Walked into Canada

What's up everybody!!

This week was hype we went up to the peace gardens on the border of Canada and the US to do some service painting bathrooms and stuff it was dope. Walked into Canada legally this time 
That tools up a whole day. Lowkey slowed the grind out here but it is okay because it was tons of fun.

The ticks out here are in full effect. Other missionaries are pulling em off non stop and I pulled one off my neck in personal study of all places. I just dont understand why or how a bug can think it can just dig into my body like that. Some of you already know I freaking hate ticks like I am not their property. I should do what the govt. Does and ask if they have a permit to dig which let me tell you. THEY DON'T whatever humans are at the top of the food chain for a reason.

We went and did billiongraves and were featured in yet another newspaper no big deal.

We went and helped the lady clean her horse stalls again and she likes to give us pizza after with all her cats around. Cat hair flying everywhere per usual and she dropped sausage into her cats fur. Found it again and picked it up out of the fur and ate it. 5 second rule does NOT apply when it comes to cat hair!!

This week we were driving around town and see a ton of smoke and we drove past it and this dude is doing a burnout in his dodge ram dually truck. Elder Duckett and I were so hyped we pulled off the road and got out and talked to these guys. It was a bunch of friends getting together for a drink or two of course. I was offered like 5 beers in 2 minutes. We told em "nah we are missionaries for our church actually!" And one of the guys goes "me too!" As he pounds a beer and wipes the stuff that spilled off on his hand onto a smoking tire. When I'm telling you this man was doing a burnout I mean it. He smoked out like 3 blocks and was holding it FOREVER. They were all super drunk and he had pretty decent tires before hand but they were completely bald afterward. He goes "well that is gonna cost me 4 grand" and that's no cap that was an expensive burnout just to hype up the bois. He also told us to get up in the truck and take a turn doing a burnout! Don't tempt me like that I'm a missionary! Elder Duckett and I looked at each other just sad that we couldn't take him up on such an amazing offer!!

Phillipians 4:13 says "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" at that is no cap! Jesus Christ is so underrated in today's world. Everyone says they have a relationship with him which is great but through Jesus Christ we have access to so much spiritual power and because of him, if we are living righteously and trying to be Christlike we really can do ALL things through him that are according to his will.

Love you all!!

Pics:
(Lowkey a lot this week but that's really what people care about let's be real)
- This water tower kept winking at me
- Cemetery we did billion graves at with the next pic that's gonna be in the newspaper
- the rubber sprayed off the tires of the truck that did a burnout
- a wild purple house with the crackhead who was roasting us a couple weeks back
- elder duckett fencing
- it was my brother Adams birthday and all he wanted was pictures of me in the goon glasses I found so there are those happy birthday adam
- us at the geographical center of north America and this big turtle made out of rims
-us at the peace gardens

Whippin everywhere

This week was pretty cool we drove like 200-300 miles a day driving all over because we cover two areas and because we had to go to this little town pretty far away to do some billion graves stuff and get in another newspaper. I promise I will remember all of you when I am famous from these newspapers I am showing up in ALL over the states or maybe just like 3 newspapers that probably 1000 people see each if that. And one of them made an article about us and said we were missionaries for a completely different church so that is cool!

This week we had district council two hours away in Bemidji and we have it there every Tuesday so that is another way we run the miles up. Going through like a tank of gas a day just like I would back home luckily this time I dont have to pay for it. We also went and did some service for this lady who runs a horse training place and we cleaned put all the stalls and it was pretty cool but I'm pretty over the smell of moldy horse crap. She also feeds us pizza after! It is pretty sweet until you realize it is old pizza and you eat it with tons of cat and horse hair flying everywhere (my dad would be sooo jealous he just LOVES all kinds of hair)

We also had a goal of finding two new this week but we found 3!! That was super super dope.

We went and helped a member start her garden and she had this massive dog. This was huge but so sweet.

In 1 Nephi 16:29 it says that "Thus we see that by small means, the Lord can bring about great things" if we put in effort on our end to better ourselves and our lives and try to live a little more like he did everyday, we will make us into the best versions of ourselves we can be!!

Pics:
-big ol doggo
-a grave I saw doing billiongraves that I thought was funny. They already have her name on the headstone but she isn't dead yet. Kinda sad but someone is praying on their downfall.

"It gets cold like Minnesota" not really it's pretty warm now

This week was transfers which is where we move areas that we are out serving in and switch the people we work with.


So like I said in my last email I was getting moved to Minnesota and so I am in minnesota now and I am reopening two areas with my comp here and our area book with all the info about Thief River and Crookston was deleted some how and so now I only have part of the info needed haha. Its whatever though we will get it done.


Everyone here really likes playing disc golf and so I bought some frisbees and it is a ton of fun. We play for exercise in the morning it is pretty cool starting the day off with something fun like that!


Pretty cool area out here much prettier than Minot there are trees here and green grass. A few rivers too so I'm tryna go fishing 


Also there is a chik-fil-a in the main city nearby and so I finally got to eat some CHIK-FIL-A. It has been 3 1/2 months too long to be livin without it in my life geez.


We were teaching one person from put here this week and he was complaining to me that he hasn't seen miracles in his life recently and that life for him has been a "big kick in the balls". I promised him that if he were to read the Book of Mormon he would start to see the miracles in his life again. If you feel like you haven't seen miracles in your life recently or at all READ THE BOOK OF MORMON and I promise you YOU WILL. The book is life changing and if you dont have a copy or want to know more about it email me please!!


Love you all!!

Temple Trip!

This week was amazing!

President Howell felt prompted to get every single missionary into the temple to do baptisms since our temple just opened up for that so that was amazing to get to do that.

We did some street contacting downtown which was a good time. Met some interesting people who I have decided are my best source of news as to what is going on around the world. If some random older dude with a dip/tobacco stained beard who just hangs out downtown starts telling you about Russia and the Corona Virus you sit and listen because you are in for a show. Some crazy stuff is going on that is for sure but whatever it is all good.

We went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders and everyone in Minot has a set Spring Cleaning day and everyone just leaves their junk they don't want out in front of their house and we were driving by and see a perfect bowflex just chilling like for reals who throws that out. So we knock on his door and ask if we can take it and invite him to church. He didn't want to come to church but he let us take the Bowflex and so we loaded it up in the Tacoma and hauled it up the stairs to the apartment.

Ether 12 verse 27 says "And if men come into me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them"

I know that if we humble ourselves and ask Heavenly Father to help us through whatever we may be struggling with he will help us and make our weaknesses strengths in time through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ!!!

Email me!! matthew.dalton@missionary.org

The past two weeks have been amazing!

The past two weeks have been amazing!

We went up to Kenmare and did some service at a cemetery where we were digging up headstones. Kind of wild I know but we were just leveling them not digging 6ft deep so we are all good.

This week we were enlisted to go and do BillionGraves and document a bunch of cemeteries around here with like an hour of us so we went and did that and we had reporters meet us so they interviewed us so they could make an article about the work we were doing for the 5 people in each of their towns so I might be famous some time soon. If I make it big I will let you guys know. One of the reporters was telling us about this tiny little cemetery in this field somewhere right on the border of Canada so we go out on this wild goose chase with some jank directions on how to get there because the person who gave us directions had never actually been there of course. And so we go close to where we guessed it was and some older dudes in this truck pulled up like hey what are you guys doing around here #localsonly and we were like do you know where this cemetery is and so they lead us into the middle of this field literally right on the border of Canada which was cool and they didn't know exactly where it was so they said they think it was somewhere in this area. They wished us luck and dipped out. Luckily we saw a headstone poking up like a quarter mile out past this random dudes field so we start trekking over there and hope the barbed wire fence and document the 3 headstones that are there. Then we obviously needed to walk over into Canada so I have officially served my mission in two countries! We walked literally like 5 feet into Canada
( because there wasnt even a fence) for like 2 seconds so we were illegal immigrants for a moment but then we started driving home and I kid you not border patrol was already on us (it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere too). He pulled us over and was confused what we were doing up there and then we told him that we had permission to be up there and ran our IDs and let us go so that was wild.

Pamela has been progressing! She says that every time she prays about the Book of Mormon and about the church he feels the Holy Ghost and gains greater faith in it too! (Idk if I already mentioned this but we put her on date for baptism a bit a go as well)

Anyways, I promise everyone that if you pray about the Book of Mormon as you read it you too will feel of its truth! It is amazing and will change your life for the better. If you ever want to learn more or build your testimony of our church or of the Book of Mormon let me know I can help you out with that or anything else you may be struggling with I will try to help you just email me!!!


Pics:
- Ultimate frisbee group
- me n the boyz hieing out of Minot
- Eating at a small Burger Shack in Mohall
- Elder Franklin and I
-pics in downtown Minot
- border patrol pulling us over