Pueblo Colorado

Da Jia Hao! Sheng Dan Jie Kuai le!(Hello everyone! Merry Christmas!)

I don't have a lot of time because we set up a soccer appointment with some members in like 10 minutes. 

  So Pueblo is super sick. My first day in the "field" was Saturday and my comps like to wake up at 5 and do some 

early working out so that's pretty rad haha. After that we got some sick studying in and then went on exchanges so 

we could teach all of our lessons. My first lesson was with this little kid named Omar. It was our first lesson with him

and at first he was super skeptical but I told him I used to be in a bit of a rut myself and through the Book of Mormon 

and going to church, i was able to get through it. After that he started to change and by the end of our lesson he was 

asking if we had a Book of Mormon so he could read it and REALLY wants to get baptized so we'll see how that goes!

I'm super excited!!

  Next we went and helped this lady move. We pulled up to this super nice looking building thinking it was all pleasant,

but boy were we wrong!! Haha! She wanted to move because her car had gotten jacked and some drug dealer tried to

sleep in her house one night by breaking in the door. Some sketchy people were coming in and out. We had to have

one of us watching the door, one person moving her stuff, and one person watching the car. Crazy crazy ol' Pueblo. I

guess my ride just left and I have to run down to the field now so I have to go but I hope you all have a great week!!! 

Merry Christmas again.

Elder Dorius

杜長老

Dec 1 - still in the MTC

Ok so news on the visas. We went in this morning and they told us they hope we'll be out of here by December 16th... I'm not down for that at all haha. I might go in there and ask to be reassigned. Staying here an extra two weeks will do nothing for me. We aren't assigned teachers so all we'll be doing is sitting in class for 6 hours a day practicing lessons. I guess that would be nice, but I'd much rather be out there helping real people even if it's in english for 6 weeks. The Lord has a plan!

  So this week was a super great one. Thanksgiving was sooo rad. Elder Bednar presided at the General Authority Devotional Thanksgiving morning and the choir sang Come Thou Fount so it was a super special meeting. I got to say the prayer and definitely needed a diaper change after. I was expecting some crazy awesome talk like "The Character of Christ", but instead he gets up there and says "My family will now hand out a couple hundred cell phones and I want you to pass it around and get everyone to text in a question. I will try to answer as many as I can" It was so sick! Even though he only answered 5 specific questions, everyone I talked to said their question was answered within them. Super cool!

  After the devotional we went on a temple walk and on our way up we saw some kids on the field throwin a football around so we joined em and had a little two touch turkey bowl!! That made me feel pretty at home haha. Then we took some rad pictures and while we were walking down. We met this black guy that was standing outside of a nativity depiction they have at the temple. We asked him what he was doing and he said "Giving thanks to my Lord Jesus" We asked him what he knew about Jesus and he said "Not much, just that he loves me and I love Him". It was such a heart touching experience. I remember serving at the homeless shelter and every single person I talked to said they thanked Him for the food, shelter, and love they got there. Not a single one blamed Him for their condition. 

  Next, we got to do a service project. We made a bunch of "Casseroles in a bag" for starving kids around the world. The feeling in that room was unbelievable. You could almost feel the joy those starving people are going to feel once they receive this gift. As I was walking to get a drink I heard an "Elder Dorius!" and turned around to see Eliza Foster! I guess her dad was there in charge of the project so she got to come! I worked with her for about an hour and didn't stop talking about Katelyn for one second. Man I love my sister! Then her dad came up to us and started telling stories. It was so cool to hear about all the projects he's been involved in. He told me I could go on a third world service project with him when I get back so I'm super excited for that!! When they were leaving they invited me to come with them for a "surprise". I didn't question it as sketchy as that is, and ended up getting a one on one with Elder Bednar. As he was leaving he put his hands on my shoulders and I promise our faces were MAYBE 6 inches a part. He stared into my soul and told me "Never doubt your faith. Ever." That answered every single question I was having. God is literally in all of our lives! He doesn't leave us for a second. That brings me to our last event.

  We got to watch Meet the Mormons! Suuuuch a great movie. The best part though is the missionary mom. I bet you died during that part mum! Her story about how she thought God had left her, but then walked into a convenience shop and met a member that called the missionaries for a blessing... whooo that got me. Still haven't cried in a movie though! Everyone in the crowd was singing "Glorious" at the end with David Archuletta it was absolutely beautiful. As the movie finished they announced that there was a surprise outside in the courtyard. As we walked out we saw that they had decorated all the trees, bushes, and lamp posts with Christmas lights. They started playing some Christmas music and we had a 10 minute "dance" we called it. Haha it was so rad until all the Tongans started a mosh pit and the whole thing got shut down. 

  A great day all in all!

  We lost our first two elders today. Elders Anderson and Blanscett both left this morning. We were all in tears. It was like being ripped apart from you guys at the curb all over again as we helped them put their bags into the shuttle. They're going to be amazing missionaries. Tomorrow we lose Elders Padilla and Whitney. That's gonna be just as hard if not harder! I spent all my time with Elder Padilla here. I love all four of them so much it's ridiculous. 

I got to see Anthony Raitani and Tanner Harrison at the temple yesterday so that made my life. 

 I don't have anymore time so I'll have to cut it there! Thank you for EVERYTHING!!! I love you all so much and wish you the best.

Elder Dorius

MTC Week 5

Well this week hasn't been too eventful, but I decided to stop hitting on good looking sisters and I'm already seeing blessings coming from it. Mahri's dance was hecka legit! Haha the whole computer lab came and watched it. She's definitely a homie tell her how much I love her! Get her an email so she can email me!!  So this week I did what we like to call the devils mile. There's this guy here, Elder Martin. He just got back from the navy and he's soooo hardcore. Well he left this week, but he WAS so hardcore. One morning he came into my room while I was eating breakfast and said "You gonna work that bagel off today Dorius? You're gettin pudgy! Come with me Dorius. Today you meet... Shamus." Haha this guy is seriously a beast. He's shorter than me and almost weighs 200 lbs of pure unadulterated muscle. On his way to gym he'd fill his backpack with these big rocks and a sand bag then sprint the whole way to gym. He's insane. So anyways, I finally changed my diaper and got ready for gym. He took me outside and said "Do you see Shamus?" I looked around and saw nothing but grass and a tree. He realized my silence meant no, slapped my butt, and said "Hut two Dorius!" so we ran around the building carrying sand bags and he asked again "Do you see Shamus?" again I said no so he picked me up and held me above his head until we got to this boulder. This time he yelled "DO YOU SEE SHAMUS?" I realized it was the 175 lb boulder sitting in the dirt. I said "The boulder?" "Yes the boulder Dorius!! Now pick it up!" I told him I didn't see a purpose so he sat me down and said "Dorius there's two ways you can end your mission. Fat.. and bald. Or ripped.. and bald. Which one do you want to be?" He didn't need to say anymore haha I picked up the boulder till it was at my hip then dropped it. This thing was seriously heavy!! I'm still the only one in my room that can pick it up.I thought I had done well till he said "Is that all you got Dorius??" the picked it up and put it on his shoulder. This kid is unreal!!! Haha I don't know why he chose me as his padawan, but whatever! It's either that or four square! The next day my companion was sick so we decided not to go to gym time. He definitely made me pay for it the next day! He made me run the devils mile. We get to the track and he says "I don't wanna sound like a wussy, but have you ever seen Empire Strikes Back?" I already knew what was coming. He hopped on my shoulders and said "START RUNNING SKYWALKER" so I started hucking it. I could barely walk for 3 days. It was rough! I was sad to see him go though. I went to give him a hug and he head butted me in the chest!! While trying to start breathing again I said "Love you man. Good luck!" expecting a nice response but he said "STOP THAT! STOP THAT DORIUS! You think I'm a softy?? I'll see you after the mission. Don't get fat on me!!" and that was the last I saw of Elder Martin.  Thought you'd enjoy that story!  So Russel M. Nelsons wife spoke with us last night. She was accompanied by her best friend, Sheri Dew. It was such a great experience! One of the coolest quotes was "Obedience brings blessings. Exact obedience brings miracles." Seriously so cool!! Whenever I stop for two seconds, the wave of God's love catches up to me and crashes over me. I love this place and I love the mission!! I expect to be stateside for Christmas by the way.  All the older kids leave tomorrow which means we're the oldest kids! Our new zone leaders are Elder Matua and Elder Liston. Our new district leader is Elder Blanscett. They're all doing a phenomenal job!! Love my boys. We do this thing every night called "story time" where we all get together and tell stories of our lives before. I usually end up telling all the stories! They've all committed to watch How I Met Your Mother when they get back because I've told them all the life lessons I've learned from that show!  I've started writing a church song on my uke called "He Cares". It's coming along super well! I won't let anyone hear it yet thought because that's just bad luck.  I got a package from Stephanie Chingas and it was a box of donuts that my whole district enjoyed the night before fast sunday. Many lives were saved! Stephanie Chingas became a hero that day! I'll send some pics of me and Nick! We've got some good ones. I love that kid so much!! Everytime I see him he tells me how good looking I am and how sick it's gonna be when we're postin up at BYU!!  This week really was a boring one I apologize! I'll try to make this one hype so I have a good email to send next week! Love you all SO MUCH!!! Have a killer week and make it the best! You're in my prayers!! -Elder Dorius

MTC Week 3

Soooo this week has been the craziest one so far!! Haha to start it off I'll share an awkward story. So I was in the lunch room walking behind this girl to go refill my drink and saw one of the sisters in my zone taking a selfie with her district at the table so.. being classic Dallin and not thinking.. I said "Oh you get it girl" to the girl taking the picture, but the girl in front of me thought I was checkin her out, turned around, and yelled(literally screamed) "EXCUSE ME ELDER?!?!" and everyone in the whole lunchroom(around 600 people) went silent and stared at me. I couldn't help but bust up laughing hahahaha it looked soooooo bad!!! 

I see Elder Chingas every day and we have a good talk everytime! What a stud. We get a new district leader this Sunday so we'll see what happens there! The branch president called me into a room to meet with him out of nowhere. I thought I was about to get screwed for my internet time, but he sat me down, we said a prayer, and for 10 minutes he told me how much he loved me and how the presidency was so grateful to have me in their branch. NOBODY else got this meeting so I'm wondering what made him pull me aside! 

I am so watched over here at the MTC. I started feeling sad one day because I missed Katelyn, Nicolene, and Mahri so much and within TWO MINUTES Elder Matua got up in the middle of class, gave me a hug, and told me he loved me. You have no reason to ever worry about me because I am better than I have ever been and am sooo watched over!!! 

Dad, my chinese is soo much better!! I can say a fluent prayer and testimony, I have the first vision memorized, and I'm rockin it in TRC!! I'm not sick anymore which makes the work 10x easier! I pray about PV every single day and hope they're answered!! You deserve a break hahaha. Sister Handy sent me the BEST email!!!! Man I have been so blessed with amazing people around me.

 Me and my companion are getting so tight!! He's soooo cool and so patient(thank goodness). I have the best teachers in the whole MTC!! They keep me on the real and give me weekly updates on BYU, The Patriots, ISIS, and his many girlfriends of course. That's about it for this week though haha! OH!!! Ok so one day I was bored in class waiting for the teacher to get there and there was a long piece of wire in the garbage outside so I took it and started making a golf club to play mini golf in the dorms, but another teacher saw it and threw it back out. I wasn't too happy about it. When i got back to the dorms I saw a 18 inch chain in one of the closets and got the idea to put my lock on the end and use that as a golf club! I tried it one night and everyone else thought it was sick so we all play cholf(chain golf) at night now! Hahaha the things a young boy comes up with. Anyways! I hope you all have the best week of your life!!!(every week should be the best) and remember who you are!:)

Week 2 in the MTC

Hey I have zero time, but I wanted to send you a quick email!! The BYU server's are down so there's maybe 40 computers in the whole MTC that are working so I have about 7 people waiting for my computer!! No you and Dad are the only people that have Dear Elder's me:( It sucks. But I loooove getting your emails and I can't thank you enough for the packages!!! Honestly so helpful. 

Ok we got a preview of the video the church is gonna post for Christmas and HOLY CRAP!!! It's amazing. The hashtag on it is #He'sTheGift and the video is about how the first gift of Christmas wasn't gold, wasn't wrapped in decorative paper, bought, or ordered. The first gift of Christmas was given to us by our Heavenly Father and it was a Savior. What better gift could anybody ever ask for? 

I'm so glad to hear things are going so well for you guys!! Life here is sooo good!! Julia Dushku sent me DayQuil and I got significantly better!! We committed our first investigator this week and I could stop squirming during the prayer afterwords I was SO DANG HAPPY!!! What an amazing work!! I got to do sealings this morning and absolutely loved it. I'm gonna sing in this Sundays devitional and it might be broadcast so check the TV for any "MTC Devotional" just in case!!

 Elder Matua has become my best friend. I absolutely love the kid. We help each other through everything and can't go 10 minutes around eachother without laughing harder than we've ever laughed. Haha he's so raw I love the kid. If there was any way you could send some black nike socks and my uke that's all I need! I've started having to wear my church socks to gym time every morning which is no bueno! Gosh I love you guys so much. I'll send a better email next week!! Have a great week mom i don't doubt I'll hear from you.

Week 1 in the MTC

Your packages saved my life in a way!! Haha 20 minutes into the MTC I started to get a nasty cough. Next day I had lost my voice and my throat was on fire, but it got better by the end of the day and I assumed it was a 24 hour bug till about 3am the next morning when I rushed into the bathroom and spent the next 30 minutes throwing up! Haha it sucked pretty bad and I was so weak I couldn't get out of bed when everyone else woke up so I skipped breakfast and the first 3 hours of studying before general conference but then I felt too bad for my companion so I had him carry me out of bed and help me get my suit on so we could get to the auditorium and watch conference! It's definitely been hard these last couples of days on the physical side of things, but I have been soooo blessed and I'm actually in the top two of our whole chinese district! 

We got to teach our first investigator on Friday 100%% in chinese. I was so scared, but realized my companion was on the verge of peeing himself so I told him we were going to say a prayer in chinese and that I'd prove to him the gift of tongues was real(we hadn't learned how to pray yet). I dug deep and tried to remember what Peter Murray taught me back in August and the Lord did the rest because I gave a 2 minute prayer and his faith was restored! In fact he had so much faith that we taught the whole plan of salvation in chinese and they told us that had never been done before and that the Lord must love us a lot right now!! 

My zone leaders were in the same room as Clark and Lincoln before they left so they tell me stories all the time about my boys! They actually just landed in Taiwan last night and say it's the prettiest place they've ever seen!! So I know you guys told me I wasn't allowed to look good in the MTC and I believed you until I was one of the four elders NOT wearing skinny slacks and skinny ties. Haha if you could send all my skinny ties, a couple cardigans, (arctic circle and hard rock) crew necks, a nerf basketball net(for free time), gatorades( I stole a mini fridge for "Medical purposes and it's in our closet), and a bunch of cookies my way that would be the dream! I don't expect any of those, but if you could do that, it would make this dreadful MTC sickness ex[erience a little more cheerful when I'm alone in the room being dead haha.

 I got to talk allll about my family with my room last night (especially my sisters). Gosh I love you guys so much. I still haven't cried or anything yet so we're doing good!! Thank you again for the package!! Dear Elder letters are much appreciated!! I don't have dads email so tell him to write me so I can send him some stories I couldn't tell you guys! 

The guy in the picture with me is Ai Zhang Lao or correctly translated.. Elder Love! Haha his name is Elder Alenjo and he's from Chile! He taught himself English by watching the World Cup and watching movies on the plane ride over and somehow speaks english almost better than I do!! He's seriously amazing. Now he's learning mandarin on top of the english he JUST learned and is one of the best in his district. He's also been here four weeks so that might help a bit! Whenever I need help with the language or anything really, he's there to help and always gets a laugh outta me when he tells me he's gonna be flashing all these gang signs while he's serving down in SoCal! Well I've gotta go but I'll send some pics your way! Love you a lot!!!!!!!!! PS. I did not get to sing in the choir:/ PPS. If you could send my tennis shoes that would be great. Have a killer week and I'll talk to you soon!!