Elder Pier Dick

Monday, 12-26-16 I g ot to skype with my family on Sunday. It was fantastic!  We were instructed to keep the call to less than an hour, and we were promised huge blessings if we did so. So our call was 58 minutes long. And let me tell you, the blessings came!  I wasn’t distracted at all thinking about home. It didn’t make me homesick, it made me happier. The blessings of following the rules truly come.

This week was great! Shorter than most though, since the change in P-days. Our days to prepare for the upcoming week used to be on Wednesdays, but now they are Mondays!   Elder Brasileiro is doing fantastic! He has some great news about his sister and her mission call! Their family is so excited for her.  She will be serving in Temple Square!  So all my Utah friends, come May, take a trip up to Temple square and ask around for Sister Brasileiro!  Please, she's super cool.   It's really cool because Elder Brasileiro's English is improving so much. When I came, he knew English super well. But it's cool to see the improvements!  I know for me, I've felt the improvements in my Portuguese. It's so amazing to be able to show that to our investigators, and members! Those that knew me my first few weeks saw how much I struggled to speak. And now, they get to witness a miracle of God with their own eyes. My Portuguese is far from perfect, but the lan...

12/07/16 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is currently doing a worldwide campaign completely focused around service.  It is called #LightTheWorld and it is completely based around performing acts of service that are like Jesus Christ. Take 3 minutes right now and go ahead and watch this video that our Church released depicting the acts of service Jesus did, and the comparison of what we can do today; www.mormon.org (just hit play) I think the strongest message in this video is the idea that Jesus Christ performed these grand miracles. Healing the blind, feeding 5,000. He was truly powerful, endowed from on High. Us today, can we heal the blind? Can we feed 5,000? Surely not like Jesus did. But we have our own ways. Healing the sick, can’t we donate blood? Or bring a homecooked meal to a sick friend? Or even simply pray for those who are afflicted?  All of these are acts of service. Certainly not as grand as touching them and saying “Be healed,” But the...

The more we serve our fellow men, the more substance there is to our souls….We become more substantive as we serve others. It becomes easier to ‘find’ ourselves, because there is so much more of us to find! Everyone, individually in their life, approaches and ponders the three big questions of life. Who am I? Why am I here? And where am I going?  This week, I want to offer an answer to this first question, Who am I? And actually, not so much as an answer, as much as a tried-and-true method for answering this question yourself.  Take a moment right now and ask yourself who you are. Are you a wife? Husband? Teacher? Student? Child of God? What truly DEFINES you as who you are?  Of course, coming from a very religious upbringing, and as most all Christians believe that we are children of God, this answer might be the favorite. But, I propose that we are so much more than that. I propose that we are here on this earth for much more than to be self-identified as just “A child ...

A day in the life of an Elder: AKA:What I did yesterday 6:15AM - Woke up, prayed, and ran for roughly 30 minutes 7:00AM - Got home, and took a shower and ate breakfast yum 8:00AM - Personal study. Since our day is filled with teaching people about our church, and bringing people closer to Christ. When I study, I think about these people we are going to teach that day, and what they need to learn and hear about Christ and our Gospel. There's no sense in teaching them about how and why our church doesn't drink coffee on a day when they're really struggling with a recent death in the family! 9:00AM - Companion Study. We study together, and discuss what we will teach those we meet with today and how we will go about teaching it.  This is super cool because you get to see how inspired your thoughts are about the people you have planned, because your companion has the same ideas! That just confirms the hand of the Lord in the lives of these people. 10:00AM - Lang...

I'm sorry I missed last week!  We had the great opportunity to sacrifice the few hours we have for ourselves to help this wonderful family!  We were able to teach them all about Heavenly Father's wonderful gift of us being able to live with our families for all eternity.  We were able to interview this family to see if they were worthy, and believed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ enough to be baptized by the power of the Priesthood.  They are really excited to be baptized soon :) If you ever wondered what a missionary does, a sneak peak is on your way! Be ready for next week's letter, A Day in the Life of Elder Dick! I am a boy. And boys are not good at taking pictures. We just dont ever think to do it. So forgive me for not having anything to show you this week.  Mrs. Kathy, I'm working on that picture of Western Connecticut! I'm forgetful. I will repent and do better!  (Gosh the atonement rocks.) Thank you for all your prayers for me....

10/19/16 This week we were able to visit the Hartford, CT temple Open House! It's an absolutely beautiful temple, and we were able to bring some people who are investigating our church, and teach and show them a little more about what we believe.  It was a great experience.  I hear that my neighbor Mrs. Kathy went to college up here in Danbury Ct. Mrs. Kathy this week I'm gonna get a picture of the college and send it! I think it's Western Connecticut State? I hope you'll like it! There's a ton of Brazilians and Hispanics up here, so I get plenty of time when I couldn't speak English even if I wanted to! Sometimes people will understand a few words in English, so I can just say the words I don't know in English...but a lot of the time those we talk to don't know anything.  This is why I absolutely love teaching English Classes!  I already really like teaching, and being able to make SUCH a drastic difference in someone's life by he...

October 12, 2016 Up here in Danbury, CT almost everyone is an ethnicity other than American.  And these poor people who've immigrated here (most of them illegally) don't know any English! So the missionaries here teach English classes every Wednesday-Friday. We just teach vocabulary for specific things, like this last week we taught what to say during a doctor's appointment. It's super cool to see about 30 Hispanics show up and about 5-10 Brazilians (that's about right on part with the ratio of Hispanics to Brazilians in Danbury).  Teaching about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is kind of really cool. Everyone in the world could have a better life if they worshiped God more (that includes me!) And it seems like most people know this! When we go around to talk about God and be examples of Him, it's so cool to see people's reactions. Some people think we're annoying preachers/salesmen and they hate talking to us and say mean things, but other peo...

After being home for seven weeks recovering from mono Pier was finally able to return to full-time missionary service. His seven weeks home was an enormous trial for him! For the first two weeks he slept 16-18 hours a day. It was a slow recovery, and he still tires easily, but he feels such a strong desire to serve the Lord that he was begging to return to the mission field. On Wednesday, September 28th, he received the most wonderful news! One of "dream" mission locations has always been New York and last week he learned that he would be serving in the New York, New York North mission until his visa clears for Brazil. He was beyond ecstatic!! He will be speaking Portuguese in NY while he visa-waits. Pier left for NY on Monday, October 3rd. Below are some pictures from his arrival. Here is what he had to say about his first few days: I am in the Danbury area. It is 70% Hispanic and 5% Brazilian. Apparently we go to a Spanish branch and I have been told to learn Spvnish too....

8/7/16 This next week will be my last week in the Training Center!  WHOOP WHOOP.  Cannot wait to stop studying for 10+ hours every day.  However, if anyone thinks that high school or college studying was hard, come to this Training Center and try to learn a language in a Month!   What's even cooler, is that it sounds totally impossible.  But I'm about to leave here being totally conversational in Portuguese.  I ran into an employee today who served his mission in Brazil (So he knows Portuguese super well) and we had a 30 minute conversation without a single word in English!  I never planned on being the guy who could speak another language.  And it still doesn't feel like I can. But what's it supposed to feel like?  I seriously imagined my brain feeling HEAVIER.  Cause it's like double the information!  I mean, makes sense, right? Haha, no but this has been super hard, and super rewarding. But yeah, feeling super confide...

Yep portuguese is hard.  My companion got his VISA, and without notification he got sent off at 6am on Tuesday.  So I no longer have a companion at the MTC, and I am the only one on my level in Portuguese.  Some might find this difficult, and a challenge, but IT'S A BLESSING TRUST ME.  As a missionary, I was already getting slightly annoyed with having to be attached at the hip to another guy.  Let me tell you, when you're the only one who has to use the restroom, and your companion has to wait outside the door, that will never not be awkward.  So I'm liking this power as a solo Elder.  Also, being one-on-one with my teachers is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me.  I've more than tripled my vocabulary since Tuesday, and I can say any sentence I want with the proper conjugations.  I'm still lacking vocab, and I need to memorize the conjugating better, but by the time I leave the MTC I really might be close to fluent.  I ...

Hey everyone! This week has been a spiritual strengthening one for sure.  On Sunday I got to sing with the MTC Choir as backup for the Nashville Tribute Band.  They sing gospel songs, like LDS gospel, and they're super country.  But their message is one that relates to any religion so y'all should look them up and listen to some!   The spiritual strengthening part of my week goes as thus: I've started holding myself accountable to Heavenly Father.  Like at the beginning of each day, in my prayers I'll tell Him my goals for the day,  like "study _____ in my language. Get ____ memorized.  Plan ____ lesson" things like that.  And then at the end of the day, I'll tell Him how I did.  Let me tell you, that's intimidating!  He certainly knows when you aren't living up to your potential.  It's only scary because I can hear Him tell me I didn't do well, and where and how I can do better, when I ask.  But when I do a...

7/11/16 I've been here since Wednesday! I've seen over 20 friends that I knew from BYU.  Like TJ Mix, who used to be in the Wilmington Stake, and was my EQ Secretary.  And Landon Paskett, and Isaac Morisse, and Davis Webb, and so many others.  It's so cool to see the Lord's Army out here doing work. Every day we study Portuguese, for over 10 hours.  10 hours.  TEN HOURS.  yeah.  It's really hard. School was nothing compared to this. Haha.  It's kind of annoying to see the English speaking missionaries because they actually have so much free time.  So their time in the MTC is definitely so much easier.  But in the mission field, I feel like they'll probably have it much harder, Americans are kinda brutal when it comes to questioning the church.  Like, the practice investigators they have ask questions like "So Christ came to America?  Why didn't he go to Brazil? Or Mexico? Does He not think they're worthy of being sav...