Saturday's Accident

Here are pictures of Tom and Kristy's car after their nasty accident in Box Elder County. There were about 37 vehicles involved. They were traveling for Kristy's family Christmas party. We are so grateful they are safe. Dad and I feel they had angels watching over them yesterday. We have much to be grateful to Heavenly Father for this Christmas Season.

Poor Tom Kristy and Xander spent some very cold moments outside on the freeway trying to find someone in the area to come get them. They finally reached a cousin in Brigham city who rescued them. They also spent some time at Scott and Mary's house.

Not only are we grateful for Tom, Kristy, and Xander's safety, but for family like Scott and Mary who helped them after the accident. Even though Glenn and I were far away at the Boekweg party, Scott and Mary were there to help. This picture was taken by Scott, who also helped learn more information from the dispatch center.


Mom

Is It Contagious?

When Owen came to visit yesterday, he showed us his new trick. We laughed because it was so cute. But then after looking at this picture, we wondered.......is it catchy?

makes me wanna shout!

What did people do before there was shout? We wouldn't have any clothes without it.

Hey, I'm famous!

So here's the Highlights story I wrote based on Aunt Emmy's story. It's in the December issue. I think the illustrations look really nice. They still kept the line in that I hate, the daggers one, after I told them to replace it...grr. Well anyways, I still think it's cool. It's in the center fold, too! Today, dentists' offices, tomorrow...the world!

Happy Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for this year! So many blessings and each other.

Dad and I love you all so much. Can't wait until Thursday!

Phishing Quiz

My Boss today made everyone in his department take this online phishing quiz. The quiz does an excellent job of showing you how to identify a phishing email, and I think it is valuable enough that everyone should take a look at it.

http://www.sonicwall.com/phishing/index.html

There are also some really interesting statistics on phishing attacks and online identity theft.

I know it's dumb.

But I still laughed.

Christmas Lists

Since drawing names last Wednesday, I've been thinking a lot about what people might want/need for Christmas.  I'm coming up blank.  Maybe we can all help eachother by listing things we have our eye on or some of our interests.  Also, if you have a little one that could use clothes, could you give the size needed?

Great.

This may be unconventional, and even uncomfortable to some, but I'd hate to buy something that would be a duplicate or unwanted.

Thanks!

Missy's Home!!!!

Sunday Pictures

So, this past Sunday Peter, Faunice and Owen, and Tom, Kristy and Xander came to visit Oma and Opa. As you can see, Xander was so happy we had to get a picture of his smile. They just don't come cuter that this. He smiles a lot like his Dad did at his age.

When Xander would smile the rest of us couldn't help smiling too. He is such a joy!

It was Owen sucking his little thumb that made us take out the camera. It was just to precious. How did we get along before he joined this family?

He is such a sweet natured baby. Peter and Faunice tell us that he is starting to make those sweet baby noises that Opa especially loves.

When Jimmy saw us taking pictures he didn't want to be left out! Our life would undeniably be boring if it wasn't' for Jim!

Dad and I love Sunday afternoons. We feel Heavenly Father has blessed us so much to have such great children, and such exceptional grandchildren.

Missy's LAST email

I'M COMING HOME!!!!!!!

I am way excited to see everyone! I'm still working hard though. Today is P-day and tomorrow we spend the day at the mission home and the temple, so I won't be doing a whole lot more missionary work. Sad day!

I can't wait to see y'all in a couple days! We will talk more then!!

Love you more then airplanes!
Sister Dixon

Missy's Coming Home

Only 7 More Days
This is it! It has finally come. It's time to pick Missy up from the airport!

Her plane is scheduled to arrive at 2:04 p.m.

Her flight number is the Delta 1231.

Everyone is invited. After she gets here and we all get a hug, we would love to invite you all out to Golden Corral on 3399 West 3500 South in West Valley for lunch.

We can't wait!
If you have any questions let me know.

For your information, she will be speaking on church
on November 16th at 9:00 a.m.

Missy's November 3rd Email

Hey Y'all!

So, this week I am actually with people who like to email their families. Sorry about the no email last week. It wasn't my fault, the library is only open for 3 hours! But anyway, it looks and sounds like y'all had a great time on Halloween. My Halloween was fun too. We had interviews with our mission president and mine was really short. I guess since I am going home soon he didn't have much to say. After everyone in the zone had their interviews we got special permission to have a Halloween party. Basically we stayed at the church and played some games (three legged race, etc.) and had pizza and candy. It was so much fun. I spent most of the time talking with Sister Ethington. We were in the MTC together and we have never had the opportunity to serve with each other, although we have been in all the same areas. We talked a lot about the people in each of the areas. It was a lot of fun.

So, things are going well here. I'm not too trunky, but I have to admit, it is really weird to make appointments with people knowing that I will be on the other side of the country by then. Crazy! It is fun being in a foursome, it is pretty much like a party every night. I am sleeping on the couch again. t's a good thing that it is a really comfortable couch!

Well, it is starting to get chilly and cold out here, but no snow! I really miss the snow.

I love y'all and hope all y'all have a great week!
Sister Dixon

So what did you do for Halloween this year?

Halloween, the scariest night of the whole years arrives. As you can tell by the pumpkins decorated and dressed up by Lilli and Mary Kate, it was going to be a very scary year for pumpkins!

Sarah in her Bat shirt

Doctor Emily and a very patient Tommy!

Dinosaur Joshua (Notice the teeth!)

Becca can even make a witch look good!

Angel Millie

The perfect pair.
Anna and Mary are perfect as Nancy Drew

Owen fits right in. Next year he will know the score and be out with the big kids getting the candy.

Adam and Steven
(Really, really scary)

And the winner smile belongs to Xander!

Halloween was great!
Thanks for all the great memories!

Mary's Baptism

Thanks to everyone who attended Mary's baptism! It was great to see everyone! Here's a picture of her baptism day.

Tom and Xander

Peach Days
Our first(and hopefully last) ward campout

Owen Eats Carrots

I had to share a picture of Owen's first taste of carrots. How can things be disgusting and cute at the same time?

Faunice

Mary's Birthday

So Mary is now 8. And because she is 8 and getting baptized, she wanted her birthday cake to be a Beehive with bee's. This is because she wanted to "Bee" modest and "Bee" smart and all that jazz. The bees were made with marshmallows and half of a twix bar. Katie is such a honey.

I have a lovely bed!

I just thought I'd show off my new bedframe. Jim & Mom helped me put it together last week. Guess how much I got it for? Nope, guess again. Nuh-uh, guess again. 75 dollars! I got it at the RC Willey scratchndent across the street and I am pretty pleased! In fact I keep the tag on to remind me of the great deal I got.

Also, Nov. 8th is the Women's Show at the Southtowne Expo. Does anyone wanna come? It is sure to be lots of fun and Sarah and I will have AwesomeLunch at our apartment afterwards. There will be games and puh-rizes!

A Student's Prayer

Now I Lay Me Down to Study, I Pray the Lord I Won't Go Nutty. If I Should Fail to Learn this Junk, I Pray the Lord I Will Not Flunk. But If I Do, Don't Pity Me at All, Just Lay My Bones In the Study Hall. Tell My Prof I Did My Best, Then Pile My Books upon My Chest. Now I Lay Me Down to Rest, And Pray I'll Pass Tomorrow's Test. If I Should Die Before I Wake, That's One less Test I'll Have to Take..... Amen.

Missy's October 20th email

Hey Y'all!

OK, I know that this isn't very nice, but I only have like 5 min to email. My comp has our day packed and we have to leave and go off and do something else right quick. She always forgets to schedule in time for emailing, probably because she talks to her kids on the phone almost every night, and so she doesn't need to email. It's all fine though because I get to see everyone in three weeks anyways!! Wow, time just flies!!!!

Anyways, this past week was a good week. Dustin Miller got baptized on Saturday. He is a neat kid and he is going to make a awesome member. He has come a long way too. A couple months ago he was a alcoholic smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day. Now he is a clean cut young man doing wonders and going back to school. I love how the gospel changes peoples lives and I love being able to be a part of it.

Well, I gotta go! Y'all will only get 3 more emails from me and then you get me in person! Very exciting!

Love ya lots!!!
Sister Dixon

Interesting Conference Stats

A friend of mine sent me this email the other day. She decided to take some notes during her sacrament meeting, and one of the techno-geeks in the ward spent some time analyzing the last general conference session. I thought it was pretty interesting in a I-don't-know-exactly-what-to-make-of-this kind of way.

There's this guy in my ward who gave a talk yesterday. The topic for
all the speakers was a review of the conference talks from Oct 3-4th,
2008. He is a self-proclaimed 'geek' and said that he was interested in
finding out if there was an on-going theme or topic that ran through the
conference. He downloaded all the talks from this last conference,
including those from the General Relief Society Meeting, onto his
computer. He then ran them through a linguistics program. Here are the
stats he came up with:

Out of 37 talks - these are the top ten references.

111 references to missionary work

125 references to the adversary

136 references to love or charity

150 references to men or fathers

152 references to temples

158 references to prayer

160 references to faith

332 references to families

371 references to women, mothers, or sisters

825 references to Jesus Christ (Pretty good for a church that is
purported to be non-Christian... don't you think?)

He was so compelled by these numbers that he then decided to run the
last 10 years worth of conference talks through the same program. He
found that the lesser referred to topics varied but that the top three
consistently stayed the same.

The interesting thing he found was that during this conference there
were topics that received a disproportionate amount of attention
compared to the last ten years.

This conference there was an increase in the number of times these
topics were mentioned (when compared with the last 10 years):

70% increase in the words service or charity

130 % increase in the words angels or spirits

147 % increase in the word hope

380 % increase in the words sacrament or sacrament meeting

457 % increase in the words Zion or unified people

I don't need science to compel me to believe. I love it when the
affirmation of my belief and faith is proven through science though.
Just one of those "I KNEW it!" things... I was really glad that for
the first time I had decided to start taking notes on sacrament meeting
talks and had my pen and paper ready when he started reading off his
stats.

I just thought you'd find this interesting. I know I did.

Missy's October 14th email

Hey Fam!

Yesterday was a holiday so I am emailing today. I don't have much time though, sorry. This past week was really good. We are finding a lot of good people to teach. My companion loves knocking on doors (she has never done it before I came)! She loves it even more because we have found some way awesome people while knocking around. There is this one lady named Lydia who we found who is totally going to get baptized. She is pretty golden. I just really hope it will be before I leave.

We have a baptism coming up on Saturday. It is with this guy named Dustin. He is pretty awesome. The whole ward is excited about the baptism too. The ward here is really awesome. They are very supportive and love the missionaries. I think that comes from having senior missionaries all the time. The senior sisters can go and hang out with and friendship the members a lot so they get a lot more member referrals.

Sister Black is a funny lady. She acts like she's 30 even though she is 62. Probably not always a good thing, but she is so much fun. We are having lots of fun and success.

Well, I love ya lots and hope y'all have a great week!
Sister Dixon

Missy's October 6th email

Hey Howdy Hey!

Well, here I am in Ridgway. Man, if I thought Marion was the middle of no where then I was mistaken. Ridgway is nowhere. For example, I am now in the library. It is a small one room building with a couple computers squeezed in among the handful of bookshelves. It doesn't open up until 2pm (that's why I am emailing a little later then usual). It's pretty funny.

Another sign that I am in real country is that there are no apt complexes and so we live in a cabin. A honest to goodness cabin. All made of wood and really tiny. It is the cutest thing ever! I was freaking out when we drove up to it! I love it! My new companion, Sister Black, was a interior designer (among other things (this lady has done everything!)) and it drives her nuts. It is rather drab inside, but I still love it! Too bad I only get a six weeks here, maybe even less.

A new senior sister is coming in at the end of the month and so I will either spend my last two weeks here in a threesome with two senior sisters, or in another area. We'll see what happens.
My comp is really nice. We have decided that I am older than her. She likes all the modern stuff while I like old radio shows and stuff. It's kind of backwards. She is 62 and it's fun to be with her. She is supposed to keep all the same rules as me while I am her comp, but she slips a lot. It is really weird to have a TV in the cabin. She makes sure that she watches only church movies and only when I am not in the room. But it's a small cabin and I hear it and it is pretty weird for me. Man, what is it going to be like when I go home and it will be OK to watch TV?

Another nice thing about being with a senior sister is that we use her own car and so we have no mile restrictions! It is so nice to not have to walk around and plan our miles! We can go as far out as we want! It's great! Of course being with her we spend a little too much time visiting and not enough time proselyting. She says that she would like to do more door knocking and stuff like that so we have been trying to do some middle ground stuff. It's been fun.

Well, I love y'all and hope y'all have a great week!
Sister Dixon

Missy's email September 29th

Hey Y'all!

Well, as always transfers is never what I expect. I thought for sure I was going to stay here and end my mission here, but I am getting moved again for the last time. I am going to Ridgeway (It's just north of Columbia), and get this, my companion is going to be Sister Black who is a senior sister. They haven't ever put younger sisters with the senior sisters while I've been here, but the other senior sister went home and she needed a companion. It will be really interesting, especially since the senior sisters go by different rules then us younger sisters. Their rules are a lot more laid back and not as strict. I am really excited though. It will be fun to be with her.

It will be kind of sad to leave Clemson, especially since we have been teaching Robbie. He is really cool and I am going to miss his baptism. Bummer. Oh well. I know there will be some cool people to teach in Ridgway.

I am glad to hear that Lilli had fun at Homecoming. I liked the pictures. Lilli was gorgeous and her date needed a haircut. JK! I'm sure he is a really nice guy.

Well, gotta go pack and clean and all that fun stuff! I love ya all to pieces!!
Sister Dixon

Conference Time

Dear Family,

It is one of the best times of the year.....Conference Time! This year as in years past, we hope any who can will come and join us to watch a session of conference with us. On Sunday we will have either a taco bar or potato bar. So if you come to morning session plan on lunch afterwards. If afternoon session plan on coming a bit early for lunch.

Let me know if you can make it. I have plenty of conference bingo and a new little booklet for the children during conference. It's fall so as tradition goes we will have plenty of apples!

Love you all,
Mom

Lilli's Homecoming

Scary Picture

Doesn't Paul have a nice smile?

Lilli went to Homecoming last night. She went with Paul Hill. Those of you who went to Bye Bye Birdie may remember him as Harry McAffee. Between he and Lilli, they stole the show. He was very funny. He is growing his hair out long for his role in Little Women. Lilli tells us that she had a really nice time. I can't believe our Lilli is dating! When did she get old enough?!?

Missy's September 22nd email

Hey Y'all!

This week has been pretty good. We have this way cool investigator named Robbie. We gave him the Book of Mormon a week ago and he is already halfway though it. He has been eating it up and already asking questions about his baptism. We've only taught him twice. It's pretty cool. He is middle aged and had to retire early, due to a hurt back, and so decided to get into the church thing. He saw a church commercial on TV and ordered the Lamb of God DVD and we came with it. He is pretty darn cool!

So, General Conference is just around the corner. I am really excited for it. I think I might buy some jelly beans and eat some apples that weekend. Maybe I'll have our investigators play conference bingo (Just Kidding)!

Things are going well. Transfers are next week. This weekend I will find out what's in store for my last transfer on my mission. I will probably stay here and Sister Israelsen will move. She has been here a long time already. I guess news of what's going to happen this next transfer is more exciting because it's my last one. Kinda weird to think about. My mission has flown by.

Anyways, I love y'all and hope y'all have a wonderful week!

Sister Dixon

HOOOORAY!!!

So, last Saturday Heather talked me into auditioning for Hale Center Theatre's A Christmas Carol. So I did. And I got callbacks! but they didn't go very well, so I had a good cry and gave the audition up for lost.

And then it happened.

It took them a week, but it happened.

I GOT IN!!! I got a call this morning telling me that I got a part. So now I am working in hale. (I want to work there just so I can say that.)

I am so excited, and I get paid. Yaay.

I may only be the soprano in the octet (which is odd, because I auditioned for an alto) but at least I got in.

When I win an award for my fabulous chorus singing, I'll remember you all.

William Thomas Bath Time

We're not so sure we like bath time yet, but on 10 Sep it went pretty well. 

Missy's September 15th email

Hey Y'all!

Well, today was a pretty good week. We were able to find some really good people. We found two different people who were both taught by missionaries 3 years ago and who both tried to come to church, but they came at the wrong time so there wasn't anyone there. We found them both the same day too. It was cool!

Anyways, other then that there wasn't a whole lot that happened this week. Gas prices shot up to almost $5 per gallon because of a hurricane on the gulf coast. It's pretty crazy. Um...let's see. I keep missing my family and think how cool it would be if they were out here with me! Wouldn't it me great to have one of my sisters as my companion.

Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful week!
Love ya lots!
Sister Dixon

P.S. There is a family who moved in here and he went to school at Clearfield the same time as Tom. His name is Curtis(?) Newbold. Does Tom know him?

This was on my friend's facebook page. Mom, how come you never told us Jesus rode a dinosaur?!?

Pictures from Missy

Dear Family,

We just got these pictures of Missy in the mail yesterday. Seeing these pictures has made me even more excited for November 12th to come, if that is possible. She looks great!


All the school spirit is plastered everywhere in this area.


This is a fun sign, this is the southern culture. There are all types of Jesus signs everywhere.

Missy's email September 8th

Hey Y'all!

So, y'all have heard about the hurricane that was heading to South Carolina? There was a lot of huppla in the mission about it, and it didn't even happen. The day the hurricane hit was the sunniest day ever. I figured I wouldn't really get to see much of it. My companion and I are the farthest away from the coast then any other missionaries. So, when we would get all kinds of calls to keep blankets in the car and to make sure we have a three day supply of food and to buy work gloves and other such things we would always laugh. Apparently they evacuated all the missionaries around Charleston. It's better safe then sorry.

This past week was pretty good. Sorry about jumping the gun on the email thing. Since it was Labor day we just went to the campus library which was open. So, since the students are back there are definitely more people to talk to and to teach. However, I have discovered that this area has a lot more anti-Mormon feelings then any other area I have been in. I can't believe how many discussions I have gotten into this past week. And the sad thing is that when you talk to college students and tell them that what the read on the internet was incorrect, they don't believe us, they would rather believe what some random person blogs about Mormons then what Mormons themselves say. At first it was kinda humorous, now it is just frustrating. Oh well, there are still a lot of people who actually want to listen to us.

Well, I hope y'all have a wonderful week!
Sister Dixon

Emily's Big News!

GUESS WHAT?!!! I got the part of the fairy godmother in my Junior Highs production of Cinderella!! I am very excited!!! I think it's somewhere around November 19-20, or something like that. So mark your calenders, it would be really cool to see you guys there.

halloween 2007

I know this is almost a year late, but we were stuck in traffic on Halloween and no one saw Xander in his horse costume.

Missy's September 1st email

Hey Y'all!

So, guess what? There was a tornado here in Clemson this past week! And, bummer deal, I missed it. We were in a city about 10 miles away when they called everyone in the zone to tell them that there is a tornado warning and to get to a Walmart or something. We spent over a hour in a grocery store before they let us go. It was pretty boring, especially since it wasn't even windy where we were. At the end of the day the assistants called us and kept asking if we were ok. We were pretty confused because we didn't even know that a tornado touched down. I was kinda bummed because I thought it would've been great to see a tornado. It wasn't a very big one though. There was hardly any damage.

The work is going kinda slow right now. All of our good people are slowly falling off and the new people aren't progressing. Bummer. This next week will be a lot better though.

I love y'all and hope y'all have a great week!

Sister Dixon

Lightning Storm

We had a gorgeous lightning storm roll over Brigham on Saturday night. It ended up starting a nasty fire in Perry, but thankfully it only burned brush.