Chocolate and Roses . . .

Week #28

You know you're a missionary when your companion almost gets emergency transferred because of chocolates and roses. . . 🍫🌹

Now that's not normal, but it would happen to us. It's been a fun week that's for sure. The Iron Rod activity last Monday was a huge success! It was so fun. I realized that my Spanish vocabulary doesn't include "Wait! Watch out! You're going to hit your head on the chalk board!" Being a Spanish Holy Ghost was fun.

Had some not so fun times this week. On Tuesday we decided it was "serve the members day" and so we planned to just show up at our members' doors and say "put us to work". We put on service clothes and got on our bikes, but we didn't get very far because my brakes broke. We were in the middle of that fiasco when we got a call from a man that we had been teaching. Now Hermana Dickson only talks on the phone in Spanish when it is members (calling) who know that I am going to ask them to repeat themselves 3 times. They have patience with me, but most investigators always get to talk to Hermana Brower because she won't have to ask them to repeat themselves. So he calls right? . . . and then proceeds to ask Hermana Brower what she was doing this weekend and what kind of chocolate is her favorite, to which she responded with "I'm really sorry, you're breaking up. I can't understand what you are saying. It's really fuzzy on your end for some reason. . ." etc . . . So then he texted us. 

We found out later that he had been asking his coworkers - who are members of our branch (congregation) - how to ask out an American girl. Suffice it to say, we called the Elders and gave them a referral.

We have been teaching the sister of a less active and she is on date to be baptized November 5th! When we explained what baptism was a week ago she said, "I can be clean?! I need to get baptized!" We asked her if she would prepare for November 5,she said "yes" and then got the cutest grin on her face. I'm so excited to keep teaching her.

General Conference peeps. Watch it. (lds.org) This last weekend was the Women' Broadcast and I honestly feel like those talks affected me more than conference talks before and it's just the beginning. In that short hour and a half I had so many questions answered and I can't wait for next weekend to be more spiritually fed.

I was reading in the New Testament in Spanish the morning after President Uchtdorf's talk on faith in Women's Conference and found a quote from him (what he had said), but in Spanish not English. . . It's really confusing to explain, but what he said is exactly what the scripture said, but not in English, in Spanish. In the English bible it says it differently, but it was exactly the same in Spanish. . . I don't know if that made any sense. It was just a really cool moment because what he said really stuck with me and then I read the same thing the next morning
in another language in the scriptures.

Heavenly Father knows exactly what I need to hear or read (and sometimes both ☺️). It's really cool to read the scriptures in another language because things are said differently and you can get different personal revelation from the same exact verse.

There is rumor going around that there are 8 Hermanas coming in next transfer. (October  There will only be 11 Hermanas here (able) to train and 4 of those 11 are going to be fresh out of training. That means that some newbies will be training even newer newbies. . . Excited. "Well excited and scared" (See what she did there?)

Embarrassing moment this week (because there always is one when you are Hermana Dickson). Did you know that "apoyo" and "pollo" don't mean the same thing? And when your companion says "hay más apoyo en tu vida ahora" she isn't saying "there is more chicken in your life now". . .

That's all folks! I'll be here all week (actually only on Mondays for one hour before 6). 

I love you all,

Hermana Dickson

"The Evidence"

Service Softens Hearts

Week# 27

You know you're a missionary who loves your (branch) members when you spend your whole pday setting up for a Branch activity.

That's what I've been doing today. We are super excited for it tonight. We have a potluck (because LDS parties require food. . . especially Hispanic ones) and then we are doing an iron rod activity. Elder and Hermana Burke made a tree of life for us and we made the obstacle course. You know that one activity at they always do at youth activities with a blindfold and a string representing the iron rod? Yeah that's what we are doing. We are super excited. The primary kids are also singing at the activity which will be great and will get all of the families there.

This morning we got up at the bright 5 a.m. (actually it's not very bright out here in Oregon until after 8:30 or 9 at this time of year) and we went to Seminary! It was my first time at early morning seminary and I loved it. We brought our recent convert Lourdes with us. She's not totally on board with it quite yet and it's hard because she is the one and only Laurel in the branch so she doesn't know anyone. She is making friends with the English wards slowly, but surely. 

We also got her to mutual with one of the English wards this last week. Speaking of, Hermana Brower and I decided to join in on the fun to get Lourdes excited and we were running across the church grass for a game. I biffed it. Hard. In a skirt. 🤕 At least I was wearing my biking shorts right? I should probably call the mission office and order a name tag at says Hermana Murphy at this point.

We had a lot of opportunities to do service this week. We went and painted Margarita's kitchen with some Elders and Elder and Hermana Burke (the senior couple missionaries in the branch). It was really fun. I fell into the wall a couple of times and Margarita got paint in Hermana Brower's hair, but at least the house looks good right? Right after that service we went over and helped someone else move and then the next morning we did a Branch service project. I love doing service. It's amazing how it softens people's hearts to the Gospel.

This week was hard in some ways. We found a really awesome new investigator and she really loved the first lesson. A lot of times people tell us we are wrong or are really skeptical in the first few lessons, but with her, whenever we brought up something new to her, she would say "I didn't know that". She was so open and so excited. BUT unfortunately she was given some anti materials and won't meet with us anymore. It makes me really sad. 

We also have run into some interesting situations which have made us have to be really creative with our lessons. It's fun to try something new right?

I'm going to take a nap today. It's been too long.

I love you all,

Hermana Dickson

Early Morning Seminary

Margarita & the Hermanas

Painting (look at those tomatoes!)

 Our favorite Hermana Dickson and Elder Burke

Painting (perhaps the wall that "Hermana Murphey" fell into?)

Tree of Life

Be Christlike

Week # 26

You know Tiwi is out to get you when he says "check your speed" as you're on the phone with 911. #imnotthedriver

Yesterday we had a wonderful conference with Elder Schwitzer and his wife. They actually came and spoke when I was in the MTC and both of their talks really impacted me and my desire to serve a mission. Their names and words are written in my journal many times and I use them in lessons all of the time. It was such a tender mercy to meet them and hear their words again.

This week hasn't been one hundred percent peaches and daisies. What I've learned though is that the saying "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" isn't true. Words are so powerful. They can uplift and they can scar. 

One of my favorite talks that I've read recently is "The Tongue of Angles" a talk from Elder Holland in April of 2007. Go read it. I have listened and read it so many times and I learn something new each time. I've always been sensitive, but when people say things to us on the street, when they yell at us that we listen to the devil, when they tell us that they hope they never see us again, I'm okay. I'm sad for them, but I'm okay because I know that I am called of God and doing His work. What actually hurts, is when those that are representatives of Christ are cruel. As members and missionaries we have the responsibility to be Christlike.You can be right and say something in the wrong way.

Be Christlike. That's why we are here. To become perfect as He and our Father are. It may not be possible in this life, but it is a commandment to try.

I love you all,

Hermana Dickson

Hermanas and Sisters in Forest Grove

He Loves Us

Week #25

You know you're a missionary with an iPad when mint green is your favorite color (it's the color of recent converts on the Areabook app)

They got baptized!! I am so blessed to be a missionary. I have been able to see lives change and I haven't been here very long. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored. I know it and I get to help others come to know it as well. We've have had an amazing (and crazy) week. I forget how hectic it gets the week of a baptism. There is so much behind the scenes that no one really sees. 

Maria was baptized in June by her son who was baptized last year. Her other 2 children were baptized on Saturday. They were all glowing. ALSO! Their dad came! His heart is opening up. He wouldn't come to his wife's baptism in June and wasn't receptive to the missionaries, but he was there for his kids' and he even wrote them a note saying that he was proud of them. I can't wait for them to be sealed as a family!

Miracles happened this week! We had exchanges and I stayed in our area. That means that I was companions with an English STL (Sister Training Leader) in a Spanish area. I was the only one that could speak Spanish all day. It was really scary. 

The first time I met my mission president he asked me, "Hermana Dickson, are you sufficiently humbled enough to learn this language?" I was definitely humble that day and I felt the power of the Atonement. My Spanish vocabulary is very small. I really struggle. I am behind other missionaries who have been here for less time, but I was able to communicate that day. At one point I opened my mouth and I honestly don't know what I said. My mouth was filled with words that I don't know. I am so blessed to be able to have the chance to be a tool in the Lord's hands.

One of the lessons that day was with a recent convert. We were talking about our prophet, Thomas S Monson. She asked me "if he is the prophet for the world, then why doesn't everyone know that?" I can testify that I know that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us so much. He loves all of His children and I know that He wants every single child to know that. He wants us all to know that He has given us a prophet to lead and guide us because He loves us. He is waiting for us to come to Him so that He can bless us. 

I know this. If you don't, then find out. 

I love you all,

Hermana Dickson

Emanuel, Daniel, Lourdes, Heramanas Brower and Dickson

Mom and Dad too!

Extra from other emails this week: At the baptism Hermanas Dickson and Brower sang "Make Me Whole" by Rob Gardner. It is a song that Lauren brought with her and was able to sing for the leadership while at the MTC. Of course it was in English so they translated it to Spanish. I had written to Hermana Dickson that Sister Gale had kindly sent a video of their musical number and she replied "We hadn't practiced once and we had just barely finished writing the translation (which was so hard!) and the harmonies." Hermana Brower's email included "It's so hard to get the accents of the music to line up with the accents of Spanish words. I had to kind of change the message of the song, so it became Sáname (Heal Me)". They wrote the harmony to turn it into a duet.

Hermana Brower also shared "The baptism was FANTASTIC. We filled the entire Relief Sociey room, which is a big deal for such a small branch! You know what is so sweet? The entire Laurel class from one of the English wards came because they heard the Lourdes was getting baptized and would be coming to mutual with them (our YW program is small and combines with them)!! How sweet is that? They'd never even met her before! The youth of the Church are AWESOME!"

Humility "Lord is it I?"

Week #24

You know you're Hermana Dickson when you get excited about eating squeaky cheese.

I have about 10 minutes to email so this will be a fast one. Squeaky cheese is the culprit. Hermana Brower and I have been biking so much that we saved enough miles to drive to Tillamook. It took all day and I drove so unfortunately I have no time to email. But hey it was fun. I cut my lip on ice cream. . . #hermanamurphy

Most important, two of God's children are getting baptized! I'm so, so excited for them! We've had some really awesome lessons and have received so much guidance and revelation from the Holy Ghost as a companionship this week. I wish I had time to tell you. 

I have really learned a lot in my personal studies this week. I was studying chapter 6 in Preach My Gospel (go study it, it's amazing) and I was specifically studying humility for a training I was giving in District meeting. I was reading in Matthew this week as well and I read the part of the last supper where Christ tells the apostles, His best friends, that one of them will betray him. The thing that I loved, that really impressed me, is that the apostles had developed humility, the Christlike attribute that I was studying. Not one of them said "well look at Juan over there, he's been cranky lately" or "hey I bet it's Judas, there's something going on with him". They all said "Lord, is it I?" 

They looked at themselves and knew that they were weak. They were humble. I guess my invitation for everyone who reads my emails is this: When you have an argument with someone, when you don't understand the "why" for a commandment, when you feel disconnected from your Heavenly Father. Drop to your knees and humbly
ask "Lord is it I? Am I the one who is stubborn? Am I not doing what I am supposed to? Am I not humbling myself enough to feel of your love and to follow the guidance of your servants?"

I promise, as a representative of Jesus Christ, that when we go to our Father in humble prayer we will feel of His love and be able to recognize His guidance in our lives so that we can be more like Christ.

I love you all,

Hermana Dickson

PS I'm so excited for the baptism!

Hermana Brower and Hermana Dickson 

Tillamook Factory

Ice cream that she "cut her lip" on??

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!

"The Girls on the Bikes In Skirts"

Week #22

You know you're a real missionary when you're riding a bike!

Miles in a car this week: approximately 65. 

Miles on a bike this week: approximately 55. 

Tears this week: approximately 0.5. 

That's right I'm a real missionary now. We got cut on our car miles so we got bikes! Our first day we rode over 20 miles because we hadn't figured out the the shortest/most down-hill routes quite yet. We've figured it out now, but let's just say that we over doubled our miles that day.

I'm actually not sore at all. #blessingsofamission, but it is harder than I thought it would be. Those first couple of days were long. We get a lot more attention though and people recognize us as the girls on the bikes in skirts which is good. The bad thing is that we also get a lot of wolf whistles. But hey, recognition is recognition right? :) Riding in a skirt is a talent that I haven't quite mastered yet. I've only ripped one skirt so far though so that is good. 

It has been super hot this week and we've felt it all because we have been on bikes. I have the greatest tan lines to prove it. Shoes, watch, biking gloves, and CTR rings. They're pretty impressive let me tell you. 

Our apartment is also really hot so we are sleeping in the living room with 5 fans and 5 alarms set because the fans are so loud. We also had 4 Hermanas living in our itty bitty apartment for 5 days so that was fun. Super crowded, but now that they are gone we miss them. It was a party.

We have been working so hard every day. We are literally talking to everyone now that we are on bikes and we are cleaning up our area book. There are a lot of people that haven't lived in the address that we have for them for 4 years and we are finding out that some addresses don't even exist. We've contacted all our referrals as of yesterday and some of them we have had for months so that was good. Speaking of referrals, we received one from some other missionaries and he is awesome. He is 21 and so so humble and ready for the Gospel. We are super excited to help him develop a faith and relationship with Christ. 

Being a missionary is not what I thought it would be. I don't actually know what I thought, but it is different than any other experience that I have had. As I see and help others come closer to Christ, I am coming closer to Him myself. I love this Gospel and I love this work. I love what the first page in Preach My Gospel says. "Every missionary has an important role in helping to 'bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man'". Change that to "every member" and I love it even more. We all have a role in this great work. I hope you all can realize and seek to fulfill your role in this great work. 

I love you all,

Hermana Dickson 

Riding bikes while in a skirt takes talent. She's a "real missionary" now!

At Sister Gale's for dinner