I Really Love Being a Missionary

Week  #23

You know your name should be Hermana Murphy when . . .
you wake up to go to a lesson and realize that you popped a car tire (that's right . . . AGAIN!), then you spend an hour at Les Schwab fixing it, then you go home to pick up bikes to go out and proselyte and realize that your tire is flat and then fill it up only to realize that it popped too, then get stuck at the church - miles from home outside of your area, then get a ride back home - late so that you have to call dinner and tell them you're running behind, then miss a turn to go to dinner, then hit a closed road and have to backtrack 10 miles, then tell your companion to take a turn and realize that it was the wrong turn, then talk too much at the dinner table and overwhelm the members because the day has been hectic, then drive back home only to have 40 minutes of time left to proselyte, then start texting people and forget that you're supposed to be directing your companion who is driving so she makes more wrong turns, then knock on a door and find out that their little girl is in the hospital with appendicitis, and then your companion gets a paper cut and cries because the day has been the worst! (if you can't tell, my companion typed this and she's a little bit bitter about that day) *

I really love being a missionary. Even on the days like the one described above :) We literally get to talk about Christ all day, every day. We get to see and help people change their lives so that they can know Christ better. A lot of people that we talk to tell us that they've "already accepted Christ", that they "don't need anything more". What does that even mean? To accept Him? To accept Him, is to know Him. To have a personal relationship with Him, not just a belief.To accept Him is to recognize, appreciate, and USE His Atonement and then to trust Him when he says that we are clean. There is always more that we can do to come closer to Christ.

This weekend has been especially special! On Saturday we got to drive to Albany and go to a baptism of one of the people that Hermana Brower taught. It's such a special experience to witness a baptism of someone who has changed their life. We also went to a baptism yesterday for a family in the English ward. Hermana Coca and I were teaching the mom for awhile before switching her over to the English ward. It's the rest of the family of the boy that was baptized 2 weeks ago. Most of the family got baptized and the dad's heart is softening. He has actually come to church twice now!

Speaking of baptisms, we have one coming up in the Spanish branch for Lourdes and Daniel. They are the children of one of our recent converts and they have a baptismal date of the 3rd of September. I'm so so excited for them. Daniel struggled for a while understanding and staying focused so we started teaching them separately. We play lots of games and Hermana Brower has a lot of cool ways to teach kids (ideas that I will definitely be using the rest of my mission). We were a little worried about Lourdes too. Not with her understanding, but with her desire to be baptized. We weren't sure if she was doing it because her family is or because she likes us. We asked her if she knew what we were teaching her is true and to she told us that when she reads the Book of Mormon she feels that she is following Christ and she says that she is happier. I can definitely see the happier part. She smiles so much more, especially in the last couple of weeks. This Gospel brings happiness! We went through the interview questions with her and she has an interview set up for this week. I'm so excited for both of them.

I learned the importance of prayer this weekend too. We left Albany at a run because we were already running late and we forgot to pray. We only made it about 2 minutes before having to pull over and repent. We were riding with a member from one of the English wards and she is really jumpy. Albany is the land of trains so first a train blows their horn right next to us and we all jump, then 10 seconds later we drive by sprinklers and Hermana Brower's window was open so she got soaked and screamed, and then 5 seconds later a firetruck pulled out right in front of us and we decided that Heavenly Father was trying to get us a message. We pulled over and took a few minutes to calm down because our member had an asthma attack from laughing so hard. Prayer is important! Don't forget to pray!

A couple weeks ago we were asked to teach one of the relief society lessons this month. My dear sweet companion picked the one on marriage. Because obviously we have the most experience with that topic. It was fun though. We had them write out qualities of a perfect husband or what good qualities they see in their husbands and then talked about how we need to have those qualities as well. It was a good lesson. We used the video "expressions of love" In our lesson. It's super cute. Go watch it.

Other than that the only excitement was the day described above. We woke up to a flat on our car, had the elders come over again, went to Les Schwab, came home and got on our bikes and I had a flat bike tire. It just got crazier from there. That day was a little psycho. BUT like I said earlier, I love this work. Those days are worth it with the miracles that we get to see.

I love you all,

Hermana Dickson

Another flat tire changed by Elder Wankasky

Baptism in Albany

*Mom could tell! Mostly because it was one great big long sentence. We may ramble, but she does generally punctuate when writing. Learning another language is influencing her - which is a great thing.

She also sent a sweet video instead of typing family emails last week. For posterity's sake (though I may get in trouble later) & so we don't forget, she said (with her perfect little inflections and expressions):

"We decided the Elders think we are fat. They are taking away two weeks of our dinners (??) and they are taking away our miles on our car (they have a mile limit each month) so we're biking, which is fine . . . it's fun . . . and it's good for us, but . . . I think that they looked at us and said 'Those Hermanas need to lose a little bit of weight. Let's take away their food AND make them bike' so . . . it's fine, it's just good for us right?"  

I love her positive attitude!