Letter for March 25, 2013

Hey everyone!! 

It has once again been another great week in the mission field. Ha-ha a funny story to start this week off. So after p-day last week we were on our way to an appointment. We were biking super duper fast around all the corners so we could get to see our investigator Christopher. I was riding around all the corners as well. I had to swerve around some people on a sidewalk to cross the street and get to the other sidewalk. I turned really sharp and as I was pedaling my pedal hit the asphalt and I totally wrecked. Ha-ha it was great. It tore my front pocket right off. Ha-ha thank goodness I didn't have any injuries. Just a few scratches and that was it. Ha-ha it was great fun and a great start to this week. 

Speaking of Chris we had a few great lessons with him. We had a good talk on Monday about Agency and the importance of choosing the right. He is ten years old, so we had to explain it as simply as we could. He was able to grasp the concept really well. We returned during the week and discussed the gospel of Jesus Christ. We read with him in 3 Nephi 27:14-22. He had a great question for us. He asked us "Why did God send Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us?" What a great question that is. We read verse 14 and discussed it with him. How grateful we should be for God sending us His son. That we may be able to live with our Heavenly Father again. Because we know that nothing that is impure can live in the presence of God. So we went on to explain the steps that are needed in order to qualify ourselves to live in His presence again. 1. Have Faith in Jesus Christ. Sooooo important. 2. Repentance 3. Baptism by immersion.  4. Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and 5. Enduring to the End. If we can follow this path continually we understand that we will be able to live with our Heavenly Father again. He really liked that. He also loved it when we taught him about the sacrament. We invited him to church, but he was unable to come with us yesterday. Believe it or not he is way good at the guitar and actually plays in a band at the fiestas. So he couldn't come. We hope and pray though that he will be able to come. He has a date to be baptized on the 7th of April. Very excited for him. We are still talking to his parents as well. They are doing well. We had a chance to talk to them about the plan of salvation. We weren't able to explain much, but they were able to understand most of it. We are excited for them as well because they look very interested in the message. We hope and pray we will be able to help them get to church as well. 

We are still teaching the Acosta family. They are doing very well. We had an interesting lesson with Kim in which she accepted a goal to work towards baptism as well. We got very excited about that because she has never accepted a date with anyone before. We hope and pray that we can help her continue to progress. She was ill yesterday so she was unable to come to church. I know that we will see some progress with her though. She and her family are doing well. 

We are still seeing Mari. She is doing very well. She was able to come to a tour of the Newport Beach Temple grounds. It was a great experience for her in which the spirit felt very strong, at least to me. She kept telling us as we were going around how she wanted to go inside so badly. Even her son, Mario, was expressing to me how he wanted to go in. I have no doubt that she will be baptized. Which is soooo great! We are working on helping her getting another job. So that way she can come to church. That is really the only thing holding her back. So we hope to work it all out so that she can get baptized. She is really doing well. That temple tour was exactly what she needed. 

We also had a great lesson with this great new family we started teaching. They are the familia Valera. We first talked to the mom a while back while we were tracting in their complex. She invited us to come back another time. We came back and taught the sons. We came back and then taught the two boys and the mom. They are super interested. In fact, we came back this week and talked to the whole family, all four of them. They accepted to be baptized when they come to find out that this is all true. They said they were going to come to church, but they didn't come. We are very excited for them and they are a great solid family. We are very excited for them. 

I love being here. We are seeing some really good things happen here. I love this work, and I love this church. I know that this is the only true church. I love the Mission!!! I love you all!!! Hope to hear from you all soon!!

Elder Dallin M. Ollerton

Dallin and Elder Castaneda

Letter for March 18, 2013

Hey All!! 

Wow what a week it has been. We have seen a lot of great things happen this week. We have been working so hard and we have seen some great miracles this week. We have taught a lot of different people and have gotten a lot of new investigators. It’s been a great week. 

First I believe a few weeks ago I talked about a Morales family. We decided to go back and to teach them some more. We were there for an hour, and I believe the father talked for almost the whole hour. It was really good.  He was able to talk to us all about his life and how he kind of grew up with religion in his life. How he doesn’t believe in some of the beliefs of the Catholic Church, but he isn't sure about a church. We have been the only set of missionaries that have stopped by their home more than once. They have relatives that live right by their apartment, which are members of the church. That always helps. In fact, they whole family went to the baptism of the relatives a few weeks ago. That always helps as well. We are putting a lot of focus right now on one of the little kids. His name is Christopher. He is ten years old and he is the man! He is so awesome. He's only ten but he plays the guitar really well. In fact on the weekends he goes out with his dad and a band and they play at the fiestas all over Orange County. It’s super sweet. He came to church yesterday and he really liked it. He has accepted a date to be baptized for the 7th of April but we might change it to the 30^th. We know that if we can start with him, the rest of the family will follow. So please pray that our lesson goes well with him! 

We also have another part member family that we are teaching. They are the Acosta family. The parents are members of the church, but all of their daughters are not. Except for one who will be leaving on the mission soon. We went over and had a great discussion on Lehi's dream. How as parents the importance for their family to be together forever. We talked to one of the daughters we are really focusing on. Her name is Kim. She is about 17 and she is somewhat interested. She is opening up little by little. We had a fun time the other day where the Hermano taught us how to make orange chicken and fried rice. He works at a Chinese restaurant. It was awesome. She is doing well though, she came to church and we hope and pray that we can make more progress with her. 

We are still seeing Mari. She is doing very well also. She knows that she needs to come to church to get an answer. She has it really hard. She has a job in which she only works 2 hours a week. Those two hours happen to occur right when church starts. We are really trying our best to help understand the importance of church. I believe that this is something that she wants to do. I know she will be baptized. She just needs to come to church and she will be right there. She says she will be baptized. Now we are working on getting her towards those waters of baptism. I know she will get there. She's reading and praying. So she’s doing well! 

I love being here. We are seeing some great things happening in this area. Your prayers on our behalf are definitely being heard and I know that as we work together we will continue to see miracles. I love you all and I can't wait to hear from you soon!!

Elder Dallin M. Ollerton

Letter for March 11, 2013

Hey all!

Wow, another week has flown by here in the mission field. I love it despite its challenges.  We are starting to see some great things happen here and we are doing great!

Transfers just passed and I'm still here in Santa Ana. I love it here. I'm also still with Elder Castaneda. We are working hard trying to find those ready to accept the restored gospel. We talk to so many people. I love it. We are still searching.  A lot of people are starting to come out of the woodwork. We just haven’t been able to teach a lot of them about the gospel in depth. We are getting there though!

We were still unable to teach Hilda, Jessica, and Albert again. When we stopped by they weren't home. We are praying so hard that we find them because they are so prepared. Hilda still wants to be baptized, which is still really awesome.  We are hoping and praying for a miracle with her.  Her date to be baptized was to be for this Sunday. It’s crazy how fast the time passes by. We are hoping and praying that we find her. 

We were able to teach Pete. I was on an exchange when Elders Castaneda and Vincent saw him. I guess he is really into finding the right church to join. He's had a lot of humbling experiences lately, which have driven him to God. This is the way God prepares his children to receive the gospel. So, he really wants to know. He is just having trouble with baptism because he knows what kind of commitment that is and he feels like he won't be able to live up to that commitment. I know he will because he will be able to take the sacrament and renew that covenant. So we hope he will be able to understand what a blessing that is! He has a date to be baptized (March 24). We are also teaching his sister who is just as prepared as he is. We are very excited about that. 

Mari is also doing very well. We've had to have patience with her and all because she is trying so hard to find out. She is so ready for the gospel. And she needs it so bad. Her father is giving her talks about why she needs to stay in the Catholic Church. Then we come in and talk about the need to be baptized into ours. We had a great discussion on the Book of Mormon and we explained to her that that is the way she is going to know what we say is true. We hope she will be able to read, pray and come to church. That way she will be able to receive her answer. I know she will. We are going to see some great things with her. 

I love this work. I know that little by little the Lord will bring to pass great and mighty things. We just need to have faith and do our best. Then we know that we did the Lord's will and we did our best and won't have any regrets. That is what I hope to do for the rest of my mission and for my life. I know that this is His work. This is His church. I love you all! We'll talk to you all soon

Elder Dallin M. Ollerton

More photos?

This is Dallin's dad:

A number of people have been asking me to put more pictures on this blog.  I would love to do that but Dallin has not been sending any.  His mother and I have asked him to send us some photos, but he is "to busy".  Thank goodness he is.  Anyway,  if we get some pictures you will get to see them on the blog.  If I don't forget to post.  Sorry about the February 25th letter being posted late and thanks to Dallin's aunt Cori for reminding me that I hadn't posted it yet.

And thank you for being interested enough in our son to follow him on this blog.

Letter for March 4, 2013

Hey everyone!!

It has been a crazy week this week. We are working so hard to find and teach people. We have had quite a few successes this week. We are still working with a lot of the investigators I mentioned the last week. We are working so hard and talking to everyone we can talk to. It’s been crazy!

We were unable to find Hilda, Jessica, and Albert this week. Well, we were unable to teach them. We kept stopping by and stopping by without having any luck. We decided to go over one afternoon and Hilda opened the door. She had a huge grin on her face and said, "Hey guys!" She told us how she was still reading the Book of Mormon and was still praying and she still feels like this is something that she wants to do, which was a relief to us. We were so worried that she was either ignoring us or something had happened and she didn't want to see us anymore, but we set an appointment for yesterday. We passed by but she was unable to talk. We were still gong to try to get her to church this week so that she can progress towards the waters of baptism. I know that she will get there.

We are also seeing Mari. She is doing pretty good. We tried to see her a few times this week. We tried to get her to go to church last week but she was unable to. In fact, we learned that she went to another church. We decided to stop by one day and she expressed to us how torn she is between churches. She knows how important it is to join the right church of Christ, which is sooo good. She is just feeling like we are tugging her to one side and the Catholic Church are tugging her to another. Her father is really into the Catholic Church. So we have decided to start all over with her. She has been taught so much by other missionaries that maybe starting over with what our entire message (the restoration) is really about would help her because we have that evidence that the church has been restored. So we hope to help her be able to receive the answer of the truth.

We had a cool experience with a member the other day. We stopped by the other night after knocking doors and we shared with them the restoration of the gospel. It was so powerful and the Spirit was so strong there. We asked the members if they had anyone we could teach. They said they did. We had this investigator stop by then we came back and taught him. His name is Hector. He is a really young guy like me. He has a wife as well. He seemed really interested and told us how he is looking for God. We got really excited. We hope that we can help him progress more and more.

Last night we had a cool lesson as well with the family of some members. Their name is the Morales family. We shared the restoration with them and they were really interested. They didn't accept baptism right now, but we know that they have really good potential. They have about four kids and they are a great family.

That is basically all that is happening over here. We are doing a ton of knocking doors, street contacting, etc. Hoping and praying that we can continue to find more people to teach. We are doing our best. I know that if we can rely on the Lord more we will have more success. I love this work as hard as it can be sometimes. I know this is his work. I know that this is His church. I will always say that. I will always know that. Love you all.

Elder Dallin M. Ollerton

Letter for February 25, 2013

Hey all!!

Wow, what a crazy week it has been! My very first week on a bike in my mission! Ha-ha it was great. I love being in this new area with Elder Castaneda! We are really trying to find our way around here. We don't know the members that well. We didn't have that many investigators, and we were really lost. Ha-ha we just looked at each other and said "Lets go to work!" ha-ha and we did. We found about 11 new investigators this week. We did a lot of door knocking, member visiting, and bike riding just to try to set a good foundation for this area. We were able to meet the investigators that were already being taught when I arrived here. It was awesome. We have some great things happening here.

So my comp is Elder Castaneda. He is from Arizona. He is not too much shorter than me and he is a pretty skinny guy. He knows perfect English and Spanish so I’ve been very blessed to have him as my comp. He is always working and talking to everyone. It's really nice here because everyone here speaks Spanish. I haven’t seen too many people, if any that only speak English. Ha-ha it's been awesome! They call it "Little Mexico" here and I love it. So he is a really hard worker. He's been on a bike his whole mission, too. So he's in a lot better shape than I am. Ha-ha but I’m getting there! We found a lot of great people.

The first people I would like to talk about today are Hilda, Jessica, and Albert. They are a family the Elders before me found at a bus stop. They are what we call "prepared" people. I went over with my companion to talk about the plan of salvation. That went very well. As we were teaching Hilda, the mom, was just glowing with happiness. You could just tell that the spirit was really touching her heart and she really wanted this in her life. She would lean over to her kids and say "Guys I really think this is what we need to do." They have a date to be baptized on the 17th of March. So they are very prepared and we are very excited to see them more. We were unable to see them for the rest of the week, but we are trying to find them so that we can teach them more. They are awesome.

We also have Mari. She is a lady that the Elders have been teaching for a while. She is a single mom of six. Yeah, six. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my mission thus far. Because that whole family only rents one room in an apartment, not the whole apartment. So they all live there. She is looking for something better to help her and bless her more. She was going towards baptism. Her kids had also attended mutual at the church, which is really awesome. We went over and talked to her this week about the importance of scripture study and praying. She is having a tough time with praying. We are hoping that we will be able to help her out with that. I know that we will. She was unable to come to church because of work as well. We know that we will be able to get her there. She is doing very well.

We also had a great family home evening with a member my first night here. It was the relatives of some members. Their names are Jessica, Julian, and Eric. We had a great lesson about the restoration and they accepted to be baptized. It was awesome. We were able to find them afterwards, but we know that we will be able to find them.

We are doing very well. We are going to do our very best to start to get more and more people all solidified for baptism. We just have to rely on the Lord. I know that if we can do that, we will see success. Thank you for your prayers. Please keep praying for us. I love you all

Elder Dallin M. Ollerton