7/25 email

President Taylor has made it very clear to us that he no longer wants us to tract (knock on doors) and wants us to find through other methods. its kind of crazy that we are changing the way that missionary work is happening! the funny thing is that i have found that the only way to find now is through missionary minded members. we really have to really on them BIG TIME now! Its amazing because those that members find that are interested in the gospel, are like 90% more likely to get baptized!

Here in Barstow it has been really crazy lately! our ward mission leader (our life line) is never anywhere to be found! so we have been doing everything we can but we feel like we are never able to get help from the ward because we can never communicate what we need through the proper channels.. but its ok, we are still pushing on! the last few days there has been a crazy forest fire that totally covers everything in smoke! that has been GREAT for my nose... other than that it is 107 in the shade, on a good day. saturday was 111 in the shade! i know i am broken because it hits 97 and i am wanting a sweater!

Pokemon Go has now become one of our favorite finding tools! EVERYONE is out and about after it starts to cool down in the evening! they are all ouyt catching Pokemon. so we go around and talk to people all the time about it. they are always happy to tell us about what they caught and the highest combat level Pokemon they have. so funny that we are able to use our love of Pokemon to introduce the Gospel to other people!

7/18 email

this week we had the supreme privilege of having a baptism! this marks the 3rd convert baptism that i was able to directly influence for the good in my mission. what wonderful blessing heavenly father has given me my companion and this area! such a wonderful experience to be here at this time!

love you all so much

7/11 email

this week wasnt so crazy... all in all we walked around a lot. ate a lot of dinners. and did a lot of sweating in this Barstow heat! nothing exiting like last week... but i love you all tons! hope you all have a good week!


Elder Brandon Cooke-  Hey everyone, everything going good this week. We have a baptism this Saturday for the daughter and a son of a member who were not baptized at eight. Twill be fun and several more people hopefully in the next few weeks.

7/4 email

this week was just to much!

on Tuesday we got a flat tire and spent about 2 hours waiting for it to get fixed at Firestone.

then on Wednesday we went to a service project and painted for 2 hours! i painted Joseph smiths first vision! it was pretty legit, worth saying i drew it in chalk

on Thursday we where meeting our new mission president (president Taylor) and on the way down we popped another tire! so we had to pull over and change it to the spare, than the spare was flat too! so we had to fill it at a gas station. we where 30 minutes late!

than on Friday we had a HUGE hail storm! there where hail chunks the size of the big marbles! that went on for about 15 minutes!

than on Sunday we locked our keys in the car! and had to get a ride home from the family we where visiting!

and than this morning someone came by and opened it with the tool so that we could come and email here right now! all in all a crazy week in the dessert!

all in all it has been a crazy week!

love you all TONS!

Elder Dickson 

Elder Brandon Cooke
Hello everyone, been an interesting week this week. The lady I talked about last week did not end up getting baptized. Everything else has been pretty un-interesting. Got some MRE's from a move, had some fun at supper with those. Also had a freak hail storm that came through and a flash flood as well. 

6/27 email

his week was kinda crazy! we walked around in above 110 heat 3 times this week! just a little bit of a change from the usual weather. this week we get our new mission president, president Taylor! we get to meet him on thursday, im exited but also really sad that president Hobbs is leaving! but life is change and i can deal with that. i see tons of road runners everywhere! they are a pain in the BUTT to try to take pictures of though! all they do is run away. that is frustrating! well i love you all tons! talk to you all later.

love

Elder Dickson

i basically just die in the heat. hope that picture will work for the plaque! i think you should include the Elder Dickson and arrow! that describes my personality pretty well. i love you tons mom! i will try to remember to write things down for next week!