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.  

The General Epistle of Samuel (Changing of the guards err... Companions)

Hello everyone!

This week was quite eventful for all of us here in the England London Mission. This week was full of moves, meetings, and best of all baptisms!!! This week was a wonderful way to close the month of August. 

On the topic of moves, Wednesday was our moves day so we had to venture to London once again to exchange companions. I dropped Elder Torres off at the office where his new assignment is. While I was there I met Elder Moura-Netto's family who came to pick him up now that he has finished his mission. Then I traveled to Euston station just a few streets down from Kings Cross station to make sure all the missionaries that were meeting there to move made the appropriate exchanges. I traveled there with Elder Dickey from South Africa. He is my "Grandfather" in the mission since he trained my trainer. He was waiting that day for a flight home because he was finishing his mission. It was great to be around all these wonderful missionaries that were going hard all the way to the end. 

The following day we had MLC which was wonderful as usual. The mission has been doing well this past month and we were able to achieve our goal of 50 baptisms in the month. We closed with 56 so we are all pretty happy. It has been a while since our mission has baptised that many people in a month. Great things are happening. 

On the topic of baptisms we had a baptism this Saturday. It was a great experience for Toni. It was too bad that Elder Torres couldn't be there for it but they traveled to the Britannia YSA ward in London (the ward Elder Torres is assigned to) and visited him there on Sunday. That made him quite happy. We had a great experience at the baptism. Toni has a twin sister Tiffany who came to the service and expressed her interest in learning about the church and being baptised so we set an appointment. Toni's friends the best friend of Tiffany also felt the spirit very strong and asked if she could be taught too. We will be setting an appointment with her this week as well. The mother is also interested but asked for some time while she finishes up her divorce. The only down side was the water was super cold because the boiler wouldn't turn on (anyone heard of the ice bucket challenge?). It was a great experience. 

Now we have a week of hard work ahead of us because we need to get more people on date to be baptised. Elder Kopischke is a great missionary and I am enjoying serving with him. He has a very German sense of humor so I am getting used to that haha. Life here in Bas Vegas is great! Thanks everyone for the love and emails and I look forward to hearing from you all again next week! Love you all!  

Love,

Elder Dalton

The General Epistle of Samuel (Moves week once again!)

Hello Wonderful People!

Well it's that time again. Six weeks have come and gone and now it's time for the mission to churn. Thankfully I wont be churning too much. Hardly at all really due to the fact that, I get to stay in Basildon!!!! Unfortunately for Elder Torres he has to leave my presence for a time. He will be replaced by Elder Kopischke from Germany. Elder Kopischke is from my MTC group so I am excited to be serving with him. Elder Torres on the other hand is a bit weary of his new assignment because he has been assigned as the new assistant to the president. He is freaking out haha. 

We have had a lot of work to do this past week and this week will be just as crazy. It's P-day today as you're all aware and tomorrow is moves day and thursday is MLC and friday is the usual then saturday we have a baptism (I'll share more in a moment) and sunday is the usual sabbath festivities of work work work. This week will fly by. 

On the topic of the baptism. Toni our wonderful investigator will get baptised this saturday. She is very excited and has made a lot of sacrifice in order to make this commitment. We are very excited for her. We have been teaching her for about four weeks and she is great. Great things are happening here in Basildon and we have our work cut out for us until mid october. 

Well that's pretty much my life at the moment. I am happy to hear that you all are well. I pray that everyone's week goes well and I look forward to hearing from you all again. I love you all!!!

Love,

Elder Dalton

The General Epistle of Samuel (now it's personal)

Hello everyone once again!!!

Well it has been an interesting week indeed. We had many things going on. Many excitements coupled with a few disappointments. Nevertheless this week was one to remember. 

My first story to recount to you is one related to driving. Before any of you freak out, it has nothing to do with my driving haha. Elder Torres my companion had his second attempt (really his first haha) at the practical driving test. I was unfortunately not present for the exam due to me being on an exchange with another missionary. Anyway, Elder Torres took his test in Brentwood the same place that I took it the first time and the examiner failed me and was unprofessional. Unfortunately Elder Torres drew the same examiner. The test went fairly well. He didn't run into any parked cars while trying to get out of the car park haha. Really he said he felt quite confident that he had passed. The examiner showed him the results and they showed he had passed. The examiner counted again and then added two serious faults to fail him. The guy was unprofessional once again about the whole experience and Elder Torres was fuming. The man I guess almost got an ear full of angry Portuguese but Elder Torres controlled himself haha. I guess the guy has a personal vendetta against missionaries. Oh well. 

My second story for the week is really the week summed up into one paragraph. We pretty much just worked our tails off. We have three people we are working hard to get baptised at the end of August. Toni our most prominent investigator is doing great. Her baptism is scheduled for August 30th. She is very excited and has really enjoyed learning about the gospel. She lives with her sister who is a member so we have a built in fellowshipper (a missionary's dream). We also had some good fun last P-day with our district playing chair football, buying cheap ties at primark, and eating taco bell. We were so caught up in spending time with our district members and teaching appointments that we almost had no time to email. We emailed for maybe 45 minutes last week so sorry if I sounded a bit rushed. The week was great. We almost had to fight off a drunk guy but instead we just walked away and let him curse at us from a distance. Thankfully most drunk English people like to talk more than they like to fight haha. All in all it was a good week.

This week is our last full week of the transfer and then it's moves week. I have a feeling I may get moved. I am hoping my companion gets called as an assistant so that I can stay here in Basildon. I'm not too fond of moving around too much. With that being said, P-day next week will be on Tuesday so don't freak when I don't email on Monday :) I love you all and look forward to hearing from you again!

  

Love,

Elder Dalton