Farewell to Lulea (Boden) and on to Stockholm!

Another crazy week for the Milne's!  Summer's are so busy. Ty had a basketball camp all week as well as playing 2-3 basketball games a day all week.  He also played in a baseball tournament up in Cedar City this past weekend.  Carter has had Legion baseball games Thursday thru Saturday.  He plays for the Sentinels who are coached by Shane Johansen (recognize the Swedish name? His parents are literally from Sweden!).  I have certainly had my share of ballgames this week.  I love having boys, and I love attending all their activities, but when you mix in 110 degree heat and extremely poor officials, it becomes a little taxing on the nerves!  By the end of Saturday I was in tears for no apparent reason and needed a nap, which didn't happen until after 10:00 pm,

Anyhow, Dallin had an exciting week....  He has been transferred closer to Stockholm and is extremely excited to be reunited with his MTC companion Aldste Silvenoinnen.  He was also very blessed to participate in the baptism of a very neat young woman before he left.  She seems to have an incredible testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and is already doing missionary work. That is when you know someone has truly been converted - when they readily share it with anyone who will listen.  I have included below a copy of a very neat letter she sent to Dallin after he left.  I wish her all the blessings the Lord has in store for her and eternal happiness, joy, and peace.

This week we also experienced a great blessing that was a result of past missionary efforts.  While living in Minnesota our family had the privilege of living right next to the Arteaga family.  Their son Jesus who was 12-years-old at the time spent every spare second in our backyard playing wiffle ball and touch football with Carter and Ty.  Carter was just one year older than Jesus.  Our stake president, President Baptista, at one point issued a challenge for each member of the stake to give out a Book of Mormon within a six week period and then to email him our experiences.  With one week remaining of the challenge, our Bishop in Sacrament Meeting reminded us to do our best to meet this challenge.  On our way home from church Carter said he felt impressed to give a Book of Mormon to Jesus and his family.  I thought that sounded like a great idea. We called the missionaries to see if they had a Spanish Book of Mormon to give to Jesus' family and then I had Carter write his testimony and highlight his favorite scriptures in the English Book of Mormon he had for Jesus.  When he finished Carter and I walked over to Jesus' house and Carter presented Jesus with the two books. We told him to show them to his parents and then if they wanted to learn more we would be happy to answer any questions they might have. A few days later Jesus' mother Francisca came to our home. I could see her out the window as she walked up our steps and to the door. She had both books with her and I thought for sure she was returning them.  I welcomed her in and she began to speak.  She told me how she wanted her whole family to learn more about Jesus Christ and this book that teaches about him.  I told her that we would introduce her to the missionaries and they would happily tell her family all about it! Oh my goodness, we were so excited!  The missionaries were even more excited!  Elders Hawkins and Johansen.... They were awesome!  For the next six months we met with the missionaries and the Arteagas every chance we had.  Too many memories to list.  The most memorable was a Christmas eve we spent with them... I will never forget the humble prayer offered by Jesus' father Riggo. He said it in Spanish, but the Spirit was so strong that we understood somehow every word he said.  There was not a dry eye in the room.  Jesus, his mother, his older brother Oscar, and his younger sister Lluvia were baptized.  Since, a younger sister Linda has also been baptized.

Fast forward over five years later... Jesus is playing in an American Legion Baseball game in St. George, Utah.  What an incredible treat!  I had to smile as I listened to Jesus talk and heard his familiar giggle that we all loved!  He hasn't changed much just gotten bigger.  We were able to spend some time with him after the ballgame on Friday night, and then we took him to lunch on Saturday.  I called Francisca and told her how much we miss her and her special family.  I tried to convince her to come live here in Utah.  I even offered her the Old Adobe House.  She told me that I will always be her forever sister.  It was so neat to see Carter and Jesus together once again and to hear them reminisce about all the fun times we had!  I need to add that this entire experience was an answer to a heartfelt prayer that I prayed upon moving to Minnesota.  I knew that Blaine would be very busy in his oral surgery residency and that our time with him would be sparse.  I prayed that the Lord would bless our family with missionary experiences to compensate for Blaine's absence.  I wanted my boys to understand the incredible blessings we have and to focus on the things that really matter instead of not being able to be with their dad as much as they would like too.  Thank you for answering my prayers Heavenly Father and for  bringing the beautiful Arteaga family into our lives.

Letter from home:

Dear Dallin,

Here we are again! I love Sunday's! It not only is a day of rest, it's a day of refreshing and renewal. It's a blessed and hallowed day filled with blessings for those who strive to keep it holy.  I agree with Isaiah in his calling it a delight! We have had a wonderful Sabbath day as well as a super Father's Day!

Today we had stake conference and the majority of the talks were on the importance and blessings of keeping the Sabbath day holy.  Isaiah 58 was referenced appropriately as it talks about fasting and keeping the Sabbath day holy and the accompanying blessings. These talks motivated me to fast more frequently and to fine tune my Sabbath day observance. As you know this is the number one thing the first presidency and quorum of the twelve said we as members need to be working on right now! One of the speakers told us how keeping the Sabbath day holy is one of the best ways to strengthen and fortify our families against the evil influence of the adversary!

Tonight Carter taught FHE on the prodigal son. It was a spirit filled lesson! He will make a great missionary - just like his older brother.

This week went by quickly as we did our best to re acclimate to life after returning home from our vacation. I will try and get the vacation updated on the blog soon. Carter and Ty both had baseball tournaments, and dad and I attended a musical at Brigham's Playhouse here in Washington. Carter's team won their tournament which was up in Logan. Carter pitched Friday and pitched a complete game against Skyview! He logged the win. We were so happy for him! Ty's team played some 1-A varsity teams. They competed hard and played well but weren't able to pull off a win.

Dad and I really enjoyed "Praise to the Man" a musical production about the life of the prophet Joseph smith. It was written by a man here in St. George. It was amazing!

It has been really hit here. All this next week the temperature will be 110 degrees or more! I wish I were there in Sweden with you!

Ty had the Dixie state basketball camp this week he is really excited about and a baseball tournament this weekend in cedar city. Carter has a tournament in St. George this week. A team from Minnetonka will be here. Jesus Arteaga plays on it. Can you believe that we get to see Jesus! It will be awesome! Pretty amazing that Carter gave him a Book of Mormon over 6 years ago and he and his family were baptized!

We are growing tired of the old Adobe. Its smallness is wearing on us. I've been hoping to get your dad going on his own dental practice so we have a clearer picture of our future, but he is really dragging his feet. I think I need to recruit some investors for an office building and just get it done! He will be so much happier with his own office!  Say extra prayers for him!

How are you this week? Are you being transferred? I sent you a package to the mission office. There is some face stuff in it, a really good book, and some treats! I hope it catches up to you soon!

I have read some really great books lately: The Kolob Theorem, Journey to the Veil, and a book on shame by Brene Brown. 

Anyhow, I pray all is well! Take care of yourself! Be good, have fun, and work hard!

All my love,

Mom

Dallin's Letter Home:

hey mom :)

so we've had a pretty awesome weekend.  Our Irish friend decided that she wanted to be baptized and that she wanted to do it before I left.  So we are having her baptismal service today!  We will be spending most of the day today preparing for the service and I'm not sure if we'll have time or not for emails.  I just wanted to give you guys a heads up.  If I can't email today, I'll be sure to get one in tomorrow!  Love you all!

Oh and I will be transferred to Stockholm!  An area called Gubbängen.  And my comp will be my man elder Silvennoinen from the MTC!  Haha we are pretty excited to be reunited.  I'll tell you guys all about it later!

Love

Dallin

And this one:

Real quick because we are short on time.

So yeah the baptism was great.  It feels good to leave Boden on an exclamation point.  I'm going to miss the area and the people here but I think it is time for a change.  I'm looking forward to being with a more mature comp who has been around the block.  Elder Silvennoinen is the man.  We will both be the district leaders there.  So I'm co-district leader.  We'll see how that goes haha.  I'm cool with it though because I've been district leader for more than 6 months now so I think it'll be nice to have someone else help prepare and stuff.  President keeps passing me up with a zone leader position which I don't really understand.  Reminds me of when I hit .500 and didn't make the all star team there in Minnesota haha.  But like it really doesn't bother me, I just like joking about it. The work will be a lot different in Stockholm.  It'll be interesting to see what they got going on down there.  But I'll be in a big ward and I've heard a lot of good stuff about the members there in Gubbängen.  It's crazy that I only have 3 transfers left now.  This last transfer went by so fast I can't believe it.  Thanks for sending the package!  I'm super excited to see what book you sent.  And you guys should be getting something in the mail from me too.  I sent it a little late but it should be there any day now.  let me know when it comes.  I love you all so much!  Try not to kill each other in that little adobe.  I can imagine that it must seem like the walls are closing in.  Sounds like a good excuse to get outside and enjoy the nice 100+ degree weather haha that is insane.  The other day it was sunny and about 60 degrees and I was sweating.  I'll probably melt when I get home.  Anyways take care everyone, on to Stockholm.  It might be my last stop here in Sweden.  

Love

Dallin

He also shared this awesome letter from Rhiannon!:

Hey Elder Captain Awkward Milne,

I just wanted to let you know that things are all good even though we, I and the other norrbottnings, miss you.  On Sunday I will be confirmed and get the gift of the Holy Ghost so I'm looking forward to that! Äldste Svensson is such a swede hahaha but he seems really nice, although I've only meet him once. You missionaries tend to be nice, which is nice. Halterman continues to be enthusiastic about everything and is loving life. 

I've more or less decided to go on a mission after this school year, imagine how much I could do being a convert and able to say hey guys, I used to be just like you, I was even an atheist and then I found out about these life values and read an amazing book and now I live it and love it! I'm gonna be like you, a missionaryyyy! Me so excited.

Also I've started to try and do some everyday missionary work and gather some referrals for svensson and halter, I talked to two people about the gospel today, one of them who is just like me when I started out haha. She has the same mindset as I did before I started to get into it all. 

Anyways I hope you trivs down there and that you find new people to give some tasty cake(gospel) to. Missionaries should have that as their contacting phrase "Here, have some of this tårta" *hands you Book of Mormon* Get them to taste the tårta, cos its tasty tårta! 

Tomorrow(Saturday) I'm gonna see Halter and Svensson to talk about stuff and my confirmation so that I'm prepared for Sunday wohoo! 

Go get 'em Brotha!

//Rihanna 

She sounds amazing!  I am so excited for her...  There is nothing greater than a sister missionary!

This week's pictures:

Rhiannon's Baptism - she is so beautiful.... Glowing!

Elder Halterman, Rhiannon, and Elder Milne

Forever Friends!

Jesus Arteaga and Blaine

Blaine and David Cushing from Minnesota... Do you remember him from your "Old Chicago" baseball team Dallin?

Carter's Legion baseball team played Jesus and His Excelsior Legion team on Friday, June 27th, 2015 at Bruce Hurst field in St. George, UT!  Carter's team won 9-5.

Lunch with Jesus!

Just like old times!