Season 6 Episode 13: The grand finale.

 Well here we are. My last weekly. After 6 seasons of spiritual entertainment this is it. To get things started, heres an update of the work!

There's been a lot of progress with many of the people are teaching especially Jamin he is very ready and he is very active in learning which is awesome! Additionally I've been messaging a handful of people and have made excellent progress! every chance I get I ask them if I can share a video and send them the link to the "ask of God" video. That video gets em'!! 

Light the world has also been very awesome we've had many cool experiences hearing back from members who weve invited to take on challenges with the calendar!

We also had our Mission leadership conference this week and I had the privilege and honour of taking notes! so that's always fun. I don't think I missed anything or at least no one said I did haha.

But yeah every night is full of calling and messaging people and setting up appointments which keeps us really busy, as well we've been doing a lot of Christmas preparing for the zone! We have been writing Christmas cards to each missionary in the zone and it's been pretty sweet.

Here's were it gets good, ( don't skip this part. )

But now to kind of turn things from the week to these last two years, there's been a lot that I have learned. And one email definitely won't tell you everything I learned but I'll share a couple of things. 

The first is the power of agency or the power to choose. Depending on how we use this gift, that God has given to all His children, we either live in his presence or not. This is a very special and kinda scary gift. It's why using this gift righteously is so important. But I've also learned that God is on our side. He is rooting for us and helping us along the way. He has done everything He can to help us, we then just have the choice. 

Along with the concept of choosing. We choose to have a good day. 

Close to 10 missionaries over the course of my mission have asked me, "how are you so happy? Why are you so confident? Are you ever down?" And whenever I get asked this, I really have to think. I don't really do anything in particular with my morning routine or hype myself up per se, but in response to these questions I would tell them, I choose to. We have that gift. We choose to believe that this day is a good day. And then it is. Choosing to be happy is another one. You can choose. That's something God has given us. That ability! I've also learned on my mission that satan wants that gift to be his. He wants to take that from us. So he'll try to make events, substances, etc. To dull our ability to choose. This results in addictions, habits, or mindsets that require other attention to restore this gift to us. And sometimes that restoration doesn't come in this life. But ultimately it's a choice. You choose to have a good day, an ok day, or a bad day. It can be raining, blizzarding, your socks can be drenched, your ears and fingers frozen, people choosing not to learn more or responding back to you, but you choose your attitude. 

The second thing. Repentance. Before my mission I had it in the back of my mind that it was an ominous term that only the wicked did, or even didn't do. But I found this nearly perfect analogy. 

Brushing your teeth. Now this gets pretty personal, so a little back story. Before my mission, I honestly didn't brush my teeth a lot. And when I was getting checked for my mission the dentist told to promise to her to brush and floss my teeth every day on my mission. So I did. Pretty early on I did a smile direct teeth aliner thing and with that I had to brush my teeth after every meal. (Which wasn't to bad haha) and my teeth started getting whiter! Imagine that! Anyways back to the analogy.

Take a sinner (all of us) we eat or sin (it's our nature) and if we don't clean up or repent, our mouth is going to get worse and worse until teeth fall out and rot or what ever worse conditions can come from not brushing your teeth. Repentance is brushing your teeth. You can add to your repentance by adding toothpaste and flossing. Much like how scriptures study, praying, church attendance etc. Help keep our soul clean and healthy. These are some things that we can do on our own to help us repent and keep living happy lives. But sometimes we get a cavity. That's something that we can't really do anything about. We have to go to a dentist to get it fixed. And that dentist, is our loving Heavenly Father. And He'll clean it for free. But he tells us to brush our teeth, floss and use toothpaste. 

Hopefully that made sense. It did as I was typing it.

Third. The Grace of Jesus Christ. I don't have a lot of time, but in short, Grace isn't a student loan. It's a scholarship. Its meant to be used and taken advantage of. It's not having God help you with a purchase of a bike, its God buying you that bike, and asking you to go somewhere with it. Its God dropping the ladder to heaven, asking you to climb it. What is the point of salvation or even exultation, without transformation. Our purpose of coming to earth wasn't to coast back into the presence of God, it was to come back better. 

There is so much more. And many experiences I wish to share, but another time. 

Love you all. And see many of you soon. 

Elder Dahl 2.0
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada 

Season 6 Episode 12: Rewards

 This week was full of a lot of awesome things. Let's get started!

So to start off Jaimen is an absolute Legend he's a young man who had a couple different trials in his life and because of them he is so well prepared for the gospel. After our third lesson with him we felt impressed ask him if he wants to be baptized to which he said he did and so he put a goal up for January 23rd!

We have been having lessons with him twice a week and he's a the most involved person I've ever taught he even takes notes!

We have also been in contact with many members of the church and setting up lessons for light the world which have been very good.

We also had exchanges with the assistants. I really love Elder Brown. I got to do a lot of missionary work with him and teach with him! One of the people we talked to asked how long we had both been out to which we responded we're nearing the end of our mission some more than others ;) and she gave us a whole bunch of advice including but not limited to continuing the habit of planning and getting busy as soon as you can when you get home.

Overall that exchange was very good and Elder Brown had many kind things to say about me. He invited me to validate as many people as I could before I leave especially my companion so I will definitely do that!

One of the cool things that happened is Elder Van Der put came home from his mission and his mtc report day was December 12th 2018, the same day I went into the MTC. So it was a little weird when he gave his homecoming talk haha. I don't remember if I met him, but I probably did haha

But this week was a spiritual overhaul because we got to deliver a wonderful teaching (all by the spirit which is always so sweet. We prepare something but God had a different message in mind) additionally we got to have a couple of meetings with -president -sister low with the rest of the mission leadership in the which we talked a lot about the Christmas season and how we can lift the spirits of missionaries especially with the restrictions. Not going to lie I'm glad that I'll Be Home for Christmas, but the plans that they have set forth some really and truly amazing and I'll be sad to miss out. For those who don't know or have lost track of time this is actually my second to last email that I'll send out. As far as I know I'm coming home on the 18th of December. And I'll share more thoughts about how I feel in my next email!

So stay tuned for that. Know that I love you all and hope the very best for you and this coming week! Remember to read your scriptures and to pray because that helps a lot of people out!

A small spiritual thought though, while we were on exchanges Elder Brown and I talked a lot about the christ-like attribute of patience. We had a very wonderful discussion and based on what we had studied interpersonal studies we came to a couple different conclusions and here's one of them. You know that anxious feeling you get when you're about to give a talk or speak in public? That is a form of impatience. The reason being is because the definition of patience is to endure delay opposition or anxiety. And so when we're anxious we are being impatient. You could also see it as a sign of pride because we are fearing. Anyways again love you all and talk with you next week!

Elder Dahl 2.0
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada

1 a sweet view from in front of our apt. 

2 squad <3

3 authentic Canadian food

4 we did the decorate a door light the world activity to our next door neighbor!

Season 6 Episode 11: a pretty stressful week

 Yeah so the almost all nighter went well! We ended up getting home around 2 am but all safely! We didn't get to sleep in much, because we had to deliver a car to a uhaul place to get a hitch and so getting to drive again was nice! The rest of the day was full of contacting and preparing for zone conference and getting the news of having zone conference online rather then in person as well as exchanges were now digital. RIP to the in person interaction. But that's ok. The work continues to move forward anyway.

Zone conference was a blast we got to teach in normal and natural interactions online, which was pretty fun. And president and sister low taught on the power and authority of the calling we hold as missionaries and patience. Which are quite the topics and I got a lot out of it. We also had a talent show afterwards and that was both fantastic and hilarious! Well he having a gift exchange in our district councils so that will be fun. President and sister low for their talent did another puppet show and was awesome Haha. 

Both before and after zone conference we had digital exchages with moncton and the last in person exchanges with Dartmouth (former bay roberts) and those all ended wonderfully. And many miracles took place. Including but not limited to, finding 3 people. And referring 1 to moncton! (I've got the miramichi sim card and a number called me and I missed it listened to the voice mail and it was the most elect voicemail I've ever heard.  But the others we found were Adel, a gentleman that I first contacted when I was in Bedford at the beginning of this year. The story of him is quite fun, he was basically hating on the bible and how it's false and not true, (he also assumed the book of mormon was a different bible translation hehe) and basically confounded him in a honestly pure way and now he's like, wut? Another book that isn't the bible that preaches christianity?? I'm interested. So that was very fun. Then there is Ali a lady that elder penner has been messaging. Then the other guy is Jamin a super select guy who'd been in contact with the church for a while and knows the book of mormon is true. It's when hard work gets rewarded in this way Haha. So we will be working very closely with all of them and help them out in as many ways as we can. As far as the rest of the week, the grind is still on and a lot of logistic stuff is out of the way as well.

This week will be awesome as well and I'm looking forward to being able to keep this up!

Sorry if it's a little shorter, time is running out for me haha love you all and hope the best for each of you as we go into this Christmas season! 

The #givethanks thing was epic as well!

Elder Dahl 2.0
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada