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