Missionary Monday - Anacostia Week 1

So we got our transfer calls Monday afternoon, Elder Russell was called to train and be district leader and I was called to be Zone Leader for the Suitland Zone with Elder Attanasio, he came out a transfer before me. Which sadly, this zone has no Spanish areas because there are hardly any Spanish people but on the bright side our area is Southeast DC aka Anacostia. We came down here a few times in my first two transfers and every time something wack happened, this place is a circus 🤹‍♂️ 😂

But anyways, Tuesday was spent packing and going to training meetings for Elder Russell and then district meeting too. After dinner we had a lesson with Abelardo, the guy who came to soccer. He is awesome. It was a really good lesson, he's here alone but when he was in Mexico he would take the lessons every time he visited his sister in the city, but then he'd have to go back to his town where there wasn't a church and no missionaries. He's super thankful he's working with us, and so are we. He said he would come to church but I don't know if he did or not...

Wednesday was transfers, we went an hour early for the trainer thing. After that there was the usual kumbaya in the gym for the missionaries going home and then we swapped comps and that's the end of the Elder Beck and Elder Russell era. The car for our area is a minivan 😂 Everyone calls it Candice. Some missionaries had an unusual circumstance and needed a ride home so we loaded their crap in Candice as well as them and drove to the southernmost part of Maryland and dropped them off. The zone is huge, it covers everywhere that no one has heard of. We drove through the mall to get there and that was cool, haven't seen it since November lol. Luckily in the area here you can see the capital and the national monument almost all the time, it's awesome. Anyways, by the time we got back the day was over.

Thursday we had a lesson in the morning with a referral, that went fine. In the afternoon we tried to meet with a guy named Christian but he was leaving to little league practice so he bailed on us. We took Brother Mason and everything (an older special needs member) he's a cool guy, he always wants to go out with us. When Christian turned us away brother Mason said "that was not awesome “😂 we had dinner and then had to help the same elders from the day before move a mattress a desk and some chairs from one apartment to the other as well as do a Baptismal interview so we had to drive 2 hours down there again 🙄 it was good though, they're cool guys. We ended up getting home at 10:35 haha.

Friday we tracted in the morning then weekly planned in the afternoon. After that we had a lesson with a guy who requested a Book of Mormon online. That was wack. He had gotten surgery on a hernia on Monday so he said he's been chilling reading books all day and he wants to see what the Book of Mormon was all about. We explained it a little more and he was down for it. Unfortunately he kept changing the subject to either his dead family or his hernia and ended up showing us his surgery scars 🤮 Good times. After that we had dinner then went to a real sketchy part of town to street contact, I've never seen a bigger freak show in my life 😂 speaking of dinner, meals have been ROUGH. I only had space to pack a little bit of food so I've been having pancakes and bagels breakfast lunch and dinner 😂 Thankfully we will be going to the store today 🙏

Saturday we had like 6 lessons planned and they all fell through besides one guy who ordered a free Bible, he was super African and was learning English but he kicked us out quick :/ So we ended up doing a lot of tracting. Not much came from it unfortunately. Everyone in this area is Baptist and they are real proud of it.

Sunday, church was WILD. First off, the chapel is an old Baptist church and you can totally tell. The seating in the chapel is circular and the podium is makeshift. There's a big curtain behind the speaker that has the Baptismal font behind it 😂 The ward is strugglin pretty bad, there's like 600 people on the records but about 50 in church. Almost all the members are super African with thick French accents. There's four white young couples that all live on the naval base, they are kinda the backbone of the ward since almost all of them are born and raised members. Overall I loved it, it's probably the most diverse ward I'll ever be in. After church we had 4 lessons planned and they all fell through. We were tracting in the area of a less active member so we knocked on his door, that guy was NUTS. He has a nickname for all the missionaries and he hates when we get switched out. So when he answered and saw that I had replaced "choir boy" he flipped on me. By the end he chilled out. Now I'm Beer boy (cause becks beer). We ate with the Gamerens, they are cool we had to go on base to eat with them which was cool. The husband is Australian and only a member of 5 years and the wife is from Alabama. That was the first American home cooked meal I've had in a real long time 😂

Overall it was a great week, I miss the Spanish people but what can ya do. I hope everyone had a great week and I look forward to hearing from you! Oh and if you want to send anything I'll have the address be the mission home 11700 Falls Rd, Potomac, MD 20854 because this building isn't super safe for packages and I don't even know where the mail box is. Also sorry for the lack of pictures, I will do better this week 😉 

Elder Beck

Pictures

Teresa putting in work on her granja

Last day with Elder Russell, gone and soon forgotten 😢