Hey
everyone!
Wow what a
week it has been! It has been such a great one! I love being out here in this
area with Elder Garza. He is what we call a hoot! Ha-ha but we have seen some
great things happen.
Yesterday was
the craziest and the best day ever! First, we were at church yesterday waiting
for the services to start when an Elder in my district told me "Elder
Ollerton, do not look to your left." So then instantly I look to my left.
Then to my surprise I hear a little boy yell "Ollerton!" It was my
little man Jose! The boy I baptized in Garden Grove. Ha-ha He, Anita, Sara, and
Dania came over to our ward to see me. Ha-ha it was funny! We caught up on
everything. I learned that Anita is progressing well in the gospel. She's so
close! That is what she told me. Now she's talking about "when" she
will be baptized rather than "if" she will be baptized, which is
soooo great. So it was sooo good to see them. We had such a miracle. I told you
all last week that Elder Castaneda told me they were going to baptize five
people that we taught when I was there. Well, they had the baptism! It was
sooooooo amazing! Four of them got baptized: Joby, Carmen, Christian, and Mari.
It was soo amazing. You could tell they were just so excited and they were so
full of joy and the Spirit. They were all radiating with the spirit. I couldn't
help but smile the whole time I was there. I had the great pleasure of giving a
talk on the Holy Ghost. Elder Thorne (Elder Castaneda’s trainee) and Elder
Castaneda baptized them. I also was able to be one of the witnesses with my old
MTC companion Elder Farnsworth. It was soo great. Afterwards they all told me
that they were just so warm and so happy. I could see it on their faces too. I felt
that love and warmth all through the day. What a miraculous day.
We had zone
conference this week. That was really fun. We had a great time and we really
could feel the spirit. I loved the talks by the assistants. The best was the
talk given by the mission president's wife, Sister Bowen. She talked about the
importance of staying away from "spiritual crocodiles" she showed us
a clip from President Packer's talk. Ha-ha She even showed us the song from the
movie Peter Pan called "Never smile at a crocodile". She even had us
sing the song during the meeting. Ha-ha it was fun! I love the talk that
President Bowen gave. He is the man! I love that guy. Every time he talks the
spirit just smacks us! I love it. He spoke a lot on repentance. I loved what he
talked about it. How the importance of us as missionaries is to preach
repentance. That is what we do. We just do our best to help all participate in
this gospel. It’s the best! It's so true! I love it.
We are just
working so hard to find more people to teach. I love this area. There are a
handful of streets that have Latino people. So we usually make our way around
all the streets everyday. Ha-ha Pretty soon everyone is gonna know me
personally, but we are doing really well and trying our best to find. We had a
great story this week as far as investigators go. So we told you about Daniel
and Alan. We learned something very interesting this week. The third member the
"recent convert" named Eliseo. It turns out that the missionaries in
Mexico baptized him about two months ago. But an emergency came up and he had
to leave to come here to California. So he never got confirmed a member of the
church. When we taught him we found this out. We called our bishop and he said
he would like us to re-teach him everything and re-baptize him and confirm him
a member of the church. We weren't sure why though, until we went to the
mission office the next day. Sister Butterfield, a senior missionary in the
office told us that the reason why we do this is because there is no record of
him to be found in the church. So we talked to him and we set a date for him to
be baptized on the 2nd of June. It's really exciting! He has a few bumps to get
over. Like he smokes every once in a while and stuff. We know though that he is
a pretty solid investigator now. So that is pretty exciting! We are really
excited. He was unable to come to church, but we are going to get him
there!
Another cool
story is that we talked to Daniel for a few minutes and we asked him if he knew
a person that we could visit and teach. He directed us to another apartment
complex and we went over to an apartment he told us to visit. We stopped by and
this lady that answered the door said she had some friends that are Mormon and
that invited her to church as well. We asked and found out it was a family of
members that are in our area and that we know really well. She said they called
and invited her to church and she said she was going to go. Ha-ha we left the
apartment in shock. We came to find out that it was a referral that the family
had given us earlier that week. They had no idea where she lived. Well God
guided us to her home. That is no coincidence! Ha-ha So awesome. We are going
to have a family home evening with her and that family too. Very
exciting.
As you can
see, God is totally guiding us in this work. I can remember one of my earlier
companions telling me of an experience he had with President Monson. One time
president Monson looked at my companion in the eye and said, "there are no
coincidences" I believe it. God is all-powerful. This is His work. We are
just his instruments. I know it. I love it. I love you all. We will hear from
you soon!
Elder Dallin M. Ollerton
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