Hey Everyone!!! I hope you all had an amazing week and that you have all been able to see the Lords hand and blessings that he has prepared for us EVERYDAY!!! This week we had the privilege of getting to see and take part in a worldwide missionary broadcast by the general authorities! It was all centered on how we can have more success as missionaries and keep the work of the Lord moving forward! It was so awesome to watch and just think that missionaries all over the world were watching and hearing the same teachings in their own languages and all at different times depending on where they are!

Something very valuable that I learned was how we should always be prepared to share the Gospel. Elder Anderson from the quorum of the 12 apostles said that we should always have the name of the Lord on our lips...ready and prepared to testify of Him at all times and in all places. That really impacted me because as missionaries its obvious that we are always teaching and testifying...but who are we testifying of? Of who or what are we teaching? It is SO imortant that especially as missionaries we are always prepared with the name of our Savior and Redeemer on our lips ready to teach and testify of HIM. That we focus on the power of His redeeming love and teach of repentance, that He suffered for our sins, pains, sicknesses and that every week we can go to church to partake of the sacrament...the vessel in which we can renew our covenants with the Lord and become cleansed once again of our sins. We were taught in the conference that if we focus more on the power not just the doctrine of repenantance and baptism we will see more miracles in the seeds that we are sowing. We learned that the more we come to experience the power of the atonement and repentance in our own lives that it is impossible to not have the desire to go out and share this wonderful message with those that don't know. My whole perspective on how and what I want the people here in this beautiful country to learn and understand is exactly this...the power of repentance and the atonement of Jesus Christ.

This week we have a baptism of a Super awesome youth we have been teaching for about 3 weeks now! His name is Pedro and he is so ready for saturday! I am super excited for hm! We will also have changes this weekend so we will see what happens with that! I am hoping and praying I don't get taken out of my area but we will see! Anyways no mice reports this week so that has been a blessing..its still really hot in case you were all wondering but I love it! I can't believe that I have been gone a year now and that time is going by so fast...but the challenge to myself and to all of you is to always keep the name of the Lord on your lips. To always be ready to teach and testify of Him and His atoning sacrifice. I hope you all have a great week!

Hermana Dickey

Hey Everyone! I hope it was a great week and that you aren't popsicles yet! In case anyone was wondering...I'm not! Haha!

So this week was an intersting one. To start off...We caught the mouse!!! We got home from writing last monday and there it was, stuck to the sticky paper trap that we had put out. My comp and I were standing from a distance laughing and jumping up and down that we had finally caught the dumb thing...but then almost at the same time we stopped and looked at eachother "Now what"! Haha! We caught it but now didn't know what to do with it or how to kill it. Our dueña next door was home so we told her we had caught a mouse in our house but didn't know what to do with it. She just chuckled, handed be a big long stick and said "Here sister dickey this should be hard enough with a little bit of force to squish it". I reached out to grab the stick with a deer in the headlights kind of look on my face because I could not believe that I was going to have to squish this mouse with a big long piece of wood. I can do it if its a cocroach or a scorpion or some type of creepy crawly, but for me hitting a mouse with a piece of wood just seemed so wrong...but I also didn't want that thing coming back to my house so the deed had to be done. We grabbed a broom and swept the paper with the mouse stuck to it out into the road, I turned my head to the side and hit that thing as hard as I could! NEVER AGAIN WILL I DO THAT!!!! Next time I am making Hermana Landaverde do it! But that's if there is a next time, hopefully there won't be.

I am sad to report but, our little family that we had been teaching and that was supposed to get married and baptized on saturday...didn't follow through. It is a long very sad story that I won't get into, but the way I like to look at it is that we planted the seed. They know who and what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is and they know the meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Who knows, maybe in a few months we can go back and see how they are doing. Anyways I hope you all have a great week!

Hermana Dickey

Hola Mundo!!! I hope everyone had a great week and ready for another awesome one! To be completely honest nothing to exciting happened to me this week. My companion and i have almost everything ready for the wedding and baptism of Luisa and Wilian. We just need to take a few more papers to have signed and then we wait until Saturday! I AM SO EXCITED!!!! Eternal Family 2017 here we come!! Seriously people this family is so cute! We passed for them on Friday and Luisa was just getting back from her doctors appt where she was supposed to find out if she was having a boy or a girl. We show up and she just had this huge smile on her face. We asked her what happened and why she had a sort of creepy smile on her face and she just wraps her arms around my companion and I and says " Hermanas I am having a boy"!!!! She has been hoping it was a boy so she is super excited! They don't have a name picked out yet so my companion and I call him Juancito. Sounds like a pretty legit name to me right?

So concerning the title of this lovely email...I have pretty much gotten used to the cokroaches and the scorpions in my shower (believe it or not)...but this week we discovered something else that decided to make itself nice and comfortable in our house as well. Wednesday morning 8:15am. Hermana Dickey was deep into her personal study, reading in the Book of Mormon and recieving personal revelation...when out of the corner of her eye she sees something...but what wasit? She stops reading and looks over in the corner of the room where she had thought to have seen this mysterious creature. With one look and one big yell "Compa"!!!! 2 mice go scurying across the room and underneath my companions suitcase! We both immediately grab the broom and jump on our beds. These mice were nowhere to be found. I could not beleive that there were mice in my house!! To this day they are still there! We put about 4 traps out around our tiny little house but hav not caught one single mouse yet! I don't know how they are getting in or from where...but there is no where for them to go and nothing for them to eat because Hermana Dickey DOES NOT live in a messy,dirty home. In fact the other day our dueña came over to give us our rental reciet and she walked into our house and asked us who we had come clean our home because it is always so clean. I told her I was the one that cleans it...she didn't belaive me but I don't tell lies! So these mice are either going down by death by trap or death by hunger! I will keep ya'll updated! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Hermana Dickey

Soy Nica...

When you come home at night thinking that day you got even more tan...and then you come out of the shower about 5 shades lighter...ummm my area is mostly dirt! Haha!

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a super fantastic week and a great New Years! My new years was interesting and one I will never forget!

The New Years tradition here in Nicaragua is to burn "El Viejo" at midnight to represent the old year past and the new year coming. The Viejo looks like a scarecrow kind of, seated in a chair and on new years eve everyone sets out their Viejo and at midnight soaks it in gasoline and burns it...sounds pretty fun to me but those types of things aren't aloud in the mission. I think next year though I  will keep the Nicaraguan  tradition going in good old Happy Valley and make my own Viejo and burn it! Haha! Don't worry mom the flames shouldn't be to big! Anyways since my companion and I were asleep by 10:30 on new years we set the alarm for 12 midnight so we could at least tell eachother happy new year! The alarm went off and we walked over like zombies to eachother...hugged and then decided to look out our front door to see if the neighbors were burning their Viejo! They were and it was actually super cool! Down the entire street you just saw balls of fire and heard fire works everywhere! New Years is a pretty big event here!

This week we have a baptism coming up and then in the next couple weeks we will finally marry and baptize this super cute famly that we have! I am so excited for them! All in all it is going to be a great week full of laughs, sweat and success! I hope you all have a great week! 

Hermana Dickey