Merry Christmas

Hey All!

My companion is absolutely amazing!  Everyone here is incredible!  It's a great time to be on a mission!

And I am happy!  Also, there was a question about what we eat here for Christmas, and it didn't come through clearly, but it's called panettone and also a hot chocolate drink with cinnamon.  It is really, really good!  Tell everyone there that I love them! 

I wanted to tell you guys that I absolutely loved the thought that went into the Christmas package!  I shared it all with my whole apartment, and it was incredible!  The photos were especially cool!  I loved seeing those who I don't get to communicate with very often!

I realized something really cool about our work here the other day.  We are supposed to find the people that are prepared for us, and so if we are continually working on this, all of our investigators should be really easy, and we and they will always be super excited!  So, yesterday, a fruit seller asked us where he could find the Doctrine and Covenants.  He wasn't a member, but had purchased an LDS copy of the Bible, and had then purchased a Book of Mormon to cross reference the foot-notes, and was wondering where the Doctrine and Covenants were, because they weren't in the Book of Mormon.  It was so crazy!  I know that the lord is guiding our work here.

Also, for Christmas, from the mission, we got a whole bunch of candy (you guys should really try sublime chocolate by Nestle if it's available in the US!), some new silverware, a cup, a new Tupperware container, and a USB with all of the Mormon Messages!  It was super awesome!

I want to see lot's of photos of you guys and everyone else back home!  I love you guys a lot, and hope you are all enjoying your Christmas!  Remember the real reason for Christmas, and seriously, the scriptures are the coolest thing ever!

Love you!

Elder Dahl

Music, Meals, and Marriage

I was asked to accompany a children's choir for a Christmas activity on Sunday on the piano. Little did I realize when they asked me, they don't have any sheet music! So we got together Saturday night, and they found a picture on google of the tune, and a video of the intro, and sang me the ending, and I very quickly learned it, and practiced a little on Sunday, and performed it. It wasn't perfect, but I think it went alright! At the same activity, the elders were asked to sing a number, and somehow I became the missionary choir director! It was really fun, because I got to encourage them to think about the words of the songs, smile, breathe properly, and organize them into 2 parts. We sang 1 verse each of Silent Night, Away in a Manger, and Noche de Luz (Silent Night in Spanish). I had a ton of fun standing up there leading them, bringing in the different parts when they split. It was pretty awesome! I also was able to help all of them in Spanish, which was awesome! I feel like I can actually participate in conversations in Spanish now, which is really cool.

You guys should look up a recipe for crema de aji! It's like a hot sauce that is creamy, instead of just vinegar. It's super good! Also, our pensionista is the best! She has been giving us basically fried eggs and french fries with bread every night, with some variation. We all felt that it wasn't super good for us, so we asked her if she would make us fruit salads instead. She was so happy we asked for what we wanted, and she made us an amazing fruit salad last night! It was so good, and I felt like I was getting the vitamins I needed! Also, one of my new favorite ways to eat rice is with eggs. If you cook an over-easy fried egg, and put it on rice, and mix it all together, it tastes incredible! Also, Elder Saavedra, my roommate, is going to copy the recipe book you guys sent me, because he loves to cook, and he is super excited! And the peanut butter you guys sent me is incredible! I am literally scraping the sides of the jar, because it is so, so tasty! Also, the oreos, and everything else, but I've been eating the peanut butter with my breakfast for two weeks!

One thing that is incredible about missionary work is the willingness you see in people to change their lives. Once people feel the spirit, they want to have more of it, and they will obey the commandments to get it. We have a family whose parents aren't married, and we had to teach them the law of chastity. It was hard, especially because it's expensive to get married here, but they told us they would work on it, because they knew it was a commandment. It was incredible to see the love they have for the Lord and for their family.

Also, the thing they eat for Christmas here is not Cinnamon Rolls. It's called Paneton, and it's really good! It's basically a massive sweetbread with pieces of dried fruit embedded in it. It's so good!

I love you all, and hope you are all doing well!

Baptisms

The baptism went great! I baptized a 14-year old girl, and an 11 year old boy, and it was awesome! They felt the spirit, and it was super cool! And I did it in Spanish, with Spanish names! It was incredible! And the next day in church, we had the confirmations, and the incredible investigator from last week came, and said he wanted to be on time next time! He is absolutely incredible.

My new companion is absolutely amazing! He is from Colombia, and he loves to listen to and sing music! He is such a good missionary, and he is really revitalizing our area! As my second trainer, I feel so blessed to be able to learn from him! I'm learning how to give more interactive lessons, with questions, and helping the investigators feel the spirit. It's so cool!

In our room, we have a new missionary, brand new, from Canada! I assumed he was from the States, but he's Canadian. He knows hardly any Spanish though, so I do a lot of translating! It's pretty fun!

This week was incredible. We met with an investigator who has been investigating for about a year, and he finally realized that he has a testimony! We are super excited to keep teaching him. 

Also, today for P-day, we cooked lunch with a member family, and it was Causa and Pollo de Horno, basically sweet barbecue chicken and rice. It was incredible! It tasted so so good! 

Also, on Sunday, we had lunch with a member who owns a restaurant, and she made us potatoes with this yellow sauce, hard boiled eggs, pasta with pesto sauce, chicken, fried bananas, and jello for dessert. It was so good, but so much food! I might start skipping breakfast, and just work out during breakfast... we'll see! But the peanut butter you sent me smells so good! I might have a spoon of that for breakfast every day!

One thing that I learned from my companion is that if you confide in others, they will confide in you. One of the most important aspects of our relationship with our investigators is trust. It was so cool to see that in action as our investigators opened up to us and told us their stories. Now we understand where they are coming from and how to help them! It's so cool!

Alright, next week, I'm going to make sure we're on time so I can upload the pictures! Sorry! (Pictures added retroactively.)

Love you!

Trusting in the Lord

This week we had some pretty awesome experiences!  I have my first baptism on Saturday, so that's super cool, and I'm super excited!  On Sunday, we went to go visit an investigator that we hadn't been able to find for a long time.  We went to his house, and waited for him to come to talk to us.  When he finally came out and talked to us, we asked him what he was hoping for from our lessons.  He completely opened up to us and told us that he had had a really hard month, and his wife wasn't really supportive, and he wanted to provide a good Christmas for his kids, but he didn't have the money.  He told us that he knew he needed to change a lot of things, but didn't know where to start.  It was a crazy experience.  We told him to trust in the Lord, and pray, and demonstrate faith, and shared Ether 12:6.  He was so grateful, and told us that he didn't know why he was confiding in us, but that he was so grateful that marvelous people like us were in the world to help people.  We left him the lesson on tithing to read, and he said that after he read it, he knew that he would know what he needed to do.  It was an amazing experience, and I know that he really can receive the help he needs from God.  It was super cool!

About the photos (added retroactively), our power switch to our old water heater melted, so that's what that is, along with pictures of the new setup.

We, as a room, bought a cake as well, because we have in our area a pastry factory, which means that everything is super cheap!  So we each got one quarter of a cake!

Also, I found the best brand of Ginger Ale: Evervess.  You can actually taste the ginger in it, which is awesome!  After our fast on Sunday, we had lunch at a member's house, and we had apple pie, but it's more like a really dense cake with a layer of apple pie filling in the middle.  It's not super sweet, but it is really good!  This family also told me that I could play their trumpet next time, so that's awesome!  I left from that house feeling about ready to explode, because if they offer more, and you accept, it's not a little more.  It's a lot more!

We also had a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) on Sunday, and the family was super cool!  It's the family who's son I'm baptizing, and there are 4 less active members as well.

After NdH, we went back to our house to discover that one of the members of the ward had brought us pollo a la brasa, which is basically a rotisserie chicken, with french fries.  Our pensionista had also brought us dinner, so we had a ton of food that night!  It was awesome!  The french fries come with mayonnaise, but it's very different here.  The mayo doesn't have any eggs, and is very thin, but has a better flavor than any mayo I've ever had!

I'm learning a lot here, and at the same time, having a great time!  Love you all!

Jason?

First of all, I don't have a lot of time to write, because we went to the temple today, and there was some miscommunication, and so we all have a shortened period of time, and I left my SD card reader at the house, so I have pictures, but I can't send them. Lame, I know.  (Pictures added retroactively.)

Your week sounds awesome! Everything sounds super fun! I'll tell you what I did for Thanksgiving: I bought pie for all of the elders in my house. One slice each, and it was very good, but I definitely wanted more!

About prepared food, I think it's because past elders have had issues with the foods prepared by others, and I have no idea why we can eat it on Sundays, but I'm pretty sure they don't give them training, because one family thought we couldn't eat meat, so they fed us an entirely vegetarian meal, which I didn't realize until afterwards, but it was quite good! Also, the mayonnaise here is amazing!! It doesn't have eggs, but it has lime/lemon juice in it, and it tastes so good!! And that's saying something, because I never liked mayonnaise in the states!

The good thing about my concrete jungle is the passageways are so narrow that they have hardly any direct sun, so it stays relatively cool when we are in that part, and it does cool down at night, but it's not cold. I have zero issue in my short sleeve shirt at night, but that could be because of prior experience...

We do attend ward council, and I understand about 60-70% of what is said, which means that the important parts, I don't understand. But our ward has some issues, as far as I can tell, but they do all right! They did say I might be able to accompany the primary choir on the piano, so that's super exciting!!

As to the details on Christmas, I'll let you know. I think it will be a phone call, and so I'll need a number to call... I'll figure it out. It's going to be awesome!!

We went to the temple today, and this time, there was no translation! it was all completely in Spanish! I also understood a lot of it, so that was super cool! Also, one of the really cool things about being on a mission, is you can discuss cool things you find in the scriptures all the time! So I basically get to have a scintillating discussion about the gospel every night! Although, it is a little difficult sometimes, because I have to do it in Spanish. I am learning so much!

We are teaching some really cool people right now, like this old guy, that knows the Bible backwards and forwards. We gave him a Book of Mormon on the first lesson, because he seemed really interested, and he reads everything we leave him, and reads a lot of the Book of Mormon every week. He always comes with questions, which is so cool! The only problem is he thinks my name is Jason.... I don't actually know how. But he loves that we are serving God at our age, in a foreign country, and he told us that we feel different than the other people who come knocking doors, which is super cool! That's about all for this week, but I love you all, and I love hearing from you!!

-- Dallin

P.S. I ate at the temple cafeteria for the first time, which was amazing!!! So good!  Oh, also, we have hot water!!! it is a sketchy electric water heater that heats it as it comes out, which means that if you have less water, it's hotter, so I use hardly any water! But it feels like heaven!! It's so amazing!

Concrete Jungle

Hi All--

Yeah, the water is hard. I used to shave in the shower with hot water, so now I have to heat water in a pot, and apply it with a towel to my face. It makes it much more important to have a sharp blade, because otherwise my face doesn't get nearly as soft, so it can get scraped up much more easily!

Also, it's getting pretty hot, and I'm getting a pretty nice tan!

My companion is from Bolivia, and he is very different from me, and is also 3 years older than I am. He did a year of premilitary before coming, because it's mandatory in Bolivia. He's been out for 7 months, and seems pretty well adjusted.

The other companionship in our room is an American and a Peruvian, or Peruano in Spanish. It's really nice to have someone to talk to about the differences between here and there, and just American things in general. The Peruvian is hilarious, and has a ton of stories about previous missionaries, and just seems to enjoy life immensely. He speaks hardly any English, which means that as I learn more Spanish, he gets funnier and funnier! They are pretty cool! Every night we compare the funny things we experienced that day, like meeting a drunk who knows Spanish, or investigators with lingering handshakes, it's pretty great.

And now, the explanation of the title. I figured out what is so weird about a lot of my area. The entire thing is paved!! When I hear concrete jungle, I think of a big city, with the jungle part being mostly people, but here, you literally can only see about 100 ft up a narrow concrete passageway, and there are a million of them all interwoven and it's super cool. They have these main roads that are super loud and have a lot of mototaxis and such, but you can walk for like 5 minutes, and be in relative silence, because of all the buildings that block out the noise! It's like a whole neighborhood, but in like 5 buildings because it's three dimensional. As a consequence, it's like a massive mega-neighborhood, were you only know the people literally right next door, because that's still like 20 people! It's pretty great!

Also, I'm not sure I talked about this already, but we have this family that is so cool! At first it was just a less active member, and then we added a sibling as an investigator, and then the Mom, and then everybody else, and they are so much happier now! When we come now, they are all joking and having a great time! We recently met the Dad, who joined us for the lessons, and it's amazing the effect a supportive, fun father can have on the atmosphere! He was so engaged, and kept all the kids engaged as well with the occasional funny comment, it was awesome! And we had a FHE with them and some other less active members and ward members yesterday, and it was awesome. The hard thing is, we can't eat food prepared by the members, except for lunch on Sundays, and our Pensionista, so we smell all of these delicious homemade foods, and can't eat them. So, we prepared the dessert at their house! It was the most amazing chocolate drink, like hot chocolate, but with sweetened condensed milk! It was so cool! Also, we finally made crepes in the microwave!! They were really good, but I forgot to take pictures, of anything actually this week.... sorry.

Also, in the Book of Mormon, the last verse in Words of Mormon, it gives the recipe for world peace. The world leaders need to "[labor] with all the might of [their] bod[ies] and the faculty of [their] whole souls, and also the prophets". That's how we can have peace, in any size group of people, by working with the prophets, with all our might and faculty. In families, in cities, anywhere. Pretty cool!

Struggles, Speaking Spanish, and Sunburn

The food is one thing I was planning on talking about!  It's a real struggle, because they feed me more than I have ever eaten before!  All the meals are super, super big, and I feel like I almost explode every meal!  But I can't not eat it...  I also don't want to be unhealthy, but I feel like I don't have a choice.  But everyone is really nice, and my pensionista actually gives us reasonable (read only a cup of rice past full) portions most of the time, and I always finish all of it, even if it takes the entire hour.  And we hike up this concrete mountain to get to her house, because we live in a neighborhood closer to a park, and much lower in elevation.  I think the Relief Society chooses who gets to feed the missionaries every Sunday for lunch.  It's pretty cool, because we can't eat prepared food other than that one lunch, at restaurants (not street vendors), and at our pensionista.  So we have this investigator, and we were teaching a lesson, and her husband came out for the first time and participated with us, and we also got to meet the oldest daughter, who is apparently less active, and came to church on Sunday.  During our lesson, this investigator left for like 20 minutes, and we were kind of confused, and when she came back she had three of these fried bread things, like just fried dough, that looked amazing, and some herbal tea, but we couldn't eat it because it was prepared.  It was really sad, and we had to explain that rule to her, but then she went and bought packaged food, and we had a really great time with the whole family.  So then on Sunday, they all came to church, including the less active daughter, who brought her boyfriend, and the next oldest daughter was less active, and is now a member of the primary presidency, and afterwards, we found out that this coming Sunday, we are eating lunch with their family!!!!  So crazy!  I'm super excited, because it smelled amazing!!  But I like the food here, the rice is really good, but also it's white rice, so it's not healthy, and we eat it at every meal, so I'm getting kind of tired of it, but we haven't eaten anything terrible yet...

The bathroom.  I forgot to tell you, but my other struggle, is we have no hot water, and that translates to, we shower in basically refrigerated water, and some people gave me tips about running it through a black hose heated by the sun, but we live on the bottom floor of a basically condominium complex, and have no hose, nor an outlet for one.  We actually have a water heater, but it's broken, and my companion said I can't try to fix it because it's dangerous, so we called about a new one, but that started when I got here.  I haven't had hot water the entire time!!   It's been kind of crazy, and really cold.  My clothing is doing great, except for I have a couple of bleach spots on my pants from the lady who does our laundry... but I can't complain, because she's doing my laundry!  And I am learning how to sew, because one of my pockets on my shirt is coming undone, so that's cool!  The other elder in our room made a tie, so I've been thinking about doing that as well, because I have some cool ideas, I just need to find a place to buy material....  I'll figure it out.  I clean and polish my shoes most days, and they seem to be holding up fine, I can tell the leather is getting worn though.  I only got one blister walking, and it was when I decided I should start wearing both sets of shoes, so the new ones gave me a blister, but it wasn't terrible, and I survived!

Yeah, so everyone I talk to asks me about our new president, and political vocabulary wasn't on the list of required words at the CCM, so it was kind of difficult at first, but I figured out how to express my feelings!

On Sunday, I also had to give a talk, which was supposed to be 5 minutes long.  No problem, right?  Oh wait, it's in Spanish, which I don't speak.  I was pretty nervous, and I was informed Saturday night that I had a talk, so I had to prepare it Sunday morning, before 9:00 church.  I found some quotes in Preach My Gospel, and some scriptures, and that was all I had time for.  So I got up there, and my hands were shaking, and I'm pretty sure my voice was as well!  I started to talk, and everything became calm.  I barely followed my plan, didn't use everything I had prepared (and by everything I mean like 5 scriptures and 3 quotes), and just spoke.  Fluidly, and, I think, powerfully.  It was really cool!  It was a direct fulfillment of the scripture that says "It shall be given you in the very moment that portion that shall be meted unto every man"  (D&C something or other).  It was super cool.

Also, on Thursday, we went on splits, and I got to paint some walls for a service project.  This was outside, on the 8th and top floor of a building, with no roof.  Also, the sun came out, and I was wearing somebody else's service clothes, because I didn't know we were going to serve.  So the shirt was way to small, and I was showing a lot of skin on my neck and arms.  I didn't even think about sunscreen.  Absolutely roasted.  The next day, I couldn't turn my head in my collared shirt, because it rubbed on my sunburn. It was crazy.  But, I did learn.  I have been applying sunscreen every day since, since it's only going to get hotter and sunnier, and I had brought the Aloe gel you bought for my feet, and thank goodness I did, because it was necessary!!  So to anybody who was thinking I would burn, and you know who you are, you were right, but I did learn!!!

I think that's all, if I missed anything you wanted to know about, let me know, and I'll write about it if I get it today, or next week.

Love you all!

P.S. Oh, also I found a microwave cookbook! I've been trying out many different ways to make French toast, and I started eating whole wheat bread, because I don't want to get fat, and I also want to be full until lunch, so it's french toast with whole wheat rolls. It's not bad, but I need to buy cinnamon.

Pensionista Photos

Elder Dahl's Pensionista sent us photos of him eating at her house.  It sounds like the missionaries eat with her family every day for dinner, and every day except Monday for lunch.  Sundays, the Relief Society feeds them.  She said she feels like they are like her sons, and knows the Lord blesses us when we support missionary work.  She said she accompanies the missionaries as they teach, and as a new member of the church, knows that she needs to endure to the end to live with her Heavenly Father and her family forever.  She has such great faith, and I am so grateful for the loving service she gives to my son and the other missionaries!  And for the pictures!