Thursday, January 2, 2014
WEEK 21 (NOV. 4)- HOW MUCH WOOD WOULD A WOOD CHUCK CHUCK
You will never guess what we did this week.......well I guess you probably could. We did some serious wood projects! and we have many more planned for this week too! Tis the season! I absolutely love it!!!
Not going to lie, the beginning of this week was stressful! Transfers change everything and it takes some time getting used to a new companion and figuring out how to work with each other. But now things are rolling! My companion Sister Fuller is awesome! We get along extremely well and have a blast doing missionary work!
It was really neat because this week, every lesson we had with investigators, a member of the branch came with us. It makes the BIGGEST difference when members come. We concluded our forty-day fast this Saturday with a fireside. President Goodrich, from the Mission Presidency, came with his wife and they spoke to the branch on how they can become better member missionaries. It was awesome and we had a great turn out! Hopefully this will result in more people to teach!
We had a fun Relief Society enrichment night and had yummy soup and talked about what to put in winter car kits....they're a good idea if you don't have one. Amber, one of our investigators, came and had a blast, so that was a success. When you get a bunch of ladies together and laughing oh man it makes for a pretty fun night. I love this branch.
Halloween was pretty fun! We did some wood at the Sanderson's and they sent us home with dinner since we had to be in at five. Let me tell you a bit about the Sandersons....They are great! They used to manage a restaurant so you can just imagine how good their meals are....yum! We deep cleaned our apartment and just had a good ol time being locked inside!
Friday and Saturday we did service with the Cubit clan. It was quite the event. We had tons of fun and we got a lot of wood taken care of! My favorite part was using the splitting moll/maul/mol who knows how to spell it? All I know is that it is NOT an ax ha ha ha.
Saturday night like I said was our fireside and it was so so so good! Everything turned out great.
Sunday was good! We were all invited to fast for missionary opportunities in our stake. So the entire stake was fasting for missionary work! Danielle came to church! She hasn't been since the first part of September so we were excited that she made it this week!!!
I feel that it would only be appropriate for me to bear my testimony on the power of fasting, since we've been doing a lot of that lately with the forty-day fast. We all know that prayers can be powerful, but when we add fasting to our prayers, the flow of blessings are unstoppable. Preach my Gospel says "Fasting and prayer go together. When we fast and pray with faith, we are more receptive to receiving answers to our prayers and blessings from the Lord. He promises us that He will guide us continually." My testimony of this principle is growing more and more as I've been out here. I love the story of Alma and how he came to know for himself that the Gospel is true. Alma 5:45-46
45 And this is not all. Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?
46 Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me.
Gaining a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel isn't a one time event. It is the process of a lifetime! Never before have I questioned my testimony of the church. Growing up I was surrounded by friends and family who supported, believed and had testimonies of the truthfulness of the church. Coming out on a mission, I soon realized that there are SO many people who have no idea about this gospel. I was a little scared because time and time again I hear that you cannot convert beyond your own conversion. This made me look into how far I am converted to this gospel. I am surrounded by incredible missionaries and members whose testimonies are so strong and for a while I wondered why I didn't feel that mine added up to their magnitude. So you might be wondering where this story is going...so am I ha ha. Reading the experience of Alma and his quest to be fully converted to the gospel helped me to know exactly what I needed to do to make sure that I am converted myself. As I have spent a lot of time fasting and praying, I have found that it I didn't need to gain a completely new testimony, I just needed to realize the testimony that I already had, and have had all my life and continue working on strengthening it. Fasting is such an incredible way to secure blessings from God. I love the scripture in Matthew 6:18
18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.
When we fast, God will reward us with what we stand in need of! Probably not in the way we would expect, but it's always in the way that is best for us. When we fast we become physically weak, but spiritually strong. I have gained such a strong testimony of fasting. I know that we can receive answers to prayers, increased testimony, health and strength....the blessings are endless when we fast.
I encourage all of you to recognize the things that you might stand in need of spiritually or physically and to fast and pray for help and added strength from the Lord. I know that when you do this, God will bless you and answer your prayers!
I love you all and I LOVE THIS GOSPEL!
Have a great week!
Sister Dixon
WEEK 20 (OCT 28)- THE CHOSEN FROZEN
There is a reason why when I first got sent to this area that they told me I was being sent to the "chosen frozen". Up here in Northern Vermont, it's cold! We are just getting started!!! Oh boy oh boy! It's crazy. We went from playing baseball outside on Monday to snow flurries on Thursday! I'm being slightly dramatic, but life is more fun that way! My new companion, Sister Fuller is from Arizona so she is really loving this weather...not! Sister Deters and I had a great last pday and finished it off with dinner at the Cubits! We got up bright and early (minus the bright) at 4:00am so we could be ready to hit the road at 5:30. Mark Cubit and his mom took us to Hanover, picked up my new companion and sent Sister Deters on her way to transfer meeting. We had a good rest of the day, we had dinner with Chris and Phil Wolf. Chris is heading to Utah to see her new grandbaby. I was slightly jealous.
Wednesday we had our district meeting. Half our district changed companions so we had three new missionaries enter the district and we got a new district leader! Lots of changes going on in the mission! We had dinner with Sister Coburn and coordination meeting with the elders and branch missionaries. We have a fireside coming up this Saturday to conclude our forty-day fast so we are trying to finalize all the little details. It's going to be great!
From Thursday on we had a million and a half things fall through, but such is missionary life. We did have a great night with Sharmain on Thursday. She asked us if we could go visiting teaching with her so we made a date out of it. We did service around their home and then went to dinner and visiting teaching. It was awesome!
Friday, again everything fell through ha ha ha. They had a clothing swap in Derby so we went up to visit a member there and stopped by the clothing swap to see if we could find some winter clothes! It was great!
Saturday was similar to Thursday and Friday. Yep lots of things fell through. The highlight of the day was spending time with Sister Sanderson. We had dinner with her and she helped us fix some of the skirts we found at the clothing swap.
Luckily Sunday was a different story! It was awesome. Church was very good and we had a full day! After church we had a big list of people that we wanted to try to stop by and visit. We were able to stop by a less active members home who we hadn't been able to get in to see before. We had a great discussion with her and we were also able to stop by two other members and a less active members home. Such a solid day. It totally made up for the feeling of failure that resulted from the previous days! The Lord works in mysterious ways, that's for sure!
I have been having some pretty great studies in the Book of Mormon lately in my personal studies. So I thought I would invite all of you to read some of the chapters....they are good!!!! Alma 32-34. These chapters are golden! I love it when the scriptures give us advice, because it is truly some of the best advice we can receive. In chapter 34, frequently throughout the chapter Amulek "exhorts" which means to strongly encourage. He is encouraging us to go back to the basics, which we hear all the time, like praying and reading the scriptures. They are so simple, but so important. God doesn't expect us to be perfect, and He knows we won't be. "For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors." Alma 34:32 We have been given time to prepare to meet God! What better way to prepare than reading in the Book of Mormon to truly get to know who God is that we are preparing to return to. I truly love this gospel and the happiness, joy and strength it gives me. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that it does testify of our Savior Jesus Christ and that Christ will come again. Thank you all for your love and support!
I love you all and pray for you!
Have a great week!...Stay warm. Peace and Blessings
Sister Dixon
WEEK 19 (OCT 21)- FAITH OF A CHILD
Well I'm staying another six weeks in the village!!! I am pretty excited! Sister Deters is being transferred so that means I'll be getting a new companion Tuesday morning. I don't think I was supposed to know who it is, but I do. Her name is Sister Fuller. She was one of Sister Deters companions a while ago. I'm quite excited and kinda nervous! I'm sure I will learn a lot from her.
This week has been pretty great! We had some great lessons this week. On Tuesday we had a lesson with Chris and Phil. I know I've mentioned them before because we have been teaching them since we got to the area. Phil is less active and Chris, his wife, is a branch missionary. After our lesson with them we invited Phil to church. Well, we need to rewind a little bit. We have had 14 lessons now with Phil. The first time we tried to commit him to come to church, we couldn't even get the words out before he was telling us no. Back to Tuesday. So we committed him to come to church...especially because it was transfers and one of us was bound to leave....and he said he'd think about it, but don't plan on him coming the next week. So yesterday.....PHIL CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!! It was quite possibly the best experience of my mission so far. It was truly incredible. He didn't just stay for Sacrament meeting, he stayed for all three hours and he participated in class! WOW! We met with Bro. Cubit, our ward mission leader, after church and he said that Phil told him he'd be back next week. How incredible is that?!
Wednesday we had a really good district meeting. Our district hasn't seen a lot of changes since for the past four months so we were all expected things to get shaken up a little with this next transfer, and they did! We are switching out 3 missionaries in our district.
Thursday was quite the interesting day. Nothing was really going according to plan. But the day ended well! We had dinner with Mark and Sharmain Cubit. They were coming with us to our lesson with Danielle the next day, so we decided to teach and discuss with them what we'd be teaching. It was wonderful. The spirit was so strong and they had such powerful testimonies and insights to what we would be teaching. Just another testimony builder of how crucial member involvement in missionary work is!
Friday we were back at Mark and Sharmains to do some wood. They came with us to Danielles lesson after and it went well. We had dinner with the Boatwrights and it was awesome! Bro. Boatwrights mom was there because she had been watching the kids while Sis. Boatwright was visiting her mom in Brazil. It was so neat to see Bro. Boatwright bear his testimony to his mom. We told her about the stop smoking program and she said she'd love to do it! They are in the elders area so we called them and set up the appointment for them to teach it to her the very next day! The elders told us that they had an incredible lesson with her and the missionaries will continue seeing her when she goes back to Georgia!
Saturday I went a little stir crazy! Unfortunately Sister Deters got pretty sick and so we stayed in the apartment all day. I was able to get some good, long study time in, which is a plus!
Sunday, like I already mentioned before was INCREDIBLE!!! It was such a great day! I'm so happy this transfer ended off on such a happy note. It makes me even more excited for this upcoming transfer!
So generally when I type my emails I try and think of what type of invitation to leave at the end. The first thing that came to my mind was a scripture mentioned in the movie, On the Lord's Errand. The Life of Thomas S. Monson. (I would highly recommend watching it...it's on mormon.org). Mark 10:14 Suffer the little children unto come to me, and forbid them not: for such is the kingdom of God. Simply put, this scripture is what prompted President Monson to visit a child dying of cancer.(the whole talk regarding this story is called The Faith of a Child on LDS.org...I'd also highly recommend reading this) This little girl prayed President Monson there. God does hear our prayers and he answers them. He is especially sensitive to the prayers of children. I like the next verse in Mark 10:15 Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. The scriptures continually tell us to become as a child, "submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."(Mosiah 3:19) When we strive to obtain these childlike characteristics we can become more like our Savior Jesus Christ and we can better align our lives to his will. In the Bible Dictionary the definition of prayer is "the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them." I have seen far too many times my prayers being answered to ever deny that God answers prayers. Answers to prayers rarely come in the way or the time we would expect or even want, but they are answered in the Lord's time which is perfect time. I know this to be true! I want to invite each of you to find ways that you can become more like a child, because we are all Children of God. I know that as we do so we will become more like our Savior. As we pray to him with the faith of a child we will better recognize the answers to our prayers and gain greater faith in the Lords promised blessings.
I love this gospel and I love all of you!
Sister Dixon
WEEK 18 (OCT. 14)- MY LIFE CALLING
What a week!
Well we'll start with Monday. We went and played baseball with some members of the branch towards the end of our pday and it was a BLAST! It was pretty overcast, so we didn't know how that was going to go. It was raining a good majority of the time, but it was so fun. Embarrassing story time.....So the first time I was up to bat....remember it was raining.....I took a nice swing and although I didn't hit the ball, the bat made it to third base. Oh man it was so embarrassing. Luckily it didn't get close to hitting anyone, but man it just flew right out of my hands. I have a feeling I won't hear the end of this little event, well at least while I'm in this area. Then the real fun came. We were in the middle of the game and in a split second it just started to down pour. We all got completely soaked! It was so much fun though! We are playing again tonight so I'm excited for that!
We were on exchange Tuesday and I went to Littleton New Hampshire. It is a fun little town! On Tuesday morning we were going to do mormon.org and there wasn't an opening on any of the computers for another 20 minutes so we went to do some street contacting. Littleton has a thing called the Littleton Piano Project, so all along main street they have pianos and guitars set up for anyone to play. I decided to sit down and whip out a few hymns. It was awesome! Through that little experience we were able to hand out a Book of Mormon and a family history card! Talk about exciting! The people there were so friendly. Another fun experience from that day came when we were teaching one of their potential investigators, Shirley. She is a sweet older lady. We had a great lesson with her and at the end of the lesson, Sister Jackman was saying the prayer. After the amen, we opened our eyes, but Shirley didn't, she fell right asleep. Ha ha ha it was too funny! Luckily she woke up! She was too cute.
Wednesday was awesome! At our district meeting we made our own Title of Liberties, just like Moroni. I'll have to send a picture of it.
We did some more wood stacking on Friday! I think that's my calling in life. We went to the Cubits and helped them gather some wood from their property. We also helped dig up some potatoes, which was fun. It was like a big Easter egg hunt, but with potatoes. We had a good lesson with Danielle and we are still working on getting her ready for baptism. She doesn't have a date yet, because she is struggling with being consistent in coming to church, but we are getting there!
I bet you'll never guess what we did Saturday...we stacked wood! Everyone is getting ready for winter! I actually really enjoy stacking wood. Do you think they have a major for that in college? Earlier in the day we helped pick up apples for the Perry's. I was pretty excited because I was the designated tree climber. I got to climb the trees and shake the branches so more apples would fall. I was just happy for an excuse to climb trees!
Sunday was incredible! We had Stake Conference in Essex. All the speakers were so inspiring. It was like General Conference all over again. One of the talks is what I wanted to base the last part of my letter on. This talk was given my my mission President, President Stoker. It was all about member missionary work. He talked about how we can be better member missionaries. He first started by saying to "Never, never, never ignore a prompting from the Lord" There are many times that the Lord will prompt us to do something and when we are in tune and act on those promptings, we can bring many people closer to God. "Testimony is to know and to feel, conversion is to do and become." As we strengthen our testimony we can become more and more converted. One thing President Stoker invited everyone to do is to kneel down every morning and specifically pray for God to "put in my path somebody I can share the gospel with". He promised that fear will be replaced with faith and confidence when we pray for missionary experiences. The great news is is that you don't have to worry about what to say to share the gospel, that's what the missionaries are for! All you have to do is invite. So that is my invitation to all of you. I know that as you kneel in prayer every morning and pray for people to be put in your path to share the gospel with, God will provide. I love this gospel and I am so happy being a missionary! I know this church is true!
I hope you all have a happy and successful week inviting people to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ!
Much love,
Sister Dixon
WEEK 17 (OCT. 7) - GENERAL CONFERENCE.....NEED I SAY MORE?
This week has been crazy! Monday we traveled again to Morrisville and I was with Sis. Kotter (one of my MTC comps) for Monday night and all day Tuesday. We did service on Tuesday morning at the thrift store just by their apartment. We priced their clothing and all that fun stuff. After we were done they told us we could look around...and oh did we ever. This was no average thrift store. This was even better than Thrift Town in Salt Lake ha ha ha. I found quite the bargains, or so I thought. When the sweet old lady rang up my total she accidentally typed in an extra 4 to the total. Instead of my total being 14.50, she swiped my card for 144.50.....oops. But you can't possibly be mad at a sweet old lady who is trying her hardest to do her job, and she is a volunteer. Thank goodness I realized it on my receipt so we were able to clear everything up! Pretty good way to start off the day if I do say so myself ha ha.
Wednesday we were able to do service for Mariah. She was married this past Saturday so we helped her decorate! Thursday we had interviews with the Mission President, President Stoker, in Lebanon. That was really good and we got some good training from the zone leaders on how to more effectively plan. Friday we painted a kitchen! Tammy, one of our investigators who we helped move in a couple of months ago needed help painting her kitchen so we were excited to help. The kitchen was a putrid orange color. Not quite the color you'd think someone would even think of in a home, let alone the kitchen. We painted it a nice creamy yellow color and it looked SO much better. Everything was much brighter and just felt happier. Saturday and Sunday.....drum roll please........GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!!!!!! Wow, talk about an inspired conference. Spiritual feast to say the least! Is it a crime to say a rhyme? OK, in all seriousness, conference was incredible. I think God wants us all to be doing missionary work. What about you? Now, being in the shoes of a missionary, I truly realize how vital it is to have member missionaries. We can't do it alone. Missionaries and members need to work together. The work of salvation is hastening and it is so exciting. I can't wait to see the results of the increased efforts on missionary work. One talk that really stood that I wanted to talk about was from Elder David A. Bednar. Significant But Simple Blessings. A lot of times on my mission I struggle with relating personal experiences because I don't always have extremely drastic events that resulted in what my testimony is now. From this talk I have realized that it is not always from those big events that result in our testimonies being strengthened. As we keep the commandments and do all that we can to be obedient, God will bless us in significant, but subtle ways. I loved how Elder Bednar related this truth to the Stripling Warriors. They probably would have loved to be blessed with more weapons, and that would have made a lot of sense for them to receive them. But instead, God blessed them with assurance, peace, faith and hope, and not a single life was lost. One thing that I am continually learning is that God generally doesn't answer our prayers in the way we would expect. He answers in the way that He knows to be best for us. Blessings are contingent on obedience. We can't expect blessings for things we haven't been obedient to. Doctrine and Covenants explains this perfectly. I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise(D&C 82:10). There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundation of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated- And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated(D&C 130:20-21). God is bound when we are obedient. He promises us blessings! That definitely makes me want to be a little more obedient! I know that as we are obedient we will be given power and we'll be blessed in significant, but subtle ways. My invitation to all of you is to look for ways in your life that you can be more obedient, and then do it! I know that by doing so many blessings will result, that's a promise!
I love this gospel!
I wish you all the very best this week
Much love,
Sister Dixon
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