The General Epistle of Samuel (surprise from the mission department.....)

We had a very good week this week. We were blessed in ways we have not seen before. We have had many people coming to us to learn about the gospel. One interesting one started on Monday. We received a text with information regarding an individual wanting a copy of the Book of Mormon as they requested on Mormon.org. We made plans to stop by her after interviews on Tuesday. We stopped by as planned and had a lovely conversation with her and arranged a time to come and teach her again. Before we left I asked how she came across the website (I'm always curious about how people find it) and she told us something surprising. She said she has a friend in Idaho that is preparing to serve a mission and that they had told her to have the missionaries around. She followed through and now we are teaching her. She was surprised to hear that I was from Idaho as well. Small world!

Throughout the week we had many people speak with us and it gave many opportunities to share the restored gospel. We are quite busy now. I am grateful for all the people we have to teach. Now we must sift the wheat from the tares. 

Now for the surprise from the mission department. We had a mission wide conference call a couple nights ago where President Jordan informed us of a mission wide conference that will be held in two weeks in the Hyde Park chapel. We will be visited by a Seventy who is assigned to the missionary department where we will receive training on how to be effective with our new iPads we'll be getting in two weeks. This is quite exciting news since there has been talk of it for about a year now haha. They'll be coming just in time to bring one home ;) It should be an interesting experience. 

That has been our week this week. Thank you all for your love and support. I hope you all have a fantastic week and I look forward to hearing from you next week!

Love,

Elder Dalton

Almost Sent from my iPad

The General Epistle of Samuel (#ShareTheGift)

This week was crazy. It started off with a great mission conference with Elder Cook of the Twelve. He spoke on Preach My Gospel and the process of how they developed it. He said many times that the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve firmly feel that that book came from the other side of the veil. It is incredible the amount of time that was spent on this resource. I hope that the members of the church can realize this and utilize this wonderful tool. He left the meeting open to a question and answer session. My companion asked how he maintains his perspective on the magnitude of his calling. He saved his answer for the end. His answer was the most powerful portion of the meeting. Hearing and Apostle of Jesus Christ say authoritatively, "I know the Lord's voice," made my week.

We had an exchange with the assistants the day after the conference. I was able to spend the day in London with Elder Anderson the new assistant. He is from my MTC group. He is a great missionary. We had a great time and found some great people and some great lessons. We made a lot of use out of the church's new Christmas initiative which I'll share more about in a bit. That night on the exchange it was raining. Just before we went to bed the ceiling started to leak. You would thing the most expensive missionary flat in the world wouldn't have a leaky roof. The office was thrilled about that. 

We had MLC this week as well and it was a great meeting. Probably the best one we've had this year. We are in a tight spot right now as a mission. We have a goal of 500 baptisms for the year. We need to have 73 this month. The most we have done in a month is 54 and December is always our worst month. Not this year though. We are going to have an incredible month. At MLC Elder Bright and I were asked to share our story about getting the car impounded and then they announced that every car needs an insurance certificate. Glad we could get the ball rolling on that haha. 

So this Christmas initiative is great. You may have heard of it already but I am going to reiterate anything you may have already heard. The church has just released a new video similar to "Because of Him." It is called "He is the Gift." The church site that it is located is christmas.mormon.org. I invite all of you to watch the video and #ShareTheGift by inviting someone to watch the video. This initiative has been an answer to the prayers of our mission and will be a great way to spread the message of Jesus Christ. I love you all! 

http://www.mormon.org/christmas

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