Short and Sweet

Ok well I forgot to write a big email for everyone so it is going to be short and sweet. 

I know this church is true and I just feel in my heart the love of God and all that he does for his children. I feel sad when I see all the hardships that people go through in their lives, but then I just think about this.  We can always make a difference in our lives when we push forward to do so. We just have to take the first step to do so.  If we have the desire we can do it. 

I know my Savior died for me so that I could repent and make a change in my life.  So that even though I make mistakes I could come back from those mistakes to be better. 

This week we had two investigators in the church that are the family of a convert. It was truly amazing and the way this woman Lorena brings in to her home and jokes with us and everything is just so refreshing and nice I love it. I am so thankful for all that I am able to do as a missionary.

I hope you all are doing well at home and remember all the steps you can take today to live a better tommorow. wow that was so great I should right it down. 

ha

I love you all 

Con mucho amor de Baños,

Hermana Dunkley

The Will of God

Bueno, esta semana fue muy bien. Estaba muy feliz, y ahora no esta tan frió entonces espero que siga con el calor. Ahora ustedes probablemente están pensando, "ella va a continuar a hablar en español porque si sí yo no voy a leer más" No preocupe es solo un habito no mas. 

Well I hope everyone knows how to use google translate for that one. haha.

Hi family, and Friends.  I hope all of you are doing well. I am too. 

This week was a little sad because we weren´t able to recieve permission to baptize one of the youth that we were teaching and so he will have to wait until he turns 18 in June, but we hope that he will recieve a miracle. We know that if it is God´s will it must be done and so we just hope that he can continue to go to church, and no lose faith.  Good news is that an investigator who has been assiting the church for almost 8 months is going to be able to be married in this week. So we have faith that everything will work out for her so that she can recieve what she needs to be married and then baptized. 

Ok now something that I saw today that I really liked was the mormon message that is called the will of God. I was thinking about that a lot because lots of times I feel like that. I feel like our Gardner, Heavenly Father, has pruned me down so many times, because I need to grow and change into the tree that will bear good fruit. And then I remember how much it hurts when I feel cut down by Him, how much humility I am requiered to learn. Then I remember something really important,that now I feel so much stronger. I feel like the things I have been able to learn and change, have strengthened me to bear the good fruit and not just a little but all of me that I can give. I am so thankful for that reason.  I know that is really important and I hope that you all can think of that too, when you feel the most confused, or why we have to be brought down so low.  It is honestly only because we have to grow so much taller than we were before.

I have a testimony that this church is true and that we can all be pruned to become better persons. I hope that all of you can make goals for yourselves to do more and be more. 

It will make such a difference in your life!

Con mucho amor de Baños,

Hermana Dunkley

I'm going to be an Aunt! I'm buying Toys!!

My mom sent me Rice Krispie treats with Lucky Charms!! My Favorite

The Fruits of our Labors‏

We improved. I am so proud and happy to say that.  It just takes a little endurance and working hard to help the people and not just teach lessons, that makes differences. 

ok a little experience.

yesterday we went to talk to one of our investigators and I felt the need to talk with her and help her remember the commitment she had made to be baptized. I felt inspired to ask her some questions and she responded to me by telling me something that had happened to her. She said that she had talked to her husband and told him that she wasn´t going to be Catholic anymore, he then told her if you feel that and really think it is the right path then DO IT! 

Now imagine what it is like to here that when you usually here no everyday.  I just sat there amazed and so grateful. I saw the fruit of the hard work I had done here trying to find people and help them to recieve the gospel.  It took faith on her part to make that change, and it took hard work and prayers on our part to find her and share with her what she needed to feel to have the desire to go to church. Sonya is amazing and she tells me that I look and sound exactly like her daughter in law from the united states. So sometimes when her children come over they give me this weird look like I am her, it is kind of funny, but that is how we were able to share the gospel with her in the first place so I am really blessed to look like her haha.

Anyways I have been able to learn from this experience that we must never give up in any moment.  We must always push forward and try our hardest, my sister Blair and I were talking just a moment about that, because it is honestly so hard and so easy to just stop and then get used to being stopped and not doing anything. Then all of a sudden, you just want to have all the blessings from God, without doing the hard work it takes to recieve the blessings.  When we pray for patience, faith, love, chairty, hope, or other attributes of Christ, God doesn´t just give them to us. He gives us the experiences we need to have to develop those talents! Our experiences are usually hard and tiring, but they make us feel so many changes in our lives and give us hope for the future. 

I hope you all at home can work hard and endure so that you can all find the fruit in your labors. I know this church is true and I am so happy to have this knowledge in my heart and my mind. I hope all the best for you in your own missions that you all have!  Keep enduring, as my favorite movie as a kid says Keep Moving Forward. Never Give Up!!! thats from meet the robinsons. 

I love you all and pray for the best for you in this week.

Until the next one.

Con mucho Amor de Baños,

Hermana Dunkley

               
                              How I felt after a long day and a long prayer!

The Changes We Make‏

Well Happy New Years. First off I have to tell you all a little about the traditions of Ecuador for New Years, they are crazy and weird. So we had to stay in the house all day the day before New Years because here in Ecuador all the guys go out into the streets dressed up as drag queens and they dance with other guys until they give them money. Lets just say the tradition has made a big change over time because it is supposed to be that people dress up as widows who don't have any money so that they can start the new year with good fortune or something like that and everything has just changed over time.  We had permission to leave the house for lunch and so we left and it was funny because in the afternoon there were groups of guys dancing for money so it was funny.  I got to experience a little of what it is like.  Also everyone makes these huge like cardboard people or dolls I guess you could say and then they all burn them at midnight to forget the old year and start good the new. Lets just say it was hard to go to bed that night because everyone was partying with very loud music but we enjoyed our new year watching some fireworks on our roof.  That was really nice haha.

Anyways I have learned a lot in this week. First it has to be really hard before it can be better, and second we can't force others to make changes.  Lots of times as missionaries we become accustomed to selling a product, the gospel of Jesus Christ, but when we start to do it again and again, we want others to accept it so badly that we insist and insist even though they honestly don't always have the desire to accept it.  Something that it says in Preach my gospel is that we should talk to those who accept us, so that means if they don't have a desire to hear that we should let them excercise there agency and we can continue to look for those who are prepared and do have the desire.  Something that was funny was that this didn't only apply in contacting people, but it applied to me in other parts of my life.  Somtimes we as humans want others to do things. So we try our hardest to help them, to influence them to make changes, or to just put our own will on theres so they do it. But it is more important that we have patience and faith in God that through his will everything will be done the right way, because this honestly demonstrates that we believe our will to be greater than his. It is sure that I have thought that many times or acted that way without really thinking about it. 

As always I am so happy to be serving the Lord. I have a testimony that his work is the true work and that when we act and do things we can see so many blessings in our lives.  I have faith for a better tomorrow, and that all that I have passed will only strengthen me for the bumps ahead.  I have seen this in one of our investigators Christian who came to church this Sunday. He his so willing to drop everything to follow the gospel. We have had life changing experiences with him and I know he can do anything he wants to because he has faith in God and that he can see the change he wants to see in his life. I love this gospel and all that I can learn each and every day.

The only thing we can force in this life is our own personal will to change. We can do it, but only with the help from God. 

Espero que empiezan ese año con la fe necesario para hacer lo bueno y ver los milagros en sus vidas.

Con Mucho Amor de Baños,

Hermana Dunkley