Birthday Wishes

April 7, 2014
 
Thanks for the birthday wishes family! it sounds like you will be having a lot of fun when you get to the cruise, remember to take lots of pictures!

This week went ok, the weather was ok, we got a lot a rain during the week and it is raining lightly this morning.

 

We taught nick on Wednesday, it didn't really go any where, he was asking some questions about similar passages in the book of Mormon and Bible, so we did that for the whole time we where there and told him the #1 answer to his questions is reading and praying about the Book of Mormon.

 

We taught Randall about praying often and the importance of it, and we are trying to get him to pray vocally, but we know that he is still uncomfortable about praying aloud.

General conference went really well, i really enjoyed elder Hollands talk about discipleship. and standing up for what is right. i wrote more details in my hand written letter that you should be getting in the mail.

 

Nick came to the Saturday morning session and the priesthood session, but he said that there was some things that he disagrees with and what not :/

I don't know how he can say that after the all of the testimonies that were shared and the powerful spirit that was there, i really felt the spirit when president Monson related the story of Joseph Smith and him rebuking the guards.

I really hope he recognizes the spirit soon, and that he will be committed to follow its promptings.

 

But on a positive note, Abdur came to the priesthood session and he loved it and said that he felt like all the speakers were speaking to him, he really liked president Eyrings talk about heros in our lives. so that was really neat to hear him say that.

When I hear things like that from investigators it makes me very joyful and happy to know that they are taking root in the gospel.

 

Well I have to get going, we have zone p-day today and we are going to play ultimate Frisbee.

love you all. 

Love ya-Elder Jacob Dixon

 

These are some pictures of the sunset after a thunder/ tornado warning storm.

 

03/31/14: "week went okay...but I wasn't in Warrenton for most of it"

03/ 31/2014

 Hey Family!!

 

Sounds like Megan had a good birthday.

So this week went okay, it was pretty busy, but I wasn't in Warrrenton for most of it. We went on exchanges with the Troy Elders and I was in Troy for both exchanges, we did that Thursday-Sunday morning.

But while I was in Troy Elder Hendrickson did get to teach Randall, and it went okay from what I got out of it, they taught him the plan of salvation, and he seemed to accept it pretty well.

We did teach Nick and Katie on Wednesday, they are a couple that Elder Johnson and Coka (Chōkă) tracted into while they where blitzing our area.

Nick is a minister at the Warrenton Church of Christ, and is probably one of the nicest ministers that ive met on my mission. and he has a real desire to know what we believe this is the second time that we have met with him, and we have taught him the 1st lesson. But he does have some concerns that we have answered as best as we could and told him that he cant take our word or anyone else's words about the book of Mormon and how it's important to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, so it's been really good teaching him.

And after we met with Nick we went over to a potentials house that we tracted into a couple of weeks back, her name is Maryann and she used to meet with missionaries way way back and in a different state, so we went over there to see if she might me interested in learning again, and her daughter was there, her name is Teressa, she is about 40 and Maryann is about 60 or 70. and while we where talking to Maryann we learned that she was close to being baptized but stopped because she felt rushed by the missionaries to quit smoking. and while we are talking about that Theresa is asking us allot of questions,and they were really good questions, and they are related to the restoration of the Gospel, so we pretty much taught her the first lesson,so that went really good and she was really interested in coming to church on Sunday, but she wasn't able to change her work schedule in time. I think that they both have good potential, and Maryann has a really good out look on the church.

that's all that I can really think of right now, its hard to remember things when you are super busy all the time.

It's hard to believe that you guys got snow and hail this week. our weather is improving much better now, it was a bit chilly last week, but yesterday and today are in the 70s, so its a really nice change.

love ya all-Elder Jacob Dixon.

This week 3/24/14

3/24/2014

 

So this week went alright.

We taught Randall the Gospel of Jesus Christ so lesson 3. It went pretty well he seemed to grasp every thing ok, didn't ask a whole lot of questions this time, we talked a little bit more about baptism and re invited him to be baptized when he knows this is true, we tried setting up a date but he wasn't to sure about setting one yet. we are trying to get him to come to church, but he works most of the time on Sundays, so we are going to get him to try and commit to asking for Sundays off. and we left him with 3 nephi 11 to read in between our visits.

And we have some sad news, Abdur pretty much dropped us yesterday. he talked about how he doesn't feel ready for this big step and we tried to tell him that he doesn't have to be perfect to be baptized, and he knows that. but he also told us about how busy he is with every thing going on in his life and how he wants to focus on taking care of his family. so we where disappointed to hear that, we worked so hard up to this point with him and he was happy when he was doing the things we asked him to do, and he didn't seem happy with telling us that he doesn't want to be baptized yet. but the good news is that he is still ok with us stopping by once and awhile and he still is willing to come to church, and still sees baptism as a possible thing in the future, but i don't think it will be while i am here.

The weather is still bi polar! Thursday and Friday was really nice, we got up into the 70s but Saturday and Sunday it was in the lower 40s and 30s and it is supposed to be like that for the rest of the week and we might get snow tonight.

So I've been thinking lately about what I'm going to do when I get home and I want to go to school, but don't know when the dead line is to apply is. I was thinking UVU, so if you could get back to me about that it would be great.

Thanks for keeping me updated about whats going on, hope every one has a good week.

Happy Birthday Megan!!!

Love you all

-Elder Jacob Dixon

"The weather is still really bipolar..."

03/17/2014

Dear Family & Friends,

  So this week went pretty good, we taught Randall the first lesson, so the Restoration, it went great, allot of his beliefs are really close to some of our beliefs, like the creations didn't take 7 actual days but 7 different time tables, so we talked a little bit about Doctrine and Covenants and the pearl of great price, didn't go into big detail, cause its allot of info to digest in just one lesson, so we are going to be meeting with him on Thursday, he wasn't able to come to church because he had to work. we weren't able to meet with Abdur this week, he was busy and tends to forget that we set up appointments, and Sundays are his only day that we can meet with him. we are going to try again on Saturday to set up a time for Sunday.

We met with Gary on Saturday, they had us over for dinner and we where able to talk to him and sis Karl's (the member) husband Ed, and Gary just has an open mind and is willing to read the book of Mormon, but not pray about it, so that was sad to hear, and her husband isn't interested in reading the book of Mormon, but they are still way nice people and we aren't going to stop meeting with them.

     To cap it all off I would say that it was all right. the weather is still really bipolar, it wont make up its mind, it was warm to start out with and we got snow on Thursday and it had all melted by the end of the day, and Friday and Saturday where way nice, we got up tp 70 and almost 80 and Sunday it was 32 and we got a little bit of snow, and today it is a little bit warmer. so im really wanting for spring to finally set in.

Love you all

-Elder Dixon

"We where able to teach a new investigator..."

3/10/14
 
Dear Family.

You'll have to tell uncle Wade and aunt Laura congrats for me. .

You'll have to let me know how grandpa Davis' surgery goes, I well also be praying for him and grandpa Dixon that his pain will go away.

So how did Roscoe's birthday go? who came?

 

So this week went pretty good, we got transfer calls on Saturday and both me and Elder Hendrickson are staying here, but Elder Johnson is leaving and going to the Spanish area that is in our zone. So he is still going to be close, and Elder Coka is staying and will be followed up trained by another Elder, I forgot his name.

 

We where able to meet with Abdur finally and to teach him about the restoration, it went good, but there where allot of distractions, cause they have 5 young kids, but he was able to focus for the most of the lesson, we talked allot about the Joseph Smith story, he has a hard time recognizing the spirit, I guess, and he has a hard time believing things people tell him, but we told him to pray about every thing cause that will solve his questions.

But we might have to push the baptism back a couple of days since we have only taught him the restoration and we still need to teach him everything else.

 

We where able to teach a new investigator, his name is Gary, he is the grandson of one of the members in the ward, he is supper smart, love to read and has already read the book of Mormon but doesn't remember every thing that happened in it, he is 30ish by the way. and he is supper friendly to missionaries, and hearing from ward members I guess in the past he wasn't really friendly with the church, so he had a changing experience that changed his prospective on the church, so the Lord has been preparing him for a while.

 

We weren't able to meet with Julie this week, she wasn't feeling to good, so we are going to meet with her hopefully on Wednesday, so next week should be good as well, we are planning on going home teaching with some members in the ward.

And yesterday we had a potential come to church, we have been trying to work on him for a while, he is engaged to one of the sisters in the ward, and he is also reading/listening to the book of Mormon, so we are hoping to be visiting them this week as well.

 

This week went really good, now we are waiting for the opposition to hit like is always does, but we will smack it back in the face!

The weather was cold this last week, but today it is up in the high 60s! It feels so good, but we are supposed to be getting snow this week, so I don't know what is up with that :P

 

That's crazy to think that Ben and Tanner are home, you'll have to tell them I say hello. so how is elder Harris?(Jeremy, I forgot his last name) the missionary that was assigned to go to the Ukraine about the same time as I got my call? Cause I hear that things are getting pretty crazy over there.

 

Well I hope every one has a good week.

Love ya all-Elder Dixon

Trunky papers, new member lesson, a baptismal challenge

3/3/14

Hey every one. so you got the trunky papers?! NOOOOOOO not yet

 

So when does Roscoe's drill start? I'll have to think about that,

do you know what you where sick with?

That's awesome that Roscoe got promoted to specialist I bet he is happy about that.

 

So this week went ok, we where able to start teaching Keim the new member lessons on Tuesday, They had us over for dinner, it was really good, she made chicken strips and made a really good sauce to go with it. we will be teaching her the new members lessons with her home teachers and eventually they will teach her the rest of the lessons without us.

we did meet with "J" and taught her the first lesson, it went pretty good, she did have a question about people getting baptized into different churches, cause she went to church with her sister last week to her church and some people where baptized, so we talked about having the proper priesthood authority to do sacred ordinances, and we explained why Jesus went to John the Baptist instead of having his neighbor baptizing him.

She said that it makes sense, and at the end of the lesson we invited her to be baptized by proper authority when she receives an answer about the book of Mormon, and she said yes, we are really happy about it.

 We weren't able to teach Abdur this week due to him being really busy with every thing, but we did get to talk to him for a little bit before he had to go, he is doing good on quitting smoking, but he is using the electric cigarettes, so we talked to him about it and told him that those things can be just as addicting as the real things, so we are working on helping him quit those things, he is still looking forward to being baptized.

And the weather here is really cold again, we had really nice weather the week before, but now its in the high 20s and low 10s, I just want spring to come back! We got a little bit of snow yesterday and freezing rain, so the roads where slick so they canceled church because of it. so I wasn't really happy about that, cause I really wanted to go to sacrament meeting at least, so this week is going to feel empty if that makes any sense.

 

How is the weather over there? is it just as cold like us or do you have nicer weather?

Any more word about the job yet?

 

Well I need to email some more people.

l love ya all-Elder Jacob Dixon

"So this week went pretty well..."

2/18/2014
 
Hello Family.

Sorry that this email is coming a day late but due to presidents day the library wasn't open yesterday.

glad that every one is recovering and that the car got fixed.. again, and that Roscoe is getting his wisdom teeth out, and are the Rays his girlfriends family?

And those movies probably where pirated because non of those videos aren't out yet.

So this week went pretty well, Keim was confirmed by her husband on Sunday and he did a good job for his first time, everyone was really happy especially Keim, Abdur came to sacrament but I think he had to go home after, but we where glad that he came, and we didn't even commit him to come to church!

But we weren't able to meet with him or any of our potentials that we have found while tracting. but good news is that we got a referral from church headquarters about a lady that has moved into our area and she has been taught all of the lessons from where she moved from and she is staying with her sister and she is also interested in hearing the lessons! so we are going to be trying to see her today in the evening.

But other than that we are doing ok, Me and Elder Hendrickson are getting along pretty well and having allot of fun together, we are hoping that he well be getting his visa soon, cause another Elder who came out with him just got his and he will leave on march 10th.

So how is the weather over there?

We got freezing rain yesterday in the morning and they canceled school because of it, and it wasn't all that bad driving in it, and it all melted around noon. Man these kids are lucky that they get so many snow days, during Christmas break it snowed for about a week so they cancled school because of it, and they only got about 6 inches all together! man Missouri is very ill prepared for snow, and we saw the other day that the snow trucks where putting dirt on the road, and me and Elder Hendrickson where very puzzled by that; and when we where talking to a member in the ward they told us they are doing that because they ran out of salt, so we laugh every time when ever we see them putting dirt on the road, ill send you a picture if we see them doing it again.

Oh yeah I got my glasses on Saturday :P I can read street signs allot better, but some times they get annoying, mainly on my noise where they rest on.

Love you all and hope that every things goes well!

-Elder Dixon

We went to the local gun store on Monday and they had a Thomson, but it was very low quality, but still cool.

 My new glasses