to just keep on being great! Fun fact he swallowed a quarter when he was 10.

Today the Rolfes invited all of the missionaries over for lunch and to squeeze oranges! We also had a meeting with our stake president and President Schmitt today, so we invited President Schmitt too! We had a really fun time and got some great pictures!

Miguel is doing well and so are his kids! There are a lot of other people in the woodwork that we are working with, and we can't wait to help them all come unto Christ and help the Church grow here in the great Imperial Valley! I love this place!

Have fun this year! Serve others! Carol at the top of your lungs! Have a blast no matter what! It's Christmas! Make it the best day of the year! I love you all!

Elder Dahl

Slipped My Mind

.....Dear World,

Somehow....someway.....writing this blog email slipped my mind.....and I forgot. This is pathetic....my mom's going to kill me. I promise next week is going to be super good. Pray for the Sanchez family, the Valdovino Family, Iris, and the Alvarado family. I'll explain everything next week. I love you all!

Elder Dahl

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Wow was this Thanksgiving a crazy one! We only had one dinner scheduled forever, but that all changed the night before when we got invited to two more with people that we just couldn't say no to! It was nuts! Also, did I tell you all that I was back on the "no desserts" fast again? Well one of our investigators is giving up alcohol so that he can be baptized, so I joined on in like I always do. But this happened the Monday before Thanksgiving! The temptation was so real, but I stayed strong, and I only ate three plates total within a four hour span......we barely made it out of there alive.

   I went on exchanges down in Calexico with Elder Schipman and Elder Welch. For those of you who don't remember, Elder Welch was my trainer, and Elder Schipman has been in my zone for the past eight or so months, and so I call him my part-time companion because we have gone on so many exchanges! We had a blast and we saw a lot of miracles, including a baptism for the Calexico Hermanas!

   Yesterday we had MTEs (Missionary Training Exchanges/Experience) and Elder Schipman came with me in my area! We had training in the morning and then we went out to work! Oh fun fact, I was also joined by a personal close friend of mine, none other than President Schmitt, my mission president! He was with us until 5, and man did I take advantage of that! We had lessons with Armida and the Sanchez families, and he was able to testify and teach and it was awesome! I love that man! Our lessons were awesome and we also had members there with us. We have the best members in the world! Armida came and a lesson at the Rolfe's house (the Rolfes also gave all of the missionaries lunch after the training- they are so awesome), and then Brother and Sister Ball came to visit the Sanchez's with us (I love the Ball family way too much- they are amazing). IT WAS SO AWESOME!

   Then one of the biggest miracles I've ever seen happened. After President had left, we went to go a house to drop an investigator who wasn't progressing. The lady wasn't home, but her son, Jesse (whom we had contacted before), answered the door. Without really thinking I blurted out, "Can we show you a two minute Christmas video?" (Fun fact, I hadn't even seen the video yet, A Savior is Born, and I was not planning on teaching him at all when I knocked on the door) After entering the apartment and watching the video, we asked how he felt. After a few moments of silence he began to cry. Long story short, he has been on the wrong path for a little while, and he fell into his old drug habits again after being clean for a little while. We testified of the Spirit, and that he could feel it with him forever, and he said that this was his answer. The Spirit was so strong in that room, and all of us were touched by the hand of the Lord. He committed to come to church this week and we are very excited to teach him and help him. That question of if we could show him the Christmas video was not mine, but it was truly sent from heaven. 

I love you all so much. Don't stop being the best you can be! Make sure you give everything you have everyday! The Lord will bless you as you exercise your faith and trust in Him! I PROMISE that is true!

Elder Dahl

1. The El Centro missionaries helped prep Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless at the Salvation Army on Thanksgiving morning! It was so awesome and fun!

2. Ok I've got my plate ready!

3. Yeah no worries Mom, I didn't go hungry.

4. Ladies and Gentlemen, Calexico is my favorite place ever. haha

Opposition in All Things

Wow what a crazy week this has been! I have a strong testimony of opposition in all things. In order to know the good we need to know the bad, but wow the bad took a cheap shot this week. The Sanchez family (investigator family, single father with three awesome children) couldn't come to church this last week because the grandmother stole them away to Mexicali until next week! Oh that lady is simply not nice at all! This family needs some Cindy Dahl prayers right now.

Armida and her family are doing awesome! We had a Family Home Evening with the Zinn family, who is an awesome couple in our ward. It was so fun and the girls really liked it. They are doing great and are totally getting baptized on December 15!

Fun fact, the Spanish group always provides food after sacrament meeting. Last week we had mole (it's like chocolate, Hispanic chicken) and it was delicious!

Last week a member family in the ward invited their sister-in-law to come over for dinner and also talk to us. Her name is Iris and she is wonderful. She was filled with questions, and the Hernandez family did an amazing job at explaining her answers and it was awesome! Her husband died a few months ago, so we talked about temples and the Spirit was so strong. She is super interested and we are so excited for her!

Life here in El Centro has been pretty chill for the most part! We are super busy everyday and it has been a blast being here. I hope I never get transferred!

I love you all!

Elder Dahl

1. Bunk bed selfie fun!

2. I love all three of my companions!

3. Too much fun.

We are on Fire!

GOOD AFTERNOON FRIENDS!

This week was so much fun. Armida and her family are still doing great, and she made us enchiladas on Saturday so that means they are doing extra well! We love them so much!

Please pray for Miguel and his family! His grandfather died last Friday and we have not been able to see him since. They weren't able to come to church, although they did let us know, which was nice. They are so special and we hope we get to see them soon. 

Transfers last week were super awesome. Do you all remember that kid named Elder Welch who trained me? Well he has two transfers left on his mission and he just got transferred to Calexico and he is in my district! WOOHOO!!!! Round 3 here we go! I am so ecstatic that he is back!

Yesterday we destroyed this rock formation in the background in one of the backyard's of a part-member family. It was awesome and we hammered that thing hard!

That's all for this week! I love you all mucho!

Elder Dahl

1. This one's for you Mom! Just imagine that I'm not at a funeral and that this is all for you!

 2. Just invited to a party with a surprise Mariachi band! Sister Clawson, another missionary, is in the background with the best face ever. I still can't tell if she's disappointed or impressed :)

3. Just the Elders that I live with and I having a good time!

4. We are having a Biggest Loser and a "Who can spend the less this month" competition. I'm so going to win this. haha One taco Elder Dahl? I crack myself up.

5. Elder Rodriguez hurt himself and Elder Aguirre had to carry him for a bit. No worries, he was fine by the next day.

 6. Safe and sound in bed.

7. Elder Hampton is pretending to be a caterpillar again. Silly Elder Hampton, everyone knows that missionaries don't turn into butterflies.

 8. Elders gone transformers. Robots in disguise as missionaries!

 11/17/15 at 5:02 PM

9. Elder Aguirre loves me too much! I almost died!

 10. This cat at the Rolfe's pool house just about kills me. That's the biggest bed I've ever seen!

 11. We did some service where we destroyed this huge rock formation with some sledgehammers! It was too much fun!

 12. I swear this picture makes me look like a pansy, but I was really tearing it up.

13. We go to extreme measures to give our investigators nice furniture. The Mama Ship was stuffed full!

 14. It wouldn't be a true Hispanic house without something like this inside.

The Curse has Been Lifted

Transfer calls were today and I'm proud to report that the curse has been lifted! Elder Rodriguez and I are both staying together for a third transfer together, which is the first time that has ever happened! YIPPPEEEEEE!!!!!  We are so excited!

We have had some awesome miracles this past week! We had a family home evening last night with an awesome family that we have been teaching, and we had some amazing member teach the lesson on baptism, and the family we were teaching decided to be baptized on December 15! They are so awesome and Elder Rodriguez and I love them so much. (In this family there is a Mom named Armida, and three daughters- Cassie (13), Ivory (10), and Sophie (7))

Speaking of baptismal dates, there is another family that agreed to be baptized on December 5th! (In this family there is a Dad named Miguel, and three kids- Angie (12), Ivan (11), and Sarah (9)) Both of these families are so near and dear to our hearts! My life has been absolutely and completely changed because of the incredible Spirit I have felt here these past few weeks in El Centro. Miracles are real and the Book of Mormon is true.

We had a super cool open house this past week where we had a devotional filled with mostly music and videos, and then people could eat homemade desserts and stuff as they toured the gym of the church and could look at different booths with activities and information about the church. The movie Meet the Mormons was also playing separately in other rooms. The activity was a huge success, and the chapel in our stake center was FILLED! It was awesome! 

The next big news was that we had cleaning inspections this past week. Mom, you are going to be so proud of me because we won! You taught me well! You too Dad! I'll try to send pictures if I have any.

I love you all so much! Have an incredible week!

Elder Dah

Burgers and Beer

Yeah you read the title right. Somehow or another we have eaten at this awesome restaurant three times during these past two weeks. Between people giving us gift cards and members paying for us that happened to be there at the same time, Burgers and Beer seems to be the most popular place for the Mormon Missionaries. We also by happenstance ran into the Hermanas at Golden Corral. We had a gift card from a member, the Hermanas on the other hand........the chocolate fondue fountain can get to the best of us. :)

The next fun news of the day is that Elder Hampton, one of my apartment companions, cut my hair and wow is it crazy! Let me know what you think world because I'm still uncertain....

We are so busy here in El Centro! We are teaching a few families that have been coming to church, and a bunch of part-member families. Our goal is to help 10 people be baptized before the end of the year! Say a pray for us!

Next fun story. While we were studying last week we had knock on the door by none other than the El Centro police department! The officer asked if we were victims of a bike robbery, to which we responded with an awkward "not that we know of." Well Elder Aguirre had bought a new bike the night before, so he left his old bike outside on our balcony. Luckily we have nice neighbors who tried to catch him in the act, and the cop was already on his case after twenty minutes. The bike is still gone, but we found the whole thing absolutely hilarious. I probably shouldn't have written this down, no worries Mom we won't get robbed ahead!

I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary of the Lord! It is the best decision that I've ever made, and it has been eternity changing. Prayer is real! Counsel with the Lord! He will always be there for you, so make you are there for Him!

Elder Dahl

 P-day photo shoot!

 1. Elder Rodriguez is going to be a model for cell phones. I know it!

 2. My green shake was left in the fridge overnight......halloween magic!

Elder Jay D. Pimentel

This past week was super awesome! We had a special meeting with Brother Hemingway from the missionary department this past Friday, which was awesome! He came earlier this year, but he was in town working on an application that's going to help missionaries give tours of the church buildings (they are using the same building that I met in when I was in La Mesa!), so he offered to come give us some training.

This weekend was also Stake Conference, and we had the pleasure to have Elder Jay D. Pimentel of the Seventy come and preside at the meetings. We had four different sessions of conference, including a special missionary lesson. IT WAS AWESOME! Elder Rodriguez and I were able to eat lunch with him too on Sunday afternoon, which was super cool!

One of my favorite things that he talked about was the parable of the good Samaritan, but comparing all of us in the church as the inn keeper. The parable took on a new meaning when we look at it from the perspective that we are to generously take care of those that come into the fold, no matter how sick or wounded they may be. I didn't explain that very well, but hopefully that made sense.

This morning we played four-square during our exercises.....best idea ever. We are going to go pro.

Yesterday we had an awesome lesson in one of our members' homes with the Sanchez family, who is a family of four that we are teaching. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and the Spirit was super strong. Lessons should always be taught in the homes of the members because the Spriit can be felt so strongly! It was an awesome lesson!

I'm going to send a bunch of pictures to make up for my slack recently. I love you all!

Elder Dahl

1. My green shake turned into a brown/black shake last week. Blue berries spiced up my usual morning breakfast.

 2, I've always wanted to try one of these Sonic Popsicles, and a member insisted that I have one. It had already melted and re-frozen, which explains why it looks melted and then refrozen.

 3. Stake Conference shenanigans! Elder Rodriguez, Elder Hampton, Elder Aguirre, and me!

 4. We are helping out tear up an old house of a woman in our ward. She has priceless artifacts.

Tongans and Goats

The highlights of this week were my international exchanges! I was able to go with Elder Taunauta (Elder Tarzan is what I secretly call him) from Tonga and Elder Sharp from Australia. I had a blast with both of them and we worked really hard!

This past Sunday was the first Sunday with the new boundaries and it was crazy! We had a total of 20ish people in the Spanish group, and the English ward was massive! The craziest part was that Elder Rodriguez and I were chosen to be the speakers in sacrament meeting. It really got intense when I looked at the clock after Elder Rodriguez sat down and realized I had a half hour all to myself. *Sharp rocks at the bottom? Most likely. Bring it on!*

I got to go back up to Brawley for my exchange with Elder Sharp and I found a young boy walking his goat in the middle of the town! Oh I almost died! This is the best place in the whole mission!

Well I'm itching for a good game of basketball, so I'm out for this week. I love you all!

Elder Dahl

SO MUCH FOOD!!!!!

First, I just wanted to comment on the amount of FOOD we have received in the last week. It's a little ridiculous. Anytime we want to visit a member they always ask if we want to eat too! The struggle is real! And they have a real dinner calendar that actually gets filled! It's almost frightening....almost.

The new area is going awesome! The members here are crazy amazing. We have loved the chance to work closely with the members, and we had a particularly awesome time eating with the Ball family this past Sunday after our first day at church (we got so lost and took us a good 6 minutes to find out where our class was).

As of now we are teaching mostly in English because that's what we inherited from the other missionaries, but we are starting to see some awesome miracles from the members and we should be back to teaching in Spanish again soon. The plan is that we will attend church in whatever language we have investigators in, so if there are more English, we will go to English, and vice versa. We might have to go on splits though coming up in these next few weeks. It's been so fun :)

Here is a miracle concerning one of our members. We met with one of the families in our ward, the Garcia family. They are from Mexico, but have been attending the English ward for a few years. They are bilingual, but we normally speak in Spanish because it is just more natural.....it just kind of pops out....but anyways, we shared a message and asked them who did they know that needed this message in their life. Hna. Garcia told us that she had a neighbor that she said hi to the other day that was nice, and that his face had come to her mind during the lesson. She didn't even know his name! So we committed them to go introduce themselves and see if we could come and teach them!

Well the next day we received a phone call saying that they done it! That Sunday we met with their neighbors (the Lucio family, an older Mexican couple) and were able to give the husband a blessing from a recent operation! We are going to be teaching them in the Garcias' home tomorrow! It was so awesome to watch how these wonderful members went and were able to share the gospel with someone that they didn't even know!

This work is true! This Gospel is true! I know it! El Centro is miracle city right now and I am loving my life! I love you all too!

Elder Dahl

Whitewashing to El Centro!

So like I said last week I was being transferred out! Well I have some great news! My companion, Elder Rodriguez, and I both were transferred to the Imperial Valley 2nd Ward! But wait there's more! So the ward is an English ward, but this coming week the one Spanish group that they have here in El Centro will be split into two. Let me explain...

From now on every unit here in the valley will have the English and Spanish groups meeting at the same time. The Spanish speakers will meet in the Relief Society Room while the English speakers meet in the Chapel. Then, the adults will stay separated by language, but all of the youth will be joined together in the English classes. Did that make sense? Probably not.

Elder Rodriguez and I are the only missionaries serving in this ward, aka we are now bilingual missionaries! We will teach all English and Spanish speakers here in El Centro! It's going to be awesome!

We also inherited a lot of new investigators because of the boundary changes. We are currently helping six different people progress to be baptized soon! It's awesome!

We live in a four man apartment! But now there are two separate bathrooms with their own sinks and showers. THANK THE HEAVENS ABOVE!!!!!!!!! I love it!

Well we have to leave early to go visit some of our new members! Wasn't General Conference great? I was absolutely thrilled the entire time. You better bet Elder Dahl's going to be Ponderizing every week!

I love you all!

Elder Dahl

Oh! I'm out of Time!

I'm out of time! My branch was split this week! Out of the 51 people in sacrament meeting last week, only about 21 will be staying. Our entire leadership in the branch was released and will be going to a different unit. Also.....I'm being transferred out! My curse is running true! Out of the 4 areas I have been in, there have been changes in the branch presidency 3 of them, and I always leave right after they change. haha

I'll let you all know where I'm going next week! I spent all day in pep boys working on our car, so I'll explain more next time! Love you all!

Elder Dahl

Miracles on Mondays

Good morning, afternoon, evening, birthday, etc. everybody! It has been a wonderful week here in Brawley, California! First, to answer some of my dad's questions:

1. My eye is doing great! I'm not sure if it really "scabbed over" but it did start to bruise, and is only slightly red today. It looks normal!!!!! YEAH!!! No more alien volcano growth!!! I've been wearing my glasses this past week, and I started putting my contacts in at night on Sunday, but it's all still a little fuzzy. Give me two more days and I'll be as good as new.

2. Elder Rodriguez is the greatest. He loves this work and is the least dramatic person ever. His mellowness compliments my craziness rather nicely, and we are always cracking up at the funny things we do all day. He goes home in December, so this might be his last area (which would mean that we would have three transfers together! Cross your fingers!). There are a totally of 8 companionships in our zone, 5 of elders and 3 of hermanas (each of the three main cities have 2 Spanish companionships [1 of elders and 1 of hermanas] and then there are two English companionships [1 covers Brawley and the small outskirts of towns and the other covers El Centro]). I hope that made sense.

   This past week I went on two exchanges! Elder Sharp in my district, and Elder Aguirre down in El Centro! Elder Aguirre and his companion double cover English and Spanish because they have an "English ward with a dependent Spanish branch" (basically just means both languages are spoken in the same ward....don't ask questions) and I got to see a glimpse of what it was like to double cover. Let's just say I have never had so much food shoved at me in my whole life. I think I was fed 4 times, and I was only there for like 18 hours! CRAZY!!!

   Miracle! Last Monday, we parked our car by a member's home in Calipatria (la familia Chabolla who are a super sweet older couple), when we saw a lady trying to open the fence to her house. We went to go talk to her, and Hna. Chabolla came out to talk to all of us, and long story short the lady was a close friend whose son was going through some hard medical problems. We went straightaway to her house down the street and gave him a blessing. Long story short, the friend, Ernestina, now has a new curiosity in the church, and we teach her twice a week in the Chabolla's house! It is the perfect teaching situation and she is the sweetest lady you'll ever meet!

   Love you all! Hope you all have a great week! Make something great happen!

Elder Dahl

Our goodbye lunch to Hermana Gallagher today! It's her last pday with
us. She's the one on the far right! She was in my same zone when I
started my mission in Sweetwater!

Ahoy Mi Maties!

Hey world, sorry this is going to be super short. A few hours ago I
had an operation on my eye (I had an infected stye thing.....it was
nasty!) and I'm writing this in the car and not feeling the greatest.
Thus, this will be short.

And yeah I just decided I'm done. I love you all, you have my love,
etc. etc. keep me in your prayers. Yes I'm wearing an eye patch, and
yes I fully intend to use that to contact people. I've been working on
my pirate voice all day long. I will send home pictures. Have a great
week!


Before shot. People were always asking me, "Do you know you have
something on your eye?"........nah somehow that alien volcano escaped
me......yes I noticed

Office Missionaries

  This week I had the opportunity to feel like an office missionary.
We had a few meetings that we had to plan for, prepare, and then do a
whole bunch of work for. The worst part was that the meeting that took
up the most work was canceled :( But it was ok because we should be
having it sometime this week, so we are all ready.
  Each night we had about two hours in our area, and we were flying to
appointments, and it felt very literally. There are almost no cars on
the road as we travel from Brawley, to Westmorland, to Calipatria, and
back, so we get moving real fast. Too much driving, not enough
teaching.
  But we did find some cool people! And we are really emphasizing
working with the members this month, and so we are already seeing some
cool miracles from that. This week sacrament started with forty
members, but by the time it ended there were about sixty. We are going
to see that number explode!
  Last week Elder Rodriguez and I were able to go to a meeting in San
Diego, which was a blast because that means ROAD TRIP! Haha but for
real we spent over four hours just in the car, which is a ton in this
mission, but it was so fun. We listened to some awesome talks and had
a blast.
  More fun info about us missionaries here in Brawley. So in our
Spanish branch there are two sets of missionaries, the Hermanas and
us. Hermana Gallagher is from Colorado and Hermana Lopez is from Utah
(but her family is from Mexico) and they are the best! Also in our
district are Elders Sharp and Searle, who cover the English work in
our area. Elder Sharp is from Australia and is training Elder Searle
from American Fork, Utah. The six of us have way too much fun,
including morning workouts, district meetings, and switching from
bikes to cars and so forth. It's great to be surrounded by positive,
upbeat missionaries who are always there for you!
  One of the talks we heard on the way to San Diego was titled "The
Inconvenient Messiah" by Jeffrey R. Holland. This talk just blew my
mind away. He talks a lot about the temptations that Christ had, and
how He could have made it so easy for himself if He had chosen to, but
instead he chose the "inconvenient way" and followed the will of His
Father. Sometimes we have to do things that are "inconvenient" like go
to church, read our scriptures every day, visit someone who is sick,
etc. but the blessings we receive when we do these things far outweigh
any inconvenience it may have caused. I love this gospel and I love
sharing it! Go out and make something happen today! Be a walking
miracle for someone today!

Elder Dahl

Here are some fun cures that we too while bowling today! Included are
the shot of me totally winning the game (not prideful or anything),
our zone picture, and the Brawley District!