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.

Week 3

Day one and two have been crazy! It has been super hard work but it seems to all be worth it at the end of the day. I kind of compare it to a hike, every step of the way sucks... but at the top of the hike you decide most of the time you would do that hike again. A mission is kind of like a spiritual hike. It's hard to keep going sometimes, and you think to yourself why am I doing this? But then you get to the end of the hike and realize it was all well worth it. I'm in the Sherlington area, it's the closest area to DC. Everyone lives in town homes or apartments, there are almost no houses. We knock on a lot of doors which is hard because I know how much I would hate it if missionaries came to my door, I'm surprised daily at how many people are receptive to listen to us and invite us back again though! I've seen Heavenly Father's love and help in my life a lot this week, it's pretty cool.

 My companion is super cool, he is super obedient but is good at keeping me at work in a supportive way. Almost everywhere we go is to apartments or townhomes, I don't think I have seen a house yet which is super weird. About 3/4 of the places we go are smoker homes and quite a few of the people we talk to have issues with smoking. We get home and we always smell like cigarette smoke, but we get to wash the clothes that smell at the end of the day. There is a guy in our ward who calls himself our missionary dad. He is single and 65 and LOVES the missionaries. He is so nice to the missionaries . He comes to our lessons sometimes and just talks about how we are his missionary sons and he is our "missionary dad". He also has all these catchy acronyms about how to be a good person and about the gospel......

 Today I got to go tour the Pentagon, we got a member who is a marine to get us a tour. It was pretty sweet inside, it's basically like a mall for people who don't work there. I had to go through security multiple times and everyone has guns. At all the doors they have loaded mags ready to go at the drop of a hat. I don't think many missionaries get to do that kind of stuff. It's cool to meet all these new people though.

I've got 5 new investigators this week and I've put two people on date for Baptism! I have tried to take as many pictures as I can with people because pictures say more than words. That way I don't have to type as much. Love you all, and I think of everyone back home every day. I talk all day about how friends and family are important and sometimes it's hard knowing I can't talk to any of you during the week, but I'm glad to know that most of you are doing Well! Miss all of you so much! Calvin

Arriving to DC

Hey! I got to the mission house alright. We had cafe Rio for dinner... I miss you guys a lot! I slept on the plane but am still super tired. We are going to stay in a hotel tonight instead of the mission house because we are like 3 times the size of a normal mission group.

President and Sister Huntsman

First companion Elder Norton

MTC | Week 1 & 2

Miss and love everyone so much! Hope you are all doing great, I have been doing amazing and I'm learning so much. I feel like the more I put into my experience here the more I get out of it. One thing that I've learned from experience in being here is that you can't put a crumb on the throne of God without getting a whole loaf of bread back. It's really hard to explain how giving up so much can bring so much happiness, but I have found so much peace and happiness in aligning my will with Heavenly Father's. I have one companion and his name is Elder brown. We room with three other guys in the MTC. We are all in the same district and have the same schedule, so we have really come close these past two weeks! The food has been good to some and not so good to others. We have all had some really good laughs. Even though not everything is easy, I've found that when I turn outwards when I naturally want to turn in towards myself that life is so much more enjoyable. Even if there is a good reason that I am angry, when I turn outwards and look to help someone else, and forget about myself I am way more happy than when I sit and brew up anger or contention inside me. I've found that when I forget about my needs and wants, and lose myself in the service of others I am able to find myself and who I want to become. Don't even know where to start with what you guys want to know, it wasn't to let you all know that I'm not suffering in here, even though it is hard work and I'm tired all the time, I have gotten so much more out of this than I would have expected. This next Monday I have to be up for my flight to DC at 2:30 am. We go to Minneapolis and then to Washington DC, I'm super excited, we get in around 2:30pm.