Elder Pier Dick

Today I was on a split with Elder Nielson! I learned a lot from him today and it was really great. I learned about street contacting and the how-to's of that. I learned a lot about being bold and more confident. I've made goals now to improve my studies. As well as my memory. I feel that if I can have spiritual experiences every morning during personal and companionship study, I will be so much more spiritually prepared to take on the day and receive promptings throughout. And a better memory just because it would help.

Finished up my split with Elder Myers this morning. We visited this guy during companion study, and man he is cool. But he also has some serious attachment problems and abandonment problems too. We visited Regina, and I had a couple really strong spiritual prompting during our lesson (which was the April 1st presidency message about faith).  She was saying some really rash things like how she doesn’t believe in miracles anymore and this and that. I felt prompted to promise her that if she read the plan of salvation pamphlet, she would understand God’s plan for her. She seemed really taken aback by that and promised she would read because she really doesn’t understand what her plan is. It was cool. We also visited another sister  today. She is a 26 year old member whose husband cheated on her when she was 8 weeks pregnant. She has 2 kids, divorced once, and in the process of getting divorced again. At 26. How difficult. This was my first time actually having a conversation...

Pier has been permanently reassigned to the New York, New York North Mission. He will serve there until August 23, 2018. He will continue to serve speaking Portuguese, Spanish, and English.

Saturday, April 1st 2017 General Conference!!! “It’s good to have questions, better to write them down, best to write them down and ponder and study them.” I came to conference with 5 questions. I’m definitely receiving answers!  It’s so cool. I love conference. I also thought before that taking notes was a distraction...i think I just didn’t know how to take notes. Because wow it definitely makes the spirit way better. I’ve figured it out!.....for now. Also, after that talk in Priesthood session about being called to serve, and assigned to labor…..everyone came up to me and was like, “Elder Dick! Did you hear that talk that was just for you?!” Oh, thanks guys. Really? Meant for me? Super hope y’all at least TRIED to apply it to yourself!  It had way more implications than just me! Than just missionaries!  It was good though.   I absolutely LOVED Brother Clayton’s talk in the Morning Session. He literally just taught the missionary lesson of the Plan...

Tuesday, April 11th, 2017 Today we had district meeting and afterwards I went on a split with Elder Brown in the Danbury English area! It was fun. I learned a lot from him and he taught me a lot. We taught a Hispanic couple who “spoke” english. They switched to spanish in the lesson because they were struggling with English (without knowing I would understand) and so I got to practice a lot of spanish with them! I surprised myself with how much I could speak. It was still half portuguese, but I feel if i spent a transfer or 2 in a Spanish area, I'd be pretty well off.

Wednesday, April 12th 2017 Today we ended the split with Elder Brown. It was a great split. I really enjoyed it.  When I got back with Elder Pires, we went to take care of a recall for something wrong with our Nissan Altima. So we drove 20 minutes to the Nissan Dealership, and while they were taking care of the car we walked down the highway to Subway to eat. When we got back, the dealership told us that they couldn’t fix everything because Tiwi was plugged in!  So we got to unplug her :) it was a very freeing feeling.  After it got all sorted out we headed back to Danbury. We went to fix Gisele’s curtain rod….And Elder Pires spent about 3 hours trying and trying. He kept correcting me on how I was trying to do it, so after about 10 minutes, I just handed it over to him and let him go at it. 3 hours later, it is still pretty rough. I’m still trying to figure out how to help people realize that they’re not always right.

Elder Rocha and I went looking for this man, Jose Dos Santos Filho, because he appeared in our area book as a less-active member who hadn’t been to church or taught in 2 years. So we decided we were going to go find him. We arrive at the last-known address and knock on the door. This husband and wife open the door, and before I could finish saying that we were looking for Jose the husband let us know, “we aren’t interested! Please, just go away,”....the wife started shouting, “You just wait there one minute, i’ll be right back!!”  In my missionary optimist mind, I was convinced she was going to get Jose! …..and then we heard the garage door open…….out comes the wife with a box in her arms. My next thought: Oh, Jose must have lived here before and a package came for him and she wants us to give it to him when we find him. This poor woman, she starts screaming at us again, saying, “You want to talk to Jose?! WELL HERE HE IS! COME TALK TO HIM! Say what it is you want to say because ...