Chelsea - November 2, 2015

Ian!  Siyang he’s closing his eyes! Haha he’s literally the cutest kid ever

My Batch!

Sister Mariano is being transferred…my nanay is leaving me!

Welllll...... Sister Mariano is getting transferred!! She is so excited haha. Five months in an area is kinda a long time. But you know, still sad, cause im getting a new companion and my nanay is leaving me! But it will all be good :)

So this week we had zone conference in Solano! So fun! Elder and Sister Schwitzer both spoke and so did President and Sister Rahlf (oh and Elder Schwitzer spoke at general conference) so it was pretty cool! I got to see Sister Ngkuru which was awesome! (shes my batch) and Elder Pandaog my tatay! That was super fun! One of my favorite things that was said is what makes a good missionary is a missionary who is willing to love the people. He told about a companionship in Russia. One missionary was surrounded by the members at the ward and the other was studying a russian language book. One member said that the misisonary surrounded by the members was amazing. Everyone loved him, even though his Russian was horrible. The other missionary was newer, and the members didnt really like him even though he had amazing Russian. So pretty much, even though my Tagalog is not good, I can still make connections with my investigators and the members here. So ya that was definitely revelation, ha! But oh man, on the ride home, Sister De Guzman was just throwing up, and literally, the drive to Solano is the worst. Its so windy and our driver kept stopping really abruptly... so for the next two days I was absolutely sick to my stomach. It was the worst. But Im good now! haha

So this week we were so punted. We went out on Wednesday for 8 hours, and we taught.... 2 lessons! And to members! All of our investigators didnt want us to teach them and it was the worst! And then on Sunday, same thing. But since its November 1st, all souls day, everyone is in the cemetery. So we went out for an hour, tried everyone we knew, and no one was there, so we went home and just did our studies first haha. 

So one of our investigators kids is super sick. So we visited them in the Diffun hospital. Scariest hospital of my life. Theres a ton of cats just walking around, cockroaches, spider webs, no aircon or even fans. And the poor baby. He was in so much pain, that the whole time we were there he was just screaming. The nurse was talking to us and she was saying that other countries are so lucky. They have ventilation and a lot of access to medicine. Its really sad…

So we are working with one of our new investigators, Jennifer. She's been okay to work with, she's receptive and will listen to us, but not really commited. So we recently taught her lesson 1 principle 4-6 about the true church on the earth, the apostasy, and Joseph Smith. We then asked her to pray to know these things are true. And so she asked in her prayer for the closing prayer. After her prayer, she was just crying. Super sweet :) 

So thats it for this week! Love you all! 

Sister Dunn

Taylor - November 2, 2015

Hey! The week was good We were able to find some cool people knocking and opening our mouths constantly as well as find some part member families through referrals and miracles! Unfortunately we weren't able to get all of them to church and so that's something we are going to work on! 

We miraculously ran into one part member family that had recently moved from New Jersey. We were talking to them and we were going to say a prayer with them but then we figured out she was a member.  Kind of awkward but super cool at the same time! We are excited to work with the husband who isn't a member! Hooray for eternal families! :) We are going to get even more members out with us to make sure with their help the people we are teaching can come to church and have friends there! 

The District Leader thing is going good but I can definitely relate to you mom where sometimes I'm ready to go and I feel good about it and sometimes where I just don't know if the training helped that much or not. It's definitely a process though to continually progress and get better! 

Oh ya about the bedbugs don't worry we threw out the mattress and box spring and now we have a steamer and they also sprayed so it's definitely better now! 

For the DPA (Doctrine, Principle, Application) it's just hard because we have to tie it into a role play so they can apply it in their daily missionary work.  Sometimes I just overthink it but I'm getting better! 

Oh Domingo passed the sacrament and shared his testimony on Sunday. He is so solid! Also we had a little missionary work fireside (noche fogonera) in our ward which was super cool and we are excited to get the members ever more pumped for missionary work and teach them how to do it better :) 

Oh man another trailer for Star Wars! It's going to be so epic! Those Boise State helmets are super sick by the way.  My comps are all in agreement! The Halloween activity looked super fun. Thanks for all the pics. They were great! Ya Bro. Hansen is the best! Looks like Jess is doing well. He pulled off wolverine pretty well! That's really not fun with Jill breaking her elbow and losing her dog. I hope she gets better and hopefully can turn to the Lord in her times of trial. Man Spence is just partying it up. As long as he has good friends though I'm content. 

Anyways that's about all i've got but thanks so much for the emails. Love you guys! Oh and thanks so much for the Halloween package it was totally unexpected but we loved it! :) Bye!  

Elder Dunn

Lindsay - November 2, 2015

Hello everyone! How are you all? This week was amazing! Sister Grange and I worked so hard, and we had fun doing it! :) On Wednesday we had the most amazing district meeting! We talked about diligence and obedience. Sister Grange gave an awesome training on diligence! We talked about 1st Nephi 3 and talked about each verse and how Nephi was diligent. It is amazing when you dissect a chapter of scripture, and the amazing things that stick out to you! The thing that stood out to me was that even though Nephi failed to get the plates 2 times, he knew that he had to accomplish the thing which the Lord commanded him to do. He was so diligent, and even though he failed, he got back up and tried again! And the Lord blessed him! I think that in our lives, if we fail at something we are tempted to give up. I know that Satan is trying to keep us from trying again because he knows that we have the potential to have an awesome spiritual experience if we do try again! We just need to trust in God and know that something good will come out of our diligent actions. 

On Thursday we went to go and teach Ruby who is our new investigator! She has met with the missionaries before, but we don't know what happened. Her desire to be baptized isn't really there, and she is a little off, if you know what I mean! She has a really hard time comprehending what we say, and so I believe that she is pretty set in her ways. When we asked her about her day she responded by saying that she watched movies all day. Wow! So it has been really hard for us to teach  her, because she doesn't seem like she wants to change. Her family's religion is the one she clings to, and apparently she doesn't know too much about it cause she doesn't practice it! But since her family is involved, she kind of is involved. We were really bold with her, and I felt the spirit so strongly! We were pretty much pouring out our souls to her, and I felt the spirit like a brick. But every time we would finish, she would shrug her shoulders and say, "I already have been baptized multiple times." We explained the priesthood power many times, and with boldness, but she just doesn't get it! Sister Grange and I want the gospel to be a part of her life so bad! But I know that she is in a state of laziness and not wanting to do anything with her life. She used to have a job, but she quit. And so she doesn't do much. It is so hard to help people to change when they don't want to, or they are afraid. Because she told us she is afraid that God will tell her to change. But we are still working on her! And I know someday she will get there! 

On Friday Sister Grange took me to a Mexican fast food restaurant  to get a Sonoran dog! They homemake their hot dog buns, put a hotdog wrapped in bacon on the bun, put mayo, mustard, tomato, onion, and jalapeño sauce on top! It was the most amazing thing I have ever tasted! Spence, I'm tellin you buddy, you would love a Sonoran dog so much! And then Sister Grange took me to get a raspado. They have different flavorings; I chose pecan. Then they put shave ice, a scoop of ice cream, and then pour sweetened condensed milk all over it! Soooo good! 

On Saturday, which was Halloween, our mission president told us not to go tract-or- treating!  It was hard to do a lot, but we tried a lot of people! But thank goodness we weekly planned that night! It would have been so hard to get a hold of people, especially in a YSA ward on Halloween night! 

On Sunday 3 of our investigators came to church, and 2 of our recent converts invited a nonmember family member and nonmember friend to Church!!!! I seriously love this ward!!! There is so much potential in our investigators! Michael, one of our new investigators said that he felt something that he couldn't explain!!  Sister Grange was flipping out with joy! Sister Grange was bouncing off the walls! Not that I wasn't, but I was literally in a state of shock and speechlessness. Even though it has been really hard to have this area really progress, slowly but surely it has! And we witness miracles every week! I am so happy, and so glad to be here in Tucson! I hope you all had an awesome Halloween! I love you all!  

Sincerely,
Sister Dunn

Holli - November 2, 2015

Me, Simoan, and the chinchilla

Hello Everyone!

Hope you are all doing well and had a wonderful Halloween :) Thanks for all the pics mom - they were awesome!

So we had such an explosive lesson with the Ludwig family last Monday - literally! Sister Maughan had this great idea of teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ as an object lesson. An egg represents us, we take a marker and scribble on it (representing sin) and then we "baptize" it in isopropyl alcohol. Then we take a liter bottle and the egg has to
get through the straight and narrow neck of the bottle to get to heaven (which is inside the bottle) so we take a match and light it in the bottle, representing the baptism of fire and the egg is supposed to be able to get sucked into the bottle.
Well . . . We forgot that the egg needed to be hard boiled, our
matches wouldn't light and the Ludwig kids literally used their entire box trying to make it work. We smashed two of their eggs trying to get it to go in and finally we just said that getting into heaven is really hard and damaging sometimes. We told the kids there was no way we could fix those sad broken eggs, but the Savior could!
#mostmemorablelessonever

It was a big service week for us! We were out doing some proselyting when we saw this guy trying to fix his bike on the side of the road. We (being the bike experts that we are) went over to offer our help. We held it still for him while he tried to fix the gears but it just didn't work. I think we may have made it worse actually, haha.

One day we had been busing it around pretty much all day. It was late at night and we got on one of the buses and the driver was like, "Hermanitas!" And he wouldn't let us pay for the ride. Then when we got off our stop was right by these sprinklers and a big puddle of water but he had us wait and he pulled forward to where it was dry. Super nice, right?

On that same night one of our members had this really scary experience happen to where she lost the hearing in one of her ears. Completely out of the blue it was gone! She's going to get a priesthood blessing and she has maybe 20% of her hearing back but the doctors don't know if she'll ever fully recover. Kind of scary but she has so much faith and is hanging in there!

Accident report for this week: I ran into two trash cans. I had seen them from a distance and I had to tell Sister Maughan something so I half turned around and the next thing I knew my bike caught both cans and they went right over! Thankfully the only thing that was injured was my pride haha :) and thank goodness those trash cans were empty!

So we had a rough lesson with one of our eternigators (Randy) - he has been investigating the church for 5 years, but honestly the missionaries and the Ward probably want it more than he does right now. He told us he doesn't know why we need the Book of Mormon because it teaches exactly what is taught in the Bible and basically he has no
desire to find out if the Book of Mormon is true. He's had a nasty life though and has come an amazingly long way I these past five years, but his trust level is pretty low, both in himself and in the Lord.

After Randy's lesson we were walking home kind of dejected when we ran into Dwayne. He was walking his girlfriend's dog and we got to talking. He is kind of a conspiracy theorist so he was talking about astronauts on the moon and Benghazi and everything and then he was talking about religion and how this world is so confusing. So we gave
him a Book of Mormon and told him a bit about what we believe. While we were talking though, I recognized his dog and asked if his girlfriend's name was Irma. We had met Irma street contacting about a month ago and had talked to her about her beliefs and she basically just wanted to find truth. Anyways, kind of a cool miracle to run into Dwayne. So Irma has the restoration pamphlet and Dwayne has the Book
of Mormon so hopefully they can find truth together! And then get married :)

We were at the Mak's house (cute Chinese family - dad has been investigating for six years) and they have a cute one year old named Cordelia. Anthony loves the church members, but whenever we talk about God he kind of veers it back to us. They love the church socially but their personal relationships with God aren't so good. The struggle
with Anthony is getting him to keep commitments like reading, praying, and coming to church. Anyways, we were talking about the Book of Mormon and little Cordelia is having a tug of war with Sister Maughan for her Book of Mormon so I pull out a soft copy and hand it to her and she held it like her favorite stuffed animal for the rest of the time. It was so funny! She got on the couch and started reading it and
then she towed it around and danced with it. We were like, it's a sign! You need to read this book!

We helped this family in Monrovia pack up and move out on Saturday. They aren't members but they are way nice. They have a chinchilla and I got to hold it. Her name is Lucy :)

Sister Maughan found this awesome talk given by President Hinckley way back in 1973 or something in which he tells a story of meeting a young Chinese naval officer. He had come to the U.S. For training or something and found out about our church and eventually decided to be baptized. President Hinckley asked this young man how his family would
react when he got home. The man said his family would cut him off and act as if he were dead. President Hinckley asked about his work. The man said he would be fired and getting another job would be nearly impossible. President Hinckley inquired if it was worth it for that young man to sacrifice all of that. The young man thought a moment and then said, "it's true isn't it?"

President Hinckley said Yes of course :)

The young man replied, "Then what else matters?"

Amazing story right? If we honestly and sincerely seek after the truth, what else matters in this life?

That's about it here from Arcadia! Hope you are all doing well and have an amazing week next week! Thank you so much for all your love and support!

Sincerely, Sister Dunn

Pics from our Ward Halloween Party:

 President and Sister Villanueva...they are in our ward!