WEEK11- JACOB 4

This email may be a little shorter than the others which may be a nice break because I tend to be long winded in my emails!  Time is just too short 

This week has been INCREDIBLE!  

We had a great Relief Society dinner on Tuesday.  Torre one of our investigators came with us and it was a blast.  Sister Cubit put together a great evening of fun and food.  She had it set up as a school setting so we went through the 'lunch line' to get dinner and she had her daughters as the lunch ladies putting the food on our trays.  We did a lot of fun activities and she had a great lesson on journal writing.  A lot of the time I feel that my journal entries are just putting a list of things I did that day.  She gave great counsel to write the ways that we see God's hand in our lives.  I believe it was quoted in a talk from Elder Eyring....not completely sure though.  Anyways, keeping a journal is very important.  This morning when I was reading in the Book of Mormon, the importance of journal writing was again reiterated.  Jacob 4:3-5.  I encourage you to look that one up!

On Wednesday we had our Book of Mormon class and the chapter we studied was Alma 17, talk about a powerful chapter.  The moon that night was incredible it was full and RED!  It was absolutely beautiful!  I immediately thought of Grandma and I hope she looked at the moon that night too.  She always appreciates a beautiful moon!  

Thursday we got to do service for our new Relief Society President Sister Casey.  She is wonderful.  We went and helped her in her garden.  She has an incredible garden, it is huge!  She gave us some blackberries, cucumbers, peas and broccoli!  We are spoiled.  I just realized we are really short on time but missionary work is really moving forward in this area!!! I will give a better update next week!  My challenge for the week for all of you is to write in your journals!  I know that as you do so and focus specifically on the ways that you have seen the hand of the Lord in your life that you will be amazed by the many ways that God has helped you.

I love you all and wish you the best this next week!  

Sister Dixon    

WEEK 10- MISHIMERRIES

We had another great week here in the NEK (Northeast Kingdom)!  Tuesday night we had an incredible lesson with David and Torre.  We taught the Plan of Salvation; it was probably the best lesson we've had with them.  The spirit was very strong.  We got to paint a barn on Thursday!  Bro. Cubit's uncle has a barn up the road from us and so he asked us to come and help.  It was a lot of fun!  We had dinner with Sister Goodrich who is Brother Cubits sister and a lot of the Cubit clan came too.  This branch is very family oriented.  It felt like we were at a family reunion!  We had a good lesson on the Restoration with our new investigator LeAnn that night.  She is really open to learning more about the Gospel so we are loving being able to teach her.  Friday we had a really fun experience with Illene, who is a member that lives just down the road from us.  We normally see her on Wednesdays but we didn't have time this past week so we told her we would definitely come and see her, we just didn't know exactly what day.  A little background on Illene.  She is in her 70's and is the sweetest lady ever.  She isn't completely there mentally, but she loves the church and the missionaries.  So we walked up to their porch and she was so excited.  She was saying how she had just thought about us and was telling her son Norman that she thought we would show up today and as she was telling him that we walked up.  That just got her so excited so after our little lesson we asked her to say the prayer.  It was one of the best and happiest prayers I have ever heard.  I wish I could have her tone of voice in the email but you'll just have to do your best to imagine it.  She said "Thank you for the missionaries we just love them so much, they are so nice.  I was just thinking about them and WOW they just show up.  That just made my day!"  That prayer brought the biggest smile to my face.  She is so sweet.  Saturday we had another one of those days where you throw your original plans out the window and follow the spirit.  We were planning on going to Island Pond like we normally do but we felt like we needed to go to the Stevens(Craig and Geri) so this is Dean Stevens brothers family.  Craig fell off a roof on Wednesday and crushed his heel and broke three bones in his foot.  We went over to their home and were able to help around the house and also with building the wheelchair ramp they are putting in their home.  Angela one of their daughters who is about 5 years old and is adorable would call us the sister mishimerries.  If that doesn't melt your heart I don't know what would!  Before we went to the Stevens home we were able to see the Cerruttis.  They just moved up here from Montpelier and Gertrude had been taking the missionary discussions while she was there.  The Sandersons knew them so they came with us to visit them.  They are really great and we are going to start teaching her.  Mo, her husband is less active but he really wants to come back to church and knows he can't come back fully unless his wife is with him.  Sunday was incredible!  The Cerruttis and Danielle came to church so that was wonderful.  We got to teach the youngest primary class and it was a lot of fun.  We had dinner with the Stevens (Dean Stevens) Don't worry this is still confusing for me too!  He had invited his friend to come with his wife to have dinner with us and have a Gospel message, but those plans fell through.  We still had a very spiritual Gospel message along with a wonderful dinner and got to spend time with a wonderful family!  I had a really neat experience all day on Sunday.  It's really hard for me to explain through email how I felt but I'll do my best!  All day I had this burning desire inside me to serve the Lord and the people in this area and it filled me with joy that I can't explain.  I just felt complete happiness and joy being a missionary and being able to serve the Lord.  I know that this feeling came because of serving the Lord, and the great thing is is that you don't have to be a missionary to feel this way.  All you have to do is sincerely pray and serve the Lord and I can promise you that you will feel the same happiness.  My testimony of prayer has greatly increased this week.  I realized that I was just in the habit of praying...which isn't necessarily a bad habit to have, but I realized that they were losing sincerity.  I decided to change that this week and I can't even begin to describe the changes the have happened for me personally because I did so.  God is listening and waiting to pour His blessing upon us, all we have to do is sincerely ask. 

I love you all and hope that all is well!

Peace and Blessings from the NEK

Sister Dixon      

WEEK 9- FIRST ZONE CONFERENCE

This was an exciting week!  I got to go on exchange with one of my MTC companions Sister Kotter.  She is in Lemoille, so that was a neat experience seeing how the work is going in that area.  One thing I love about the church is that no matter where you go, the church is the same.  Every ward or branch is filled with incredible members of the church!  I love it!  Thursday we had some pretty neat experiences.  We had quite a few plans for the day but quite a few of them fell through. Torre called and cancelled because she had hurt her foot, so that left a pretty big chunk of time to fill.  We went to Barton and a few other things fell through so we decided to go to Bella and Sara's house.  Sara was home so we asked if there was any service we could do at their home.  She called her mom and asked if there were things that they could use our help with so me and Sister Deters mowed the lawn and cleaned up the yard and did some dishes.  It's pretty awesome how the Lord always provides a way for us if we look for ways to serve.  We also got a new investigator today!  She was on the potential investigator list so we decided to stop by her home and see if she was interested.  She talked to us for a good half hour and we answered a lot of her questions.  She already basically believes everything we believe and so I really think that once we share with her the fullness of the gospel she will be solid!  We're going to start teaching her the lessons on Thursday!  Friday we had a pretty good lesson with Phil who is a less active member in the branch.  He seemed so much more relaxed and open to learning so that was wonderful!  We hadn't been able to get a hold of Danielle (one of our investigators) over the phone so we decided to stop by after seeing Phil.  She was home and we were able to talk to her and it was incredible.  She basically shared with us her desire to change so that she can have the gospel the center of her life.  The Atonement of Jesus Christ can work miracles on those who have desire to change.  She came to church on Sunday and we had a lesson with her last night and we have another one planned for Thursday so things are moving right along.  Saturday we were able to help Tammy again with getting her things unpacked and sorted out.  She fed us dinner and we were able to answer some more of her questions about the church.  We had our first zone conference on Monday!  It was at the Joseph Smith Memorial so that was incredible.  The spirit there is so strong there and I feel so lucky to be able to serve in the area where the Prophet who restored the gospel was born.  We learned some awesome things in the conference and I am extremely excited to see how things will change in our area as we make the changes that were taught.  I think the biggest thing is having a positive attitude!  Attitude is truly everything.  There are quite a few reasons that could make it easy for me to have a little bit of a negative attitude being in the area that I'm in because of the 'lack of success' this branch has felt they've had in the past, but God is hastening the work and this area is not excluded from that promise!  I've already witnessed so many miracles here in the past couple of months and I know that many more are in store!  I couldn't have been put in a better place to serve at this time.  I learn so much from the wonderful members here and I want to do everything that I can to help them see the miracles of missionary work.  

My companion had me read Doctrine and Covenants Sec. 11 this morning and I thought it to be very enlightening and motivating so I hope it can have the same effect on all of you, because we are ALL missionaries.

Verses 8-14 were the ones that really stood out to me.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, even as you desire of me so it shall be done unto you; and, if you desire, you shall be the means of doing much good in this generation.

Say nothing but repentance unto this generation.  Keep my commandments, and assist to bring forth my work, according to my commandments, and you shall be blessed.  

Behold, thou hast a gift, or thou shalt have a gift if thou wilt desire of me in faith, with an honest heart, believing in the power of Jesus Christ, or in my power which speaketh unto thee;

For, behold, it is I that speak; behold, I am the light which shineth in darkness, and by my power I give these words unto thee.

And now, verily, verily, I say unto thee, put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good-- yea, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy; 

And then shall ye know, or by this shall you know, all things whatsoever you desire of me, which are pertaining unto things of righteousness, in faith believing in me that you shall receive.

God has blessed us all with our own individual gifts, and with these gifts He has given us we can "be the means of doing much good" and our souls can be filled with joy!.  I know this to be true!  I invite you all to identify the gifts God has given you and when you do this God will bless you with even more gifts.  I send my love and prayers to all who are reading this.  I love you all and wish you the very best!  I hope you all have a wicked good week!

Much love, Sister Dixon

WEEK 8- TWO MONTH MISSIONVERSARY

I cannot even believe that two months have gone by this quickly!  I am blown away with how fast time has gone by.  It freaks me out a little!
Well this week has been quite exciting!  So to start things off right, me and my companion reached our goal of 4 member present lessons this week(which was only possible through many prayers and the Lord's help) this may sound like a small number, but for our area we consider it a huge success, so we are going to reward ourselves to Tim and Doug's ice cream!  Woot woot.  We constantly hear about this delicious ice cream and felt it a good reward if we reached our goal.   
We now have a branch mission leader!  So our struggle to get 4 member present lessons will not be such a struggle any more! 

We realigned the boundaries of what area we cover which was nice because we were using way too many unnecessary miles trying to hit every part of our area.  We have started up a Book of Mormon class that we do on Wednesdays which is really good.  So far only members have come, but we are hoping we can get some investigators there as time goes on.  Our new branch president called us on Tuesday and asked if he and his daughter Haily, who has been out teaching with us before, could come and go teaching with us...talk about an answer to our prayers!  We have been trying so hard to have members present at as many lessons as possible, so having them call and offer was a huge blessing!  We were able to visit a few less active members and then we had a really neat experience with our investigator Torre.  Torre's boyfriend was raised in the church but it wasn't extremely consistent so he hasn't been to church for a while.  President Pingree bore such a strong testimony and committed them both to come to church this Sunday.   We had an incredible lesson with our investigator Danielle on Thursday.  Her boyfriend is a member, but hasn't been active in the church for a very long time.  She wanted to have her little girl blessed this Sunday so we invited Bro. Cubit (one of the many Cubits in the branch) to come and talk to her about what a blessing was.  After he explained to her what a blessing was we taught about the Plan of Salvation.  The spirit was SO strong.  This Gospel has to be true!  I wish I could better explain the experience, but in short she felt the power of the Holy Ghost manifesting the truth of what we were teaching and it was undeniable! On Saturday we helped Tammy continue to move into her new apartment.  The Steven's family invited us to have dinner with them after church on Sunday and told us to invite Tammy so we did and she accepted!  Sunday morning we were waiting for Danielle to show up because she was planning on having her little girl blessed that day and we waited and waited and still no sign of her, so we checked our phone and she had called and left a voicemail.  Sadly her boyfriend was held up and would have missed the blessing so she is rescheduling to do it next month.  I was pretty sad that she wasn't going to be there, but everything does happen for a reason.  David and Torre came to church!!! It is seriously one of the greatest feelings when an investigator comes to church....and they stayed for all three meetings!  I was a little worried that day because I was having a terrible time focusing and I really wanted to be completely focused and ready because I wanted so badly to have a good first lesson with Tammy that night.  Through a lot of prayers we were able to turn the day around!  We had dinner with Tammy in the Steven's home which was great.  I know I talk about the Stevens family a lot, but they are just incredible, so having dinner and a lesson in their home is just the best way to go.  We had quiche for dinner which I'm pretty sure was a first for me!  It was super good!  We also had some homemade seafood chowder...talk about deliciousness.  Aside from the good food, we taught Tammy the Restoration and it was great.  I have found that there are few things that bring the spirit as strongly as the account of the first vision.  Saying the account word for word as the Prophet Joseph Smith described what he saw brings the spirit instantly.  It was really neat because right before we quoted the first vision the entire atmosphere changed and everything went silent, again it's hard to explain these experiences, but it is such a testimony builder to me that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ, I have never had a stronger testimony than I do now of Joseph Smith's experience. And how lucky am I to be serving in the area of the world that he lived!  I can't believe how incredibly blessed I have been.  Everyday I see more and more the ways that God has blessed me; it is completely beyond my comprehension.  I know that this church is true, and I know that the joy that I have in my life is from living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I have the most incredible family in the world, and I am so grateful to them for the constant support that they give me.  I want to thank everyone for their prayers in my behalf.  I truly feel supported in all the trials and struggles that I have and I know that it is because of these prayers that I am able to make it through and to be happy while doing so! 

So there are a couple of scriptures I'd like to share that I can bear a personal testimony on from this week.

3 Nephi 18:20

And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you.

Mosiah 2:41

And moreover, I would desire that ye consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God.  For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness.  O remember remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.

I know that God hears and answers all our prayers, even when it isn't in the way we expect, or the timing we would like, God keeps His promises.  I also know that happiness comes from keeping the commandments.  Although it isn't always easy, it is worth it and God blesses us for it!  I love you all and wish you a very wonderful week filled with happiness and joy and answered prayers!

Sister Dixon

WEEK 7- LAST OF THE FIRST

So yesterday I finished up the last day of my first transfer!  Talk about CRAZY!  I can't believe how fast time is going by.  It makes me a little sad.  I don't want my mission to go by this fast!  Although some days are longer and harder than others, these past six weeks have been so beyond incredible.  I am happy to report that my companion and I are staying in Orleans!  I would have been pretty sad if I got transferred out right as we are finally getting things rolling in this new area.  I am really looking forward to the next six weeks!  Here is the breakdown of this past week.  First off the weather has been fabulous!  So much cooler and less humid than weeks past.  Monday night we went on exchange again.  This time I got Sister Cowley for my companion.  We worked together all day Tuesday.  I just have to say right now that Tuesday was INCREDIBLE!  We had so many neat experiences. Haley, a girl from the branch came teaching with us all afternoon.  We taught one of our investigators Kenneth and the lesson went extremely well.  We had taught him once before and didn't know if he was grasping everything we were teaching.  This time around he completely opened up and seemed to understand much better.  The Spirit was really strong and Haley did an incredible job bearing her testimony.  It is always nice to have members be involved in missionary work.  Sadly our appointments with Danielle and Torre both fell through.  That night we had dinner with Haley's family; it was wonderful!  Her whole family is solid.  We played Restoration Jeopardy and it was such a neat experience.  Who would've thought that a game could bring the Spirit so powerfully?  When we got home we went to visit Ray, a less active that lives down the street.  He was outside on a walk so he just walked with us back to his porch where we do all our visits.  We watched Finding Faith in Christ and had a really great and spiritual discussion.  I was just blown away with all the great experiences we had in one short day.  Wednesday we had our last district meeting before transfer calls.  We had district eat out and went to a Chinese buffet....Dad it wasn't nearly as good as the one you took us to. ;)  We started up our Book of Mormon class.  Two of the Cubit's came which was really nice.  We were hoping so badly that Ray would come because he seemed so determined and set on being there, but sadly he didn't show.  Thursday just about everything was falling through.  We decided to head to Island Pond a little early because we had a dinner appointment with a member scheduled.  We thought we'd stop by and see Tammy.  She is the one we helped move in a few weeks ago.  Boy was she happy to see us.  She is so incredible!  I know without a doubt that we were supposed to stop by her house that night.  We ended up staying way longer than we expected but it was such a great visit.  She has been having quite the struggle in this new home so we're hoping that we can help her as much as we can.  She is super open to discussing religion and says she wants to come to church, so we are way excited.  We got to do some service on Saturday.  We helped Chris, a member of the branch, in her garden.  She gave us some zucchinis so I'm excited to fry em up! We then went to the Stevens and were able to have a great time there with their family.  I still can't believe how strong they are through all that they have been through these past few weeks.  We had to be in a little early Saturday night for transfer calls.  Talk about torture.  Luckily I'm staying right where I am!  The only person in our district being transferred is Sister Cowley. 
Sunday was pretty exciting!  Our new branch presidency was called.  President Pingree is our new branch president which is AWESOME!  He was the one that we had dinner with this past week.  I really feel that we can get missionary work rolling in the branch now.  I hope that this change can bring a little more stability to the branch.  Oh and probably the greatest news of all, our investigator Danielle came to church!!!!  Talk about Christmas in July!  It was the most exciting thing to see her there!  I can't wait to meet with her again this week.  I'm really looking forward to another great transfer in the Green Mountain State of Vermont!  Best wishes to all you fishes!  Here are some words of wisdom from my recent readings in the Book of Mormon.  1 Nephi 15:24-25   
24...whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction.

25....give heed to the word of God and remember to keep his commandments in all things.

HOLD TO THE ROD!  I love you all and wish you the very very best! 

Sister Dixon

WEEK 5- OH HOW LOVELY WAS THE MORNING

 Quite the week in Vermont!  Monday was a sad day, Rosanna Stevens passed away.  She has been fighting cancer for the past 9 years.  My companion and I had the privilege of meeting her a few times before she passed away.  She is absolutely incredible, and she has raised 8 phenomenal children.  The entire family just blows my mind.  I have never seen a family that is so strong and positive during such times of trial.  Tuesday we had some good learning experiences.  We had two lessons with investigators and the lessons were a little scattered.  Looking back on it now, it was pretty funny, but in the moment I was just thinking "these people are never going to want to meet with us again!" ha ha ha basically because I felt like we were overloading them with information.  But thankfully the Holy Ghost compensates where we fall short.  So we get to try again this week!  Wednesday was great.  We got 2 new investigators!!!! Like within half an hour.  It was crazy.  So we were visiting one of the less active members on our road and the sons girlfriend was there and so we taught them a lesson and she wants to learn more.  After that we were walking to another less active members home down the street the other way and we saw a man sitting with his dog (everyone here has a dog) a little ways off, but we kept walking.  I knew we should turn around, because we need to talk to everyone!  So we turned around and went and talked to him, and BAM we have a new investigator.  We are meeting with him tonight! Thursday we had some good lessons.  One with another investigator, Betty.  She is an older woman and loves to read and learn.  Before we sisters were in the area, the elders were teaching her, so that was our first lesson with her.  We had a good dinner and lesson with Chris and Phil.  Chris is an active member in the church and is a Relief Society teacher, and Phil has been less active for some time.  We had a pretty good lesson with him, but he still gets a little worked up and uneasy when talking about religion, but I have faith!  So hopefully we'll see some changes happen in his life to get him back to church.......Drum roll please....FRIDAY!  We got to go to the Joseph Smith Memorial. 

The girls in the branch had a stake girls camp at Camp Joseph that is on the property where the JSM is in Sharon VT.  We rode down with President Chamberlain, Brother Stevens (Rosanna's husband), his daughter Julia, and one of the great girls we meet with weekly, Mariah.  It was so fun to see all the girls and to spend time with them at their camp.  When they had a little devotional before the testimony meeting, Mariah, my companion and I got to go over to the Memorial.  It was incredible.  Although it was past closing time one of the missionaries that lives there gave us a tour and everything!  It is absolutely beautiful and the spirit there is quite strong.  Such a neat experience, to say the least.  On Saturday we spent the day in the kitchen.  We made a lot of food for the funeral and did what we could to help.  

The funeral was incredible and there was a really good turnout. They had a true potluck dinner after the service that everyone was invited to.  No assignments were given or anything, but there ended up being plenty of food, and plenty of variety.  It was a lot of fun being able to work in the kitchen with the ladies in the branch!  Sunday after church we were able to help a lady move in.  She came from NY so the elders that had met with her there called us and told us she was coming.  She is pretty awesome and we look forward to meeting with her again!  This week is packed with tons of goodness and I am really looking forward to whats ahead I love you all!

Sister Dixon