Sorella Dixon: Life in Italy, Missionary Style!

Cari famiglia amici,

We had a great week this week!

Nancy is doing GREAT! We had a few lessons with her and some members. It was kind of interesting with the members we had.... They tended to go off on random things and it wasn't really helping the lesson... So I learned to be careful with what members to invite to lessons. Sunday she came to church and I think it was better for her this time. People talked to her a little more and it was more familiar. She came at 10 though, instead of at 9, so she missed relief society. In July the ward will change to have sacrament meeting first, so hopefully she'll be able to come at 9 so she won't miss that. Sunday night we had a dinner with her, Mckenzie (her baby), and Nelson (her compagna) at Gladys and Giulia's house. It was So Much Fun! It reminded me off being with family! We were laughing so hard at some points. One time I mentioned that it was Father's Day in America so I said "è il giorno di papa in America oggi" but I accidentally accented the first a in papa instead of the second so in Italian it would mean pope.... But these people are all from Peru and apparently it means potato in Spanish! So they thought I said it was the day of potatoes in America! And we so happened to have potatoes in front of us on the table ready to be eaten! Haha whoops!

Nelson is super nice and we want to start teaching him. I think he would like it. He has work all day everyday except weekends. We're going to see if we can teach him on the weekends. So yesterday we had the lesson about the law of chastity with Nancy. We need to set a baptismal date with her because she wants to get baptized and she's progressing so fast. So in order to do that we needed to talk to her about getting married. We had Sorella Boscia with us yesterday since her companion was in a training for new sister training leaders, and it was such a great lesson! We started talking about the gospel of Christ and when we got to baptism she asked us what were the rules of the members after they got baptized- like what they couldn't eat/drink etc. so that was the perfect entry to the importance of being married! We really bore testimony about prayer and following what God wants us to do-regarding if Nelson is the man she should marry. She accepts everything. She realizes now that how they're living isn't right and they need to get married. She even talked to Nelson yesterday about it, she told us when she came to FHE that night! They just need to get documents or something...... I'm not sure how difficult that will actually be... Apparently it's not super simple... But I know they will be blessed for it!

I keep forgetting to take a picture with her, but hopefully next time I can send one so you can see her and her cute baby!!

Last week we saw Anita in the hospital a couple of times. The Anziani came and gave her a blessing since she has an infection and has been in a lot of pain. We come and listen to her since she's in her room alone pretty much all day. And then we distract her by singing and we've also started reading the Book of Mormon to her since she gets dizzy when she tries to read. She loves it.

Elda keeps us hopping, but then she also does stuff that brings miracles! For example we saw her Saturday, but it was only for a little bit since she needed to shower and we weren't going to stay there and wait for her to shower... But we asked if she was going to come to church on Sunday and she said yes, for sure. So we called a member to have them give her a ride. The next morning we called Elda so many times to remind her (or wake her up) about church. She didn't answer for for.ev.er. When she finally did she said she didn't think she could come. So we called the member. Then during relief society we get about 6 calls from Elda, so we go out and call her and she says she wants to come but the bus doesn't come as often on Sundays. We told her no one could give her a ride since they were already at church and it had already started... So she said she'll come next week. So we finish relief society and Sunday school and we're in sacrament meeting and a guy comes up to me saying there's someone outside asking for Dixon. I couldn't even think of who would be asking specifically for me. So I go out there and it's Elda! Uh what?! Apparently she called a friend who knew someone who gave her a ride! I still don't really understand! I had no idea who he was and I don't think she had even met him before! It was a miracle! And she came just in time to hear Sorella Griffin speak! We were able to introduce her to the member who could give her rides so now hopefully they'll be able to work things out between them and we don't have to be in the middle of it! And hopefully Elda will come to church more often now!

Sunday was a great time after church. Sorella Griffin and I talked to soooo many people after sacrament meeting! It's the best time to set up times to visit members and introduce people to investigators. We also got to talk to all the people some members brought to church! So many members brought friends this week! It was great! One was a lady from Sicilia who had just lost her husband two years ago. In gospel principles the lesson was on the plan of salvation and she started crying when they were talking about life after death. I know she felt the spirit and it was exactly what she needed to hear.

We had 2 kind of interesting experiences this week... One was a lady who just randomly called us one day asking if we were the sister missionaries. Apparently she had talked to us a couple months ago. We found out later it was probably Sorella Nedelkov who she talked to. We said we were different sisters but were still sister missionaries who lived by Uruguay. So we set up a time to meet her. She was really nice and we had no idea why she called us. Well.... We met her at the park and we're having a really good conversation with her then she told us that she was having problems with her husband and was looking for a new place to live... And asked us if she could live with us! She said we were good people and she would like to share an apartment, so at least we left a good impression on her... But... we can't do that. That was the only reason why she called us. We bore our testimonies to her and talked about how much this gospel blesses people's lives because she also told us she was looking for happiness. But she wasn't too interested in the church right now. I'm pretty sure she'll see missionaries again some day though and then will be ready!

The other experience was a man named Chris. He's from Nigeria and we teach him in English. Sorella Griffin met him the day that we had the two other Sorelle with us and we split up. We taught him last Thursday and Monday at the park. And they were really good lessons! He was asking great questions and said that he liked how he felt when he met with us. He doesn't have a job and is searching for one. So life is hard right now for him and his wife. Well yesterday he texted us asking for money..... We said we could not give him money but maybe we could help him with something if he came to the church and we talked to some of our leaders. He came last night and they had quite the long conversation. In the end they said they could give him a package with food and clothes for him and his wife. Everything was pretty stressful. We don't know how sincere he was in the lessons. Or if he just met with us so he could get money. I'm pretty sure he was (at least mostly) honest about not having a job and really needing things. We also found out he's not even in our area... So I don't know how he got to the park every time.. It was a bummer. We're passing him to the Anziani in his area so hopefully they can continue with him.

Friday I tried probably the best bread ever! We just randomly decided to try it from a market and we were lucky! :) Today we got to go to Como again. So beautiful! I love Como! Life is so great here in Milano!

A quote that I liked this week: "Like the tiny miracle of fireflies, light goes unappreciated without a dark backdrop." That can be applied to receiving revelation. Also sometimes we have to experience opposition to appreciate the good times. Or we have to experience what we don't want to really recognize what we do want.

Have a great week!

Vi voglio bene!

Sorella Dixon :)

These photos are from last week's train ride to Switzerland!!