Sister Dixon and roommates

May 14, 2013

OLA FAMILIA!!!

I had a GREAT week.  Even better than the other ones.  I continue to have many struggles with the language and with the district, but the good far outweighs the bad. 

Here are some updates:

First off, I got a new calling!  Sister Hargrove and I got called as Sister Training Leaders for our zone.  It's a new calling for the Church that was recently established with the age change.  It's like girl zone leaders but a TON less responsibility.  We are really excited for it.  We got set apart on Sunday and basically we just go around and visit with the sisters in our zone every night and make sure they are doing alright.  We also welcome new groups, give them tours, and orient them to the MTC.  I am very excited.  There was a huge group of forty-two missionaries (Jessica Gibbs and two of our roommates included) going to Portugal today and we are going to get a new group this week.  It will be fun to make the new sisters' experience a positive one!

This week, we started teaching in the TRC.  We had our first one last Thursday.  It's different because you get to teach actual people instead of teaching MTC teachers posing as investigators.  We got a cute old man who was so helpful and so nice.  It really made me feel so much less anxious about teaching lessons.  We have met a few Brazilian Elders too in the MTC and all of them seem like the best.  I am excited to experience the Brazilian hospitality I keep hearing about.

We also got a new MTC teacher.  Her name is Sister Peterson and she served in Brazil.  We have really grown to love her.  She is engaged to a Brazilian man with whom she served on her mission.  I am interested to see how many sisters that ends up happening to.

As I said before, we had two roommates leave for Portugal today.  There are six sisters in our room.  As crazy and hectic and annoying as that sometimes is, we have really grown to love each other!  It is all of the girls in my district and Sister Gidney and Sister Carroll who are now gone.  We are anxious to see if we get new girls this week.  Fingers crossed we won't.  As selfish as that is, it would just make getting ready so much easier!  We will see what happens though.  I definitely love meeting new people and seeing where everyone comes from.  It never ceases to amaze me to learn how strong some missionaries are.  They come from the toughest backgrounds but they are here to serve and I am inspired by their strength.

I feel like everyone has stories about when they mixed up words in their lessons, so I have one to contribute.  We were teaching an investigator about baptism and how it washes away your sins.  I thought something was fishy though because he started to laugh a little bit.  Later we learned that we said pescado instead of pecado.  Pescado=fish.  Pecado=sin.  Get it?

Needless to say, I am really struggling with the language.  There are some times when I feel very confident but most times it is really hard.  I am just struggling because I never feel like I am studying the right way and whatnot.  But whenever I look back on how much I have learned already I know that I can do it!  No one comes home from their missions not knowing the language.  If Nick can learn Swedish, I can definitely learn Portuguese.

Also, we had the MOST AMAZING Relief Society on Sunday.  Sister Janice Kapp Perry came to talk to us and holy cow it was so good.  It was so uplifting and reminded me how LUCKY I am to be here at this time.  I am so blessed to be serving Jesus Christ.  She rewrote the words to the song "As Sisters in Zion" to "The Sisters of Zion" and fit it all to the new generation of missionary work.  We all sang it together and it was powerful.  We were the first ones to see the words and it was amazing to hear the strength and power and conviction in every single sister's voice.  I can honestly say I don't think there was a dry eye in the room.  I got to meet her afterwards as well which was just such a cool experience.  The Spirit is so strong here.  It is such a blessing.

Oh and my comp had a dentist appt this week so we left the MTC!  It was crazy.  We got to take a little field trip to the outside world and we were so close to all of my old apts which was a pretty weird feeling.  We enjoyed ourselves for sure though.

It is definitely hot!  The air conditioning in our class is broken as well so that makes for a very warm environment.  People fall asleep allll the time due to the heat.  Hopefully it gets fixed soon because it will only get hotter.  

I love you all so much!

Sister Dixon