LDS family releases Spanish translation of 'Glorious'

Elder Braden Dahl with his companion in his 4th area-Silver Spring, MD
His companion is a native Spanish speaker from Canada

This week has been really nice and a bit crazy here. As I mentioned they changed our Ward boundaries two Sundays ago. Initially that had no effect on our area. However, the Glenmont Ward gained a very large geographical area that used to be part of the other Spanish Ward. The mission decided to give us the old part of the Silver Spring Ward because the sister missionaries are often at the Visitors' Center on shift, making it hard for them to visit everyone especially if the person lives far away. Also because Elder M served in that area when it was part of the Silver Spring Ward and he knows most of the members that live there already. So our new area just got doubled in size. We gave away a small part of our area with a few members to the bike elders on the west to give them some more members and lighten our load. It's exciting but a bit crazy getting it all figured out. Most of the members that live in the new part of the ward are in leadership in the Silver Spring Ward (and ironically 2/3 of the leadership in Glenmont is now in the Silver Spring Ward). So the changes to the boundaries are more gradual and they expect that most of the change will happen after Stake Conference in about a month when the leadership can be released and new members can be called to those positions. However, a few people were able to make the transition over to the Glenmont Ward yesterday at church. Many people in the ward welcomed them to their new ward which was great.

The dark green area (toward the right) is the area that Elder Dahl & his companion, Elder M cover in Silver Spring, MD

This last week we finally got our area map made and put up after some effort. We were busy trying to get to know everyone this last week. We passed by most of the investigators given to us twice but they didn't answer or told us another time to stop by. It's been a bit difficult getting into contact with all of them. However, my companion and I have found a couple investigators on our own or with them help of members and we are very excited to be teaching them. The members here are great and they always want to help out and come out with us. My companion and I had members come out with us 6 of the 7 days last week. It's great having a strong member support in the ward.

We are also trying to get to know some of the members that live here too. We tried to meet with a lot of them and stopped by to see if they were home. Most weren't home when we stopped by, but we did end up finding a few of them and getting to know them. When their not home we just knock around the building to find people possibly interested in the church and to get a feel for our new area.

We still can ride our bikes if we choose and we did ride them one day in the rain when we were checking up on some people that lived close by. We can also use public transportation and whatever other mode of transportation. It's just our area is big and we need a car to head around to some of the farther parts of the area.

My companion is really nice and easy to get along with. His Spanish is great but he claims if it wasn't for church, he wouldn't really know any Spanish at all. I think he feels a bit more comfortable speaking French [than English], it's just been 6 months since he's spoken a lot of French.

As you probably already know, last Monday I went and got a new suit. I had been thinking about buying one for a while now since I haven't worn my grey suit since Germantown because it got a little big for me and now it's ginormous on me. My charcoal suit also has been really big on my for a while. President Cooke once rolled it up on me to show how big the suit had gotten on me. Since I'm in a car area it finally gave me the shove to get a new suit that would fit a lot better so if I started gaining weight I'd know really quickly and be able to do something about it quick. I've been saving up for a bit for a purchase of a new suit so I was totally fine and not heading over to debtor's prison for it, nor am I going to be living off scraps for the rest of the month. Anyways, I checked a couple of stores in the area to see their prices and I ended up going to Sears and found a black suit for a decent price and in my right size. It's 8 sizes smaller than my grey suit and 6 sizes smaller than my charcoal suit, no need to say more. It fits a lot better and I'm trying to stay in shape so that it continues to fit me well.

Have a great week. I love you lots.
Love,
Elder Braden Dahl

Here's a fun video. Elder Gabe Guerrero was one of Braden's roommates. Can you find Braden in this video? I found him in 4 photos...(Spoiler alert: answers below!)