No more backpack...

Hello fam!

  This week has been crazy to say the least. We've been given lots of new responsibilities as Zone leaders and we've been pretty busy. My new area is pretty sweet, it's so beautiful. It's the real hills of Los Angeles that everyone talks about. We've been biking every single day and getting lots of stuff done. The area was a little dead when we came in but we've already picked things up quite a bit. It's a lot of fun to be in a new place. We live with some members, the A-- family. We live with like 5 cats, and Sister A-- makes us food all of the time, it's super nice. This week has been so great! BUT now I have to move onto the bad news. We went to the car yesterday morning to go to church... only to find the back drivers side window was busted out and my backpack was stolen. I think my camera might have been in there, because I can't find it anywhere. Luckily I had my wallet out. But the thing I'm most sad about is my triple combination was in there! I have used that thing so religiously on my mission and it has so many recordings and memories in there that I never wanted to forget... but it's gone. Ah. I'm so sad about that. Pray that I can get that thing back, or at least that the man that stole can have an awesome conversion by stealing a Book of Mormon and reading it and knowing it's true and finding missionaries and being baptized and getting married in the temple. That would be okay as well.  So I could possibly be needing a new triple, a new cool scripture case that Brad gave me last Christmas, and maybe even a new camera.  Hate to break the bad news.

  BUT other than that things are great. I'm happy. I love biking, wearing a helmet and looking like a doof is lots of fun, it makes people stop and talk to us. Well I've gotta get out of here, let me know how things are! I love you guys! be good.

Love, Ben

  

Tender Mercy!

     We received the BEST email on Valentines Day from a gentleman who had dinner with Ben! He also emailed us some pictures!  What a tender mercy!

My wife and I had dinner with your Elder last night.

We are grateful that you have raised such wonderful missionary who preaches the Gospel of our Savior and helps bring people unto Him.
We are glad to take care of Elder Dixon. He's a fine young gentleman.Best regards,

Brother Wu
Former Bishop of the HH5 Chinese Ward

Transferred!

Hey family!
   I don't have much time today, but I'll let you guys know the good news. I've been transferred! To the last place I expected... I'll be going to Rowland Heights with Elder Fish, and we'll be the Zone Leaders of the Hacienda Heights Zone. It's been a super long time since Chinese Elders have been Zone Leaders, so we are pretty excited and humbled. I'll be in the Hacienda Heights 5th ward, the other Chinese Ward. We'll be meeting with our new Ward Mission Leader tonight, and the high councilman over missionary work in the morning. I'm super excited to get moving. Elder Fish is from Arizona, he goes home in 2 transfers.
  Well I haven't read your guys email yet, but I'll try to reply to it next week. Thanks for the Valentines package! The cookies were great. Tell everyone hello! Oh and yeah. I can't believe I'll be an uncle of 3 when I get back. What the heck. ALSO Sister Jiang, the one we baptized before Jingwei got her patriarchal blessing yesterday! I love watching people progress in the gospel.
I LOVE YOU GUYS.

Ben.

"Influence for the Church in China"

 

Family,

  That is awesome to hear about Tyler's farewell. I'm so proud of that guy. He's always been a good friend of mine and I'm so glad he matured enough to make the decision to serve. I really think he'll be a great missionary.

   That is so awesome about Noah's choir thing! That is way cool, I wish i had more experiences like that as a kid. Sometimes I really regret never joining any choir class in school. And quitting the violin. And quitting orchestra. BUT things have still worked out. I'm so jealous you guys went and saw Brian Regan! haha. man. I just thought of like 20 jokes and now people are looking at me funny in the library. I better stop.

   This week has been pretty good. Things are still kind of slow, but it's brought a lot of humbling experiences. For some reason lately none of our investigators will stay with us for very long. I always think if it's something that we did wrong or if there was something more we could of done... that always makes me kind of discouraged. But I'm comforted by the fact that I shared what I knew and the Holy Ghost testified of it, and I did everything I can to make them more receptive to that spirit. At that time it is the investigators choice. President always tells us a quote by an apostle, "The problem is not the message, it's the messenger." The message is perfect, there is no flaw. But if we don't do everything we can to relay that message clearly and the best we can, then we are the flaw. We still have one person that is preparing for baptism next month, but as of right now he's struggling with a desire to come to church and follow the Word of Wisdom. I'm kind of glad we're struggling with investigators lately, it has made me think more, prepare better, and be more receptive to the spirit. The Lord is definitely teaching at this point. :) Sun Jingwei and his wife gave talks in sacrament this week, they did so awesome. They spent a lot of time preparing and it really paid off. They have great potential to be leaders in the church. When they were confirmed members of the church, the bishop confirmed them with an incredible blessing, "You and all of your children will have a great influence for the church in China." I'm excited to continue to watch them grow.

  Transfers will be in 2 weeks, and there will be a lot of changes to the chinese work. We'll have 11 elders, which means we need to open a new area and there will be a threesome somewhere, or somebody will go to english work. I'm excited to see what happens. We will see!

I love you guys. Thank you for being great.

Love, Ben.

Chinese New Year!

  I'm glad you guys met Brother Sun! Sounds like it was a lot of fun. He was really impressed with you guys. He even talked about how "handsome" Noah is, hahaha. He's a really good guy, I'm grateful I got to be apart of his conversion. And it's so cool they are naming their girl Lydia! I gave them a list of my favorite names for girls and boys back when they first knew she was pregnant, and that was their favorite one. You will definitely  have to meet his wife some day, she is so sweet, and her english is better :) haha.

  This week has been a little different. I'm pretty sure this week we had the lowest numbers that I've ever had on my mission, but I feel like I worked harder than I have in a long time. Some of my fondest memories of talking to people about the restored gospel have been made this week. We were able to testify to so many people and invite them, I felt really satisfied at the end of each day. I felt much closer to the Lord and I feel like I understand his will much better, I'm very grateful for that.

  I was able to finish the Book of Mormon this morning. After finishing, I wrote in my journal about how I felt after reading this time through and I realized something (most revelation I've received has been from keeping a journal, I love it!). While I was writing I remembered a time about a year and a half ago after I had receieved my call I got up and bore my testimony in sacrament meeting. I remember saying that "I'm grateful I have the chance to serve a mission and give back to the Lord just a small fraction of what He's given me." A righteous desire, that I think most missionaries have when they first come out. But I realized today that that is not the case at all. The Lord has given me more in the past year of my life than at any other time. I am in no way at all paying him back. This really is the greatest thing thats happened in my life. Even though I've gone through more trials and hardships than ever before, even things that I still have no explanation for, I've learned so much and I know there is much more learning to come. I believe learning is the lifeblood of living an "endure to the end" type life. The gospel is true. I love the quote by Hugh B. Brown, "The gospel is beautifully simple and simply beautiful." It is very true.

  I love you guys so much! Every one of you is in my prayers. And tell Alia to tell Bryson hello for me! Haha. Have a good week. (Alia is Brad's wife Cami's sister...She lives in Virginia and Elder Bryson Westover (Ben's good friend) was at her house this week!)

Love, Ben.

Hey it is also Chinese New Year today! We had a small little party at a members home after church yesterday... Here are some pictures of our relief society sisters and elders quorum presidency... (yes the sister on the right is crazy.) And I'm sorry i don't take enough pictures. I'll work on that!

Jingwei

(This is a repeat from a post from my blog... but I wanted this recorded for Ben to have forever!)

 

We received a phone call a few days ago from a gentleman that Ben baptized last October.  His name is Jingwei and he is from Beijing China.  He and his wife came to California last fall.  He has a degree in Chinese Literature and a Law Degree from China.  He was in Provo to visit with the Law School admissions office.  He hopes to start Law School at BYU in August.

We were going to dinner for Noah's birthday and invited him to come with us.  He was such a gentleman!  He even brought me flowers...   He loves our Elder Dixon so much.  He shared a story..."My wife and I had been in California just a short time when an American young man knocked on our door.  He spoke perfect Chinese and I wanted to know how that was possible.  Elder Dixon shared with us his love for the Chinese people, culture and language.  We felt how sincere he was.  He then taught us the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We will be forever grateful for him... his message has changed our lives!"

He shared with us that he and his wife are expecting their first child... a little girl!  Then he told us they are naming her Lydia!  I started to cry... that is the name Ben loves (one of his favorite bands) and he wants to someday name a little girl of his own...  "We asked Elder Dixon for a little girl name, and we are naming her Lydia!"  So sweet.  

This was such a wonderful, tender evening.  Jingwei was a remarkable man with a deep testimony.  He can't wait to take his wife to the Temple later this year.  We were witness to an absolute miracle!

 Here is what Ben wrote right before this baptism...
"This upcoming Sunday we'll be having another 4 baptisms in the ward. 2 younger couples, both of the woman are pregnant and due in June :) They love the gospel and the commandments. Last Monday we had a family home evening with them at a members home, and we had a really good discussion about the temple. They can't wait for that day. One of the couples that I talked about last week, Jingwei and his wife, were talking about when they have their baby, they're going to tell him all about "Dai Shushu" (Uncle Dixon), as soon as they said that I started crying as we talked about God's eternal plan for all of us. We bore testimony that He knows each and every single one of us, and them accepting the gospel at this time in their life is part of their own specific plan of happiness for their young family. It was such a beautiful experience! It's times like these that make every single sacrifice worth it."

We are so grateful for our Missionary Son!  What an experience this was that we will never forget!

Love you Ben!!!

Noah's 15!

Hey family!

   Happy birthday Noah! I can't believe you are 15. That boggles my mind. I remember feeling so old at 15. So you guys are headed to PF changs tonight eh? fun! say ni hao to all my asians for me. It's also Elder Bench's birthday today, so thats kinda cool.

  This week has gone pretty well. We've picked up quite a few new investigators and things are going more smoothly than last week. We taught a lady named Damsy this week, she's from Shanghai I think. She has a pretty crazy story. 2 years ago she was in a huge car accident that left the left side of her body completely numb, her husband took her to doctors all around the world but they couldn't do anything for her. Her husband ended up leaving her because he didn't want to have to deal with it anymore (sad!). At that time, she was already a christian and grew up in the 7th day adventist church, but she never really had a real testimony of God or Jesus Christ and didn't like the church in the first place. She eventually came to America to stay in a care home, and got in contact with another church. The church fasted and prayed for her for 1 day, and the next day all of the feeling in her body came back. She really feels that she's been healed by Jesus. When we introduced the Book of Mormon to her, at first she was a little stand-offish because her last church believed they were the "one true church" and she really doesn't like them, so she didn't like the idea of another church claiming the same thing. She just wanted to attend a normal christian church. After an hour and a half of testifying and answering all her questions, she commited to pray about our message. We haven't been able to follow up with her yet, but we're hoping to soon.

   I'll be finishing the Book of Mormon again this week. I'm so grateful for that book, I wish I had a way to describe how I feel about it in words. I got to read what's become my favorite chapter in the whole book yesterday, Ether 6. The first time it really impacted me was while I was in the MTC just before I was headed to california. In verse 4 it talks about how the Jaredites, just before they are about to leave in the barges,  "prepared all manner of food, that thereby they might subsist upon the water, and also food for their flocks and herds". Preparation in so important in all things, and I felt prepared to leave the MTC when I read that for the first time. After they get in the boats and head out, it talks about a mighty wind that takes them to the promised land, and "the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land while they were upon the waters" this is true about our trials. No matter how hard the wind may be blowing, we can always be assured we're being blown towards the promised land if we "thank and praise the Lord all the day long", just as the Jaredites did. I love that chapter.

  Well I hope Noah's birthday is fun! I think I'm gonna send some of my clothes that I brought on my mission back to him. I have 2 pairs of pants and a nice shirt that I never wear. So I'll try to get on that when I have time. I love you guys! have a good week!

 

Ben