Navy Football Coach & Physically and Spiritually Fit...written 3-23-2015

I'm going to go back and forth between Dad & Mom's questions and Braden's answers. His letter makes more sense when you know what Dad & Mom asked him...

Dad: I have a stomach bug outbreak and work with about 30 residents and 9 staff members. We are hoping to get a handle on it. It should be a busy week.

Dad, I'm glad to hear that you're doing well. I hope the stomach bug problem gets handled and over with quickly at work. 

Dad: The ward is going to start a missionary training class for the adults. It is a program initiated by the Stake Sunday School. The ward Sunday School has asked that I attend the adult class and then teach the youth of our ward the information. I am actually excited about it. I think it will be fun.

It also sounds like the new missionary class should be really fun. I hope it all goes well. This week has been nice for me. It's been great getting to know everyone and finally starting to get the area all down.

Dad: It was also nice to get the picture the family sent mom. We assume that is from a family in your ward? 

Oh, and that photo that was sent to Mom on Thursday, March 19th at 11:52am... It was from a senior sister missionary. I don't think you guys have seen Meet the Mormons as many times as I have because they have a certain Navy Football Coach and his wife from Annapolis, MD featured. Yeah it's them from Meet the Mormons because they went to the temple (DC being he closest to Annapolis) and we caught a pic with them when we were at the temple the same day.

Barbara & Ken Niumatalolo with Elder Mayta and Elder Braden Dahl. Ken is the Head Football Coach of the
U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and was featured in the movie, "Meet the Mormons"

NCAAF head coach Ken Niumatalolo believes in teamwork on and off the field. 










Mom: Wow Braden! I can't believe you lost 6-8 suit sizes!! I was teasing with Dad saying that you are going to come home the 'crazy' missionary who will be whipping us into better spiritual shape and the 'crazy-exercising' missionary that will also be whipping us into better physical shape! I told Dad that you'll get home and have us up at 6am jogging -- in matching jogging suits for the whole family -- while reading our scriptures as we go! I hope you get the joke, it's a women/mom thing always trying to keep up with all those other perfect Mormon Moms thus the matching jogging suits, jogging & scripture reading all at once.

I'm not sure about matching jogging suits; I'm still not a huge jogging fan. I could get you all on bike though and I can get some matching reflective vests. Roseville isn't too-too bad so we could probably read scriptures while on bike, or Dad will just have everyone download the audio for the scriptures and play it on their iPod at the same time.

This past week has been great. Monday evening we started doing A Family Home Evening with a less-active member who is also a recent convert. She has gone through a lot of hard times but is super nice. We also having her home teachers come over and help us share a message.

My companion and I also helped move a less-active member in the other Elders' area. She used to be a member in an area I previously served in. It was a little short notice but we were glad to help and finish moving everything. It was a great opportunity to serve and they really appreciated it. This week we also went over to a member's home to fill up bike tires with the two small bike pumps I have so they could give it to another member for transportation. It's fun to see all the little things you can do to help. (Don't worry I still always offer to wash the dishes at everyone's home-they just never let us do it.)

We have the goal to meet all the members in our new area to better know them and help them. We started doing that this week and have been going around looking for the members. We have had good success already and have found and met with a lot of the active and less-active members. They all seem great and we are getting a better grasp on how to help each of them. So far we're probably about a third of the way through visiting all the members but we are hoping to visit with a lot of them this week.

We also are trying to visit all the investigators the Sisters and Elders gave to us when the area was created. We've been able to visit with a couple of them now but not as many as we'd like. However, in our searches for members and investigators we've found a lot of new and potential investigators that we are really excited about. The area has so much potential and the members in the ward are super willing to help with missionary work.

On Thursday, our Zone (Silver Spring) went to the temple to do baptisms, confirmations, and initiatories for our ancestors. I brought my 5 names and performed the ordinances for them. It was a great time at the temple and super fun. The senior missionary couple in charge told us that the mission had completed over 900 family file names!

On Sunday I got to quickly go back to the Mount Pleasant Branch in DC for the baptism of one the investigators I taught. We set his baptismal date a little after the transfer when I left and he was able to complete it. We arrived just before he was baptized and we had to leave shortly after because the member that brought us down was helping at the baptism of one of the primary kids in our ward the same day. It was great being there for a few minutes and congratulating him. It was awesome feeling seeing him be baptized and knowing that he is coming closer to Christ.

It snowed here for the first day of Spring. It's still cold here but it is supposed to warm up this week so we can finally have some real springtime weather.

Love,
Elder Braden Dahl

PS-Just so you know, on Saturday we all received our new iPad minis. So I have it now and it's all good.

Family History! 3-10-2014

3/10/2014

Hello my Father,

This week has been fairy good. Almost all the snow has melted now and it was 60 degrees on Saturday. It's really weird now when I think 60 is hot. Tell the boys to try tongue tacos, it sounds a whole lot worse than it actually is, trust me they're actually really tasty.

I've been working on Family History and found both of the Dahl side Great Grandmother's Obituaries so I have made the change. It looks like on Family Search they got combined into one person and then were broken up by someone but not completely edited. Needless to say there is still a lot of family history to be done. It's great work and there is still a ton to do. I found 2 more of Grandma Dahl's ancestors. I found a Mary Davidson and found an indexed Christening record of her with the correct Christening date. It had her father listed but nothing else really. I went through the index project and found 2 other Davidsons; both of the other children were from the same city in Massachusetts (pre-USA), with really no other information except the father's name. On the first child I looked at I found their profile and a William Davidson (the father) but no spouse. On the second child I found the William, a ton of children and 2 wives with a lot more information and I was able to attach Mary to her parents.

Elder Anderson ad I are teaching a brother and sister, they are very busy so we don't get to see them very often. They work and go to school so it's a little hard. The brother isn't as interested as the sister and they're doing alright. One of the former investigators has been coming to church again and expressed his desire to be baptized, so we are hoping to meet with him this week and extend a baptismal date to him. We helped a recent convert stay active, since they were starting to go less active. We've been able to meet with many of our less active members, some of them who were basically do not contact. We've had most of the people we've met come to church, but we're still having problems with them coming to church consistently.  But they are getting a lot better.

Transfers are on April 2nd. I really don't know if either of us will be transferred. Elder Anderson is dying next transfer (aka finishing his mission). So I'm not really sure if he'll leave for one transfer or if I'll leave and he'll get someone here for one transfer. We both might stay, but Elder Anderson is on his 5th transfer (6-week period) here. But at the same time in this mission missionaries are staying in their areas longer to know and work with members better. So I have no clue.

Elder Anderson and I are planning to tour the Capitol sometime this transfer. An English member we know here has a friend that works for one of the congressmen who's offered to get us a special tour of the Capitol, so we hope he can come through with it.

Everything has been going well and I'm loving it out here.

Love,

Elder Braden Dahl

Mom,

Yes, I do like tongue tacos. We went with a Hermano and Hermana to a taco truck and I got 2 care asada tacos and two tongue tacos. I thought I was going to die but I picked up a taco not knowing which one and then ate it, and I repeated that with the second taco. Tongue is actually very good. It has a lot of flavor and brings a lot of flavor out in the things with it. It is a little chewy but still pretty good.

My companion and I actually taught the [family home evening] lesson [on Family History]. But Elder H was next to me when Sister Cooke was taking a picture, so Elder H got the credit on accident. But we did use three of your heart ribbons to "seal" a family together and then we spoke about Family History.

In regards to Family History, my mission is going to be trained on Family History specifically on Family Search, so that we can help others learn to do their own Family History. (Don't worry I already emailed the three grandparents with emails and have received responses from all of them.) Since Family History is part of the Gospel (turning the hearts of the children to their fathers) and not just a program or something nice that the Church has, missionaries can use it as one of the many tools we have to help members and investigators become more deeply converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am in one of the 5 beta tester wards in our mission for the training we are receiving for Family History on Family Search. Family Search has a little bit of a learning curve to know how to do everything and how to do it correctly. There is an open Facebook group with the lessons in a file form so that every missionary can go at their own pace. Family Search is constantly changing and I can think of at least 4 of the 20 lessons that were put up less than a month ago that already have a version 2 and I know there are 3 lessons are currently missing because they are already outdated and need to be updated. We are getting some basic training, similar to that of a Family History Consultant so that we can help the members do their family history and the missionaries can confidently know the program that the church uses and be a help to the members. We aren't changing the mission, just adding a tool to missionary work that is really effective. During our training we are encouraged to spend an hour a day to work on the lessons and to complete them in a timely manner. After we finish all the lessons we wont use that much time that often to review our Family History Training, but we are encouraged to review some of the lessons and check for updates on Family Search occasionally; when we reach that point. For now, every week we have to report on how many Family History training lessons we have completed and how many Family History lessons we have taught to others. It is an excellent part of the gospel and it really gets people excited about their ancestry. Since Family History is the 2nd most popular hobby in the world, it is an easy conversation piece to bring up and isn't as scary to share with others.

I highly recommend that you start working on Family History. I highly recommend that Dad, all 4 of my brothers, and everyone you know start working on a family history. Our lines are not done. I fixed Grandma's mother from her twin’s name to her actual name, combined 2 Uncle LV's and already found 2 more of our ancestors of Family Search in the early-mid 1700s. There is a lot of work to do. I know that it's great to immerse yourself in.

Yesterday my companion and I sang "Un Pobre Forastero" with Elder O at the piano for "Noche de Música e Inspiración". We were the last number and it went really well. It was recorded last night and we'll get a disk of the performance sometime in the future. I think Elder Anderson had someone record it on his camera. I would have had someone record it on my camera but recently my camera has been acting funny and it keeps automatically shutting down and displaying something along the lines of "a camera error was detected, will automatically shutdown, restart E32". So it only stays on for 30 seconds or so. Anyways, I think it went well. Sister Eyring asked us to perform it again next Sunday for "Why I Believe" as the special musical number. So next week we'll be performing it again, but in English.

Elder Braden Dahl (2nd from right) w/ 2 Elders & 2 Ward Members

I've taken some more pictures and looking at your list I believe I have completed 23 of the 69 photos you want (some were already taken and you know have from my old SD card). I'm working on it but photos aren't the forefront of a missionary's purpose but I am trying to work on your list. Let me just say I wish I was in 'ye old times' where if over 500 pictures where sent to a parent of a missionary they would die from how extensive and thorough their collection of photos was. Just so you know on Friday the 7th I had 237 on my SD card that I started using the 23rd of February (that averages just over 18 photos per day). I'm going to start deleting the photos on my iPad that you have and that I've sent the description of to you. Can you tell me which number I left off on; I believe I stopped at 268. But I'm not sure. The purpose of the photos on my iPad is so that I can have a backup of them just incase something happens to the SD card then I still have those photos. My plan is to take pictures download them on my iPad with my SD card to lightning reader. Send the pictures off to you and the description of the photos. Have you confirm that you received both and answer any questions you have on any photos and then delete them from my iPad. I will now start sending the description of the photos with the SD card so when you go through them you can just look at the description while you go. Instead of having to go back and check, like you have to now. I'll delete my older photos on my iPad since their isn't much room on it and that way I can add my current photos onto my iPad and then send off them off to you and not have to worry about them being lost if something were to happen.

Love,

Elder Braden Dahl

February 10th-Happy Valentine's Day

February 10, 2014

To my two youngest brothers,

I recently started watching the Bible videos on the gospel library app and I am done with all of them. I do know that the gospel library app is missing a few, but the others are available online and probably on the Bible video app. You guys should check them out. They are very well done and are really cool to watch.

http://youtu.be/dYO8opAUFf0

If you want you could also watch some Mormon Messages as well. I have watched a lot of the Mormon Messages and they are great! Some of them are funny, some are serious, some are happy, and some are a little sad. But those are also great to watch and have great messages. The best thing about the Mormon Messages and Bible Videos are they are always coming out with new ones. Since I have been in Washington, DC there have been several new Mormon Messages and new Bible Videos.

https://www.lds.org/youth/video/come-with-us?lang=eng&cid=email-shared

My mission has been really fun. I have been working hard and have been able to do a lot of fun things as well. It is really cool that I get to use an iPad mini in my mission, but we aren't allowed to have any games on it. We also have a cell phone, but it is not an iPhone. It is just a regular phone that can call and text.

I hope you guys have a really good Valentine's Day; just don't kiss too many girls. I hope you both are doing well and I hope you are doing well in school and having fun at school. Work hard and help Mom out. Make sure you both are getting your homework and projects done without Mom having to twist your arms too hard.

I heard you are going to do a lot of fun stuff this year and I can't wait to hear all about it.

Love,

Elder Braden Dahl

Dear Oldest Brother,

I hope that you have been doing well these last few weeks. I heard that “The Emperor's New Clothes” has gone really well. I am sure you had fun doing it. I hope that Footloose is also going well, and that practice is moving along and that you are having fun with practice.

It seems like you have been having lots of fun while staying busy. And I have heard that you have a lot more fun things in store this year. Keep doing well in school and enjoying all your classes. Hopefully Mr. O'Hair isn't too hard on you. Work hard in Spanish class.  It is very useful to speak and many countries speak Spanish. Plus, it could come in handy in the next few years.

The ward I attend is really great. It is one of the largest and most functioning Spanish wards (still it is only about one third the size of Roseville Second). Our entire District goes to this ward and there are two members from their ward doing a service mission so there are ten missionaries in all. Everyone is from all around the world. The Elder's Quorum is pretty small, but the ward is great and doing great. In the building we meet in we have an English Ward, a Spanish Ward, a Young Single Adult Ward, and a French Group (not a branch, but a group that is smaller than a branch). The Zone leaders are in our ward, and the Assistants to the President are in the YSA Ward, so sometimes we see them. Fun fact: One of my roommates is from Auburn. Also there is an Elder here, I have only met once, from Rocklin.

My trainer is a great companion. He is the District Leader for our District. We are about the same height. He likes to sing and knows some of the show-tunes. He knows the area really well and is loved by the people. His Dad is from Utah and served in Mexico for his mission and his Mom is from Mexico, so he speaks excellent Spanish, plus he leaves in May so he only has two more transfers after this one. He is super nice and a great missionary.

If you haven't already, you should read this month's New Era. I have read parts of it and it is really good. I enjoyed reading “28 Ways to Spread Sunshine.”  It is a very nice article about staying happy and making others happy. There are a ton of great articles in the magazine. There are a lot about dating in this edition of the magazine. I recommend reading them all, but the article "Not Dating? You're Not Alone" was probably my favorite out of the ones I have read so far. It is very applicable to many people out there and was really insightful.

Love,

Elder Braden Dahl

P.S. A few tips for that class that the teachers don't normally say to help with pronunciation . . . the letter "b" and "v" make the exact same sound.  Its sound is kind of in between the two sounds. Also, the "d" sound is not in your throat like it is in English, it's at the tip of your mouth in Spanish by flicking your tongue off of your teeth; it's almost a "th" sound.

Dear Mom,

It sounds like you are all doing well and I'm glad to hear it. I'm sure you will all have a great time this coming weekend. At Disneyland just let your sister guide you and you'll see/go on just about everything. Also at Cars Land go to the cozy cone food snack place and get what my oldest cousin calls the "purple flurp" (ask your sister). It's super good.

I'm glad to hear it has started to rain in California again. I'm glad to hear that the prayers for rain were heard. 

I'm also glad you are getting the pictures from the member in my ward and I hope you'll get the ones he took last night of us eating with them.

Haciendo tamales con Hermana Olga Rodriguez - Making tamales with Sister Olga Rodriguez.
Saturday they made them; Sunday they ate them. 

This Wednesday we are going to the temple as our temple day this transfer. I am super excited to go and can't wait to see what is inside the DC temple. They just replaced most of the portraits in the temple and our apartment was lucky enough to acquire two of the old paintings. We have on printed canvas “Christ Ordaining the Twelve Apostles” and “Christ's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.”

Things have been going pretty well around here. We have been meeting a lot with our less actives and seen a few of our investigators, but it is often hard to meet with them because of their work schedule. Sunday was really good and we taught the 13-year-old class for Sunday School. And we taught and talked to a man, who is not a member but knows all of the church and has a testimony of everything for third hour. It is a long and confusing story. The members are still amazing and the ward is doing great. The less actives in the ward are really opening up and some are starting to come to Church again more or less. It is amazing to see the miracles happening to the people here.

Today was our Zone Activity. It was a Country Fair theme. We were divided into teams and then had a bunch of small competitions. Whichever team won the most competitions overall got to throw whipped cream pies at the Zone Leaders. The activities included bobbing for apples, barrel races, sack races, three-legged races, donut on a string, etc.

Everything is going absolutely great here in Washington, DC North. Last Monday's weather was a little weird. It snowed, then rained, and then we had freezing rain. It snowed a little on Sunday and we have a very small layer of snow covering everything.

We went sledding near our apartment on 1-21-2014 - L to R: Elder ?; Elder Anderson; Elder Braden Dahl

Snow, Rain, Freezing Rain on 2-5-2014

Thank you in advance for the Valentine's Day package.

Love,

Elder Braden Dahl

Live Questions and Answers as we emailed back & forth…Mom...Braden

Where did you and your companion get your flannel shirts? The ones you were making tamales in?

They are my companions. He received a lot of them from a guy throughout his mission and he let me borrow one.

I hope to see you and your companion singing in the next Night of Music at the Temple Visitor's Center.  I've watched pretty much all the videos.  The Mission President's wife posted a few and one of the Sister Missionaries posted some, too.

We have not been in Night of Music and Inspiration yet, but next Sunday we are in a choir number, "Why I Believe."

I know you weren't in the last one...I was super impressed with the Elder’s piano playing. Hope someone videos the group and posts it...put the iPads to good use!

That Elder doesn't think he's good at the piano because he only really knows chords,

which means he can technically play anything. But he is really good at the piano. He came up with that arrangement of chords and the other Elder came up with a rap to it.

And don't worry I am 100% sure that someone will video the choral piece next week.

iPads for Each Missionary

It's been a crazy week with the big change of having iPad minis. Last Tuesday was Zone Conference. We had a lot of classes and learned a lot of things and learned how we can be better. At the end we all received our 16GB iPad minis and we set it up and got trained on it. They are very strictly limited (for obvious reasons) but they are really nice. We have the gospel library, LDS Music, Skype, email, Facebook, Safari (with around 6 unblocked sites), and an area book/planner app, along with some of the standard apps installed. We have a few others but we don't really use them. We no longer have the daily planner book since there is an app for that. It is amazing how the work is being hastened. It is
taking some getting used to, but it is really nice to just pull up a Mormon Message you want to show and have sow many gospel tools at your fingertips.

From the Mission Blog: iPads for All of our Missionaries

We're Making History!

Elders Hatch, Guerrero, Hartzog, Dahl, Anderson, Sisters Chappell and Marambio

We are one of the few missions worldwide chosen to pilot the revolutionary approach to missionary work of giving each missionary a specially-designed iPad.

At this week's zone conferences, our missionaries were instructed on the importance of staying focused on their purpose and were trained on the use of this amazing device.

So you can tell the Bishop that the church is Pro-Apple Products. And joke with my oldest brother that the Church chose Apple over Droids. They are restricted; they don't have the App Store but we have this thing called air-walk which is the program that kind of controls the restrictions and it has a small App Store so we can update the few apps we have if something new comes out.

Last night my companion and I went to the Night of Music and Inspiration at the Visitors' Center. We were supposed to have a Recent Convert and a Potential Investigator there but the PI was a no show and the RC called us last minute and said her ride fell through so she couldn't come but wanted to. It was a great performance with music, short talks, and a few short clips.

I am doing great. I love my mission here and the ward I'm in. Things are going pretty well. My companion  and I are getting a lot done with the less-actives in our area and we are finding a lot of
potential investigators. The hard thing is almost everyone works all the time it's hard to get appointments with everyone and have people progress. We've been having fun as well, we fed some horses last week, sing a lot, and just stay happy. We work a ton and try to stay busy. I feel like I'm going to gain 3,000 pounds because the members feed you a lot and they give you a portion for 5 people.

One example is once we had a quarter rack of ribs, a full chicken breast, half a plate of heaping rice, two large chicken tenders, some beans, and a salad. You can tell the people only a small, small portion and that means basically nothing [they still give you a lot]. However, the cooking ability of these people is amazing. The people here cook some delicious food, it's just you can't always eat it all. The standard meal here is 1. Rice 2. Chicken and 3. Beans. The rice is usually white rice but I've seen it prepared differently and it's very good. The beans are always black beans. But the chicken is almost always prepared some way different than I've seen. Since the people are from all over the world everyone has their own little spin on things.

When you are here you have to know the nationality of everyone. Most people here have a strong sense of national pride and hang out with people from their country. It's important to know people's history and someone who can relate to them. The major two groups in our ward are the Salvadorians and the Peruvians. But still there are people from all over here so you basically have to know every Spanish speaking country because I'm getting close to meeting someone from all of them. I have met people from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Spain, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. The countries I haven't met people from include Paraguay, Uruguay, Columbia, Panama, Belize, Cuba, and the African Country that speaks Spanish. I only haven't met people from 7 of the (I believe) 21 countries that speak Spanish (22 if you count Puerto Rico).

The man who texted you our picture was a man in our ward.  He is a convert from 2 years ago and he is one of the strongest members in the ward. He is from México and he is super nice and just awesome.

I've been doing great! I've been working hard and having fun as well. We had exchanges last Friday and I stayed in my Area and Elder Alca joined me. I had to drive since he doesn't have a license and it's just straight up weird to drive a small vehicle. It really was an eye opener on all the things I still need to work on and how much I still need to learn.

Love, Elder Braden Dahl (written 2/3/2014)