Missionary Monday - Week 6 in DC
Hey hey!
This week was great, relatively. Last Monday we got a call from a member that wanted us to go to the hospital with him to translate, someone dropped a 2x4 on his head and knocked him out. He has a wild concussion, but I think he will be fine. Elder Stolk made us stay home after p day ended because "his hernia was hurting" not sure whether to joke about it or not, it's a sensitive subject for him but I get the feeling he's just milking it. Guess we'll find out sooner or later, ha. Also, the guitar and ukulele have some how managed to stick around another week. I don't want to be "that guy" about it, but he's really testing me. As much as I love to hear him playing/singing till 11 o'clock every night, it's gotta end soon.
Wednesday we did service for 3 hours at "bread for the city" which was in Anacostia. We wore normal clothes since it was service and surprisingly we got more weird looks for being in that part of the city dressed like normal people than when we are in shirt and tie. Anyways, bread for the city is basically a food bank where poor people get a membership to get free food that'll last them a week. We basically lifted and sorted cans for 3 hours. My favorite was sorting "the corns". I was pretty disappointed in the people that came through there, they were super rude to the workers and flipped out when they didn't get everything they wanted, I expected them to be thankful since it was all free.
Wednesday we did service for 3 hours at "bread for the city" which was in Anacostia. We wore normal clothes since it was service and surprisingly we got more weird looks for being in that part of the city dressed like normal people than when we are in shirt and tie. Anyways, bread for the city is basically a food bank where poor people get a membership to get free food that'll last them a week. We basically lifted and sorted cans for 3 hours. My favorite was sorting "the corns". I was pretty disappointed in the people that came through there, they were super rude to the workers and flipped out when they didn't get everything they wanted, I expected them to be thankful since it was all free.
Thursday we met this guy and his son at an apartment complex, Luis and Luis. The dad looks like he used to be a bad dude, and the son is like 4 and hilarious. They seem promising, we've only met with them once though for like 5 minutes. I hope they work out.
Saturday we went to a little less sketchy part of Anacostia to meet a less active 11 year old girl. That went well she ended up coming to church the next day. On the way back it was like 8:30 and everyone was headed to Halloween parties so the metro was more of a freak show than usual.
Two weeks ago I was asked to give a talk for this week, the whole "let's ask Elder Beck to speak at everything because he doesn't know that much Spanish" thing is getting old, but it's good practice I guess haha. The talk went well, it was on faith. The sisters had an investigator at church that was struggling with his faith, we ended up talking with him for two hours after church, he wouldn't listen to anything we said and just kept talking about his problems. It wasn't very productive.
I'm sorry I don't have more stories/updates on progressing investigators. I wish I did. I'm a little frustrated with the way we do things. About a year ago Elder Ballard came to the mission and said that every companionship should have a goal of 20 contacts a day, so that's been the missions goal ever since. And that's what we've been doing, but 20 contacts is a lot. So we spend a lot of our proselyting time street contacting and knocking doors. We've done that for 6 weeks and no investigators have come from it. So I have been pushing for switching it up, like visiting former investigators, less actives, and focusing on getting referrals. But when you do that it takes a lot more time so contacts drop so Elder Stolk is anti. His argument is "we've been commanded by an apostle of God to focus on contacts" but I'm willing to bet if we asked Elder Ballard about our situation, he'd say switch it up. But, we'll never know. Last night we went out in the pouring rain to knock apartment doors, while walking home after 2 hours of knocking doors with zero success, elder Stolk says "ya know, at times like this, I feel like Heavenly Father is going to hook us up for being obedient and striving for our 20 contacts". That could be true, but I also think that Heavenly Father would expect us to use our agency and figure out how to find people that are actually interested. Elder Stolk also said that he hasn't made it past the second lesson with an investigator since February. I don't think that has anything to do with his teaching abilities, he's a great teacher. But rather the people that are found through door knocking and street contacting just aren't genuinely interested. So I thought that he'd be more on board. We are doing a lot, but we aren't getting a lot done. So if anyone has any suggestions or input I'd love to hear it!
Today we've been having district activity, carving everything but pumpkins, mine is a cantaloupe. And a ton of ping pong, I'm undefeated😎
Elder Beck
It's been rainy in DC.
Found out today his umbrella broke and he doesn't have a raincoat.
Thanks to Amazon he'll have a raincoat by Wednesday.
