Chelsea - January 18, 2016

goat!

hahahahah this kid stood like that for 10 minutes
just staring at me! so funny!

Hello everyone! This week was an awesome week! I had the opportunity to go on splits with Sister Labis on Wednesday in Ilagan. It was such a good experience. She is a really good teacher and I learned a lot from her. My goal with her was to work on confidence. Sometimes, I’m not sure what to say or how I should say something for the investigators to understand. So during the day, there were two times where it was my turn to speak and I had absolutely no idea. One time was after we read about Christ suffering in the Garden of Gesthemane. After the lady read it, I was supposed to explain it. But the words were so complicated that all I really knew how to say was sobrang masakit! (really painful) But instead, I just turned to Sister Labis and she explained it. During evaluation, Sister Labis and I talked about it and she was like even though you think I can do a better job, I still want you to try. And I was like, but all I can say is sobrang masakit! And she was like then say it and I will do the rest. All the Lord asks of us is just to try even though we feel like we can’t do it. It was a really good splits and I feel like my confidence has increased. 

Jerome, Jayson, and Clarita all passed their baptismal interviews!!! Ahh!! So we have three baptisms on Saturday! I am so excited for them! And it was funny, because Clarita had a hard time remembering everything for the interview so she was kinda scared. But after the interview, she told me that everything came to her remembrance, astig siya!! 

So I had to give a talk on Sunday… not the best. Haha I was pretty scared because it had to be around 10 minutes and in pure Tagalog. But I prepared really well and asked my companion for help on a lot of words. So I got up there when it was my turn, and the Lord definitely helped me. A lot of the members said my tagalog is really good (even though I don’t believe them! Haha) One of the rm’s told me that my tagalog is super good because I was confident up there, he said that most foreigners that get up there are embarrassed of their tagalog and aren’t confident in what they are saying. It really meant a lot that he said that. But I know that it was all God helping me out with that talk. 

Lets see random stuff that happened: oh ya, I totally walked past a pig getting butchered. Like four guys were holding it down and the pig was screaming and screaming and I was like oh my gosh!!! I started to run because I did not want to see that.  Haha. The senior couple came to our apartment for an apartment check this week and lets just say it was so nice to speak English. Haha all of the rest of the sisters were super quiet hahah. But super funny, Sister Clarin told me that her last companion, an American, never spoke to her in tagalog, English lang! Haha I was like wow!! Because sister Clarin NEVER speaks English. 

Haha so funny, so we were in our farthest area last night, and it was pretty late, and we had just finished dinner with a member, and we were on the side of the road waiting for a van. Sometimes we have to wait for like 30 minutes for a van to come by since its night time. Anyways, they have these huge buses sometimes pass, and they go to like far away places like Manila, etc. And so this huge super nice bus came around the corner, (and you aren’t supposed to flag it down unless you’re traveling many hours) haha and nanay totally flags it down (she’s super spunky haha) and she bartered with the driver for three of us 25 pesos each, and he was like sure! HAHA oh nanay. But seriously though, it was so nice sitting in that nice air con bus, it’s been forever since I’ve been in a nice car like that! Usually, we are in a crowded van and I’m half outside! Haha. So ya, that’s my week!!

Love you all,

Sister Dunn

look at this huge pig!

This is pretty much what our area looks like- meadows!

Lindsay - January 18, 2016

Selfies before going to the Food Bank!

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic week! This week flew by, but it has been great! On Wednesday, we went to an amazing zone meeting! The STL's ( Sister Moe-Tufaga and Sister Brown), gave a great training on our area books on our Ipads!! Many missionaries have had technical difficulties and other things come up that complicates the
whole process of inputting information. So it’s a great learning experience! The elders gave an amazing training about the Holy Ghost, and how the Spirit helps others convert to the gospel. They invited us to go into the chapel, and they gave us a few scriptures to look up in Preach My Gospel, and then just let us ponder about the things we learned. It was a very spiritual experience for all of us. 

Then we saw an older lady named Jane who is a less active in one of our wards. She has cancer, and so it has been hard for her to come to church. She reminds me so much of Grandma Dunn. I know that they must have been great friends before this life. Jane has had a lot of health problems, but she has so much faith. When I told her that she reminded of my grandma, she smiled and when I told her that her name was Jane, she smiled even more. I felt the spirit so strongly in that lesson. Those that are older have such a sweet spirit. They are so close to the Lord, and I can always feel the presence of God and His angels around us. 

We also went to see Floyd with the Reynolds again. He was a bit more negative this time. Since he has faced so many challenges in his life, I think he has become more stubborn and bitter. It is really sad. But he tries to make it to church each week, and he enjoys it when we come visit. I hope and pray that his heart will be softened and that he will just
give his burdens to the Lord.

On Thursday we went to visit Frank and Chelsea. We read the Introduction to the Book of Mormon with them. Frank is a recent convert, and Chels is an investigator, and they are both trying to quit smoking. Chelsea has so much potential, and when we ask her questions, she ponders on her answer. But then Frank interrupts her when she is about to say something or when she is saying something. We wish that we could have a lesson just with Chelsea. But they never leave the house, and they both are always there. So it is a
little tricky. The Lord will provide though! Later that night, we went to the Whitmer home. The dad is a less active, and the mom is an investigator. The Reynolds went with us and were really bold about their purpose. They straight up said to the father that they were there to reactivate the prospective elders, and they wanted to eventually help their whole family make it to the temple. Internally, I was kind of in panic mode, just because it was really really bold!! But then I thought, "If we are too scared to offend them, then we won't be able to help them!" I feel like if we are bold in a loving way, they will eventually be reactivated! So that was an amazing
experience!!

On Friday, we weekly planned and taught a recent convert named Thomas. He has so much faith! He doesn't doubt, and he accepts everything that we talk about! Especially when we ask him questions, his answers are so simple and pure! He is truly a wonderful member of the church! Sister Sayer and I think he will be a bishop later on:)

On Saturday, we visited an older lady named Gale who is planning to get a pace maker in a couple of weeks. Her movements are slow because of her heart, and so her health is declining. But she is taking this challenge like a champ! She doesn't let anything get in her way of pressing forward! We also visited John too! His last name is actually
spelled McClean. I made a typo last week:) He didn't look healthy though. He was coughing a lot, and his thoughts were really sporadic.  He usually isn't like that so we are really concerned about him. But the Lord will help him! I know it. Later that day, we met with a boy named Jason. He has ADD, so he gets really distracted. We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ using a tea bag as an object lesson and he
listened really well. The mother also has a son who is autistic, and so it was really sweet to teach these boys about the gospel. On Sunday we went to church all day, and had chicken and dumplings with the Elmer family. Food is just so good. :) We then met with Sasha who is an exchange student from  Denmark, living with the Dowdeneys. She goes to seminary, and she comes to church every Sunday! She has
made many friends at church and has agreed to take the missionary lessons! She is so sweet, and she speaks English so well!! She also loves soccer, and enjoys being here in America. She is the nicest person! We taught her about Heavenly Father and prayer, and how she can develop a relationship with Him. One of her friends at church came
to the lesson, and she helped Sasha a lot during the lesson.

Afterwards, we went to go teach Devan at the Hargis's. Brother Alder, who works with Devan also came, and he contributed wonderfully to the discussion! We taught him the Plan of Salvation and we had an amazing lesson about it. The spirit was so strong, and I know that we all gained a new perspective and understanding about the Plan of Salvation
from that lesson. I love this gospel, and I know that it is true. I have learned so much more about the gospel, and how I can improve. God is real, and he is close to each of us.

I love you all! Stay warm all of you that are in Idaho!

Sincerely,
Sister Dunn

Chelsea - January 11, 2016

Hello everyone!

Not a lot to report on this week so my letter is gonna be kinda short! We've just been working a ton, teaching a ton of  lessons, finding la's etc! Jason and Jerome are doing awesome!!! Although Jerome is at school all the time, so we are kinda scared we aren’t going to finish his lessons before the baptismal interview. We are going to try to teach them every day. But seriously though, I cannot tell you how good they are. Like every question we ask them, their answers are so great and you can tell they are really studying outside of our lessons, and reading, and praying. I am so excited for their baptism in a couple weeks! 

Also we have another lady getting baptized the same day! She’s like in her 60’s and she is also super awesome. We just taught her earlier today and we were reading in the book of mormon and she just started crying because she was so touched! Our area is really progressing and I’m so honored to be a part of these investigators journey to coming closer unto christ. So yes, hopefully we will have three getting baptized on the 23rd!! 

Nothing really funny happened this week! I’m trying to think but nothing is coming to mind! It’s just been an exhausting week. Haha oh ya so we we just got done teaching and we were walking along the highway, and this car honks at us, but I just thought it was an annoying van so I didn’t look back, and then we hear hey mormon missionaries! Haha we turned around and it was President and Sister Rahlf! They let us sit in the car for like a minute and let me just say I was really enjoying that air con. And then they wanted to take a picture of us so we drove out a little bit and they took pics! That was probably the randomest thing that happened in the week! 

Love you all!

Sister Dunn

Holli - January 11, 2015

Hello Everyone!

Sounds like such a fun week mom :) Great talk btw dad - totally felt the Spirit as I was reading. And way to throw mom under the bus . . . haha, I guess it was payback.

We had a very interesting week here in Arcadia!

The first two days it was pouring rain! Like literally we were wading through the streets. It was so much fun! The first day Sister Maughan didn't have an umbrella so we had to borrow one from a member so she only got partially soaked. By the end of the day though our feet and leggings were just so soaked and all of our pamphlets and pass along cards got so wet so that was an adventure. Street contacting was a bit
iffy but we are working on it! On the second day Sister Maughan decided to saran wrap her feet to keep them from getting super wet. She got the idea from watching this Chinese lady wrap her feet in plastic bags. It didn't work too well but it was funny.

Because of all the rain and flooding that occurred we had the
opportunity to talk to a couple people working on electrical wiring and such. We met this one guy who talked about how he had been to a couple different churches. We meet a lot of people who, when they're young, explore a lot of different churches and a lot of them become disenchanted with each religion so they stop going to church all together and stick with reading the bible. They then become satisfied
because they assume every religion will have things they don't agree with or feel are true and therefore none of them can be trusted. But it's cool to talk to everyone and give them a chance to accept the true gospel of Jesus Christ hoping that one day God will lead them in the right direction.

We had a district lunch this week and our district leader took us to this Japanese place - so good! But he ordered some sort of appetizer with octopus in it - it actually didn't taste that bad but it was interesting. First weird thing I've had to eat on my mission!

We had a really cool experience the other night. It was late at night and we were walking home with our bikes and we didn't know who to stop by before we went home. We paused on the sidewalk to say a prayer and then we both thought about it for a moment. I had the impression to stop by a less active named Daniel - he was baptized a few years ago when he was in high school but converted more for social reasons.
Every time we stopped by he loved having us share messages but his work is more important to him than coming to church at the moment. He can also get a little too friendly with the Sister Missionaries. I knew if I mentioned my impression to Sister Maughan she would be super 
reluctant to see him but the more I thought about it, the more right it felt to go check in on him. So I told Sister Maughan and because she hadn't received any other impression we went over. When we knocked no one answered so we decided to head home. As we were heading out Daniel was headed in so we were able to have a really good lesson with
him on repentance and then we found out he was moving to his Uncle's and would be there for a while - in fact he was leaving in only a few days so we would never have discovered that unless we had stopped by.


We had an interesting experience with a less active man named Brother Lum. The last time missionaries had stopped by was last January and every time we would call to set up an appointment he would always tell us to call again in a few months because he was super busy. We finally decided to stop by last night and he talked to us for a little bit. He
told us he had been testing us when he postponed our visits - he said that if we were true missionaries we wouldn't have cared if he told us to wait a few months, we should have showed up in the next week. He told us he had been very active at one point but that he stopped coming to church because the people at church were there more for the
social interaction than the doctrine. He also said that when he had home teachers come over he always felt they were doing it out of duty than anything instead of sincerely caring about him. So he's decided to just stop coming. He has a bible study class but he hasn't looked at the Book of Mormon in quite a while.

It was an interesting conversation. Afterwards Sister Maughan said he had totally called us out and we should have stopped by sooner. For me though it was really sad to see Brother Lum deny himself the blessings of church membership in the gospel due to his perception of the
members of the church. But that happens so often out here. I know it's been a problem for me sometimes but there's a greater purpose to why we go to church and why we serve and remain active. 

We had a wonderful lesson with Yiwei and Amanda on Saturday with a family in our ward (the Park's). Brother Park told his whole conversion story and it was an absolutely amazing story. Yiwei and Amanda also came to church and are loving the classes. They are seriously golden. It's been such a privilege to teach them.

On Saturday one of the Young Men in the ward (Cody) had his Eagle Project so we had the opportunity to help out with that. It was way fun! There's a less active in the ward who needed some help with her yard so we went to work raking leaves, clearing out trash, cutting down trees and rebuilding her fence. Most of the ward showed up to help and it was awesome - so much fun! We had another service project
at the church afterwards (we got to wash dishes) so we didn't have time for lunch. We stopped by the grocery store and bought a couple things we thought would tide us over and raced to the church. We got there to find Sister Wheeler (housing coordinator) had brought sandwiches for us. Much better than my add water kraft mac and cheese!
#tendermercies - the Lord definitely knows what we are in need of and will provide for us!

We had this super cool experience the other day. We were riding down the street and Aomi (like Naomi minus the N) was walking on the opposite side. We said hi and she said a startled hi back. I asked if she had ever seen two girls in skirts ride bikes down the road before. She said no (haha, we're kind of rare) and we started talking with her. She doesn't really believe in anything but respects everyone else
for their beliefs. We asked her a few questions and were finally able to give her a Book of Mormon. She's going away to college in a few months so we wouldn't have a much of a chance to teach her but she told us she has a really good friend who is LDS and she admires him a lot. So that was super cool!

Alright that is about it from here in Arcadia. I love you all so much.  Hope you have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Dunn