Sorella Dixon: He Pushed Us and We Flew

Caro famiglia e amici!

This week just flew by! Really, I think weeks just get faster and faster here! But it was a great week! Days were filled with studying, teaching, more studying, lots of learning, and the spirit. It's amazing to be here where I don't have to worry about ANYTHING else besides growing in the gospel and bringing others to Christ.

Sorella Pulli and I probably had our BEST lessons yet with both of our investigators, Valeria and Francesco, this week. We totally followed the spirit and were able to discern their needs. We had lessons planned, but ended up teaching something totally different than we were planning. It was pretty great. We officially have baptismal dates set up with both of them! Yay!

Last Thursday was TRC and we taught Brother Haynie again! And we saw him several times in Music and the Spoken word! It feels like we know someone famous. We actually talked to someone from the outside world! Haha.

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's day! It was great here! The MTC is probably the best place to celebrate Valentine's Day because no one has a significant other! It's just filled with missionary love :) My district loved the Valentine's you sent to give to them :) As a district we all tried to wear tons of pink and red. And that night before quiet time, the sisters had a little Valentine's get together where everyone shared goodies from home. So many people got sweets! It's safe to say I had WAY too much sugar that day.

We have the best teachers here. Sorella Preston and Sorella Ansted are angels! They are so sweet and are full of the spirit. We have fun in class playing games to learn knew tenses. This week we played Simon Says as we were learning the command form. Last week Fratello Gessel was gone all week and we missed him. He is such an amazing teacher. He is pretty spunky and is always bouncing around, but really, that helps us stay focused and makes the time go by so quickly. He also shares experiences from his life and what he had been thinking about that day. We learn a ton from him. While he was gone we had 3 different subs when our other teachers couldn't come. I'm actually grateful that we got to experience different teachers. I learned something different from each of them.

On Sunday, Sorella Pulli, Sorella Insalaco, Sorella Osborn, and I sang " I am A Child of God" in Italian for sacrament meeting. Those sisters are amazing singers! We did a 3 part harmony. Throughout the week we would hear elders singing a song on the stairs in Dutch and they ended up singing in the devotional on Sunday! They sang in Dutch. It was so cool! Yesterday for choir we sang Consider the Lilies! It was soooo pretty! I love that song! I just love music!

The MTC is an awesome place! I'm kind of sad I'll be leaving in less than 2 weeks. The spirit is so strong here. It's pretty great when you can just be walking around and elders come up to you and ask if they can give you a short lesson. So they read a scripture and just share a spiritual thought.

It's pretty great when you walk down the hall in the building and it's normal to see a companionship praying together before they teach a lesson.

It's pretty great going to eat breakfast and everyone is dressed up and bows their head in the cafeteria to say the prayer over the food.

It's pretty great to talk to so many new people everyday who are going all over the world to change people's lives.

It's pretty great trying to speak a different language that you can't really speak, but your district can still understand you because they're at your same level.

It's pretty great when you start thinking you knew people before the mission because you've seen them so many times around the MTC.

It's pretty great to get mom/grandma type hugs from the wives of our branch presidency when we miss hugs from home.

Highlight of the week: An elder looked at my name tag and had to do a double take because he thought it said Cinderella Dixon. :) It's pretty great to be mistaken for a princess ;)

It's pretty great to hear spiritual thoughts all day everyday!

We got to hear from Elder Holland this week. Ok, not in person, but in a recording from a devotional he gave at the MTC a few years ago. It was so good! The talk was "Missions are Forever". He just talked about really making the most of it. He also talked about how it WILL be hard, but it's because salvation is not a cheap experience. We need to experience a little of what Christ experienced to really care about the work and to be able to get our message across. A little poem I liked from his talk:

"Come to the edge He said. No, we'll fall.

Come to the edge He said. No, we'll fall.

Come the edge He said. So we came to the edge.

He pushed us and we flew".

I know this work is of the Lord. I know he is ALWAYS there and can work miracles! I'm so excited that in less than 2 weeks I'll get to be in Italy and serve the people there!!!

Vi voglio un mondo di beno!

-Sorella Dixon