Birthday Month in our Apartment...Written 8-18-2014

Monday night all of our appointments cancelled so we ended up going to Meridian Park to go GQ [General Question] people. We were invited to play soccer in the dirt with a bunch of guys (mainly Hispanics). It started to rain as well but we ended up playing in the mud and dust for an hour.

Meridian Park with Elder C

Meridian Park with Elder H

Tuesday I met one of the area's more solid investigators and we taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a great lesson and it was fun being able to teach in a trio. [3 Elders as companions]

Tuesday it rained a ton. There were some flood warnings going out due to all the rain we received. So naturally like any other missionaries, we bike through it to our morning appointments. Needless
to say we were pretty drenched, more like soaked through, to be realistic. It was really fun trying to make our way through the rain. Elder C popped both of his bike tubes hitting a pothole in the gutter so we had to walk to an appointment and back to our house to repair it. In the afternoon the rain let up and it was more of a light drizzle but we walked to our appointments because they were very close to our apartment and one another. It was a very fun day being out there. We also had a member come out with us Tuesday Night, so Elder C and I went out to GQ around Meridian Park. We found and taught 2 new investigators and got return appointments with both of them.

Wednesday we reviewed the Restoration with this awesome kid that I met. He wants to get baptized. He's only 12 and his mother says he can't get baptized until he turns 13 because in her eyes he will be old enough to really make that decision and will have proved his commitment to want to be baptized. We are still working on it but we know he'll be a great member.

Thursday was Zone Training for the Washington DC Zone. It was a really good meeting with some great workshops on the Plan of Salvation and studying the Scriptures. Afterwards, we had our weekly planning session.

Friday was one of our roommate's birthday. His mom sent him some cake mix and candles so Elder H, Elder C, and I made him 20 cupcakes for his 20th birthday while they were out for an appointment during our lunch hour.

Saturday morning we all headed over to the Holmead Chapel to clean it with several more missionaries and some English and Spanish members. The Holmead Chapel is one of the church's abandoned chapels and has been so for a little over 2 years after the completion of the 16th St Chapel.

Holmead Chapel

The Holmead Chapel is super tiny building less than a block away from Columbia Heights. The place has been pretty ransacked by the homeless and the missionaries. We ended up throwing away about a dumpster's size of trash and made it look like a usable chapel again. It's a nice little building. The stake here is looking to sell it but until then it is being used for occasional activities put on by various wards or branches as well as district meetings for the missionaries. In the evening we met a Hispanic family at the park and we had a great lesson with them about the Restoration and they really liked what they heard. We also taught another of our solid investigators who is pretty close to baptism. We had a great discussion on faith with her.

Sunday we were in the chapel for 7 hours. We had two meetings to attend before Sacrament Meeting followed by the normal three hours of church which was then followed by a branch farewell dinner for a missionary they are sending off this Wednesday.

The Elders that are serving in the Mt. Pleasant Branch in Washington D.C.

After we got back to the apartment we bussed up to the Visitors' Center for a "Why I Believe". We had an investigator ride up with a member and we met up with them there. We then managed to hitch a ride back to our apartment.

I hope you have a great day and that Dad feels better soon. It stinks feeling vertigo all the time but I hope it goes away soon. I also hope you have a good week coming up.

Today we biked down to Chinatown and the National Mall with our roommates. It was really fun walking around Chinatown and going down to the Air and Space Museum today and seeing some of the displays there. The Mission Executive Secretary J.S. bought me a Baskin Robin's ice cream cake as an early birthday present which was super nice of him.

Love,
Elder Braden Dahl