The General Epistle of Samuel (another transfer over)

Another transfer has come an gone in a blink of an eye. A lot of crazy things have gone on. Unfortunately Elder Tina'o is moving. I am sad to see him go. I have had so much fun serving with him and learning from him. My new companion is Elder Claure from Brasil! I am excited to have another Brazilian companion. It should be a great couple of transfers with him.

This week a lot of work was done. We were able to meet with a family that we haven't seen for a while. Gemma and Steve are great. They have been busy with work but thankfully after we sent Gemma a text on mothers day, they invited us over. Turns out they were talking about how they needed to start coming to church and that Steve needs to be baptised and their daughter as well. Then we sent them a text. Funny how that works out. We began teaching them and set a day for their daughter to get baptised. They are great and I look forward to working with them. 

We are gearing up for another church initiative this Easter. I think it will be similar to last year's "because of Him." This year it's #BecauseHeLives. I'm not too sure what we'll be doing. Probably lots of pass along cards to give out. We'll see how it goes. 

Well I hope that everyone has had a great week. I look forward to hearing from you all again soon!

Love,

Elder Dalton

correction: Elder Claure is from Bolivia 

pictures from our trip to Dover castle. I would show you pictures of the secret wartime tunnels but apparently they want to keep them secret so they wouldn't let us take pictures. Or it was something to do with copyrights. Either or. 

Hogwarts? a bit of wizard chess and broom flying.....

The General Epistle of Samuel (The end of another transfer)

It seems as though each transfer passes by faster and faster. It is incredible how time flies when you're having fun. Elder Tina'o and I will be staying together for another transfer. That most likely means I am here till the end. I am happy about that. I am really starting to get to know the ward and earn their trust. From what I hear from the members, a lot of problems with the missionary force have stopped since I moved in. I've been thanked by a few members for that. Hopefully we can keep their trust and help them share the gospel with their friends.

We did a lot of street contacting this week. We have been struggling for a while to get people to stop and speak with us. As we were trying to figure out what to change or fix the idea came to make a survey and get people to answer some questions about religion and such. Turns out it worked pretty well. I just made a document on the computer to look all official and stuff and people went for it. It turned out pretty easy to get people talking about their beliefs and we were able to set some return appointments with people. We are happy to have some people to work with. 

We've had some winter weather lately as well. One of the days we were out street contacting for a few hours we decided to go out in the sticks and find some lost sheep that the mission office sent us to find. As we were out driving on the back roads it started snowing quite a bit. It only snowed for maybe thirty minutes but Elder T was over the moon. Coming from Australia he has never seen snow fall from the sky. He got out and started playing in it. I snapped a couple pictures of him. I'll send them later. After a few snowballs were thrown at me while I was in the car, we contacted a few lost sheep. It was pretty exciting for Elder T. 

This week we have just the usual stuff going on. We don't have to worry about packing or moving so today we are going to play some chair football with the district at the chapel. We thought about fish and chips on the white cliffs but we'll wait for a clearer day. It's a bit overcast today. Thank you all who sent pictures. It was great to see everyone's faces! I hope you all have a great week and I look forward to hearing from you again next week!

Love, 

Elder Dalton

Some good looking lads

 the dover castle from town centre

putting the castle into perspective

 a bit of snow

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 (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