iPads for Each Missionary

It's been a crazy week with the big change of having iPad minis. Last Tuesday was Zone Conference. We had a lot of classes and learned a lot of things and learned how we can be better. At the end we all received our 16GB iPad minis and we set it up and got trained on it. They are very strictly limited (for obvious reasons) but they are really nice. We have the gospel library, LDS Music, Skype, email, Facebook, Safari (with around 6 unblocked sites), and an area book/planner app, along with some of the standard apps installed. We have a few others but we don't really use them. We no longer have the daily planner book since there is an app for that. It is amazing how the work is being hastened. It is
taking some getting used to, but it is really nice to just pull up a Mormon Message you want to show and have sow many gospel tools at your fingertips.

From the Mission Blog: iPads for All of our Missionaries

We're Making History!

Elders Hatch, Guerrero, Hartzog, Dahl, Anderson, Sisters Chappell and Marambio

We are one of the few missions worldwide chosen to pilot the revolutionary approach to missionary work of giving each missionary a specially-designed iPad.

At this week's zone conferences, our missionaries were instructed on the importance of staying focused on their purpose and were trained on the use of this amazing device.

So you can tell the Bishop that the church is Pro-Apple Products. And joke with my oldest brother that the Church chose Apple over Droids. They are restricted; they don't have the App Store but we have this thing called air-walk which is the program that kind of controls the restrictions and it has a small App Store so we can update the few apps we have if something new comes out.

Last night my companion and I went to the Night of Music and Inspiration at the Visitors' Center. We were supposed to have a Recent Convert and a Potential Investigator there but the PI was a no show and the RC called us last minute and said her ride fell through so she couldn't come but wanted to. It was a great performance with music, short talks, and a few short clips.

I am doing great. I love my mission here and the ward I'm in. Things are going pretty well. My companion  and I are getting a lot done with the less-actives in our area and we are finding a lot of
potential investigators. The hard thing is almost everyone works all the time it's hard to get appointments with everyone and have people progress. We've been having fun as well, we fed some horses last week, sing a lot, and just stay happy. We work a ton and try to stay busy. I feel like I'm going to gain 3,000 pounds because the members feed you a lot and they give you a portion for 5 people.

One example is once we had a quarter rack of ribs, a full chicken breast, half a plate of heaping rice, two large chicken tenders, some beans, and a salad. You can tell the people only a small, small portion and that means basically nothing [they still give you a lot]. However, the cooking ability of these people is amazing. The people here cook some delicious food, it's just you can't always eat it all. The standard meal here is 1. Rice 2. Chicken and 3. Beans. The rice is usually white rice but I've seen it prepared differently and it's very good. The beans are always black beans. But the chicken is almost always prepared some way different than I've seen. Since the people are from all over the world everyone has their own little spin on things.

When you are here you have to know the nationality of everyone. Most people here have a strong sense of national pride and hang out with people from their country. It's important to know people's history and someone who can relate to them. The major two groups in our ward are the Salvadorians and the Peruvians. But still there are people from all over here so you basically have to know every Spanish speaking country because I'm getting close to meeting someone from all of them. I have met people from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Spain, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. The countries I haven't met people from include Paraguay, Uruguay, Columbia, Panama, Belize, Cuba, and the African Country that speaks Spanish. I only haven't met people from 7 of the (I believe) 21 countries that speak Spanish (22 if you count Puerto Rico).

The man who texted you our picture was a man in our ward.  He is a convert from 2 years ago and he is one of the strongest members in the ward. He is from México and he is super nice and just awesome.

I've been doing great! I've been working hard and having fun as well. We had exchanges last Friday and I stayed in my Area and Elder Alca joined me. I had to drive since he doesn't have a license and it's just straight up weird to drive a small vehicle. It really was an eye opener on all the things I still need to work on and how much I still need to learn.

Love, Elder Braden Dahl (written 2/3/2014)