Sister Dixon: Be Thou Humble

Hello my fabulous friends and family!

What a crazy week full of rain, transfers, meetings, and teaching! Gotta love missionary work!

Monday after p-day, all of Pontevedra was in a brownout because a certain box blew out, so we taught by candlelight to the Edral family and by bonfire to the Espinosa family...talk about flashbacks to girl's camp! It was neat to sing hymns and discuss following the prophet around a fire. :) Because our apartment water is run though an electric tank, we didn't have water, so in the process of taking our big water jugs to the nearest bumba, the power came back on. Miracles!!

Tuesday we had an awesome district meeting on teaching people, not lessons. Elder Van Wagoner is a very inspired district leader and all the elders in our district are so humble. We're the only sisters in our district. Later that day, we worked with Nelly Rusia and had some pretty spirit filled lessons. We really tried to apply what we learned in district meeting. As a result, AJ, one of our investigators who was super interested at first and randomly just lost interest, really opened up with his concerns. One of which was that he feels like there is no purpose to his life. Nelly bore powerful testimony of how she felt like that before she joined the church. Hopefully we can continue to help AJ feel he has purpose in his life and how much Heavenly Father loves him. While proselyting, we got the call that Sister Manosig would be transferring. We walked Nelly home and it started to POUR rain. We only had one umbrella, and since Nelly is pregnanat and Sister Manosig's bag isn't waterproof, I let them use my umbrella and pretty much took a tropical shower. I haven't "danced" in the rain for a while, so it was pretty refreshing! ;)

Wednesday we headed to Bacolod. Sister Manosig is now in Cadiz with Sister Remund, which is where Sister Batalero was. And now Sister Batalero is MY companion!! :) We're batchmates in arrival (we actually stayed in the same hotel room when we first arrived in Bacolod), so we were pretty excited. :) She is from Bicol (sp?) and is 4 out of 10 kids! 5 boys and 5 girls. She is the third to serve a mission in her family. She has just the sweetest spirit ever and is very humble. She's one of the most positive people I've ever met and so hard working. I'm excited to work with her this transfer. :) By the time we got back to Bacolod, we were only able to have a few teaching appointments, but we were able to see a bit with how we work with each other, and I think it's gonna be a pretty great companionship. :)

Thursday we pulled out our finding skills and did quite a bit of OYMing and helped a woman named Juletta do her laundry at a bumba (water pump). We studied in Preach My Gospel about the importance of doing good, then preaching the Gospel. :) It sure opened up Juletta's heart and she said we could come back and teach her next time. We were also able to continue to help AJ understand his purpose in life and he's starting to warm back up to the Gospel a lot more. Later that night we went to the Rusia's just in time to see that the elders were there. Nelly wasn't feeling so good so they gave her a blessing. The power of the priesthood never ceases to amaze me. After that the elders found a family in our area and so we met and talked with them for a while. They said we could come back in a few weeks because one of the sons has surgery next week, so we're praying they will be open to our message!

Friday we had our weekly planning and visited a few less active families, recent converts, and investigators. We taught Marissa (RC) and Ricardo (investigator) about the temple. Ricardo's been having a hard time stopping his coffee and cigarettes, so we focused on the eternal blessings of the gospel, and the temple. He's getting better and better each week, however, and as of yesterday is down to 1 cigarette and no coffee! Just milo. :) So we are really excited about that.

Saturday we were able to teach Justin, our 10 year old part member investigator who rarely wants to listen. Sister Batalero pulled out her magic tricks and we were good after that. haha We found out that he really does want to be baptized, he's just nervous to stand in front of so many people and bear his testimony. He thought that part was necessary to be baptized. We cleared things up and now he's excited to be baptized in June. :) Later that afternoon we held our first PEC meeting here in Pontevedra. It was kind of long, but was pretty successful I'd say! We want so much for this branch to become a ward, but nothing's going to happen if there isn't order, so we're doing our best to help the branch grow in all aspects. Later we taught Haydee (more like she taught us---her memory is incredible!) as well as Analiza. Hopefully they will be able to make it to Bacolod soon so they can get their CENOMAR to be married! :)

Sunday was pretty crazy. We taught both Relief Society and Gospel Principles, and Sister Batalero gave a talk in Sacrament meeting. haha President Antonio, our stake president, visited and had a special meeting after church with the youth to promote fellow-shipping. Then we held a branch council meeting to discuss a lot of the things we did in PEC with the other auxiliary leaders. I think by the end of this year we'll be able to get a new church building and become a ward for sure. :) After church we had exchanges with Jane Espinosa and Haydee Aligan. I was with Jane and she told me a pretty neat experience she had where she promised God that if she passed the board exam to become a teacher that she'd serve a mission. Her grades in high school were lower than the average of people who usually pass the exam, so she was kind of nervous. She studied hard though and out of 1000 people, she was ranked 159 out of 450 who passed the test! She gives all the credit to Heavenly Father and is super excited to start and finish school and then serve a mission to keep her promise! She said that's another reason she always works with us. To thank Heavenly Father. It's amazing the amount of blessings Heavenly Father gives to His children who do missionary work in any form. I sure have felt the abundance of blessings, and I love seeing it in the lives of others, especially the youth and single adults here in the Philippines. They are so amazing!

All in all, it was a great week! Lots of tender mercies, testimonies strengthened, and firmer faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope you all had a good one and hope that this week is even better! Happy birthday to Grandpa Dixon this week! Love you! Congrats to all the seminary and grads and soon to be high school grads! Can't believe it's that time of year!

Love you all! Thanks so much for the love and support!

All my Love,

Sister Dixon