DOVER DEJA VU

I left my planner in the apartment which basically tells me what happened this week since all the days tend to run together on a mission. I do have to say though that we had some incredible miracles that occurred this past week! Most of them occurred during the weekend.

Friday we had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators Mike. We had Sister Elmer with us and we shared how we could come to know that the gospel is true. We watched the Restoration video, and the Spirit was super strong. Sister Elmer contributed a lot to the lesson through her testimony. Member present lessons are the best!

I got a little package from my mom that had a part of my Grandma Dixon's history in it, with a part of her mission experience in New England. It was so neat to read! I had no idea that we have been in some of the same areas! Not only did receiving that little history make my day, it made my mission!

Saturday we decided to spend the day in Stowe which I heard was an area that hasn't been worked in all that much, so we figured there is work to do there! Oh boy was there ever?! We had so many great things happen. We had a ton of people we planned to stop by. We went to contact a potential investigator and we pulled into the complex where she lived and there was a lady sitting outside with her kids. We introduced ourselves and she said that she's a member of the church! It was like Dover deja vu! CRAZY! She joined the church when she lived in Las Vegas and hasn't been to church for years. We were able to get her information so we could get her membership records and she also agreed to have us over when we are in the area. After we talked to her for a minute we asked about the lady who we were trying to find and she pointed out which apartment was hers. We went and knocked on her door, and we found out that she is closely connected with a recent convert to the Lamoille Ward. She said she belongs to the church her mom goes to, so she isn't too interested in learning right now. About 15 minutes after we left, we got a call from Vincent who is the recent convert she knows. He had just gotten off the phone with Judy, the potential we had just stopped by, and said he invited them to church and they wanted to come. Both Judy and her son Josh came to church on Sunday! Sunday was just another great day in and of itself. We had dinner with the Wheelers, a sweet couple in the Ward. After dinner we were walking back and happened to walk past one of our investigators home right as he was pulling in. We talked to him for a minute and were able to set up an appointment to meet with his family this week. We walked down to the end of his street to contact a less active member. Right as we were leaving her home there were two ladies out in the street that we were able to talk to. One of them was very interested in what we had to say. We left them both with Plan of Salvation pamphlets. We were also able to get contact information for the one who was interested. It was simply amazing! God is so good to us!

We have an exciting week to look forward to! We have interviews with President Stoker in Montpelier on Thursday and a Zone Meeting, which is always so great and inspirational.

I hope you all enjoy this last week of August! I don't know where the time has gone. It blows my mind everyday how fast time is going by. I absolutely love being a missionary and this is the most important thing that I could be doing right now. Thank you for the love, prayers and support!

I love you all!!!
Peace and Blessings from VERMONT!

Sister Dixon

COMING HOME :)

I am happy to report that I am home! Driving into the green mountain state of Vermont I quickly realized how much I have missed the beautiful place in which I started my mission. It was the place I was born! (in mission terminology). I am serving in Lamoille which borders the Newport area where I started my mission. It is actually pretty neat because I have actually been on exchange to Lamoille three times! I kind of had a little bit of a head start because I have been able to meet a few of the members. Luckily during that time I was very diligent at writing in my journal so I was able to look back and see all the people who I had met when I was here. I was very surprised to see that many of them recognized and remembered me because it had been a year ago that I had been on exchange here! Super exciting. Something else that is exciting is that we are 20 minutes away from the Ben and Jerry's Factory!!!!!!! Sister Demeritt made a stop on our way in from transfer meeting to the factory and treated us to ice cream. Perfect way to start the transfer :)

Not going to lie the week has all been a blur. I feel like this week was three weeks long! It didn't help that I didn't really sleep on Monday night. I learned that it probably isn't the best idea to start packing Monday night at 10pm. Yep I didn't finish packing till about 2am and then had to be up at 330am. Not a good idea!!!!!

My new companion is Sister Blume. She is from Clinton Utah and she is 19 years old. She's been on her mission a little over 4 months. She is a sweetheart!

Being in Lamoille has been great so far! I don't know why it's always referred to as Lamoille because Lamoille is the county. I actually live in Morrisville, but missionaries always refer to this area as Lamoille so that's what I'm used to. I've been able to meet so many great people this week and have already experienced some pretty incredible miracles too. There is one experience that I wanted to share a little more about. My first night in the area was Tuesday. We had just gotten home from visiting people for the night and we realized that we didn't have our phone. Sister Blume's bag had fallen on the floor when we were at the last place that we stopped by. We thought that maybe it had fallen out there. It was already after nine o'clock when we are supposed to be in, but we obviously needed to figure out where our phone was. We walked to the gas station down the road and used their phone to call the Elders. We let them know the situation and then we tried calling the people who's house we were just at. It was there!....But wait there's more! While at the gas station one of the workers asked us who we were and what made us different from other Christian faiths........oh man that is the type of question we love to answer. We were able to tell him a little more about what we believe. Come to find out that his coworker was also a member of the church. And then a man in the store came up and started talking to us and he too a member of the church who hasn't been active for years. Not only that, but I knew and met the less active members dad when I was serving in Newport! Whoah! There is even more to this story. Tuesday night we were a little bit frazzled by everything that was going on so we had failed to get Dustin's information(the one we talked about the church to). We had given him information about the church, but had never gotten his information to follow up with him. Yesterday as we were walking from an appointment to another appointment we had a prompting to knock on a door. No one answered.....we knocked on the neighbors door and they were busy, then we walked across the street to talk to some people who were outside. We started again to venture to our next location. Little did we know that those promptings came because God needed us to walk past the gas station at just the right moment. Right as we were walking past, Dustin was taking the garbage to the dumpster. We were able to talk to him again and get more information from him. He said he is looking for more in life! And boy do we have it! Holy MIRACLE!

I am so very excited to serve here in Lamoille! It was hard to leave Dover, but I know that I am exactly where I need to be.

I love you all and hope you have a very happy week!

New Address
Sister Allison Dixon
P.O. Box 83
Morrisville VT 05661

Love,
Sister Dixon

STOKED FOR STOKER

Alright I know that I say that just about every week is incredible and miraculous.....well this week was beyond incredible and miraculous!!!!! Most of the email will probably be about Sunday because Sunday was UNREAL!
Well I should probably start by letting you all know that I am being transferred. This is a very bitter sweet time. I have absolutely loved serving in Dover. The people I have met here will be eternal friends. I have so many incredible memories and growing experiences here in this area. I am excited for what's ahead and I'm grateful for all that I've learned from being here in this area.
So let me tell you a little bit of what went on on Sunday. I think I mentioned in my last email that President and Sister Stoker were going to be visiting the Dover Branch this Sunday. They came and spoke, first President Stoker did a training in Branch Council and then they both spoke in Sacrament Meeting. They both also taught the combined third hour class. It was incredible! 

Another incredible part of church was the people who attended. Two of our investigators, Eddie and Susie came for the first time!!!!! I can't even begin to explain how much I love Eddie and Susie. They are incredible and having them at church made me so incredibly happy. During the second hour meeting, Sister Danner and I were teaching one of the primary classes when some members came and said they'd take our class because someone had just stopped in to visit our church. Much to our surprise, a younger girl named Christine was heading to her church in Charleston and was running late. She saw our church building which she had never noticed before and saw our sign that said Jesus Christ so she decided to see if she could make it to our services. One of the members was in the parking lot and was able to guide her to the Gospel Principles class. She stayed for that and for the third hour. She was very intrigued by our meetings and she wants to learn more! Can you say miracle???? After church we had a linger longer and had corn on the cob. It was such an incredible day!! It almost felt surreal.

Today things have begun to sink in a little more knowing that I will be leaving the people and the place that I love. We were able to say goodbye....well, see you later to Mike and Michele. We also had a lunch out on Sebec Lake with the Dows.

 They cooked us up some real Maine lobster! It was so fun! 

More goodbyes tonight, and we get to leave bright and early tomorrow morning to head to transfer meeting in Manchester. 4:30am! Wohoo! I do have a strong testimony on transfers being inspired. I know for a fact that every area that God has sent me to has been for a reason. I have seen God's hands in so many ways serving here in Dover. I can't even begin to describe the transformation that has taken place here.

I want you all to know how much this gospel means to me. It has helped me in more ways than I can even begin to acknowledge. I love our Savior Jesus Christ and I know that this is His Gospel again restored to the earth. I know that this is His work, and I am so happy that I have the privilege of being a part of it.
I hope you all have an awesome week!
Peace and Blessings
Sister Dixon

DOGGIE DOGGIE WHO'S GOT YOUR BONE?

Week six already! Another transfer has flown by. I only have three transfers left! GROSS!
We had a great week this last week!
Tuesday we had an awesome lesson with Eddie and Susie. We taught about prophets and at the end of the lesson we asked if one of them would conclude our discussion with prayer. Susie prayed! This was the first time that either of them agreed to pray vocally at the end of the lesson. The Spirit was SO strong as Susie prayed. It was amazing! We have dinner with them tonight which I am super excited about. I love them so much!

Wednesday we had an awesome district meeting. It was one of my favorite district meetings that I've ever been to. After district meeting we had an incredible lesson with Raychel. It was one of the best lessons Sister Danner and I have ever had. The Spirit was super strong and it was so evident that the Spirit was guiding not only our words but our entire conversation. We decided to spoil ourselves for dinner that night and went to a little joint that I've been wanting to go to ever since I got to Dover.....Pictures will follow.

Thursday we experienced a few more miracles. The first one was with being inspired to see some former investigators. We only had a few more minutes until we went in for the night and we stopped at their home. They were very excited to see us. They said that they had been having a bit of a hard time the past few weeks and really felt like people don't care about them, and then we showed up! So they felt that God had sent us there that night. The next miracle of that day was with our miles. Thursday was the last day of the month and we were super short on miles. We pulled into home and we had 2 miles to spare!

Friday we had an awesome weekly planning session. Normally we never get it finished in time and we end up having to finish it on Saturday or Sunday. We were able to finish it all on Friday and we planned for a stellar week! It will be exciting to see what comes from the plans we made for this week.

Saturday was an interesting day. All our plans were falling through. We felt like we needed to head over to Dover, but nothing super miraculous happened while we were there. That night we had a pretty intense lesson with some of our new investigators. We walked in and they had a friend there too. At first I was thinking "oh sweet! we can teach them too" but then I realized he wanted to teach us. It actually ended up being a great opportunity for me and Sister Danner to bear our testimonies and how we gained them. Although they had a lot of objections it was awesome for us. This moves us nicely into Sunday. They came to church! As you know this Sunday was the first Sunday of the month which means fast and testimony meeting. Yup two of our visitors got up and bore their testimonies. We missionaries and Pres. Clukey were praying so hard the entire time hoping that they wouldn't say anything too crazy. Ha ha ha it was probably the craziest Sacrament Meeting I've ever attended. It made the journal, that's for sure! After Sacrament meeting the branch swarmed our visitors and made them feel super welcomed to the branch. They were short on primary teachers so they asked if Sister Danner and I could teach. Sacrament Meeting went super over time so by the time all the kids got in the class there was only about 15 minutes left. They didn't give us anything specific to teach, so we tried to relate a game to the gospel. We played one of Sister Danner's childhood favorites, Doggie Doggie Who's Got Your Bone? Ya, we couldn't quite find a link to how it applied to the gospel so we just sang a primary song before we sent them to sharing time. It was quite funny.

I've got some super exciting news for this week. President and Sister Stoker are coming to the Dover Branch this Sunday! I AM SO EXCITED! I have never had President Stoker visit the branch that I've been serving in so I am beyond excited. We are having a linger longer after church and are having a corn roast. It's going to be GREAT!

It's week six so transfer calls come on Saturday night. I have no idea if I'm leaving Dover. Many people believe that I will be because I've been here since the end of February, but I could easily see myself staying one more transfer. Only time will tell though! I'll let you know next Monday what is happening!

Thank you all for you love and support! I hope you all have an incredible week! Happy August!
Sister Dixon