"Give, Said the Little Stream"

November 24, 2014

Hola fam! 

I don’t have very much time to write you all because it’s been a busy P-Day in Colonia and the cyber was full until now!  Oh my goodness Colonia (about an hour from Juan Lacaze) is breathtaking.  Look up some pics of Colonia and you will not be disappointed...maybe I’m biased, but I think Uruguay is the most beautiful country ever!

So it’s been a great week in Juan Lacaze!  I am so grateful for my sweet comp; we had a lot of wonderful experiences this week!  On Monday, we had a Noche de Hogar in the area of the elders and we missed our bus.  So we ended up walking half an hour to the Noche de Hogar with a member named Hermano Poses.  It stunk that we missed our bus, but we got to talk with Hermano Poses the whole way and he is just awesome!  On Tuesday, we had a meeting with our whole zone in Colonia.  We were without our cell phone and got confused, so we accidentally got on the wrong bus.  We ended up getting off the bus, waiting for an hour or so ALONE in a random little parking lot, and getting on another bus, but we made it safely to Colonia!  A miracle!  On Wednesday, we had a sweet member named Loana accompany us for the whole day.  She is fifteen and it was so fun to hear her testimony and see her grow even after just going out with us one day.  The rest of the week was kind of a blur, but church was awesome yesterday.  Our sweet Alba has been coming to church and it’s so fun to see her get along great with the members in our branch.  I am grateful for the unity we feel through the gospel!  And a lot of less active members are beginning to return, and it just makes Hermana Paredes and me so excited to see them happy and well in the chapel.  Life is good!

This week, I read a bit about the two thousand stripling warriors and just loved it!  I would like to share a verse with you all (Alma 56:17):

And now they were determined to conquer in this place or die; therefore you may well suppose that this little force which I brought with me, yea, those sons of mine, gave them great hopes and much joy.

I love three phrases in this verse..."little force,” “great hopes,” and “much joy!"  Hermana Paredes and I are a little force.  Sometimes we work and work and work, and I just wonder if we’re even making a difference.  But you know what, even though we’re small, and every other missionary companionship in the world is small, we can make a DIFFERENCE!  Here’s a little list I’ve made of ways we can make a difference (even if it’s just a difference within ourselves).

·         We can pray every day for those who need help.

·         We can read our scriptures and LIVE what we learn.

·         We can smile at random people in the street.

·         We can ask people questions about their lives.

·         We can be patient with those around us.

·         We can bake a sweet treat for someone who needs a pick-me-up.

·         We can laugh when life gets stressful.

·         We can forgive and forget (including ourselves...sometimes the hardest people to forgive).

·         We can tell people THANK YOU!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the song “Give, Said the Little Stream” (https://www.lds.org/music/text/childrens-songbook/give-said-the-little-stream?lang=eng).  We are all small, but wherever we go, we can make the grass a little greener.  And by doing our little part, our little force can spread great esperanze and much joy.  I LOVE YOU all, and have the best Thanksgiving ever.  I am so grateful you are my fam, and I am grateful I get to be a missionary in cute little Uruguay!

Hermana Dixon