Week 10

Hey everyone,

This week feels like it flew by, probably because the weather was cold and rainy and I loved it. It could also be because we had a ton of lessons this week.

We tried to meet with this guy who lives in a tall building, but he wasn't home so the front desk didn't let us up to his apartment. He said we had to leave, so we went to the back door. We went to the roof of the ghetto building because it's the last tall building before you see DC so we got some cool pictures on the roof. You can see the air force memorial, the Washington monument and the Lincoln memorial that was lit up, all in order from right to left in the picture. 

Our week was really good and we had eight investigators that came to church. My comp said he has never had that many in his mission. It was the Masih family of 6 and then Kenny and Donna. We also got a less active named Anna to church. It was her first time in about 40 years I think. It was great to see her get all dressed up to return. We will probably have her speak to the Spanish elders and ward because she is from El Salvador. 

On Sunday night we were tracting and knocking on doors. One of the doors we knocked on was having a party. The guy that opened the door said it was part of his culture to give something good during the week to people who visit, so he gave us some of the treats they had out in Gheorghe home. I'm assuming he gave us the bad stuff because when we left I popped one in my mouth and next thing I knew it was in the dirt. I spat that thing out real quick! I looked at my companion and said "these things taste exactly how they smell... gross". They were like these honey paste sushi roll desserts, I got a picture of them. It was so nice oh him to be kind and give us a treat but I would have given them out as a prank because they tasted so rank. 

Tonight we have a soccer game that we are organizing. An investigator from Bolivia wants to play soccer so we told him we would get a bunch of people together to play.  Hopefully it's a good turn out. I also found 40 bucks in the parking lot the other day so I'm going to find something cool to spend in on. 

I got to mow an 89 year old ladies lawn today. We did it in an hour and it takes her over a day to do it so she was very glad. I felt bad for not taking her money she wanted us to have, she is from France.

Sunday evening, 6 my time 3 back home I got to Skype my family for mother's day, that was probably the highlight of my week. It was cool to be able to see everyone and see that Bane still recognizes my voice and whistle. I'm not sure he sees the screen very well.

Shout out to William Patrick and Sydney for reading my emails. I was happy to hear from uncle Derek because he was in the area for a day. I hope I can hear from you guys or get some pictures!

Hope to hear from you all soon, remember to send some pictures of what you've been up to recently! Miss you all tons!

Calvin 

Week 9

So this week was pretty cool. We have 7 new investigators and 3 on date for baptism! We got to eat dinner at several members houses, we got to keep the car for this transfer, and the weather has been so nice! The weather has been rainy and cold or sunny and cold, either way I'm happy because it's been in the 60s and that's perfect. We got some Thai food from members for dinner and one member even took us out to Olive Garden!

The first Saturday of every transfer we do a "car fast".  For the whole day we don't use the car, it sucks!!!  Luckily a member who is also an awesome missionary named Paul goes out with us on Saturdays and drives us everywhere. The only time we had to walk was from our apartment to his condo, which is about an hour walk. On our walk we met a guy named Sadiq.  Sadiq is from Pakistan and has been living here for 3 years. He has 3 sons and a daughter from 5 to 17 years old and they are all awesome! He said he talked to some missionaries in Pakistan and they gave him a Book of Mormon. He said we could come over and talk to him about Jesus Christ, so when we went to his house later, we had an awesome lesson. I thought we might teach him and one other person, but they all came in the family room to listen to our lesson! They all payed attention and participated, and they all agreed with what was taught. At the end I asked if they believe Joseph Smith was a prophet and they all shook their head yes. They are excited to come to church this Sunday, hopefully we can baptize them all, this family is so prepared. Meeting Sadiq was truly a divine appointment.

We also got to meet up with August again this week. He is the barber where we get weird looks when we walk into his shop. When we were talking with him we invited him to read Alma 32.  He said when he was in jail, he had a vision that this would happen, he had seen the exact page we showed him. Seems legit. He is a super cool guy, he just says some weird stuff. He was convinced that revelations from the Bible were coming true. For example, he figured out by himself that celebrities have a secret society where if you want to climb up the popularity rank you go to a party and dress up a specific way.  You could imagine I was very confused and just shook my head like I was agreeing with him and wanted to get back to talking about the Book of Mormon. Very odd, but August is still a cool guy. 

There is a corner in one of the neighborhoods where a lot of people BBQ or play horseshoes. There is a pharmacy that Elder Norton calls  "the cona" (the corner). We found a car decked out with cowboys stickers, it's pretty funny.

One day when we were walking we met a guy who wanted to call himself Bob. He didn't trust us with his real name. He asked us if we wanted some tree.......when Elder Norton gave a confused look he asked if we knew what tree was, I just told him "we don't smoke dah ganja mon" and then started to teach him, he wasn't too interested. He didn't want to give up things that made him happy in this life (drugs) if he was probably going to be happier in the next life either way. I don't quite understand why you wouldn't want divine happiness here and now, instead of waiting. Satan has a powerful grip on people's hearts, people like to wear chains and they don't even know it.

I'm glad I get to receive your emails during the week, I love getting pictures and notes about how you are all doing. If you're ever bored send me an email and some pictures. 

Love you all so much,

Calvin

Week 8

There are a ton of things that happen every week and it feels like we are super busy every day!  We met a barber named August. He is a really big guy that only cuts black hair.  The whole place is decked out with Redskins pictures and gear!  August is super cool, super humble and willing to listen, he always appreciates us stopping by the barber shop even though all the other guys in there give us a stare because we don't really fit in. hahaha.

It is getting so hot here and I hate it. The heat and humidity is awful and it's not even summer yet. I can't wait for summer to be over.  It was so hot today especially while we were playing sports! I don't think I ever felt so drained... it was humid and hot and miserable..... we played soccer and basketball. There is this hoop that is for shorter kids and it's super easy to dunk on so we played a game of basketball with no rules. By the end I felt like I had no energy and wanted to pass out, and I certainly got sunburned.

Paul is a super good guy, he is so devoted to the gospel. He goes out with us to lessons all the time. He is basically a missionary every Saturday. He is also a super good musician.  I'll try and send you a video of a mother's day song that he sang for us, I want to ask him if I can record it and send it to you, it's super good. He also makes the best Pineapple vanilla pie.

I met a non active member from El Salvador whose name is Anna . She said she hasn't gone to church in like 40 years. We met with her in her home and she made us a huge snack platter, it was so nice of her. She started to cry when she said she wants to come to church again. I helped her set up her tablet to WiFi and download the gospel library app to read scriptures.Transfers happened and I'm still with Elder Norton in the Arlington area. So I'll be here for another 6 weeks.

Hope you are all doing well, I will write you all more next week hopefully.

Calvin

Week 7

Hey everyone,

Hope you all are doing Well! I've just been chilling here in VA. I've had a ton of fun this week wow... so on Tuesday my district leader and I went to a donut shop for dinner but it had closed. We were knocking on the door so that the girl might give us some of the donuts she was throwing away but she looked at us and ignored us, but we noticed she put them in a fresh bag and then tied it off, so we decided to go jump in the dumpster after she left so we could have a bunch of donuts. So we sat on a bench until we saw her leave and then we went and grabbed them, it was like 30 lbs of donuts, probably about 60ish donuts. They were pretty good, but we threw them all away after a day or two. 

     My companion Elder Norton and I, once we were back together, went to visit Albaro in the hospital. We had to call 911 for him a few weeks ago because he had fallen and hit his head and had taken too many pain pills with no food. It was good that we called because he is still in the hospital after 2 weeks. We got to go visit him and he was so happy to see us. When he talked to us he started to cry when he said how much we mean to him and how much we are his only family. He told all the nurses that we were his real family, it was cool to lift someone's day like that.

There is a lady I've taught a couple times who has dementia I think. She repeats her stories to us all the time and asks the same questions. She doesn't remember what we tell her but she remembers that we come over and make her feel good, so we keep coming back.

    

 There was also a time when Elder Norton and I went to a Chinese place for lunch because we knew we could get good WiFi, we could sync our calendars. We walked into this Chinese restaurant and there was no one there except for this group of Mexicans drinking coronas and listening to Mexican music. We were so confused because they were all speaking spanish and it was like a Fiesta get together in this Chinese restaurant. They all looked at us when we walked in and looked at us like we were the weirdos. We slowly walked up to the register to order and no one was even working, they had to yell for someone to come help us. They continued to stare at us and even turned the music off so it was silent. It was one of the most awkward things I've ever seen in my life! We looked at the menu and because I felt so awkward with them standing right next to us staring at us I just said we would come back another day for the weekly lunch special. We booked it and looked at the name of the restaurant again just to make sure we were actually in a Chinese place and not a Mexican place. Very odd...

    

 Lastly, we met with this older lady this weekend. She was super nice. She had lots of random rugs on her floor to make it feel like carpet or something, but they were just a bunch of like bathroom or front door step rugs randomly scattered all over the floor. She also had a bunch of random furniture and floral paintings. She was so proud of her "French country" style of decorating. She said she had a snack for us so when she was in the kitchen I looked at my companion and sarcastically pretended like I was talking to the investigator and said "donna, did you put a love potion in this Water? Because I think I'm falling in love with you". We could not stop laughing because how funny that would have been if I really said that. She ended up giving us half a pizza each for a "snack".

There was also a guy who told us about how he knew that the women from Colombia were all super hot. He said that they were all 8/10 at least. He said the girls from Peru were like a 6, and we got him, cause his wife is from Peru! It was hilarious when we brought that up. 

Anyway, that's about it for my week. If you guys have an extra minute shoot me an email and some pictures, don't keep me out of the loop!

Love you all!

Calvin

Week 6

 This week we had a Baptism! First month baby, doing work for sure. Gene is super awesome, he loves the G.o.l.d (gospel of latter days). He is an airbrush artist and did some work in the air force when he served in his 17 year service. He draws on leather jackets sometimes so me and my companion for leather jackets for cheap and he is going to draw an a-10 warthog on my jacket.

I got super sick and spent a lot of time on the toilet... a lot of time, so I'm glad that I'm better now. Today we got to play soccer and it was a ton of fun. Unfortunately we got our play time cut down to 90 minutes, I guess that's supposed to keep us focused on our Purpose? Idk....

This p day I told Elder Norton to take a wrong exit on the freeway and we accidentally went to Maryland and through downtown DC. Super disobedient but we couldn't help it, I'm not stressed about it but my comp felt pretty bad. I was just enjoying the view. I've never been to Maryland before so that was cool. We drove past the back side of the Lincoln memorial and Washington monument that was super cool! We saw the airforce memorial too. 

This Saturday we got to see an apostle of the Lord as well. We took Gene, our investigator to see Elder Rasband speak, he came to speak to the missionaries about easter, the spirit in the room was so strong and I know that he is an apostle of Christ, truly a special witness! His and his wife's talks were amazing!

Still getting used to being a missionary and the flow of missionary life. Sleep feels like a nap and I'm always tired lol! We did a lot of service and met a lot of new really cool people. I've noticed that the poorer people are, the more grateful of a person they are a lot of the time. There are a ton of people who don't speak English, or don't say they do.... I try to speak spanish when I can but there is no way I can speak French or amheric or middle eastern languages.

Miss all of you and hope you are doing well. I'm working hard but I'm enjoying my time, many miracles happen every day, you just have to look for It! I'm learning to enjoy the little things in life, there is a lot that happens! We are being fed well too, the members are all super Cool.

Love you all

Calvin

Week 5

This week was fun, lots of hard work. We found more dead mice in Celias house the other day. We also went to a food service place with a bible study group. They fed us breakfast it was pretty cool. We took some flexing pictures with a guy who loves John Cena, that was super FUNNY! Hope you guys got my pictures, I found a street called grant street!  I'm almost done with the Book of Mormon, I'm almost to 4th Nephi. I wrote you guys a long email but I don't think it got saved...

Lots happened this week, this fast Sunday we were super hungry, but we got blessed with three meals to break that fast! Back to back to back!  We got food from Bolivia, then some Filipino food, then we had our scheduled dinner with the bishop... we were so stuffed. I think I gained about 6 lbs. So I'm being well Fed.

I got some cool hats on P day to remember DC Too! And that jacket is some art that an investigator named Gene painted on his jacket, so Elder Norton and I are going to give him some jackets to paint on for us. He is excited to paint me an a-10 warthog, I'm so excited to see what it will look like.

Week 4

Hey everyone, hope you're all doing well, I miss all of you!!

I find missionary work hard but at the end of the day I'm happy that I gave it my all. It is satisfying to know that I am doing what Heavenly Father would have me do. It's a rewarding calling and the blessings are unlimited. I had to clean and get trash out of a hoarders house. She said she catches 14-16 mice a Day. We found a couple dead mice as we were cleaning trash. It was the grossest thing I have ever Done! 

I also had to call 911 because an investigator with knee problems has been struggling. He fell down the stairs and broke his wrist the day before, but this time when we checked on him he was in bad shape.  At first we weren't going to check on him because his lights were off... but as we were driving away and after I said no, we felt prompted to go try again. He didn't answer so we buzzed someone else's apartment to let us in. He didn't answer his door so we felt prompted to open his front door. When I did it I found him lying on the floor with his head kind of up on the wall. He had fallen twice he said. He was very loopy and couldn't even sit up. There were pain pills ALL OVER the floor, and he said he was fine and he was "getting better"..... I think he was on too many pain meds because he was NOT getting better. After the first two promptings I acted on ghetto third and told my comp to call 911. He calls the ambulance a lot, I hope he is getting better, but I'm glad to be seeing miracles every day in my mission. 

There are a lot of people who struggle but I'm glad to be able to help others! I also had my first bible bash... it's hard when all someone wants to do is argue haha, all you can do is tell them your testimony and tell them that all they have to do is read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it is true, it's how anyone gains a testimony. It's amazing to see how when someone prays and reads with a sincere heart and true intent it really does change your life for the better. By doing it every day, even though it seems like it doesn't effect your life, it brings blessings every Time!

Sometimes I am surprised when I hear someone talk and they don't have an accent. Everyone here is from another country. Most people here speak Spanish French Amharic or some other middle eastern language. Some people pretend to not speak English I think.. but that's okay, I would probably do the same. 

Our investigator Gene and Chuck came with us to watch general conference. Gene is an amazing artist and air brushes planes and other cool stuff on jackets so my comp and I bought  leather jackets so he can paint us something. I am thinking of a cool jet and Elder Norton wants a mustang. I will show you when he is done with it.

I also got to eat with the Kuipo family who are from Cameroon.  That Cameroon food was good!!  It was really good pork, rice and plantains. It's cool to experience so much foreign food on my mission when I thought I was going to be disappointed.

Here is the inside of our apartment.