Hey Everyone!!
Wow, here we
are in 2013. Crazy to think how fast the time has been passing by lately. We
are so excited as a mission. We have set some pretty high goals for this next
year. I'm so excited to be apart of it. We are going to see some great things
out here. I just know it.
So usually I
send an email earlier, but today is a little different. We are blessed enough
to have a temple in our mission. It's the Newport Beach Temple. We usually go
once every three months or so. Today was one of those days. The Quorum of the
Twelve told us that when we have a day where we want to go to the temple we
have to make that day our preparation day. We had to go to the temple today so
we switched our p-day to today. I love going to the temple. I always have. Especially
right before I became a missionary. It is such a beautiful and wonderful place
to grow and to learn more about everything. What a great place it is to receive
revelation for ourselves and for our own lives. I believe at times we can
become too distracted with the many things that are going on in the world
today. Sometimes so distracted that we cannot hear the whisperings of the spirit.
When we go to the temple we are able to listen, to hear, and understand what we
need to do personally. We understand that it's literally the House of the Lord.
I love it. I love going. Not only is it great for us, but it’s great for those
who have already passed on. We can do the work for them, so they can be able to
live as an eternal family as well, which in the end is the ultimate goal for
all of us right?
We are
working very hard in making this goal a reality. We've been working with
Brenda. She has a goal to be baptized this coming Sunday. Like with every other
person I’ve helped to prepare to be baptized Satan likes to work as hard as he
can to prevent it from happening. If one can enter into the waters of baptism
Satan becomes much weaker. We have been seeing that so far in the preparation for
her baptism. She is ready to pass the interview. The next step is to help her
get really excited for it. She feels very nervous about being baptized. She was
unable to attend church so we have to do our best to get her as many friends as
she can to give her some animo (Dallin's dad translated this with Google
translate to mean: encouragement) to get her baptized. It's been very difficult
because we haven't been able to see her at all this week. She has all of a
sudden been getting called into work to do double shifts. So not only is she
beat, but she is also busy. We are hoping and praying that we can help her get
her some friends this week. It’s normal to be nervous, but with friends,
especially in the church, she'll be able to overcome these feelings and
understand how great this is. She loves it all, but she's just a little
nervous. I would ask you all if you can keep her in your prayers. Not only that
we can meet with her, but also that she can feel comfortable with her baptism
and do it. We know that baptism isn't the ultimate goal, but it's the first
step to reach that goal. We hope and pray that this miracle will be brought to
pass this Sunday.
Daisy is
doing pretty good. She’s been having a hard time lately with life. It's hard
for her because she is always busy with so many things like sports, homework,
helping around the house, etc. She is reading and praying about the Book of
Mormon. We had a great lesson with her when a recent convert came with us. I
believe that was inspiration from on high. I say that because we had planned on
him coming with us to see Brenda. Then she called and cancelled. So we called
daisy and she said we could come over. We got him and came over. He told us how
the Book of Mormon was able to help him understand that what we are sharing is
true, what he had to do, etc. It was nice because she had never heard about
anybody else’s conversion stories besides Elder Burrup's and mine. Christian is
awesome. He actually was apart of the Jewish religion. Not directly, but he
joined them. Then he got talking to the missionaries because his family is
members. Then eventually he was baptized and now is getting ready to serve a
mission. It's always nice to be able to have a member of the church to come
with you and bear testimony. It's been a struggle for us lately, but we love it
when we have it. It’s so powerful. Daisy isn't really sure about baptism
anymore. She seemed a little upset at something the other day. I hope we can
help her understand and I hope the spirit will be able to tell her how
important this is. Because if its not by the spirit, then it's not of God
(D&C 50).
We are also
attempting to see Armando and Sandra. Ha-ha it's really funny because when we
first met them Armando was looking for work. I promised them that if they would
listen to us and come to church that he would find a job. He did. Ha-ha so
powerful and awesome huh? Now we have a problem, we can never talk to them
because he is so busy working. I believe that Sandra wants us to talk to both
of them and not just her. So last week we set up an appointment to see them at
nine in the morning. We were just going to move our study time around. We stopped
by and she answers the door and whispers "pasanles" which means
"come in" but she said it so softly that I could barely hear her. We
came to find out, the hard way, that they were renting one of the rooms in the
apartment, not the whole apartment. That is pretty common here. So when we came
in we woke up a lady who was sleeping in her bed that was in the living room.
Ha-ha we decided to come back that day. We left, came back, and the lady was
pretty upset. So upset that she told Sandra that we could no longer pass by. So
what they are going to do is they are going to move into another place. They've
had problems in the past with her anyway. But we haven’t been able to see them.
I think they really liked listening because of the blessing of receiving work
after we began to teach them. So we aren't losing them. They are just busy. So
we are going to do our best to see them soon.
We found a
cool new family this past week. We got a referral form church headquarters from
a recent convert family that is from the Carlsbad mission. I actually decided
to go on exchanges with Elder Huesca in his area, but Elders Burrup and Centeno
went out and taught them. The familia Villegas. I guess they are really nice and
are open to listen to us. We are excited to see them soon. I've never met them,
but I can’t wait too.
That's about
all. I'm loving the work out here in California. We are hoping to see some
great things come to pass here soon! I love being here. I love this work. I
know it's true. Thank you for all of your support in my behalf. I love you all.
Have a great week.
Elder Dallin
M. Ollerton
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