Week 31: Insert clever subject line here

Other than a couple appointments, this week was pretty slow.  We did some service at Beads of Courage and did a lot of finding, but this week ended up being a very good week, spiritually.

The highlight of my week involves the temple cultural celebration and temple dedication.  We are going bowling today, so that should be fun.  Here is how the rest of my week went:

Monday:  After I finished emailing you guys, we didn't have a dinner appointment scheduled, so we stayed at the Family History Center and did some family history.  After than we went home, ate some beans and went to bed. Exciting, right? Welcome to the missionary life, lol.

Tuesday:  This is going to sound really boring, but all we did on Tuesday was a 6 hour zone conference, after which we did some shopping that we forgot to do on Monday.  After that we had a dinner appointment with the R___. Following dinner we went home, did our studies and then played basketball with the Elders Quorum until 9:00 then went to bed.

Throwback to the night before I left Wisco.
President Lonsdale and myself as a new Elder

Wednesday:  Since we didn't go to Beads of Courage on Tuesday like usual, we decided to go on Wednesday, after cleaning up the apartment just a little bit. After that we did some studies for a while and headed out to do our finding for the day.  After having zero success we had a dinner appointment with the K___s, but they're little kid was sick so they brought dinner over to our apartment.  After eating, we went and did some Family History.  After doing so much finding with no success, I got out my Open When Letters (OWLs) Mom and Dad wrote for me before I left on my mission* and I read the one that was about when you need confidence and that actually helped a lot!  I want to thank you guys for that.  I love these OWL letters and it made me realize that I'm not the only one in my corner, you know.  I’ve got everybody pulling for me and if you want to know more, we can talk about it when we email back and forth tomorrow.

(*On the day I left Wisconsin and fly to Provo UT to begin my mission, right before I got on the airplane, Mom & Dad handed me a bundle of OWL letters.  They had titles printed on the envelopes like ‘Open when you feel homesick,’ or ‘Open when you feel like you need confidence.’   There were about 15 OWL letters in that bundle and they have been awesome pick-me-ups when I need them.)

Thursday:  We woke up and went back to Beads of Courage and did some service there for a couple hours.  We then ate lunch back at the apartment and then we did our studies.  After that we went out and did some finding with no success, once again.  It’s starting to get kind of frustrating, but it is what it is.  No finding effort is wasted, I guess.  We had dinner with the W___ family.  They feed us about twice a month and it’s always fun to go over there and share their evening with them.  After that, we did some more finding.

Friday was an interesting day.   Instead of doing our weekly planning right away, we had a lesson with a referral named David.  He is a Presbyterian minister who went to the temple open house and decided to go up to Salt Lake City and see Temple Square.  Some Sister missionaries at Temple Square spoke with him and sent us his referral information.  He has been reading The Book of Mormon and is very interested in baptism.  He has a lot of questions and is super fun and its a super cool opportunity for us to meet with him.  I thought it was super cool because his questions were very interesting, because our faiths are actually pretty similar - with a couple of small differences.  After meeting with David, we went out and got some lunch.  After that, we did our weekly planning while we cleaned our apartment.   It is super clean and I love it...not that it wasn't clean before ;)

Chillin at the bowling alley on P-day

Saturday: We went to Bro. B___’s house to help him further the work on building his new home.  We did a lot of different things - mostly landscaping.  Afterwards, Bro. B___ bought us Taco Bell.   After getting cleaned up, we went to visit K___ in the hospital.  He is still in the hospital and hopefully he'll be out tomorrow night, so please pray for him. We visited with K___ in the VA for a while.  It was a fun time and he really enjoyed our visit.  He was feeling down and lonely, that poor guy.  Following our visit with K___, we went home made a quick dinner and then we went to the Stake Center to watch the cultural celebration part of the temple dedication.  It was very neat to experience - possibly once in a lifetime.  I enjoyed it a lot. The celebration presentation covered all the history of Tucson, otherwise known as the Old Pueblo.

Sunday was a very special day.  President Dieter F. Uchtdorf dedicated the Tucson Arizona temple today.  There were three temple dedication sessions.  This was the first one I've ever seen and it was an awesome experience.  It was a beyond awesome experience and the people Tucson are super happy to have a temple only minutes away - or within an hour at the most.   The theme of this temple dedication was ‘The time is now.’  So, I guess I'll add my testimony to that and tell you guys that family history work is awesome!  The feeling of taking a family name to the temple and doing all the work, from start to finish, is unlike any other.  I would also like to invite you guys to find a name and take it to the temple within the next month, or so.  As you do, I can promise you will find the joy in knowing that it is now up to that person to make the choice. Once again, you WILL find great joy and taking a name through the temple and start to finish.

The weather this week was hot again.  I've come to the realization that I am NOT a fan of Tucson weather anymore.  It has stopped raining and it has gotten hot again.  Working in this heat is just flat out not fun, lol.  But, we are going bowling today – so, Wahoo!!

I love yall so much and would love to hear from everyone,

Elder Dickinson