The Great Beginning

MTC Week #1

Elder Dickson's first email has arrived along with two pictures. Enjoy!

Here are some excerpts from his letter:

I was hoping for an email or two to be waiting for me when I logged on, but I guess you guys lost my address or haven't handed it out to people. I am allowed to email family and friends and they give us an hour to do so, so emails are awesome. 

Things have been pretty crazy here. I wasn't expecting so much to be crammed into the first week, but we've already taught three discussions in Portuguese and started talking about the subjunctive tense yesterday. I guess you could say I'm receiving the gift of tongues faster than I expected.

My district consists of 11 people, eight sisters and three elders. Yes, I'm in a tripanionship. Anyway, my district is as follows:

Sisters Downs and Edwards

Sisters Jones and Walker

Sisters Gannon and Sasine (Sister Sasine's first two names are Lauren Elizabeth)

Sisters Oppenshaw and Zambrana

and Elders Lund, Hamilton, and Dickson.

We've already started to gel as a district and have received several comments about how well we are doing for how early we are in our language study. We all teach the same mock investigator, who only speaks Portuguese, and have been told that he is very satisfied with how each companionship has treated him and attempted to communicate in a language we hardly know. They're a good group. I'm not sure which of the pictures of our district is best, but they're all there. From left to right: Sister Edwards, Sister Downs, Sister Oppenshaw, Sister Zambrana, Sister Gannon, Sister Jones, Sister Walker, Sister Sasine, Elder Lund, Elder Hamilton, and me.

Sunday night we had a devotional in which an older brother portrayed Willard Richards and told the story of his conversion and ended with his experience at the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. It was a powerful testimony of the prophet and I would certainly recommend studying his life and journals from those who knew him. After the presentation we sang Praise to the Man. I'm sure Dad can remember the gym being full of missionaries singing hymns and the power in that room, but when we sang that hymn, I couldn't finish it. I haven't cried to the point I couldn't speak/sing since I first saw the Joseph Smith Movie at his birthplace. Very powerful. 

That's about all I have for now. Other than studying, not much happens here. Maybe I'll get some great stories in the next few weeks. For now, I need emails from people!

Love you all,

Elder Sam Dickson