Pre-transfers Email

Hola, yateeh, guuwahtsi, ellohae, hello (insert language here) everyone!

Out of all my weeks on my mission, this was one of them.  XD

Hope everything up there is pretty chilly, because it's pretty chili down here.  ;)  (I'm feeling pretty punny/ movie quotes today, so keep your hands at the level of your eyes in order to see them. :)

This week was pretty good!  We found 2 new investigators this week (we found them by teaching at the jail- they've been released and want to learn more!), and we put them on date for November 4th!  They're not going to make it, because they have to be living the commandments for at least 2 weeks before their baptism, and they would have to have started living the commandments on Saturday... Which is hard to do when you're living together but not married...  If they get married while I'm here, the title of my email may or may not be something from the Princess Bride, so you have to have both eyes open, just in case you miss it. ;) (in order to be baptized on the 4th, they would've had to be married last Saturday... 3 days after we started teaching them.)

Brother Nielson, the member of our branch presidency that was in a motorcycle accident 2 months ago, came to church yesterday!  Since the accident, he was told that he wasn't going to survive, then it changed to he'll have to be in the hospital for at least 2 months, to getting released from the hospital after 37 days and back at church after 2 months of the accident, he's a walking miracle!  He does have 6 titanium plates and 33 screws in his face, but he's walking with a cane and is doing fantastic!

Paul, the less active brother from the To'hajiilee branch, came to church yesterday, and he came with 8 of his less active grandchildren who were between the ages of 13-25!  In that branch, we had 17 people on the branch directory there- 11 of which were related to Paul- and that's a lot for our branch!  I've been to church where there were literally 2 of our branch there- outside of us and the branch presidency and their wives.  Progress!!!

We went on exchanges with Elders Furlong and Kropf on Tuesday, and then with Elders Robinson and Nelson on Saturday, it was a lot of fun!  I still don't speak Spanish, but that's alright. It was a lot of fun to be able to act like I understood it.  ;)

Transfers is next week, I'm probably going to be transferred, especially after 36 weeks in one area, but I'll find out for sure on Saturday!  "Stay tuned for scenes from [my next email]."

Te whanaunga mo ake tonu!
--

Elder Eli James Dial

Frozen and Robots

Hola, everyone!

How's the weather up there???  Down here it was consistently around 70 or above, until last Tuesday, when BOOM. 45 degrees all day. Yeah, we froze, but now it's consistently around 55 or above, so no snow for us.  :)

This week has been a good one!  Many new things were tried, a lot of fun was had, and missionary work happened! 

First off, last Sunday we had an amazing lesson with an investigator and were able to put him on date for baptism!  Two days later, we found out from the less-active family he was living with, that he had to go back to his house with his parents (that's code for he got kicked out).  Unfortunately, he lives in Blue Water... in the Gallup stake, in the Farmington Mission... :(

But Taylor, the 10 year old from the Gallup stake, is going to be baptized here!  They are going to transfer her records over here to the Laguna Branch, so that is going to be epic!

We have zone conference tomorrow, so that'll be fantastic, and it  will be a lot of fun!  Elder Cornelison and I will be giving a training, stay tuned for scenes from our early Christmas episode... :D  (Yes, our training is on something for Christmas)

The last week or so, I've been realizing that missionaries have a robot mode, especially when teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the 3rd lesson. A lot of times, we start off with faith in Christ, which is a good starting point, but NOT the best starting point.  The first point tells the why of the Gospel of Christ: Through Christ we can be cleansed from sin.  Having faith in Christ, repenting, following Christ through baptism and through partaking of the sacrament, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost don't mean as much to me unless I am cleansed from my sin.  That just so happens to be the main message that Corianton in the Book of Mormon was supposed to share with the Zoramites (Alma 39: 15-16).  As shared in the scripture, this "prepares our minds" for what? For anything that comes our way!!  If our minds aren't prepared, it becomes extremely difficult to do anything!  So study the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be prepared!

Te whanaunga mo ake tonu!

Elder Eli James Dial

Sanity: Who needs it??

(Elder Dial sent this email on 10/9/2017)

Happy late birthday in September to Adi and cousin Levi!

Pictures:  that's Elder Nelson and I on exchanges, we hiked a mountain for morning workouts.  Cause we can do that. :)

2: that's the truck we have, and the trailer we live in.  After 8 months of me being here, there's the picture of what we live in.  XD

3:  The sunset. FYI, that water is not usually there... Either that person decided to flood irrigate, or the rain just stayed there after like 3 days without rain.  I think it was the rain- we got enough that that would happen. XD

The reason for the title of this email, is that I've been going crazy being here for as long as I have been... I was starting to lose my mind about 4 months ago, but now I've gone completely bonkers...that's alright, my sanity was never really consistent anyways, as is shown in picture 4. 

We were on exchanges with the spanish elders, and we did a role play with this guy as the investigator... His name is Wormtail.  We started teaching him by saying, "We don't have much time, and we know you've been busy trying to kill Harry Potter, but..."  

This week started off discouraging, but it ended on a good note yesterday!  We've been telling people about the ratio rule, and a couple people have gotten offended. I feel kinda bad, but that's their choice for not liking our obedience to God.  If we are converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then that wouldn't be a problem-  but that's alright, we'll help them out as much as we can- that's why we're here!

We found a new investigator yesterday, and he's on date to be baptized for the 28th of October!  He seems pretty solid, we'll find out tonight, when we teach him again!

That's it for me this week, talk to y'all next week!

Te whanaunga mo ake tonu!

Elder Eli James Dial

Pre-Conference Confusion

Wasabi, everyone!

This week was... a week, that's for sure.  Monday and Tuesday went pretty "normal".  Wednesday, the truck started acting up, so we called the vehicle coordinator who told us to drive to Albuquerque.  It's a good thing we had budgeted our miles, because we coughed up 300 in 3 days.  So on Thursday, we drive the 50-60 miles to ABQ and drop off the truck at the place we were told to, and got picked up by the zone leaders and did weekly planning at their apartment.  Then, we were called about the truck, telling us the fixed the initial problem, but that there was a leak in the truck that we would have to take it back on Friday for them to fix.  We were told that we could drive it, so we did, which we used to drive back to Laguna, to pack 1 day's worth clothes, and we drove back to ABQ that night- thus destroying 170 of our last 350 miles for the month.  

Elder Dial's shoes after Wednesday

That brings us to Friday, which was potentially the worst day of my whole mission. We take in the truck to the place as early as possible (8:30 or so) so it can be fixed and back up to speed.  We go to our zone council meeting, and lunch, which takes us to 12:30ish, and still no call about the truck.  We decided to go do some service with our zone leaders, and that took about 3-4 hours.  Now it's about 4:30, and no call about the truck.  We elected to call them, and they told us, "We can't fix that leak, you should probably take it to the dealership. You can still drive it, though. "  -_-   We decide to take the truck, go to our one appointment in To'hajiilee, then go back to our trailer to grab clothes till Tuesday night, (just in case we needed them).  We were already about an hour late to our appointment (we told them what was going on). But, with the area getting rain last week, and the dirt roads... yeah, we ended up getting stuck for about 45 minutes, even in 4 wheel drive.  At that point, it was about  6:30 when we got stuck. We didn't have phone service either, so it was quite the adventure. When we got out, around 7:15, it would take us 30 minutes to get home, and then the hour to get to ABQ, so we went home instead of to the appointment (Elder Cornelison had gotten out to start pushing, he was all muddy and wanted a shower) (we were able to reschedule with them, though), hoping to get something for dinner before we headed back to ABQ, which didn't happen. With everything that happened that day, when we got back to the zone leaders apartment, we hadn't had dinner, or even personal or comp study.  That took about 140 more miles out, so even if we wanted to go back to our area on Saturday, we couldn't. 

Elder Cornelison's shoes after pushing the truck out

To top it all off, that night, I'm writing in a notebook what I've learned that day, and how I've seen God's hand that day, as I have every day since August. As I'm writing, "I learned today that I hate car troubles" my FLIPPING pen dies.  Needless to say, sleep and General Conference was a glorious welcome to these missionaries.  (The leak in the truck STILL isn't fixed, though.)

On a much happier note, General Conference was fantastic! I am not sad that Elder Hales passed away, though.  I think he had the ideal passing.  The last song he heard was sung by the best choir in all the world, a song that should be our motto throughout life, and was his: "I Believe in Christ". My favorite phrase from that song says:

"And while I strive through grief and pain

His voice is heard, 'Ye shall obtain." 

But, the only catch, is that that part has to be sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  They make that phrase right there, the first climax of the whole song.  If you don't believe me, go and listen to it. 

This week may have been a difficult one for us, but that's alright!  We grow all the time, no matter the grief and pain we all have, if we press forward in faith, "[we] shall obtain". 

Te whanaunga mo ake tonu!  :)

Elder Eli James Dial