Last email as a missionary :'-(

Hello everyone,

        Usually as a missionary, weekly; one sends an email about the past week. They will share miracles, testimony, stories, and all kinds of other things that they experienced during that previous week. Seeing as this is my last email, I'm going to be talking about the past two years as a whole.

        Regularly, most missionaries say that the mission is the best two years of their life, it's the most cliché thing one can say, but also one of the TRUEST thing that one can say. That is, if they worked hard. The mission has changed me in all aspects of my life. I know that it is what the Lord has planned for EVERYONE.  If you haven't served a mission and are coming up to the age of 18 or 19 and haven't decided to serve a mission or not; GET ON YOUR KNEES AND ASK, I know he'll answer with a firm yes.  It has been my experience that the Lord prepared people from the beginning for me. They have been waiting for me and because I was doing what I was supposed to be doing He guided me to them. Now they have the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. Don't EVER think you're excluded from serving the Lord full-time. I don't care if you're in school, lazy, or playing a professional sport! The call is to all, who’s  willing to step up and fulfill the call?

          Can I also say that I have the best family in the world? They are the most supportive family out there. My brother Mike in the mission field (Philly, PA) is giving us an example of being a disciple of Christ. I'm so grateful for all the examples of missionaries I have in my family. Uncles, parents, aunts, grandparents, cousins, siblings, thank you all. I know that Christ lives. I know that he is aware of all we are going through. He loves us eternally. It is NEVER too late to lay down everything and come to Him. He is in charge.

 I'm so excited to see all the family.

I love you all,

-Elder Matt Dial

Sorry, short and sweet!

Hey mom,

I know you'll be angry if I don't send you an email so here's a short one. This week was super cool. We had a bunch of cool miracles. We were walking on Saturday night, we had dinner at six. It was a farewell dinner for one of the young men going on his mission. We showed up and it hadn't started. So we decided to go to our 7 oclock appointment early and come back at seven. So we went and they weren't there. We went to another house we were going to visit that night, but, they told us to come back at 8. So we just kinda walked around and talked to a couple people and went back to dinner. Well, it STILL hadn't started. So we left to go back to the eight oclock appointment. THEY WEREN'T THERE!! I was quite upset. So we tried a couple people in that same apartment complex and nobody was opening. As we were gloomily walking back to the car, there were people walking through the gate right as we approached the truck. I didn't really want to talk to anyone, but I did out of strict obedience. We talked to them and they immediately invited us into their home. It was a HUGE testimony builder to me that God really has everything worked out before we even think about it. They are super solid too, asking questions like where do we go after this life? I love missionary work.

I love you,

-Elder Matt Dial

I LOVE conference!

Dear Family and friends,

Wow what a week. This week was fetchin great. I love conference. I am sooo positive that Thomas S. Monson is a Prophet of God. He's the MAN! I loved his talk on obedience. It was fantastic. I loved every single talk! But, I guess there were some that stuck out.

 Elder Bednar's was super sick. I love Elder Bednar. Elder Holland always is super good. I can't remember the dudes name but he's a Seventy and talked about mercy, one of my favorites. I love conference, and I'm sad to say, it’s my last one as an authorized representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm so privileged to be a part of this work.

We had a bunch of miracles happen this week. We had Zone Meeting and we had to come up with a zone focus for this month. Last month was New Investigators; it went really well and as a zone we found 120 new investigators for the month in total. That means every companionship averaged 4 new investigators a week, or 25 new investigators for each companionship for the entire month. It was awesome.

This month we are going to focus on “Progressing Investigators”.  To get that rolling we're going to focus on “Members Present Lessons” and, “giving Inspired Commitments”. We, as ZL’s prayed and thought about it, and thought, "Alright we have this plan, it's good it's solid. How do we get the missionaries motivated to DO IT?" We decided to bring in a little backup.  First thing, we're going to fast every Sunday for miracles to happen, specifically, that our investigators progress to baptism. I even fasted lunch, on Sunday and Tuesday; I don't want to hear crap about how it's not possible.

  I fasted on Tuesday that we could get the specific special guests we wanted to, to come and bear their testimonies and give a picker-upper to the missionaries here. We wanted to get President Morris, who is the Stake President and a very successful man. He's a spiritual GIANT. We also wanted a recent convert named Laura Goodrick. I taught her with Elder Webster on exchanges and she was baptized 3 weeks later. When I called them both they were both free on Friday morning. It was sick. President Morris stepped away from his court case for 30 mins and was able to give some great comforting/uplifting words. I then trained on Inspired Commitments. It went just the way I wanted it to, I didn't forget anything I wanted to say, everything was clear, and I firmly believe that it was God acknowledging my fast. It was sooo cool. So, you Diabetics out there, FAST. It works. (Editor’s note: the mother isn’t too keen on this…)

The Flores family watched the afternoon Sunday session of General Conference. They liked it. We haven't had a chance to go to their house since our last lesson with them which was Friday. I kinda wish they would have watched Sunday morning, but, oh well. Last night was super cool; we split up with ward members and got 5 lessons on Sunday night. It's super effective, I think I want to do that like twice a week. Today, an elder jabbed his finger in my eye during basketball and it bleeds from time to time so that's neat. I'm excited to see the miracles come from this week. I love you all.
-Elder Matt Dial

Another great week in Palm Desert!

Dear Family,

First things first…you should know that President Smart has asked me to extend my mission another transfer because there are a ton of new missionaries coming out, and he needs more experienced trainers.......I think it's what I need to do.  Let me know how you feel about this, but I already told him I’m in.

The rest of this week was great. We didn't have all the numbers we wanted, however, I felt the Spirit and was truly humbled. First sweet experience… I was on exchanges with mah boi Elder Tyler Romney. Yes, he's related to Mitt. We were out working and went out to an appointment we had at 11. It canceled, so we visited some potentials, and neither of them were home. So we went home and ate lunch. On the way to the apartment, the truck went off saying "low fuel." So we got home and ate and went out to fill up and set out to work. We get to the Chevron, card unauthorized. This has happened before because the account was empty, so I added up all the money we had spent on gas for the month and we were totally fine. So I swiped it again. Nothin. We head over to another gas station, the same thing. We head to another, we don't take credit. Head to another, I put the card on the counter at AMPM of the cashier and said I need $60 on pump 7. We don't take credit. So I grabbed the card, went out to the truck and had it in my hand literally the whole time. We head to Food 4 Less gas station. Go to grab the card out of the center console, and it's not there.........if you've never been to Food 4 Less it's kinda like Costco where everyone waits in line to fill. So we spend literally like 20 minutes tearing the truck apart looking for this card at the pump. Elder Romney and I have both said personal prayers. I knelt and said another....and nothing. So we pull out of the lane to stop looking like idiots and stop blocking everyone else. I call the AMPM and ask hey we're the Mormon missionaries do you guys have a credit card over there? Nope we don't sorry.....FETCH, now what?  We sat there for a while. Elder Romney asks, "Have you ever asked specifically for a miracle from God?"

"No," I said.

"Let's do it."

"OK"

"Ya"

"Cool"

"Esta bien"

"Buenisimo"

So Elder Romney said a beautiful prayer and we sat there for like 5 minutes in silence. I said, "What do you think we should do?"

"I don't know"

"What is your hunch?"

"I think we should go back to the AMPM and literally walk in there."  (keep in mind this is the same one I just called.)

"Alright"

So we go and we walk around where we parked when we previously were there.....nothing. I'm getting worried.

We walk in and both the cashiers look at us and don't say anything while they tend to their customers. If our card were there they would've handed it to us right as we walked in right? SO I was doubting even more. We wait in that line for like 10 minutes and they didn't say anything. We finally get there and ask. The guy just smiled and pulled it out of his sneaky drawer. Fetchin tears came out of my eyes and I know God answered our prayers. I have NO IDEA how that card got out of my hands. I clearly remember putting it in the center console. I know the Lord gives us experiences to try us. I hope to have more faith and not doubt so much in the future ones. It was soooo cool. I love the Lord. I love the mission. God works in EXTEMELY mysterious ways.

By the way, the card still didn't work so I just filled it up with my own money.

 SERVE MISSIONS. It's the greatest. The mission is the man.  I wish I could start where Elisabeth Allred is starting. I would TOTALLY drop everything and serve another one. I love you and you love me.

.-Elder Matthew Dial

p.s.  A big April Fools on the first paragraph!

p.p.s. He really had us scrambling and figuring out how we could make it work 5 weeks later....we could almost hear him laughing out loud in the library!!!!  He's a character!

WOOOOOOOW!!!!

 Dear Family and friends,

Man this week was great. I love missionary work. We picked up 10 new investigators this week. Elder Johnson and I have instituted something new in our work. It's called Jello Farming...........I know you’re all reading as fast as possible to try and find out what this amazing sounding method could possibly be! I'll tell you…so… a lot of the time in missionary work, your plans including AAALLLLLL back up plans fall through. It happens… all the time. Well, when this happens, it's obvious that the Lord wants us to do something else. So, we better start askin’. So, this is what we do… we get out our hundreds of potential investigators that have collected over months/years and we ask the Lord which one we need to visit.  So, when the potential investigator that we prayed about doesn't answer the door (which is usually the case), we knock three doors to the left and three doors to the right. I know the Lord takes us to where we need to go if we do what's right and if we FOLLOW each prompting we receive. It works. Do it.

We had a bunch of lessons this week with members present (which is the only way to do it in my opinion). We as missionaries cannot relate to a husband and wife in their 30's and their 11 yr old daughter who were all born in Mexico. It's just not possible. It doesn't work. But there's a HUGE ward list that we all have that makes life soo much easier. Take members to lessons. Other lessons aren't even worth it (but you should still teach investigators even if you don't have a member :).

Anyways that family I was talking about is the Flores family. They are super sick. We've been working with them for about 2 months, and they FINALLY CAME TO CHURCH! I was stoked. They all accept everything we teach, but, until they came to church, they didn't embrace it or comprehend it. I love them. They loved church. They participated in all their classes, like really participated. Then Reynaldo (Father/Husband) called us and said thank you for inviting us and that he loved it and went on about all kinds of great things like that. It was super sick. They'll be baptized soon; we just have to have a lesson with them on Wednesday to put them on date. It's gonna be good.

Sad news, Elder Johnson will be transferred to Corona on bike training. He's stoked. I'm not so much because he's leaving me. My new companion is Elder Verges (g sounds like h and the syllabic stress is on the second "e" for you white speakers). I'm excited. He's from Argentina and is a great missionary. I can't wait to work with him. I've got 30 seconds left on my computer time.

I love you all. GO ON MISSIONS!!

-Elder Matt Dial