Note about Halloween and Zuster Lilli's email!

Dear Family, 
Just a note about Halloween. We are planning on drawing names for the Christmas exchange that night! Ho! Ho! Ho!

Hey all,

This has been a long week, but we were able to get ahold of several former investigators who were willing to make appointments.  That has been a blessing, our whole week is full of appointments!

Last p-day we went to Brugge.  I think this is one of the most beautiful cities!  We were able to see the Madonna and Child, a sculpture by Michael Angelo, which was pretty cool.  There is also a church there that claims to have the blood of Christ, I took a peek and have to say, I was a little grossed out.... I'm not sure the blood of Christ is supposed to do that...

We teach this old woman who is a bit crazy, and by a bit I mean totally.  But we love her, she cooks us sketchy food all the time!  We have been working with her on ending her prayers in the name of Jesus Christ and we asked her to say the prayer on the food.  She said the blessing and before we realized what she was doing, she ended the blessing.  But that is not the best part, she said the prayer and ended, "Jesus Christ Superstar, Amen!"  

Another memorable quote from that appointment is, "I love Salt Lake but I hate salt"  This woman is really quite a firecracker but we are not kindred spirits, I mean... The woman hates salt!

I love you all, the Thompsons will have to tell me how Oregon was :)

Tot Ziens

Sister Dixon

​This is one of the most taken photos in Belgium... so I had to take a picture.

 ​This sculpture was made by somebody important...

​picture proof that i was in Brugge and not just stealing these photos off the internet.

Halloween

You are all invited to

the annual

Halloween Party

at the 

Dixon's!

When---Monday, October 31st

Time---5:00 p.m.

Plan on a light supper 

Then those who would like to go out trick or treating may and others may stay and watch a Halloween favorite and eat your favorite Halloween treats!

Can't wait!   Can't wait!   Can't wait!

Zuster Lilli's October 17th Email

Goede dag

How are things going in the good 'ol US of A?  I hear things are pretty crazy with the elections coming up. People here keep asking us about it, mostly they ask what we think about Trump. We just roll our eyes and say we are disappointed in our country. People here love Hillary for some strange reason, they are all about the girl power... don't get me wrong I love girl power, but not when the power is going to Hillary... 

Anyway... this has been a crazy week.  They told me, when you go down to Belgium, your mission gets interesting.  They were right.  There are so many crazy things that happen here, we meet legitimately crazy people who are fun to talk to. We also got stuck in the Netherlands last week. We had to go up to Rijswijk to get Sister Leman's residency card and we underestimated how long it would take us to get there.  We arrived 10 minutes after they closed.  10 MINUTES!  So we stayed the night in Den Haag with the sisters there.  It made for an interesting week. 

I don't have too much to write, but I do have pictures!  We went to the castle last monday and had a cracking time!  I always said I was meant to live in a castle 

I love you all

Lilli

Oma and Opa in Boston and Halloween visit to the pumkin patch!

Hi all,



We arrived in Boston and are staying with Missy--she is a great hostess.  We met a couple of her co-workers and saw where she works.  Missy likes her job.

Oona, Missy, Fran, and Gertrude

So far we have been on the Boston freedom trail walking tour and a shuttle bus tour.

Our walking tour guide.  He was very informative.

We also visited the Plimoth Plantation which is supposed to be an authentic reproduction of an indian village and pilgrim settlement.  It was interesting.  One of the interesting thing was a collection of about sixty plants and herds, each one supposed to cure some ailment.  Some of our more effective drugs came from some of these plants, but of course not all of them work.

We ate ate lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Belgian restaurant

Yum Yum.  Belgian fries with three kinds of sauce, mushroom cheese and herb crusted chicken sandwiches

Today (Sunday) we went to church with Missy and met many members.  She has a nice ward.


Tomorrow we go on the bus tour to see the fall foilage.  It is already very pretty here.

Tuesday Oma is going to eat a lobster!  We will let you know who wins!


We are doing the traditional punkin patch visit Friday, 14 Oct, 5 Pm at the Day's farm on Gentile road in Layton.  Let Oma know if you will be coming.

We received a letter from Lilli's mission president.  If any of you plan to send Lilli a package for Christmas, it needs to be sent to the mission home and not directly to her:

The package needs to be there by November 28 because they are given out during zone conferences.

Belgium Netherlands Mission

Sister Lillian Dixon

Schuttersveld 2

2316 ZA Leiden

NETHERLANDS

We love you all!
Oma and Opa

Goede Dag!

This has been a busy week for Zr. Greening and I, and it has felt like two weeks in one. But it is finally p-day and I am enjoying a lekker rustig dag.

I hear that you guys in Utah are experiencing some crazy weather.  Well, I am glad to say that the weather here has been absolutely delicious.  It is just now starting to get a wee bit cooler but is still mostly warm and I haven't seen rain for at least a month.  This is the nicest, warmest summer that they have on record here in Holland.  It's a good thing I packed so many sweaters and scarves. lol.  I have been wearing the same three outfits for almost the whole summer   en so is het leven.

The bishop's wife, Vesna, called me on Friday and asked me to sing on Sunday(yesterday) with her on the violin and another guy on the piano. I, of course, said yes and got the music.  Yesterday I went to church early to practice with the Pianist and he never showed...  When Vesna showed up to practice together and found out that  the pianist wasn't coming, she freaked out.  We ended up just singing a song from the hymnbook and a sweet German lady in the ward played for us... It actually wasn't all that bad, but it stressed me out like crazy!

We had a lesson yesterday with an investigator that we found in the area book.  There wasn't really a reason why they were dropped so we went to go see them.  They are some of the nicest people I have met here. And they have an amazing garden!  They have a kiwi vine, a banana tree, an olive tree, and eggplant bush, beets, raspberries, some sort of herb that smelt like coke, corn (although the corn wasn't doing too well), and anything else you could think of, HOE KAN DAT!  I was very impressed.  They gave us one of their eggplants.... what do you make with eggplants?  I guess we'll find out this week.

Well, I think those were the most interesting stories from this week. Other than that we did a lot of knocking and finding.

Although, we did go to a dorpje and had this little experience...​

​It was just 5 minutes straight of semis honking their horns down the street... it was so bizarre.

love you all

Zr Dixon

​This is David, he is my best friend.  He is one of the cutest kids I have ever met (he makes it up on the list with my nieces and nephews) 

This is just a statue of weed... why?

Hey All

This has been a busy week. We have been working a lot with lesser actives and have been seeing a bit of success.

On Wednesday we had zone conference, it was good, we learned things.  But when we got back we had only 15 minutes to get to our dinner appointment in Mordor (actually mordrecht  but it is a 30 minute bike ride to this dorpje, so one does not simply walk to mordrecht).  We were flying and we were only 3 minutes late!  I'm pretty sure we had angels helping us.  We got into the house and were sweating bullets (it was about a 90 degree day with about 100% humidity) we were absolutely disgusting.  But we survived.

I was in Belgium on Saturday!  Two of Zr. Greening's investigators were getting baptized. There were so many little things that went wrong for this baptism, so many stupid little things.  When we got there we realized that the Elders had forgotten to fill up the font and hardly anybody showed up and they had to baptize each of them two or three times for different reasons.  You could tell that Satan really didn't want them baptized. But they were and I can tell they are going to be great members!

We had a soccer evening with Amar and us missionaries but when we arrived at the field there were about 50 little kids there already playing. So we took the situation and worked with it.  We played us 8 missionaries/investigators against 50 kids.  We actually held our own pretty good (no thanks to me (there is a reason I went into music)).  There were a few kids who got kicked in the shins but they knew the dangers going into it.

I hope you all have a good week!

remember Jesus loves you Satan hates you

Loves

Zr Dixon

​Antwerpe Central Station

​Can you "ear" me?

Zuster Lilli's September 5th and 11th Emails

September 5th

Hey all!

This has been a pretty slow week. A lot of knocking and a lot of people saying no.

But that is ok because that means we are that much closer to the person who says yes.

On Tuesday we went to familie Gerrits for dinner. They have two little girls that are obsessed with Frozen so I sang Let it Go with the Ukulele. You could say that I am now the favorite missionary.

sorry that this letter is so short, but really, not much happened... not that I can remember.  Next week we will see miracles so my letter will be extra long!

I hope you all have a great week

loves

Zr. Dixon

here is me and Zr. Greening

​oh ya, I dyed my hair.

September 12th

To my loving fans.

We broke our phone this week. I dropped it and broke the screen so all we could see was if it was on or not. I consider this as very impressive, these brick Nokia phones are pretty tough to brake. We could still receive calls and texts but we couldn't see the call or the text.  It has gotten us in a few funny mishaps. We made an appointment with one person thinking that it was another person, so we showed up for our appointment with the other person and she was very surprised to see us, but then later we got a call from the one person asking where we were so we rescheduled for the next day (we had no idea who she was so we did some quick area book work to find her).  Then we finally got a new phone, and the next day it also broke.  We can only talk to people on speaker.

We have been doing a TON of work with lesser actives this week and have been seeing success with it.  We have 3 lesser actives that told us they want to come back to church and will be there next week! I could scream I'm so excited!

The past two days all the trains out Gouda were not running and they had tour buses hauling people around.  We have spent sooooo much time on buses this weekend, I am so sick of buses!  It probably took us 3x longer to get anywhere. Hopefully they finished the work they were doing on the tracks and things will be back to normal this week.

I love you all!  I am so excited to hear the gender of the baby next week!  I am guessing a boy!

loves 

Zr. Dixon

We went to kinderdijk again

​

Zuster Dixon

August 29th

This week has been soooo long.  I feel like it has been two weeks. But it is finally over and it is now p-day! hoorah!

I said good-bye to Zr. Stewart-Chester and sent her off to Zoetermeer and said hello to Zr. Greening. She will be my new companion for the next 6 weeks (or more).

We are already having a great time.

Yesterday we were knocking doors and this older lady let us in to sing her a song. We did and she started talking to us about her husband that just recently died in December. We found out that she is Atheist and doesn't believe it anything after death, I think that would be so hard, to not believe in anything after this life. We started talking about the plan of salvation, I feel like we were able to help her and she said that we could come back to sing her a song again.  It is times like these were I am grateful that the Lord has used me as an instrument in his hands.

I feel like it has been a busy week but, other than transfers, not with things noteworthy or interesting...

Hopefully I will have more to tell next week.

Love you all

Zuster Dixon

August 22

Hey All,

This week has been an extremely productive week. On Tuesday we made a 100%
American meal for Jamil and Amar. We made bacon burgers and were just about done cooking the bacon and was about to start the hot dogs when we suddenly realized... Jamil is Muslim and they don't eat pork.  We then stashed the hot dogs in his fridge and served the bacon anyways (which he ate and didn't like (the weirdie)).

On Thursday we played European football with the Elders, Amar, and another investigator and his friends who are all Aritrians.  This was probably quite a sight to see, a ton of these athletic Afticans, then me... running after the ball like a peewee soccer player, I'm just going to say that there is a reason that I majored in music.  Sister Stewart-Chester KILLED it though, this was obviously not her first rodeo. BUT you will never believe this, I scored the winning goal.  I should write that again because I don't think you believed me. 

I, Yes twas I, who scored the winning goal!

The ball came flying toward me and I knew it was my chance. I jumped and stopped the ball, mid-flight with my chest. Then knowing everyone was stunned at this sudden show of athleticism, I kicked the ball into the goal. (actually it smacked me in the face and while I was bumbling around I accidentally kicked it in... but I like the other story better)

Yesterday at church Amar showed up! we were besides ourselves, we were so excited. then Romy (an awesome new convert) brought her mom to church. so we had 2 investigators at church! That is double what I have had on my whole mission!

Unfortunately once you start seeing success, transfers come. Zr. Stewart-Chester will be going to Zoetermeer. I wish we could've had at least one more transfer together, she is so awesome and a beautiful land-dolphin. I will be staying in Gouda and my new companion will be Zr. Greening. She was in my MTC group and I'm sure that we will have a lot of fun.

I love you all and hope you have a great week

Zr. Dixon

August 15th

HELLLLLOOOOO AMERICA!

This week has been a really good week. last Monday a family in the ward took us all to Kinderdijk, which is basically a read with a ton of molen. I got some pretty great pictures.

We now have two more Elders in our city. Not because of transfers, those don't happen for about a week. It's because we are getting so many missionaries in the next few transfers and practically nobody is going home, so we have to open new areas and add missionaries to existing ones. One of our new missionaries is from Lima, Peru, has an Italian name (Elder Bartolini), and is here for a Chinese speaking mission. Weird right?  When I first met him I pulled out the only phrase I remember in Chinese, "What nationality are you?" He got really excited and asked me (in Chinese) if I spoke chinese, and I answered (in Chinese) a little bit.  Then our conversation ended because that is really ALL the Chinese I remember, but I looked over at Sister SC and her jaw was hanging off her face. It´s nice to know that I can still surprise her 

We had another lesson with Jamil this week and this time he brought his friend Amar to translate. We got further in one hour than we have in a month of meeting with him. He is Muslim and says that his family will not accept him anymore if he were to change religions, unless he gets married to a Christian woman, then it is acceptable for the sake of the children, or something.

That was a bit of a let down but then we started talking to Amar. He is from Syria and is a professional MMA fighter, he is in training and starts fighting in October. We asked him about his beliefs and he told us he does not believe in anything anymore because of all the bad thing going on in his country. this is a common way of thinking, many people stop believing in a God because they don´t believe a loving God would let these bad things happen.  In our last appointment with them yesterday Amar said he would come to our church next Sunday. he actually brought up the subject himself and told us he would come! We´ll have to see if he actually comes.  We are planning to invite him to play football (that is soccer to you in America) with us, the Elders and another one of our investigators this coming week... he will probably Cheese us all because the muscles on this guy is ridiculous!

I love you all and I love hearing from you!

Remember Jesus loves you Satan hates you.

Love 

Zuster Dixon

Look who made the paper!

Zuster Dixon

I guess there is not much that I can really say. This news hit me like a ton of bricks even though I was expecting/dreading it. It has been really hard to be away from you all during this but I know that extra blessings and comfort will come you you all because of my service here. After I talked to Mom on Thursday, President Bunnell gave me a beautiful blessing and Sister Bunnell gave me a flower plant which I named Fern.

I have been thinking a lot about Katie and the love of music she instilled in me and I have found a way of coping.  I bought a Ukulele and am learning to play the Uke.  I have already used it in a couple of spiritual thoughts, maybe when I get really good I'll send you a little video :)

It sounds like Katie's funeral is going to be awesome (just like her), Cafe Rio and Mindy Mints! I wish I was coming .  Katie was such an amazing sister and I will miss her, but I also know that there is a good reason why she has been called home at this time. 

I love you all and I pray for comfort for you in every prayer.

Loves

Lilli

Here is my new address for Gouda

Crabethstraat 5

2801 AL Gouda

Netherlands

I love you and I miss you!

I got special permission from President to go to the Temple on Tuesday, so that is where I will be. It won't be during the funeral because of time difference but it will be close enough

I love you 

Lilli

Elder Dixon

Dear Family,

It's been a rough week for me, and I'm sure it's been for all of you too. I don't know exactly what to say, but please know that I love Katie and will miss her more than you ever know. Katie was an incredible sister, and I know that if we stay true to the faith, we will all see her again. My Patriarchal Blessing says so, and has given me a good amount of comfort that I needed. I want to exhort you all to read your blessings too, as there are blessings and promises that bring much comfort.

Like Lilli, I've been thinking a lot about Katie and the love of music she's taught me how to have. I had bought a little jungle ocarina to use for coping too. Perhaps Lilli and I can be a duet when we come home.

I love you all. I really do, and I know that the Plan of Salvation is real, and if we can learn to appreciate it, the plan, along with the atonement, will carry us closer to our Heavenly Father. 

I love you,

Adam

Zuster Lilli and Elder Adam July 18th email

Zuster Lilli
Hey All

This has been a really good, but a really long week.  I moved all my stuff to Gouda on Wednesday without too much trouble and met my new companion, Sister Stewart-Chester.  She is awesome! She plays the guitar and we sing at almost every appointment. 

Although I was really sad to leave Groningen, Gouda is so beautiful and the ward is also a good one.  We have a dinner appointment every night (almost) and I am already relief society pianist... again.

A cool experience that we had yesterday was when we looked up this guy that Sister SC had met earlier. He is from Syria and doesn't speak Dutch or English, but we went anyway. He was there with his brother and his brothers family and they were all really nice, they fed us cake (which was good because we hadn't eaten lunch yet) and we talked through their phones on their translating apps.  Technology is so cool! It is amazing to me that we could have a conversation with people who couldn't speak our language.  They just seemed so happy that we were there and we have a return appointment on Thursday.

Thanks for all the emails, I LOVE hearing from all of you!

Loves

Zuster Dixon

P.S. Remember that surprise that I told you about last week? 

Well here it is

One of the members in the Groningen ward offered to braid my hair for me, so I bought the extentions and my last p-day we went over to her house and she braided my hair for 5 hours!

I am now a black lady :)

​me and Sister Stewart-Chester

Elder Adam,

Dear Family,

First of all, thanks for sending the pictures and Heather's hilarious blog post! I know I don't always mention that I get those things, and I apologize for that, but rest assured that I've been recieving everything you send me!

This week, I had the opportunity to finally meet the new mission president, President Li. I thought meeting a new president would've been awkward and that it would've taken a while to get used to him, but when we met him, he stuck to us. He really won our hearts! He's a pretty cool guy with a great testimony! 

We've been working pretty hard with Jose and Lorena (my goal), and it seems that Jose is finally starting to feel the spirit! Lorena got her answer a while ago, so she's been able to help them, but what really made the difference is that we were able to score a lesson with the bishop, and that made the difference. So, Steven and Lilli, if you want to feel the spirit more abundantly in your lessons, don't hesitate to call the members so they can tag-along with you!

We had a rather humorous experience this past week. A few weeks ago, we had met a man named Yusset who we first taught on a street bench. To the bench came 3 other people who decided to participate, and we were stunned! It was nuts how it just happened that way.

But THIS week, we decided to sit down and cool off for a few minutes at the same bench. Wouldn't you know it, another miracle happened! Some lady we never met came up and said, "I have a referral for you two. You're Mormons, right?"

"Yeah," I said, a little amazed at how blunt and direct she was in saying she had a referral. "Who's the referral?"

She pointed at a man in an orange shirt across the street. "It's him. His name is Hermes, and he's actually wanted to talk to you for a while."

It was amazing! We were able to know the both of them and they seem like a family with some fantastic potential! Maybe we ought to sit at that bench more often so that other things like that can happen! 

Sorry to hear that Katie's not doing so well. I will pray harder than I ever have this week for her. I know that the Lord can whip up a miracle for her. Who's the one going to United Arab Emirates? The email I got was sent from Mom's email, but Dad's the one that goes on the business trips, so I'm a little confused. I hope that you're both here for when I come back!

The time's coming, Steven! Always remember that these two years are going to be the best two years of your life! 

Love,

Adam

Elder Adam and Zuster Lilli's July 11th Emails

Elder Adam

Dear Family,

This email's going to be a little bit short this week. I've got a big P-Day planned for today. This week was a bit more difficult than the last, but still extremely spiritually rewarding! The principle of enduring to the end doesn't apply to life, but instead, to pretty much anything we want!

Speaking of enduring to the end, I recently heard about some of my converts! I recently learned that Luis and Elena, from Nauta, are the branch's most active members! The other two people I baptized there were, as well, going strong!

I recently spoke to my old branch president in Campo Verde (nearly a year ago). I had learned that the family of five that I had converted had moved to Lima, to a small place called Villa Salvador. Wouldn't you know it, that's exactly where my companion is from! We began to talk, and I learned that the family (Larry, Leysi, Renzo, Jonathan, and Kamilla) are also still active! 

That pretty much made my entire week. I'm going to try to give them a phone call this week to see how they are.

Love,

Adam

Sorry for the short email, but here's a picture to make up for it.

#IAmInJale

Zuster Lilli

To all those who still read my letters,

This had been a really good week, But all good things must come to an end.  I found out on Saturday that I am being transfered from my baby city of Groningen   I am really sad to leave, I have learned to love this city and the people in it so much!  The ward here is really wonderful, one of the sisters in the ward knitted me socks!  I was convinced that I was going to be the first missionary to stay in one city her whole mission.

Although I am really sad to leave I know that this is what the Lord wants.

My new city will be Gouda and my new companion will be Sister Stewart-Chester.  I will be leaving the city of bikes to the city of cheese.

Speaking of cheese, 

How come the Lamanites couldn't eat dinner?

Because Nephi hid the plates! 

Anyway... I need to prepare you for next email... Be ready for something awesome! you may want to sit down when you read next week.... sooooooooooo

bye.

My train rides through Holland!

​I keep finding these little guys around, I tried kissing a few of them but they just gave me strange looks... I guess they kissing thing doesn't work when you are a missionary.

Zuster Lilli and Elder Adam's 4th of July Email

Just in case you may not have heard...Adam's release date is August 10th. His plane flies in the Salt Lake International airport at 2 pm on that day!!!! 

 Can't wait, Can't wait, Can't wait!

Zuster Lilli

To All My Adoring Fans,

Thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes. It is so good to hear from everybody.  And to those who didn't wish me a happy birthday, you are forever dead to me 

This week has felt so long! Since our P-day last week was switched we had an extra two days to our week.  Those two days make a big difference.

So, I think this is one of the coldest 4th of July's I have ever had! It blows my mind that it is the middle of summer and I still have to lug my winter coat around (to be fair, it is mostly so that I don't get completely soaked when it rains (it doesn't really work))

Our senior couple, the Caldwells, are throwing a 4th of July party and I looked out their window to see that Groningen has put on their very own parade for me! 

​

So this week I went to Bert and Joke.  Bert is Mom's 5th cousin and we had a meeting all about family history.  He has done so much family history work! He has books and books all about his family.  It was really interesting meeting that I had with him.  He is not interested in the Church but is interested in keeping in contact with me. 

I love you all! Enjoy your parade and 95 degree weather!

Happy 4th of July!

Zuster Dixon

Elder Adam

​Dear Family,

Lately, my pensionist's kids have been noticing that my hairline is receding. NOOOOOOOOOOO! Now they call me bald all the time. :P A few weeks ago, I made the joke that there exists a magic elixir called Rogaine that makes hair grow, and my pensionist mentioned that she can make a special shampoo that would do the same. I didn't think anything of it...

...Until this week, when she had a bottle of this special shampoo prepared for little surprised me. You want to know how she made it? She minced onions, put it in a bottle of "Head & Shoulders", and waited 8 days for it to ferment. She promised me that it would restore my hairline. I was doubtful, but I shrugged and decided to humor her. 

I haven't noticed any difference yet, but my companion, the other missionaries, my pensionist, and her kids all have mentioned that I've had a bit more hair. I think they're all just saying that to make me feel good. :P It certainly has been the strangest shampoo I've used.

I've been working especially hard with my "goal investigators", and it's actually looking very good for them! They came to church yesterday and Lorena told us that she's had an answer about the veracity of the Book of Mormon! Jose is a little bit tougher, but we'll eventually be able to help him too! I'm having a good feeling about them!

I'm also having a good feeling about the less-active people we've been teaching. Usually, at church, the norm for less-actives that come is about 2 or 3. This week, we sky-rocketed up to 10! We're going to be working hard on them too!

I hope everyone's having a fantastic 4th of July! Eat lots of candy and watermelon for me! Tell everyone I love them! 

Love,

Adam

4th of July change!

There's been a change!

Because our kitchen is still being worked on and we don't have a functioning kitchen, the breakfast will be moved to....

Mary and Scott's

So, after the parade, head on down to their house for a fun breakfast!

Can't  Wait!!!