Week 37: Days feel like weeks, weeks like days

If you would have told me that I have been serving in the Midvale Ward for a month already, I would firmly argue that that could not be true - but it is!  I’ve been here for just over a month already.  It is so crazy how fast time is flying by.  In a week, the sister missionaries I came to Tucson with will be halfway done with their missions already!  Man, time is just flying by – the days feel like weeks, Weeks feel like days and months feel like…well…months, lol.

Fun Fact: Elder Bangerter got his weekly email this morning and it had pictured attached.   Heber City, UT (Elder B’s home town) woke up this morning to snow on the ground and it was still coming down!  Man, I am SO jealous of that!  This year, I might miss snow even more than I miss my family.  Just kidding!  Not really, but almost ;).

This week was weird. We were almost always busy doing something, but it seems like we got so little done.  It is a little frustrating, but sometimes that’s just how the work goes. And, with our area being so big, I guess that feeling mostly comes from all of the driving we do.  Yesterday, (Sunday), I drove 150 miles, if not more. So, that’s at least 3 hours of drive time.

I guess I will jump right into my week.

Monday:  We woke up, did our shopping then drove to Sahaurita, AZ. We played volleyball and then emailed we everyone until some other Elders showed up and we played basketball just to keep us busy between emails. After P-Day ended, we had dinner at Chili’s.  As you already know (Dad), I had the chicken and waffles and man, where they good!  After Chili’s, we did some more shopping and then went home.

Tuesday:  We woke up and realized we had two phones. Now, how did this happen?  Yesterday after playing basketball, Elder Bangerter picked up our phone. I didn’t know this and picked up a phone that was sitting nest to my stuff.  It turned out to be Elder Fortés phone. We thought, we will just call them and tell them - oh wait a minute, we had their phone, lol.  So, after several calls to the ZLs and returned calls, we finally arranged to meet them at church and give them their phone back.  Because of that we didn’t get to work at the foodbank, but we did get the situation taken care of.  Later that night, we had a lesson with a part member family who just moved into our ward.  It went pretty good, she seems solid but there is some work to be done.  But before this all we had dinner with the C___ family. They have been helping us eat more healthily lately, which it is much appreciated!

Wednesday was a pretty good day.  We drove to Sahaurita AZ, for our District Meeting.  It was alright.  Afterwards, we drove home and ate lunch, then drove out to Three Points and helped some non-member friends of a member - if that makes sense, lol.  We were out there moving in the heat until 5:00, or so.  It was only really hot because I was in the U-Haul; it was like being in a frying pan!. But after helping with the move we met Sis. R___ at Burger King.  After dinner we did some stop-by visits.

Thursday:  We went to food bank with a group of about 8 to 10 of us and we ended up doing 538 large boxes of food!  It’s awesome to help out there.  It’s kind of monotonous, but it passes time – so hey, no complaints. 

I have no idea why, but Thursday morning I finally came to the realization that life is too short to be upset. For the life of me, I can’t remember what I was upset about, but if this is the only message anyone gets this week’s email, it is to just be happy because life is too short to be upset or sad.  "When life knocks you down get back up. Smile, and give it the ol’ right, left combo."

Since this realization hit me, I’ve been finding joy in a lot more things. This is all thanks to Mom and Dad’s Open When Letters (O.W.L. letters)

After working at the food bank, we did some more stop-by visits and did some Bible referrals, but nothing happened.  Later, we had dinner with the O__ family.  It will be our last one with them before they leave on their Disney cruise. We had a Hawaiian style dinner with rice, teriyaki chicken, potato salad and salad!

Friday:  We did our weekly planning for most of the day, but most importantly it was Elder Bangerters 20th birthday!!  He got a lot of mail (I miss getting mail from home but once again it’s whatever, lol).  Later, we drove out to Three Points for a lesson with S__ K__’s son.  They also had us for dinner. They made Elder Bangerter a carrot cake. It was the best carrot cake I’ve had since Lordsburg. To be honest, it was the only carrot cake I’ve had since I was in Lordsburg, but it was good, lol!  After dinner we drove the 30 miles home.

Saturday:  When I woke up, I wasn’t feeling the best, but felt better after a while. We went and visited Sister C___.  She had a rough week, but is feeling better now. After visiting with her we tried visiting some Bible referrals, but once again they nobody was home. One of them is a minister, but he’s almost never home.  Later we had dinner with Bro P__ and Sis R___.  It was a super sad dinner appointment. Sis. R__’s family lives in Puerto Ricco, but with the hurricane damage and power outages, she hasn’t been able to contact any of her family.  It was super sad. She asked us to share a message so I shared a couple of verses from D&C:121. She said she felt great peace as we were leaving.  I wasn’t sure if it was because of the message we shared or because we were leaving  , lol. I’m just kidding, we had a great visit.

Sunday-fun day:  This Sunday was a lot better than last week and not only because the Packers won, lol. Not really, This week was the Primary program. It was a pretty good, typical Primary program.  After that we drove home, ate breakfast, then drove all the way back to church to pick up the High Priest Group Leader for the Sells branch, then drove all the way to Sells, AZ.  I was asked to give an impromptu talk, which. I thought it went pretty darn good.  Everyone thanked me for it. It was kind of fun talking in the Sells Brach. After that, we were in charge of Primary, again. We only had 3 kids this week. It went a lot better. We then drove home and ate dinner. And that was a wrap for the week.

Not a lot going on, but we managed to stay busy.

Mom, I am sorry for not taking more pictures, but there weren’t any good opportunities. The one time we went out to Sells I was driving so I couldn’t take pics.  You’ll have to wait another week.

Love you all,

Elder Dickinson

Week 36: If I could sum up my week in one word...it would be cancellations :(

Hello everybody,

Yes, it’s that time of the week again! I love emailing home on P-Days, and enjoy hearing about all of your guys’ weeks.  It makes my day, emailing with everyone.  It is still a constant 100 degrees here - everyday.  I am not a fan!  I need some of the weather you guys have in Wisco.  I’m dying out here.

Here is how my week went:

Monday was a great day!  E-mailing y’all and playing sports sounds boring, but makes for a good day!  We usually play volleyball in the morning with some members and once they leave, some other Elders show up and we play football or basketball.  It makes for a good work out, that’s for sure. After sports, we went home and ate dinner because we didn’t have a dinner appointment.  I have officially been on the longest diet of my life!  It’s been almost to a month (August 2^nd) and I have lost exactly 10 pounds.  I’ve actually lost more than that, but the weekends kill the diet, lol.

Tuesday:  We headed off to the food bank and did two hours of service. The food bank here isn’t as fun as other places, because it is so much larger in scale.  It is so big and there is so much to do, you can’t really track your progress. Other than that, I don’t mind it.  After the food bank, we stopped by the library to do an hour of family history. After that, we headed homeward and got changed into proselyting clothes and made some visits until dinner time. We had dinner with the B___s.  Sis. B___  made us some awesome pork carnitas.  After dinner, we were supposed to have a lesson with a less active family but guess what happened … it got cancelled. So, we ended up going home and did our studies.

Wednesday:  We headed out to Sahuarita, AZ for our District Meeting. This time our District Meeting was on spiritual gifts and finding out what your gifts are!  After the meeting, we drove the 20 minute drive home and made lunch, then headed out to Sells AZ, to meet with D__, our recent convert.  We talk to him about the priesthood!  After that, we drove home from Sells to meet Sis. L__ (we call her grandma) at The Olive Garden for dinner with some less-active members.  The Olive Garden had this awesome deal called Buy one/Take one. So I chose alfredo to eat there and got to take home five cheese ziti al forno. Pretty good deal if you ask me! After The Olive Garden we were supposed to have a meeting with the S__ s, but guess what.  Yep, you guessed it, it was cancelled.

Elder Bangerter and myself at a member dinner appointment
(Yes, those are his glasses I am wearing!) LOL

Thursday was just like Tuesday.  We went to the food bank and work, work, worked.  Then we came home, ate lunch did our studies and then did some stop-by visits.  We’ve come to the realization that the middle-of –the-week and the middle-of-the-day are not the best times to do stop-by visits because nobody is home, but we gotta do what we gotta do, lol.  After that we headed back out to Sells for the Book of Mormon class we teach.  After an hour-and-a-half of that followed by a short meeting with a church member, we rolled into Tucson around 9:30 and had dinner with Bro Collingwood, because our dinner appointment was....yep, cancelled, lol

Friday:  We did our weekly planning and played hide and go seek with some other Elders.  I know it sounds childish, but you have to find a way to blow off steam when you don’t have a ball of some kind!  After planning, we had dinner and a lesson with S__ K__. He is still on course for a baptismal date of October 7th!  Hey Mom, guess what?   I used the Plan of Salvation lesion aid thingy again and it worked so well!  Thanks again! After driving back from Three Points, it was late.

Saturday was a day of service, studies and meaningless stop-by visits, no need to go into detail.

Sunday funday:  Sacrament meeting was awful, I’m not going to lie.  We had 3 monotone speakers in a row, all talking about the church’s Pathway Education Program. I don’t know why, but think I had one of the worst stomach aches I’ve ever had when I woke up Sunday morning. After Sacrament, we went to Bro. Collingwood’s house and had German pancakes for breakfast.   Then, off to Sells we went.  On the hour long car ride, my stomach ache managed to plague me again!  To be honest, it bothered me on and off throughout the day.  Sacrament meeting at Sells was alright, followed by an hour and a half of Primary hell! We had 6 kids.

Anyways,  I hope you all have a good week!!

Love y’all

Elder Dickinson 

Week 35: Where were you when the world stopped turning? 9.11.17

This week just seemed to have flown by.  Anyone else feel that way?  Anyways, I would love to hear from you all.  I know it’s a simple thing, but it means a lot! This week we set a baptism date with S__ and did some service. It might be a shorter email - mainly because we did a lot of small things that aren’t necessarily worth reporting, lol.

Monday:  I know I say this every week, but it is true!  I just love writing home and trading emails with everyone! It makes the monotonous weeks a lot easier!  We didn’t have a dinner appointment, so we came home, worked out and tied up some loose ends from last week.

Tuesday:  After an intense work out, we went to the food bank and helped out there for 2 hours. After that we came home, ate lunch and then did family history at the library for an hour. After that, we tried contacting some referrals, but for some reason, no one was home, which made no sense. Anyways, that was pretty much it for our day. 

A King/Bull snake we ran over!! :O

Hump day:  Everything after Wednesday seems to be downhill, in a good way, lol.  We had our District Meeting, which was good.  It kind of started off with us talking about online proselyting, but that doesn’t start for us until the 27th.  After District Meeting we drove 20 minutes home and ate lunch. We then did some contacting before we had to drive to a lesson with J__ and A___. A__ has a baptismal date for October 14th.  They are looking forward to getting married and then for her baptism.  All is going well there!  After the lesson, we drove clear out to Three Points and helped an active/part-member family move in the area. It took forever because they had a ton of useless stuff, but..."When ye are in the service of your fellow men, ye are only in the service of your God."  So, needless to say, just serve!

Thursday we headed off to the foodbank and worked there for a while.  After the food bank we came home, changed and then went contacting.  Yay, right?...Nope!  Anyways, we had dinner with the O___.  They took us and there massive family out to Texas Road House.  Bro. Olive introduced me to prime rib.  Man, I’m never getting anything else, because I love it so much! Now, when I come home I can hit up the good prime rib places in Wausau. We had a fun time watching the Patriots lose too! Man, Texas Roadhouse has a dang good ceaser salad too!

Look close...VERY CLOSE...yup folks that is some HAIL!!
Can you believe it??

 Friday:  Blessed planning day.  Guess what we did?   Yup, you’re right…we planned!  Oh, and we meet with S__.  He is 11 and is part of a part-member family. He wants to be baptized on the 7th so we are meeting with him and his family every Friday for 3 weeks!!

Saturday:  We woke up and did service for most of the day moving people. We had breakfast at R__’s house. We had chorizo, eggs, tamales and chicken for breakfast, lol.  It was good. Then, in the afternoon we made our weekly visit to Sis. C__! She is so sweet. We always love stopping by to visit with her.  After that, we had dinner on our own and then did some more contacting.

The scree saver on my tablet..Helps me cope with the loss of Finner....

Sunday - Fun day:  This Sunday was the same as the last week. We had Ward Conference and left after sacrament to eat breakfast at Bro. Collingwood’s house.  We had blueberry pancakes.  After breakfast, we made the trek to Sells AZ to attend Sacrament Meeting and Primary and Priesthood meetings. In the Sells branch, we pass the sacrament because they don’t have enough priesthood.  We are also in charge of the Primary.  In small branches like Sells, they usually do not have Sunday School, because there are just not enough leadership and people to staff the teaching positions. After that we drove home ate dinner and then went to the Bishop’s house. His family was in town from Portage and Gresham WI. So, we talked about everything Wisconsin under the sun. It was a blast.

That was our week - a whole bunch of little things.

This coming week we have the potential to set 4 more baptismal dates!  So, we will see what happens.

I’ll leave you guys with my testimony of love. We are living in the most chaotic of times. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all your heart. And the second is like unto it. Love thy neighbor as thyself. (I probably slaughtered that)  But the point is; we are all Heavenly Father’s children = go out of your way to serve someone, even if it’s just a smile or something like taking the time to get to know your neighbor. Do this and I promise the missionary opportunities will follow.  Missionary work is done out of love, so it all comes full circle.

Sister McBride and whhhaaattt Sister Carter from my District in the MTC...
What a small world! :)

That being said; I love you all so much

Love,

   

Elder Dickinson 

Week 34: Another week bites the dust!

Another week draws to conclusion here in Midvale.  This week has just flown by, unlike last week.  This week was filled with highlights:  D___’s baptism, his confirmation, Kitt Peak, I got down to under 230 pounds (but am back up already) and good ole Three Points.  Those are just some of the highlights I can think of.

Monday:  After we finished emailing each other, Sister G___ took us out to eat at 5 Guys.  Man, it was so good, but it killed our diet, but it was well worth it!  That was basically it for the night, since we met so late.

Three Points a few miles from the U.S. Border

Tuesday:  We woke up and worked out in the fitness center and then went to foodbank and helped out there for a while.  After food bank, we drove home changed and then headed out to work out in Three Points, AZ with Bro. Collingwood.  It’s a small town about 15 miles north of the Mexican border -  way out in the boonies. Let’s just say there is not a single piece of pavement in Three Points.  All of the roads are dirt roads.  We contacted several people throughout the afternoon and well into the evening.  By the time we got back into town Bro. Collingwood took us out to Wendy’s and that was a wrap for Tuesday.  By the way, the apple pecan salad is the go to - every time!  After that, we worked out before bed.

Selfie Photo Bombing Bro. Collingsworth

Wednesday:  We went to our District Meeting in Sahuarita AZ, pronounced (So-wa-rita).  After our District Meeting we hauled home and met Bro. Collingwood. He took us to Kitt Peak before our lesson with D___.  We had some time because one of our other lessons fell through.  Plus, he has always wanted to go up there.  So, we drove up to Kitt Peak National Observatory, it has 27 space telescopes on top of a 6,883 foot mountain.  It reminded me of Mount Haleakula on Maui. It was super awesome!  But the best part was the weather, lol.  It was only 87 degrees and blustery.  I loved it!!!  After that fun little fieldtrip, we went and taught D___ about tithing and the Word of Wisdom.  He was so ready for baptism.  The lesson went super smooth.  After the lesson, we chatted for a while and then drove home and Bro. Collingwood took us to Wendy’s because we had a rough week with dinner appointments falling through.

Telescopes

The colleges that use the telescopes (notice the University of WISCO!)

Thursday started out with us helping the D___ (not our investigator) family move just a couple blocks down the street.   After helping for a while, we had to go home and get changed for interviews with the Mission President.  My interview was 15 minutes of "What is your area like?” lol.  He said I will be in the area for a while.  I asked him if I could finish my mission in Lordsburg.  He said there is always a possibility of that happening, lol.  He also released news that our mission will have online proselytizing.  So, we will have Facebook and Google, with the addition of smart phones coming soon.  We get Facebook next month! That was basically Thursday,  except for a lesson we had with A___.  It was a good lesion, she committed to being baptized and set a baptismal date for October 14th. That went well, but she has lots to work on between now and then!

Elder Bangerter and I on INFRARED!

Friday:  We did our weekly planning, YAY!  Oh, after that, we went to Sushi Ten. (In Japanese, Ten means Heaven.  So, we ate at Sushi Heaven) Later that evening, D___ passed his baptismal interview lol.

Saturday:  D___’s baptism was awesome.  Bro. Collingwood baptized him, because he had been helping to teach him for the last 2 years.  It was awesome!  He is such an awesome guy and we are so proud of him!  Following that spirit packed baptism, we did some service and visited with sweet Sister C___.  She 90 years young, but is bed ridden.  Her internals are flawless and she is as sharp as a tack, but her skeleton is just not keeping up.  She is the sweetest person ever!  She has the best stories.  She told one about her husband who flew all kinds of bombers in WWII. He was a radar man and was from Boscobel Wisconsin!  Anyways, she just has so much awesome stuff to share.  I could literally stay there and listen to her all day.

A typical house in Sells, AZ

Sunday - Fun day:  We woke up at 6:00 to get ready for Ward Counsel  Meeting.  Following Ward Counsel, we went to Sacrament Meeting.  After sacrament meeting, we went to Bro. Collingwood’s house and they fed us brunch to break our fast.  Then, we all drove out to Sells, AZ and had Sacrament and D__’s confirmation and Gospel Principles/Primary.  Man was it a zoo in Primary.  We pulled out some CTR rings and passed them out to the kids.  You should have seen the smiles on their faces - it was priceless!  After church, we drove back from Sells and did our studies and ate dinner.

Primary kids :)

A Future Missionary is in the house (or primary)!

That was my week. It was pretty awesome! Can’t wait to hear from y'all!

I love you and each one of you guys are in my prayers.

Love,

Elder Dickinson