Thank Goodness for Ice Cream :)‏

Sometimes, you just get along really well with your companion, the missionary work is awesome, your area is sweet, and life is good.  Other times... not so much.  Right now my life is in the first category so I'm going to continue to enjoy it while it lasts.  :)
This last week has been awesome... and one of those weeks where I realize how much growth still needs to happen here, for myself as a person.  I've said it before and it's still true - missions have a way of bringing out weaknesses.  I've learned that unfortunately that is a necessary part of the growing process.  Dang it. 

When I first arrived at the Mission home six months ago, they had us do some activity where we formed play-dough into something we wanted to get out of our missions.  I had no clue what to make... but what I ended up doing has had more relevance the further I've gotten into my mission.  I formed a simple, cookie-cutter looking girl and slapped a name-tag on her.  When I got up to explain I told everyone that I knew the kind of me I wanted to be by the end and that that was my goal.  At that point, I don't think I realized that my Father in Heaven was listening to what I was saying and decided to help me out with this goal.  How nice of Him.  :) 
I wish it wasn't so hard to change... I'm glad Sister Sanders is here to help me out this transfer.  Talking to her about this stuff has helped me out a ton, cause she's kinda going through the same thing.  That being said...

Why do we hold onto stuff we don't even like about ourselves?  I'm pretty good a getting rid of old papers and "junk" around my room and stuff and I wish I was good about doing that same thing with habits and characteristics I really could do without.  Sometimes... okay, mostly lately, I feel like I'm trying to get rid of "junk" that I really don't like at all, it's just hard to get rid of it after I've hung onto it for so long...

That, my friends, is where the Atonement comes in.  Phew... Hallelujah for that!!!  The Atonement is sssoooooo central to the gospel.  It doesn't just help us repent and overcome sin, but it also allows us to change in other ways as well.  The process for any type of change is much the same as the repentance process, meaning... it is not easy!!  You have to acknowledge that you have something that needs to be changed (sometimes this is made apparent in very open, awkward-ways... and sometimes not).  Then, you have to struggle to actually try to change it (yeah... this part basically feels impossible sometimes).  And somehow, with the Lord's help, you make it through to the other side.  Of course, that is not the end... the hardest part is that darn, whole enduring-to-the-end-thingy.

Man... life is difficult.  Good thing there is ice cream to help us along the way.  :)
Anyways.......

Life is really going great here! :)  We had five investigators at church yesterday... an all-time high for me :)  More importantly, our investigators are progressing really, really well.  We've tried focusing on/using the Book of Mormon more in our lessons and I can see the difference it is making.  We had a bit of a rough spot yesterday... We were sitting in the gospel principles class with our investigators yesterday and they were all getting really into the discussion.  Tatay, who almost never speaks, ever, opened up and was asking all of these questions.  Then Jenny joined in, and their questions were awesome... but were all over the place and even though we are only in lesson one with one of them and mid-way through lesson two with the other, their questions were covering all of the lessons and then plus-some...  It was a little overwhelming to say the least.  At one point our investigator asked the teacher if he was the bishop, and if she could meet with him because she had a lot of questions and then she basically said that Sister Sanders wasn't answering them so she needed to meet with him.... it was rough.  I pointed out to Sister Sanders that at least she mentioned her name... I'm still the "Other Sister" at this point.  :)  It's great that our investigators have so many questions, we're just going to have to remind them that we can't teach them everything all at once.

Anyways... Hope you all had a romantic Valentine's day!  We had a date at our apartment after working and watched the Testaments movie... there's even kissing in that movie... it was great. 
Love you all!
Love, Sister Dickison 

Happy Valentine's!‏

Hello everyone!!!

So... this week was awesome and a high point of missionary work!  Yesterday we had four investigators at church, including the three we gave bap dates to last week.  They are so awesome, coming to church for the second week in a row and progressing and everything!!  We also watched Tatay be baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday.  He was so cute!!  Just grinning the whole time :)  We also watched one of our recent converts bless the sacrament for the first time!  Man... It was a wonderful week :)  We taught more lessons in a week than I ever have before!  I also think I walked more that I ever have before... and we had more dinner appointments than I've ever had before so it's a really good thing we're doing a ton of walking.  :)

I'm seriously loving life here in the Sumulong 1st ward.  The ward members are great and so kind.  They are pretty great about giving us referrals and working with us... I don't ever want to leave this area :) 

Sister Sanders and I are having a great time together!  We became really close friends with each other super quick and I just love getting to talk to that girl all the time.  :) 

We have zone training tomorrow followed by zone conference on Wednesday so I'm pretty excited to see everyone.  :) 

I learned this week just how mindful Heavenly Father is of us, and how willing his is to help us with stuff we want/need when it is in accordance with his plan for us.  I don't have any specific experience, but just a bunch of little ones that have strengthened my testimony in this area. 

I'm so grateful for the gospel!!  I feel so blessed to have been born into the truth and for the opportunity I have to share it with others!!

Love you all!  Happy Valentines Day!

Love, Sister Dickison

Welcome to the Big City :)‏

Well... My new area is pretty much fantastic!!!!  As a whole, the people here are a lot better off than the people in my last area.  I have more city-city in my area as well as more province (I've seen so many trees and even fields of green stuff here!).  Our area is huge but a lot less crowded than my last area.  I'm loving it here!!  The work is amazing!  We have so many investigators we are having a difficult time making time to visit recent converts and less actives.  And... I have another baptism this Saturday.  His name is Narciso and he is like 70-something years old.  It's funny actually... all three of our people who attended the gospel principles class were 70-something year-old men... :)

My new companion, Sister Sanders, is absolutely wonderful and we got along really, really well.  It's been a really difficult week for her though.  When I met her last Wednesday, she told me that during her email time the day before she had just found out that her Grandpa had terminal cancer.  Just last Saturday, President Revillo called her to inform her her Grandpa had just passed away.  She's been so strong but the passing of her Grandpa has been really, really sudden and difficult for her.  Please keep my companion and her family in your prayers! 

 

The Tagalog is coming along.  Sister Sanders is insanely good at Tagalog even though she's only a transfer ahead of me!!!  Not going to lie, it's been a little bit discouraging in some ways, but everybody here keeps telling me I'm really good at Tagalog and Sister Sanders has been really grateful that I can speak and understand what people are saying :)  Apparently I'm the first companion she's had who can speak Tagalog since she was trained.  It's going to be a great transfer... just being with her has made me more motivated to get better faster.  :)

 

Everything has just fallen into place.  Yes, it was difficult to say good-bye to some of the people I taught in my last area, especially those who I had taught from the beginning as well as my sweet Angelica, but my new area, companion, and ward our great.  :)

 

I had a really cool experience a few days before I left Pateros...  Sister Doucette and I were eating at the Biluan's house and I was just sitting there soaking it all in.  All last transfer, my companion often talked about how much she loves the Philippines and how she doesn't want her mission to end.  I always kept my mouth shut, cause in my mind I was thinking, "Why?  I love America, I love my home, and I can't wait to go back."  It wasn't that I didn't love it here too... it's just that I love being at home with my family more.  :)  But as I was sitting there, I just suddenly got it...  Everything I do here is for other people.  It can be so overwhelming to have to constantly be worrying about other people's lives and how you can help them overcome challenges and stuff, but when I go home, everything I do will just be for me, and somehow that seems kind of pointless in a way.  I'll go to work to earn money for myself, I'll go to school to earn my degree for myself, and yeah... everything will just be for myself.  How boring.  Here, I have the amazing opportunity to help so many people in so many different ways and I'm really going to miss that.  Don't get me wrong... I'm still looking forward to going home in 11 months (not that I'm counting or anything), but in some ways I guess I'm kind of dreading it as well.  

 

Missionary work is awesome.  It's the toughest thing ever, but it's amazing as well.  I'm so grateful that this was part of God's plan for me... every day I see more and more of why I'm needed here, and why I needed to be here to become a better person.  

 

I love you all!  Hope you are all doing well and have an awesome week!

Love, Sister Dickison 

Ricoooooo, Dioso (Bill?), and Angelica :)‏

Hey everyone!!!  So this week was pretty much awesome and full of some crazy times :)

First off the Taguig Zone had our zone activity last P-day which was pretty darn fun.  We spent a lot of time filling up water balloons and then played Dungeons and Dragons with them until it got too boring and everyone just started chucking water balloons at each other.  I hid safely inside of the chapel with my companion and Sister Faka'osi so our clothes remained dry :)  We then played hide-and-go-seek and ordered Pizza Hut Pizza (Ssooooo gooood!!:) 

The next day was our Zone Training so our whole zone was together again and yeah... that was about all the excitement that happened that day.

Last Wednesday we did service for some of the elders' investigators.  We cleared a huge field of weeds.  It was really hard work actually and my legs are still sore from it.  I was using a sickle to cut the weeds, and then I almost took out a plant with it.... haha, it was great.  

So the best part about our week was definitely our investigators.  First there's Rico... We met Rico on Saturday the 11th after teaching our investigator Dioso (Bill?).  He was waiting for us to finish our lesson with Dioso to meet with us.  He told us he was searching for the truth and honestly seemed like a golden investigator.  He went on to tell us a few things that made a red flag appear in Sis. Doucette's head: 1) He asked us about proxy baptisms (who knows about that outside of Mormon's?) and 2) He asked us if we were allowed to listen to other religions.  So he texted us over the next few days and we kind of ignored him because our phone is NOT for "fun texting" and then it all came out when we tried to set up an appointment with him... He said, and I quote (except it was sa tagalog), "Haven't you guessed by now?... Hahaha!... my religion is Inglesia ni Cristo!!"  Inglesia ni Cristo is a wonderful religion, I'm sure, that is very popular here in the Philippines and was actually formed by a man who used to be mormon.  Long story short, he wanted us to come and either debate with him over religion or be converted to his church.  Obviously we dropped him as a potential investigator and Sister Doucette is still trying to get over "Rico: Our Golden Investigator."  :)

  So then there's Dioso (Bill?)... Apparently his name is not Dioso... it's Bill.... or at least, that's how he introduced himself to our ward missionary Raymond.  Can't wait to see what this week has in store for us and "Bill."

Finally, there is Angelica. :)  After being so, so, so nervous for her baptismal interview she made it through and will be getting baptized this upcoming Saturday!!!  We're so excited for her!!!  It's perfect timing too, because I'm 99.9% positive I'm transferring out of this area in a week and a half.  I love Angelica so much!!!  She's been through so much with what happened in Tacloban and having to leave her family behind.  She's grown so much in the gospel and will be an awesome member of the church!  Sister Doucette and I will be bearing our testimonies with her after her baptism to help her not feel so nervous (did I mention she is really shy and get's nervous easily?)  :)  

Well... that's all for this week.  Until next week!!

Love, Sister Dickison

(P.S. I also ate chicken feet at a funeral last week... good times... )

5 Months in the Field :)

Wow... it's P-day again already.  So Sister Doucette and I have had a pretty awesome time during the last few days.  All of last week we had to do a lot of finding, but our efforts paid off and so did the fasting and prayers.  We found a ton of people who are interested in being taught and have return appointments with them this week.  We actually had four different, random people come up to us during the last two days and ask us if we can teach them...  Hallelujah!  We've also been trying to help establish visiting and home teaching in our ward.  I never realized how important visiting and home teaching was before my mission.  Everyone needs visiting/home teaching; active members as well as less-active members.  Our ward here in Pateros would probably have a lot less less-actives if they were being visiting every month by other members.  Since the focus of our mission is to find and baptize, we're really trying to help the ward visit less-actives and recent converts so that we can spend the majority of our time with investigators.  This was the first week that we had an even number of less-active/recent convert lessons and lessons with investigators.  It's a huge improvement, but we're working on having more lessons with investigators period.  

 

Something I may have mentioned before that Sister Doucette and I are trying to focus on is having hope.  We're both pretty realistic (ha! that's a nice word for pessimistic...) and so hope is an area we both recognized we needed to grow in.  It's been cool over the last transfer to watch as Heavenly Father has given us experiences to help us grow in this area.  I never realized how crucial it can be to have hope.  There is a scripture in Ether chapter 12, verse 32 I think, that talks about having hope and how it is crucial in order for us to return to live with our Father in Heaven again in the mansions prepared for us above.  That's pretty serious stuff when you think about it.  

 

Sister Doucette and I have also been reflecting on how very different serving a mission is than we thought it would be.  There is a lot more that goes on in our missions than just knocking on doors and learning to speak a different language.  Over the last five months I've learned how to go apartment hunting in the Philippines, recover from floods and break-ins, and all about U.T.I.s.  I've also tried to help establish home/visiting teaching and help the church here in the Philippines become more established and run smoother.  I've found myself talking to the richest of the rich people here about our church, in English, with my whole ward watching my companion and I (that was terrifying) as well as made almost daily visits to a couple who didn't have enough money/food to feed themselves let alone their three-month old son.  I never expected to do half of these things let alone all the other stuff I didn't mention that has happened as well.  I feel so incredibly blessed that Heavenly Father has given me this opportunity.  I didn't really have a desire to go on a mission for any other reason than it sounded kind of fun and I knew it was God's plan for me.  I'm so grateful that this was part of His plan for me and I can't wait to see what else the mission has in store for me (haha... I'm knocking on wood right now...).  

 

Oh yeah!  If you are willing, please include my Grandpa Luke in your prayers.  He had a stroke last week and is doing much better, but still needs the prayers.  Thank you for your love and support always.  God bless!

Love, Sister Dickison

And all the Whos down in Whoville...‏

Wahoo!!  Temple days are the best!!  I'm seriously so blessed to have a temple not just in my mission boundaries, but literally just 15 minutes away from where I live... so awesome!  So yeah, we woke up around 4:00 this morning and left the house at 5:00 so we could make it to the first session and guess what... we didn't get into the first session.  Practically all of the elders from the Quezon City North mission were already there when we arrived at the temple and apparently got there at 4:45 in the morning... :/  Oh well, we just waited for a while and then attended the 8:00 session, which was wonderful too :)  We then went to eat at Banapple (American food!!) where I chose to get a salad over a honkin' huge slice of cheesecake because... I really miss green salad!!  Super delicious!!  Afterwards we hopped in a taxi and now I'm here emailing :)

 

Let see... other news... oh yeah!!!  Haha!!  New Years!!!  Pretty sure my expectations of what a New Years Eve should be like are ridiculously high now... It Was Amazing!!!!  So people started setting off fireworks like the day before, right?  But they were just a few here and there.  On the 31st they kind of became... more as soon as we woke up and Sister Doucette was kinda freaking out about going out and working.  We figured God would protect us though so we went out, taught, and then made it home by our early curfew in the evening.  It was pretty noisy by then, fireworks going off and kids blowing on noise-makers.  But the real deal started at 11:00... people went crazy!!  The only way I can describe it is it was like being there in "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" when all of the Whos down in Whoville were banging on stuff and going crazy!!  People were laying on car horns, lighting fireworks like crazy, blowing on noise-makers, and the one that really got to me was whoever was revin' up their chainsaw (I'm not joking)... It was SO loud!!!!  Fireworks were going off everywhere!!  And not just baby ones either... but huge ones in the sky!  Man... it was the best birthday celebration ever.  :)  Times Square has got absolutely nothing on my Filipino New Years Eve. :)    

 

Great news... Angelica is still getting baptized!!  :)  I'm just a little bit more than excited :)  She's developing a testimony so quickly and has really settled into the ward and Young Women's.  We watched Finding Faith in Christ with her last week... she loved it.  We also taught her Word of Wisdom the other day which was fun since I haven't had an opportunity to teach that since back when I first got here... when I wasn't capable of saying anything.  I'm really, really enjoying teaching right now.  Sister Doucette and I have both noticed each other growing in leaps and bounds in the language every day.  Guess that's what happens when you both HAVE to speak in lessons because neither one of us is fluent (or close to being fluent) sa Tagalog.  It's a party :)  We also get to go finding for a few hours every day... probably for the rest of the transfer, to find more investigators again.  It's not exactly something either she or I loves doing... so, we've turned it into a game with bonus points and treats and stuff just to give us the courage to speak up to random people on the street.  And it's working :)  Yesterday we found/talked to seven different people and have return appointments with them.  :)  

 

Also, we had the opportunity to work with the Sister Training Leader's which was great!  Once we were all back in the apartment, it pretty much felt like a huge sleepover party.  Sister Campbell is awesome and obviously Sister Jones is as well, so it was fun.:)  

 

As always thank you for your prayers and your love and support!  It really means a lot to me!  Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Dickison

Happy New Year Everyone!!‏

Hello everyone!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you have a wonderful New Year's celebration this week!  My first Christmas in the field was pretty fun, even if it didn't feel very much like Christmas due to the fact that is was insanely hot last week.  We spent most of Christmas trying to meet with people (it was a normal work day for us) and getting punted because everyone was out partying or had family over and didn't really want us to teach them.  We understood, but it was still kind of rough to spend Christmas walking around and getting punted.  However, we had a wonderful visit/lesson with the Sambo family.  They had invited us over to their house for Christmas dinner.  They had prepared a ton of food and even made us spaghetti and bought us some chicken from KFC just to make it feel a little more like an American Christmas. :)  So sweet!!! 

My cute sister Mikaela had given me a special gift for Christmas which was ang Aklat ni Mormon (Book of Mormon) that had her hand-written testimony in the front cover.  I had spent the last week carrying it around with me on our visits and waiting to feel prompted to give it to someone.  We were sitting there in the Sambo's home and I suddenly knew that they were the ones I needed to give it to.  At first I was hesitant since they are recent converts and I was really looking for an investigator to give it to, but as I started reading Mikaela's testimony to them (and bawling the entire time) I realized that it was the perfect gift I could give from my family at home to my family here in the Philippines.  It was a really sweet experience and something I will never forget.  As a side note, they gave me a Christmas card this last week that said that even though I was from a different culture, I'm still their child.  :)  I love them!!!!  Ah!  I'm going to bawl when I transfer and leave them...

Anyways, so yeah, Christmas was great besides getting punted and having everyone ask us if we were Jehovah's Witnesses because we were out working instead of celebrating Christmas... :) 

The last few days have been a little difficult work-wise as we continue to get punted because everyone's partying it up.  We figure things will be back to normal once the New Year's celebrations are over and everyone has to go back to school and work.  Our investigator Anjelica is still doing great and is on her way to being baptized the 25th of January!  We are so excited for her!!  We're once again in that process of dropping several of our investigators who aren't progressing and finding new ones which is always kind of frustrating, but I'm looking forward to finding more people who have been prepared to hear the gospel :) 

Being in a house full of people who are trying to learn how to speak Tagalog is actually extremely fun :)  We're all trying to help each other out and more than anything it's taught me how NOT to stress out about learning the language.  We're not fluent... not even close, but somehow the work moves on and the gospel continues to be preached to these people.  :)  I actually had a really cool experience the other day...  Sister Doucette and I went to go try to teach some of our recent converts who are now less-active.  It's been really frustrating, because we haven't been able to teach them since my first week last transfer, so almost two months now.  So were sitting there and talking to the mom and all of the sudden I'm remembering the last time I was there, and all the times I was there before that and how I had no clue what anyone was saying and I couldn't say anything and basically just felt mute.  As the sister was talking to us, I understood what she was saying and could have a normal, back-and-forth conversation with her, no problem... It was so awesome and so weird!!!!!  I hadn't realized how much I had grown in the language just over the last transfer with Sister Jones.  Yeah... we're talking drastic change!!!  Hallelujah!!  The gift of tongues is real!... It just requires a lot of patience, continued practice, and, surprisingly, not stressing out over learning the language.  :)

As a side note... Sister Doucette and I are having a fabulous time being companions with each other and right now we're just trying to work on not spending so much time talking to each other because we're, uh, having issues with time-management because we're always having these awesome conversations :)  Sister Strebel, the other new sister in our apartment is hilarious and I love her to death, and Sister Tereke is suddenly a lot more talkative (and sarcastic) then she was before. :)  They both are ridiculously funny and crack each other up, which cracks us up, and all-around we are just having a great time in our apartment :)

Well... that's all for this week!  Happy New Year again to everyone!!

Love you all tons!!

Love, Sister Dickison :)