June 15, 2015

Hey sweet fam!

Sorry to be so lame, but I am going to be using my letter to President again.  And then I´ll write a few more bullet points to let you know what else is going on!

"Life is good, oh so good! This week has been a good one. We had our open house, divisions, and ward conference, so it was a week filled with adventures!

Little by little, we are finding more with the members. And let me just say, a huge part of it is my companion! I love receiving a new companion in an area because she has a fresh perspective. Hermana Salvatierra sees things I didn´t notice before...especially when it comes to members. She´s able to see every member truly is a missionary! We´ve been inviting new members to go out with us and bit by bit, we are seeing progress. We saw a huge miracle this week when it came to finding with members. On Friday morning, Hermano Lorenzo (an awesome hermano in our ward) went out with us to visit a reference we received from an hermano in Barrio 3 (Hermano Lopez). We were looking for the house NEXT TO 595 Manuel Oribe. But we kind of forgot the NEXT TO part. So we ended up knocking at 595 Manuel Oribe. A young mother opened the door and we asked her if she knew Hermano Lopez (because he was the one who gave us the reference). She said she didn´t know him, but invited us into her house. 

So we entered into her house, learned about her life, and had a charla! This young mom is incredible...her life has not been easy, but she has so many desires to learn more about God and please Him. It was really interesting because she had lots and lots of questions...and it was so cool because Hermano Lorenzo was able to help her out a lot with her questions! He's a convert so it was easy for him to see things from her perspective. We are so excited to visit her again this upcoming Wednesday!

Okay so divisions were great! I can honestly say Hermana Sandoval kind of read my mind and helped me figure out what I can do to be a better missionary! Our day was super interesting...just about every appointment fell through and there was so much opposition during our charlas. But even though it was an interesting day, it was the perfect day! Hermana Sandoval is INCREDIBLE. She is so full of love and has such sound motives...she just wants to be good so she can help everyone around her.”

And now I´ll give you the bullet points!

• First off, this P-Day has been so fun!  We got to drive around Brazil and eat hot dogs with Fernanda (her parents live in our ward and she just got back from her mission in January).  She was visiting Artigas for the weekend.

• Hermano Jorge came to church and said he felt great!

• I love my life as a missionary and I love this gospel.

• I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH AND THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!

Hermana Dixon

I am obsessed with Uruguayan skies!

June 8, 2015

Hello my sweet fam!

I loved reading your letters.  It sounds like you´re all doing so great in Layton and you´re settling in super well.  So crazy!  

So it´s been an awesome week, and I just want to thank you all so much for the support you've shown me during my mission.  I feel so lucky to be here in Uruguay preaching the gospel, and I know it wouldn't be possible for me to be here without you guys.  So just thank you so much!

Sadly, I don´t have any more embarrassing stories to share, but this week was filled with so many blessings!  And many of these blessings involve incredible Uruguayans.

• On Wednesday night, we called Hermano Lorenzo to accompany us for just one hour.  But he helped us out for three hours.  And in the RAIN!  We just kept thanking and thanking him, but he told us it gives him so much happiness to help those around him.  What a good example!

• On Thursday, we had interviews with president.  I just love President Smith so much, and I can honestly say he is the perfect mission president for me!

• On Saturday, we visited the Berneda Family and they are doing so great!  Hermana Berneda always repeats this story:  About two months back, she felt super sad and was praying Heavenly Father could help her somehow.  She said just a couple days later, we passed by to visit them!  She felt so surprised Heavenly Father answered her prayers so quickly, and it is so cool to see how the gospel is changing Hermana Berneda.  She says she still has hard things in her life, but the gospel helps her keep going!

• Last night, we visited Hermano Jorge, a returned missionary.  He served in Cordoba, Argentina, but hasn´t come to church for quite some time.  We passed by with the Dos Santos family, and I can honestly say MEMBERS MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE IN THIS WORK.  Please please please, you guys should work with the missionaries because the members always bring miracles.  We shared scriptures in Alma 47 and 3 Nephi 11 with Jorge, and then invited him to pray, read, and come to church.  After this invitation, Hermano Dos Santos jumped in and said Hermano Jorge didn´t need to pray, read, or come to church alone and they would love to come to his house and help him out!  Afterwards, Hermano Jorge then asked, "So when would you guys like to come pick me up for church?"  They´re going to swing by for him this Sunday, and we are just so excited!

Well, that´s about all for now!  I feel so happy to be a missionary, and just always remember Heavenly Father loves you all so much and is listening to your prayers!

XOXO,

Hermana Dixon

Noche de Hogar with Hermana Idalina and her sister

June 1, 2015

Hello my sweet family!

Okay to start out, I just want to include a couple of funny stories that have happened to me this last little bit of my mission.  I hope you enjoy them!

Okay so the first story happened during my first night in Artigas with Hermana Ramirez.  We were sleeping like normal, but then I heard an alarm go off at two o`clock or so (the other Hermanas in our house had to go to a bus station to pick up an Hermana who was coming to Artigas).  When I heard the alarm, I woke up a little bit and looked over to Hermana Ramirez´s bed.  She wasn´t in her bed, so I kind of freaked out.  I jumped out of my bed and quickly ran down the stairs.  And I tried to open the door to peek my head outside to look for her, but I had no idea how to open the door (the door in our house is a bit complicated).  So I just kind of hyperventilated a little bit and tried calling Hermana Ramirez´s name through the door but she wasn´t answering me!  So then I ran upstairs to our room again and decided I would try to open our window so I could call her name out the window.  But do you know what`s crazy?  When I went back into our room to open our window, she was in her bed!  It turned out she was in her bed the whole time...I think my body was kind of disoriented from traveling all day so I just imagined all of it!  How crazy!

The second story is about a little dog called Diana!  There is a sweet member in our ward named Hermana Eva, and her dog has so much ENERGY!  And her little dog just loves to lick us all over the place.  And her dog also just loves to JUMP!  So anyway, my first day in the house of Hermana Eva, she asked me if I could say the opening prayer.  So I shut my eyes, folded my arms, bowed my head, and began to pray.  And about halfway through the prayer, something wet and slobbery entered my mouth.  It was Diana´s tongue!  Yuck.  So I just kind of screamed a little bit but then continued on with the prayer.  

The third story happened quite recently...this past week in fact.  So there are still some words in Spanish I don´t understand completely because I don´t hear them very often.  For example, during my mission, I haven´t heard the word "underwear" very many times.  Haha so this past Friday, Hermana Salvatierra and I were in a member´s house and she was explaining it was difficult for her to put her underwear on that morning.  Poor thing!  I didn´t quite understand her, but I could tell she needed help.  So I said, "Hermana, the next time that happens, call us!  We will run over to help you!"  She kind of looked at me weird, but I didn´t understand WHY until Hermana Salvatierra explained everything to me after the lesson.  The mission is one grand adventure!

But anyway, life is good here in Artigas!  I am learning so much with Hermana Salvatierra, and we had an awesome experience this week with Hermana Idalina!  Hermana Idalina is an incredible woman.  Let me just tell you a bit about her.  She is so strong in the gospel and has the sweetest testimony.  She is always willing to help us as missionaries (whether it be giving us glasses of yogurt or umbrellas when it´s rainy outside).  She is super fashionable and beautiful!  And she has a son who is serving a mission in Brazil.

But anyway, a couple weeks back, Hermana Ramirez and I taught Hermana Idalina about the gathering of Israel.  She had desires to gather her friends, family, and neighbors and share the gospel with them, so she gave us some references and promised to let us know if she thought of anyone else.  This past week, her son wrote her and said he wanted her to give a copy of the Book of Mormon to his friend here in Artigas, Fabio.  So on Friday, Hermana Idalina, Hermana Salvatierra, and I went to visit Fabio and give him a copy of the Book of Mormon!  Hermana Idalina let us know it would maybe be just a quick visit because Fabio hadn´t shown very much interest in the gospel previously.  But something changed!  When we went to his house, he let us in, and we got to know him, his younger sister and brother, and his mom!  They were super receptive and it was so great sharing the Book of Mormon with them.  Every time we share the Book of Mormon, I love reading the part in the introduction that says within the Book of Mormon, we can find PEACE in this life.  Fabio´s family promised to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, and we are so excited to share the PEACE this gospel brings.

Well, that´s about it for now!  I am loving life as a missionary, and I love this gospel so so much!  And if you guys want to do something fun for your scripture study, you should read in 3 Nephi chapter 11.  As I was studying this past week, I realized this chapter talks a lot about the action of "arising."  Let me know how many times you read about someone arising!

Well, love you lots, and enjoy your first week in Layton!!!

Hermana Dixon  

May 25, 2015

Hey sweet family!!! 

Okay I am so bad when it comes to time management and writing!  So this week, I´m going to include some of my letter to president and then some updates about what´s going on! 

"I am doing great, just so great!  I feel happy here in Artigas Barrio 6, and I am absolutely LOVING sweet Hermana Salvatierra.  She is honestly a little Peruvian angel and has so many desires to help those around her...whether it be me as her companion, our investigators, the members, or just a random person in the street.  I am so excited to have her as a companion!

This week has been a crazy rollercoaster but has been the perfect week for me!  On Wednesday morning, it was hard for me to say goodbye to Hermana Ramirez, I felt incapable to show another companion our area, and I just kept thinking about all the mistakes I´ve made as a missionary.  But you know what?  Heavenly Father always gives us angels to help us out.  And do you know who happened to be my angel that morning?  SWEET HERMANA OSPINA!  She listened to me, comforted me, and just helped me out.  Thank you for putting such a special missionary in my path in Colonia AND Artigas.
But after an interesting start, Wednesday ended up being a swell day.  My studies helped me out so much!  I read an interesting talk by Brother Higbee, a professor of psychology at BYU (https://www.lds.org/ensign/1972/09/forgetting-those-things-which-are-behind?lang=eng).  The talk starts out with a little story:

‘A newspaper editor, speaking to a college graduating class asked, "How many of you have ever sawed wood?  Let´s see your hands."
Many hands went up.
Then he asked, "How many of you have ever sawed sawdust?"
No hands went up.
"Of course, you can´t saw sawdust!" he exclaimed.  "It´s already sawed!  And it´s the same with the past.  When you start worrying about things that are over and done with, you´re merely trying to saw sawdust."’

It´s so true, no???  On Wednesday, I realized I´ve spent so much of my life and so much of my mission sawing sawdust!  And with that little story, I realized how pointless it truly is.  As I continued my studies, I loved reading in Helaman 5!  In this chapter, 2 missionaries, Lehi and Nefi have a lot of success in Zarahemla, but when they head to the land of Nefi, they get captured and put into prison.  In verse 29 of this chapter, Heavenly Father talks to the inhabitants of Nefi.  It goes like this:

‘Y aconteció que llegó una voz como si hubiera provenido de encima de la nube de obscuridad, diciendo: Arrepentiós, arrepentiós, y no intentéis más destruir mis siervos, a quienes os he enviado para declarar buenas nuevas.’ (SORRY MOM, you´ll have to look this up in English.)

And in verse 32, we read something similar.

‘Y he aquí, nuevamente vino la voz diciendo: Arrepentíos, arrepentíos, porque el reino de los cielos ésta cerca; y no procuréis más destruir a mis siervos.  Y sucedió que la tierra tembló de nuevo y los muros se sacudieron.’

I felt like Heavenly Father was talking to ME.  When I worry about my past, when I dwell on my mistakes, in a sense, I am destroying a servant of the Lord.  Because I AM a servant of the Lord.  And what did these verses tell me to do?  Repent and then forgive and forget myself!  Repent and stop destroying a servant of the Lord!

I feel so much peace now!!!  I am so grateful for my mission and I am so grateful for the gift of repentance because it helps us saw wood, not sawdust!

Okay so now I´m going to jump into what Hermana Salvatierra and I did well this week, and what I can improve!  This first bit of the change, Hermana Salvatierra and I SAWED WOOD!  We lived in the present and worked hard!  I loved showing her around the area and we had some awesome experiences with the members.  The members are starting to give us more references and are excited to accompany us!  As for what I can do better, I am going to stop sawing sawdust.  In my prayers, I am going to repent fully and thoroughly and then get excited for what the future holds!  Because as Brother Higbee said, ‘No matter what our past is like, our future is spotless.’”

So yeah, I am so excited to SAW WOOD!!!  And this week has honestly been awesome.  We saw lots of little miracles.  The Familia Berneda is progressing and they´re starting to prepare to enter the temple! 

Well, I love you all so much, and have the best week ever!

Hermana Dixon

Farewell to Hermana Ramirez

Fun P-Day with Hermana Ramirez

May 19, 2015

Hello sweet family!

So this week is bittersweet because sweet Hermana Ramirez will be heading off to Dolores tomorrow (Dolores is a city pretty close to Fray Bentos--I spent a bit of my first week of the mission there with Hermana Ferrera).  Man I am going to miss her SO MUCH!  But guess what?  My next companion is also from Peru...Hermana Salvatierra!  She´ll be my fourth companion from Peru WOOT WOOT!  You guys know how I am with directions and streets and such...I´m still getting to know my area a bit, so please pray for me that I will be able to guide Hermana Salvatierra!

But anyway, this week was awesome!  We saw so many miracles!!!  First off, do you guys remember that family we talked to because we saw their horse?  Well, they are Dina and Jesus, and they have four children!  We visited Hermana Dina this week and invited her to a baptism on Friday!  She, two of her kiddos, and her niece came!  And also, Hermano Anastacio came to the baptism as well.  Slowly but surely, things are progressing here!

Also, Hermana Ramirez and I have been finding some awesome scriptures!!!  And do you know what we just love to do???  Apply the scriptures to ourselves and to the people we´re teaching!  It´s so fun to change names in the scriptures to our own names or to the members/investigators´ names.  Or it´s fun to change a word to apply it to a certain situation.  Here are a couple examples: 

DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS 88:119

119  Organize  yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a  house , even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;

It´s fun to change HOUSE to MARRIAGE or COMPANIONSHIP!

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a companionship, even a companionship of prayer, a companionship of fasting, a companionship of faith, a companionship of learning, a companionship of glory, a companionship of order, a companionship of God;

2 NEPHI 26: 24

24  He doeth not  anything  save it be for the benefit of the world; for he  loveth  the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw  all  men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.

It´s so great putting people´s names here!

He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of Debi Dixon; for he loveth Debi Dixon, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw Debi Dixon unto him.  Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.

Well, that´s about all for now!  I love you all so much, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a missionary!  I am learning so much every day and I know this gospel is true with ALL OF MY HEART!

Hermana Dixon

One year!

May 11, 2015

Hey sweet fam!!!

Long time no talk!  But quickly, I just want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to talk with me!  It was so fun to see you all and thank you for your patience...who knew it was so important to hear during a Google hangout call?  I love you all so much and thank you for all your tips for my mission!!!

So it`s so crazy!  I just talked to you guys yesterday, but I still have so much to tell you about this past week!  It was a week full of adventures and miracles!  

First off, I´m just going to explain something cool about Artigas.  There are a bunch of cool rocks here.  Artigas is famous for its crystals, and you can find these crystals in any souvenir shop here.  But what is even cooler is that at times, you can find these crystals in the streets!  On Thursday, Hermana Ramirez and I were walking down a street we don´t walk down very much and something sparkly caught my eye!  It was a little crystal!  I picked it up and we kept walking.  And before too long, we found another crystal!  We kept looking and we ended up finding tons of crystals!  They´re pretty small, but we were so excited to find treasure!

Second off, we had some awesome experiences with listening to the Spirit!  On Thursday morning, Hermana Ramirez and I were walking and talking.  We´re usually the ones who say "hi" to people first, but on Thursday, we saw a lady sitting and drinking her mate and she said "hi" to us first!  We said "hi" back and then just kept on walking.  But about ten steps later, I felt we needed to go back and talk with her.  So we turned around and talked to her!  She let us into her house and explained her situation a bit!  It turns out she listened to the missionaries years ago and her daughter (who now lives in Montevideo) got baptized.  She explained that she has a lot of faith in God, but feels a bit guilty for some of the mistakes she´s made in the past.  We did a quick review of the restoration, and then Hermana Ramirez pulled out her scriptures and began sharing the story of Enos with her.  It was incredible to let her know that even though we are so imperfect, if we have faith in Jesus Christ, we can be COMPLETELY FORGIVEN!  We are hoping to visit this sweet lady, Griselda, more!  And it was so cool because as we were walking away from her house, Hermana Ramirez told me that morning, she prayed to be able to study something to help someone!  And what did she end up studying that morning?  ENOS and forgiveness!!!

Another quick experience is that on Saturday night, we finished up our visits a little early.  We still had fifteen minutes or so to work, so we decided to try and visit a less active member, Johnny.  His house was pretty far, so we didn´t really know why we wanted to visit Johnny, but we kept walking in the direction of his house anyway!  As we were walking (and it was pretty dark so we were being careful), someone called out, "Ramirez!"  It kind of freaked us out a little bit, so we just kept on walking.  About a minute later, one of our investigators, Anestacio pulled up by us in his car.  He had seen us walking and called out our names, but we didn´t realize it was him.  So he hopped into his car to come talk to us!  It was such a miracle because we hadn´t been able to see him during the week.  We quickly got to ask him how he was doing, invite him to church the next day, and give him a reading assignment in the Book of Mormon.  We were walking towards Johnny´s house so we could talk to Anestacio!

Okay and we are so excited for tonight because we´re going to have a Noche de Hogar in our bishop´s house!  Hermana Ramirez and I whipped up a little something and we are going to share how the gospel of Jesus Christ is like baking a cake!  Here´s how it will go...

First off, if you want to bake a cake, you need ingredients!  You need flour, sugar, oil, eggs, etc.  The gospel of Jesus Christ also has "ingredients"...our faith, our willingness to repent, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring till the end!

Whenever someone bakes a cake, they always need flour!  Flour is super basic, no?  And without flour, a cake just ends up being a big globbery mess.  Just like a cake needs flour, we need something basic in our lives, something to help us out so our lives won´t be a big globbery mess.  And what is this thing?  OUR FAITH!  Our faith helps us know that even though we can´t see Jesus Christ, He lives!  Through our faith, we know He is our Savior and that through our actions, we can become more like Him!

But even though we try to become like Him, we always end up making mistakes, no?  We´re humans and we do stupid things sometimes.  And how do we feel after we sin or make these mistakes?  AWFUL.  We feel sad or hopeless or BITTER.  And you know what?  Sometimes in cakes, people use that awful, bitter baking cocoa and the batter leaves a bad taste in our mouth.  But guess what!  There is hope!  We can always add sugar to make the batter SWEET again.  And we can always use the gift of repentance to turn the saddest, darkest, and guiltiest moments of our lives into something sweet.  

So now in our cake we´ve got flour and sugar.  We´re doing good so far, but the sad thing is our flour and sugar are a bit separated because they´re both solids.  So what do we need to help our flour and sugar out?  Something LIQUID.  Something like oil!  This oil is going to help the flour and sugar become one, it´s going to seal the deal and help the cake batter be a bit SMOOTHER.  Just as we need oil, we need to be baptized after we have chosen to exercise our faith and repent!  It is the way we follow Jesus Christ, it is the way we show Him we are willing to take His name upon us.  Choosing to be baptized helps us take a grand step towards eternal life, and it makes our life go SMOOTHER.

And it is so great because after we are baptized, we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost!  Before our baptisms, we can receive little inspirations from the Holy Ghost, but after our baptisms (and as long as we always try to do our best to follow Jesus Christ), the Holy Ghost can remain with us ALWAYS.  When we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, it is like we are breaking a barrier to receive personal revelation.  It is like we are cracking eggs!  You can´t put the eggs in the cake batter without cracking the shell, no?

Okay so now we´ve got our batter all good to go!  We´ve done great work and we´ve got all the ingredients together.  But we´re lacking something...the cake isn´t baked yet.  We need to stick it in the oven and let it bake until the END of the time frame it says on the recipe.  When we´ve got our faith, when we repent, when we´ve decided to be baptized, and when we´ve received the Holy Ghost, we´re not done.  We need to endure until the END.  We need to ALWAYS strive to be a little bit better, a little bit more like Jesus Christ.  And until what point in our lives?  Until THE END!

So now our cake is done!  But sometimes we bake cakes and they turn out awful!  Sometimes we accidentally put in a little bit too much sugar.  Or sometimes we take out the cake before it´s completely ready.  Or at times, we put in a little bit too much oil and the batter is super runny.  And it turns out awful!  But do you know what´s great?  Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, it doesn´t matter how many horrible cakes we´ve baked in the past.  We can always experiment and practice and try to bake a cake that tastes a little bit better in the future.  And do you know what´s even cooler?  Every time we bake a new cake, we don´t need to go to the grocery store.  Because Someone has already PAID THE PRICE.

Okay sorry for this long rant, but I love cakes and I love the gospel of Jesus Christ!  You can bet I´ve baked a whole lot of bad cakes during my life, but I know with all of my heart that only the future awaits. I know it doesn´t matter if we´ve made the horriblest of cakes, because through the atonement of Christ, we can START OVER ALWAYS.  As we do our best to follow the gospel of Jesus Christ, we become a little bit better at baking, a little bit better at following the Master Baker.  

I know the message I´m sharing every day is the truth!  I know Jesus Christ lives and He loves you all so much.  Never forget it and never forget I love you too!  Hasta proxima semana!

Hermana Dixon

p.s. Oh and these are the scriptures we´re going to use:

Moroni 10:7

definition of repentance in the Bible Dictionary

2 Nephi 9:23

2 Nephi 32:5

Moroni 8:25-26

Making paper pyramids with Hermana Fernanda

May 4, 2015

Dear family,

I would love to start out this week´s letter with a quick scripture passage in 2 Nephi 26!!!  I read it this morning and it just touched my heart!  

24 He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.

25 Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.

It´s so good, no?  Even though we´re so imperfect, Christ never says "Depart from me."  In fact, in place of "Depart from me," He always says, "Come unto me!"  I also love the part about milk and honey because the gospel helps our lives be SWEET!  

This week I am going to share the SWEET things that happened to me!

• One day, Hermana Ramirez and I were walking and we really had no one to visit.  So we took this random road and saw a horse and a family!  We went up and asked the family about their horse, and it turned into a great conversation.  In the end, we set up another time to visit them.  I visited them on Friday night with Hermana Nascimiento (we had divisions) and they are an awesome family!!!  We are so excited to visit them more!

• I am loving being sweet Hermana Ramirez´s companion!  She is so great and always wants to learn the hymns in English.  So we spend our days singing English hymns in the streets of Uruguay.  She is so fun!

• On Friday, like I mentioned, we had divisions.  I got to work with Hermana Nascimiento from Brazil, and she is just so awesome.  We had lots of adventures...I´m still kind of getting to know my area, so we took a lot of wrong turns and did a lot of navigating with a map.  But I learned so much with her and it was so fun talking with her!  The first time I met her was during our fireside in Fray Bentos...I was still in my training and couldn´t communicate very well with her. So it was so great talking with her for reals this time!

• On Thursday, Hermana Ramirez and I visited the relief society president, Hermana Blanca De Vargas!  She got baptized around forty years ago, so I asked her if she knew Uncle Tom!  And sure enough, she does!  And she has a picture he left behind.  She started crying because she was so happy!!!

• I love ARTIGAS BARRIO 6!  This little ward is honestly so special!  We had an awesome fast and testimony meeting yesterday, and I loved it because so many people shared their testimonies about missionary work.  Woo hoo!

• Today´s been an awesome P-Day.  A member in our ward loves making historical sites with paper (she prints them out online and then folds them).  Today, she invited us over to make the pyramids in Egypt.  It was so fun!

Well, that´s all for now!  I love you all lots, and remember Jesus Christ always has His arms outstretched for us. 

Hope you have a SWEET week!

Hermana Dixon