The General Epistle of Samuel (Glad that week is over)‏

This week I think takes the cake for the least productive. We set an all time low (at least for me) by only teaching seven total lessons. That was rough. It took us until Sunday evening to finally find someone to teach. We were knocking a few doors and came across this Indian family. I figured they were Hindu but as soon as we walked into the house after offering a Christmas message we found out they were very much Christian. They had their house decked out for Christmas with stuff about Jesus all over the place. The father spoke little English but was absolutely beside himself that we were there to teach them more about Jesus Christ. We taught a simple lesson about the restoration and baptism and invited them to be baptized. They accepted and we have set an appointment to return and teach more! Despite an absolutely rough week the Lord was willing to bless us for persevering and working until the end.

This week will be a bit hectic. Today we are just emailing and then it is a normal work day. Tomorrow is a normal work day as well but we have district meeting in Chelmsford so that will be great to see those missionaries before Christmas. Then we have district meeting here in Colchester Wednesday morning with the missionaries around here. We'll do some caroling at a care home to make some old people happy as well. Then we have dinner with some members and the carol service at the chapel. Christmas our plans so far are; get up at five and begin the movie marathon at the chapel. We have invited all the YSA that are here for university that aren't going home for Christmas to join us so there will be a good group there. Then we are having dinner with the bishops family. We'll stop by a few other people before we skype in the evening. We have had multiple offers

by members to skype so getting that arranged won't be a problem. You'll see me at noon on Thursday! Boxing day (friday) we are going to just chill. It is our P-day so we are going to catch up on all the sleep we lost this year. We have dinner with a member that evening as well so that will be great. Google "bubble and squeak" and tell me what you think of that. I don't think that is what we'll be eating though. Saturday is MLC so we will recap the year and make plans for 2015 at that meeting. We will be busy but the Christmas season will be great! I love you all!!!

Love,

Elder Dalton

P.S. Quote of the week:  

Me: "Would you like to look at a website about Christmas?"

Woman at the door: "No, I already know all the websites on the internet."
Me. "....."

These are the missionaries I have to put up with. They are great!

(my companion is on the far right)

The Christmas tree in one of the companionship's flats in our zone.
Missionaries are great!

Farmland in the middle of nowhere

Elder De Beer and I. We were trained by the same missionary. He's from South Africa. 

The General Epistle of Samuel (long week)

We had a long week this week. Lots of things we have been having to deal with. Ashley our only real investigator has disappeared ever since we taught him the law of chastity. Guess he wasn't as solid as we thought. We found a guy while I was on an exchange with another missionary here in Colchester. We taught him the restoration and invited him to be baptised in January and he accepted so we'll see how he goes. Besides that we have been working hard to find people to teach.

This Sunday we have been campaigning to get into members homes to share a Christmas message. We have found that if we use that as a front then we usually get offered dinner as well. This week is full of meal appointments and member visits so it wont be as rigorous as this past week. 

This week seemed pretty long as well since my companion fell ill and we had to spend a lot of time in the flat. He ate at Burger King on an exchange and he ended up with food poisoning. He was sick as a dog and just slept it off. It was nice to take a nap as well. The office gave me a new bed this week too so that was nice. This has been the first few days that I haven't woken up with a sore back since I moved to Colchester. I am very grateful for that. That has pretty much been our week this week. We have zone conference tomorrow so we are looking forward to that. The rest of the week will be lot's of work. I hope everyone's week goes well. I love you all! 

Love,

Elder Dalton

The General Epistle of Samuel (temperature drop)

Another week is through. It has gotten cold here. It has frozen every night this week and throughout the day it is usually about 4 degrees Celsius. Normally that wouldn't be too bad but since it is so humid the cold gets into your marrow and freezes you from the inside out. Layers are the key to survival. And not being a sissy. 

We have been teaching a great guy named Ashley who I may have mentioned before. He is notorious for being late to appointments. This week we were supposed to see him at five one evening and then go to a dinner appointment at six. Well he showed up an hour late so we called the members and asked if she could give us fifteen minutes. She agreed and we taught Ash at lightening speed. We knew he smoked so we taught the word of wisdom in record time. We just laid it out simply for him and asked him if he would live it. We suggested that he be off everything two weeks before his baptism (20th of December). He did the math and realized this weekend would be two weeks. He thought for a moment and then agreed that he would be off of everything by Sunday. Sunday rolls around and he was off of everything so we taught the law of chastity. He is one of the most prepared people I have ever met. We are praying hard that he sticks with it and makes it for the twentieth. 

That is about the excitement for the week. We went to an all you can eat breakfast this morning now we are emailing then we'll buy food and then I intend to nap until six. We'll see how that goes. I love you all and look forward to hearing from you all again next week!

Love, 

Elder Dalton

The General Epistle of Samuel (Where did that transfer go?!)

This past transfer, despite its challenges, seems to have absolutely flown by. We are enjoying an already productive week. Much better than has been happening in the past. We struggled this past week to find some new investigators but we found a lot of potential people we could begin teaching. We had a lesson yesterday with this younger guy that just moved from London because he absolutely messed his life up. If I had time I'd tell the whole story but to make it short we ended up having an hour and a half lesson with the guy yesterday that was very powerful. Despite being in the library surrounded by people, as we testified of the truth of The Book of Mormon it seemed as though we were alone in the building. There was no noise and time seemed to stand still for a moment as the spirit lingered. It was incredible. We are seeing him later this week. I am praying that he holds onto that feeling and acts on what we shared.

I am excited for this new transfer. I will be staying in Colchester but I'll be getting a new companion. His name is Elder Bright. I think he is from Utah. That's probably a safe guess. He is from my MTC group so that is companion number three that will be from my group. He is a pretty happy guy and is great at loving missionaries so this transfer will be an improvement I feel. A crazy wake up call this week as well is the fact that this transfer is the last transfer for the sisters in my MTC group so I am nearing the 18 month mark. Still a lot of good work left to do! 

We have some other exciting news in our mission too. All the zone leaders had a conference call with President Jordan a few nights back to talk about how we were doing for the month of November. He then surprised us with the announcement that Elder Quentin L. Cook of the twelve will be coming to our mission next week for a mission wide conference. The mission is very excited. Especially since Elder Cook served in our mission. He was even companions with Elder Holland in Romford area the zone I was just over when I was in Basildon. It will be a great conference. I'll be sure to talk about some highlights next week. 

Well that's about all the updates I have for this week. Glad to hear you are all well and are excited for the holiday season. I love you all!

Love,

Elder Dalton

The General Epistle of Samuel (Colchester: The Beginnings)

I feel like I start this email the same every week with something along the lines of "Hello everyone." This time I am just jumping right into things. I am happy to hear from all of you this week. Glad to know that there has been a bit of snow. Thankfully here all we have had is rain, rain rain, wind, rain, and some more rain. Nothing unusual for this time of year. We are definitely experiencing autumn. I can't believe it is already October.

Colchester is great! The Zone needs some work but nothing that Elder Butterfield and I can't take care of. The ward is pretty good sized. There are a lot of longstanding members here so it is a well anchored ward. There have been quite a few baptisms in the ward lately so that is great. Especially since there have been two really good families baptised last month. Currently we have been working with university students. We live right next to the campus in a complex that is like off campus housing so we do most of our finding on the campus. It's great! We are "targeting" chines students. They are the most humble and willing to learn. We have two really good kids on date. Mark and Derek (those aren't their chines names). We look forward to finding more open minded chines students. They are like a blank canvas. No preset ideas in their minds so that is great. 

Elder Butterfield is a great missionary. He came out the transfer just after me so he has a lot of experience so that is good. This is his third transfer as a Zone Leader so he is competent in that as well. He is from Morgan Utah (near Ogden). He is a great kid and works hard so that is good. I am enjoying serving with him already. 

You probably want a bit more background on what Colchester is like. It is the oldest recorded town in Britten. The royal family used to live here many years ago and it used to be the capital. That was ages ago. Our area is really big. We drove out to a recent convert that lives in a village miles from town and we drove through a lot of country side. Through a sheep farm and under an old railroad bridge. I was driving so I couldn't take any pictures. We'll be going out that way again. The area also goes out to the sea. We saw some members for dinner out there as well. The area is a lovely place in Autumn. 

Well that's pretty much my week. It is still raining. We are going to Ipswich today because my companion needs to take his driving test. Hopefully he passes. We'll probably stop and buy some stuff while we are there. I need a new pillow because mine is no bueno. I look forward to hearing from all of you again! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Dalton

The General Epistle of Samuel (The End of Bas Vegas)

Well Hello to all once again!

This week was quite good. We were able to invite a young man to be baptised and he accepted. He had a wonderful experience about prayer and repentance prior to our meeting him. We found him while we were walking to the chapel a few weeks back and were able to exchange contact details and set a time to meet again. Eventually the time came for us to meet but unfortunately something came up for him and we had to reschedule. A few days later in the evening we received a text message on my phone from the young man. He seemed quite distraught about some mistakes he had made at a party the day before. He wanted relief and felt like he should send us a text for help. I had a conversation with him about repentance and how to ask Heavenly Father for forgiveness. He said he would give it a go. We met with him the following day to see how he was. We met at the chapel and talked about his experience. He shared how in his prayer he poured out his whole soul to God and put everything into his prayer. He held nothing back and was in tears. He shared how as he prayed he felt like he had connected and that someone was actually listening. He finished his prayer feeling a bit better and retired to bed. He said the next morning as he awoke an incredible feeling of peace overcame him. He felt renewed and that he had been forgiven. We affirmed his feelings and shared about how baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost completes this process of repentance. He agreed to be baptised at the end of the month. The joy on his face as he talked about how he felt after praying was a great testimony to me of how powerful the atonement is. Even for someone who has only a seed of faith. Payer works. Heavenly Father is listening. The Atonement is real and can help us become clean so that we can enter into the kingdom of our Heavenly Father. 

General Conference was a great experience as well. We were pleased to have some investigators come to the Romford chapel to watch some of the sessions. Over here we have to watch conference via satellite at the stake centre. The morning sessions start at five in the evening here and then we watch the afternoon sessions the next day. I still haven't seen the sunday afternoon session but I'll probably download the talks of of lds.org and listen to it in the car and what not. The talks were amazing though. I loved President Eyring's talk and how at the end he powerfully bore his testimony. We are so blessed to be led by prophets and apostles who receive direct revelation from the Lord. 

Well I am sure you are all dying to hear what is happening with moves this week. I am staying in the zone leader gig for a bit longer. I am moving to Colchester which is about 35 miles drive north of Basildon. It is close to Ipswich so back near that area. It is actually the Ipswich stake so I already know quite a few people there. I am excited to be moving there. It is a good zone from what I hear. I will be companions with Elder Butterfield. I have no idea where he is from. He is from the US but other than that I have no idea. I will miss Basildon. I already said goodbye to a few people. I said goodbye to Toni last night. I bore her my testimony of the gospel and promised that if she held fast to what we taught she would be blessed in ways she couldn't imagine. She was upset that I had to leave but thanked me for all that Elder Torres and I had done for her. I'll have to say goodbye to Richard today and give him a blessing. His health isn't too good. We literally had one shot at baptising him because he definitely isn't well enough now to do it. As well we'll be seeing Caren and Jashelle today. She isn't too thrilled that I am leaving either. It will be tough to leave all these people behind. 

Well that's it for this week. It was great to hear from all of you and see the birthday festivities. Thank you all for the love and support. I love you all!    

Love,

Elder Dalton

 

At the Tower of London they are putting these metal poppies in the ground to symbolize all those that have lost their lives fighting for Great Britain. They will keep putting them in until November 11th.