Week 45: 10 Dollars 😀💸💸

This week I learned a valuable lesson that I would like to share with everyone. It is not a call to repentance or anything like that, lol.  The experience I had goes as follows:

Imagine you have a bank account with $86,400 in it.  Sadly, someone steals $10 of your money.  Now, would you be so upset over $10 being stolen that you would throw away the remaining $86,390 balance – just to get back at the person who stole the $10?  Or, would you forget the $10 and move on with your life? 

You see, we all have 86,400 seconds in a day.  When somebody does or says something that makes you upset,  don’t let that 10 seconds of negativity make you so mad, sad or upset (all of which are selfish emotions) that you let it ruin your entire day.

Approaching negative situations like this has allowed me to just relax and not sweat the small stuff.  It’s only been a week since I adopted this outlook, but I have been much happier.   If someone does or says something that might upset me, I just remind myself...”It’s only 10 seconds, don’t throw away the whole day - just throw out the 10 seconds of negativity!”  I hope you all were able to take something from this. Maybe - maybe not, lol, but it hit me hard. 😊

I hope you all have had a wonderful week!  After sharing my $10 story, I might as well hop right into my week:

Magnificent Monday

Monday = emails from home! :)  Need I say more?  I only have a month until I will be able to skype home!!!!! Time is flying by.  However, I’m not going to lie, not being able to hunt this year has made me so... so... so bummed -  but hey, $10 right? Anyways, that was my Monday!

Transfer Tuesday

We had transfers on Tuesday.  Even though we were not affected, we had to give the bike Elders a ride to the transfer site (not every set of Elders has a car – we’re lucky!)   After getting everything taken care of, we were able to go shopping for the coming week.  Luckily, I haven’t had to buy much recently.  I will start using my cook book that you guys sent in my last package at the beginning of December!  Later Tuesday evening we had dinner with the C___ family.  Man, I sure do love bananas in Jell-O for some reason, lol.

Whumpday Wednesday (the W is silent)

Wednesday was a great day!  We were able to attend our weekly District Meeting down in Sahaurita, AZ.  After the District Meeting we taught a lesson to A__ out in Three Points. We were planning on setting a baptismal date with her and two of her girls, but we got distracted. Well, they got distracted, we didn’t.  It turned out they had completely run out of fresh water. They had literally just run out!  So, we put their 55 gallon barrel in the back of our truck and asked some members in town to help fill the tank- with no success.  So, we then went the fire station.  The lady at the front desk said the Fire Chief would not let us fill the tank there.  Right after she said that, the Fire Chief came out of his office and said because we were missionaries - of course he could help out.  It turns out his wife is a less active member and he was more than willing to help.   It was so nice and he restored our faith in humanity - if you ask me.

The blessings I received on Wednesday was not because of us helping out.  The blessing was my realizing back home, how could I possibly complain about not having something?  They did not even have drinking water and here I was complaining about not having the latest (insert gadget here).  This week was full of life lessons! 😉😊

Tall Thursday (tall - as in long)

Thursday was a pretty good day; we had some lessons planned that ended up being cancelled – but that’s just a part of missionary life.  That being said - we had some library time followed by our Book of Mormon class in Sells, AZ.  So, that made for a late night McDonalds trip for diner.

Fun-day Friday

Friday was a special day that I will remember for a while.  We were able to go out to Sells with another set of missionaries and play basketball with our investigator  Z__ , who is14. We played at the Sells Rec Center.  I was one of only two white people in the building – it was a blast!  We played basketball with him and his buddies for two hours. We have become good friends with both Z__ and his cousin, who he lives with.  His cousin appreciates that we keep Z__ out of trouble.  However, after balling, we taught the 3rd lesson and committed him to be baptized.  He is super excited! We didn’t have to pick a date, because he wants it to be on his late mother’s birthday, but who knows if that will happen.  Being that we were so far south in Topawa, we decided to go see the border – four miles away.  Oddly enough, we saw mile marker 0 and kept going...then we hit mile market 1, then 2 , and then we were stopped by the Border Patrol.  It turns out we were already in Mexico...whoops, lol!   The Border Patrol Agents saw that we were missionaries and the said just please turn around, lol.  It was quite the adventure!  There was no reason to take pictures, because if we were able to cross the border without knowing it, you can understand there was no way to tell where the boarder was.  It looked, smelled and felt the same, lol.  After that adventure we had dinner with Sister D___ and her family.

Sad Saturday

Saturday we had more lessons ‘magically’ fall through.  However, there was a cool member who needed help moving, so we helped move them almost all day.  It was sad because all the church members and family who were helping out started leaving until it was just us helping.  We moved and moved and moved until late afternoon.  After that, we visited with Sis. C___ and then went to a dinner appointment with a recent convert. She took us to El Nindito, a very famous restaurant down here.  It was darn good Mexican food!  In 1992, then President Bill Clinton ate there and sadly we were seated in the same booth he ate in.  At least the food was good 😉

Super Sunday

Sunday was a typical Sunday for the Midvale ward. The only difference was Sis. Collingwood made some banging pumpkin pancakes, lol.

A typical Sunday in Sells, AZ
(this is our whole branch)

All-in-all, I learned a lot this week.  I hope to hear from y’all,  I love you! 

If you are reading this, email me at  connor.dickinson@myldsmail.net.

Love,

🌵🌴Elder Dickinson🌴🌵