The Book of Mormons...

Hello friends and family!

     It has been a wonderful week in the Philippines! We are seeing miracles occur with our people, I'm finally not totally clueless with what people are saying to me, the sun is shining, and our Nanay (very friendly landlady) gave us ice cream last night! What could be better?! I guess there have been challenges too...but I'm excited for the way things are progressing, and looking forward to things to come. (Especially if there's more ice cream involved. :)

     One of our investigators, Marianne, has been meeting with missionaries for some time now. For the past several weeks, she has been kind of skeptical of the whole message of the Restoration of the Gospel. She's a very intelligent woman and has many beliefs shaped by her past experiences. However, she (thankfully) been reading the "Book of the Mormons" (her words, not mine) and praying about it too. After weeks of meeting and wondering if she would progress, she finally received a strong witness through the Spirit that the book is true! What a miracle! Despite her many doubts and skepticism, the Holy Ghost softened her heart, and she sincerely wants to come unto Christ. This resulted in her attending church yesterday with us, and the ward members were amazingly inviting and friendly towards her. Hooray! Hopefully she will continue to learn and keep commitments so she can receive the blessings of baptism.

     Of course, I'd heard many stories like the one above before, but up until this point in my mission, I had never had anything even close to that happen with one of my own people. It was a firm testimony to me that the promise in the Book of Mormon is true: anyone who reads and prays with faith, desiring to sincerely know will have the truth confirmed. Elder Garcia and I had another similar experience a few days ago as we taught a Sister named Shiena. After explaining Joseph Smith's First Vision to her, she told us she was quite skeptical of the whole story. We agreed that it was kind of a wild story, but we then shared both of our testimonies with her, and Shiena responded by saying that she felt like someone was holding her comfortingly. 8I Not what we were expecting to hear, but definitely what we had been hoping to hear the 50 other times we had taught the same basic lesson and shared our testimonies. Proof once again the the Spirit is real and that people prepared to receive the Restored Gospel do exist!

     I am so grateful for these miracles, and the many others that occur regularly. Even if it seems sometimes like heaven is closed and God is far from us, my testimony is that He is ever watchful over us and will bless us greatly if we are  faithful to Him. Persistence in doing what is right always calls down blessings from above. The Lord is with those who are trying to follow Him. 

     Many thanks for all that each of you has done for me! I hope that your coming week is wonderful, marvelous, and full of many tasty things (which I will just have to dream about eating in roughly 19 months :P). Take care!

Love, Elder Dickison

1) Elder Garcia and Elder Dickison taking a selfie break in heaven

2) The proper appearance of a properly organized missionary desk

3) A gigantic gap where there should be a bridge

4) The backup bridge. :)

I had better be a Filippino by the end of this month...

Dear Family and Friends,

     Maraming salamat for all of your prayers, good wishes, letters, friendship, etc.! Your kindness and love makes an enormous difference to me, and I am so grateful for each one of you! I am looking forward to being able to visit with each one of you again in the (relatively) near future. 

     This week has been filled with much change and lots of opportunities to grow in patience! I received a new companion, Elder Garcia. He's a native Filippino from Taytay who has been out on his mission only 6 weeks longer than I have. :) Despite our relatively small combined pool of mission experience, I am grateful for him and our companionship. Thankfully he speaks Tagalog natively, and is also a very adept teacher as well. With the absence of Elder Anderson, my previous companion, I am now the only foreigner in our apartment, and the only one who doesn't natively speak Tagalog. Needless to say I listen to a lot of Tagalog every day. :P And even though much of it is still incomprehensible to me, at least this way I should become a full fledged Fililppino much faster. (Except for the fact that I'm a giant white person of course. :)

     We were finally able to listen to General Conference this past weekend, which was a wonderful, spiritual experience. I was so grateful to have the Spirit of the Lord whisper to me that all the announced changes are indeed the will of God for His kingdom. I am looking forward with great anticipation to the implementation of the announcements and the blessings that will surely follow. The Lord is surely setting our course straight and providing us with better tools to withstand the countless traps and deceptions of the devil.

     After multiple messages about receiving greater blessings after great trials, I had an opportunity to experience that very thing yesterday. We had an appointment with a very promising person very far from our home. We were originally planning to take a tricycle out to this Sister, but discovered that all the tricycle drivers to her area had decided to go home for the day (maybe because it was dark, rainy, and kind of gloomy :P). So despite the distance, we decided to walk. After thirty minutes of walking, the rain turned into a downpour, and I seriously considered turning back, knowing that there was still a long walk and a very muddy ditch between us and our appointment. But, I decided to continue forwards anyways (probably to Elder Garcia's slight chagrin). After 45 more minutes of dodging puddles and cars sending up splash waves, we made it to the muddy ditch and discovered that it was very wet, very muddy and we really needed rainboots to have any hope of crossing without turning into swamp creatures. Again, I really considered just turning back. We were both tired, muddy and soaked, and really seemingly in no state to teach a lesson at all. But (now perhaps to both of our chagrin), we decided to cross anyways. After much slipping, some sinking and much scrambling, we finally arrived at the Sister's home. Hoping that our faith hadn't been in vain, we knocked on the door, and were invited in. Though the subsequent lesson wasn't perfect, I felt more at peace with my Tagalog than I have at any other time. I was able to communicate using words I had barely studied, remember phrases from the Provo MTC and actually understand everything that was said. Probably for the first time in my entire mission. I was (and am) so grateful for the blessings that the Lord grants us because of our diligence in spite of difficulty. Truly that are great blessings to be received and peace to be found, no matter how dark, wet or gloomy our days become.

     Many thanks again for your love and friendship! Please take care and I will look forward to communicating again next week.! Ingat kayong lahat!

Love, Elder Dickison

That thy faith may grow stronger...

Dear Family and Friends,

     This has been a week somehow seemed to go by really fast and really slow simultaneously. We've had some really awesome things happen, and some not so easy ones too. After Elder Anderson being sick and wiped out almost all of last week, we were finally able to make it back to Agoo late Monday night. When we made it back to our apartment, Elder Anderson went straight to bed, while I decided to brush my teeth and put a few things away. Within about two minutes, Elder Anderson was suddenly yelling and jumping around like a crazy person. After all that had happened the week before, I actually thought he was loosing his mind... Okay, maybe not, but I was a little confused. I turned all of the lights on and discovered a very large, angry black beetle in E. Anderson's bed, hissing at us both. Things are never boring here.

     We were able to visit the Eisma family again on this week, and we discovered that their mother had made a surprise visit from her work in Hong Kong. This was a great opportunity for us to try and get her to talk to her husband, so that we can get permission to baptize the Eisma kids. After our visit, the mother said she would talk to him, so we're hopeful that a miracle will occur and we will be able to move forward with these kids.

     Again, we've had a lot of appointments fall through this week (I'm sure this is going to be a very long term problem here...), so we weren't able to make as much progress with our people as I would have liked, but oh well. I guess that's missionary work sometimes. 

     We also got transfer news yesterday, and found out that Elder Anderson is leaving this area to become a zone leader elsewhere! So I will be getting a new companion in my area, and be expected to lead the area. YIKES! Can't say I feel even slightly ready for that. My grasp on the language, culture, people, geography, etc. is improving daily, but I still feel inadequate as far as leading anything here is concerned. I guess it will just be one interesting opportunity for me to grow my faith under somewhat crazy circumstances. Sometimes I suppose we are put into hard positions in order to force us to grow and expand, even if we feel very uncomfortable about it. I'm still not sure who my next companion will be, but I'm looking forward to getting to meet him. Hopefully, together we can help the people in our area to come closer to Jesus Christ. That's the most important thing.

     I'm really excited to listen to General Conference this upcoming week here in the Philippines! Hopefully all of you in the USA have enjoyed watching it already! (Please, no spoilers. :P) Please take care, and I'll look forward to writing again next week!

Love, Elder Dickison

Pictures:

1) I was able to baptize one of the Sister's investigators this past Saturday! What an awesome experience!

2) Elder Anderson slowly loosing his mind, stuck in a hospital room for days on end.

3) The very angry, very large beetle.

May Sakit? Bakit?

Dear Friends and Family,

     I so hope that your past week has been wonderful! Please know that I pray for you daily and wish you the very best in what you are doing. I miss getting to interact with each of you, but I am grateful to be here in the Philippines as well, and I am looking forward to being able to visit again in the future.

     Unfortunately, I don't have much excitement to share about this past week, because it's been a little bit slow. After emailing last Monday, Elder Anderson and I had a lesson with one of the families we are teaching, and they insisted (despite our many protests) that we eat dinner with them. We tried our best to talk our way out of it, since they are quite poor and need the food they have, but I guess we failed. The following Tuesday morning, Elder Anderson woke up quite sick. He tried really hard to get ready to go out to work, but it just wasn't realistic. He could barely walk two steps before he had to stop, grimacing at the pain in his stomach. So, we gave him a blessing and decided to let him rest. 

     On Wednesday, his condition worsened, and we went to the local hospital in Agoo...which isn't really a hospital at all. Or at least not by American standards. They ran a couple of tests, and then came back and told Elder Anderson that he was definitely sick, but they had no idea why. Not the most useful hospital trip in history. :P The doctor there prescribed him some medication, but it didn't seem to have any effect. Thursday, we tried to go out to work again, but Elder Anderson was still just too sick to have a prayer of functioning normally.

     Finally, we were scheduled on Friday to travel to San Fernando City (a larger city than Agoo) for a training meeting, and we decided to go to the larger, much better hospital there after the meeting. We were able to get Elder Anderson to the doctor, and they decided it was best to admit him into the hospital. Definitely not what we were planning on. So, while the doctors were putting an IV in my companion, I was trying to fill out Filipino paperwork based on instructions given to me in Tagalog...It was a bit messy.

    Eventually, one of our AP's (Assistant to the mission President) arrived and became my temporary companion. He was familiar with my area in Agoo, having served in that area previously himself, so we drove back down to Agoo, and did normal missionary work for the first time during the entire week. Despite all the previous setbacks, I was so grateful to work with Elder Villapaz (the AP). He's a great missionary, and he had a couple very helpful suggestions on how to improve my teaching skills and our work in our area as a whole. So even though this week has been really weird and frustrating for me at times, good has certainly come of it.

      During my many hours of no work this week, I sometimes started getting frustrated that we couldn't go out and do normal, good missionary things. The appointments we had almost all didn't happen (due to us this time :P) and it felt like our area was regressing instead of progressing. All this, despite Elder Anderson and I doing our best to fulfill our duties as missionaries. It almost felt like being the Prophet Joseph Smith, confined in Liberty Jail when his only crime was trying to do good. However, as I remembered the Lord's reassurance to Joseph Smith, "all these things shall be for thy good", I started praying for patience and spiritual endurance. I'm sure that the Lord had a purpose in mind for this situation. And I was able to see at least part of that purpose in the instruction and help that I received from Elder Villapaz. 

     All in all, the weeks here are never boring. After this month...either the rest of my mission is going to look positively boring, or things will get super crazy, only time will tell I guess. Hopefully next week will be a little more normal. Please take care, and I will look forward to writing again next week.

Ingat kayong lahat!

Love, Elder Dickison

Peter Pan...!

Dear Family and Friends,

     What a wonderful week to be sharing the gospel! Definitely not an easy one, but doing the work of the Lord was never meant to be easy. Elder Anderson and I have had some great opportunities to teach the gospel, and great opportunities to be punted (have our appointments fall through) many times as well. But in spite of not being able to teach as many lessons as we wanted, I have felt the Lord trying to teach me further patience and persistence, especially when it comes to working with people.

     We have a two separate families we are working with (the Oller's and the Eisma's), each with three kids, all of whom are ready to be baptized. However, due to situations with their parents, none of them yet have permission for baptism. This is somewhat frustrating as a missionary, being so close to something wonderful and yet feeling stuck. This past Friday as we were visiting the Eisma's, I had an idea pop into my head that we should have the children teach us a lesson instead of the other way around. While this was a slight divergence from our normal plans, Elder Anderson ran with it, and we were both impressed my the Eisma children's knowledge of and excitement to teach about the gospel. Truly the light of that message has influenced them profoundly and they know it is true, despite the current delay in their baptism. The Spirit I felt during that lesson stands as a testimony to me that the Lord is truly mindful of us all, despite the frustrating and trying circumstances that we all face. If we turn to Him and have patience in His timing, everything will work out for the best. 

     Okay...random story time. On Wednesday we decided that we were going to go and visit a man that Elder Anderson had met on the beach before I arrived in Agoo. This man had told Elder Anderson to come back and teach him, so we figured we better follow through. As we walked down the beach to find this man, we just kept trekking further and further away from civilization into abandoned coastline until I realized we were in the very far reaches of our area. Then we ran into a stream running in from the ocean...and stopped. Neither of us really wanted to jump right in since wet, sandy shoes are a bit nasty to walk in...but we didn't know what else to do. Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea, "Let's build a bridge to get across!" 

     For reasons unknown to me, Elder Anderson answered "Okay, let's do it!" So we dragged/pulled/pushed a huge pile of rocks and fallen branches over to the edge of this stream and started building a bridge. By throwing all of the branches and rocks into the stream. Ya...didn't work out so well. So, we resorted to plan B: taking off our socks and shoes and walking carefully barefoot. This plan actually worked...but we looked completely ridiculous in the process. We could only conclude that we looked like the lost boys from Peter Pan in their British getups walking around on the beach.... 

Anyways, we trekked even further down the beach until we saw smoke spewing into the sky and discovered...not native Filipinos dancing around a fire in warrior outfits...but a gigantic vacation resort. Go figure. Turns out the "Beach Man" is actually a worker at this resort and he and his fellow maintenance worker were cleaning it up after the Typhoon last week by burning everything that had blown into the premises. We actually were able to sit down and teach them about the Restoration (despite a group of very large turkeys running around us squawking) and they told us to come back and teach them more. Blessings from above. :)

     On our return trip, I followed Elder Anderson through the water and somehow managed to step on some very sharp rocks that he completely avoided (despite the fact that we both walked along the exact same path) and I ended up with a wounded foot. Good adventures. While I was fixing the wound, Elder Anderson found two massive shells which turned out to be pretty good picture props. (See below). All in all, it was one of those days where you look back at and wonder what in the world you were doing, but smile at the memory of it nonetheless. :)

    Well, I think that's quite enough of my story telling, so please take care and know that my prayers are with you! Have a wonderful week!

Love, Elder Dickison

Pictures:

1) Pine trees actually exist in the Philippines!

2) Elder Anderson is a Lost Boy

3) Elder Dickison is Peter Pan

4) Blowing our shell-trumpets...because we can!

Don't Walk too Close to Grazing Cows...

Dear Family and Friends,

     What a wonderful week it has been! Full of many adventures, great new people, and the testimony of the Spirit! Little by little, I have am growing in my ability to function here in the Philippines. I can now understand roughly 30% of what is being said to me and Elder Anderson, and I can turn on our bathroom light on the 5th try instead of the 15th! :P

     Anyways, the work is definitely picking up in our area. We taught a few dozen good lessons, found a couple dozen new people (including multiple families!) and have made good progress teaching the gospel with others. Although Tagalog still doesn't slide off my tongue with ease, I feel much more confident sharing my simple testimony and teaching doctrine simply in this foreign language. More than anything else, I have been (kind of desperately) praying for the help of the Spirit of God, and I have truly felt it's presence every time I share my witness of the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel. I know that the Spirit can carry the power of the message far more effectively than I can. So long as the people Elder Anderson and I teach can feel the Spirit through our faith and diligence, we will have successfully shared the gospel.

     In slightly less important matters, we were able to go on a couple of activities including a trip to a small zoo in the mountains last P-day (after email) and a hike up the mountains earlier today. The hike was a real adventure, consisting of climbing roughly 20 flights of stairs up a mountain, discovering a bunch of false idols at the top of that mountain, realizing we were in the wrong place, trying to hike around that mountain to the right place, having a slightly upset cow chase us back down that path, climbing back down the 20 flights of stairs, taking a tricycle to the other side of the mountain, climbing up that side of the mountain until the path disappeared, bushwhacking for another 20 minutes and then emerging at the cross at top of the mountain! As we exited the bushwhacking section, we looked behind us and found a sign that said "Not a path, do not enter." Whoops. :P  Anyways, during the hike, I was really astounded by the beauty of this country. Green, so much green! Coming from the desert, this place seems like the Garden of Eden. I love the animals, views and friendly people of the Philippines.

     I've really enjoyed being companions with Elder Anderson and getting to learn a lot of things from him. Everything from language to how to do laundry here to directing tricycle drivers, etc. He is patient with me and helping me to grow little by little every day. I'm grateful for him as my trainer, and I have high hopes to baptize multiple people before our companionship ends! As long as we work diligently, pray humbly and stay obedient, I know the Lord can work miracles.

     Well, that's probably enough...I'm going to try not to write a novel. :P Enjoy wonderful life, and know that God is mindful of you always!

Love, Elder Dickison

Pictures:

1) Elder Dickison at the Bukid (field)

2) The biggest eagle you've ever seen

3) Elder Anderson and I in front of our church building

4) The Cross at the top of the mountain

5) Sweaty, disheveled Elder Dickison with Indiana Jones bag at the top of the mountain 

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...

Dear Friends and Family,

     I'm so happy to be here in my mission in Baguio! My first few days have been amazing, hard and filled with many opportunities to grow. My new trainer (or re-trainer) is Elder Anderson. He's from Northern Utah and has been out on his mission for about a year. Being American, he's still learning Tagalog himself, so we get to learn the language together everyday (thankfully he's much better at it than I am). My first area is called Aringo which is near the city of Agoo. Kind of in the fields below the mountains of Baguio city itself. It is a pretty poor area...not much good housing to go around. The people are incredibly humble and friendly though.

     The cars and trucks of Utah have been replaced with an endless army of tricycles and buses on the roads. Every time we ride anything with a motor, I have to laugh at what happens to traffic without any stop signs and almost no stoplights...it's a bit chaotic. :P But no matter how many times it seems like we're surely going to crash head on into another vehicle, I trust that the Lord will protect us.  

     Our apartment is...well...in pretty bad shape. There's no running water it's all concrete flooring. Bucket showers na lang! :) Just about everything in that building has some sort of funny gimmick to it in order to get it to work. You have to jiggle the bathroom light switch just right...and then it barely stays on. You have to hold and crank our water pump just right...or else the handle falls off... You get the idea. The whole apartment is more or less held together by spit, some rusty wire and a whole lot of prayers. :P

   Our teaching pool right now is not very big. We just stopped teaching a couple of people on Saturday, so this week we get to find lots of new people to teach! The good news is that it's about 1000x easier to get into houses here than it was in Arizona (though I still love Arizona! Always!) Hopefully by the next time I write, we will have found lots of great new people to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to!

    Every day, my grasp on Tagalog grows a little bit stronger...but it's a slow process with plenty of hurdles. For instance, the Baguio mission is home to another Filipino language dialect: Ilokano. Supposedly it is one of the most difficult dialects to learn, and most of the words sound absolutely nothing like their Tagalog counterparts. Thankfully basically all the people understand Tagalog, but a lot of them speak Ilokano to me, and I haven't the foggiest idea what their saying. 8P It's just going to take a while for me to be able to really understand them. I feel surprisingly confident in my ability to express what I want to say in Tagalog...I just have no idea where the conversation is at most of the time due to their accents and the Ilokano. :P Someday I'll get there, by the Lord's grace. 

     Nevertheless, the lessons that Elder Anderson and I have taught have really felt powerful. Despite my ability to say and understand only a little, I can still feel the Spirit reaching out to communicate the feelings of my heart to the people, which is more important than anything I say anyways. Proof to me the God truly does keep His promises. He delivers me from the bondage of my own inadequacies. I hope and pray that He will continue to do so for me and for each of you as we face our own limitations every day. God truly gives to those who truly ask. 

   

 Please take care and I will look forward to writing again soon! Know that I am praying for you!

Love, Elder Dickison

Pictures this week include:

1) Me and my Manilla MTC companion Elder Newby in front of the Manilla Temple

2) A reunion with most of my original Provo MTC district

3) The flooded plains of the Philippines

4) A lovely little squid that I ate my first night in the Baguio mission. Masarap!

5) Me and Elder Anderson in the Baguio mission office

6) My badly lit bed.

P.S. For those of you who have to know, they fed us Balut for our last night in the Manilla MTC and I did eat it. It was a little odd...but I'd eat it again ;)

Made it!

Kumusta Lahat!

My last week in Scottsdale was very bitter-sweet. I was super excited to get to travel to my original mission, speak the language I've been learning and meet tons of awesome new Filipino people! On the other hand, it was incredibly difficult to leave so many wonderful people in Scottsdale! The ward members and those we taught in Arizona had really worked their way into my heart, and I was found myself holding back tears during multiple farewells. In spite of the challenge of leaving, I was able to find some comfort in the great miracles the Lord had blessed Elder Smart and I with during the six weeks I was in Cave Creek. We were blessed to play a critical role in supporting a family going through very rough times. The Lord granted us the opportunity to help a man come back to church after a 47 year hiatus. By showing our faith going door to door for hours, the Lord saw fit to lead us to several people who were prepared to at least start down the path of His Gospel. So while I will miss Scottsdale dearly, I was at least able to leave in peace, knowing that the Lord had, does, and will continue to sustain me (and everyone who seeks to do his work)

The trip to the Philippines I guess marks the single longest day of my life. All in all, I think it was composed of 26 straight hours of flying, layovers and bus rides, followed by a full day in the Manilla MTC. Yes, back to the MTC... :P I also managed to time travel as well...I left Monday morning and arrived Wednesday morning... I'm still trying to figure that one out.  It feels a little weird being back in an MTC (with pretty much all of the people I knew in the Provo MTC nonetheless), but I'm hopeful that my experiences here will help me continue to grow before I depart for Baguio next Tuesday (American date). 

I'm out of time, but please take care and I'll have more times to write in the future!

Elder Dickison

Explosions Anyone?

"Are you able to go shooting on P day?  We have a great time blowing up bombs with AR-15's out in the dessert."

-Brother Driggs (ward missionary)

"We would love too! But we aren't allowed to go shooting sadly.... so we'll have to pass"

- Elder Smart and I

Missionary work in Cave Creek in a nutshell.

Anyways, this week we've seen some awesome progress made through miracles the Lord has provided. A couple of weeks ago, I was finally provided with a loaner bicycle from the Scottsdale Mission. However, due to the temperature and gigantic size of our area, Elder Smart and I have been rather hesitant to use our bikes. Finaly, (after being slightly told off...) we decided to follow our mission leaders' instructions and use the bikes. I don't think I've ever been as sweaty as that in my entire life...but blessings did result! We found were able to sit down and visit with a really interesting man. He's a retired playwright named Bruce with lots of questions about religion in general. We were able to give him a book of Mormon, discuss it with him and committ him to read it. We're hopeful that when we go back to visit again, good things will continue to come of it. :) Had we not been on bikes, Elder Smart and I would not have been in that area to meet Bruce, so it was a good opportunity for me to learn of the blessings of following the instructions of my leaders (obedience) even when it seems like they want me to end up as a bleached skeleton on the side of the road.

Member missionary efforts have also made an HUGE difference for us this week. The forequoted Brother Driggs and a couple other awesome members have done everything from coming with us on visits, going finding with us and bringing people to church for us! Because of these efforts, we were able to get a member to church who hadn't been since 1958! Proof that missionary-minded members can and do make all the difference in the work of bringing people unto God.

At long last, after weeks of hearing nothing, the visa news has started to trickle through. At least two of my MTC disrict-mates have had their visas approved, and another one has definitely not been approved yet. As of the writing of this letter, I still have yet to hear anything about my own status. I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing...but I'm hopeful that I will at least have some more information soon. As before, I trust that whatever is meant to happen will happen. As with some things in life, the status of my visa is currently out of my control. So all there is to be done is trust in the Lord's plan and work my hardest to fulfill my calling.

Though it will require me to develop further patience and faith if I'm in Scottsdale for another 6 weeks (or longer), I am still so happy to be out serving God's children every day. Getting to know new people every day and seeing their awesome character traits in action has really helped to grow my love for the people here in Cave Creek. No matter when or why I leave this area, I will miss their smiling faces and funny quirks. Truly all of us are children of God with amazing beauty and potential. Never forget that. :) Take care until next week!

Love, Elder Dickison 

Pictures include:

1) The panorama of a lifetime from the top of Black Mountain

2) Biking in the desert...for fun :)

Addendum 1: I just got an email literally 37 seconds ago from the Scottsdale mission office saying that my visa is on the way! A travel itinerary has been issued, and I'm headed to the the Philippines next Monday the 20th! Yaa!

Fun in the Sun (or Monsoons)

Another week gone...another week passed...my oh my, how time flies so fast. This has been an interesting one though. Elder Smart and I have stopped teaching four of the people we were working with. The reasons for this range from simple flakiness to one of these people having a business deal with a member of the LDS church go sour. So our teaching pool has shrunk quite a bit. However, Elder Smart and I have been blessed to find several new people that we're hoping are better prepared to learn about the gospel. We're not entirely sure how interested most of these new people are, but we're going to give them the very best blast to the Spirit we can. :)

On a more exciting note, we finally got one of our people on date to be baptized! She's a 12 year old named Haven who's been working with missionaries for years now. Consequently, she's heard the missionary lessons many times, but hasn't wanted to be baptized due to anxiety. After much prayer and fasting on the part of Elder Smart and I, we were finally able to get her to commit to being baptized in December. Unfortunately, this means I probably won't be in Cave Creek to see it happen, but I am super happy for Haven, and grateful to God for this miracle. (Missionaries have been trying to do this for years, and I finally got to be a part of seeing it happen. :)

Last Monday evening, we had the most wild storm come through Cave Creek that I've ever seen. We were casually driving down a highway when we suddenly noticed very large looming dark clouds not too far away and a dust storm starting to form underneath. Then a gust of wind suddenly almost blasted our Toyota into the adjacent lane. Thankfully we arrived at our destination quickly and went inside before the worst of it hit. Shortly after sitting down inside a member's house, the wind was joined by a ridiculous downpour and a lightning bolt every second or so. This particular house had windows on all sides, so we had quite the light show: bolts flashing in front, to the left, behind, in front again, and to the right all in 5 seconds or less. The lightning continued after the rain had stopped, and we got back the car to head back to our apartment for the night. Suddenly a huge multi-pronged bolt split above us and struck around us on at least six different sides of the car simultaneously. Thinking I was clever, I rolled down the window and stuck my ear out to hear the thunder. BIG MISTAKE. 

This past week, I've been thinking and studying a lot on the process of gaining a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. For some of the people that we have stopped teaching recently, it seemed that they thought it was simply too much work to gain a testimony. As I've thought about it, I've recognized that there is some truth to their words, gaining a personal witness that the gospel is true isn't necessarily "easy". It requires effort. It is not an event. And no single event, no matter how powerful or memorable it is can produce a deep testimony. (See 1 Nephi 3:29-31) As Alma described in Alma 32, you must experiment (act) upon the word, or else your faith will never grow and you can never know with a certainty. As I though about the process of my own testimony building (which is ongoing) I realized that having powerful spiritual experiences wasn't what convinced me that the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints followed the truth. Rather, it was the fact that if I read, prayed and pondered with a truly sincere desire to know, the Spirit spoke to my heart every time I did so. That consistent feeling in my heart more than anything else is an undeniable witness to me that the gospel is true. But again, it requires reading, praying, pondering and acting on the things I've read. And doing it over and over again. So gaining a testimony is not like ordering a pizza for delivery, it's not going to be brought to you on a platter. But it is 100% possible to gain, and 200% worth gaining, because knowing and living the truth changes everything in life for the better. :)

Have a wonderful week and take care of yourself! Don't accidentally fall into a cactus! It hurts...

Love, Elder Dickison

Arizona is Little Peru...?

This past week has been an awesome one for missionary work in Cave Creek! As the summer months wind down, more ward members are returning and more people actually answer the door. Hallelujah! Elder Smart and I have picked up two new people that we are teaching/working with, one of which may turn into a whole family of new people! We're super hopeful that this trend will continue and we'll keep finding people who have been prepared to receive the restored gospel. :)

This week has also been pretty crazy activity wise. On Tuesday I attended my first zone conference, which I was asked (coughnotoptionalcough) to wear a suit to. Since, as a Philippines missionary, I was told not to bring a suit on my mission, I ended up borrowing one from Elder Smart. Thankfully he was gracious enough to lend it to me and we're roughly the same size. The conference itself was amazing. Good messages, good instruction and a tangible spirit made it worth being in a wool suit during a 118 degree Arizona day. 

On Saturday, the stake that I'm serving in held one of the most interesting events I've ever been a part of. Apparently the 28th of July is the Peruvian Independence Day, and having a very large Peruvian community in the stake boundaries, the stake decided to throw a full scale Peruvian celebration. No one had any idea how many people were going to show up since many of the invitations were sent out over Facebook. So, to be safe, the stake made food for about 250 people and set up tables and chairs for that number. You can imagine our surprise when about 480 people walked in the door, about half of whom were actually Peruvian. We really though we were in trouble at that point, but after a bunch of frantic scrambling for furniture (I think we were literally using every table and chair in the building) and a miracle to the effect of Jesus multiplying the fishes and loaves, there was enough seating and food for everyone. There was traditional clothing displayed, a legitimate Peruvian band was brought in and even church members who knew nothing about Peru were soon joining in dancing to the music. With the huge turnout, good interaction, and several missionary referrals obtained, the event became a smashing success.

Sunday I had the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting for two of the three wards Elder Smart and I cover. One of the talks I had 15 days notice for and came well prepared. The second I was informed of 15 hours beforehand and ended up having no time to prepare for. Oh missionary life. :) I actually ended up just throwing my well prepared talk in a mental blender and then pouring the resulting idea smoothie out of my mouth for the second talk. This created a better flavor than expected (it's raining miracles!), though I still don't want to feel that unprepared for a talk ever again... Especially when, ironically, the subject I was speaking on was "Preparation" :P

Finally, this morning we went on an awesome hike up to some Native American ruins on a hill in our area. This particular hill also happens to be in one of the most heavily guarded communities in America, so we had a bit of help getting in. The Meyers (Yup, still those Meyers) happen to live on the side of this hill, so we called them up and got their permission to get in. Being so removed from outside people (like me), the ruins were pretty much untouched, and it was cool to see lots of ancient pottery and intact stone walls. The view was incredible at the ruins, making it worth the roughly hour climb.

All in all, it's been a great week for missionary work in Cave Creek. We are making real progress, and we are hoping to have one of the people we are working with on date to be baptized within the next week. I am so grateful to God for the blessings He has poured out upon Elder Smart and I, and I'm grateful for the support of each one of you. Please take care and have a wonderful week!