The General Epistle of Samuel (crazy great week)‏

March 31, 2014

Hello everyone!

So I don't know where to start with all that has happened this week. I guess I can start from the top. Monday was a usual P-day. Bought a lot of food. Tuesday was a very busy exciting day. We had an appointment in the southern part of Ipswich in the morning with a progressing investigator. Then we had to walk all the way to the northern part of Ipswich (about 3 miles). We did it in about 45 minutes. Elder Jensen hates me haha. We had to go to the chapel for a special training by President Jordan. At the training we received some crazy news. Our mission will be piloting the use of Facebook in missionary work for the Europe area. That means that we are allowed to use facebook for a max of an hour a day. We can teach lessons via facebook, set appointments, confirm appointments, post spiritual thoughts etc. Here's the bad news for you guys. In order to do this President Jordan has instructed us that we are to deactivate (not delete) our home account and create a new mission account. With our mission account we cannot be friends with family members or people from home. Our work on facebook us under the stewardship of our mission president so we have to obey his stipulations in order to use this resource. It is pretty exciting but now you'll have to just enjoy my emails. This wont affect you guys much so no worries. I was actually a bit apprehensive to the idea of facebook until I heard that we wouldn't be friends with family members. It would be too much of a distraction if that were the case. It will be a great resource and we are already seeing a benefit from it in the mission. 

The rest of the week was full of work work work. We did a lot of finding this week and not as much teaching as I would have liked. "Nothing happens in missionary work until you find people to teach" (preach my gospel). We were however to teach our progressing investigator we met with in tuesday at a members home and had a wonderful lesson with him. He has been making so many changes in his life and it is to cool to see him learn and grow. His partner (he isn't married to her yet) has begun to warm up to the gospel as well. At first she was not in any way interested in us visiting them. She would sit in on the lessons but she would not participate no matter how much we tried. As our investigator has been learning and changing she has been noticing and he has been sharing. We have been praying for her heart to soften because he can't be baptised until they're married. As we met with him he told us how she was interested in coming to church with him this week and he invited her along. Fast forward to yesterday, The whole family came! They had a great time at church. They both felt the spirit very strongly and their kids loved it. This is the first time I have had a full family at church which was awesome. I know as we continue to pray for them and work with them that her heart will soften and they will be able to get married and both join the church. 

Having a family come to church was definately the high light of my week. It is so awesome to see the work moving forward and getting to be a part of it. Throw the fact that spring is here and life is great! I had a bit of a shock last night when I was looking at the calendar and realized that this week it will be april and that means I have three months to my year mark. Time has gone by way too fast. I am loving the work and striving to give everything I have to remain regret free. I love this work and I love this gospel. It is the only way to have happiness for eternity with our families. I love all you guys and look forward to hearing from you all again!

Love,  

Elder Dalton

Pretty picture of the marina and me :)

sun set from the flat