Nourish and Encourage ALL Light...and an Italian haircut!! :)

Cari Tutti!

Buongiorno! And Buona Pasqua! I hope everyone had a great Easter! We did here! We even tried dying eggs for Easter so we could celebrate it a little how we celebrate it at home! Here they have big chocolate eggs and a sweet bread, kind of like cake, called Colomba that everyone buys. We got to try both. Pretty fun. Saturday before Easter we had lunch with a lady from Peru. She made us Sebiche (who knows how that's spelled...) but it's this fish dish with octopus! I thought it was actually pretty good. Maybe a little rubbery... but not bad! haha We also had rice and potatoes. Then on Monday we ate with Giovanna and Gaia and had pasta and pasta sfolglia!! Delicious! Quite the different dishes! Easter day was so great because we got to enjoy conference! General Conference was AMAZING! I loved every second of it! I could go on and on about what I liked about it, but I just want to mention one quote that stood out to me. "Nourish and encourage ALL light". I love this. We are all at different stages in the gospel and have different levels of spiritual light. Yet, that's ok. No matter who we are we can help others grow spiritually so their light can grow. And by doing that our own spiritual light will grow. I loved all the talks about the Savior and the Atonement. I know the Atonement is REAL and Christ is ALWAYS there. If there's one thing I've learned more about than anything else on my mission it's about the Atonement. I love it.

Last Wednesday we visited Lydia, the member from the Philippines, again. She is so adorable! I just love her! She told us how she came to join the church and it was a beautiful story. She grew up with 10 kids in the house and they all had chores. Her father was a soldier and was pretty strict, but sometimes she would sneak out to go across the street and up a hill in the trees. It was her favorite spot. She loved to sit there and eat fruit. Sometimes she would get caught as she came back and would have to do wall sits. As she got older and ended high school she worked with her aunt and sold things in the market. They had a pretty good business and they needed driver to drive all of their bags there. Eventually she married the driver. His name is Romeo and he's super nice. He's not a member, so we're trying to work with him. Anyway her brother eventually joined the church and she would have debates with him about it. It wasn't until years later after she had kids in school that she actually talked to the missionaries and asked what they were teaching. She was baptized and was eventually able to go to the temple. She wanted to go to the temple but didn't have the money. But then her daughter came to her and gave her the money she had been saving from her allowance. She said as she was riding to the temple they passed her old home from her childhood! But it was different because across the street there were new big houses. As they drove a little more she looked up the hill where she used to sneak off to and there in her favorite place was the temple! 

Beautiful! I just LOVE it! I get chills every time I write this story! Heavenly Father just knows us so perfectly and individually!

Last week was our 21 lesson week. President Dibb challenges all the new missionaries and their trainers to have 21 lessons one week in the first transfer, and we were able to do it! It was definitely with help though. We had 20 lessons by Sunday morning, so we just needed one more. Sunday was Easter so quite of bit of the day was spent watching general conference. It was also rainy, so it was kind of hard to talk to people when no one was outside... But when we went to get on the metro, Sorella Nedelkov couldn't get her card out to scan. We could hear the Metro below coming but she couldn't get it out. Finally she got it out, scanned it, and we missed the Metro. Since it was a Sunday and a holiday the public transportation isn't as regular, so we had to wait 15 minutes. There was no one on the platform to talk to... But! Eventually a girl came and sat kind of by us and we started talking to her! She was super nice and we were able to pray with her! it was so great! Miracle! and we got the last lesson we needed! We're hoping we can continue to teach her!

Well I need to go soon! Sorry if this one was a little shorter... The work is great here! We're excited for and preparing for our conference with Anziano Bednar that is coming up!! 

Vi Voglio bene!

Sorella Dixon

Just some fun tidbits about Italy! Well at least about Milano:

-There are tons of lizards around. In the city!

-Everyone has a little dog. Everyone. And they all have little coats or sweaters. Kind of funny.

-I saw a mailman who was delivering mail on a motorcycle

-Sometimes people just park in the middle of the road if there's no room on the side.

-Tons of people ride bikes and I love it! 

-There is graffiti everywhere.

-Pretty much every balcony has plants or vines! 

-Cars are tiny here! Especially the fire trucks! Someday I will get pictures of those!

-Streets are crazy here! We were on a bus and there were about 5 different streets going into this one intersection, but they have barely any lights and definitely no lines... so I have no idea how there are never accidents! We have to cross 3 streets sometimes to get to the other side. And instead of just watching for cars, there's also watching for trams, because there are tram tracks along those streets too! crazy!

-Carpet just isn't a thing here.

-Pretty much everyone smokes.

-There are people from all over! Sometimes we'll start a conversation with someone from Sri Lanka or something and then in the middle of the conversation they'll realize we're American and start speaking English with us because its easier for them.

-For pharmacies they have a green cross instead of a red cross

-We always hear ambulances. But apparently they aren't just for emergencies. Because they're free, so I guess people call them all the time.

Cute Sisters!

The Castle at Cardona

"An arch that I don't remember the name of"

Happy Easter

Traditions from home

Sister and Elder 

"I LOVE YOU"

"Chocolate eggs that everyone buys"

It's rainy a lot!

Looks yummy!

"Sometimes I just like cool old walls and colorful buildings"

"This is Marlene. She is in Venezuela now."

"This is my lovely haircut.... DISASTER the first time! And then I got it fixed this morning! Phew! Scariest thing of my life last week! haha so...its quite a bit shorter than I was expecting... good thing I have a year and a half to grow it out! and ALL of my split ends are gone! :)