Elder Adam's August 24th Email

Dear Family,

This week was stangely slower than all the other weeks. Not sure why. Perhaps it's something every missionary experiences as they approach their year mark (which, by the way, I'm pretty excited for! I have a white shirt to burn and everything!)

Lately, I've been having the knack of doing more, both in the missionary work and in the fun times. Last week in P-Day, I bought a bottle of Coca-Cola and a packet of Mentos, in hopes that I can trigger a hilarious moment amongst the other missionaries. The results were a little disappointing, as it only fizzed a little, but that made a hilarious moment in and of itself, so ok!

Another thing I've got planned is that I'm going to teach my pensionist how to make Hash Browns! We were talking about foods one day and I brought that up. She got super interested in how to make them. I'm looking forward to showing her and eating Hash Browns again!

Speaking of food, I kinda bought a liter of ice cream. And ate it. There goes a week's worth of exercise (which I'm still doing...almost every day (I can improve)). But the ice cream was pretty good. And the best part? It was 6 soles, which is like, $1.50. That's some pretty dirt-cheap ice cream!

I've been thinking a lot about faith and how miracles can come about because of it. Not only do we need faith to have miracles happen to us, but we also need faith to make miracles happen to others. I read recently that when the disciples of Jesus couldn't cast a demon out of a person and he could, and they asked him why they couldn't do it, he replied that it was because of their lack of faith.

As members of the church, I'm convinced that we can all cultivate our faith and make it grow. We can all rely on the Lord a little bit more for whatever we pray for, me included. I'm going to start working out my faith so that I may be able to see more miracles in my work, especially here in Campo Verde where things are pretty tough. 

How are things up in them states? Has school started yet? What's everyone studying? How's Emily, Heather, and Missy up in New York? How's Katie doing, and how did her fundraiser go?

I love you all and pray for you every day,

Love,

Adam

Oma and Opa buck-at list

You all know Oma got a gift card to go down the zip line at Park City for her birthday.  Yesterday we did it!  Opa came along for the (scary) ride.

Speaking of scary, we hope you saw the picture of the mad scientist (no, it wasn't Opa) we found in our Hotel room.  It, and a headless mummy were stuffed into an alcove behind a heavy wardrobe (talk about Narnia gone very, very wrong....).  We couldn't see it directly so Oma stuck her cell phone in and got the picture.  We thought about that thing watching us more than once that night!

 The room was very nice and fancy otherwise!

We started Friday with a ride on the Alpine coaster, which is kind of a wild mouse ride on tracks.  That was Opa's favorite because going up it went through beautiful woods with lots of different plants and trees.

Then we went on the zip line.  Julie thought that was the best ride...Opa just thought it was scary (what a wimp!).  Opa's zip line stopped before it got to the end, and he had to swing his legs up and down to move.  He got about three inches for each swing.  I'll bet it looked really funny to those on the ground!

The last ride was the Alpine slide which is a sled rolling down a banked track.  That was lots of fun too.  We started at the same time on two identical tracks.  Oma beat Opa to the bottom.

Our pictures of the rides, unfortunately, did not turn out, so if you want proof we went on them you are just going to have to send us up again!

Thanks all of you for the great gift!

Love,

Oma and Opa

Dear Family,

Here is Adam's latest email. I have tried to get the Dixon Spot to get the Dixon  Spot to everyone but find I'm not sure how to do it. I am going to send it to everyone individually, if you get it more than once please let me know and I will try to figure out how to send it so that you only get it once. I want a way to send you updates so you know what is going on and via the Dixon Spot seems to be a good way to do it, but want to make it non-intrusive, not an imposition. 

Glenn and I want you to all know we love you all so much and are so proud and pleased to be your parents (and parents-in-laws).

Love you more than you will ever ever ever ever, know,

Mom and Dad

Dear Family,

Nothing much happened this week. I'm still here in Campo Verde, which means that by the end of this transfer cycle, I would've had 9 months in the Pucallpa zone! That's a lot! There's a missionary that just got here named Elder Varner that referred to me as the "Pucallpa Guru". That's an interesting way of putting it! 

I'm still companions with Elder Figueroa too! I suppose I ought to fill you in on this guy a little bit. He's from Ecuador, and a recent convert. He was baptized about 2 and a half years ago. We actually knew each other before we became companions. The second transfer I had in the field in Punchana (in December), we served in the same ward together, but in different companionships. He's a pretty funny dude and he loves a lot of things, but the coolest thing about him is that he loves Heavenly Father more than anything else.

The family I told you guys about last week--the one with the miracle--came to church this Sunday! It was pretty great! However, the two of them are moving out onto their farm (everyone here in CV owns a farm, by the way), and it's too far out from us. We don't have bikes yet (and we probably won't for a long time), so it's going to be super hard to visit them again. :( BUT, I've got faith that things will turn out!

We had a Zone Conference this week! I learned a good bunch, especially of how I can be more efficient in how I teach. (There were also real, american hamburgers there, so it was pretty great. :P) What the mission has been stressing more and more is that the missionaries need to be more direct. I've been taking that advice, and I've noticed that I'm becoming more direct and more "say-it-the-way-it-is". Elder Waddell of the Seventy told us that developing that trait was good, so we'll see where it takes me!

How's everyone doing up there? Steven, Christopher, and Anna have got dates for Homecoming yet? Emily, Missy, and Heather are going to Boston together! That sounds like so much fun! 

I'm always thinking about you and I love everything you guys do for me!

Love,

Adam

Dear Family,
Here is Adam's emails for the past 2 weeks. Time passes so fast!
We love you all so much!
Mom and Dad

August 10th email

Dear Family,

The long-awaited 5x baptism finally took place on Saturday (Happy Birthday, Sarah!)! The couple we baptized got married right before the baptism, so I got pictures of both the wedding and the baptism! We baptized the dad, Larry, his wife, Leysi (Lacy in English), their two sons, Renzo and Jonathan, and their cousin, Christian! 

It was a little stressful preparing for the baptism, because we were all the way at the stake center and travelling back and forth from Campo Verde to Pucallpa between the wedding and the dunking would've taken too much time and money, so we decided on baptizing at the stake, where they got married. However, the font wasn't ready and we had to do an emergency clean-up. But to do that, we needed keys. And we didn't have those. 

Long story short, everything was sorted out, thank goodness, and we were able to baptize them! I'll include pictures, but in a separate email. 

Cool experience this week! A member gave us a referral to her friend named Melita who's been extremely ill for months and is 3 months pregnant. We visited her and found her in her bed with absolutely no strength to move. Both me and my comp felt it, that she needed a priesthood blessing. We gave her one before we left that day.

Two days after, we were talking with the member and she told us that Melita's been feeling much better for the first time in months. She's still a little weak, but she's been up and around doing chores such as laundry and cooking. She told us that Melita's never seen that kind of support from any other church and that now she insists on getting baptized in the LDS chuch! 

We had taught her about faith and how it can perform miracles. There's no doubt that what happened there was a miracle, and that Melita is a woman of great faith. It was a good reminder for me that anything is possible as long as we know the Lord can help us. We have yet to visit her again, but I'm looking forward to our next visit.

That is, if there is a next visit. Today, we've got transfers and I've spent a good chunk of my mission here in Pucallpa. We'll see how things go, though. :)

How is everyone doing over there? Happy Birthday to Sarah! I baptized a family to celebrate! How's Katie feeling? Is everyone getting ready for school?

Love,

Elder Dixon

August 3rd Email

Dear Family,

My oh, my, how crazy this week was! Definitely one of the more eventful weeks of my mission! Preparing for the wedding of our investigators is going along smoothly, thank goodness. They're raising money fine and looks like they'll be baptized this Saturday (on Sarah's birthday)!

Speaking of baptisms, we actually (kinda) had some this week. The missionaries who took over our old area in Yarinacocha had committed two investigators that we had found for them to baptism. They were twins, and one asked Elder Haymond to baptize her and the other requested that I baptized her. The zone leaders managed to pull a few strings and make it so we could go to the baptism of our old investigators. It was a pretty nice baptism!

Today, we're moving all our stuff to our house we've reserved in Campo Verde, which hasn't even finished its renovations. We'll see how that goes! :P

This week was Independence Week for Peru, and there weren't many people who went to work in Tuesday and Wednesday, especially chauffers to drive us back and forth from Pucallpa to Campo Verde. Tuesday, we found some just fine. Wednesday, we had a bit of a problem. When we had finished working that day, and it was time to go back to Pucallpa, no one was working and there were a grand total of 0 cars that could take us back. We were trapped in Campo Verde. 

Now, the distance from Campo Verde to Pucallpa is 34 kilometers, and we had no cars, hardly any money, and no phone (I have no idea who lost our phone, but whoever did, he's one handsome stud). We started to walk. We walked a few kilometers before we decided to offer a prayer and ask for someone to come along and help us. Afterwards, we walked another kilometer before we found a guy in his motocar give us a lift until the 17th kilometer for free.

This guy was an inactive member of the church, and he used to be the branch president. He was very enthusiastic about accepting our visits and going to church. That specific person finding us in that specific situation doesn't just happen. There was a miracle involved there! Afterwards, we walked a little bit more and another good samaritan in his pickup truck gave us a lift. He charged us a little, but we had enough to give him. This guy also worked in moving furniture from one house to another, so we were also able to enlist his services for our move we're doing today.

I learned something. I'll admit, I was super stressed that night that all I could think about was why there weren't any cars to give us a lift, but when I reflected on what happened late that night, I realized that our Heavenly Father puts trials in our path, but sometimes we, as human beings, are too worried about the trial that we don't manage to see the blessings that we're rewarded with. From that experience, we found someone to help us move and an inactive member to teach who is super excited. Something I told an investigator afterwards, who was going through a tough time, was the same thing, and I extended a challenge to always question "What does God want me to learn from this?" whenever they felt overwhelmed.

It was a constructive experience. It may not have been very fun at the time, but I'm glad I had it.

Anyways, that was my week. How was your guys' week? Sorry to hear about the car crash! I'm glad everyone's okay. Sounds like everyone's having fun!

I love you all and keep you all in my prayers!

Elder Dixon