Week 76: A blur

This week really flew by because we were super busy meeting with people.  When we weren't meeting with people we were working on contacting potential investigators or walking around just talking to people.  All-in-all, this week we hit some pretty high numbers we are pretty proud of – so all the work and heat was worth it.  There were a couple of times we were teaching so much that we couldn't get the number of Quality Gospel Discussions (QGDs) required for the day, so we had to work harder the next day.  That was pretty much my week in a nutshell.

Monday: We got to email home and I got to play basketball for the first time in six months.   It was awesome and it was worth all the pain the next morning.  I actually dunked it once, so that was pretty awesome too.  Later that evening we had a dinner appointment with a family and by the time we were done with the dinner we headed home and called it a night.

Tuesday quite honestly, could have been the busiest day of my mission.  We had six lessons.  I don't really remember the details of all of them, but the thing that stood out to me was a lesson we had with lady named C___.  She is an interesting one, but once we realized her intentions were to follow Christ.  So, we invited here to do just that and follow Christ and be baptized.  We showed her the scripture in 2Nephi which says:

10. And He said unto the children of men: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father?

I assured her of how baptism was a commandment and I invited her to be baptized so that she can follow all of Heavenly Father's commandments and follow Jesus Christ and return back to him.  This is the lesson that most stuck out to me on Tuesday.   Being that we were so busy with lessons – we went from air conditioning to air conditioning to more air conditioning so we don't have to worry about the heat too much.

Wednesday, on the other hand, consisted of a lot of finding and talking to people.  We also had exchanges with the APs for just for an hour.  We went out and did some finding people on the streets.  What eventually turned out to be a fun time actually started off as a pretty hostile experience.  First, we were working this apartment complex and a lady stated chewing us out for what she called ‘soliciting,’ but because we are licensed ministers, we are able to do so.  After we finishing talking to her we visited a few people we know who live in that complex.  As we were getting ready to leave and start to get into the AP's van, she was waiting for us there and started claiming that we had lied and how we were trespassing and how we were just being terrible people.  She said she didn’t want to hear anything about God. So, me being me, as we were walking away I said “God bless you.”  While we found that hilarious, she got irate and threatened to call the cops and a bunch of other fun stuff.  So, we sat there talking for 10 minutes discussing the finer points of trespassing and blah, blah, blah.  We were we're defending ourselves and then all these other missionaries showed up to pick up there companions from exchanges.  That just set her off, but luckily by the time we left the cops hadn't showed up yet and the lady was still hard-hearted but it turned out to be a fun experience, lol.  I actually got the chance to show her my ministerial certificate proving that we were able to do what we were doing. So, that felt good.

Thursday:  I can't really remember what we did Thursday.  We mostly did finding and contacting people and we did teach a lesson or two.

Friday was a good day of weekly planning and Elder VanSweden got to do his ‘My Plan’ because he’s going home this coming transfer.   A couple weeks ago we received a referral for a lady named G___.  Friday night we were able to visit G___ and her fiancé V___.  They are wonderful couple in their mid-20s and he played college baseball and basketball.  He is about 6’10” and had hair as long as mine before I had to cut it for my mission.  He is a big boy.   She comes from a Catholic background and V__ grew up being LDS his entire life, but due to college sports he strayed a little bit.  They have a baby on the way but they are super excited to get married and to take the lessons so they can have a temple marriage and to raise a family in the church.  It is something that they both really want.   So hopefully we will be able to invite Grace to be baptized sometime soon and have V__ baptize her.

As for the rest of the week, not much happened. Sunday, V__ and G___ both came to Church. That was about it for these last 2 days. We were able to meet most of our goals this week and we ended up having 52 QGCs!

I'm looking forward to hearing from you all.  I hope you had as good of a week as I did. We stayed really busy. Too bad it's so dang hot, but anyways I can't wait to hear from you all.  I love you.

Love,

Elder Connor William

Week 74 & 75: Cambio Grande (Big Changes)

‘Big Changes’ pretty much sums up the last 2 weeks – which I haven’t emailed.  The biggest change, sadly, was transferred back to Tucson.  Last week I transferred out of the Benson area and I had to say goodbye to all of the friends in Benson who became family.  We spent Monday night at the S___'s playing pool.  It was a wonderful goodbye gift.  Brother and Sister S___ are amazing at pool and somehow we beat them four times in a row.  During all of the Monday night FHEs we’ve spent at their house, we only ever won 4 games, but last Monday, we won four straight - fair and square. That was a memory I will hold onto for a long time.  They really enjoyed the maple syrup that you guys sent.  After playing pool and saying goodbye, we headed home and finished packing before the transfer day that we both had ahead of us.

Going to miss these feisty ducks, chicks, companion and family here in Benson!

Tuesday:  Transfer Day!  We finished getting packed and welcomed the two new Elder to the Benson area. (This was a whitewash transfer – meaning both Elder Ramsden and I transferred out and two new Elders transferred in)  We spent the day showing the new Elders around, bringing them up to speed with the appointments we made for the coming week and people we've met.   After spending the afternoon showing them around, Elder Ramsden and I packed our bags into the transfer van and headed to Tucson.  The rest of this week was pretty much a blur, so I don't have much else to say.

I’ve started a new chapter in my mission.  I have decided to rededicate myself to the work and try to work a little harder every day.  That being said, my new companion is the awesome Elder Vansweeden.  We are really ripping it up here, talking to people and always staying busy.  Even after not emailing for 2 weeks, I really don't have much to say due to the fact that we've just been teaching lessons and working constantly at finding and talking to anybody and everybody who would talk to us.  This past week we were able to talk to over a hundred people - asking them if they were interested in hearing the message of the restored gospel and doing the Lord's work here in the River Crossing Ward.  This Ward is really awesome.  It has a whole bunch of good families.  To be honest, it reminds me a lot of the Wausau Ward.

Who knew I would be doing this on my mission????

Elder Vansweden and I have also been assigned the Butterfield ward.  We are going through a very weird process because the Butterfield Ward also just had a whitewash transfer, and we are the new Elders.  We showed up to church on Sunday and it was funny because we didn't know a single person and nobody knew us.  As luck would have it, we got to know quite a few people and fit into the ward really well.  It appears they like us, but the only downside is the Butterfield ward is not very keen on missionary work at the moment.  So, it makes it hard to light the fire under the members about missionary work and the need to provide us with referrals of people to visit, hand out Books of Mormon to and teach.  That makes it hard to do missionary work with the members.

This week we had the coolest thing happened.  We had our first monsoon of the season. It was the remnants of a tropical storm that blew in from the Pacific - off of Baja California.  It dropped some crazy rain.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to send a video of what we saw. It was an unbelievable amount of rain in a short time!

Going to miss this town and companion, Elder Ramsden! 

Here is something funny:   After leaving Benson and coming to Tucson I thought I had escaped the whole day of church thing (we covered 3 wards in Benson).... Yeah right, lol.  Covering two wards, plus all of the auxiliary meetings still makes for a full day.  So, I got to thinking that this was probably God’s way of making me appreciating only going to 3 hours of church back home.  I don’t think I will ever complain about only 3 hours, because now it would just fly by.  It would be like, “Wait...that's it for the week?  No, I need more.”  lol.  But, I just thought it was kind of funny because I thought I could run away from 3 wards...but nope 2 wards and auxiliary meeting still take forever, lol

As disappointed as I was to be transferred from Benson back to Tucson, I really have nothing to complain about. The Rivers Crossing Ward it is awesome, the area is nothing special - but it's humbling and the missionary work is going well.  So, it only leaves me with one thing to complain about = THE HEAT! I’ll never get used to it and I’ve had countless 3 shirt days... its really bad, lol.

To cap off the week, we found this awesome hillbilly couple. J__ and B___.  They literally only have each other, shirts on their backs and a mobile home they bought for a dollar.  Nope, that’s not a type-o, $1.  There is one thing that I have noticed. Even having so little and having the world against them at every turn, they are the happiest people I've met in my life.  They are willing to learn and want to make us part of their life.  J__ has been collecting a bag of ties and he didn't know why, but now that he has met us - he says he now knows why. They want change and we are willing to help them.  It is a wonderful time right now.

I can't wait to hear from y'all tomorrow, it's been a wonderful week and hopefully you had one too!

Love,

Elder Connor William Dickinson

Week 73: Another Week Down

Another Week Down

Well, howdy there,

Long time - no talk, huh?  Honestly, I’m getting so bad at writing these weekly updates.  We had a couple of busy PDays in a row and it is what it is and I am sorry.  Next week I will do a lot better.  Once again, I am sorry.

This week has been pretty darn uneventful, but the highlight of my week was having the privilege to speak in the Butterfield Ward Sacrament meeting.  We, along with our ward mission leader, spoke on missionary work.  It went so well, I can't believe how many people loved our talks.  Several said that our talks had changed their whole outlook on talking about the gospel to others.  One guy exclaimed how my talk had actually changed his life and how he now views everyone as a child of God and loves them!  So, things are going well in this ward, which was once not so keen on missionary work.  All three of us knocked it out of the park.  The bishopric loved it and said that they were fascinated with our speaking abilities, lol.  So, that was defiantly the highlight of my week!

Let's see Monday we emailed home, went fishing and went to the S___’s later for FHE.

Tuesday we were busy all day long with Zone Conference (ZC).  It hit me then - that I only have 4 more ZCs left before I head back to Wisconsin.  That’s pretty crazy.

ZC consists mainly of talks.  This time the topics were the Book of Mormon and talking with others.  After being on my mission this long, ZCs basically repeat topics over and over, so to be honest they are all beginning to sound the same.  However, I still learn something new at every ZC.   We did take some fun pictures of the Zone, but man, the highlight of the ZC was an awesome lunch!  I think that may have been my favorite part.  We had some killer Sloppy Joes with all kinds of desserts.  It not only hit the spot, but it almost put me to sleep during the second half of conference, lol.

Wednesday we also got the opportunity to help out at foodbank.  It is pretty humbling work. It makes me appreciate what I have a lot more.  Later, we had a going away party and yes there was food, so I was a happy camper.

Thursday we had the privilege to teach the first lesson to F__’s wife.  It went really well, but as always, there were some bumps along the road - just questions or concerns, but ultimately I think we’ll be able to work out.  You just never know, but other than that it went super good!

Friday we had weekly planning and some service so that was a pretty uneventful day.

Saturday we got to move two families, which took all day, but service makes me happy.  So, it was well worth the back pain.  In the afternoon we had to do some chores around the house. Not only that, but we had to write our talks.  There is nothing like writing a talk last minute right?

Sunday we went to many hours of church and gave our talks.  It was a spirit filled, edifying and uplifting day.  Later, we had dinner with the G__s and once again I ate too much! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week...

I love you.

Elder Connor William Dickinson