Holli - October 26, 2015

Joe's Baptism

Hello Everyone!

This week was pretty awesome! We saw a lot of less actives this week and their stories are so interesting.

Gabriella joined the church when she was young but had a terrible experience and left the church. She's super sweet - still believes in God, but she "finds her peace in the mountains". We have a really unique opportunity as missionaries to meet so many different people and yet try to meet so many different needs with the same thing - the
gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked to Gabriella and her son for a while - the Spirit was so strong - but it's so hard because the experiences she had are holding her back from the blessings she could receive.

We went to visit an older couple in the ward and they are so sweet. Brother Wheeler joined about four years ago and then Sister Wheeler has been a member her whole life. She has Alzheimer's though but it was so great visiting with them. It was so cute watching Brother Wheeler care for his wife -  he showed so much love to her!

We went to another family. The mom (Cindy) had grown up a member and her whole family was trying to get her back to church. She told us she had had a spiritually dead moment at church which she took as an answer to never come back. They are a very strong Christian family and have two really cute kids, yet she had one bad experience and let go
of the rod. Pretty tough stories but Heavenly Father continues to guide His children so I know it will all work out in the end. It's hard though, to see how much this gospel has blessed my life and to find others who turn away from it the moment an opportunity arises.

Sister Maughan and I had an awesome experience. So we were busing it home when I accidentally hit the button to stop at the wrong stop! So we got off, when Sister Maughan told me there was a reason we were getting off early. We happened to run into Rick on the walk home. He had had some really tough life experiences and had gotten into some
bad things but he recognized us as Mormons and asked if we had any pamphlets so we gave him a word of wisdom pamphlet and a Book of Mormon. It was pretty cool!

We went to this meeting for the mission president’s wife, Sister Villanueva at the library - a police safety meeting. I think we were the youngest people in the room! But it was pretty interesting! We were supposed to take notes so

she could use it for STL training.

Haha, another fun bus experience. We were waiting at the bus stop and Sister Maughan says, "Alright, Hermana, we are going to contact the first person we sit by on the bus." I was like, alright, let's do this! So we got on the bus and sat down. Unfortunately I sat down by a man who only spoke Spanish and Sister Maughan sat by someone who only
spoke Chinese. Maybe it was a sign - still trying to figure out what it meant haha.

We visit this lady named Unnati Bishwakarma - she's from India and has grown up in the Hindu religion her whole life but she recognizes the Spirit every time we come over and after about 1.5 years of continuous missionary visits is finally reading the Book of Mormon. She has two cute kids and is going through a lot of turmoil right now but it was a huge step for her finally cracking the Book of Mormon open! We are
going to try to get her on date soon :)

President Villanueva came to our district meeting on Thursday - and our DL was late! Luckily it was an amazing meeting and President is pretty easy going :) We have some new Senior missionaries in the ward (The Allens) who are from Far West Utah and they are super sweet.

We do a lot of service for Sister Vega. She has five kids and a pretty hectic, tough life. She's awesome but she never comes to church or any ward activities - until last night! We were doing service at her house and our dinner appointment was the ward Halloween party so Sister Vega had her kids all dress up and we went together. It was pretty awesome!
Then we had a lesson right afterwards in the chapel with Anthony and Vanessa - they are really awesome and they love the people in the ward but they never read their scriptures or come to church - they are just trying to understand why we are the way we are. Kind of cool.

Big news was Joe's baptism! His dad, mom, uncle and aunt came for it and they were super awesome. Joe is 6'4" and huge but he was baptized in one go! Haha, we had to fill the font and . . . . . I've never filled a font before so needless to say it was cold. But Brother Lemm and Joe survived! It was a really cool service :) The youth did a great job with the program.

Alright, that's about it here from Arcadia! I hope you are all doing well and have a wonderful week!

Sincerely, Sister Dunn

Chelsea - October 26, 2015

Hey everyone! 

So typhoon update, my companion Sister Mariano didn’t hear from her family last week. Their area got hit hard and on the news, the water was up to all the roofs and so she was kinda freaking out. But she just heard from them and they are okay! Also, the chapel in Ilagan, the whole first floor flooded. Also one of our la's, their huge tree in their yard totally fell and it barely missed their house. Super scary! Ya some areas in the Philippines are totally flooded. On the news people are just floating and wading through the water but everyone's happy that they got caught on video camera which just shows how awesome the filipino people are haha.

So on Wednesday, we worked our hardest and were able to get 9 lessons! That’s a record for us!  Also we had splits on Thursday. I was with Sister De Guzman. She is such a magaling teacher oh my goodness, she goes right according to the need and not the lesson. Definitely hard for me to follow, but it was cool to pick up some new teaching techniques. And so one of my personal goals on splits was contacting. So she really pushed me. Everyone we came across she was like, "Sige na! Contact them!" Haha like everyone! It was so hard and I hated it. But after that day, I definitely felt more confident with contacting. 

So... We got in a tricy crash!!!! So scary!!! Okay, so we were in Rizal purok 3 and it was so far from the other purok. So we had to walk about 30 minutes just to get there. So when we got there we did some contacting, and then we had to walk all the way back. But we were so tired and we saw a tricy coming so we flagged him down. A nanay was in the inside and so sis and I rode on the back of the motorcycle. Well the tricy driver was totally drunk, but we didnt know that. So we were driving along super fast and all of a sudden he starts driving off to the side, and the tricie totally tips over and we fall in this ditch thing. So scary! And the nanay inside.. kawawa siya! I think her body totally just hit against the tricy, she came out and she was just bleeding everywhere. We didn’t get hurt! Such a miracle! But oh man, the next day we were so sore. It was scary!! 

Haha funniest thing. So it’s saturday night, and it’s dark and we are in rizal. And we are walking and I see this American guy and so we go up and talk to him and this filipino lady. It’s Randy Hartman!!! He was in our area book and it said he owned a restaurant and we tried to look for him but no one knew... but we found him!!  He’s from Wisconsin and he’s been here for 3 years but he misses America so bad. His wife said he’s very picky and that he has to go to manila just to get bratts and hormel chili. Hahahaha I laughed at that one. So after we said goodbye, a little bit later, their car drove by and they offered us a ride to bonifacio. O my gosh it was so nice to be in an aircon car.. ahhhhh! 

So here in the markets you bargain for the things you buy but because I am American everyone charges us more.  Sister Mariano said it is a disadvantage of having an American companion and she tries to hide me whenever we go shopping.  Haha sad story. So we were just walking or something, and you constantly hear pigs squealing like all the time. And sis was like, ya they are killing that pig. Then she told me how they do it. She was like, they pour hot boiling water on them to kill it. I was almost crying! I was like that’s so inhumane! Isn’t there a better way? I was so mad. 

I haven’t been sick for one week! Record! Its been amazing! I think I’m just sensitive to everything I eat over here. So if it looks like it’s gonna make me sick, sister mariano explains to people that I can’t eat it. And yes living with the other two sisters now is fun! They are both super great! We all get along good too! 

Well I am doing good.  Struggling everyday but I think that the major thing I’ve learned here is that that’s ok.  Sister Mariano says I am doing good, but I still don’t get this language and I don’t feel like I connect with people very well. But if I was really good out here, I wouldn’t have anything to strive for.  Not being good and struggling hard teaches me patience, endurance, humility and all the Christlike characteristics.  So really, my goal for myself as a person here is to become the most like Christ that I can.  And this is the best time to do it.  Not a lot of temptations and my job is spreading His word.  Pretty good environment to learn to become like Christ, eh?!  And I really feel like God is pushing me to become more like him.  Even though I am shy—he compels me to be bold.  If I’m lazy one day, he pushes me until I’m exhausted.  God is constantly jerking me out of my comfort zone time and time again.  But it’s because he loves me and wants me to become as strong as I can be.  So ya I guess that’s what I’ve learned out here so far.

Thats about it! We have a ton of new investigators we are working with and it’s been great. We also committed one of our investigators to baptism and she said yes. So definitely a lot of progress in our area. Love you all! Thanks so much for your prayers!

Sister Dunn

Taylor - October 26, 2015

Hey Family!  Ya, sorry about not describing the picture I sent last week.  I decided to leave you hanging! So the sisters have been working with most of those people for a while and the baptisms kinda ended up being on the same day! Yes I believe there were 3 children of record getting baptized so that was good! Sister Mahterian is a really good missionary that just really works hard and is super good at missionary work! She is training the other missionary Sister Hutchinson who is pretty boss as well. And yes, I've given quite a few baptisimal interviews now. It's always a different experience to do it with the younger kids, the interviews are a little more...simple, but it's also really cool to see kids take that step of faith! I actually can't interview Domingo technically because he's my investigator and I've taught him but the ZL's couldn't speak Spanish so I translated. Ya he's not too hard to understand. Cubans in general though are a lot harder to understand than other Latins. 

Ya I was a little bummed about handing those investigators we found off, but hey it happens.  As long is they come unto the waters of baptism and progress I'm happy.  Though yes it would be great to baptize them! The other elders haven't been able to get into contact with Marco and Maribel for a while so I don’t know what’s going on with that.  They might drop them, dang. Venus wants to come to church and get baptized but Isidro is just kinda having a tough time, and kinda holding her back apparently, so ya a difficult situation.  We'll see what happens! 

The District Training went alright.  I wanted to improve on getting new investigators to progress, but it kinda turned into a testimony meeting which was great and super spiritual.  You strive to DPA (Doctrine, Principal, Application) when you are preparing for DT's and I just can't seem to get the hang of it. A big weakness of mine is DT's but I'm trying to do better! 

This week was tough success wise. We had a lot of spiritual experiences and people loved the prayers that we shared but not many people had time to listen to a message or come to church unfortunately. We saw some nice tender mercies though! We ran into this one lady who invited us in and gave us juice, cinnamon bread, and a mango nectar drink.  She was super nice and she loved the prayer and has met missionaries before! Hopefully we can get back in touch with her but she works 6 days a week, so I gave her the church invitation and invited her to come check it out! 

We also got a referral from the Boynton Beach sisters for a part member family so we are excited to go see them! We are working on being exactly obedient even on the little things as well as utilizing the members more! 

Oh ya fun experience, found out I had bed bugs this week. I was getting bitten like everywhere, especially my feet and elbows and we couldn't figure out what is was. Then we found a bed bug on the mattress and so we took out the box spring matress and underneath the box spring there was a ton, so ya I was getting eaten alive! So yep I have a nice comfy bed of couch cushions which is actually not that bad! 

This last week we had la noche de hispanidad (spanish culture night) and it was huge and super fun and a lot of non-members came. There were tons of booths representing tons of Latin american countries like: Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Honduras, Dominican republic, El Salvador, Peru, Mexico, and Colombia.  We did a little booth for America and passed out missionary stuff too! 

So ya we hope to improve and grow this coming week.  We were definitely humbled this week! Oh man Thanksgiving is going to be super fun in Pocatello.  You guys are going to have a blast, and man the Christmas music already for your piano students Mom?  Time flies! And the pics of those grapes looked so good. Haha save some grape juice for me! Thanks for the emails, love you guys!

Elder Dunn

Lindsay - October 26, 2015

We went on another hike! So fun!!

Hi Everyone! This week was awesome!! 

We had exchanges on Wednesday, and I was with Sister Chandler from my MTC district! We had so much fun together! We visited a lot of people but they weren't home, and we had the hardest time talking to strangers!! So we went to an apartment complex, and I saw this guy that looked like he was YSA. So I said, "Let's go up there and talk to him!" There comes a point in time where you have to go to talk to someone before the guilt of not doing it gets to ya! So we did! And it was awesome! He ended up accepting a Book of Mormon!! Even though he told us that he was going to move in a week, we gave him a Book of Mormon!! 

On Thursday we taught a guy named Michael. The elders in our zone were teaching him, but since he is a single adult, we had a pass off lesson where we start teaching him. He has never had a belief in God, but he wants to pursue it, and he has been reading everything that the elders have asked him to read! He has such a strong faith, and he has so much potential! 

On Friday for YSA wards, they have dollar lunch. You pay a dollar to eat an amazing meal! Before the lunch they have a devotional. In this devotional, they picked 3 recent converts to share their story and answer questions. It was amazing! Their testimonies were so strong, and there stories were miracles! I wish you could have all been there, because it was just a testimony builder to me that these people have truly sacrificed everything for the gospel! After lunch, we helped Kelly set up an account to work on her family history! We are planning to go on a temple trip so that she can do baptisms for the first time! She is so excited to go to the temple, and she is thrilled to help her family! 

On Saturday we went to Hope Fest! It is an amazing event where anyone can go and receive free food, free clothes, and free dental! It is amazing! We worked in the clothes section, and discovered that Deseret Industries sent two huge pods ( trucks) full of clothes from Salt Lake!! There were also many other churches that were involved. It was so amazing to be a part of it! We helped everyone find specific clothes in the aisles. They were so sweet, and some people were so desperate that they just grabbed clothes without looking at the size. I felt the love that God has for his children by serving them. It was awesome! 

We also met with Kara and Brian. Brian is a less active, and Kara is an investigator. She gave her first prayer, and she did amazing! We see so much potential in them! So those are the highlights of my week! I love you all! Have a great week! 

Sincerely, Sister Dunn