Leaving Pula?

This may be Ryan’s last week in Pula. He is expecting a transfer to a different location this week. However, he’d love to stay right where he is at. He has grown to really love the place and the people he works with. I’m sure that he will treasure the memories of Pula forever.

The photo below was sent to us by Sister Hill, the wife of Ryan’s mission president. We think it was taken at the mission headquarters in Slovenia, where the missionaries gathered for a zone conference. Ryan’s head is visible just above the girl in the green blouse.

Ryan has learned to cook some great food, including banana bread. Here is a photo of his first loaf!

A few excerpts from recent emails are included below:

September 14

Well, it's been a great week here. It's rediculous. I pray almost every day to love people here and have greater love for those I already do love. But then, when I feel my love for them really strongly, it border-line frustrates me, because I know I am going to leave them all sooner or later. It's a paradox of sorts. I guess I should just keep serving them and trying to love them more, because either way it's going to hurt to leave Pula. We're getting 8 new missionaries next transfer, so I am trying to be open to the likely change.

We are still enjoying the fruits of the package... or should I say junk-food haha. I rocked another box of sponge bob macoroni and cheese the other day. PUHHHH!

We had a great Sunday yesterday. 14 people at church, folks! 2 visitors from Germany, 4 members, 2 Pula missionaries, 4 missionaries from Rijeka, and 2 investigators. It was so great. For the sake of time, I'll paste what I wrote to President Hill today. This is a pretty cool story.

We had 14 people at church yesterday! Can you believe that? The best was that there were two investigators there. They were two women who were friends. Elder Anderson and I had met one them on the street a few weeks ago. We stopped her, and after saying a few words about the Book of Mormon, she mentioned that she had already met with ''my boss''. Thinking she was probably confused, I asked for a description of the person who was my supposed ''boss''. She proceeded to list some attributes that described Elder Nelson. I asked her if it was him, and she said yes. Haha, that made me laugh. My boss... She then told us she already had a Book of Mormon but not from Elder Nelson. She said she had purchased it at a store. That, too, was hard to believe, but our conversation eventually came to an end, because she wasn't interested; and we went our separate ways. She saw Elder Anderson and I in old-town Pula a few weeks later and stopped us. She told us she had her Book of Mormon with her! From out of her purse she pulled an old, sky-blue copy of the Book of Mormon with the Angel Moroni on the front. She let us look at it, and we noticed it was in English and that there was a testimony written on the inside of the front cover. As we were reading the words, she clarified what she had said before and told us she had bought the book at a used book store. We looked at the bottom of the page and the testimony was signed ''John Cassinat, Netherlands Amsterdam mission (that's where Amsterdam is right? I remember it was Amsterdam for sure) 1978''. We both immediately thought of our teacher at the MTC, Sister Cassinat. We talked to her for a little bit longer, explained to her a little bit about our curiosity about that book, and actually got her phone number to tell her about it when we found out more. We invited her to church then as well. We e-mailed Sister Cassinet and found out the following week that it was definately her dad that had written his testimony in that copy of the Book of Mormon! We eventually called our investigator to let her know about that with little response on her part. It seemed she still wasn't very interested, and a few more weeks passed. Then, yesterday about fifteen minutes before church started, her and a friend, who we had met when we saw that Book of Mormon for the first time, walked through the doors. I was so happy to see them. With fourteen people there, they got a solid welcome. It was great. It was a wonderful meeting. The sisters from Rijeka spoke as well as President Manley. I don't know if the talks could have been any better. I gave a Sunday School lesson on the Plan of Salvation. It seems like the Lord knew how the meeting was going to be yesterday, full of people, and he planted in their minds that they should come to church. It was great! We have her number, and they are both (especially her friend) interested in taking English Classes from us in two weeks. We're very excited. (End of letter to President).

Welp, I better go. Thanks for the word from back home. It's one of my favorite things to here from yall. Take care. You're in my prayers. Peace out.

Love,

Elder Dixon

September 21

It's been another good week in Pula. Probably one of the last I believe. It's not for sure, but we had interviews with President Hill this week, and it's looking more and more like my time is up in Pula. A ton of new missionaries are coming in this transfer, so President has had to let several cats out of the bag in order to let younger missionaries know they will be training next transfer. Elder Brown, who I am with right now, will most likely be training. Elder Anderson, the Elder I trained just last transfer will also be training. It's looking like I'm getting booted out of my own corner of Croatia for a fresh, new missionary. It will be good, but the thought of leaving is less than appealing to me!

We are getting English classes going again in Pula. We'll see how that goes. We have already recieved a lot of phone calls, so I'm predicting a pretty big turnout. We made 5000 flyers, which is the same amount we made in February when 100 people came to sign up. With the additional students that we already have, it should be a pretty serious turn out. I'm really hoping some prepared souls show up this go around so some more great people can be baptized in Pula.

I've been thinking a lot about temples lately. I taught a Sunday School lesson about the Plan of Salvation, and talked about the things we need to do to return back to God's presence and become like Him. We then talked about how everyone needs those blessings, ordinances, and principles to return to our Heavenly Father. We then talked about temples and the restored authority and keys or rights to seal or bind things on earth that are in turn bound in Heaven. I'm really greatful that our family is bound on earth and in heaven by that power. I'm thankful that we have something - each other - to hold onto after this life. It's also great to know that that's available to everybody! I read something by Gordon B. Hinckley today that explained we don't maintain a standard of worthiness to enter the temple because we want to keep people. Rather, the opposite is true. We want everyone to experience the blessings of the temple, but they need to be prepared to do so. He said this about going to the temple, '' But all of this would appear to be unfair indeed if the blessings of these ordinances were available only to those who are now members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The fact is that the opportunity to come into the temple and partake of its blessings is open to all who will accept the gospel and be baptized into the Church. For this reason, the Church carries forward an extensive missionary program in much of the world and will continue to expand this program as widely as possible, for it has the responsibility, under divine revelation, to teach the gospel to “every nation, kindred, tongue, and people”. That’s one of the great reasons I’m on a mission - to invite people to accept and enjoy the blessings that pour from attending and participating in what’s offered at the temple.

Welp, I love you guys a lot. Thanks for the great e-mails. I better go, but take care.

Lots of love,

Elder Dixon

September 28

Haha, so Elder Brown and I went to Rijeka for district meeting reciently. We are doing that once a month now. On the bus, they usually play music. I recognized one of the songs that was playing, so I listened harder, only to find out it was the song ''Aisha'' from the youtube video! Haha, I laughed. Unfortunately, Elder Brown didn't know what it was. I had no idea that was a real song. This song was a different version, but had the same words and tune and everything. Probably the original. I thought of Eric haha. Remember this part at the beginning? ''Pffffffffffffff...'' Haha.

Man, I love Sunday meetings in Pula, Croatia. Elder Brown and I have invested a lot of effort into preparing talks and lessons for church and also working on the language. It really paid off this Sunday. I talked along with Elder Brown, and I also gave the Sunday school lesson. We had two missionaries, two members, and two visitors there. I gave a talk and based my remarks on two talks, ''My words... Never Cease'' by Jeffrey R. Holland and ''Profile of a Prophet'', the BYU Devotional Dad introduced me to by Hugh B. Brown. I was able to say everything I wanted to say in Croatian and it went so smoothly. In Sunday School my lesson was on Prophets. I was inspired by Hugh B. Brown's talk, and made a more abbreviated ''profile of a prophet''. I list five roles or responsiblities of prophets, and made a chart to see how diferent prophets fulfilled those roles and responsibilities. The 5 points were:

1. They reveal the will of God to mankind and make known His character.
2. They boldly denounce sin and correct wrongs.
3. They are preachers of righteousness.
4. When necessary, they will prophecy of forthtell future events for the benefit and blessing of God's children.
5. They tesify boldly of Jesus Christ and teach his gospel.

I put those five roles and responsibilities on one axis of the chart, and on the other I wrote ''Old Testament Prophets'', ''Jesus Christ'', ''Joseph Smith'', and ''Thomas S. Monson'', and we looked up each of their words from scriptures and conference addresses to see how they each fulfilled their roles as prophets of God. In introducing who Joseph Smith was, I got to explain his experience and what we believe concerning the restoration of the Lord's church to the visitors who were there. The feeling there was calm and powerful as we discussed and read words from these ''teachers come from God''. One of those visitors was a member's sister who is not a member of the Church and is from Subotica, Serbia, a city where there used to be but are no longer missionaries. By the end of church, it was so natural to ask her for her contact information, because it seems virtually anybody from any walk of life would want to learn more about the good news we shared that day. We gave her number to the Zone leaders last night, and the missionaries from a different city in Serbia should be able to contact her in the near future.

Well, I think that's all folks. I better bounce. I hope you all have a great week. Take care. Thanks for the emails. Sorry I cant always reply to everyone. I really appreciate the communication though. You are great. Peace out!

Love,

Elder Dixon

October 5

Welp, last Monday was a great day to say the least. In the afternoon, we went over to a member's house to watch a documentary that was made about the missionaries in Zagreb. Her sister from Serbia was there, the one who had come to church last week. She whispered to me that her sister wanted to be baptized. We had a chance to talk to that sister later, and she confirmed it. We told her we were very happy for her (biggest understatement of all time) and asked her if she had any questions. She asked why we this church is called what it is, because of the ''of latter-day saints'' part. We answered that, then she had other questions that could be answered by the Plan of Salvation. We proceeded to teach her the whole Plan of Salvation. It was a really good meeting. We got additional contact information from her, and the missionaries in Serbia will teach her, hopefully. It's early on, but I feel good about it and I was so happy. I think I could have run a complete marathon on just happiness-energy. So great.

I love Conference. We watched the two morning sessions at Miro's on his computer, in his living room. I loved President Monson's talk during the Sunday Morning session. I felt like God's will for us was well expressed through President Monson. Selfless service is really central in our religion. I thought the last verse in James 1 after watching that session of conference. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." I love the simple fact that these messengers, servants, and teachers we just heard from are prophets called of God are on the earth.

I love Pula. President Hill told me in my first interview that he had to tear people away from their areas at transfers. That's the truth. That's how it was with Osijek, and that's how it will be again if I leave Pula. Even more so. I'm tempted to say, "I'll kill somebody if I leave Pula," haha, but that's probably not true. I don't want to leave, but I will go wherever... We'll probably find out by next Monday. Just cross your fingers that I’ll stay here one more transfer. K? K.

Welp, we'll see you later. Take care!

Love,

Elder Dixon