Week 78 - The Gospel Fills Us

Not to lie, I was in shock when I read today's letter.
a few days ago, I was thinking about when I was working with you and Rob at the shop when I was stocking the inventory on the second floor. I was thinking about how you two were always talking, and working together and how Uncle Rob was always there to cheer me up or touch my sides haha. He was a great uncle. I really feel weird about it... it's weird to think he's gone. I never really lost a  close family member.
Remember that our Lord Jesus Christ has suffered all things for us. He knows how we feel. He has gone thought these things.
Tell Aunt Lisa that I love her, and I'll pray for her, and the family.
I liked about what you said, about how the gospel helps us to deal with these pains. It gives us the responses to our questions and doubts.
Dad, I know it's hard. He was your brother, friend and helper in work. He is in a place where he can relax from his pains and afflictions for a little season. He`ll watch over us like Gloria, and my little sister.
Families are forever. There is no doubt about it.
...
This week, on Friday, we had a miracle. my companion and I were with Elder Montgomery because his comp finished the mission. So we were walking for a long time... the appointments fell though, and my companion said, '' vamos a contactar es hombre, no habíamos contactado.``(let's go contact that man we haven't been able to meet.) so we went.. he wasn't there. So I looked both directions, and started walking left. My comp said `` donde vamos,``(where are we going) yo(me): por aqui, no se quien pero vamos.``(This way, I don't know who but let's go.)
Then all of a sudden a man walked out the door and yelled to us to come over. He asked us if we were Mormons, we said yes and he said ´´ tiene tiempo para hablar conmigo?``(Do you have time to talk to me?) long story short, he told us he had listened to  sister missionaries about 5 months back, and said ``cuando yo estoy con uds, yo siento gozo, me llené``(When I am with you guys, I feel joy, I am full.) He now has a baptism date and we are preparing him for his promise with God.
The gospel means good news.
The gospel of Jesus Christ means the good news of Jesus Christ.
The good news is that this gospel helps us. It fills us. It brings to us eternal life, the greatest gift we can have.
It's His gospel, that's why it fills us, because nothing else, worldly or physically, can fill us. Only Him.
I love you guys. I'm beginning to understand, I think more of His love for us and why it's important that we love Him back.
Send my regards to Lisa and her kids.
Love your son,
Dallin



Note from Dallin's dad:  It has been a hard few days for us here in St. George.  My older brother passed away on Thursday evening.  It was extremely difficult for me to write this weeks email to Dallin.  I was very worried about how Dallin would react to the news.  From this letter he sent it is clear that he is very close to the Spirit and I can't help but feel that his Uncle Rob had a hand in guiding him to his Miracle on Friday. 

Week 77 - The adventures of being a missionary in Cali Colombia

Well hello,

I am reading your letter, and to answer a couple of questions, yes, I am enjoying cooking. We are actually going to make some stuff today. We will be making a dessert from Maracuya.(Passion Fruit) I just love Maracuya.  We were talking about this in English class the other day. I realized that I had eaten passion fruit before I came on my mission. I love it even more so now.

Yes, we clean a lot. We clean differently here. Here it is a lot of cleaning. At home it was more vacuuming but here it is more scrubbing the floors. It's all good.

Yes, I do clean and polish my shoes, as in shoe shining.  I asked a men here for some new tips on how to shine shoes and he had a long list of things to do. I told him I only had like 10 minutes to shine my shoes.  So yeah.  I am actually starting to see a little tear in my shoes now. But they should last me till I come home. I also would like to buy a nice pair of shoes down here. We will see.

Hey, I wanted to ask you how testimony meeting was this month. We had some really good testimonies this month. Here the members understand that they should share a short testimony of about two minutes. We did have a couple of members that went for 5 to 6 minutes. It was a really good meeting.

Yes, I believe I am teaching English very well. We have fun.  It is a good class.

Yes, some days we are very pressed for time. Especially on P days. We live a little far from our area. We walk for like 20 minutes just to get to our pensionista.  Lots of walking.

Our investigators are progressing.  I guess sometimes I don't tell you a whole lot about our investigators. So here's a segment I'd like to call,

"The investigators of Elder Pead and Elder Berreo. The adventures of being a missionary in Cali Colombia. Serving in Palmira". Subtitle "Everything is Awesome."

The familia Arsa is doing good. They will be getting their marriage papers  this week. They just need some more fellow shipping from the elders quorum.  A lot of the young women know them well and fellowship them good but we need to get more adults to visit them. We will be working on that. They are reading the book of Mormon and that is really great. Their son Santiago just had his 10th birthday. He is super cool. So we gave him one of my ties. We cut it down and fixed it for him.  I will send a picture. He is so cute.  I love that kid. He is like the strongest one in the family. He picks the best scriptures and gives the best testimonies. He helps the family realize how the church is very important.  We are helping the family have more of a union with the branch.

Familia Garcia,  they are doing good as well. The father is getting some good fellowshipping.  The second counselor in the branch went and visited with him and invited him to some good activities. They were ready to come to church this week, dressed and everything but the mother of the father had an emergency and they had to go help her.  Other than that they're doing good. We are going to have a noche de hogar (family home evening) with them on Wednesday.  We just need to help them get stronger testimonies.

My companion is helping me a lot.  If we have references it is so easy for me to start talking to the people and have great conversations. But it is still kind of hard to do cold contacting in the street. We are working on that.  I know that there are people who are ready to hear from the missionaries. So we are facing our fears and reaching out to people.
I couldn't have asked for a better companion. I love him so much.  He has taught me a lot. I would dare to say he has possibly taught me more than any companion I've had. I have had a lot of great companions.  To me the greatest companions I've had that have taught me the most are, Elder Valenzuela.  He taught me so much on how to speak to people. How to help them know the gospel is true.  Elder Mendez taught me how to plant the seed in the investigator. To feel the spirit, to really feel it.   With Elder Requilme, I learned how to progress when we didn't  have anything to do.  How to act when you don't have anyone that is progressing.  How to de-stress when you are stressing.  With Elder Berreo I have learned to become a better person. He is helping me to learn how to better call the spirit when we are teaching lessons.  These companions have really helped me through a lot.  I hope we stay together this next transfer. Transfers are next week.  I really hope we don't change.

That's about it for this week. I'm really happy, and hungry. We're going to go eat some chicken!

Love you mom, love you dad, love you Jarrett.

Have a great week.

With love,

Elder Pead

Week 76

Hey guys,

We have had a really good week. We went on divisions with the zone leaders. Elder Lyons and Elder Rojas.  Elder Lyons was my old district leader from Pasto.  We learned so much. I can tell you that as a missionary there is always something new to learn. It doesn't matter how much time you have in the mission there is always something new that you can learn.

I wanted to share with you something I studied this week. It is found in Matthew chapter 6.  What I like about this is how God prepares things for us. In the last few verses it talks about the fowls of the air and how they do nothing yet God provide for them. We are much better than them so why wouldn't God provide for us? This really touched me. We have been sharing this a lot with our investigators. God provides for his people. I've really come to appreciate this.
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What I want to share with you guys is that God gives us the things that we need in his time. He really does provide for us and we need to have an Eternal perspective.

We are still working with the part member family. We are starting to work with them on their marriage license papers. So wish us luck on that.

I am really happy to be here. It was great to visit with the zone leaders. I really appreciated the things that they were able to teach me.

We are kind of struggling with finding new investigators. That is what we are working on and hope to accomplish this coming week.

To sum up how I feel right now. I am really really really happy, I am really really tired, and I really really want to eat some food right now.

I love it, the work is grand!  Have a great week and tell everyone I love them.

Elder Pead

Week 75 - Teaching English

Hey mom and dad,

I am having a good day.  You asked me, "how goes the battle in Palmira?".  Well it is going good. We had the less active families we are working with come to church. They came for sacrament meeting and we were super happy. In total we had, well a lot of people come to church. It was great! The nonmember father of one of the families came.  He was really excited to come. He is going to progress a lot. We are going to continue to figure out how to help them along.  Do whatever we need to do.  He says he wants to get baptized. We just need to help them get married.
They are great families. The young men and young women that are in these families have committed to attend seminary. So we are going to be helping them get the seminary.

I received the package you sent. Thank you. I am happy to have a camera again. I will be sending you pictures today.

You asked about me eating Arepas.  Yes, I do eat them. They are grand, you could say I love them. There's a restaurant we go to every once in a while called La Arepita.  It is really good. Yes mom, you should be happy that your son has learned to eat Arepas.

Things are going ok with the other elders in the district. Working on keeping their animo (excitement) up. They are great guys.

Sending you some funny pictures. Living in an apartment with three other elders sometimes can be an adventure.

Things are going good, love you guys. Oh the branch president loves us. He loves that we have English classes for the members. Because of things like this, he has more trust in us. Every sacrament meeting he talks about the English class and how we have such a great teacher and points me out. I always feel like augh, that is so great.

Have a great week.

Elder Pead

Wearing Elder Pead's Stretchy Pants

elder pead in the corner

Elder Pead learning to cook

Teaching Ingles