July 4, 2015

This week was like.. de best! (read in nacho libre accent)

First things first.. I have a major problem. I quote movies ALL the time. Somehow there is a movie quote to everything. Especially Nacho Libre, man that movie applies to everything! But I'm trying to be a consecrated missionary so my goal is to not quote movies or sing worldly songs. and let me tell you... it. is. HARD. But I really am trying and it's been getting b etter! It's hard to break a life time habit.. but now I can relate to my investigators trying to quit bad habits! Well.. sort of. I don't know.

So the spiders here . . . absolutely huge!  Absolutely terrifying!  But it's gotten to a point where I don't scream anymore! But I still react really big and Hermana J says that it's almost funnier when I do it silently with no scream rather than with. Also, FIREFLIES. They are here in abundance and I've fallen in love with them. So cute! I would not even mind if all the mosquitoes in the world were replaced with fireflies. And there are mockingbirds here... and they really do repeat things. But it's alwas the most obnoxious things that they choose to repeat for example: car alarms or fire engines. But it's just one more thing that makes me feel like Katniss Everdeen.

Everything here is Pecan flavored and there is a weekly, if not daily, discussion on whether it's pe-CAN or pe-CAHN. It's quite humorous actually.

So it rained.. no, it STORMED. The other night and it was so awesome! It poured and poured and poured.. causing some flooding here and there but.. oh well. The thunder is SO loud here. It's the best. you know how in Monty Python the sun and the cloud are jumping up and down and it's really loud? Yeah that is what the thunder sounds like, and the lightning lights up the whole sky and when it's really close to our apartment is shakes the apartment

Ok, moving on (I swear I'll get to the spiritual stuff, because there is a lo t to tell!) There are cats EVERYWHERE. Everyone owns either a dog, a cat, both, or 7 cats. There are no other options. But there is always a cat crossing the road, I feel like that one book.. with the millinons and millions of cats. That book was written about Sulphur Oklahoma!

We, Hermana J, Elder Hightower and Elder Burdett) last Pday and it was so fun! For the first hour we caught nothing. But in the last 45 minutes we were catching like crazy. Hermana J caught 1, I caught 5, Elder Hightower caught like..4 and Elder Burdett, man he was on FIRE he caught like 6 or 7. I'll have to send pictures next week. But it was super fun, basically I'm a natural born fisherman. Except I really hated taking the hook out of the fish, I was apologizing the whole time. "Sorry Mr. Fish, I'm so so rry sir, I didn't mean it, I'm sorry"

Miracles this week = TYRA. This black woman, so so baptist, and she is about the greatest thing in the whole  world, she told us that she wasn't getting spiritually fed at church so we taught her the restoration and then invited her to be baptized and she said "Well, I'll have to pray about it, but if that's God's will then it's my will and I'll do it"  AMAZING. Obviouisly that is God's will for her so she'll be baptized in no time! Whoo!

We went knocking doors the other day and aside from sweating my brains out (so so hot, it's only 95 degrees here but the humidity makes it so much worse) and being so terrified to talk to people, it was fantastic! Everyone hides behind their doors but man it's so easy to love people... even when they are scary. Hermana J would say to me as I'm knocking "you got it champion" then I would have to do the whole door approach. Some of them weren't so good.. but I've come to learn that as I rely on the spirit and just open my mouth it WILL be filled.

Our lessons have been going SO well. There is so much power when the spirit is there and I've been teaching a lot more (just opening my mouth, being faithful!) and hermana J says that I'll be training in no time. AHH! I can't do that I'm just a baby! But I don't know.. with all the missionaries we'll be getting here pretty soon.. I just might be training as soon as I finsih my own.

   4th of July was the best day ever.
    Why?
    It's my favorite holiday
    It's the day of "MURICA"
    Red white and blue
    BBQ and FIREWORKS

We started off the day with 4 hours of service for 2 ladies in our branch. The first hour we cleaned out the fence that was covered in gunk from the flooding from the thunderstorms the night previous, then the 3 hours after that we were weeding around the hosue of a lady whose cancer just came back. Weeding is a lot more fun with the elders haha I actually enjoyed it! Except I was sweating so much! Well, I thought I was but then I looked at E Hightower and he had like Niagra Falls comin' down his face, so I felt better about my amount of sweat. I taught Hermana J and E Hightower how to cartwheel and then we were doing headstands (we go hard haha)  That night we had a big party at the home of the RS president and it was super fun. The little kids were just flocked to the missionaries.
We got to have sparklers and Hermana J and I bought glowsticks for everyone. There is just nothing more american that the 4th in OKlahoma I do believe. So much food. So much american pride. LOVED IT

Also this week Hermana j had to go the chiropractor and obivously I went with her because I was her companion and he did an adjustment for me too! (he's a member and does it for all the missionaries for free, he's so awesome. Dr. Welch = my new favorite man) anyway, who knew I had so many problems! I didn't like it when he cracked my neck, but I was laughing so hard that I cried when he was using his little shocker pen on me!

Ok I only have like 5 more minutes so I'll try and so this fast, last night for dinner we had it over at the Boger's and we had spaghetti caveman style (pictures included) the other 3 were eating kind of dainty but my saying was "if it's not all over your face you are doing it wrong" so I was kind of the devil's advocate and spread it all over Hermana J's and E Hightower's faces. I got what I deserved when E Hightower smeared it ALL over my face and hair. We all had a fun time cleaning outselves up in the bathroom and the tub. But it was so fun! haha there was not an adult present (maturity wise) at that table.

I love being a missionary! The work is hard, the sun is hot, the humidity is killer, sometimes the people are hard to work with but I LOVE it. Being a missiionary is so rewarding. Jan and Cadence were confirmed yesterday and their blessings were beautiful. I love the priesthood so much. So I spoke in sacrament meeting last week right? Then i bore my testimony yesterday right? Well I've been asked to speak next week too. It's me and E hightower talking aabout forgiveness it's going to be AWESOME. I love repentance and frogiveness!  (so sorry about all the spelling errors)
 

Anyway, gotta go
LOVE YALL
-Sister Dymock

July 13, 2015

I LOVE missionary work. Can I get an amen? AMEN!  haha, Elder Hightower ALWAYS says amen and hallelujah. It's rubbing off on me.

How did our talks go yesterday you ask? SO great. The spirit was there and we both bore powerful witness. My talk focused on Christ's willingness to suffer and give us the opportunity of repentance and E hightower's talk was focused on our willingness to repent and forgive. So they went hand in hand and it was GREAT.

Hermana J is teaching me Spanish and the other night at a spanish members house I said the prayer IN SPANISH. They were so proud of me they all had to give my hugs right after. "gracias gracias!" "Muy bien"  So.. I can't teach in spanish but you better believe I can pray in it!

Our district meeting this week was on finding new investigators. Which Hermana J and I had been struggling with. But I'm pumped to get out there, talk to everyone, and embarrass myself if needed because EVERYONE needs this message that I have! We saw some super cool miracles. We had all our appointments fall through as did our back up plans so we went to a potential investigators home.. she wasn't there and she started to walk away and I said wait! Let's knock on her next door neighbor! So we did and we met a lovely woman who was so sweet, I gave her a brief run down and introduction to the Book of Mormon, and I gave her one and we are going back this week. Heck yeah!

As we were driving away from her house, feeling SO awesome because that was a miracle and a prompting followed, I saw these two women sitting on their porch smoking and I said "PULL OVER! I want to talk to them!!" So we did and then I got nervous and started to doubt my wisdom in saying that. But as we got out of the car I thought "Fear no man, I have the Lord with me, they NEED my message" and Hermana J was like You got this champ" So we went up and talked to them, they probably thought we were crazy but we started talking to them, learned that one of them just had a baby 2 weeks ago and so we got invited into their house to see her. That baby was SO cute. Not being able to hold kids is killing me, I love them! Anyway, the one who just had the baby, her mom came over (she's a sunday school teacher for the baptist church down the street) and we talked with the three of them, I told them about the Book of Mormon. We gave them not one..not two.. but THREE Book of Mormons. HECK YEAH! And we are going back to teach them a lesson this week. MIRACLES.

All you have to do is open your mouth... you may look dumb sometimes.. but salvation is on the line and it's my purpose to help them come closer to Christ.
 
Pday last week was Zone Pday (so everyone in our zone was together) and we played Flickerball. What is flickerball you ask? It's ultimate frisbee with a football on a basketball court (you try and get it in the hoop)  and it was a BLAST! Hermana J and I were captains, it was Team 'Murica (my team) verses Team Domination (her team) We were goin' so hard and it was so hot, we were sweatin' buckets. I called half so that we could all drink water and we took this sweaty/intimidating picture with our elders. I call it "Got Sweat?" LOVE IT. Basically we are the coolest..ever

Oklahoma is wonderful, so hot, it's suppsoed to get up to 100+ this week so.. whoohoo!
I love it here!
I love being a missionary!
The day is so full and the night flashes right by, but there's nothing quite like waking up and thinking about all the good you get to do and mracles you get to see.
Truly---> Sweet is the work

Love y'all
Sister Dymock

PS I've seen zero snakes so far, that's a blessing but I will say that I've encountered a tarantula or two.. NOT COOL