Lindsay - June 13, 2016

Hello Everyone! 

This week was awesome!! We had an awesome experience

on preparation day. We were just walking to our car with our laundry

when a lady next to us stopped us and started having a conversation

with us. It quickly turned into a gospel discussion, and she asked the

perfect question, "So what makes you different from other churches?"

Sister Hunt and I smiled at each other and began to talk about modern

day prophets. Then we started to talk about the family and how it is

so important. We gave her a pamphlet on the Plan of Salvation, and

then we gave her a Book of Mormon!! Such an amazing experience to have

on a preparation day!! :) 

On Tuesday, we went to an assisted living center and met a sweet lady named 

Jane. She has a hard time remembering things, but she has so much faith! 

We also visited Sister Wolfington as well. I don’t if I told you all about her, but 

she has many health challenges. But she comes to ALL three hours of church!

She brings her oxygen with her, and she shakes pretty badly, but she

has the strongest faith! We love her so much! Close to the end of the

day we met with Bishop Roth. Now about Bishop Roth.... Haha... He

literally looks like a mix of Tom Hanks and Bill Murray. When you

shake his hand, it literally is a fish hand shake!  Haha! He is

definitely the most interesting bishop that I have served with. But I

know that it will be a good experience. He has great ideas to

implement in the Ward, and I am so excited to be able to serve Him and

the Ward council! 

On Wednesday we saw our 93 year old investigator named Alex. He is the 

sweetest old man, and we read the Book of Mormon to him every time we go. 

Sister Trower came with us, and she was amazing! She was able to bear her 

testimony of the Book of Mormon to him, and I could tell that it touched his heart. 

He lost his wife a year ago, and so he has been pretty lonely this year. But the gospel

has blessed his life, and I know that his wife would want him to be

taught by us, so that he can be prepared to be taught in the next

life. He is pretty stubborn, and he doesn't have the desire to be

baptized ..... Yet :) But he loves the Book of Mormon and he loves the

people of the LDS faith. We are getting somewhere! 

On Friday we did a lot of planning, and then later that night, we went to the Friday

night YSA activity. Two of our investigators showed up!!!! We were so

happy! They were playing ultimate frisbee, and before they started

they made us team captains!! Haha! Wow was it hard to play ultimate

frisbee with skirts. On Saturday, we helped a less active move out of

her house. The difficulty was that she is a hoarder..... Wow it was

rough. Haha! We pretty much had the whole Ward helping, and it took 4

hours to pack everything. She had one tiny U-haul truck, and then an

even tinier U-haul trailer. Let's just say that Brother Carter (in our

Ward), was a professional packing guy! He did so well, but of course,

not everything fit. We got most of it though! It was definitely a

great uniting experience for the Ward and us! That's my week! I love

you all! Enjoy the summer weather! :)

Sincerely,

Sister Dunn

Chelsea - June 6, 2016

Working with our recent convert, Jerome, and Ricci!

Just using my awesome knife to cut some coconuts! 

I had to crop this pic because these little boys were absolutely naked! Haha they just kept shouting picture so we took a pic! When it rains, every little boy loves to just strip down, go outside, and bathe in the rain water hahaa. 

Kumusta po kayo lahat?! 

This week was kinda a busy week! On Tuesday, we finally extended baptismal dates to MJ and Gigi Dumancil! And they finally came to church yesterday! After 3 months of teaching them, it was their first time yesterday! They are progressing so much and we are setting July 2 for their baptism! The only problem is, is that Gigi isn’t married yet to her boyfriend but they have plans to get married in a month so we are crossing our fingers!

This week we had interviews with President Rahlf. It was a really good time for me to just reflect on who I’ve become as a missionary since it's been 1 year! President asked me who I was before I went on my mission and what has changed? I thought back to before and I realized I had soooo many weaknesses back then, that have now become strengths. Obviously, I still have so many weaknesses I’m still working on, but it was nice to just reavalatue myself and see how far I’ve come :)

So we are getting into the rainy season over here! Every night it rains sooo hard and the power is always out over here… it's so annoying.. haha. One night Sister Elix and I were coming home from Calimague and we were in the tricie and it started to pour so bad and we literally thought we were gonna die. It didn’t help that the whole city lost power and so we were literally driving in pouring rain without any source of light! haha. When we came home we were absolutely soaked and then we found that there were pools of water all over the house so we had to mop the whole house in the dark!! It’s been a fun week. Especially when in the middle of the night, the power goes out which means the electric fans go out and we wake up just dripping sweat. We love it! Love you all!

Sister Dunn

Rain!!!!

Lindsay - June 6, 2016

Hello Everyone!! 

This week was amazing!!! On Tuesday, we saw a less

active in the Ward named Sister Piles. She has a calling, she reads

the Book of Mormon everyday, she reads other church literature, but

she doesn't come to church. She has some health problems that prevent

her from going. But she looks fine on the outside! We were persistent

with her, and asked her to come to church. She said she would try, if

her health permits. We told her that we wanted to at least see her one

Sunday. It made us cringe to be really persistent with her, but I know

that she can! If she can go shopping during the week, she can go to

church! 

Later that day, we went to dinner with the Trower's. They are

amazing people! We went to this place that kind of reminds me of Texas

Roadhouse. There were TV screens at every table! What the heck????

Soon the table will be the TV! That is crazy!!! 

On Wednesday, Hermana Adams came on exchanges with me! It was 

amazing! A little background on our area, Sister Hunt and I are the ONLY 

sisters in New Mexico. Everyone else in the zone are elders. So we never see sister

missionaries unless we go to zone conferences, or go on exchanges.

When we met up to exchange, I literally ran to Hermana Anderson and

said, "Another female!!" And hugged her. Haha! :) So Hermana Adams and

I went on exchanges, and we literally contacted people all day!! The

only lesson we had was our dinner appointment, but I felt so good at

the end of the day!! 

In the morning, we were trying to find this one family, and so we decided 

to knock on this one guy’s door. He was CREEPY. He looked like a zoned 

out hippie. He did help us though, which was good!! We asked him if he had 

a faith in Christ, and he said yes. But then he told us, “I don't go to church, 

cause it is a long walk." Haha! At dinner, we met with the

Miranda Family! They are the sweetest people you will ever meet. One

of the older sons told us that he is a movie fanatic, and that he

knows EVERY movie. So I said, "Ok, Field of Dreams." Then he began to

say, "Oh that is a tear jerker! Kevin Costner, baseball movie. Then he

began to explain the whole plot! Oh my goodness! He literally told the

whole movie!! Haha! Then after that I asked, "Ok here is another

movie, "What's Up Doc". He was totally stumped!!!  He told me

that he didn't know the movie. So I encouraged him to watch it:) 

On Thursday we had zone conference in Safford, Arizona! It was so great

to see the Gila Valley missionaries again!!! The meeting was amazing,

and we talked a lot about family history. Mother, I have to find a

family name for our temple trip in September. I hope that I can find a

name! I don't know if I should look for some names on Dad's side or on

yours. I know Grandma Clark has done a lot on your side:) I think I

will just ask some family historian in the Ward to help me. But if you

have any suggestions on where I could look for a name, let me know!

For lunch we had waffles with homemade syrup, and a ton of fruit!! It

was good! 

On Friday we went to the Peter's for dinner. They showed us

their cute bunny, and chickens that they have. Then as we were walking

back to the house, a car comes up and the window rolls down and a

girl shouts, "Snake!!" We walked down there, and a bull snake was on

the side of the road!!! So scary!!! It started to coil up, and it

looked like it was going to attack. Then the Peter's dog tried to

attack it, but Brother Peters pushed the dog away. I didn't get near

that snake!!! Yikes!! But I have heard that it kills rattlesnakes! So

that is good! 

On Sunday, we had an amazing Fast Sunday! The Spirit

pushed me to bear my testimony in both wards. Ugghhhh!!!! :) The Lord

pushes me so much, and it's great! :) We had 3 lessons in a row after

lunch, and a YSA member Brittany attended the lessons! What a

wonderful experience it was to have her there! She definitely brought

a sweet spirit into the lessons, and we were so thankful to have her!

During the 3rd lesson, there was a HUGE storm that came in. It was

pouring rain so hard, that I thought that hail came down! We had to

drive through it to get to our dinner appointment, and we were

literally driving in a lake of water! It was insane!

That is my week everybody! I am so grateful to be a missionary, and to

serve the Lord! I love you all, and I love my Savior Jesus Christ.

Sincerely,

Sister Dunn

Holli - June 6, 2016

Working at the Salvation Army

Hello Everyone!

We had a pretty bomb week this week :)

We had the most hilarious experience the other night. So we were at a

member's house eating dinner and she has four daughters who will be

baptized this Saturday and they're super cool. They have the cutest

dog named Caca and Caca is actually pregnant and was close to

delivering. Well, while we were there, she actually started delivering

the puppies and everyone was freaking out because the only daughter

who had ever helped deliver baby puppies before was at work. So Olga

(the mom) was freaking out, trying to figure out what to do and the

other three girls were too grossed out to help. So Sister Colson and I

tried to step in the best we could. It was quite the learning

experience! She had two puppies but they were both premature so they

ended up passing which was kind of sad. But thank goodness for the

Plan of Salvation, I guess (we're pretty sure it includes dogs too).

We had a great couple of lessons with Eivet and Sonaheh this week. We

stopped by to do a quick daily contact lesson and had planned on

staying for only 10 minutes but they invited us in and we got to meet

Eivet's brother Roger and Eivet's mother who only speaks Farsi. But it

was a really cool on the spot lesson because they had lots of

questions for us. The Spirit was really strong. We got to teach

Eivet's mother about the Restoration and Gregory asked about what

happens after we die so it was cool to talk about the Spirit world as

well. They are a really wonderful family.

We had this funny experience with a less active the other night.

Her name is Sister Walker and she grew up in the church but when she

had children she started working on Sundays and eventually just fell

away. She has had lots of bad things happen in her life and is pretty

bitter about it. A few weeks ago she had promised to show us a picture

of her and her sister together, but she couldn’t ever find it when we

would come to visit. She could find it when we weren’t there, but it

would kind of disappear when we were. You know me.  If I lose things I pray. 

We asked if we could say a prayer so she could find it. She said we were 

welcome to but she didn't think it would work. After we said a prayer she 

searched without any success and kept telling us it was never going to work 

and she would never find it (she can be fairly negative). Anyways, a thought 

popped into my head to suggest looking on Facebook so I suggested it and 

she looked there and in under five minutes she had found the right picture. 

Prayers are answered!!

We teach this less active named Juan every week. He is so amazing.

Most all of his kids are less active but he has such a strong

testimony of the gospel. He had a son get in a bad motorcycle accident

and pass away not too long ago and it was a really hard experience for

him. We had a member come with us to this lesson and she was like the

perfect fit for Juan because she had also lost a child and as she

related that experience to Juan they both started to cry and the

Spirit was so strong. It was a really neat experience to hear that and

learn from it.

We saw another less active last night (Gloria) and had another very

powerful experience. It was late at night but she invited us in. She

is super talkative and sweet and was telling us all about her dog who

had just gotten out of surgery. We shared with her a thought about

being grateful and how gratitude (according to Pres. Monson) is one of

the "noblest of virtues" and she really opened up to us. Two of her

kids have distanced themselves from her and don't believe in God and

the other two stay pretty active but she's just been really struggling

lately. She then talked about one of her friends who had come to her

with questions about God etc. and she said she prayed and then had

been able to answer everything and this friend told her she had given

her more knowledge than the bishop of her church had. That was pretty

awesome. The church is true!

We contacted this one guy named Bidal on the street the other night.

He told us he didn't speak English, only Spanish so we did our best to

give him the restoration lesson in Spanish. It was kind of odd too

because we would start to say something in Spanish and then he would stop

because it sounded weird and then he would like correct us. Turns out

he was actually pretty fluent in English. He ended up giving us his number 

and we got to pass him off to the Spanish sisters. He said we were really 

cool though because we actually tried to speak his language so he got a 

good laugh out of the experience which is great.

That was about it for the week! Hope you all are doing well and have a

wonderful week!

Love, Sister Dunn