Missionary Monday - Week 9 in DC
This week was veeeeery good. Long but lots of good stuff.
Monday when we were out after P day was over, knocking on some doors of former investigators, we got a call from President Johnson and he said that Elder Ringwood of the 70 would be coming for zone conference on Friday and that he wanted to meet with 5 missionaries after the conference. And President Johnson wanted me to be one of the 5. So I was pretty excited about that. Then shortly after we got a former to answer and it was totally a trap. We were talking to a young couple at the door and they had met with missionaries like 2 years ago and they were like "Yes please come in!" And we were like, oh sweet. But then we walk in and there's this anciently old lady wearing sun glasses sitting on a bed in the living room in the dark. We start getting to know them and talking about what we do and then the young couple gets up and goes into the other room and the old lady goes off, she was Pentecostal I think and she went on and on and on speaking Spanish 100 mph about "how it really is" It was wild. The couple thought they were real funny doing that to us, they kinda were, she was crazy.
Tuesday we met with Nicolas finally! That was super good, he's had a rough life but he's turning things around. He was Catholic but stop being active in that when he started learning more about the scandals and stuff, but he still wants a church in his life. We also met with Sabas, Keyli and Kellin. They needed to find four American citizens to meet with because the immigration department was going to be calling 4 people to see if they knew her. The ward was great with that, everyone was happy to help. I'm not sure how or why all this stuff with immigration works but whatever. We helped them out a ton and are building more trust.
Wednesday wasn't too special, it was the day Zone conference was supposed to be but it was postponed to Friday so our schedule was cleared and we had no appointments or anything besides correlation so that's about all that happened.
Thursday went by pretty fast, went from studies to Elder Stolk needing to practice his song with Hermana Muggleston because he volunteered to do a musical number again in zone conference. He acts put out but he loves it. They couldn't make up their mind on a song so they decided to wing it. We had to go from there to some Jewish building for an "interfaith concert" It was a service thing that a good chunk of the mission was signed up for. That was pretty cool, I didn't know what to expect but it was basically like 6 different religions taking turns singing and stuff. We were there from 4-8 and the concert didn't start till 7:30 so it was a lot of setting up and stuff. At about 6:45 they split us up to go be in charge of the different groups and make sure they get to the stage in time. Elder Gregson and I got put with the Siks? Seeks? I don't know how to spell it, but they were super Indian. We got to hear them practice before and it was AWESOME. I felt like I was in India. We walked them down and led them out, then watched the DC choir sing like 1 song then we had to leave so we could be home in time haha. Overall it was pretty sweet. Interacting with all the people of other churches was a cool experience.
Friday was Elder Ringwood, that was great. He talked about Moroni 7 and then had an open Q&A, The Q&A was basically a bunch of missionaries trying to stump a general authority, so you can imagine how that went. After he was done they had "Departing Testimonies" And he started his interviews. That was pretty sweet. He's an awesome guy, we didn't really talk about anything special, I think I taught him a lot. Just kidding but it was good. He stressed "Exhilaration in exhaustion" but that's been my plan. For lunch they basically had a Thanksgiving dinner and that was way good. I gave the stuffing a shot, still not a fan sorry mom.
Saturday was awesome. We were assigned to clean the Chapel but when we got there the Hermanos were on their way out, they said they cleaned everything but the windows and that we couldn't leave because there were turkeys in the oven for the Thanksgiving party and someone had to be there. So we cleaned some windows and studied till the party started. The food was way over my expectations. I had heard bad things about Hispanic Thanksgiving, there was rice but it was ok. The turkey was cooked with strips of bacon layed over the top of it. That's creative especially coming from Hispanics who don't even really celebrate Thanksgiving. I was thrilled with it all. AND Hermano Vargas brought a friend. His name is Alex, they both like to call me Putin haha. Alex is from El Salvador and is loaded. However that's the source of his problem. He has an ex-wife and 2 kids and the wife left him because he was working too much. We invited him to a lesson at the Visitors Center later that day and he was excited to go. Fast forward to that night, he told us more about his story and he basically said that he has/had everything that should make a person happy, but he still feels like something is missing. We taught him about the restoration and it was awesome. It was a lot for him to take in but he loves it. And we are super tight with him already. He offered to let us use his extra car 😂 I wish we could take him up on that.
Sunday was stake conference at the stake center by the temple. That was good except we sat in the Spanish translation room with the people from our ward and listened to it translated so I didn't get much from that 😂 Elder Ringwood spoke as well, all I know is he's big on the song "Keep the commandments" he had everyone sing that in the middle of his talk, that was weird. Later last night they had an event at the Visitors Center called "Why I Believe" and they invite recent Converts to bear their testimonies and then they have a big speaker come. We decided to invite Alex to that, he brought his daughters and they seemed to enjoy it. The testimonies were awesome, the speakers... not so much. They had cool stories and stuff but for an investigator, it wasn't anything that would really help them. But overall it was great.
Today is pretty good so far, Elder Stolk made me pancakes and bacon. I'm not sure what else we will do today, yet. Thanks for all the birthday wishes!
Elder Beck
The ward Thanksgiving party with sabas Keyli and Kellin, and then with a member that always asks for a picture with us but has never really talked to us before...? 😂
Then at the Visitors Center with someone from Elder Stolks first area, she claims it will be my next area... we'll see. "Gaithersburg Maryland" For anyone who's into rap I think 'Logic' is from there.
And then the breakfast.
Unfortunately no pictures with Alex, he hates them. Can't blame him though
