Quadruple the Fun Plus One: Chelsea

Thanks Eagle 2nd Ward Primary Kids!

Kumusta everyone!

Wow this week has been such a busy one!

FOOD: Haha okay so this week at the Busanias, they had pork and chicken barbeque. It was so good and reminded me of America so much haha. Haha so we had the elders over as well and everyone was talking in Tagalog super fast, and Elder Sirata and I were just sitting there trying to figure everything out... hahaha so funny. So Im sending you a picture of my favorite food here. Its at a restaurant at Payongs and its called bihon. Except I was eating it the other day, and there was some pig skin that had hair on it.. so that kinda turned me off hahah. So I definitely ate the grossest thing this week. There is this dish called kare kare and its pretty much peanut butter and pieces of cow fat. It was literally so disgusting haha. Its like chewing rubber and glue.... so gross. haha I also ate the tail of a fish. Its like eating crackers here. haha. also gross...

HEALTH: haha so I got a bug this week mom. Good thing is I lost a couple of pounds! hahaha. but Sister Rahlf got me on an antibiotic so I'm doing okay I think!

RANDOM: Haha super random, but filipino time here is so real. ohhhh man it bugs me! haha. like even my companion eats sooo slow, like an hour for each meal. And then whenever we go to Santiago, the van drivers are so slow and we are constantly stopping and im like, hello I have places to go and people to see here! Haha defintitely teaching me patience. We have two hours on p-day to write home but the internet is soooooo slow. it drives me insane. So I sometimes don’t even have time to read all my letters... but I made time today because I had no idea how Holli, Lindsay, Chelsea, and Taylor were doing!

LESSONS: Haha so we were teaching a lesson to one of our investigators. She told us all about how she was really depressed before. She had a kid and she was having financial problems so she started to go crazy. She said that she would bang her head against the wall and then her family took her to a facility where they locked her in a room with no doors and tranquilized her twice... so when she was sharing that, Sister Mariano and I were kinda screaming inside haha. The creepiest thing though was that there was a rain storm outside that was super bad. She told us that we could sleep in her house if we couldn't go home. Haha I was so scared! After she said that, I literally had a vision of her killing us in the night haha. But anyways, we set a baptism date with her so ya! She's doing great haha! So we have two baptisms this Saturday! One with CJ who is 9 and one with Joy who is 23. They both got interviewed this week and are ready to go. We are so excited! Ahh so Brian! We had a lesson with him this week and he told us that he didn't want to get baptized. Pretty much cause he's scared of his parents reaction. But in reality, he wants a change so much in his life. His cousin then started sharing her experience with getting baptized and how she felt the same way and was also really hard headed about it. She started bawling talking about it and then Brian literally started weeping. A 15 year old boy, desperately wanting a change in his life, weeping! Oh man, it was such a good lesson. Then on Sunday, we were walking in the church, and I saw him at the end of the hall and he just shouted, "Sister Dunn!" And I was like Brian!! Oh man, he was so much happier that day and I really hope he follows through because it will bless him so much!

SISTER MARIANO: So Sister Mariano is pretty much amazing! She has taught me so many things here! One thing this week in particular she has taught me is persistence. So during contacting, we just share a simple message, and if they seem interested we can ask to visit them. So usually, everyone doesn't seem interested, so I'm always like, let's go Sister Mariano, cause I just hate awkward situations, but she always keep persisting. Haha so we were taking a van from Guribang to Diffun and this girl was on it. She went to QSU, a college in diffun , and it so happened that we were going to QSU to teach a lesson. We talked to her a little bit and then we got off, Sister Mariano asked if we could walk with her to QSU, which was like a 20 minute walk. haha I was kinda groaning inside. Sister Mariano then gave her a run down of the restoration, and the girl, rosemarie, was just silent after and it was super awkward. Then,, after we got to QSU, Sister Mariano asked Rosemarie to come sit on the lesson! Next thing we know, the girl we were supposed to teach didn't show up, and we are teaching Rosemarie. And then.. next thing you know, we ask her to say the closing prayer and she just starts bawling, asking God for help to face her trials! So definitely, Sister Mariano is all about persisntence. She has such an eternal perspective on this missionary work and truly sees all these people as her brothers and sisters. So that is what I'm striving to be like on this mission!

There have just been so many tender mercies this week! We have 14 investigators with baptismal dates and 6 new investigators! We also have multiple contacts we have to visit! So there is just a ton of work to do! Something that we have really talked about this week is member and missionaries working together. Literally, a ton of the work is in the members. Sometimes the Lord works through the members, not the missionaries! So every lesson that we teach to members, we encourage them to find someone who really needs this gospel message in their life. We are so blessed to have the truth that we should have a desire to share it with everyone! It can definitely be hard, and intimidating, and weird, pero, there is no harm in it! Okay, I think thats about it! We have such a busy week ahead of us. We have zone meeting tomorrow, we go to Cauayan on Wednesday for new missoinaries meeting (I get to see my district!) and then we have CSP with the district on Friday and we have two baptisms on Saturday! So super busy! But I'm loving it! Have a great week everyone!

Sister Dunn