Elder Dallin Talbot's Mission Fresno California 2015-2017

Wow, there is so much that happens at home each week, just wow.  That all sounds so much fun, activities, birthdays, school, and more band camp.  We had a great week over here as we want to find more people to teach so we tried to spend at least an hour a day just to go out talking to the people we see so that we can find more people to help and teach.  This week we met Jose and he is super awesome, has great questions, and told us he wants to change his life around and get baptized.  We am so excited to go back and teach him and his family.  Linda has been really sick and so we are not fully sure how she is doing, but here desire to learn seems to be increasing.  I love being a missionary and helping people.

This week we visited with the Marques family.  We got to know them and talked about there goals and how they want to make it to the temple.  They came to church yesterday and it was super exciting to see them.  On Wednesday we visited the Scott's with our ward mission leader and taught about the power of Christ's grace.  They expressed concerns at feeling offended or not included at church, which is sad because they are letting that get in the way of blessings.  I went on exchange with Elder Hopkins, my district leader here and we had lots of fun working hard and talking to people.  We found some potentials this week and we hope they turn out well.  We only had one lesson with an investigator this week, it was a great one with Linda where she committed to make reading the Book of Mormon a priority.  We are really hoping she does because otherwise we can't help her is she doesn't have the desire to grow.  We are trying to work setting up a pre...

My new companions name is Elder Schmid, he has been out a few weeks less than me, he is from Kentucky and he loves to work hard, especially with the members.  We do not do much door to door knocking, we have been focusing or working with ward leaders.  They have given us more than 15 less active or struggling members to go and busy, so we talked to lots of people this week.  We found that 6 families had moved and 2 others that the address did not seem to exist.  Lots of people were not home but we found some friendly faces and that was great.  We found some people who said we can come by, some are members some were not.  We had really great lessons this week with Gene and the Scott family.  We focused on hope with the Scott's, they feel they are lacking that and it lead into them expressing they feel weighed down by the goal of perfection, so we will continue to help them with that next week.  With Gene we focused on the Plan of Salvation, that he...

We had a great preparation day.  We played some good games of basketball and we did this other game that was one v one, which I enjoyed a lot because I made a lot of lucky ridiculous shots until I got worn out.  For service we cleaned up a shed and helped cook breakfast for someones birthday.  Nothing exciting to report bike wise, I am just amazed at how my companions legs are rock hard because he bikes in such a high gear and goes at least 15 mph whenever possible.  I did go on exchange with Elder Harolds, my district leader at the time, and he kept telling me to bike slower.  We have not had rain in a while now, but we did get caught in a storm back when I was serving in Riverside.  We have a good start to stay busy, but we always need to be finding more.  We have about 9 less active families we try and see each week and we are still trying to visit the other names that no one knows who they are.  We also have pages of potential investigator for...

I am so sorry I forgot to talk about counseling next week.  I think it would be helpful, but as a missionary my mind is constantly looking at individual details and I struggle at times to see the big picture, so President Clark gave me some suggestions at interviews to lower the boxes and how I see things.  I am not sure what I would talk about in counseling, I guess it would help us find out if they have ways they can help me.  Challenges and interpersonal struggles, I guess I am not sure where to draw a line on what challenges are and things that I am just thinking about, so I guess a counselor could help me figure that out.  That sounds like such a fun week, I love the  Olympics.  We were not able to see Kathy as she was sick and their phones don't work so it has been harder to contact them.  We contacted Linda and we are hoping she will be more prepared now and we will be sure to help her understand our purpose it to build her faith in Jesus Christ...

In my recent studies, I went over true to the faith on covered how we make covenants so as we strive to live them we don't have to be compelled in all things.  We had a great zone conference about our purpose and the atonement and I feel confident at the moment, that as I strive to study and apply these things, especially thinking about Christ and my purpose, I should be okay.  It has already helped focus more since last Tuesday.  I really loved the talk his grace is sufficient.  I feel like my companion is really struggling with something because he has been sleeping and drinking more soda, like 20 liters+.  Pray and my purpose have been helping me more focused during studies when it is just me at my desk trying to stay focused.  We had some great lessons with people deciding that they want to start living the gospel more, still working to find more people.  At zone conference they focused on our purpose and the Atonement, that has been helping m...