Tender Mercy

While I was at the grocery store yesterday I got a text from my sweet Jennie... "Guess What?? One of my old Young Women and Friend Brynn Hewitt (who is living in Los Angeles) just sent me this picture and said she taught a lesson with Ben today!:)"  Oh.my.goodness!! Can you imagine me stopped in the middle of an aisle at Smiths squeeling??!! This was a picture of my boy right at that moment!! That doesn't happen every day ya know... or ever, really!!! Ben is serving in the singles ward... he said the members are amazing are always helping the missionaries with referrals and bringing friends to church.  I am assuming Brynn must be in that ward and invited Ben and his companion over to teach a friend.  What a Tender Mercy for us today!! Thanks Jen and Brynn!

ALSO... In Ben's email this week he gave us his release date... DECEMBER 18!!!

 One week before Christmas!  PERFECT Christmas present for this Missionary Mama! 

 

Labor Day...

 A picture Ben took outside the home of a member...

   I can't wait to see my new nephews! Man it's been a long time. Everyone in those pictures look so much older! Especially Ethan. I can't believe how big they're getting. Still hard to believe that Ethan is in Jr. High. I remember feeling so old when I went there. Weird. Sounds like you had a good labor day weekend though!

  This week has been fantastic. We're teaching a ton and finding a ton more. We've been focusing a lot the past couple weeks on becoming better planners. We finally realized why sometimes the work goes slow, it's because the Lord can't trust us with all his children if we don't know how to plan and prepare and be organized for them! If they're just going to fall through the cracks, he's not going to give them to us. So we've been really tested this week, we've been really trying to stay on top of things and be as organized as possible, and we've been given a lot of new people to teach. We're teaching a huge  guy named Clarence, he had football scholarships all over the place but was turned down once he tore his rotator cuff, so now he's just going to Pasadena city college, where we met him. He went to a camp last summer with a bunch of LDS kids preparing to go on missions, and he was touched and wanted to become a member. Now he's reading the Book of Mormon and a bunch of other church books and loves to learn. He's awesome. BUT yeah, things are going really great. We should have possibly 3 baptisms this month, and 4 in October as of right now, if things play out like they should.

  We went over to presidents house last night and watched the special on Mormons that NBC did the other night, it was really interesting. I didn't really realize how much the church is being put out in the media. I was definitely surprised on how positive it was though, seeing how liberal nbc is. They could have done a lot worse, right? President Becerra is so funny. He tries to avoid talking about politics, but he can't. He's a huge Romney supporter. HUGE. He's one of the funniest guys I know.

   Thanks for everything family! I love you guys. I'm sending a cool picture I took outside of one of our members houses. Los Angeles is a crazy city. Have a good week!

 

Love, Elder Dixon.

Great Sunday

Hey family!

  Thanks for those inspiring words dad, I loved reading that. I love hearing the stories of rescue, they help put in perspective that the Lord puts us in certain places at certain times for certain reasons. We were able to bring a less-active family to church yesterday. They just moved to East LA from New Mexico, and felt inspired to go down to the church and get their records moved over and start coming back to church. The father is covered in tattoos, but it's awesome to see whats on the inside of him. He wants to raise his family right and keep his kids out of the gang life they were bound to be in if they didn't go to church.

  We were able to have a baptize yesterday for Gloria, my first english baptism! It was an amazing baptismal service, she has studied and prepared for a long time. She was found by some Armenian speaking missionaries knocking around in Glendale last October, and has been learning off and on ever since. 2 of her children will be baptized in September, as well as some other people we have lined up. I feel now more than ever the desire to baptize. These last 2 weeks I've felt so enlightened. We've learned so much about how to become better missionaries. Is it weird that I only now feel like I know how to be a missionary? I think the Lord does it that way on purpose. He's the master teacher, after all.

  Well I love you all, we have to go work on transfers with President now. It'll be a good day! We're taking one of our investigators to Presidents house for a family home evening tonight, I'm super excited for that. Have a good week!

 

Elder Dixon

Missionary Work

Hey family!
    This week has been a great week! We actually got to spend a lot of time working in our own area... it was really nice. We picked up a family that was dropped a little while ago, and it was a miracle. The mom said "ever since you told me I wasn't progressing, I had a new found commitment to progress." She's been studying a lot, and came to church 2 weeks ago. She has a baptismal date for the 26th, and her kids will soon follow. They are 16 and 14 years old, and we're going to start teaching her 22 year old and bring him to the singles ward. I'll have my first english baptism! haha. Exciting. About other investigators, they're coming along well. We need to find more though! There's never enough.

   I wanted to send a bunch of pictures today, but I forgot my camera. I'll try and get a bunch developed and mail them out. Our area is right on the edge of downtown LA, so we took some really cool pictures. Part of me is glad I'm not serving in downtown, there are a lot of crazy people down there. We had some experiences that aren't really apporpriate to tell in an email, haha.

  Thanks for that thought you shared with me dad, I love the word "become". I've studied it a lot lately, I'm giving a training on it tomorrow to all the missionaries that are currently being trained. I'm using a lot from Dallin H Oaks talk "the challenge to become". The word become really puts things in perspective. I've realized that not one of us will reach a point where we can say "I became." We're always "becoming", emphasis on the -ing.

  Well I don't have much time today, as usual. :) We're playing frisbee golf later!

I love you guys! have a good week.

 

Tennis

Hey Family!

   Yes my p-day is on Saturday, but I'll probably still write e-mails on mondays. or maybe saturday, it's up in the air really. I'm so glad EJ is playing tennis! I played again this saturday, it was awesome. One of our members is starting a free tennis clinic every saturday, and it'll be a good missionary finding activity so I'll probably be playing tennis every week for the next few months! I'm excited.

   This week has been pretty busy, again. We were able to work in our area more though, so that was nice. 1 or 2 times a week we set up a booth at Pasadena City College to proselyte to the younger folk for our singles ward, it's a lot of fun. We found an awesome new investigator this week named Vivek. I think his family is from India. He's a 17 year old kid. We were walking around our church building waiting for one of our members to show up for an appointment and we ran into him. He first told us that he was athiest/agnostic and didn't really have any interest. We talked some more and for some reason he agreed to come into the church and take a tour. When we walked in he said "ah crap I forgot I have to go home now to eat with my family..." so we said okay and left him our phone #. As he was walking out he turned around and said "you know, I've actually been thinking a lot about christianity lately and I have some questions, I've got a few minutes." Well, a few minutes turned into about a half hour and he was so happy. He kept saying "this makes so much sense!". We were all very edified. At the end of the lesson I reached out to give him a handshake and he opened up his arms and gave me a big hug. President said once "You can know the spirit is working in you when you and your investigator both learn in a lesson." That's definitely a true statement.

   Well I'm excited to see pictures of that family all together! I'll work on getting some pictures soon, I've become a pretty bad picture-taker lately. Too busy! Okay, thanks for everything! Look forward to hearing from ya next week. love you all.

 

Ben.

  

Busy...

Hello Family!

   MAN I've never been so busy in my life. This last week has been pretty crazy. We had zone conference every day this week in different zones, give trainings, had to figure out transfers, call them out, move people, blah blah blah...haha. But it's been fun, I love working closely with all the missionaries and president. My 2nd night as Assistant we got a call from president at 2:00 AM asking us to go save some Elders because their apartment caught on fire. It was pretty crazy, everyone is safe now though. It's just been a super busy week, to say the least. I love my new companion, he's such a good missionary. My new area is great, too. It's weird to be working in a singles ward, but it's a lot of fun. Most of the singles ward members are here from Utah doing internships at Disney and stuff. I've already gotten a few chinese referrals, so I'll still be speaking my language occasionaly :) The family ward we work in, Glendale 2nd ward, is a great ward. Lots of the members are movie makers and directors, and lots of them work at disney and pixar and places like that. We met a guy on the street the other day that was the director for the TV series '24' haha. We're going to play tennis with a member and potential investigator tonight, I'm super excited. I haven't played tennis in forever. I live in the hills of Glendale, it's so pretty. The streets are narrow and the people are crazy, but it's a lot of fun. We can see downtown outside of our window. Glendale is filled with ARMENIANS. There are tons of them, we have an armenian branch here. Matt Dixon taught some of the Elders here when they were in the MTC. But yeah... everything is going great. 

   I've felt pretty overwhelmed this week with this new assignment. The elder that I'm replacing as assistant was definitely one of the best elders i've ever met, and it's been hard to feel that I'm capable of taking his place. But I've realized that the Lord didn't call me to be another him, but to be me. I've still got so much to learn, I almost feel like a greenie again. I love the opportunity to learn though and I'm grateful for that. I better get going though, I love you guys! Have a good week!

 

Ben.

New Assignment...

 (Oh my goodness! We are so excited for him!)

Hello!

  Yes, I know that it's weird that I'm writing on a Saturday. But... some changes have been made in the mission, so my p-day has been switched to today. It's been a crazy week. FIRST Elder Tryon and I talked to President on Wednesday about the chinese work, he wanted our opinions on what should be done next transfer. So we discussed for a while, made a decision, and he said "okay, thats what we'll do then". Elder Tryon and I were going to stay Zone Leaders in Hacienda Heights, and they'd be taking the other 2 elders out of our ward, so we'd be covering the whole ward by ourselves (half the mission). So we've been preparing for that the past few days... getting to know the members better, finding out which investigators we'll be taking from the other elders... yeah. So we supposedly had it all figured out. THEN, this morning at 7:47 AM I was ironing my shirt when President Becerra called. "Good morning Elder Dixon... after much prayer and consideration, the Lord has decided that you'll be my next Assistant to the President." MAN I'm so scared out of my pants right now! That was honestly the last phone call that I expected. I don't feel ready for this new calling, but I've decided that the only way to be ready for it is to be thrown into it.

   But, I'm excited for new learning opportunities. I'm excited to be around President a lot more and learn from him. My new companion is Elder Ebanks, he's from Florida. We'll be serving in the Glendale 2nd Ward as well as the Glendale 7th Singles Ward... and yes, that means i'll no longer be in chinese work :(. I'm super sad about that, It'll be hard to leave my people! But all will be well. I'm going to miss Elder Tryon a whole lot. I've never grown and progressed so much in my life. The last 5 weeks have been the best of my life, especially this last week. I wish I could explain in words the miracles that have happened this week, but they are so sacred to me that words cheapen them. The gist of it is that this week the Lord truly prepared me for this new calling. I'm so grateful for the things the Lord has shown me.

  It'll be pretty hard to leave all of my investigators. The ones that we've had lately have taught me so much. I really hope to see them all get baptized someday. Man I don't even know what to feel right now, I definitely have a weird feeling inside. Mixed emotions. Excited and sad. Elder Ebanks says they just picked up a chinese investigator though, so I'll still be able to use my chinese. This letter is super scattered.

  Mom and Dad, would you give me some doctrinal advice? That is what I need right now... Elder Bednar once said "Faith faces the future, looks to the past, considers the present, and initiates action." That is what I'll be needing the most. Faith. Such a general word, but filled with so much specifics and details...

  Well. We're about to go to lunch with our new Elders Quorum President. I love you all so much. Keep me in your prayers!