Elder Braden Dahl: Great Falls...Written 9-21-2015

It certainly sounds like a busy weekend. I don't think things ever seem to calm down at home. I'm glad you had an enjoyable weekend and that all went well. I hope you found some fun in the stress of all of it. It must have been fun having my oldest brother back for a bit and I'm sure he enjoyed it too.

This week has been a busy one. Monday evening, my companion and I went to one of the members in our area and had dinner with her and her non-member husband. It was a nice dinner and we were able to share a short lesson with them. The husband isn't very interested but we still had a lot of conversation with him. We also went and found a less-active member that neither of us had previously met. She has a strong testimony and still believes in much of the doctrine but was exposed to some anti-Mormon material and decided to stop going to church. It's sad to see that but she was very open and receptive with us so we have hope and will continue to work with her.

Tuesday I was on exchanges with the Quince Orchard Ward Elders. I was visiting the English program and it was an awesome day. We met briefly with an investigator that they had lost contact with and we reestablished some connection with them. We also visited with a couple less-active families. In the evening, we had dinner with a member who had her non-member cousin and family over for dinner. It was a great evening and lots of fun.

Wednesday my companion and I checked up on a less-active member we have been trying to help return to activity. She is very nice and wants to start coming back to church. We spoke about studying the scriptures daily and church attendance. It was a great lesson for the time we had with her. We also had an amazing lesson with our 9-year-old investigator and 2 of his member friends that are the same age. We talked a lot about the gospel of Jesus Christ and in the lesson he committed to baptism! He has a phobia of going underwater but really wants to be baptized. It was so cool to see that lesson and the help from his peers being great member missionaries at a young age.

On Thursday we had a awesome lesson with one of the potential investigators we had in our list of investigators. She is a super awesome lady and is so ready to hear the gospel. We had an amazing Restoration lesson with her and she believes in everything that we taught her. We are so excited to keep working with her and see her progress in the gospel.

Friday we went looking for a lot of our potential investigators. We found a few of them and we found a few new potential investigators along the way. We were able to be out and busy for the day. Then on Saturday we were checking up on our less-active members and getting to know them better.

Sunday was great. We had a "Why I Believe" fireside at the Temple Visitors' Center and we had a lot of people from our area attend. John and Hannah Smith spoke who are well-known lawyers in the community. Bro. Smith is a convert and a descendant of George Albert Smith. He was the lead lawyer for Homeland Security for President Bush. Sis. Smith works at a law firm that promotes religious freedoms and has served 2 clerkships in the Supreme Court.

It has been a really fun day today. Today my companion and I went with our roommates to Great Falls on the Maryland side. It was super beautiful to see and I loved seeing the rapids and falls. We took some fun pictures and really enjoyed going out there. It is a nice short walk out there (.3 miles from the parking lot to the main viewing point).

I hope you're doing well and all continues to be good at the Dahl home.

Love,

Elder Braden Dahl

P.S. The pope is coming on the 23rd and will leave early on the 25th (as told by Sister Cooke)