Yes I am doing well here and everything's going fairly well. We have 3 good and solid investigators right now and several other investigators we are working with. I'm still studying hard-yes I'm reading the Book of Mormon right now and I am on pace with the Calendar. I am also studying in the Bible right now.
My companion has been out 6 months (getting close to 7) and he also went to the Mexico MTC. I have a hard time placing him to be like a person you know...he's a yellow. He can easily be distracted by the hustle of the big city. We still get along pretty well and we have fun too.
On this last Tuesday my companion and I taught a family that is investigating the church. We taught them about the 10 Commandments and how we need to keep them. They all agreed that they are important to keep and try our best at.
Wednesday was the departing temple trip. It was a week early because the temple is closing for 4 weeks due to summer maintenance. It was a good day at the temple and very enjoyable. After the temple trip, all of the bike missionaries had to go to a bike meeting. We reviewed some basic bike safety and learned that all the bike missionaries in our mission will now be required to wear a reflective vest when they are biking. They told us that the vests would be arriving shortly and that we would be issued them soon. Once my companion and I got back into our area we had a lesson with one of our investigators. He is 11 years old and his grandmother is a member. He wants to join the church now and his mother said he has to take the missionary lessons and learn and know them. Then once he turns 12 he can be baptized. He is a super solid kid and he's trying to learn everything now. We're helping him get ready for baptism but we have to wait until April (when he turns 12) until he can get baptized. We also were able to visit with a less-active member in the evening and talked about repentance and enduring to the end. She said she's not quite ready to come back to church but that she is trying to live the commandments and follow the example of Christ. My companion and I are both hopeful to see her return to church again soon.
This last Thursday we had a special 'Spanish Missionaries' meeting about trying to improve ourselves and help the wards and branches better understand our purpose. The meeting was very good and ended on a positive note. We also taught one of the members in the branch about missionary work and how to spread the gospel.
On Friday my companion and I helped a member begin working on Family History and we helped her set up an account on FamilySearch.org. She was very excited to begin and work on her family lines. We also taught another member and her almost 8-year-old son about baptism and the Holy Ghost and had some fun object lessons to go along with it. In the evening we had Branch Correlation and all of our reflective vests came in. The district leader passed out our assigned vests to us. Now all of the bike missionaries have our reflective vests for additional safety while riding.
Saturday we helped an investigator pack up and move back to New Jersey. She is really nice and great friends with the missionaries around here. Afterwards, we went to lunch with a member and the North Elders. We then ran over to an appointment we had with some investigators and taught them about the Restoration. It was a really good lesson and it became more of a discussion towards the end which helped them get very interactive with us. We also went back to the member who we helped with Family History the day before and helped her learn how to put in names and information on her ancestors. She is really excited too because someone had worked a little on 1 of her lines and had her great grandparents already entered in. Hopefully she will continue to have success while working on her Family History.
Sunday was an awesome day. After church we went to find some of our potential investigators and we had to drop a few because we haven't been able to contact them in weeks. We decided to look for some of our lost members instead because of the lack of success with our investigators. We ended up going to a man's home pretty far down in our area. We knocked on the door for his address and he was there! We were able to visit with him for a little bit and we found out he hasn't been to church in about 5 years. He didn't know there was a new chapel but he said more recently he's stopped by the old empty chapel to see if anyone was there. He is super nice and says he's willing to come back to church. He doesn't work most Sundays too (this is a huge deal in the Spanish Program). He works at a restaurant and unless they have a special event he doesn't have to work. He committed to come to church in 2 weeks (special event next week for his work) and meet with us again. We are super excited to find this Brother and now be able to visit with him. Later in the evening we had an appointment with one of our longtime investigators. She wasn't home when we arrived but 2 of her grandchildren, that are also our investigators, were there. We started teaching them the Plan of Salvation when a member knocks on their door to fix their doorknob. He sits in on the lesson and helps us teach it. Then after the lesson finished, we get in contact with the Grandmother and she says she's 10 minutes away. Since we had a 30-minute lesson with our other investigators, we decided to stay and help out with the doorknob. We get it all fixed and in walks our investigator. The member decided to stay and help us teach her. She has been really close to baptism for a little while now, but she never wanted to take the leap of faith. She told us she wants to be baptized!! She also wants her sister to be there at her baptism but she is visiting El Salvador for a little over 2 more months. She selected her own baptismal date in December. It's a little ways away but my companion and I are ecstatic that she has made the decision to be baptized and she selected when she wants to be baptized. It's a much firmer goal then if we just kept throwing out dates.
Mom's question: So are you the senior companion then? Braden escribió: Yes. [Nothing like getting those long answers!!]
I'm glad you guys all enjoyed your weekend and that everything is going well. Everything good with the two of us here. Senior companion's a bit more work and now we always have to be thinking about a third male for appointments. It's still nice and we're getting lessons in. The mission is shooting for 20 lessons a week (regardless if it's investigators, members, less-actives, etc.). We got 20 lessons once but now we're averaging about 12 per week. We're really pushing for it and we know that we can do it but we just have a lot of appointments cancel on us.
In regards to being vigilant and aware, President Cooke has been upgrading our safety precautions around here due to recent world events and talking to his General buddies. The mission now has an emergency plan and we have started practicing drills in case of emergency. We've had one emergency drill so far with a few more to come. Bike missionaries now have to wear a yellow reflective vest at all times when riding. The mission is also trying to get every bike missionary front and rear lights if they need them. In the future they are thinking of getting every missionary an orange reflector belt for walking around at night. Also, rumor has it we will all have to go to the Washington D.C. Temple Visitors' Center all day for 9/11.
Today my companion and I biked down 16th St and then went down Embassy Row on Massachusetts Ave where we saw more Embassies than I can possibly remember. We also bike down to the Pentagon..sort of. Obviously the Pentagon is in Virginia but we biked down to an island in our area (Still in DC) in between the Lincoln Memorial and the Pentagon. It has a nice trail around the island and we biked around and got pretty close by the Pentagon. It was a fun morning bike ride on P-Day. In the afternoon we went over to the Recreational Center by us and played soccer for a while.
Love, Elder Braden Dahl
On this last Tuesday my companion and I taught a family that is investigating the church. We taught them about the 10 Commandments and how we need to keep them. They all agreed that they are important to keep and try our best at.
Wednesday was the departing temple trip. It was a week early because the temple is closing for 4 weeks due to summer maintenance. It was a good day at the temple and very enjoyable. After the temple trip, all of the bike missionaries had to go to a bike meeting. We reviewed some basic bike safety and learned that all the bike missionaries in our mission will now be required to wear a reflective vest when they are biking. They told us that the vests would be arriving shortly and that we would be issued them soon. Once my companion and I got back into our area we had a lesson with one of our investigators. He is 11 years old and his grandmother is a member. He wants to join the church now and his mother said he has to take the missionary lessons and learn and know them. Then once he turns 12 he can be baptized. He is a super solid kid and he's trying to learn everything now. We're helping him get ready for baptism but we have to wait until April (when he turns 12) until he can get baptized. We also were able to visit with a less-active member in the evening and talked about repentance and enduring to the end. She said she's not quite ready to come back to church but that she is trying to live the commandments and follow the example of Christ. My companion and I are both hopeful to see her return to church again soon.
This last Thursday we had a special 'Spanish Missionaries' meeting about trying to improve ourselves and help the wards and branches better understand our purpose. The meeting was very good and ended on a positive note. We also taught one of the members in the branch about missionary work and how to spread the gospel.
On Friday my companion and I helped a member begin working on Family History and we helped her set up an account on FamilySearch.org. She was very excited to begin and work on her family lines. We also taught another member and her almost 8-year-old son about baptism and the Holy Ghost and had some fun object lessons to go along with it. In the evening we had Branch Correlation and all of our reflective vests came in. The district leader passed out our assigned vests to us. Now all of the bike missionaries have our reflective vests for additional safety while riding.
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| Elder Dahl with Elder H (his roommate) and the new reflective vests. |
Sunday was an awesome day. After church we went to find some of our potential investigators and we had to drop a few because we haven't been able to contact them in weeks. We decided to look for some of our lost members instead because of the lack of success with our investigators. We ended up going to a man's home pretty far down in our area. We knocked on the door for his address and he was there! We were able to visit with him for a little bit and we found out he hasn't been to church in about 5 years. He didn't know there was a new chapel but he said more recently he's stopped by the old empty chapel to see if anyone was there. He is super nice and says he's willing to come back to church. He doesn't work most Sundays too (this is a huge deal in the Spanish Program). He works at a restaurant and unless they have a special event he doesn't have to work. He committed to come to church in 2 weeks (special event next week for his work) and meet with us again. We are super excited to find this Brother and now be able to visit with him. Later in the evening we had an appointment with one of our longtime investigators. She wasn't home when we arrived but 2 of her grandchildren, that are also our investigators, were there. We started teaching them the Plan of Salvation when a member knocks on their door to fix their doorknob. He sits in on the lesson and helps us teach it. Then after the lesson finished, we get in contact with the Grandmother and she says she's 10 minutes away. Since we had a 30-minute lesson with our other investigators, we decided to stay and help out with the doorknob. We get it all fixed and in walks our investigator. The member decided to stay and help us teach her. She has been really close to baptism for a little while now, but she never wanted to take the leap of faith. She told us she wants to be baptized!! She also wants her sister to be there at her baptism but she is visiting El Salvador for a little over 2 more months. She selected her own baptismal date in December. It's a little ways away but my companion and I are ecstatic that she has made the decision to be baptized and she selected when she wants to be baptized. It's a much firmer goal then if we just kept throwing out dates.
Mom's question: So are you the senior companion then? Braden escribió: Yes. [Nothing like getting those long answers!!]
I'm glad you guys all enjoyed your weekend and that everything is going well. Everything good with the two of us here. Senior companion's a bit more work and now we always have to be thinking about a third male for appointments. It's still nice and we're getting lessons in. The mission is shooting for 20 lessons a week (regardless if it's investigators, members, less-actives, etc.). We got 20 lessons once but now we're averaging about 12 per week. We're really pushing for it and we know that we can do it but we just have a lot of appointments cancel on us.
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| Braden wearing reflective vest that must be worn at all times when riding a bike. Note the Washington Monument in the background. From his "fun ride" with his companion on 9/8/2014 |
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| The Pentagon-View from the DC (not Virginia) side. |
In regards to being vigilant and aware, President Cooke has been upgrading our safety precautions around here due to recent world events and talking to his General buddies. The mission now has an emergency plan and we have started practicing drills in case of emergency. We've had one emergency drill so far with a few more to come. Bike missionaries now have to wear a yellow reflective vest at all times when riding. The mission is also trying to get every bike missionary front and rear lights if they need them. In the future they are thinking of getting every missionary an orange reflector belt for walking around at night. Also, rumor has it we will all have to go to the Washington D.C. Temple Visitors' Center all day for 9/11.
Today my companion and I biked down 16th St and then went down Embassy Row on Massachusetts Ave where we saw more Embassies than I can possibly remember. We also bike down to the Pentagon..sort of. Obviously the Pentagon is in Virginia but we biked down to an island in our area (Still in DC) in between the Lincoln Memorial and the Pentagon. It has a nice trail around the island and we biked around and got pretty close by the Pentagon. It was a fun morning bike ride on P-Day. In the afternoon we went over to the Recreational Center by us and played soccer for a while.
Love, Elder Braden Dahl
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| Braden at the dock with a view of the Pentagon in the background. |
P.S. I have a completely filled 4GB SD Card ready to send to you. I just don't have any little box/protector to send it in. (I have 2 bubble wrapped envelopes though.) Don't worry I still have a 32GB card here I can take pictures with.
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| Braden says: "Very important building in VA-I'm still in DC" Still in my area and not wearing the vest overlooking the Pentagon on the Virginia side. |
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| Elder Dahl by Lincoln Memorial looking at Virginia. |
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| Elder Dahl by a memorial w/ flowers for Mom |
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