Chelsea - February 8, 2016

Bridge in Santa Victoria!

Python!

Zone Activity

Kumusta!!

This week was a good week! We had to push Irish's baptism back til Feb 20 but she came to church last sunday so we are all set!! All of our other investigators are not progressing at all.. so literally Sister Clarin and I are just trying to find someone with potential. We went tracting in like our farthest area and we found a couple. Except they have been Roman catholic their whole life, haha so sometimes those lessons aren’t the best, but at least they were receptive! And then we taught two more people later, Marlyn and Celestina- friends of one of our less actives. And it was sooo weird because they didn’t know who Jesus Christ was. Nanay was like oh you mean the guy that is in a lot of the pictures in people’s homes? I was like what in the heck?! Everyone in the Philippines knows who Jesus Christ is! So that was definitely a first! And it was weird teaching someone about Jesus Christ who had never actually heard of him. But what is a miracle is that they actually came to church on sunday! I was like nooo way!! I never really thought they would come, but thanks to their la friend, they totally came, and so now they are our potential investigators! 

We got to watch the district broadcast this week and it was soo good! (mostly because it was in pure english!) haha. But something that I really liked was about listening and observing. I forgot who said this but they said that when your companion is speaking, you need to be listening and observing like crazy. Teaching lessons should be spriritually exhausting! Basically it made  me re-evaluate my self big time. Haha a lot of the times when I’m done speaking in a lesson, I’m like yesss I’m done and then I’ll just sit back. And also there are a ton of distractions every lesson, babies crying, dogs, etc. So this week I’ve really just tried to listen and observe at all times and its been super effective. I’ve really felt like I know what to say in lessons and the Lord has helped me discern more of their needs, the more I have listened.

Anyways, everything else is the same. No one in our house is getting transferred which means I will be Sister Clarin’s last comp… Also, I’m getting pretty annoyed with the rats everywhere. At night, I swear there are like 10 upstairs and they are squealing and fighting with each other and are getting into our pots and pans and it’s sooo loud. I have had enough! I’m going to set like a 100 traps up there! haha

Love you all! Thanks for your support!

Sister Dunn

Holli - February 8, 2016

Linda's baptism (Chinese Sisters taught her)

Hello Everyone!

A big thank you for the Valentines package mom - totally made our day! Sister Ausen loves those pretzel, rollo things. And thank you Grandma and Grandpa Clark for the cute coin purse from Peru! I love it!

Okay, I seriously feel as if I'm meant to learn three different
languages on this mission!

We met Santiago at a bus stop and he could understand a little English but he could only speak Spanish. He was super nice though! We struggled through the few basic words we knew and he would respond. He told us he had met a trio of Sister Missionaries before and they knew a little Spanish. We managed to ask him if he had heard of El Libro de Mormon and our church. We then asked if he would like to read the Book of Mormon and he said yes! So we just gave him the Spanish Elders contact information and he gave us his number. It was awesome :)

Then we met this lady that knew only Chinese. We were walking towards her and Sister Ausen asked her when the Chinese New Year was. The lady started talking into her phone and we realized she had this translator app. Before we knew it we were talking back and forth through her phone and it was pretty cool. She told us where she lived and also the church she had gone to last week. We asked her if she was interested in English class and she said yes and then we told her English Class was at our church and she said: "Take me to your church!" We were a little stunned at first but we started walking towards the church. We couldn't really communicate so it was silent fifteen minute walk but
thankfully the Chinese Sisters were at the church and were able to tell her all about English class and the church!

So this Arabic family I told you all about last week (mom is Maria and the dad is Sam) - well we actually met Sam this week. We talked with him at the door for a while and he seems pretty set in his beliefs but he let us come into their home and talk a little more about our beliefs. They are the sweetest family - they moved from Egypt so they could worship Christ freely. It was really cool talking with them. We
told Sam about Sister Ausen's brother who speaks Arabic and hopefully they can contact each other so they can learn about the gospel more. We asked Maria and Sam if there was anything we could do for them and they said their kids (Angelina and Daniel) have English reading homework and they as parents can't always help them with that English
so they asked us to do it. We were like, heck yeah! Such a cool family but we hope they start reading the Book of Mormon soon!

We were walking down the street one day and we crossed paths with this one guy about three different times. On the third time I told Sister Ausen, "This is a sign!" So we stopped to talk to him. Turns out he is from Romania - and Sister Ausen's sister served her mission in Romania. So we got to talk to him a bit about the gospel and it was pretty cool!

We met this really cool family one night. They were this random name in our area book - there wasn't much about them, but we stopped by. Turns out that the missionaries had visited this family a ton a few years ago. Elizabeth and Rene (the parents) said they were very excited to see us. They told us they loved the Elders coming to their home. We met with them later in the week and Elizabeth broke down, telling us that the Elders brought a certain light and Spirit into the
home and once they didn't come over anymore, that light left. They are both Catholic and pretty strong in that religion but they said they would love having missionaries come by again. Kind of interesting!

We met this man named Jerry street contacting. He was an interesting guy! He told us he felt like a tadpole - all of these frogs were telling him about the blue sky and the green grass and everything amazing that was there when they jumped out of the water, but he had yet to gain the courage to jump out of the water and get to know that for himself. He told us everyone tells him about God and how great He is, but Jerry is fine being a tadpole for now, just swimming along. He
believes one day he might have the courage to jump out and explore for himself, but that day isn't today. We gave him a Book of Mormon though and he said he would read it. We hope he gains his courage that way!

We met this really cool lady named Brandy street contacting the other day. Sister Ausen had extra starbursts in her bag so as we approached Brandy (who has 3 kids under the age of 5) we asked if her children wanted the starbursts and she let them each have a candy. Kind of an awful way to contact but it worked! We ended up telling Brandy about English class and handed her off to the Chinese Sisters. It was great!
While we were teaching Brandy though, the little boys kept trying to look through Sister Ausen's bag and my pockets for more candy. Haha, but Brandy had them on leashes so she would just tug them back. So cute!

Jackie, the lady I told you about last week, had to move to
Bakersfield so she's over there now but she's attending church and hopefully getting into contact with the missionaries so she'll probably get baptized soon!

That's about it from here in Arcadia! Hope everyone stays healthy and safe this week! I love you all!

Love, Sister Dunn

Taylor - February 8, 2016

Hey! So this week was quite a week as we found some awesome families and continued to find other people throughout the week. We taught the restoration a ton and invited many to come unto Christ and be baptized. A lot of them accepted and wanted to continue to learn more! We did a great job bringing a variety of members out with us and it was awesome! Unfortunately, none of the people we were teaching were able to come to church because they had commitments or just couldn't come. 

Something we want to work on is having a better "how to begin teaching"(PMG) and instead of just springing right into the restoration make sure the people we meet know why we are there and that it's not just a one time thing but something that can help them for the rest of their lives. We are going to be studying that and role playing a lot this week! We also want to continue to focus on chapel tours, which the president has really stressed with us. We tried this week but it just didn't seem to work so we are going to try setting it up earlier in the week. 

Elder Johnson is doing pretty good but we're really working on being unified in teaching and he really needs to "fear no man" and just speak what's in his heart and mind! I expected him to come along faster but it's still going slow, I still feel that we aren't completely unified in finding and teaching yet.. so we'll see how that goes. 

To answer your questions, we taught Jason and Faith in English. They were born here, though their parents are from Jamaica. As for the mom, I think she saw the happiness of her kids and the joy they have.  Even when we come over for a visit she kinda wants to be the example, but her kids know the messages and answers more than she does.  We really want to make sure she’s doing this because she has a testimony and is planning on staying in the church. 

Ya Dad, I do remember that time in the living room when you asked me about the things that I know and I ended up bearing my testimony.  That was a super cool experience, and I’ve realized that when I testify of simple things like that I just feel really good, and so I have a testimony of bearing testimony! :) 

As for interesting things that happened this week. For DT I did this object lesson where we constructed an obstacle course in the gym, that lead to a bag of starbursts. The obstacles were supposed to be the members, the starbursts represented the investigator  right after sacrament meeting. The point was setting the investigator with a date right after sacrament meeting and getting to the investigator without totally destroying the members haha. The darkness in the gym represented doubt and fear of setting them with a date and you had to be in contact with your comp the whole time(unity). So ya it was fun to watch each companionship do that. Elder Johnson and I pulled off the best time ;). 

It got pretty cold this week and we are biking a lot and trying to save miles. We were way out near the border of our area and we only had like 40 minutes to get home before we were disobedient and so we biked like maniacs! It was quite a bike ride, about 9 miles to our house so that was fun! So ya that's about it for the week, I love the mish, it's the best thing ever! Love you guys, be safe and stay healthy! 

-Elder Dunn

Lindsay - February 8, 2016

Hello Everyone!! I hope you all had a great week! This week was awesome! Sister Sayer and I have too much fun! We just laugh and laugh and laugh every day! It is very relaxing actually, because missionary work is stressful!

On Tuesday we didn't have anything scheduled. So we planned with faith, and we saw so many people. It was a miracle! The beginning of the day we weren't teaching anyone! And I thought to myself, "The Lord is blessing us with a strengthening day!" But then after lunch, we had
a lesson every hour! It was amazing! The Lord truly blesses those that plan and act in faith:)

On Wednesday we also had a busy day. We had a wonderful district meeting about receiving revelation through prayer. It is so amazing how revelation for your investigators is given to you throughout that experience! Sister Sayer got a really bad headache afterwards so we just had a lunch break. She was a trooper because after our lunch break she wasn’t feeling better, but she still wanted to go out and work! So we had a lesson with Roxy, one of our investigators. She has so much
faith! We set a baptismal date with her, and she expressed to us that she knows that it is true! And she hasn't even read the whole book! She doesn't doubt anything we share with her, and her life has been truly blessed for accepting it. For example, her son that she raises is the sweetest thing, but he has gotten in trouble at school a lot. But since we have been teaching her, he hasn't gotten in trouble lately! So she is doing well! 

We visited Floyd with the Reynolds afterwards and we talked about prayer. And then we followed up with our invitation last time to write down some things he is thankful for. He told us that he has many things he is grateful for! He is usually negative, but he was more positive this time! It is definitely always a roller coaster ride with Floyd's lessons:) Then later that night we had a lesson with the Baker's (who are members), and a girl named Missy who is temporarily living in their home (non-member). She is very shy, but when we teach everyone as a whole, she is more open to talk. So we watched the Joseph Smith movie and they loved it! We also
talked about prayer and how we can receive answers from the Lord if we just ask. It was a great lesson! Then we had a lesson with the Whitmers. As you know they have wonderful children, but they do have a lot of energy! So we prayed before going in that the children would listen or somehow be distracted by something else. So we went in and only their daughter who is a toddler, and another one of their older
daughters sat in the lesson with the husband and wife. The other kids were watching a movie in the other room, so it was quiet! The spirit was so strong in that lesson! We talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and got to know Angelica more! It was definitely a miracle lesson! Then afterwards we went to another appointment with Devan at the Hargis home. We talked about the Law of Chastity. Sister Hargis was there which was awesome! We actually had an awesome discussion on it. I usually dread that lesson but it was so sacred!

Since we had two full days of nonstop appointments, the Lord blessed us with a strengthening day on Thursday:) We saw a less active who hadn't come to church in a while so that was really good! But other than that, we just stopped by to see people, and no one was home! And the lessons that we did set up were canceled! People keep getting sick
here, and it isn't even that cold!! Anyways, so we had a great day:)

On Friday we did a lot of weekly planning and helping with the food bank. We had a dinner with the Norton's and then a ward correlation meeting right after. Then we had a lesson with the Tucker kids. They are kids full of energy! We taught the two little boys, and it was really hard to keep them focused cause they were literally running around the room wrestling each other. But it was good nonetheless!

On Saturday, we had an amazing lesson with Ida and Jim about Lehi's Dream. (Jim is a less active, and Ida is a non-member). We have awesome discussions with them! Their comments help me to gain a new perspective! We strengthen each other's faith as we go! I love them both. We then had lunch and stopped by to see John. He was having a
hard time with getting along with his caretaker, so we shared our favorite scripture on trials. He is such a sweetie! We then had a lesson with the Livingstons. They are a less active family mainly because of health problems. Their two daughters are troopers! One of them had a biking accident and part of her brain that controlled sleeping habits got damaged. And so now she only sleeps 3 hours a night. The older daughter has an illness where she can't regulate her
blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature, so whenever she stands up the blood rushes to her feet and she passes out. So...... let's just say, they are spiritual giants! The mom is a nurse which is good, and then the older daughter also went to medical school before the illness came into her life. I am just amazed of how much faith they have. They just accept the challenge and move on with their lives. They are amazing examples to me! We then saw Frank and Chelsea
which was good. We read 3rd Nephi 11 about Jesus Christ coming to the Americas. We had a great discussion on it! I love 3rd Nephi!

On Sunday, we had ward council at 7:30, and then we stayed at the church building until 4!! I am loving it! I know that some people probably would go insane with 9 1/2 hours of church, but I love it! Haha! It was really hard to have lessons because of the super bowl. Two set appointments were canceled because of that! Aghhh!  But nonetheless it was a good Sunday!! :)

Well, that is my week! I love you all!

Sincerely,
Sister Lindsay Dunn