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