Week 84: Monsoons, Sushi and the Plan of Salvation

Well, I learned a lot this week and we were super busy.  A lot of our time this week was taken up with finding and lessons.  I would guess we taught about 10 lessons this week - 8 of which were about the Plan of Salvation

This week we were able to meet with M___ and K___, both of who are progressing towards baptism.  It is exciting to watch people grow and learn to love the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This week we experienced some pretty different situations.   Sunday, we had to leave the River Crossing Ward’s meetings early to help a member of the Butterfield ward give a ride to a transgender person.  It was a fun and interesting time.  We talked about learning the guitar and other topics of interests with this lady named H__. It was a new experience for both of us and the member we helped said it was all preparing me for being Bishop.  Man, do I hope he is wrong, lol...but seriously though.

Whaaaat! Pretty awesome they named a street after me! :D

Saturday:  We had the opportunity to go out on splits with our Ward Mission Leader, Bro. R__ and we visited well over 20 people. 

Here is some fun news from the River Crossing Ward. During a meeting, I brought up the idea of implementing Bro. Collingwood’s program for less active members.  We have now been using that program for 2 weeks. They have not done anything like this in this ward before and it has turned out to be a gold mine.   In the last 2 weeks we have found 20 people that have moved into the ward and reactivated 7 people.  We, as a ward mission, with the help of our Heavenly Father were able to increase the attendance percentage of the River Crossing Ward by over 6 percent!!!! 

Friday night we had a diner appointment with Bro. O__ and guess where he took us.  He took us to an all-you-can-eat sushi place.  I was in heaven!  At $25 a person – we got our money back 10x over.  They were so happy to see us go, lol.  We did the math and the sushi we ate would be valued at just around $400.  I was hurting after wards though and ended up gaining 4 pounds - so much for a diet, lol.  Don’t worry, I’m back on track since then!

The Elder laying on the floor is going home soon!

Thursday:  We were able to play basketball.  We invited all the investigators we though would enjoy it, but none showed up.  We were still able to get a darn good work out. It was a good experience

Wednesday we had a heck of a monsoon! The storm knocked out the power and flooded the streets.  There was a massive lightning strike, which hit close to us and started a palm tree on fire. It was something else!

There was one day we had four lessons in one day.  That was intense and super stressful, but duties calls!

This week I would like to share something which I hold dearly. That would be the Plan of Salvation. Maybe there is a reason I taught it so many times this week. 

The Plan of Salvation teaches us how we can live with our families forever.  How?  Well, first off - my family means the world to me!  What would heaven be without our families?  That would not seem like heaven at all, would it?  However, to be able to live with the people that I love and cherish for eternity - there is no other gift greater than this.  It’s all made possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

He died and suffered for our sins. So when the day of judgment comes, we can kneel before our heavenly King and say “I did my best.  I testified of and lived by your Son’s teachings.  The best part is, wherever we fell sort, Jesus Christ fills in any of the gaps.

This doctrine has brought me great peace after losing friends and loved ones during my mission.  Enduring loss and sharing these teachings with others has only strengthened my humble testimony of the God’s Plan.

I know this Plan to be true and it is for everyone.  No matter how far you may have strayed - God and his Son Jesus Christ are waiting with open arms. We just have to reach out to them. 

This is my testimony, and I say this in the name of our beloved Savior, the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, amen

I’m looking forward to hearing from everyone.

Love you.

Elder Connor William Dickinson 

Week 83: A long tiring week

There are two ways to look at the subject line if this email.

1)  From your perspective, a civilian’s perspective, a long tiring week could include getting yelled at by the boss, worked 20 hours of overtime or something else that was probably not fun, edifying or so on.

Or

2) From the view point of a missionary a long and tiring week means a week full of work that was worth all of the difficulty.   As I lay in my bed typing this up I know I have given it my all this week. This was one of those weeks that was tiring, but I can kneel before my Lord and say “I've done all I could.”

That being said, my week was the second kind.  We were uber busy with service, teaching and meetings.  From now on, instead of going through my week day-by-day, I will only share any highlights.

Monday:  What can I say?  I'm a simple man. We could have done all the fun things in the world, but nothing can hold a candle to talking to my family on PDay. You guys are my world. You guys keep me going - so thank you for that.

Tuesday was a long day filled with cancelled lessons, but the highlight was being able to attend a missionary dinner for the Youth and Young Adults hosted at the Butterfield Ward bishop’s house.  He talked a little about his mission and we got to share advice on filling out our mission papers and things we wish we would have known better or done more before our missions.  So, it was a fun opportunity to share a little of what we have experienced to help future missionaries.

A beautiful desert sunset

Wednesday’s highlight was zone conference.  The West zone and North zones combined for a daylong conference to talk about numerous spiritual things ranging from technology safeguards to extending invitations and commitments.  It was defiantly an edifying and all-around spiritually enlightening time. 

Thursday was a day to remember, my goodness!  We woke up and went to do service at the C___s.  Due to some circumstances, they needed to move a shed off of one property and onto another - before the day was over.  We spent the morning using screw jacks to jack up the shed to a height that we would be able to get a trailer underneath it.  The screw jacks are exactly what they sound like.  Basically we had to spin a handle to wind the screw jack forever until they lifted the shed high enough. I have blisters on both palms, one of which got infected. Fun right?  Well we finally got the shed to the other property.  I was the traffic flagger and directed traffic and such.   After a tight squeeze and some on the fly engineering, we landed the shed on its final resting place. It ended up taking all day, but it was well worth it - not to mention I gained some valuable knowledge from doing it.

Challenge Accepted! :)

Friday consisted of weekly planning, lessons, correlation meeting and other business. Need I say more?

Saturday was a good day. We helped the O__ family (an entirely different O__ family that I’ve written about before) work in their back yard and completely change the look of it by 180 degrees.  We moved a dirt pile, weed wacked, removing stakes and did a lot of good old fashioned cleaning up.  Now, it looks wonderful.  It was darn hot, too.

Here is something cool:  I introduced our ward mission leader to Grandpa Collingwood.   We are now starting to use the program that Grandpa Collingwood developed in Midvale.  We just implemented it here and I'm looking forward to seeing it in use, because I know it works.  So we went out on splits with Bro. R___ and visited some new move ins and other less active members. It was time well spent.

Sunday:  My goodness!  We had meetings from 6:00AM until out 8:30PM dinner appointment. It was a brutally long day, but again – it was worth it.

That was my week.  I am looking forward you hearing from y'all.  I love you.

Love,

Elder Connor William Dickinson 

I will send pictures in another email.

Week 82: Four Months and Not Counting

Man, this week just flew buy.  I guess that happens when your busy getting rejected, lol.

But in all seriousness, this week, for some odd reason, had a copious amount of meetings (again) and a lot of empty appointments and stop-by visits. On Monday (P-day) our zone played indoor golf at a place called Top Golf. It was a video golf range it so much fun!! I will keep it to myself who won. :D

Zone at TOP GOLF

When, I look back on the lessons we taught this week, we only really taught one solid lesson. It was with Bro. H__’s wife. She is a non-member.  She grew up Baptist and then practiced Buddhism.  She started coming to church with her husband and decided, “Well if I'm going to their church, I might as well figure out what they believe.”  So, we taught a solid first lesson, which went really well and she accepted all of the invitations we extended.  The next lesson will be in two weeks, due to their being on vacation this week.  We plan to invite her to be baptized then.  So that’s super exciting.  That is the main highlight of this week. 

We also had exchanged with the Zone Leaders, which went well - as always.  I went to the Young Single Adult Ward.  We didn't really teach any lessons, but we do some stop-by visits and had some good conversations. 

The last highlight of this week happened Sunday night.  I was able to go on a split with Elder Bowcut.  We are super good friends.  So, that was fun.  We taught a lesson in Spanish.  It was so cool to be able to use what little I know. I can't speak Spanish all that well, but I can translate it fluently. The Mission President said he was impressed that I know so much Spanish, lol.

I really can't remember much more that happened this week because we spent days at a time just contacting people, clearing up ward lists and refining our area book. So, that filled up a massive amount of our time.

Because this was a shorter email feel free to ask a lot of questions.  I'll leave you with my simple testimony.

That I know God lives.  Not only does He live, but He loves each and every one of us.  No matter what we do, through the atoning sacrifice of His only begotten son we can return back with him.  Christ is standing there with his arms open, but we have to make the choice to reach out to him.  I don't know who I'm saying this to or for what reason, but God does love you, don't quit…keep the faith! 

P.S. Mom and Dad I sold my blender for chicken.

I love y'all. 

Elder Dickinson 

Week 81: Looking Back

As I look back on this week and what we accomplished - number wise - I cringe.   Yet, if I look at the number of people we saw and spoke with (60+) it wasn’t so bad - and we managed to find one new investigator.   So, I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks and you decide if it was productive or not.

I was recently doing some study and pondering on something Grandpa Collingwood once told me.  He said, “Just because you are working hard in your area, exercising faith to find people and are coming up short doesn't mean your efforts are wasted.  The Lord blesses any amount of work, but it might not be in your area.”  So, while we are struggling here, who knows, maybe our faith is affecting others in different areas.  That thought makes all the rejection a little more bearable. 

Saturday was rough!  We woke up and did some service and it was hot. Even with drinking a gallon of water, I still managed to get tagged with a degree of heat exhaustion.  I ended up with a pretty bad upset stomach and head ache – so, that was fun.

We also saw a cool miracle for the Butterfield Ward.  The Butterfield Ward hasn't had a solid investigator in month, but today a guy who has recently returned to activity invited us to teach his non-member wife the lessons.  It’s a big deal for the Butterfield ward and I'm just shocked.  We are like, “Is this really happening?”  We have an appointment to meet with her and start the lessons on Thursday.  Hopefully it will be successful.

This week we also had a lot of Zone meetings.  The Zone focus is on improving the weekly Ward Correlation, Missionary meetings, Ward Councils for each ward.  We also had our interviews with the Present.  So, that took up a lot of time as well.

My interviews with the mission president went really well.  We were talking about how this coming transfer will end my time in the River Crossing and Butterfield Wards.  While it’s always sad to say goodbyes, I am excited to hopefully finish my mission in a rural area out in the boonies. But who knows, I could end up transferring to the next ward over. But luckily there is no need to stress about that for another 3 weeks or so.

Friday:  We had the unique opportunity to Skype into A__'s baptism in Virginia.  He is from Virginia and came to Tucson to visit his mom.  After his visit, his mom is now taking the lessons here in Tucson from us.  It all happened because A__ inspired her with his testimony, while he was still taking the lessons.  While teaching A__’s mom, we also got to teach A___ the last lesson he needed before being baptized.  So, we got to watch the talk portion of his baptism with his Mom.  It was a wonderful and neat experience, knowing I helped teach him also.

This week we also ended up going through area book and cleaning it up.  We visited the people listed in our area book (prior investigators taught by prior missionaries in the past) and decided whether to stop teaching them or to continue.

We also taught the O__ family about enduring trails by sharing conference talks and a Mormon Message titled ‘Mountains to Climb.’  Every time I endure a loss or am down in the dumps, I watch it.  I'd like to invite everyone to watch this short 5 minute message when you are feeling the same way.

This week I have been studying in 1Nephi chapters 17-18.  It is where Nephi breaks his bow and builds the ship.  I look at all the persecution and faith defying trials he went through in just a short amount of time.  While I was reading about all of his Nephi’s trials, Philip. 4:13 came to mind -here it says:

"I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me."

So whenever the ‘you-know-what’ hits the fan - remember that.

So, like I said in the beginning of the email - If there is one thing I have learned this week it is that no effort is wasted.  That doesn't apply to just missionary work.  See how it can apply in your own life and I promise you will find more comfort in doing so. 

This is my simple testimony for the week.  While it was kind of scattered around a bit, I hope it made sense. I had an alright week and hoping for a better one to come.

 I love you all.  Keep the faith

Love, 

Elder Connor William Dickinson 

Week 80: Silver Linings

Well, let's just start off this week’s email by saying:  In order to see beautiful silver linings, it needs to be a cloudy day.  In order to see good, one must experience bad, light/darkness and so on. 

That being said the first part of this week was rough.  I had to say goodbye to four of my previous companions, because it was their turn to go home.  I will especially miss Elders Bangerter and VanSweden. So, I was in a pretty sad state of mind, I must say.  This all happened on transfer Tuesday and as you already know my new companion is Elder Bancroft and I’m still working in the River Crossing and Butterfield wards.

Saying goodbye to Elder VanSweden

Wednesday was just a bad day in general.  We didn't get much done. Most of the day was spent getting acquainted with all the changes and some administrative things.

Thursday we did some service at the C___’s house. Basically, there are like our Grandma and Grandpa. After service Elder Bancroft talked with Bro. C___ and I helped Sis C___ and shared stories while making taco salad.  Man, I enjoyed that. It threw me back to Wisconsin, making Thanksgiving cranberries and pie with my Grandma in her kitchen.  That was one of the highlights of my week.

Friday was one of the most stressful days ever.  I’m not sure why, but it ended well.

Saturday was a good day. We visited a ton of people. Some were receptive - some not so much.

I got a prompting to go visit a Less Active Member, but sadly nothing happened as they didn't answer their door.  When we turned around to go back to our car, there was this guy waiting for us.  We stuck up a conversation and ended up teaching him a wonderful lesson.  We have never met him before, but God put him in our path.  We will now be meeting with him this next week!

God works in mysterious ways, that’s for sure. That was another highlight of my week.

Late Tuesday evening, we taught a lesson to the O___s. They were super excited to have us come over after a few bouts of illness. They have not been to church in forty, yes 40 years. We taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ and how we can personally apply it to our lives and part of that is baptism/receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost.  As a member, that means attending church meetings and partaking of the sacrament.  On Sunday - for the first time in forty years – they found the Spirit they have been lacking beyond those church doors.  What a joyous thing it was to see them walk into the chapel, pursuing God.

One more quick experience:  If you are feeling down turn to the scriptures and prayer.  I was feeling down earlier this week and decided to study in D&C.  I opened up to a scripture and it was perfectly tailored to my situation.  Remember God is waiting there for us with open arms. We have to do our part and reach for him. 

That was my week in a nutshell.  Anyways, I can't wait to hear from y'all.  I love you!  Keep the faith.

Love,

Elder Connor William Dickinson 

Week 79: Changes

This week contained a lot of changes - some good, some bad, some relevant, some irrelevant.  I guess you could say that sometimes things happen for the better and sometimes for the worst or sometimes for reasons unknown.  That being said, after Saturday night’s transfer calls we will still be working in both the Butterfield and Rivers Crossing Wards.   On this coming Wednesday Elder van Sweden will be going home and I'll be getting Elder Bancroft.  He and I were in the same MTC district, but given the random nature of transfers, I don't know much of what he will be like - so it will definitely be very interesting.  I have been working on my diet, but this week with all of the changes, I’m betting I will have more stress than usual, which will drive me to work out more in the mornings.  So, hopefully that will help with the diet.

We really didn't have much happen this week.  Most of the week was spent saying goodbyes and tying up the loose ends before Elder van Sweden ships out – and lots of contacting.

Monday was a good day.  We played some basketball and hung out with the Zone.  It didn’t take long playing basketball before I pulled a hamstring, which pretty much shut me down. Other than shopping, playing ball and emailing home we didn't do much on Monday.

Tuesday was a rough day. I my hamstring was still sore, but that didn't get in the way of the work - it just made everything unbearable.  We were still able to work, so we went out and visited a couple people and then did the street contact thing - basically all day.   We didn't have much success. To finish off Tuesday we had a decent lesson with M__ on prayer.  I say it was only decent because the member we brought along completely over whelmed her.  Poor M___, but we will be meeting with her this week, so that’s good at least.

Wednesday was an interesting day.  It included Elder van Sweden's last district meeting and it went very well.  We worked on an exercise where we had to teach the restoration lesson in under a minute.  Why would that help us you might ask?  It helps us teach things simply and clearly. Elder van Sweden gave a really good training on that.  Following district meeting we went out and contact people all day long, again.  Basically anytime or we weren't doing stuff, we were contacting people. So, if I don't say that we're doing much it was basically because we were doing contacting all the time we didn’t have lessons or service – which was most of the week.

Thursday was a good day.  It started with service at the C__’s, like we do every Thursday morning.  After service, we did more contacting in the afternoon, because we really didn't have any appointments.   More accurately, the appointments we did have scheduled fell through.  So, we just contacted until dinner and then we took a decent break because it was so hot. After dinner, we contacted some more. As much as I hate contacting, it has to be done when we have an open schedule.

Friday was a good day, which basically consisted of weekly planning and Elder van Sweden finishing up his ‘My Plan’ program.   After transfers, Fridays won't be as fun because neither of us will have ‘My Plan’ to work on. We will just have weekly planning, some sporadic lessons and more finding. Yay!

Saturday was a decent day.  We had some service lined up in the morning, but after that some more lessons fell through, so we did more contacting.  We did find a good investigator through a Book of Mormon request/referral.  His name is B__ and he requested a copy of the Book of Mormon. We will stop by this week to teach him – or just talk to him to see what he believes and see if he wants to take the lessons. So, wish us luck on that. Other than that, this week has been very unsuccessful, mainly because of all of the goodbyes for Elder van Sweden.

Sunday was a good day at church.  We learned about sacrifice and gospel principles in the River Crossing Ward.  It was a pretty cool lesson.  Sunday night we didn't have a dinner appointment lined up so we stopped by the C___s for Elder van Sweden and we ended up playing a couple games with the and just enjoyed being with their family.

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures from this week – actually I don't have any pictures at all, lol. I will have a couple pictures to share on Tuesday, so stay tuned.  I'm sorry not much else happened this week, but sometimes that's the life of a missionary.  I'm not exactly sure what this next transfer will hold, but let's just say I could use some prayers.  Thank you for all that you guys do. I love you and I can't wait to hear from you.

P.S. Missions are hard. It challanges me every day.

Love,

Elder Connor William Dickinson

Week 78: New week = New me

This week was a pretty interesting one. Not much really happened on the southwest home front. I've decided to start a diet - kind of like a 6 months to sexy thing. Except, I'm starting at 5 months.  I think this will help me both spiritually and physically.  I'm definitely looking forward to this being a positive experience. Setting goals in life is important.  It gives you something to work towards, makes you desire the right things and hopefully helps you find a more healthier you.  Hopefully at the end of five months, I'll find a more spiritual me too.  I also got a cool haircut this week and it has been raining a lot - thank goodness!   The rain keeps the temperature down, but it also makes it humid, which I never thought I would miss (summers in Wisconsin are really humid).  But, after working and living in the dry heat, I sure have missed it.  Before I left for Arizona, I met a guy who described ‘yeah, but it’s a dry heat’ being like someone holding a blow dryer to your face all day every day, lol.  Man, was he right.   I'll jump into the week now.

Monday, was a really cool day.  We got to see the O__ family again. It was a wonderful reunion, being able to spend the day with that wonderful family.   We spent the day preparing an entire pig for a Polynesian feast. We went through the entire step-by-step process (which I won't go into detail for those who are faint-hearted).  After 6 hours of cooking we ended up with 30 lb. of pork served with lou and various other Polynesian side dishes.  We spent the next hour eating as much as we could.  Only a pound of pork remained after the eight of us had finished eating.  I'll let you do the math, but I'll just say I was a very full boy for the rest of the day (and the rest of the week, lol). Other than chatting with Mom and Dad, Janet and grandma - that pretty much sums up my Monday. 

Dinner with the O Family!!! (they are the best)

Making Lou

FInished product!! YUM

We spent most of Tuesday day visiting people with not much success finding any new investigators.   That's pretty much what happened all day Tuesday, other than lunch and dinner. We ended the night attending the Butterfield Ward’s correlation meeting.  The ward really needs help, but we don't really know how we can do, but things are starting to look up.

Wednesday:  We were able to have a good day doing some visiting and street contacting. We didn't find any new investigators, but we did talk to 30 plus people. While spending time doing this it might not seem like we're doing missionary work, we always are.  Just being out there letting people see us doing what we should be, is a form of missionary work.  Wednesday night we started exchanges with the Zone Leaders.  Those exchanges went pretty well and extended into Thursday.

Thursday was a pretty good day of exchanges with Elder Eldridge.  He's one of our Zone Leaders. We did a couple visits and some service.  The service was helping Bro. and Sis. C__ clean out one of their storage rooms.  Man, did I sweat a lot!   It was so hot and humid.  After several hours of working there we had a wonderful lunch with them and then headed home to shower and change for a few teaching appointments.  Later that afternoon, we met with a guy named S___.  He is a member, but has been less active.  He used to meet with the missionaries, but then he got a new job as a trucker and was no longer able to meet.   Now, he is able to meet with us at church on Sunday - so that's good.  After that meeting with S___ we had a dinner appointment with Sis. A__.  After that, we eventually exchanged back. So, Thursday was a pretty eventful day.

Friday we did our weekly planning and later Elder VanSweden worked on his My Plan.  Later that night, we had a dinner appointment with the C___ family from the Butterfield Ward followed by doing some finding. That was pretty much Friday.

Care Package Goodies!
(I think the white shirts are my fave! Whew! LOL)

Saturday was a pretty interesting day as well.  We did some finding, but I wasn't feeling very well, so we spent some of the daytime trying to recoup.  Later we did some more stop-by visits, then headed to bed –after dinner of course.  Saturday night was a rough night of sleep - mainly because I wasn't feeling well. Then, around 3 a.m. we were woken by several gunshots.  They were pretty close.  So, that was exciting.

Sunday:  We had a wonderful day at church at the River Crossing Ward.  We learned a lot about family history and missionary work.  I was impressed how they put on a good sacrament meeting about missionary work without including us, lol.  So, that was definitely a nice change, for once.  After church, we headed to the Butterfield Ward for Sacrament Meeting, after which we went home and changed out of our suits and into short sleeve shirts and ties.   We headed to a dinner appointment with the L__ family.  We had an awesome meal of cranberry chicken, peas and rice. After that we headed to J___ and B__'s to say hi to them.  They were really busy working on their $1 trailer house, which is starting to look really nice.

Sunday evening we also received a referral from somebody.  It was like a last-minute miracle that we we're able to find an investigator this week. The Lord sure works in mysterious ways.

That was pretty much my week.

I'm sorry I didn't have much to report on this week, but not much happened.  I hope you guys all had a good week back home.  Please stay safe and healthy.  I can't wait to hear from you tomorrow. God bless and keep the faith.

I love y'all.

Elder Connor William Dickinson.