"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

".... another awesome thing happen as well..."

2/10/14

 

Good morning Dixon family!

 

Man I can't believe that we are tied for 2nd with medals and its good to see that China isn't up there :P

So if i understand correctly the basement flooded from the side door because the drain wasn't working correctly?

And one of Keims daughters is a member, she was baptized when brother Johnson was coming back to church.

sorry to hear that the car is acting up again, it never seems to not have a problem.

I hope you can find out what the problem is soon.

 

This week went really well. Keim was Baptized!!!!, and that was the biggest high light of the week, it went great, allot of the ward members where there to support her, and we are very grateful that the ward is good at fellow shipping people into the church. I'll send a picture with the email.

We also had another cool experience, on Thursday we went tracking in the morning and had some plans lined up after lunch and none of them worked out or they fell through. So we decided to go and track the street over from where we tracked in the morning and we got about 5 houses down the street when this older man invited us in. I didn't expect that happening since this has only happen a couple of times on my mission and most of the time people just want to bash with us, but when we got in he called to his wife and said that there is someone here to see her. When this happened I was confused and didn't know what was going on, so his wife comes in and greets us with a warm smile and hand shake and invites us to sit down. We started talking and we found out that they are members of the church that moved from St.Charles in December and they haven't been to church yet, and they asked us who sent us to knock on their door; we just told them that we just decided to tract on that street, so they where really shocked to hear that. They are really nice people, the Ericksons are their names. One of the reasons that they haven't been to church yet is because she is a care giver and works on the weekends and Sundays. She is trying to switch her hours so that she can come to church, so that was a really neat experience to have.

 

We had another awesome thing happen as well (hope you don' mind the long email) we meet with Abdur on Tuesday and talked about baptism with him and his thoughts about it, and he does want to be baptized but he told us some of his concerns and his biggest concern is trying so stop smoking. He knows that it isn't good but he has been smoking for along time and recently he as been cutting back, and we left him with some scriptures to read when we left. Then yesterday we went over after dinner and set a date for him to be baptized, and that is going to be for the 29th of March!!!, We are so excited for it and he is too, along with his wife who is a member, she was really shocked when she came into the room and we told her about the baptism date.

So this past week was pretty awesome! I love being a missionary and being able to see people accept the gospel :D

Love you all-Elder Jacob Dixon

left to right- Cierra ( keims non member daughter) her husband who baptized her, Keim,me and Elder Hendrickson

 On our way to a dinner appointment we stopped by this river that was solid ice so that's what I'm standing on

Feb. 3, 2014

Happy late birthday Dad! you guys should be getting a letter either today or in the next few days.

So the ground hog saw its shadow? Man I don't want 6 more weeks of winter, not that I believe in that sort of stuff. the weather here is cold its staying in the low teens and we got freezing rain on Friday, so everything is covered in a thin layer of ice, it looks pretty cool.

My new companion is Elder Hendricks, he is from Galesburg Illinois, so he is like 3 hours away from home, but he is waiting on his visa to go to Brazil, so he could be here for 3-4 months or get his visa in a couple of weeks, so its pretty random. but he is a really cool missionary, it should be allot of fun serving with him.

This week went ok, Monday-Tuesday Elder Taft prepared to leave and packed and we visited some members so Elder Taft could say goodbye. and we taught Keim the rest of the commandments and talked about how her reading is going and she is still reading whenever she gets the chance to. they where pretty sad to see Elder Taft go.

And on Wednesday we went to transfers and picked up my new companion. we met with Keim on Friday and just reviewed the interview questions and reviewed some of the things that we taught her, and answered any questions that she had, but she didn't really have any questions, she understands every thing that we taught her.

But she wasn't baptized on Sunday, she wanted her daughters to come to it but they couldn't, due to the weather and it was a busy week for every body, but she is still way excited to be baptized next Sunday, so next week I'll send you pictures of the baptism.
Besides those things nothing else really happened.

We are trying to find more people to teach, but we just aren't having the best of luck, I feel way bad cause in the trainer responsibilities we are to have a big teaching pool and we don't have that :( we only have two people that we are teaching and one of them is getting baptized which is great, but we haven't seen Abdur lately and haven't really been able to have a good sit down with him. I don't know what to do really, besides tracting, but I don't have the greatest out look on that, so its hard to try to motivate me to do that. so that's how I'm feeling right now. sorry to go on about that.

Glad that Dad had a good birth day.

Hope you all have a great week. love ya

left to right is Elder Hendrickson,me,Elder Yanagita(my first trainee) Elder Abad (he was trained by Elder Yanagita)

Big spider that was on the ceiling right above my desk

 

All the trees covered in ice

"We went to the city museum yesterday..."

Hey family,

 

Thanks for sending me the pictures to the funeral. Itsgood to see most of the family, I'm glad that it went well.

It's interesting to see how some people look differently than I last saw them. 

I'm glad that you where able to read my letter that I sent to grandma. Thanks

 

So this week was good, we where able to teach Kiem on Tuesday and Friday and they both went well, we taught her the word of wisdom on Tuesday and she said that she would throw out her iced tea that night which she did, so that was awesome and she doesn't have any other problems with the rest of it, she is also starting to read the book of Mormon from the beginning. On Friday we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and its went well, we had another member there (brother Fuller, second counselor in the bishopric) And he is also there home teacher, and he had some great input. She is really excited about baptism and she always like sharing with us the way that she feels really good inside.

Besides that we didn't get to teach anybody. Oh we had president interviews on Thursday, and that went ok.

We went to the city museum yesterday with the other Elders in our district and we met up with Elder Toki and a couple of other missionaries, since Elder Toki is leaving next week, ll send some pictures along with the email.

the weather is still really weird, it was 45 yesterday and today we got a inch of snow and its 10 outside right now.

 

So I don't know what was wrong that day when wrote the letter, I just struggled with trying to write neatly. and I haven't gotten a appointment with the eye doctor yet, I'm waiting until next week when we find out what is happening with transfers, we get the call on Saturday what is happening so the next email from me ill let you know what is happening.

Hope you all have a good week.

 

Love you all-Elder Jacob Dixon

 Here are some picture from Elder Dixon