Number 2

May 14, 2014

 

This week was a crazy rollercoaster of miracles, surprises, adventures, and everything in between. It was super fun. One great miracle that Elder West and I saw happened because we followed the Spirit and it yielded miracles.

 

Elder West had been wanting to go to a certain part of our area for a while, but we hadn't ever been able to because of other things that would come up. However, we finally just set aside the time to go, and we saw an amazing miracle. On our pass by list there is a menos activa with a note that she doesn't want anything, but we decided to try and go anyway, and when we knocked on her door, she actually invited us to come back again, gave us her cell number, and we talked for about half an hour in her doorway (there wasn't a man present so we couldn't go in) Well, later, we talked to some ward members about it, and they said that something must have changed, because just last month she didn't want anything, but now she does. Following the Spirit really is important, and even if the first few times that we try to we can't, at least we are showing the Lord we are trying.  It was really great.

 

Also, this week there were the transfers, and so now that I am on the island of Menorca. I hope to be able to see more great miracles. The area here is absolutely exploding! My new companion is Elder Ponce.  He is super great, and I can tell he will be a ton of fun to work with.  He is from Ecuador, but lived in Madrid, and now lives in Belgium, so he speaks Spanish and French, but little English.  I'm super excited to work with him.  I flew out of Barce last night at 8:50, and now I'm here on a super tiny island in a super tiny city.  It is a huge change from the packed Barcelona I'm used to!

 

So yesterday while I was waiting to leave we went to a museum, called the Cosmic Caixa, that is HUGE!!!!  It has a flooded Amazon forest inside, with all the animals and everything, and its super neat...it also has a ton of physics stuff and a ton of stuff about the Mediterranean ocean....all on the bottom floor.  Wait...how many floors are there? Ya...5. and how long did it take us to go through a half of the bottom one? Ya...2 hours. I HAVE TO GO BACK!!!   Oh, and it was super cheap too. Best museum ever.

 

Anyway, I hope you all had a great week. Love you all!!

 

Elder Dixon

First of Many posts....

May 5, 2014 

This week was a great week, even though our numbers don't show it.  We had an amazing zone focus where we learned how to teach repentance, and that if we teach repentance we will have a ton more success in converting, and retaining and reactivation. Also, there is the promise from Elder Holland that if we teach baptism FOR THE REMISSION OF SIN, then we will quadruple our baptisms.  Incredible.  

We have also been doing a ton of service this week. (we painted two pisos, and cleaned up from a remodeling, and we also visited a menos activo who is the hospital twice) and to top it all off, yesterday we had fast Sunday.  I have been spiritually fed, and I know that we have seen miracles because of the work we have been doing.  One that we have seen already is that we had correlation with our ward mission leader for the first time in awhile, and its because we went and helped clean/paint his piso, and so he had more time to spend with us. (side note, I got to paint a huge picture of Bruce, the shark from Finding Nemo, on the wall of his sons room.  Seriously it is bigger than he is. I'll send pics :) I had a blast!!) I know that as we serve others as a much as we can, we can be blessed.  And beyond that, I also got to see Elder West be amazing like always with how caring he is and willing to serve however he can.  It was really great to see that, and I know that he is going to finish his mission super strong. Also, one cool thing that we have decided to start doing is trying to contact, either by calling or knocking on their doors, at least 10 members a day.  So far we have been averaging about 12 a day, and one day we even got up to 18.  It's crazy though, that even when we knock on 15 doors, and call each of them plus three more people, only 4 answer. but we are still trying!!! 

Anyway, I hope you all have a really great week, and also HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!! Shout out to mine:) She's the best:)

Embrazo,

Elder Dixon

...once again, and we saw miracles!!!

April 28, 2014

This week was a good once again, and we saw miracles!!! The neatest one was that we have been meeting with a lady named Yahira, who was a reference from the hermanas of the other ward.  Well, we invited her to be baptized a week ago, but she said she wasn't ready, and since then we haven't been able to have a visit with her because she works a ton!  Well, this past week we got a phone call from the hermanas of the other ward, who told us they had an awesome reference for us, who they just barely had a visit with and who accepted a fetcha!!  And that's when we realized it was Yahira.  The hermanas had forgotten they passed her to us.  The lord works in mysterious ways, but those ways work!!!  We have also been working with a lady from Brazil named Neidi (pronounced Negie) and she is absolutely amazing, and super ready to hear the gospel.  It's incredible how prepared she is, and the best part is, she has invited one of her friends, Lele, to church, and a bunch more to English class!!  It's incredible!!!

 

Other than that, not much really has happened.  There are two missionaries leaving from our ward to Madrid, Peterson and Joselyn, so we got to go to their farewell last night, and that was good to see, but beyond that not much has happened.  We have some new investigators and we have been meeting a lot with recent converts and less active members, and overall we have just been having a blast.  One thing that's kinda funny, is since Elder West and Elder Sutton(one of the other elders in my piso) only have 2 months left of their mission, we have little signs up everywhere that say "finish like a man" it's pretty great:)

 

I hope you all are doing well.  Keep reading the scriptures, and praying and going to church, and if you have any friends who want to learn about the gospel, talk to the missionaries!!!

 

Love,

Elder Dixon

20 Lessons in a Week!!

April 21, 2014

 

This week was really great!!! The work is picking up in our area a little, and it feels really great. Want to know why? Because we have turned our focus on the menos activos and conversos recientes. Because of that we got a new friend to teach!! We almost had three, because we went to visit a menos activa lady, and she had three friends she invited to come listen. Two of them had other stuff they had to do so they only stayed there for about 10 minutes, but we got a return visit with Jaime! Only bad part is, well, he is moving to Madrid in about a week....but he has come to church, and we are going to go eat at a members tonight, and he is going to come with us. It's really great. Visiting menos activos and conversos recientes is a really effective way to find new people to teach.

 

Also, this week one cool thing that I learned is that I need to stop focusing on what we haven't done, and instead realize what we HAVE done. Example: this week I was feeling bad because we only had 8 member present lessons. And then I realized we have had 10 with less actives/recent converts, and 2 Other lessons. That's a 20 lesson week! In Zaragoza, that was always our goal, was to have a 20 lesson week, and we did it this week!!! Even though we didn't hit the mission goal of 12 member presents, we still had great successes, and that is part of why this week was so great.

 

Also, I wanted to tell all of you that if you haven't already, go to mormon.org and watch the video on there..in Spanish its called "gracias a el", which means "Thanks to Him", but idk if that's the title in English. All I know is that yesterday if you went to the homepage of YouTube it was the first video on there, so that was pretty cool:) anyway, it is awesome!!!! Only 3 minutes, but incredible. Go watch it. Now. 

 

Anyway, that's pretty much it!!!

 

Love you all!!

 

Elder Dixon

the next installment....

April 14, 2014

This week was good, and we saw miracles, but really nothing extraordinary happened. One thing was just that we had been feeling we needed to go to arc de triumf, but since that is the boundary of our area we have been putting it off, and this week we finally went and we found a menos activo who was really happy to see us, so that was a small but simple miracle.  Our numbers this week are kind of low  unfortunately, but not because we weren't trying.  Our visits just keep failing on us!!  Satan does a really good job of making people forget they have appointments with us.  Another part of it too probably was that I had to put my foot down and make Elder West sign up for his classes, because up until Wednesday he still hadn't. That took a lot of time unfortunately, but Oscar was with us (he is a member who doesn't have a job so he is always with us, and if we don't call him to go on visits he gets mad.  He literally is with a companionship at least once a day) and so I was able to help him try and find his line of authority, and figure out how to use lds.org, so it was a good use of time, and then later that day we had a couple really good member present lessons with him helping us.

 

This week was also really difficult, because we had kind of a spiritual hiccup, where for my part at least, it was tough to feel the Spirit for a day or so, due to an argument we had with the other elders in our piso over a small little thing.  It's all better now, but it was super hard to break through.  But, fortunately I have an amazing companion, who holds the Priesthood and was able to give me a blessing.  I really needed it, and for him to have been there was great.  He is what I imagine having a brother is like.  Someone that can annoy you to no end, but as soon as anybody says anything against them, they are going down.  That's the kind of relationship we have.  Also, being able to fast helped out a ton.  I love fast Sunday.

 

Anyway, that was all that happened this week. Love you all!!!

 

Elder Dixon

 

Conference was Amazing!!

April 7, 2014

 

So, this week was a blast!!  We got caught in a huge rainstorm, had interviews with president, and to top it all off, conference was amazing!!!

 

One cool little experience we had, was that we had been at a visit, and our plan was to go to the office and drop off some stuff, and on the way pass out invitations for conference, inviting as many people as we could in the metro.  Well, in the excitement, we accidentally got off one stop too early , and so we waited for the next train, and once we got on, I contacted a man, who said he didn't believe in organized religion, just in his heart, and he refused the invitation. Well, we got off the next stop, and he went one way, to go out of the metro, while we went another to get on another train. About 3 minutes later, as we were going down the stairs, this same guy ran up to me and asked me for one of the invitations, then just ran back the other way. It was really neat, but at first I didn't know what had happened, until Elder West just said "Wow, that was a miracle".  It really was.  Unfortunately, I didn't see him at conference, but I hope he got to see it somehow, and wants to learn more.

 

 I also wanted to share some things that I learned from conference. One that I loved, but also confused me to no end was something I learned from President Eyring.   I learned that we can make more covenants with the Lord than just baptism, and the ones in the temple.   But then, the question is, How?  What are they?  How do I make them? How do I FIND them? I love the idea, I just have no idea how the idea works!!!  So, that's gonna be one of the things I'm gonna be studying for the next little while.  I also learned I need to repent and stop worrying about the little things, and just make sure I'm studying and praying.  Obviously, here on the mission that is easy, because we have time set apart for that, but after the mission is when this one will really come into play I think.  Also, I loved Elder Ballard's talk.  Every single one of you needs to read Preach My Gospel.   It will help you so much.   It really is a great book.  Anyway, those are just some thoughts I had.   I hope you liked conference as much as I did, and that you all have an amazing week.

 

Love you all,

 

Elder Dixon

MTC AMBASSADOR MISSION?!?! AWESOME!!!

April 1, 2014

This week was amazing!!! It started off well on Monday, preparation day, when we had a barbecue with an investigator, that quickly turned into a water fight, then got even better when Elder West and I had 3 news and 1 member present at the end of the day. It happened because as we were walking to a members house for a noche de hogar, we saw a couple loaded down with bags, and the guy dropped some, so we asked if we could help. Well, then it turned into a hour and a half lesson/service opportunity by helping this family move to their new piso, and at the end when we asked if we could come back and share a message, they said yes!!!! (only problem...they live in the hermanas area, so we get to pass them.....sniff...) but, they also live with a lady who is super interested, and she wants to come to English class too, and she wants to bring a friend too!!!! MIRACLE!!! (for the Hermanas.....) from there it just got better!

We found 2 more new people to teach through miracles just like that one as well. However, the biggest miracle this week was that we had a baptism.  It was absolutely amazing, and without the Lord's hand in it, it wouldn't have been done.  So, the person who got baptized is from Cameroon, Africa, and he only speaks French. I don't, and neither does Elder West.  So, we have been asking help from the members who do speak French to translate for us, which worked out pretty well.  But then, on Tuesday we had a lesson with him, and as we were about to go to the lesson, the member fired on us.  So, we tried to find somebody else, but instead we found out that not one of the members who spoke French could help us....for the whole week, and his baptism was scheduled for Saturday!!  So, we went to the lesson, and fortunately he has a French Book of Mormon, so we were finding verses and showing them to him in French, trying to teach him a lesson that way, when suddenly, Elder West remembered that Elder Clark went on his mission to France!  So we called him up, and asked if he could help this week, and he instead told us to go to the office with Jonas right then and he could help us, and in the end, Elder Clark was able to translate for another lesson with him, and he also did the interview for him.   Oh, and he taught the baptismal prayer to Elder West in French, so Jonas was baptized in his own language!!   It was so special, and very spiritual.   I loved it, and I loved being able to see the miracles that happened.  Oh, also this week, John was confirmed, with Jonas, so that was pretty neat too.  That was the first time I've given a blessing in front of a crowd of people, and the fact that it was in Spanish made it pretty nerve racking, but it was a very good experience.

 

Also, yesterday was Elder West's birthday, and so we had a lot of fun.  It's kinda weird though, I'm 18, and everybody else in the piso is 21, but I have been in the ward the longest.....I feel super young.  But Elder West is a amazing companion.  He had so much fun yesterday, and we found out it was also Archie's birthday, so we went to his party as well and had a blast.

 

Ok. so last thing.  Transfers were this week. so, this week, I'm actually emailing you from a computer in the Madrid MTC again...ya. It's actually really really neat.  All the missions the MTC empties into (so basically most of Europe) have a "ambassador" missionary - one from each mission, to help the new missionaries learn more about their missions and to help them be better prepared.  It's pretty neat.  So, I'm in a trio, with Elder Case, from the Madrid mission, and from Utah as well, (he's from Saint George and has about a year in the mission) and Elder Ochoa from the Malaga mission who was born in Ecuador, but lives in Hospitalet (which is right next to Barcelona and he only has 9 months in the mission) So, it's pretty crazy.  I got on a train super early this morning (5:46 to be exact) and now, I'm here in the MTC again...one good thing, I don't have to worry about buying food!!!!! Whoo!!!!  But ya, it's crazy.  Ok, well, I have to go now, so, I hope you all have a good week!!!

 

Thanks for your support! I love you all

 

Elder Dixon

 

Oh, and PS........

 

How many of you remembered it is April fools day? :P I'm still in Barce (that was just a transfer night mare I had:) love ya!