Chelsea - April 11, 2016

Fernando and Marcelino!!

I got to hold a little piglet!! They were about 6 hours old!! Cutest thing ever!

So this week was super busy!! On Friday, we moved out! Elder Navarro, Elder Pandaog, Elder Saez, and Elder Murddock all came to help us which was super great!! It took about the whole day but we are finally moved in and there are no more rats! The new house is super nice... I will send pics. The only problem here is the spiders. Haha so funny cause a couple days ago, we saw this huge giant spider right next to my yoga mat. About the size of my hand. And so Tonette was actually visiting at that same time and so she tried to get it using flipflops and she failed and it ran and hid and I was like oohhhhh great, now it's lost in the house!! Haha but so funny cause last night we saw it again and it literally took us an hour to kill it. Two of us wanted to kill it and the other two were saying that thou shall not kill, etc. I was like, you don't want to kill it? Ok thats fine, but do you want that thing crawling on your face in the night as well as its 1000 future children in our house?! Haha so funny. Every time we tried to whack it, it dropped and ran towards us and we all were screaming sooo loud haha it was so funny. Finally it was on the wall and our plan was to trap it in a tupperware and everyone was so scared to trap so i had to do it... haha. Unfortunately I missed and cut its legs off accidentally and now it's dead!! hahaha probably the funniest experience ever. Don't worry, I took video!

Basically, we have the greatest investigator right now!! Her name is Charmaine and she is actually from the area near the stake center. But fortunately, she is dating a returned missionary in our ward and so she has started taking the lessons. On Friday we were able to teach her the restoration and she is super receptive. We also committed her to baptism on April 30 and she said yes!! We are super excited for her!! We also had such an interesting lesson yesterday. We have an investigator and his name is Sandy. He has a wife and they also have a baby. And they are married!! So that's a plus! His dad is a catholic pastor and so is his brother so it's definitely gonna be hard converting him haha. But what's cool is he's actually pretty receptive. So last night we visited him with four rm's from the ward haha (they are so good at teaching you just have to bring them along!) and before he started he said that he had something to say. He said, "So last night I prayed and asked God if Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and I didn't feel the holy spirit and so I just don't want you to keep coming here when I know that it's not true. I was born catholic and I'm not going to be changing my religion anytime soon." We were devastated but it was so perfect because our lesson was on the book of mormon and so we were able to share with him about the book of mormon and how we have to read it in order to know that joseph smith was a prophet of God. Basically the rm's taught, but they did a great job. They also talked to him about real intent with prayer and do we really have a real desire to know. After the lesson he said he was actually excited to read it and he committed to do that and ask God. Man it was such a powerful lesson and we are just praying and praying for him and asking God to answer his prayers.

We also had the opportunity to watch general conference in centro with air conditioning and in english! It was so glorious... Elder Holland's talk was definitely my top favorite. But I also loved Bednar's about the ordinances. Definitely expanded my views on that and helped me to become a better missionary when it comes to teaching about baptism, the holy ghost and the sacrament. Anyways, a really great week here in the Philippines! Love you all!

Sister Dunn

New Apartment!

Taylor - April 11, 2016

Baptism of Cira.  Brother Sabala is from la republica dominica.

Hey fam how's it going?!

Ya so the week was a good one. Saw some awesome miracles! Ya it's weird to be back here on this side of the state. Sooo much different than miami! You feel so alone as well because we're in a two man house and we live so far away from everyone in the zone because it's so spread out, but it's cool!

Elder Craig is originally from Indianapolis, Indiana but only lived there for 3 years and now lives in santana valley/gilbert Arizona. I'm greenie breaking Elder Craig so he just got done being trained. He's a pretty serious guy and likes to do what he likes to do but he works hard and he's obedient so that's the best! He's still getting used to the mission schedule and isn't super faith filled because of lack of success in his eyes, but I'm doing all I can to be energetic and positive. We're sooo going to see some awesome miracles! With the Lord's help of course!

This week we set our investigator Dalton with a date but he has a night shift so it is really hard getting him to church. We have a chapel tour with him and we need to double check on his desires to progress because it has been difficult meeting with him. He keeps canceling on us!

The district is chill in Vanderbilt. There is sister buckley and sister livingood, in estero YSA. There is sister morrow and sister tarullo who are also STL's. As well in cypress grove there is elder hatch and elder keith. Everyone is english speaking, though I believe sister tarullo and sister livingood are spanish missionaries.

As far as conversations this week, not a lot of white people like to stand around and converse with missionaries but there was this one YSA girl we talked to who goes to some church and said there was a point in her life where she was super depressed and she kept going to church and it didn't help and so she kinda fell away from church. So I asked her what she was looking for in her life and she didn't really know, so we had an awesome chance to testify of the Church of Jesus Christ and invite her. Hopefully she will decide to come and see for herself! Then another conversation this week was actually just spanish speaking people so it was great. They of course were super open to a prayer and said they sometimes go to mass but they want more of the spirit and the gospel in their home. They said we could pass by anytime but they work only mornings every day I believe which is tough. We might stop by this week! I just feel bad inviting spanish people because I will be the one translating sacrament meeting for them and they don't have a ton of people to talk to or relate to since everyone basically is white! Pues asi es la vida!

Sounds like an awesome week and crazy week! First of all dang, villanova won. That's cool. Sounds like an intense game. Congrats for spence in tennis and prom. Looks fun. Thanks for the pics! Haha was one of the couples on the date Connor and Corinne? If so that's hilarious! And yep I will definitely be praying for spence in senior projects!

Love you guys, stay safe! -Elder Dunn

Lindsay - April 11, 2016

The most interesting thing I have eaten on my mission....chia seed pudding!

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had an amazing week! We actually got 2 days of rain this week! I was so happy! On Monday we went to Frye Mesa again! It is so beautiful up there in the mountains! On Tuesday we had a lesson with Roxy about enduring to the end. We read a great general conference talk about it called, "Stay by the Tree." You all should read it! Then we saw Kris after lunch. She is a recently returning member, and she loves coming to church! It has been hard lately because of her job, but she is so diligent! She wants to return to the temple, but she is struggling with the Word of Wisdom so we are helping her with that. Kris is the most loving person I have ever met in my life. She gets in your personal space A LOT which is sometimes a little awkward. Sister Steele isn't a fan of people getting in her personal space, and so she literally looked awkward the whole lesson. Haha! But it's ok!

On Wednesday, we had an awesome zone meeting about companionship inventories and planning. We talked about how we can work well with our companions as well as strive to be more specific in our goals when we plan. It was very helpful. We also visited Floyd and we read the Book of Mormon with him! It was actually really good for him. We talked about the chapter and asked questions to make sure he understood what it was talking about. We asked him if he had prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is true. He told us that he hadn't. That is why we are going to read the Book of Mormon more with him! Every time he reads by himself, he says that it doesn't make sense. Good thing we can read it and discuss it with him!

On Thursday we went to go see Heather our new potential investigator! We found out by the end of the lesson that she was less active:) Her son isn't a member though, so we are planning to teach him next week!

On Friday I woke up really dizzy and I had a massive headache and stomach ache. Whew, I was soooo sick!! The Lord truly helped me to make it through the day! We weekly planned and then we went to the Gilbert's. We taught Brother Gilbert the gospel of Jesus Christ. We had a good friend of his from the Ward come over and participate in the lesson. It was really good to have him there. At the beginning I bore my testimony to Brother Gilbert about how much we cared and loved him and how Satan wants to make him miserable. I told him of all the blessings that God has given us and how if he turns to Him that the burdens that he feels and the pain that he is going through can be lifted. It was an amazing lesson, and at the end, Brother Gilbert said that he felt something, but he didn't know what. :) (aka the Spirit:)

On Saturday we helped prepare for a triathlon that they are going to have next week. We folded ads and then helped to compile 1,600 envelopes for the event! Wow!! Later that day we saw the Tucker's (they are a less active family). The mom and the kids were home so we taught the kids about the Plan of Salvation. The 3 kids have the most energy I have ever seen in my life! There are 2 boys (ages 6 and 4), and a little girl that is 2 years old. They literally just wrestle each other the whole time! But once we got out the pictures to describe the Plan of Salvation, they were drilled in on those pictures:) haha! That is how you get kids attention! It was a really good lesson nonetheless!

On Sunday we had an amazing fast and testimony meeting. Of course when you cover 3 wards, the Spirit nags you to share your testimony in one of those sacrament meetings:) haha! I bore my testimony in 8th Ward, and I talked about the love of God, and that he provided for me the day that I got really sick. Later that day, we also taught Jason (our investigator) about the law of tithing. His mother has a hard time coming to church because she has a younger son who is autistic. So we suggested that members come and pick Jason up for church! She was open to it! Hallelujah! So hopefully next Sunday Jason will be at church!

That is my week everyone! I hope you know how much I appreciate your love and support. I love the Gospel, I know God is real, and that he is always mindful of us. He is always by our side when we need help!

I love you!

Sincerely,

Sister Lindsay Dunn

Holli - April 11, 2016

Hey Everyone!

So our preparation day switched to Saturday because we got to go to
the temple today. Sorry this letter will be super short but I love you
all so much!

We've had a good week here in Glendale! There is not much going on in
the area so it's a lot of street contacting and walking. We used to
have a car but another missionary needed it so we walk and bus
everywhere which makes it super fun!

There are also a lot of Armenians and one day we tried to street
contact this couple who looked like they were lost. We started asking
them if we could help them find where they needed to go and they were
smiling really big and talking in rapid fire Armenian to us. We kept
walking, asking if they were looking for the bus or something? They
started saying "Oh boosa, boosa!" We were like, "Yeah, the boosa! . .
. ?" They finally motioned this little ten year old kid over to help
translate between us and them. The wife said something to the boy and
he looked at us and said "She wants to know if she can help you know
where to go"

Haha, mental face palm. Alright, gotta go! Love you all!

Love, Sister Dunn