September 19th

Hello everyone,

This week has been a good one. We had a "half" Mission Conference because Elder Christensen of the Seventy came and took a mission tour. The training he gave was great. I sang This is the Christ for the second time and it went well. Sister Ete from Samoa played the piano for it. It was a good 8 hours out of our P-day which did'nt go over well with some of the missionaries but to find out, they are letting us make up the time on Wednesday. The Conference was great. He talked about the spirit a lot and the spirit was there. He talked about we shouldn't be ASKING for referrals we should be EARNING referrals, which is something we need to be better at getting referrals. Other than the conference, nothing really has happened out of the ordinary. We picked up 5 or six new investigators, we haven't really dropped anyone, although we need to. We are in the process of dual teaching a couple named Eric and Maria along with our LA Bianca. Maria and Bianca are sisters baptized 10 years ago because the rest of their family did. They haven't been to church for like 8 years. The English missionaries are poaching Eric and Maria from us, which we don't care about. But, Bianca is over there more than not so we decided to start teaching them as well. SO, we finally got Eric and Maria to set a date to get married so Eric can get baptized. It's progressing. They have had some pretty big breakthroughs. Maria said this week, "I've been baptized for 10 years and now I get it. It makes sense!" We want to track down the missionaries who baptized them and kill em but whatever. Life is good, I'm short on time. Love you all!

-Elder Dial

(Editors Note: The missionaries serving from our ward were asked to respond to the question, "Why I Believe". This has been their ward theme this year and they are putting together a book of some kind...this is Matt's response...simple, but powerful...brought tears to this mama's eyes!)

P.S. I Believe what I believe simply because the Spirit has witnessed it to me through trials I've been through that the Atonement is real and that Christ lives.

Hello all,

So this week has been ok. My companion finally got over his salmonella and we are off to work with a busy week this week. So this last sunday we had an interesting experience with one of our investigators named Gustavo. Gustavo is an eternal investigator of about a year. After the bishop got up and announced the closing song/prayer, he stood up and yelled to the bishop from the back of the chapel,"Bishop, could we have a moment of silence for 9/11?" the bishop agreed and I thought that was all, then at the top of his lungs yelled "DIOS BENDIGA AMERICA!!" (God bless America) at about that time tears are streaming down my face, because I want to die of laughter and embarrassment. But it was good, and we FINALLY put him on date and talked about reverence during church. Then the gospel principles class was a nightmare as well, because our genius ward mission leader doesn't know how to shut his mouth and let the teacher teach. We had 11 investigators to church that day, so at the end of church Meldrum and I had to split up, apologize for the confusing lesson, and see if we could visit with them and correct the wrongs. Well we are still in the process but it's gonna happen (not to mention in gospel principles the teach skipped about 10 chapters and taught the spirit world without even touching on earth life, creation, or any of that).

We had Multi-zones, and President Smart talked about Obedience. It was very good and he also talked about the Redlands forest, and how those trees, some are upwards of 300 feet tall and yet they have one of the smallest root bases of any tree. They can only be that strong and sturdy with the roots of other trees. The roots of those trees are all intertwined in some way. So he talked about we can only be exactly obedient with the help of our companion. That was cool. The work is moving along and now we are back up to par. Thanks and love and miss you all.

-Elder Dial

September 7th

Alrighty everyone,

I'm just getting to email right now but whatever. This past week has been a little useless. Monday was P-day nothing to report (talking about monday the 29th). Tuesday, was kinda busy, we went and visited Hermana Rincon, who gives the missionaries peanuts all the time for some reason, and then helped move our black neighbors in (all of our neighbors are black). We taught a woman named Francesca Casco. This woman, is in an emotional wreck. She was married to her husband for 25 years and then he just got up and left her for some other girl, her two kids are with her husband because she is too much of a wreck to go to work as a physical therapist. Her mom is on marijuana all the time, her cousins who live there; one is recovering from a meth addiction as an alchoholic, one is recovering from a meth addiction and is completely sober. Her brother is the only sane one in the household. He has his own issues, but, he will be the biggest help. We taught a bunch of other lessons that day but I don't remember. Wednesday, was a good day as well. We taught Gustavo, an eternal investigator of about a year, and taught the first lesson. He knows everything and we want to get him baptized before Meldrum goes home. We taught, the Aguilars (part member family) and Pablo (less-active) the second lesson. They were both kind of so-so lessons, mostly because my spanish is still improving. Then we taught Bianca. Family at home, if you will pray for anyone pray for Bianca. She is a LA who got baptized at 13 with her family just because the rest of her family was. She needs to drop her stupid Born-Again Christian beliefs. It's ridiculous. Thursday, we taught Francesca again, This is the actual day we met her family (gay bro, cousins, mom etc.). That part of thursday went well. Then we ate dinner. We ate flautas which are homemade taquitos. Delicious with some homemade salsa and salad and all that good stuff. Friday, Meldrum wants to DIE. He spent about 5 hours with diarrhea in the bathroom Thursday night. I was fine, until later that day when i took a nap because we stayed in the rest of the day after ZDM because of Meldrum's sickness. I woke up after about two hours and puked/dry heaved every half hour until Saturday. HORRIBLE. Sunday was fine we had 3 of 7 progressing investigators at church. It was an ok week. It's weird to think in 4 days I'll have been out 4 months. It's going to go by pretty quick. Well I love you all and miss you all.

-Matt