D.C.North Week 1 "DC IS SOOOO COOL!"

July 27, 2015

I'm doing super great! DC is really cool and I am perfectly fine with staying here to wait for my visa. President and Sister Cooke are really cool and will help us with whatever we need. My companion's name is Elder Springer and he is from southern Cali. There are some people here who speak Portuguese but guess what!? I'm in the Spanish program right now so I will be learning Spanish for now so I'm gonna learn two languages on my mission :p

I will take pictures! I haven't been taking a whole ton but I will start to take more!

I have had a lot of Mexican/Hispanic food since I have gotten here and it is waaaay good! I'm also super excited for the food in Angola. I heard it was really good! We didn't do anything out here for Pioneer day cause as you know... its not that big of a deal.

About my week...

Tuesday: We got in and met President and Sister Cooke and then they took us to the Daily Grill (they said it was one of their favorites) and it was sooooo expensive! It was right next to a Mortons Steakhouse if that says anything. I kinda felt bad for making them spend so much but it was sooooo good. We also had a little "transfer meeting" that night to meet our companions. 

Wednesday: Elder Springer had a lot of stuff to do so we went to a meeting that morning, went home and I pretty much chilled the whole day while he did stake stuff. 

Thursday: WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE!! We got to see the temple on Tuesday and it is soooooo biiiiiggggg!! And it is sooo beautiful! We got to take a tour of all the engineer stuff under it which was way cool. When we go again on the 5th, we will get to take a roof tour! Im so excited! ahhhhhhhh!

Friday: Friday we went shopping for ourselves, which was fun! We also went to check up on some less active members and we went tracting a little. It was fun because we were on bikes! And we had an interesting conversation with a drunk/high black guy who refused the BoM because he said that we wouldnt leave the house if he needed us if we couldnt help over the phone haha so it was a good time! 

Saturday: They have a horse farm that we go do service for every week and the farm is used for therapy and stuff like Cheyenne does so I got some pictures and a video cause one of the horses was a champion jumper! But yeah they had a tour this week to kind of promote it and we helped park people and ate free food and shaved ice and got to pet the horses and I got to lead one of them to a field! I really liked it. And that night we went to a super delicious pizza place and taught a member a good lesson (in Spanish so I didnt really understand) but the spirit was definitely there.

Sunday: We had meetings at church from 9-6:30 and my first Spanish sacrament meeting. It was good even though I couldnt understand anything but random words, and a member of the stake presidency read a talk in Spanish that sounded pretty bad but props for trying haha. And then a member I was sitting by leaned over after he was done and asked "Does my English sound as bad as his Spanish does?" hahaha It was super funny 

So just some random things that are cool about the mission! 

1. We get to go to a Nationals game on the 8th of August!!

2. They are really lax about music so we get to listen to pretty much anything as long as doesn't have bad lyrics or a heavy beat or drive away the spirit!

3. We get to sleep in as long as we want on P-Day! 

I'm sure there are other things but I don't remember. 

Thank you all for the love and the pictures! I'm keeping you guys in my prayers!  

Ate Mais!

Elder Dawson

Arrived in Washington D.C.!!!

Note from mom: I received a phone call from Andrew from the Salt Lake airport Tuesday (21st) morning while he was waiting to board the plane to Washington D.C. He sounded so good and excited to be headed out into the mission field. He also talked to Sean and Jared individually and then before the call ended, he requested to be on speaker. He bore the most wonderful testimony in Portuguese, and we felt the spirit even though we could not understand the language.

President Cooke of the Washington D.C. North Mission called later that evening to confirm that Andrew and the other elders had arrived safely. He and Sister Cooke took them to dinner at a good restaurant and their stomachs were full, had a great visit, and sent them off with their companions. Pres. Cooke indicated that they get a lot of VISA waiters and love having them, and that they will do all they can to help them get their VISAs to Angola!


I pulled this picture off President and Sister Cooke's blog:

Sister Cooke, Elders Parker, Davis and Dawson, President Cooke

MTC Week 6 "Heading for D.C."

[Andrew was able to email us yesterday (7/20) with his flight info and confirm he is leaving tomorrow morning for Washington D.C. ]

July 20, 2015

That sounds way busy!! Can you send as many pictures as possible? I really like getting pictures. :p Definitely tell Sean to email me about EFY! It was one of the best experiences in my life.

Thats so crazy that Logan is home already! I'm kinda sad that I wont be able to see him for another two years! 

There is only one of us going to Cali. Elder Christensen, Elder Smith, and Elder Bradshaw got their visas, but Elder Bradshaw got his tonsils out today so he is here for about another 3 weeks. But yeah me, Elder Davis, and Elder Parker go to D.C tomorrow and report to the Travel office at 4:35 AM.

Thank You Tons! 

and tell Logan 

Eu amo ele! e eu muito animado a ver ele! 

Por que nos falamos portuguese muito! 

e meu portuguese e nao muito bom 

so dont make fun of me haha

I love you all! I will send pictures when I get to D.C. 

Elder Dawson 

Reassignment Update

So I got my reassignment today!! They lied last week and told us that we were going to Cali, buuuut we got our real reassignments today and Elder Parker, Davis, and I are all going to the Washington D.C. North Mission!!!! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!  But I have heard that they are planning on us being there for about 4 weeks while they work on our visas! But I was just told to tell you guys and am sooooo stoked! 

I love you guys and miss you tons!

Elder Dawson

MTC Week 5 "Reassigned"

Tuesday, June 14, 2015

Oh yeah! It was a great birthday! And thank you tons for the packages! I loved everything I got! And Angola is now a no suit mission so I wont need to bring my suit!! The food is weird cause its probably been processed like 20 times before putting it in the package to eat. And they have some interesting food choices! haha The Portuguese is coming along... I can speak it better than I could six weeks ago! haha  I usually get on [the computer] at about 7-730 buuut that probably gonna change since I got reassigned.

This week was pretty much the same, a lot of class, a lot of teaching in Portuguese, a lot of joking and messing around, except for I GOT MY TRAVEL PLANS TO GO TO ANGOLA!!!! All of us got them and we were all so excited and confused because most of us hadnt gone to the consulate, so we all went talked to the travel office and they said "Oh thats just in case your visa does come....." Seeing as how they didnt care about our feelings we decided to take a play on theirs and act really disappointed so they would tell us where we got reassigned to and all of us are going to Southern Cali. Im going to Redlands, and others are going to Arcadia, Bakersfield, San Jose... so yeah thats probably the only exciting thing we had happen this week besides our Nerf duels we have with the Nerf guns you sent! So cool! 

Im gonna send some pictures later!

Love you alll!!!
Elder Dawson

My Zone

My Roomies

Sisters that were leaving

Sisters that were leaving

July 3 - Festival in Provo

Just having fun with my camera

MTC Week 4 "Spiritual Prison"

Tuesday, July 8, 2015

[We didn’t get an email from Andrew but we received a written letter from him on Monday, June 13 - typed below:]

Hey Mom!

I didn’t get an email and didn’t have time to write one so I am just going to write a letter!

Um, this week at the MTC has still been about the same.. Weird food, extreeemely looong classes, and teaching lots of lessons! I did have a couple cool/funny things happen this week! I got to clean the Temple today! (Tuesday) which was a way cool experience! We cleaned the initiatory (idk if that’s how you spell it), and the youth waiting area, also the waiting room for sealings! We were there for about 3 ½ hours but I didn’t feel like it!

I am still waiting to hear about my visa (I think I am going to get reassigned). We have gone to the travel office a couple of times but they are completely useless and do nothing but sit in front of their computers…

Could you look up “You Never Know” on Mormon Channel? It’s a website and the whole video made me think of the way you are! Thank you for all you do!!

But some things that were funny this week… We started teaching each other and me and my companion taught Elder Parker and Delano; neither like each other very much, and their personalities clash like nothing else. haha  So we started teaching and when we teach we like to find out about the investigators and Elder Parker (Brandon, his investigator) mentioned he liked to play the trombone. Well Elder Delanos face lights up (He was a “member” in the lesson) and he just blurts out “Eu trombone tam bien!” (I’m trombone as well!) All of this is in Portuguese by the way, but then Elder Parker pretty much yells in English “Oh! You’re a trombone too!?” So yeah haha it pretty much ruined the lesson, but it was sooo funny!

But yeah, I wanna go to Africa sooo bad!! It’s the worst… We call the MTC the Spiritual Prison on Earth. haha  It’s honestly the weirdest thing to think that I’m not gonna see you guys for 2 years and it’s only been 4 weeks! A lot has already changed with my plans when I get back… I don’t know which school I wanna go to, if I wanna come out here to work or just stay out there… but that’s all stuff I can figure out after the mission.

Anyways… Tell me about everything that goes on! I miss you guys!

Love you!

Elder Dawson

MTC Week 3 "Amazing!!!"

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Oi! 

Things are going great so far! I HAD THE MOST AMAZING THING HAPPEN THIS WEEK!!!!! I will tell you about it later. haha Teaching is coming along. Its is still hard but I am getting better as I study and try to learn what we are teaching. I did not get the chance to Host this week and no I didn't go to DC. I don't know what the travel office is doing but I don't want to be a visa waiter!  

The other Elders are my companion (Elder Christensen), Elder Montes, and Elder Smith. [He is talking about who was in the pictures he sent last week.] But yeah he is the one with the blonde hair, and Elder Montes is from Laredo/Denton, Texas. Um the tie draft is where everyone brings one or two ties and they put them in and then they write their name on a piece of paper and put it in a box and someone draws their name and you just keep doing that till all the ties are gone! I have gotten some pretty sweet ties from it.

And I also think I have psoriasis... haha I am getting a rash type thing around my wrists where my watch is and its really red and the skin is really dry but idk!

Sounds like you had a busy week! I miss you guys! But being here is so much fun too!

Um so about my week... It was still a lot of classes and teaching but I like it cause we are learning a whole ton. I am studying about Christlike attributes in PMG and am trying to develop them more so thats a challenge. Um the food this week was pretty good because of the Mission president seminar... We had Costa Vida, Chick-fil-a, taco bell, and subway! So that was a nice change from the "food" they serve us in the cafeteria. haha So this week when we were doing service some of the elders in our district were cleaning the bathroom, and then Elder Delano flushed the urinal to finish cleaning it and it didnt stop, and kept going, and going, and going haha so all of us were dying laughing while all the employees were freaking out trying to get it to stop. And theeeen Elder Bradshaw was laughing and he wasnt paying attention so he spilled a toxic chemical all over the floor and onto himself, which made it 10 times funnier. haha  Needless to say they got us out of there pretty quick.

But yeah. so that interesting thing that happened... THIS IS SO AWESOME!!! So last week me and my companion passed the sacrament in church and there were a couple people who were waaay impressed. Then on Wednesday, me and my companion got pulled out of class and were told to go put on our suits and meet back at 1M (The big building where everything happens) and this is all during the mission president seminar by the way, so nobody was allowed to go into 1M. So we get changed really quick and run over there, and then the guy we met said that we have been picked to pass the sacrament to the first presidency, quorom of the 12, and all of the mission presidents. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. So we practiced what we were going to do on Wednesday, and then on Sunday we did it! I got to see all of the first presidency, 9 out of 12 of the quorum and a lot of 70's and their mission presidents. And also Elder Nelson came over and shook all of our hands!!!! It was the coolest thing ever! It was amazing to be in the same room with all of them so personal. 

Oh and by the way, Johnnys new mission president is here. I actually got to talk to him but I didnt know it was him at the time haha how crazy is that?? So thats about my week...

Oh and also I dont remember if I mentioned this last email I am missing the middle page to my patriarchal blessing?? So can you send that to me? 

  

But yeah so thats pretty much my life right now.I love you all and miss you!

Ate Mais! 

Elder Dawson