Week 56: Saturday Nights in South Tucson :O

Compared to last week, this week was alright.  It was defiantly better than some other weeks we’ve had in this area. 

We were able to hand out 14 books of Mormon and we had 18 quality gospel discussions and added one new investigator.  We were also able to set two baptismal dates for R__ M__’s adopted kids!  So, that being said I guess this week turned out to be a wonderful week after all.  It wasn’t a stellar week, but it was still very good!  We had an interesting thing happen to us on Saturday night - I will share here in a little bit.

With all of that being said - I will jump right into the week:

Monday, as always, was awesome - being able to email home and play sports for most of the day!  Volleyball is not a specialty of mine, but I love playing it every Monday morning.  I will miss it, for sure. After that, we went to the library and emailed home for a while.  Later that night, we had Chili’s for dinner, but I didn’t have chicken and waffles this time, lol.

Tuesday was an interesting day.  It started out with us working at the foodbank.  While I was working on unloading a pallet, I slightly cut myself.  After getting home, I was making lunch and was opening my can of tuna when I almost cut off the whole pad of my finger.  The cut was pretty deep - stupid can, So, that was fun.  After lunch, all our appointments, cancelled. So, that made for a really interesting day of handing out Books of Mormon and nobody wanting to talk, lol.  Ehh – whatever, that is the ups and downs of missionary work.

Wednesday was a good day! We drove to Sahaurita, AZ for District Meeting, where we learned about how to make studies more efficient and learning more.  After District Meeting, we drove home and had lunch followed by picking up Bro. Collingwood and going out to visit people. We visited people until we had a dinner appointment with the R__ family.  We basically had the equivalent of a thanksgiving dinner and I ate as if it was, lol.  After dinner we went on a run and handed out three more books of Mormon = 1 book per mile, so not bad! 

Thursday was a good day as well.  It was a really good day because we didn’t have to run from any dogs or guns, lol.  We went out with Bro. Collingwood again.  We visited about 20 addresses and people before heading out to Sells to teach our Book of Mormon class. We read from the book of Abraham.  I sure learned a lot. It’s a wonderful book!  After a long drive home we retired for the night.

Friday we woke up got ready and started our weekly planning.  Later we drove north for lunch and more planning.  We actually planned for the better part of the day.  Later that night, we had a dinner appointment with Sis. D___.  Sadly, her husband and son were out of town, so she gave us some money to go out and eat.  It was super kind of her.  Friday was a pretty low key day, but we managed to hand out 3 more Books of Mormon.  So, it wasn’t a loss, because no time spent in the service of the Lord is a loss...right? 

I also received a package from home.  I love everything in it, as always.   You guys are awesome missionary parents!  Oh, and Grandma, thank you for you healthy contributions, they are greatly appreciated!

Small Care Package from home <3

Saturday:  What a day!  Not much happened.  We spent a good part of the morning and afternoon driving some other Elders around to some place they needed to go (not all missionaries have a car).  Elder Perry and I talked for about 2 hours during this time.  We just talked about the mission, what we liked, what we could do better, - just getting some feelings off our chests.  Don’t worry, it was all constructive.  I learned a lot, so that was good! Yay! lol. 

After this we drove home had studies and got ready for a dinner appointment with the C___ family.  It was awesome!  We had homemade chili and being that it may have been my last dinner there (transfers are next week and I’ve been here for 6 months), we shared a ton of laughs. I’ve grown to love that family.  They are awesome! Afterwards, we went to the O__’s and celebrated Sis. E___’s taking out her endowments.  They had a massive taco bar and my three favorite families were there:  the C__s, O__s and the R___s.  We were only missing the Collingwoods. 

Anyways it was so awesome we actually last track of time, which brings me to my story and email subject line:  Saturday nights in south Tucson.

On our way home, we needed to stop and get gas for our Sunday trip to Sells.  OK, imagine a 4 way intersection, but not a busy one.  There are gas stations on the northeast and northwest corners of the intersection. We always gas up at the Circle K because we have a reward card there.  However, I was prompted to go to the Diamond Shamrock across the street from the Circle K. 

Keep in mind, mission rules say we are supposed to be in our apartments by 9:30 or 10:00 at the very latest.  So, there we were filling up at the Diamond Shamrock at 9:39, when we hear tons of squad cars and someone screaming, “Get on the ground!”  It turns out, 3 people had pulled off an armed robbery at the Circle K and they took off running right past us. One of the kids was like 13 and he made it the farthest. 

That being said, we were caught up in the middle of all of this.  A sheriff deputy yelled for us to get out of there. So we left after filling up, lol

So kids, the moral of the story is to follow mission rules and be in by 9:30 and follow the promptings of the Spirit.  Thank you to everyone for all for your prayers that kept us safe! (We have nothing to fear with the Lord on our side!)

Armed Robbery at our usual gas station in South Tucson

Sunday was wonderful.  President Browning came out to Sells and spoke at Sacrament Meeting. He met everybody and after the meeting block and we had a killer potluck.  The primary kids were a bundle of heck, but the food motivated me, lol.   President Browning also said he may be opening a Missionary area in Sells, with full time Elders. IF that happens, it will happen sometime within the next 3 transfers.  He said I would be a logical person to open that area. J   It would only make sense.  He also said we were getting smart phones next week. Who knows if that will really happen?  It’s been up in the air since last November.  Always, we also had a wonderful recent convert fireside Sunday evening.

As you may be able to tell I had a pretty good week – I can’t really complain.  As Bro. Collingwood will tell yah:  “Even if you complain, no one would listen to yah.” Lol.  I hope y’all have a wonderful week.  I cannot wait to hear from you guys!  Love y’all!

Love,

🌵🌴Elder Connor William Dickinson 🌴🌵

Week 54: Guns and dogs: A country boys best friends...missionaries’... not so much

This week was pretty darn interesting  J and I have a decent amount of good news to share – and that is always good!   

Hopefully, the email servers stop acting up and will actually work this week - unlike the last couple of weeks L.  Anyways, I hope you all had as wonderful of a week as did Elder Lee and I did. 

Remember the goals Elder Lee and I set last week?  Here is how we did...drumroll......

Goal #1: Hand out 30 copies of the Book of Mormon

·         We handed out 37

Goal #2: Have 40 Quality Gospel Conversation (QGC)

·         We had 33 QGCs

Goal #3: Find 4 new investigators

·         We found 4

Goal #4: Set 1 baptismal date

·         We didn’t get anyone to set a date

Goal #5: Have 4 investigators come to church

·         We had  had 4 investigators attend church this week

As you can tell, we had a wonderful week with some cool stories to add. 

Monday we got to email home, which is always my favorite!  It was wonderful, but sadly we didn’t get to talk much because of the stupid email server.  I am not sure what they are going to do about it, but hopefully it will work better this week.

P-Day Pool

Tuesday:  We went out to the food bank for two hours of service. After the food bank, we went out with Bro. Collingwood to visit people and check out addresses until 5 o clock.  Just like in Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s talk about the ‘Fourth Floor, Last Door,’ after visiting over 50 addresses on Bro. Collingwood’s list, the final door we knocked on that evening we found a guy named T___. His dad is also named T___, making him T___ Jr.  We were looking for his dad, who is a less active church member, but T___ Jr. was there.  It turns our T___ Jr. is searching for a church.  He has read the Book of Mormon and wants to be baptized. It’s a pretty cool story of how persistence and faith pay off. After that we had dinner and studies.

Crazy Crime here! One out of 4 is near our neighborhood! :O

Wednesday:  We had district meeting that went really long. So, we went out with Grandpa (Bro. Collingwood) from 2:00 until 7:00 visiting people again. While visiting people we entered some private property.  Following Bro. Collingwood’s lead we started talking to this lady who was really standoffish.  She said her husband wasn’t home.  It turns out she answered the door with a pistol - safety of, finger on the trigger and ready to shoot.  It was pretty scary, but we smoothed things over and headed to the next house. That afternoon, we handed out several copies of the Book of Mormon and found a former investigator, who we are going to start teaching again.  So, it was super good productive day.  Later that night we ate dinner and went for a run.  During our 3 mile run we managed to hand out four more copies of the Book Of Mormon. Yay!

Thursday was another interesting day. We didn’t work at the foodbank, which gave Elder Lee time to work on his talk for today.  After that we went to 3 points with Grandpa visiting some more people. We went up to this one particular door and this lady came storming out super ticked off trying to sick her dogs on us, but she tripped watching us run away.  She had 3 massive pitbulls.  But because she tripped we got to the truck before she got to the gate and let the dogs out.  It was super close, but exhilarating none the less.  After visiting more people we headed to Sells to teach our Book of Mormon class - then drove home for the night.

Friday was our planning day. We planned for most of the day. Somehow, we still managed to give out several Books of Mormons, even though it was our planning day. So, Friday was good day.

Zone Conference fun!

Proper Posing! :)

Saturday was a wonderful day and a testimony builder to say the least.  The weather was really coooooold and it rained pretty hard.  Man, I loved being able to see my breath again!  We were driving home from wherever we were - probably finding.   As we were driving home Elder Lee spotted one of the Books of Mormon we handed out in a wash (a ditch for run off).   The rain was pouring out of the sky so we pulled over and Elder Lee went to get it.  To our surprise, even being in a flooded ditch laying in the rain, the book was in pristine condition!  The cover was a little wet, but there’s no way that book should not have been totally destroyed - yet it was perfect! Amazing right?

Sunday was just a cool day in general.  For the first time in my nearly 6 months in Midvale, we went to church for all three hours in the Midvale Ward and did not drive to Sells.  It was awesome!  I met a fellow named Mauri Kingi.  He is a member who is a snowbird from South Dakota.  (snowbird is a nickname for people from northern states who spend in the winter in Arizona).  He is part Native American and part Mauri (New Zealand).   He is from the Pine Ridge Tribe. He says he spends a lot of time in Rosebud, ND where my Mom spent parts of two summers as a student nurse working at the hospital on the reservation.  I told him about how my Mom had worked there and asked him he knew one of my Mom’s friends that she meet when she was there.  He said actually knew my Mom’s friend very well.  Being part Mauri, I asked him if he knew the Tika Tonu Haka, (the Haka I learned and performed for Elder Ikimau when he went home). He said “No way, Absolutely!?!  Bro, that’s my haka!”  So, I felt bonded to him for some reason.  He is a super nice guy!  That was pretty much it for Sunday, other than blessing K___’s house.

Anyways, I obviously had a very interesting and busy busy week and we hit most of our goals!!!! Yippy.

I love you all and cannot wait to hear from you!

Love, 

     🌵🌴Elder Connor William Dickinson🌵🌴

Week 53: Insert Catchy Subject Line Here

Well, let me be the first to tell you this week was less than eventful because I was sick for 60% of it. But, during this week I’ve found/rekindled my desire to work - and to work hard. We had a Zone Conference this week and we learned about a bunch of stuff.  We will have interviews with the Mission President on Tuesday (tomorrow) and we set some pretty lofty goals. I can’t wait to share the success we will have had by the end of this week. Hopefully! 🤞 Not only that, but I am starting an awesome transformation story and hope next PDay I can share the major difference between now and next Monday,

Mondays before my mission were bleh, Mondays during my mission are the best days ever, because I get to communicate with the loved ones! And likewise, I bet, lol.  Monday night we ate at buffalo wild wings, I ended up not getting a salad but found a new favorite there. Traditional wings with the chipotle barbecue dry rub = darn delicious!

Tuesday was an interesting day.  We woke up got dressed up in our suits and went off to Zone Conference. It went from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm. Let me just say that the mind can only learn as much as the butt can endure. So, the first 2 hours were great and lunch of course.  In zone conference we learned about:

·         Love and obedience and how they actually go hand in hand 

·         How can I change my heart to be the best me possible

·         Monthly mission goals and

·         New standards of excellence

That evening following zone conference I’m pretty sure my mono kicked in. I slept from 4:00 that evening until 11:00 am the next day.  We and a small lunch, which I couldn’t keep down That was pretty much my Wednesday.

Thursday:  We were able to go to foodbank to work for two hours and then went out to visit people with the awesome Bro.  Collingwood. Later that night we taught our Book of Mormon class in Sells, AZ. We read from Mosiah chapter 10.  Following that we gave Sis. B___ a blessing and all went well. 

Friday:  Thursday night we received a text from R__ asking if we and some other missionaries could come over for lunch and to watch President Monson’s funeral service.  It was a beautiful service followed by a surprisingly darn good lunch of spaghetti squash and sauce with chicken mixed in and salad on the side and horchata to drink. It was a wonderful lunch. After Spending time with R__ we did our weekly planning until our dinner appointment with the I__s, a very cute old couple.  Aside from being slightly awkward, it was good, lol.

Saturday: Elder Lee was not feeling it Saturday so he rested and I read Preach My Gospel in 2 days. Man, it’s a wonderful book. Very helpful and very informative. While it was a down day, we still got to visit sister C__. We learned that she had a heart attack this weekend. But she’s home and resting and any prayers would defiantly be helpful.

Sunday was a good day. Most of the members in Sells didn’t show up, but it was OK because Elder Lee and I had to give talks. Luckily there was only 12 people there. I realized as soon as the sacrament song started. The person who brings bread was not there…so I ran to the fridge in the kitchen and found the only thing possible = corn tortillas. So, Sacrament Meeting was kind of funny, weird and hopefully had a few good talks, lol.  It’ll be an experience I won’t forget. We both gave talks on the Book of Mormon.

I know this week’s email was pretty short, but being sick attributes to a short week with not much to report. This coming week we have interviews with the President on Tuesday, and exchange on Wednesday and some darn lofty goals to work towards. Our goals for this week it to find 4 new investigators, set 2 bap dates, have 3 investigators at church on Sunday, hand out 30 books of Mormon and have 40 quality gospel conversations. Once again prayers appreciated, lol

I cannot wait to hear from you guys tomorrow, I love y’all so much

Love,

🌴🌵Elder Connor William Dickinson🌵🌴

Week 52: Happy First Birthday to me! :)

Hello family and friends, 

This week was full of good and bad things - mostly good, so no worries.  I’m sorry for the short and slightly detached email last week, but it was New Year’s Eve and I was basically multitasking the entire time I was writing it.  This week, I will try to do better. That’s all we really can do - continue to try to be better, right?

I want to start this week’s email with invitation. As you know by now, President Monson passed away this week, and I have had some interesting experiences.  I would like to extend an invitation to start...or to continue reading the Book of Mormon - every day.  Even if it is just one scripture a day or one chapter a day - I invite all to feast upon the words of Christ.  If President Monson, a man called of God, used his last General Conference talk - his last words and breath - to invite us to read The Book of Mormon…it must be important. 

That being said, here is what we were up to this week:

Monday:  I’m sorry we didn’t get to email much this week.  We usually have volleyball from 9 to 11:00, but this week we had Zone sports after volleyball.  For Zone sports, the whole Zone gets together to play some sports once a transfer (about every 6 weeks).  So, we were busy all morning having fun.  After all that was done, we emailed until it was time to head to town, we then didn’t have any Wi-Fi, so I sadly was not able to finish emailing. We had to do our shopping and then it was time for bed.  

Tuesday was a good day. We didn’t do service at the foodbank, because they were doing their inventory.  After lunch we went out and talked to people and did some stop-by visits. Sometimes, I feel like stop-by visits are a waste of time, then I remember that no effort is wasted.  We had a late dinner on our own.  I fried up some potatoes.

Wednesday was a very good day!  We picked up Elders Perry and Mitchell and drove down to Sahaurita, AZ for our weekly district meeting, where we learned about the passing of Thomas S. Monson. While sad, we shared our favorite memories of him and talks he had given. We also learned about how to make our personal study more effective - not only for us, but also for our investigators.  Later, we ate dinner on our own, due to Elder Lee not feeling well.  It’s in my New Year resolution to work out more, so we also ran 3 miles. I’ve worked out every day since New Year’s! This however was kind of mistake because that night, I did not sleep at all.

Thursday (aka Birthday):  January 4th. Its hard to believe one year ago I said goodbye to my family, left Wisconsin and entered the MTC. It has been an awesome journey so far and I am looking forward to this next year. We worked out again after waking up, which stunk because A) no sleep and B) I was sore form the night before.   We went out with Bro. Collingwood and contacted and spoke with a lot of people.  We gave out 5 books of Mormon and visited over 40 people that day. I’d say it was a very successful day.  We visited people from 11:00 am to 4:30 pm. After 4:30 we drove to Sells to teach our Book of Mormon class. The class went very well!  Instead of having 1 person there, like last week, we had 12.  It was crazy! Crazy good. Then we drove home and that was our day.  We went to bed and I stared at the ceiling from 9:30 pm until our alarm went off = Day 2 of no sleep :(

Friday was an interesting day. We woke up and I worked out pretty hardcore.  After which, I ran another 1.5 miles.  I need to somehow find the joy in it, instead of trying not to die, lol (I might be a little out of shape).  After we worked out, we picked up the other Elders and did our weekly planning until 3:00.  After our planning was complete, we got some fish tacos to satisfy a craving we’d been having.  One thing I’ve noticed, we haven’t been teaching a lot. We have been trying, but no luck. We had a dinner appointment with Sister D__ that night, but it fell through, so she gifted us some money and said dinner was on her. 

I did have an awesome experience Friday.  Mom and Dad, if you want to know I will share it with you.

Oh, and guess what else happened.  I couldn’t sleep Friday night, surprise!

Saturday was another good day. I obviously was beyond exhausted at this point, but we went on a short hike with K__.  I wore Ikimau’s old cowboy boots he left behind.  After the hike, man I was one sore fella.  After the hike and handing out some more Books of Mormon, K__ treated us to lunch at Texas roadhouse and I had a very, very good steak. After this we went to the library for some family history, then we did some finding with no luck.

Sunday:  We were told we would have to give talks in the Sells Branch, but luckily it was Fast and Testimony Sunday, so instead we bore our testimonies.  I find it a lot easier to do it in the Sells branch than at home in Wisconsin.  After Sacrament Meeting, we taught a lesson to the Primary kids. Its like we were teaching in a zoo, but I feel that it ended up going somewhat okay.  We then drove home and ate a linner sort of deal on our own. But then we did studies and later that night we ate a PDay eve meal with Elders Perry and Mitchell. We made a Vidalia onion chicken and cream over rice with a side salad.

Anyways, this was my week, not very exciting, but it was defiantly uplifting and motivating. The lack of sleep however killed me. So I am hoping for a good night of sleep followed by an awesome day of emailing you guys.

I love you all, signing off from Tucson, AZ

Love,

 Elder Dickinson!

Week 51: El burro sabe mas que tú...just kidding... well maybe

First things, first...you must go back to last week and check out the additional pictures! :)

Now to this week:

El burro sabe mas que tú...just kidding... well maybe

(Everybody just says this phrase down here...its just a funny thing)

Heres a Merry Christmas video:

Why yes, I am still alive! Whether you thought it’s because you haven’t heard from me for a while...or the holiday cooking...and or crazy church members, I managed to survive the holiday season -a.k.a. the Mexican New Year.  I am writing this email on New Year’s Eve, because all missionaries have been ordered to spend from 8:00 pm on in their apartments due to the absurd amounts of gun shots being fired into the air to celebrate.  For some reason, the Mexicans here think it’s a wonderful idea to fire millions of gunshots into the air. Silly them, they don’t know where all of those rounds are going to land. So that why we had to be in by 8pm tonight!

These last two weeks have been a blur, and somewhat uneventful - other than the wonderful holidays! 

Skyping on Christmas

Monday (Christmas) was by far, undoubtedly the best day of my mission!  Being surrounded by my adopted family down here (church members and missionaries) made being away from home for the holidays super easy.  We woke up and unwrapped presents from home and then made and at breakfast. Mom sent a great Christmas breakfast of banana caramel pancakes with real maple syrup made by one of her friends in Wisconsin.  They were killer.  Elder Perry and I enjoyed them while Elder Mitchell was throwing up (this is going to haunt me later – stay tuned) and Elder Lee couldn’t eat them. After breakfast we went to Grandpa’s (Bro, Collingwood) house and delivered his gift from my family.  He always feeds us different types of pancakes, so my family sent him a jug of Wisconsin maple syrup.  He loved it. 

Elder Perry

Banana Carmel Pancakes for Christmas Breakfast with Wisconsin Maple Syrup

A few of my care package goodies

I loved all my gifts so much, but cherished all the letters from my homeward, family and friends!

After this, we headed over to Bro. R__ S__’s house for Christmas day.  We spent the day with him while we all Skyped home.   Calling home was the best part of my mission yet.  I absolutely loved it! We also ate dinner at the Bishop’s household. It was awesome, just like thanksgiving! 

Tuesday:  I had Post-Christmas blues.  Apparently, whatever made Elder Mitchell sick on Christmas Day was contagious.  I ended up being sick with something like the stomach flu. Want any more details? Nah, I’ll just leave it at that.

Happy New Years Day!

Wednesday, we had our district meeting. It was a good meeting.  After that meeting we did some service that I absolutely enjoyed!  There was some skirting on a member’s trailer home that gotten blown in by some strong spring winds – we fixed it.  Broken fence post - we fixed it!  Blown down facia -I fixed that.  See latter pictures. It made me super excited to start working on construction management, lol.  I just enjoyed myself so much! That was basically our Wednesday.

Thank Goodness NO SNAKES!!!!

Job well done by all!

Thursday started with service at the foodbank.  We worked there for 2 hours then headed off to visit a few people with Bro. Collingwood.  We got home around 7:00 pm. We ate dinner at home and decided it would probly be best to clean up our house. It needed it - trust me on this one!

Friday, we did service at the foodbank from 9:00 – 11:00.  Elder Lee had an appointment of some kind that we got to go to around 11:00. So, we were at that appointment until Noon. Then, it being Friday, we did our weekly planning. Believe it or not .... that was it, we went home and ate a late dinner and went to bed.

Saturday:  We went to the library to do a little bit of family history. After an hour at the library we came home ate and then went a visited am few people and then ended up at sister C__’s house. We ended up talking to her and sister P__ for a solid 2 hours. Being that it was Elder Lee’s first visit, they bombarded him with questions. I almost fell asleep, lol. We then had dinner on our own that night.

Sunday was an interesting day. We had some fall out with an investigator. We drove out to the Sells Branch for meetings just to have one person show up.  Later that night we had ‘Gun shots in da hood all night.’  And I have never cared less about a New Year’s Eve, lol.

I’m sorry in advance for such a lame weekly email, but it’s what I got.  I am more than willing to answer any questions yall may have tomorrow and I cannot wait to hear from you!

Love my Tucson tie clip (Christmas gift)

Love,

Elder Connor William Dickinson