Elder Cook

This week was a hard one for Elder Hazelgren. Several of their top investigators told them they can't listen to them anymore or don't want to.
Despite that tough news, they were able to hear from Elder Quentin L. Cook! Dallin was 10 feet away from him and said he helped boost the morale of the missionaries. It was so amazing for Dallin to be so close to him and hear his testimony of the gospel. The thing that stuck out the most to him was this "I know the Savior's voice." How amazing! Pretty powerful. Dallin said he prayed the night before that he'd be able to look into Elder Cook's eyes and then the next day he walked right past him! He was excited about that.
Also, they were going to visit a volcano today so hopefully we have pictures next week!! *fingers crossed*

Mission President's Interview

This week the missionaries had interviews with the Mission President. Dallin was asked what he needed help with and he told his Mission President he needed help with contacting people in the streets. His companions had never really taught him how to do it and he wanted to be better at it. Dallin said they usually have about 15 contacts and week and apparently that was not good enough for his President. He was told they need to have at least 140 each week! Dallin said he just began contacting everyone he could and was able to reach his goal of 140. They were able to find lots of new investigators that way so we'll have to see how everything works out.
He also had some things said to him by non-members that were derogatory and just testified of the truthfulness of the gospel and the Book of Mormon.
Dallin challenged us to read several scriptures including Mosiah 9:17-18 and Mosiah 7:33. Both are great and talk about finding strength in the Lord.

Great week

Dallin had a great week! Poor guy is sick again. He said a lot of people are sick right now from the volcano dust in the air.
Dallin is still glad that he is with Elder Catalan, he really enjoys him. (No transfers this week) His companion told Dallin he has blisters on his feet from all the fast walking they do (thanks to Dallin!) but he never complains. They got new zone leaders and a new district leader. Their zone was the most successful again. He said out of the last 4 months, they've had the most successful zone for 3 out of the 4!
Elder Catalan and Elder Hazelgren were able to meet new investigators (hopefully!). These two guys were trying to put a fence up and Elders C and H were able to help them and then taught them about the gospel afterwards.
There were some humbling moments this week such as meeting a young girl who is 17 who has cancer. They were able to give her a blessing. They also met a man who has over 10 bullet holes in his body! Dallin said he may be a tough investigator.

Panes con pollo

Dallin celebrated New Years by eating what's called "panes con pollo." (bread with chicken). He said that's what everyone eats for New Years and he loves them and ate way too many! He ate 6 of them and he said most people eat 2! Poor guy made himself sick and had to stay home the next day.
Speaking of food, Dallin came up with a cool analogy to explain prayer. He compared prayer to Pizza Hut saying we need to be specific on what we order; we don't know when the "pizza" will get there but we know it will. I really liked this analogy and think it was probably easy for the investigators to understand.
It's so awesome to hear how Dallin is strengthening his testimony and on Sunday he said he studied for 10 hours! In the scriptures we've heard of several instances where prophets have prayed or studied for long periods of time and I always thought how difficult that would be. It's kind of neat to hear about Dallin having those experiences where he gets so immersed in studying the words of God.
We asked Elder Hazelgren how often he has zone conferences and interviews with his Mission President and he said he has each every 3 months. They overlap so every 1.5 months he is having one or the other.
Dallin challenged us to read Mosiah 1:5-7. These verses are talking about the importance of the scriptures and how we can know of their surety by studying them diligently.
Here is a picture of panes con pollo...

Volcano Explosion

When we talked with Dallin on Christmas, he said he is going to start sending a longer email that has more details about his mission. He said because he'll do that, he won't have time to respond to everyone who emails him but he will try. So this week, we got a good LONG email from him ;) We are always so excited to hear from him and especially love it when the email is longer than five sentences!
There is a volcano in his area San Martin and it exploded last week! He said no one was injured but the explosion was "pretty sweet!"
For Christmas in El Salvador, most people go to the beach and light off fireworks. He loved spending his Christmas that way.
Dallin is enjoying seeing their hard work pay off and meeting new investigators. He said they had 6 investigators attend church on Sunday; three of them were new investigators and the other three just came on their own! His companion and he went out on Christmas and met new people then too. It is so awesome to see his enthusiasm! Happy New Year!
The first few pics are of Dallin's living quarters; bedroom, kitchen and study area.