The Work is Great! The Spirit is Strong!

Cari Tutti!

I hope you have all had a great week! This week in Lampugnano was pretty great :)

Thursday we had lunch with an older couple, the Marzanos. They are so cute! Fratello Marzano always calls us angels and just LOVES the missionaries! I've figured out Italian meals, they are pretty much all the same. Pasta for the first course. Then meat (usually chicken) and salad for the second course. Sometimes a piece of fruit after that. Then some sort of dessert. Occasionally we'll also have Orzo (like coffee but without caffeine). I don't really know how they can eat the same thing everyday! For lunch and dinner! It's good, but its good to have a little variety. I'll definitely be able to make you an Italian meal when I get home though!

Thursday afternoon we had a great lesson about the restoration with a lady we met on the bus the week before. She actually lived in Georgia for a few years and had been to LDS activities before but has never met with the missionaries. She has a cute daughter that we also taught. She's only 10 but was asking great questions! She wants to come to church. The only thing is, her Mom is a bidonte, so a lady who takes care of an older person. They work pretty much 24/7... so its really hard to meet with them. 

Thursday night we had English class. Lately our English class has been pretty small... We're trying to figure out how to make it bigger. But the week before two sisters randomly showed up who weren't members. Gioia and Paula. Apparently someone they know told them about it. They liked it so they came last week too! This time we were able to explain a little bit about our church and even gave them a tour. They were interested and asked great questions. We invited them to church and guess what? They came!!! They even read the restoration pamphlet that we gave them Thursday We are going to meet with them tonight!

Saturday we had a lesson with Elda. She's the lady who we met at the bus stop several weeks ago who had talked with missionaries before. We just wanted to talk to her about church and get her to come this week since she hasn't come any other week. We had a good lesson and she said she would think about it because it was early. We planned for a member to give her and ride and then Sunday morning we called her. She was still unsure, but we said we had a ride for her and she finally agreed. She came to church and she LOVED it!!! The members were also really good and so many talked to her and welcomed her to church. It was great to have a member give her a ride because she was able to get to know her. It was so great to have investigators in church on Sunday!

Sunday was a great morning in church! Then later that afternoon we visited Patricia and Washington, the great members from Ecuador. We got to hear their conversion stories from just a few years ago. We were planning on talking to them about the temple, when their nephew, his compania and son came (Compania is the name of the person they live with but who they are not married to. yes, they actually have a name for that here..). They sat down at the table and Patricia and Washington told them we are about to have a spiritual message! I was like, oh dear... now what do we teach? I thought maybe just talking about the Restoration.. but that just didnt feel right. Then as Sorella Nedelkov was talking a little about families, I got the thought, you already planned for this, talk about eternal families and the plan of salvation. As we were planning for the day we planned to teach Patricia and Washington about temples but a lot of times they have friends over who aren't members so we planned to talk about eternal families just in case that happened! So that's what we did and we had a great lesson with them! The spirit was there.

Monday we had an AMAZING zone training! I just love zone training! The spirt was SO strong and it just got me more fired for missionary work. The first half we talked about gaining member's trust. The spirit was there and I learned a lot! This part was in Italian and a member even came and talked to us. Then the second half we got our iPads! It's so weird that we actually have iPads in our hands! We couldn't open them until Tuesday when we had to set them up. Then today we did an online course.  After every missionary in our mission takes that we'll be authorized to use them! Crazy! I didn't know how I felt about having iPads, but we've learned a lot about them and how to use them for missionary work and I'm sure we'll learn LOTS more as we use them. I'm excited to be able to use them to learn, teach, and share the gospel. The mission has given us booklets that are truly inspired so we not only know how to use them to fulfill our purpose, but how to stay safe while using them. These are great things to use even AFTER the mission. It will be great to learn how to use technology righteously and wisely. 

Monday afternoon we visited Mary, a less active member. We have visited her several times before but she still hasn't come to church. This time we were praying for a really good lesson with her. We asked her about her baptism and how she gained a testimony. She said she never actually got a testimony. She doesn't believe our church is true, but she still prays to God. We talked with her about her concerns about church and the members. During the whole lesson I was praying for guidance for what to say and it was amazing how different ideas and words would just come to my mind. Sorella Nedelkov told me the same thing was happening to her. We told her that she does have a testimony. The testimony isn't in the CHURCH, it's in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that's what she believed. She committed to coming to church on Sunday! We really hope we can get her to come to church because we know her kids love it, too. One daughter is 8 but not baptized and we hope by getting her Mom back to the church she can help her daughter prepare for baptism so they can all become strong active members! 

Monday night we had an FHE with the Ramos family. Their oldest son is coming back to church! And they have been inviting friends to church. They are amazing! They just share the light of Christ by just being themselves. Their friends asked them what they are doing on Sunday and they reply they go to church and then invite them to come! They tried inviting a few to FHE but they had work so that didn't work, but we might be doing another FHE type thing Saturday with one of their friends.

Tuesday we visited Marlene's daughter in the hospital again. She is so great! She is so sweet and loves having us there! Apparently she had been thinking about coming to church a little bit before, while her Mom was meeting with the missionaries. We thought she didn't like the missionaries with what Marlene had told us before! But she was the one who told her Mom she needed to tell us she was leaving to Venezuela so she could get the address for the church! Miracles! So now we're going to visit her a lot since she'll be in the hospital for awhile and it will be great to teach her what her Mom believes. 

Well I got to go! The work is great!  The spirit is strong!

Love you all!

Vi voglio bene!!!

Sorella Dixon

"A street named Moroni. I thought that only happened in Utah"

Technology for missionaries to assist in hastening the work.

A "Little" tram ride.

"The hospital"

"The anziani in my district"