Juan Lacaze missionaries at the branch activity (see below)

November 3, 2014

Hola sweet familia!!!

Where do I even begin???  This week was absolutely crazy...a week I will remember for sure!  I don’t have much time so I am going to use bullet points.  Hope that’s okay!

·         On Tuesday, I had my first meeting with my zone!  It is so crazy to be in a different zone, but I really like Colonia!  The chapel where we had our meeting was so cool--two floors!  And on Tuesday, I also received your package, mom!  Muchas gracias!  I am loving the Wintogreen Lifesavers, and my companion is loving the necklace (she was having a rough day so I gave it to her)!

·         Oh my goodness WEDNESDAY!  Tuesday night, it just started raining like crazy, and on Wednesday morning, we woke up and it was still raining so hard.  The streets ended up flooding in Juan Lacaze.  Hermana Paredes and I went out and were walking around in KNEE deep water.  So crazy.  We didn’t have very many lessons this day, but we visited lots of houses to see if people needed anything because a lot of flooding happened.  Please pray for the people here in Juan Lacaze!  I have some pics I’ll send next week.  Oh and guess what, a sweet Hermana named Slyvia accompanied us four hours in this rain!  What a champ!

·         Hermana Paredes is a rock star!  We are having lots of fun together.  She is sure helping me with my Spanish, and I think I am getting pretty close to fluent because I told her the black bean soup story and the crack the egg story in Spanish!  We use dictionaries and hand signals a lot, but it is fun!  And she is a great teacher!  She is helping me with my teaching skills, so I am grateful!

·         On Friday, we had an awesome branch activity!  We learned about decisions, and Hermana Paredes and I prepared four bon bons...two had green olives inside, and two had chocolate inside.  Four volunteers ate the bonbons, and the elders talked about how sinning is like eating chocolate with green olives inside!  Afterwards, we played games and ate cookies and candy!

·         On Saturday, we saw two miracles!  Saturday was also super rainy and windy, so there weren’t a lot of people in the streets and not a lot of people wanted to open their doors (I don’t blame them, when it’s cold outside, it’s nice to be in bed)!  We just had no idea who to visit Saturday morning, but we said a prayer in the street.  Literally four minutes later, we stopped and talked with a sweet lady named Irma!  She said she feels something is missing in her life, and both Hermana Paredes and I were like woah, God truly answers prayers!  I also had some Oreos in my backpack so we gave her some and said that like Oreos, the gospel is sweet and we want to share it with her!  We are excited to visit her this week!  Miracle number two:  Saturday night, we arrived at our house at 8:48.  It was still cold and windy, but we decided we could stick it out for twelve minutes.  We visited some of our neighbors and said a prayer with them and sang a hymn.  It was something really small, but we are going back to visit this Tuesday.  I am grateful God blesses us for our obedience.

Okay that is about it!  I love you guys so so much, and read 1 Nephi 7:17.  I found this scripture during my studies this week, and I love that with the Lord, we have the strength to break our bands, whether it be addictions, STRESS (this is what I’m working on in the mission), problems within families, or cualquier cosa!

HASTA PROXIMO SEMANA!

Hermana Dixon