A Quick Visit From My Uncle, Aunt and 2 Cousins

Well, Taylor didn't write for the blog today, but we thought we would share in his behalf.

Taylor had an exciting day today. John, Paula, Preston and Stockton were driving to Texas for a Firemen's Conference. So they were going right through Wichita. Taylor was able to get permission from President Bell to visit with them and go to lunch. John took some pictures and sent them to me.

The backside of Taylors apartment

Waiting at the Library for Taylor to get done emailing his Mom.

At the same time, I was talking to John, until they came out.

After lunch they took them to the Stake Center where they were having P-Day activities with their Zone. I heard Taylor was going to play tennis with the Sister Missionaries. 

They said, "Elder D is going down."  Hilarious

Elder Hamelwright & Elder Dickson

They just were spoiled with John & Paula's homemade jerky, it is the best!! I hope Taylor shares?????

Thanks to John, Paula, Preston and Stockton for spoiling my Son and his Companion, and for making his day!!

Taylor is doing so good. He loves his new area and all the people there.
A few things he said in his emails lately:

"I wanted to call you so bad the other night!! Remember those times I had such a good day that I came home and talked with you?? Ugh… I wanted to call you the other night!!"
(That made me feel good as a Mom)

"I am doing pretty good. I am starting to see what I need to do to engulf myself into the work. I am going on exchanges with Elder Taluega this week and he is going to help me out with that."

"I am doing pretty good! I have been doing better now than I have since being on the mission!!"

So good to hear of his growth and happiness serving the Lord!
Love you all, Denzil & Judy

Make sure to check out his Birthday post below, I just put on from last week.

Thanks for the Birthday Wishes!!

Hey everybody!! I just wanted to say thank you all so much for the birthday cards and wishes! I loved them!! Thank you!! 

Things have been going pretty good here in Auburn Hills. I love this area! It is one of my favorite areas! Especially where the Balzers are in the ward! They are so awesome. In my first area they would bring us food and make sure we were taken care of! Then I moved to Harrison Park and their daughter and son-in-law lives in that ward! Now I am in Auburn hills and they are here! Such a treat! For dinner the other night they made us Salmon and Pork chops! Mmmm... my favorite! Also, we are taken great care of by the Coopers. He is the Ward Mission Leader, so we see them all the time. They do so much for us and all missionaries. The work in the area is going good! This area is full of potential!

Love you all!!
Elder Dickson

Happy Birthday Elder Dickson

Surprise!!

The Sister Missionaries decorated his door!!

The Coopers took us all out to Pizza Hut for lunch!

Happy Birthday cake made by the Hansel family

25 Candles

Get out the fire extinguisher!

A picture that his Grandpa & Grandma Taylor sent to him.

He said he put it on his dresser.

Thanks For The Prayers and Fasting

     Hello everyone! Thank you for those that have been fasting and praying for me! Things have been kicking my butt these past weeks. I have been having some issues lately, which brought on some major anxiety. But I know with all the issues that have been going on the Lord has been behind me 100%, obviously. But things are going to change! I am getting a new companion and a new area this Wednesday! I am so excited for this new start! Last week I went in and received a blessing from the mission President. After receiving that blessing I have felt my roots extend further into the Kansas soil. I felt that things are going to be starting to pick up and time will go much quicker!

     But this past week has been pretty good. The area I am in currently is a rougher area to find people. We have been working with less actives a lot!! So we went to a LA’s house last night and had shown him the Mountains to Climb video. He and his wife (the wife is active) started crying. He so felt the spirit! This is what I love about this work! I love to see LA’s feel the spirit! Something they might be lacking in the most. I love it!!

Also if you want to send me letters please send them to: 

7011 East 13th St North. Wichita, KS 67206-1219

To all you Philippine lovers!! 

We went to eat at a family where 

he served in the Philippines and she is Filipino.

Bad Bugs, Good Bugs, and Bed Bugs!!!!

Hey, blog time!!

So this week went by so fast!!! We wake up at 5:00 every morning to work out at the gym on McConnell Air Force base. I love doing this!! But it sure does make for a long day!

Here in Kansas the weather has been a delightfully hot with a great 95% humidity!! Oh so wonderful, lol. But right before it rains it becomes SUPER humid!!!! It gets miserable at times!

So last week we went to a former investigators house and visited with him. As we were talking about the gospel with him I felt bugs all over me. I looked down and there were little bugs all over me! I told the guy politely that we will have to finish up and have to re-schedule. After we did so we walked outside and I flipped out!!! There were also bed bugs on us!!! So we went to the store and bought Lysol I sprayed my bag inside and out then took off all my clothes and put them in the washer!! Eliminated those buggers!!! Ugh you Utahan’s are lucky to not have such devilish bugs!!! OHHHHHH, OH, OH I SAW LIGHTNING BUGS FOR THE FIRST TIME!!! They are so cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is one thing we need in Utah!!

So this past week we had a “solid” investigator say he would come to church! Well we show up and he was still in bed!!!!!!!!! He is so ready to be baptized besides smoking and not going to CHURCH!!! Grrr. But we have a new family that we met with last week. They are so awesome! The mom has visions during the night so she was telling us all about them. She is such a religious person but she currently does not have a church to attend! So we are going to bring them into the church, well the spirit will!! But the other day we biked 10 miles and walked 10 miles (flat tire). So we went to a trailer park and tracked over 20 trailers in the morning. When we show the Lord we are willing to work and bike 10 miles to his lost sheep, he will provide. We ended up getting 4 new investigators in an hours time!! So blessed! Now we have return appointments with them this week!!

Hope you have a great Fourth of July!! 

Love Elder Dickson

Received a new tie from Tanner and Niki! Thanks!

Chicken Fajita Nachos!! Home made chips!! 

While watching "How Rare a Possession".

My Mom begged me to take a picture with my companion, Elder Jones.

Sporting my other new tie from Tanner & Niki.

Burb Washed, Then Went Home to Read the Book of Mormon

     Hello all!! I hope you are enjoying the warm weather!! I know I am…………hahahahahaha I love humidity!! This past week was well crazy!! All I am going to say about last week is…. This church is the true Church of Jesus Christ!! While on the mission you come in contact with so many different opportunities, situations, and companions that enlighten you in so many different aspects of the Gospel!! But there is one church on this Earth and that is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Stay true to the iron rod!! This church is true!

     This morning we had a Zone car wash/wax/water fight at the church!! We had so much fun! We got all 15 cars washed and waxed. I took over the Presidents car to make sure it was perfecto! I love to clean cars! So after all the cars were washed and waxed we had a water fight. Who would have thought to move the cars out of the way?? Nah…. We had too much fun!!! We even got the President into the water war!! He was in his suit pants and white shirt! He loved it and was laughing!

Love you all!

Elder Maki and I taking over! The suburban that we are washing is a miracle story! They were just going to turn around in the parking lot to drive north. But ended up getting forced to get their burb washed. So we get this text later saying that her passenger went home and started reading the Book of Mormon!! God works in mysterious ways!!

Car washing fun with my cuz, Sis Blood.

We Were Guided by the Spirit

     Well, we had transfers last week!! I received a new companion from Orem, Utah. His name is Elder Jones. He is from the Marine Reserves! Do work son! This month we have been challenged to get 50 baptisms, as a mission. So we have been out pounding the pavement all day on Saturday. We started out by tracting for a few hours. We came upon this older man walking into his house. We said hello to him and he turned around and smiled until he saw we were Mormons. He said, "Don't stop here!" But we had already stopped at his house. This guy lived in Ogden, Utah for some time and said he knew Mormonism. But he knew NOTHING about us! He said that we were a cult and our church was of the devil. So we tried to address his questions but wouldn't let us. He said that his church was the one. We asked how many people attend, he said 9,000. I wanted to tell him that our church had over 15 million members. Oh well!!

     But through the rest of the day we had no luck, the Devil just wanted us to fail. I started off by twisting my ankle in a hole covered by grass. But that would not keep me down. A man we stopped to talk with was a bible basher. My companion started to bash for a while. I could not see a good end so I just said to this man, “Would you accept a Book of Mormon?” He said, “No I won't read it.” So that shut him down. He was just trying to prove a point that he knew nothing of. So after a long day we saw no success with finding even one person to put on date for the 50 baptisms. My companion had a vision that we needed to go to a park so we walked to the nearest and started knocking. No success!! So we went down a street that was bit darker than the rest of the neighborhood. As we started our journey down this dark road I could feel the presence of some spiritual beings walking with us to protect and guide us. We stopped and said a prayer to know which door to knock. We only had 5 minutes to get somebody on date. So we walked to a few houses that had the lights on, on the door step. No answer at all on all 3 houses. It was time to turn in. We started back to the car and I walked by a house and I was punched in the stomach by the spirit. I stopped told the companion that we needed to go to this house. He looked at me like are you serious! In a good way! So we knocked on the door and a man opened the door. He was a man that kept walking by us around the park. So we were sure this was the man. We started talking to him about the priesthood and how we have the proper authority. This man said after we stated that, that he just had chills go over him. We testified that what he felt is the Holy Spirit. We kept teaching him and invited him to baptism on June 28th. Wahooo!!!! This was a great spiritual/faith promoting event.

     Have faith in all that you do. We did not see our trial of faith for 12 hours. So take this as a lesson that it is on the Lord's time to continually keep faith within our Savior. Things may not happen as soon as you would like but the Lord knows what is best for us!!

Love you all!!

Celebration after a hard day’s work. Smoothies in a chilled mug!

My New Bike Adventures

Hello my Familia!!

So last week I got my new bike!! It is so great! If you have a missionary going out on a mission get a bike on ctrbikes.com. They have good deals. So after I got my bike all set up we went on a 10 mile bike ride to a referrals house. As we are biking to this house my companion is attacked by the awesome Kansas allergens. His eyes were itching so badly by the time we get to the house. But as we are sitting outside the house an older man just got in his car and pulled up to us and asked how we were liking our mission. His wife is a member but he is not. So he told us not to bug the man we had the referral for. So we didn’t.

So the next day we went out and saw people that lived far away in our boundaries. As we were visiting them one of the guys said to go visit this certain family. So we did. As we went down this long driveway we were approached by dogs, we see a lot of dogs in Kansas. So this man came walking towards us and it was the man that told us not bug that man we were going to see the day before. I thought this was ironic. So we sat there and chatted with him and his wife and he showed us his garden. See pictures below. We started asking him why he has not joined the church since his wife and kids are members. He said I just love smoking, I have done it since I was a kid and he did not want to change. So my companion bore testimony and I bore my testimony to him. And he just did not want to change. But I loved talking with that man.

Hope all is well for every one of you! Thank you for all those that have fasted with me this past Sunday. May the Lord bless each and every one of your souls and families.

Love,
Elder Dickson

The new bike 2014 Specialized Rockhopper with 29” wheels 
and Hydraulic brakes.

The largest Coy they have is 23 pounds.

White squirrel? 

May of Miracles!

     Hey everybody! I hope you all had a great Memorial Day! For Memorial Day we had Zone Olympics. It was a great time! We played everything from, soccer, smash ball, basketball, and ultimate Frisbee (Sister Blood and I had a sick touch down). It was a great time!

     But this last week we had such a great week! We went over to a member’s house a couple weeks ago and the member’s non-member friend was over for dinner also. So when I first approach somebody I become their friend and then talk about religion. So at first I talked about working. He is a Web Developer for a big company here. So we talked about religion for a little bit and got to know what he believed in. He was at first standoffish so we just got a return appointment to talk more. So we set the appointment up for that coming week and we forgot about it. We wrote down the wrong day to see him! So we texted him and apologized to him and asked if we could re-schedule, he never replied! So a couple days later I texted him back being a little bit more persistent and he said that we could meet up again that coming Tuesday. So we had an idea to do a church tour with him for our first meeting. We had a member with us while we showed him around the church. This investigator is GOLDEN!! We stopped and looked at the pictures and he had the best comments and questions. I was trying to hold back my tears because the spirit he brought was strong. But as we went around the church he had such great questioned to ask us. My companion and the member were shocked. Throughout my companion’s mission and the member’s mission they have never had an investigator this ready for the Gospel. They both were in aww. So as we finished off the tour at the baptismal font/basketball court we talked more about the Gospel and answered his questions. My companion asked him if he would get baptized and he paused for a second and said “yes I will” we were shocked! So we talked more and then he said something to us that floored us, “What do I expect after baptism?” So we told him about the laying on of hands to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and a few other things about different auxiliaries within the church. As we were doing the church tour we asked if he would like to attend church with us this Sunday and he said without pausing he was going to come. So he did!!! He is so golden! We have an appointment with him tonight but I am actually on exchanges in another town!! Grrrr…….

I just talked to the Zone leader and the Mission President wants the whole mission to get a new investigator in on a church tour within a week!! How sick is that!!! Pavin’ the way by the Holy Ghost!!! Love you all!! (Oh yeah….I rode in a convertible Mustang to church again!! And his wife was not in the front seat this time!! Hahahahhaha!!!)

 Derby Zone Olympics

Ridin’ in Style!!

Hello all!! I am doing great this past week! And today!! It is p-day!!! Well to explain the title, we were picked up by a young couple (for church) in their sports car. It was the best!! They came and picked us up in their convertible Mustang which had a V8 engine (GT model)!! It was so chill!! So as we pulled away from the apartment, I through on the Oakleys and just kicked back! I loved it. When we go to church the McConnell Air Force base is along the way so it was cool to be able to see the jumbo jets in a big screen setting! Lol

This past week was just a bunch of tracting. So a man that we have a close eye on has been having some hard times recently. We felt inspired to go over and see how he was doing so we did. As we were walking to his house we walked past the electric man. He just barely turned off the power to his house. So we sat with him and talked and shared some scriptures with him. So 2 days later we went back over to his house to check on him. We pulled up and I told my companion to sit here in the car for a minute. We did and a white car pulled up and he walked out of his house with his items and left. (Not sure what items means-Judy) I love how the Lord works with people. The Lord knows what needs to happen at the right moments.

Love you all!!

I made this pepper corn grinder base on a lathe. 

And bought the top at a local wood working store.

 Check out the massive storm rolling in. 
I was freaked out and wanted to go inside Wal-Mart. 

But my companion said, “Nope, we are still walking.”

 We tracted to this house the other day. 
I had to BoM it!!

Where ever those less actives are, we will go. 
Even if we are in a Corolla.

Happy Mother’s Day!!

Happy Mother’s Day to my Grandmothers!! I love you so much!!

Ah, the good ole humidity!! Well it has been raining here for the past few days! It was such a great time being able to talk to my family yesterday! My cousin Kristi even came down to see me! So good to see them as well.

So a miracle that happened last week: We went out on a team-up with a member the other day. We first stopped off at a Luau for a farewell and graduation party. The members sent us home with tons of food for us and the Sisters. (Sorry Blood family, I took away Sis Bloods dinner) As we left we asked the member if he had anybody that he wanted to see. He said that he did have somebody in mind. So we went to this ladies house and she was going crazy. She was out of control. She just came home from the hospital and she found people in her house using it for a meth lab. She has no money and no food. So she kept on talking out of control so when I got a chance I said: “We came bearing food.” She looked at me and said, "No I don’t want to take your food." I was not going to take that answer. So I got the members key and went out and got the 2 platters full of food and told her to open the fridge. She was so grateful. But previous to all this she was in a panic trying to figure out what to do. She could not contact anybody from the ward for support. So she was finally seeing that we were sent from the Lord to help her out. She started crying. It was such an amazing experience for us and her!

Hope you all had a good Mother’s Day!!