Monday, June 25, 2012

June 25, 2012


Hey all!! (otra vez)
 
this week has probably been the quickest week of my misson thus far. It has also been a very tiring one! haha but A great one nonethe less.
 
Well yesterday we had a baptismal service for David y Daisy Torreblanca. It was a beautiful service. Satan was doing everything he could though to keep the service from going on i believe. You could just say about everything went wrong in setting up for the actual service. We got a program ready, but there was an error. We had ward conference, and after I guess the stake decieded to switch out the old hard drive for a completely different system. So we had to change it back again just to get the program fixed which took forever. After that we had to go to the library in our building to make copies of the program. We go to make the copies and the printer said we were out of toner. We paniced for a while and then went to the English bishopric touse the printer they have in their office. it took twice as long, but we got the job done and got the font all filled up. When we showed up to the building where we were going to have the baptism at President Bowen was already there. I guess he heard wrong about what time we were going to have the service. So we got it all set up and started a little late. Because DAvid and Daisy showed up late...that scared us too. Oh and one of our talks cancelled on us too at the last second. But we asked Sister call to go up and share her testimony which was perfect. I baptized David first (in two trys) and Elder Larsen baptized Daisy. We got into the changing room after and Elder Larsen pulls something out of his pocket. It was our cell phone. Yeah he forgot to take it out when we went to go and baptize her. haha we just got a new phone at the mission office, so we are all good now (oh by the way elder sumsion says hi).
 
So it looks like we will be having another baptismal service this sunday for Victor. He is progressing really well. He is a very smart nineteen year old. Yesterday he came to church (missed work to go) and he was participating almost more than half of the time. Also David and Daisy were too. Our bishop asked them in the middle of sunday school "are you sure you aren't baptized members?" it was really cool to see. They are truely prepared children of the Lord. it has been a great experience. I'm very excited for this sunday as well.
 
Another great experience we ahd this week was follow up training. Basically it was like a huge companionship inventory. All the senior companions went to one room and the Junior companions went to another. We wrote down on paper three things we loved about our companion and three things we would change about them. I actually learned a lot of things I could do better as a missionary to be a better companion and a servant of the Lord. It was a great experience. Plus I got to see President Bowen. those are always the best days.
 
So we started to teach this guy from argentina. It's very difficult to understand him because of his accent. They have a very different accent when compared to the mexican one. also they don't say the same words that mexicans use. like I was talking to him and asking him something and he kept getting mad at me because it doesn't mean the same in his accent. It was more of a demanding kind of way to ask for something. it was pretty funny. Oh by the way with my spanish. The Lord has truely blessed me this week with that. I am now able to have a steady conversation with anyone. It's been pretty cool to see.
 
So momma, I just want to let you know that we are being fed very well. It's so cool because not only are the members feeding us, but our investigators are feeding us too. haha like this last thursday we had three dinners. Two of them were from investigators. I was so full by the end of the day, but it felt sooooo goood. I have really come to love the mexican food here. I love the people too. They are awesome. I just hope I can get an awesome companion in the next few weeks.
 
Well, that is basically all that has happened this week. We are truely blessed. This mission is starting to pick up. we had 12 baptisms as a mission last week. We are shooting for 400 this year, and if we can keep that up for the rest of the year we should be able to make it. we are planning on doing a lot of finding and I'm excited. This week in training i have to take the lead in all planning and teaching situations. That should be fun. We'll see how that goes and all. I'll let you know. I
 
I love you all!! Espero que ustedes tengan un buen semana!! Les Amo muchisimo!!
 
Elder Dallin M. Ollerton

Photos of the week 6/25/12

 LtoR: Elder & Sister Call, Daisy, David, Elder Ollerton, Elder Larsen
 Elder Larsen, Daisy, David, Elder Ollerton
 District (Minus 2)
 Hometown Buffet (courtesy of a nice member)
 Self Explainatory
David and Daisy's Wedding

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Letter from 6/18/12 (Sorry I forgot to put this on earlier)


Hey everyone!!
 
What another amazing week it has been out here in sunny cailfornia. A ton of crazy things have happened this last week. Can't wait to tell ya. Here I am now!!
 
So this week we had a zone conference. It was my first Zone conference on the misson and I loved it! Elder Larsen and I got a prize for keeping within the limit of milage for our car. You have a limit of miles you can drive a month. Most missionaries acutally go over the milage. So I can see why we have a limit. Elder Larsen and I actually stayed about four hundred miles under the limit last month. Which is weird because we are the farthest away from everything. But none the less we both won a 12 Hershey chocalate bars. So we have 24 bars now. So we were pretty excited about that. I also got a chance to talk to Elder Sumsion a lot too. It was so nice to finally talk about home and football and stuff like that. Elder Larsen hates talking about that. so it was something I really enjoyed talking to him about. We had this huge lunch of beef, pork, salad, and of course, tortillas. I don't know if I have told you yet but the mexicans eat tortillas with every meal. In fact a lot of them don't even use forks, knives or anything like that. They either use their hands or a tortilla. I acutally really like it. I know that Tre tre would really like that too. Hahaha Anyway I really enjoyed the talk by President Bowen. He spoke on sacrifice. And even though the mission may be hard. Sacrifice is needed. It is somehting that God has always required of man to do. I found that very interesting as he pointed it out with a bunch of different examples from the scriptures. I lvoed the verse he gave in Nehamiah 6:3. It is what has been keeping me going the last few days. I loved conference.
 
So lately we have been up on our miles. So we have been doing a lot of finding, contacting, knocking doors, etc. It's been really fun because we have been able to find a lot of really great people to teach. Like we met an Older lady as she was walking home. we walked with her and helped her carry her groceries home. (a lot of latinos do that too. Can't drive, but walk a long way to get groceries) We taught her the Restoration right there and committed her to be baptized. We haven't been able to find her since, but that doesnt mean we are oging to give up on her. Also we ran into a guy as we were knocking doors named Eric (yes, english). We taught him about the Book of Mormon and the restoration and he was like "there is more scripture?! We ahve a prophet on the earth today? Why didn't anyone tell me about this?" It was so cool to see the spirit just pierce his heart as we taught him. We passed him on to the English missionaries. We hope that all goes with with that. Also we were knocking doors and found a family of eight that was really interested. We taught them the first lesson as well and committed them all to be baptized. They are very catholic too. So let's hope that goes well too!
 
So we have been teaching Victor, the 19 year old. He is so solid. We taught him a bunch of the commandments. It turns out he was already living the Word of Wisdom too. So it was really cool to see that. He even asked his boss for work off to come to church. He said he could only come to the first hour, but I guess he decided to stay and he loved it. He even got his mom (another investigator) to come too. Which we have been trying to do for a while now. So we were so happy to see that miracle. Victor is planning on being baptized on the first of July. So is his mom.
 
Last week I wrote about David and Daisy getting married. Well, They got married yesterday! hahaha We committed them to get married and they acceptted. They got the marrige license, the rings, and we had the wedding in the church yesterday. Bishop Disner performed the marriage. Now they are living the Law of Chasitity and can get baptized. so we will be having a Baptism for them this Sunday. Pretty amazing huh?  They are now talking about how they can get sealed as a family (they have an 8 month son) for eternity in one year. Pretty cool huh? This is what this work is all about. Bringing families together forever. I could possibly witness it too. I'll still be here then. What a miracle no?
 
Dad, You asked why we wait a whole week to give the gift of the Holy Ghost to our investigator. It's mainly because we want them to come to church as many times as possible. This way They know they have to come to church the next week in order to get the gift of the Holy Ghost and be confirmed. I guess a lot of the converts here go less active really fast. But that hasn't happend with ours. Humberto actually blessed the sacrament and gave the benediciton Yesterday. He has also been teaching with us a bunch too. So cool huh? His testimony brought a lot of miracles this week. So yeah that's why!
 
That is pretty much my week! A lot of finding, and teaching, and we are going to be baptizing. Oh mom and dad, I have a request. I don't know if it is safe to send my insurance stuff over email. but i'm going to the doctor on the 27th of june. I am going because of my headache problems. i don't know if you think I should go or not, but sister bowen said I should get it from you in case. So maybe if you could mail it or anything like that? What do you think?
 
Dad, feliz dia de padres. Tengo lo mejor padre en todo el mundo! Soy muy agradecido tengo usted. Te Amo mi padre. Espero que tuvo un buen dia.  
 
I love you all!! Can't wait to get to ya next week!! Hear from you soon!1
 
Elder Dallin M. Ollerton
 

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Week of June 11, 2012


Hey everyone! It has been another crazy week out here in La Habra, California.
 
So yesterday was a crazy day. Yesterday we had the confirmation of Humberto. He is so dang solid. You can already tell that he is going to be an active member for teh rest of his life. Our bishop, stake president, and mission president have been talking about him a ton. He is truely one of a kind. He was confirmed a member of the church, and he was also given and ordained to the office of a Priest in the Aaronic priesthood. Pretty crazy huh? so all within four weeks he will have been baptized, confirmed, and given the priesthood. So awesome. OH and we have been giving his brother and his brother's girlfriend the lessons too. We taught them the plan of salvation and the law of chastity and told them how their family (they have a 8 month baby) could be together forever. So we committed them to live the law of chastity by getting married. So we have a wedding we are going to plan and have for them in our church building. I believe that we arene't going to have it this week but we are giong to have it next week. If they get married they will be ont he straight path to enter the waters of baptism on the 24th like we had set with them. What a miracle. They even  came to chruch  to see Humberto's confirmation and everything. They loved church. So I think that they are showing a lot of promise! We are very excited for this.
 
So this last week we were planning on having a baptism for Vivi. But things changed as always. We have been working with her to get her baptized since I have gotten here to the mission field. She still has that main concern of how her family will react if she does join the church. Her family are very very catholic. Her Mother is actually okay with her joining the church though. But she looks up to her grandmother a ton. Her grandomther does not want her to have anything to do with the church. She keeps giving vivi threats that if she joins the church she won't accept her and stuff like that. It's really sad. but I guess that is how it is. She just needs to put her faith in Christ and be baptized. But we have received the impression that we just need to let things settle with her and not push baptism with her for a while. So that way she doesn't get a bad feeling or impression about the church. She has a ton of friends that areLDS so she has a lot of support. So hopefully that will get all situated out in the next coming weeks. We had a ton of great lessons with her that I thought would definitely seal her being baptized. Our young womens leader went through a very very similar situation. She was baptized and her Grandpa denied her. But eventually he softened up and accepted her again. So we hope that it will eb that way. We still are oging to talk, but not talk baptism for a while.
 
We have been teaching a lot this new investigator named Victor. He is actually my age. We found him through his mom we contacted out on the street once. We have been teaching them both together, but we have been teaching victor a lot more just because we know when he is going to be home. Last week we actually set a date to be baptized on the 24th. He was very skeptical. He is a very smart kid. He is in community college right now, but he is graduating with his GED so he can go to a university to become a brain surgeon. Pretty crazy huh? I think he can do it. He is a very large vocab in english and spanish. plus he is a thinker, so he knows how to discover. Plus he loves science. Anyway he grew up catholic. He knows the bible. He would read it a lot as a kid. so he knows how to interpret scripture and all that. We gave him a book of mormon. We testified of it, and we told him to reaad and to pray. We came back later in the week to teach him Lesson three (gospel of Jesus Christ) and he told us how easy it was to understand the Book of Mormon. He said that it is easier to understand than the bible, plus it makes sense. We told him that this could be his answer that he has wanted to receive. Now he wants to talk to us more. I think that he is going to get baptized. We ahve basically taught him everything that he needs to know in order to get baptized. All but the commandments. So let's hope that that goes well!
 
This week I went on an exchange with my district leader, Elder Centeno. He is a native from mexico. So it was all in spanish. Which was difficult at times, but i got the general idea and I could also communicate to him as well. But I learned some things from him. You know the only people we taught were less actives and recent converts. Which is really bad. President has said that we should stop doing that. We aren't here to babysit others, but we are here to find, teach, and baptize as preach my gospel says. I know they got people we could have seen. I think he decieded to be lazy or something. We just went out and knocked doors the whole day. It was my very first time really doing that on my mission. It was long. He wouldn't let me do any of the talking, and  I learned that we have to show our passion for the gospel to the people we contact and teach. As we would talk to people he would make our message seem real casual. He would be leaning on something and like playing with his fingers, not even looking at the person, and so on. You could tell that the people weren't even interested, so that his why they all said no. so we went "hometeaching" I thought he would have known better since he has been out for over a year. but hopefully he'll learn sometime.
 
So last night we had a pretty crazy thing happen. We had our studies after we ate dinner. We decided to switch our orignal plan of finding a refferal to go see Rosa Estrada. She didn't go to chruch and we jsut wanted to see her. We were walking toward the apartment complex to see two fire trucks and an ambulance parked right by the complex. Elder Larsen and I turned to each other and thought "No way" we got there and the Ambulance had just pulled out and the trucks left. We learned that Lalo Estrada, Rosa's 10 year old son, Had been taken to the hospital. I don't know exactly what happened. but there was a can of some drink on the ground. He decieded to drink it. He went home and fainted. They had him take a shower and he came out and fainted again. He woke up and started to throw up all over the place. I guess he drank something that contained alcohol. Because the people said that it was alcohol poisioning. My heart sank as I heard this. I could have only imagined. Because that is like Trevor's age. I felt os bad for Rosa. She got the call while she was at work and hurried over to the hospital. Elder Larsen and I prayed for the both of them to be okay. We had a peaceful feeling come into our hearts. And he is okay. Could you please pray for them though?
 
Well that is basically my week! Lots of crazy experiences as always. but I am pushing forward always. I love you all and thank you for your support. for those of you who have sent me a letter and i have not responded. i am sorry, but i will get to you eventually. Les Amo siempre!!
 
Elder Dallin M. Ollerton

Monday, June 4, 2012

More mission photos

 Dallin and Humberto at baptism 6/3/12
 This photo is from the baptism on 6/3/12.  Humberto Torreblanca.
 Dallin's Zone at the baptism.
Dallin, Rosa Estrada, Elder Larsen

Week of 6/4/12


Hey all!!
 
It has once again been a crazy week up here in La Habra, CA. It has been a long, but very good week. I'll tell you why it was so long right now.
 
So earlier (tuesday I believe) I had some chinese food for lunch. It was food that a member gave us. We get it all of the time so I thought..sweet, more food i don't have to make. haha well guess what. That night I slept for about an hour. The rest I was in chills, or really hot. And I was going to the bathroom to take care of buisness. I was so sick that day. But that didn't stop me from working. It was a huge week because our "golden" Humberto Torreblanca was goign to get baptized that sunday, and we had a lot of work to do with him to make sure he is ready. So I pushed through. I am still pretty sick as of this very moment. I have been having the squirts and all since then. I"m trying everything I can. So hopefully it settles down soon.
 
But with Humberto. IT WAS AWESOMEE!!!! I say that because we went and taught him everyweek. Because at Rosa's baptism he told us that once we think he's ready, he wanted to do it. So we got started on the commandment. It turned out that he was already living the Word of Wisdom, the Law of Chastity, he was willing to live the law of tithing. He was already repenting, he was doing it all!! He had such hunger to know the gospel also. It was soo cool to see. He is truely one of the prepared ones of the Lord. We had a baptismal service for him yesterday. I was the one who actually performed the ordinance. I was so nervous because I had only done it once before, and I had to do it in spanish, but I was able to do it all in one try. That baptismal service was probably one of the most powerful moments of my Mission thus far. I turned to Humberto i was like "can you feel it?" he shook his head up and down and I said "I can too" It was sooo cool. I'm so proud of him. He even bore his testimony in sunday school and priesthood yesterday. He is such a solid convert.
 
Oh and also yesterday was the confirmation of my first convert, Rosa Estrada. She is so awesome and solid. She has a very tough life. She sees how much this gospel can bless her life. So we are very excited for her to be a member of this church. She now has the gift of the Holy Ghost. A gift that she has been wanting for a while now. So she can live happy now. And endure all the way to the end. I am very proud of her.
 
So last night we talked to Vivi. We had a solid lesson with her. Earlier in the day at church her friend got up to the pulpet to bear her testimony and she said "Vivi I hope you get baptized because this is a wonderful church" You could feel the power of love that she had for vivi. We have been working with her ever since we got here. and she has put off a baptismal date for a while. but we finally got her to settle a date for this sunday. She has already been taught everything. She just needs to do it. It's hard for her because her family is very catholic. Her grandma wants vivi to have nothing to do with the church. But I think vivi is going to put her influences aside and get baptized. Let's pray that that happens!
 
So that is basically what is going on! Oh we got a bunch of new baptismal dates this week. Humberto lives with his younger brother and his girlfriend. They both have been listening in on the lessons and they came to Humbertos baptism. They loved it and they both set a date to be baptized on the 24th of June. We have a lot of work to do with them. Right now We have to get them married. That is such a problem out here in cali. A lot of the Latinos have great intentions. but they literally can't afford to change. Like a marriage would put them both in debt. It's ahrd. but let's hope that it's different with David and Deisi (humbertos brother). Other than that we are just knocking doors, and talking to people ont he street! WE have to keep finding and finding everyday.
 
That is basically it for us here! We are working hard and thanks to the Lord we were able to bring two people into the waters of baptism and one into the church. I am excited to keep on pressing forward as hard as this work may be! I love you all and thanks for the support! Thank you for the updates and I will try to reply as soon as possible. But if you don't please don't worry. my companion is silly about mail. i don't get it. but whatever. I love you all!!! Talk to you soon!