Monday, July 28, 2014

A fairly interesting week

July 28, 2014

This week was fairly interesting, and we made some breakthroughs in the work. We saw a couple neat miracles as well. Probably the biggest one was that 1/5th of the people in church were investigators!!! And were going to have a baptism this week!! Ya!!! It was pretty neat how it worked out actually. We went to go pick up one of our investigators, and she was waiting for us outside her piso, and then we went to church and we had that small miracle. The Lord blessed us a ton this week. Also, we visited a couple members and had a couple really great lessons, and saw more miracles from that too.  Other than that, this week wasn't all that interesting.  We had the biggest cruise ship that has ever come to Menorca dock in the port though...that was neat.  There were so many tourists...it was crazy!!!  Oh, and we went and ate with the Clarks and they made us real hamburgers. It was soooo good. The burgers here just aren't the same usually.  But that was basically it. It's been a pretty laid back week.  Next week though....oh boy.  We have a baptism Friday...and we are going to Palma Wednesday, and transfers are next week. WHOO!   The mission is crazy, and I love it!!
 
Thanks for all you do!!
 
Love,
 Elder Dixon

Monday, July 21, 2014

We finally have a fecha!!!

July 21, 2014

This week was a Miracle week!! Want to know why? We finally have a fecha (baptismal date)!!!  Her name is Margarita, and she is really great.  She even got up early and came to church yesterday!  We were on intercambios this week..sorta...Elder Jennings came out here to Menorca, so we didn't really do the cambio part, but while he was here we went to go visit a lady named Dolores, and her sister joined in the lesson this time, and so we invited her to be baptized, and she said yes!!  So, hopefully on the 2nd of August we will be filling up the font.  I'm super excited.  This is the first one here on the island.  

Also, there is a mom and her daughter that really like the activities we do, and so they always come to the church, but they never want us to come visit them in their house.  Well, last week they didn't come to any activities, and we didn't know why until we found out that the mom had had surgery!  So, we called her up and asked if we could bring her brownies, and she said yes!  So, we tried to make brownies....neither of us had done it before, but we had the recipe from Elder Jennings, but even so, they weren't good...at all...but hey, we tried!   So in the end, we went to the store and bought some cookies and took them over to her, and we found out that her daughter had fallen that morning and broken her foot.  We had a really good visit, and now we have to try the brownies again, and we can take them over to their house.  It was a huge blessing. 

Also this week, I had my first piso check, so that was interesting.  (we passed:) and we did a ton of service.  Did I ever say I'm learning how to restore a car?  That's one of the things we are doing for the service.  It's a ton of fun.  We also went to a recent  converts field again and got stung by some wasps.  But one thing I learned this week was that like it says in 1 Nephi 3:7 the Lord will never ask us to do something we aren't able to do.   Even though everyone and their dog knows that scripture, it's still one of my favorites, especially here on the islands.
 
Thanks for all your support and prayers.
 
Elder Dixon
 
Elder Dixon, Jonson and the McCrudden family
 

Monday, July 14, 2014

One success made it all worth it

This week was pretty great.  We did a ton of stuff and service and walking and well, basically missionary work:) one little story is that we were going to visit somebody, but they weren't home, and so we went into pass by mode where we go pass by all the addresses we have records of.   To give you an idea....I have stacks of papers with names, addresses, phone numbers and that's it....clear from 2006.  So, we've been going through those, trying to figure out who they are.  Well, to start with, no one was home, or they didn't live there anymore, or they didn't want anything.  Well, this went on for a while, until we knocked on the door of a man named Roman.  All we had was his address, his name, and that he had been contacted in 2007, and never had talked to us again.   Well, we rang his timbre, and the man who answered asked us which Roman we were trying to find, because there were three who lived there.  So we said that we were missionaries, and he immediately told us to try the next door over.  So we did, and this Roman was super open, and we have a visit set up for next week.  It was pretty neat to see that even though we had had so much disappointment, one success made it all worth it.
 
Another neat story is that we were going to go visit a lady who lives alone, and so we asked one of the recent converts named Rider if he could come.  He said yes, and then later that night, we saw him with one of his friends, and he asked if his friend could come too.  So we said sure, but we thought it was just a joke.  But then when we went to pick Rider up the next morning his friend was there!!  It was super neat, and even though the visit fired on us, we still had a member present lesson, and we ended up talking about missions and encouraging Rider to prepare to go, since he is 17.  It was a ton of fun.  Also this week, we helped restore a car, and cleaned up a field.   I found a  bunch of old rusty tools that are traditional to Menorca, so I asked if I could take them and clean them up...they are really neat, and weird looking.
 
Also, I gave a talk in church this past week. This time I had about a half hour warning, so that was nice:) overall, it was a great week:)
 
Well, I got to go. Love you all.
 
Cuidase!!
 
Elder Dixon

Monday, July 7, 2014

I lost count of the days here on the island.......

July 7, 2014

This week was crazy!!! We had so much going on, and we were running everywhere!! It was super fun though, and we saw a ton of miracles, and I went to bed early a couple of nights because I was so tired! With having all of Menorca to ourselves, if we plan any lessons on different sides of Maó, we have to book it to the visits, and so I'm getting really good at walking fast.  Unfortunately, since my legs are a bit longer than Elder Jonsons, he has been racing all over the place, because one of my strides literally is two of his. It's actually pretty funny.
 
It's getting really toasty here though.   Also, we had a real 4th of July party!!  Ok, part of a party....there weren't any fireworks, they are illegal here, but, we had the little snaps things:) We were with the Clarks and our ward mission leader, Steve who actually is from Utah, he worked at Utah State, and we had American food,Steve's wife (from Uruguay) tried to make s'mores work out....but she forgot that we needed a fire to do it..it was alright though:) But that was great.
 
One of the things that has changed recently is that our sacrament meeting is now at 10, not at 12, and so to make sure that everybody in the ward knew, we went and passed by every ward member in Maó on Saturday. It was a crazy day, and we were all over the place, but in the end we did it, and the neatest part was we actually got a member present lesson out of it. It was pretty neat, because it reminded me of a phrase from Elder Jonson. "Have faith in the members" It's true. When we are in a slump, we just need to trust in the members that they will pull through.  And when we have that faith, they usually do.
 
Thank you all for your support!
 
Love,
 
Elder Dixon