The Spirit in our lives

Well I just want to express how amazing it feels to feel the Spirit in my life. I have been contemplating these feelings this last week because it has been truly amazing. I feel so  much stronger, lighter, and happier. I also feel like I laugh more when I feel the Spirit, and well I had a really cool experience. Last week someone asked us like how often we felt the Spirit. My companion and I thought about it and we were like...almost all the time.  Then the person said how can I do that. I thought about that a lot. How can we feel the spirit more strongly in our lives? As I sat in the womens conference which I really enjoyed. I saw that I understood exactly how the women prepared their talks. With examples, principles, scriptures, and quotes I started to be all missionarish and think of stuff then I stopped and was like how do I  feel....I feel good I feel the Spirit. Even though we had just eaten and I was feeling like the dreams were coming it was really awesome.

So my answer is really simple.To feel like the Spirit is sanctifiying our lives we have to do some simple things.  Read the scriptures, go to church, and pray in every moment. If we go throughout the whole day and can´t recognize the moments when we felt the Spirit....It was a day lost because it i s so much more important that we can continue to feel these things that are very important. So a challenge that our gospel principles teacher gave us, was to write down the moments and then explain why. So I am going to start doing that and you all can too. It is such an amazing idea. 

I know the Spirit is apart of this work for a reason. When our investigator asked us how we knew that this was all true and we both said because we felt it, he couldn´t believe us. I know it is true that this feeling 

can´t mean anything else. I love you all so much!

Con mucho amor de Armenia,

Hermana Dunkley

Changes

Well now I have been changed yet again. My life in the mission has been pretty crazy, but yeah thats what happens sometimes. Well now I have been called to be a hermana lider in Los Chillos. So that means I will be closer to Quito and more stores and stuff haha. 

It was so hard for me to hear these news because I really loved Guranda and my companion and my zone, and it was just wow.  I learned a lot about how I need to keep moving forward when it is hard, and just love with all of my heart.  One of the elders was telling me today that I am vary charitable towards others that is why it was so hard for me to leave a place that I only knew for 6 weeks.  My companion and I prayed a lot yesterday and all I hope is that she can continue strengthening herself and Guranda. So here is something really fast for my mom, when you say Chillos its like Cheyos so thats how you prounouce it haha. 

Now I will be with Hermana Costa she is from Venezuela (sorry she isn´t from peru) and she is genuienly amazing. I am so excited to start this change out helping the people here and also a lot of hermanas in the mission.  It is something that is truly amazing and exciting. Well I love you all and I am sorry I can´t write so much this week, but just one spirtual thought before I go.

I have found that loving others matters a whole lot more than anything else. It is what really values when you are serving the Lord. I can feel the Spirit so strongly when I speak about these things and also when I just live what the Lord desires me to live and do.  I truly love this work and am so grateful for all that he does for me. This week we taught a girl about why it was important to have charity for others and we read moroni 7:47-48 and it was amazing as we talked with her about the importance of having love for others.  I know we can all grow and become better when we do it. I love you all.

Con mucho amor de Quito...(de nuevo)

Hermana Dunkley

Aha moments‏

Well there is not much time and not much to say. You guys are probably thinking right now, "wow what happened to all the good emails"

well let me just tell you  it is hard to always be so perfect....hahahahahahaha

yeah had to get that joke out. 

well today i would like to talk with you all about the best aha moment that I had. Lets bring it back to the amazing days of oprah winfrey aha moments. haha.

well as we sat together in a meeting as a zone with our Mission President, I had the opportunity just to feel the Spirit and learn a lot about how we can change to become better missionaries, and people in general. It is so uplifting to learn about how to become a better person sometimes that I just like sitting and feeling good. So then as we were sitting there our president told us, "Ahora nos gustaria escuchar algunos testimonios...y vamos a empezar con la de Hermana Dunkley" If I were to tell you what he said in english I wouldn`t have said it like he said it so that is why I said it spanish. Yeah sorry I have just been having a little to much fun with the jokes these days, but back to the good stuff. So he told us we were going to listen to testimonies and I knew he was going to ask me for mine so when he told me I was first I got up there and just took a second to look at everyone. I felt the Spirit so strongly and as if God was there listening to me in that moment. So I just talked and told everyone why I am here, and how the atonement of Jesus Christ has truly changed my life.  I told them that I had realized that I wasn´t serving a mission to just go home and tell everyone wow look what I did I can speak Spanish, because that would be the biggest waist of 18 months if I only came here to do that. I told them that I honestly feel so blessed to be here to share with others what I know to be true, and if I do not have much success in doing it, I do not care because I am here to serve the Lord. That is what matters to me.  I am honestly so grateful for everyday that I have to serve and change my life. I only wish to be able to do a little bit more of that. 

Thank you all for your support and prayers. I can truly feel the help when I have to walk up stairs and just want to die. Then I realize yeah its alright I will be able to drive a car in 7 months. haha. That is what keeps me walking everywhere I go. I love you all so much!!!

ps. here are some pictures of us making empanadas. my first one was really small so i made two to redeem myself. they were absolutely amazing when I get home I will get a lot of money from selling them...hahahah

Con mucho amor de Guranda,

Hermana Dunkley

Happiness . . . . . .

Well time got away from me as usual, but I feel like the email from last week was so great that maybe I can be bad right now and not send you all a lot. haha

Well nothing new really happened this week. We are still working hard here in Guranda, and have a lot of hope for the future of this sector. I am good because now we have pensionistas so we pay someone to make us lunch and dinner everyday and it is amazing because she really can cook!!! She told me I needed to tell you all because she thinks it is normal for family to worry about the alimentation of someone. Not quite sure if I just made that word up and it is Spanglish...but whoops haha. 

Also I was able to have a really spiritual experience this last week when we were able to help someone realize the importance of only praying to God. She had always struggled with a dedication to the virgen mary, but when we talked about the 10 commandments she finally realized why it is so important to obey what God says. It was amazing because I said a fervent prayer to open the lesson and just simply asked God to help us to solve her doubt and we recieved an immediate response with the scriptures that we read and she was able to overcome all of that. 

I am so grateful to be out here serving a mission. All I need now is to lose some weight becuase we are honestly eating so much, but to be honest I am happy with that so when I get home a little chubbier you can all  make fun of me. I will be well alimentado...not sure how you say that in english....oh yeah. well fed. haha. 

but honestly I am so grateful for this church and for all of you back home! 

LOVE YOU ALL 

ps do not be frightened by the pictures of this week. it is completly normal here to see this.​

What I have learned

Well today I have put a little more thought into my email than usual. I think it is because I want to show my thanks to my Savior Jesus Christ for all that he has done for me up to this point.  I was reminded a couple of days ago, about the WHY. For example, Why am I living away from my family for 18 months? Why do I walk all over the place all day long every single day? Why am I going to miss the birth of my first nephew? What is our purpose here? Why am I here?

These questions werent doubts for me or anything like that, but they were question that lots of peop`le asked me in this last week and really throughout these last 10 months. So I decided to take a second and focus on what I have learned throughout this time here that has brought me to understand truly why I, Madison Dunkley am here serving a mission.

I thought the answer was for many reasons before like: because I wanted to learn more about the gospel, because I wanted to recieve more blessings and also I thought it was simply because i received an answer from God and knew that I needed to obey that.  I think these were the reasons why I originally came here.  They aren`t bad reasons but all of these reasons changed to become one purpose in the WHY I now stay here. There is a scripture that I read today that explains this perfectly. Mosiah 3:17-19

 17 And moreover, I say unto you, that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.

 18 For behold he judgeth, and his judgment is just; and the infant perisheth not that dieth in his infancy; but men drink damnation to their own souls except they humble themselves and become as little children, and believe that salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.

 19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

 I truly love these scriptures and can only say that what a blessing it is to realize that we have a Savior here in this Earth all we must do is strengthen our faith in him, repent, and do all that we can to become the people as the Lord says we should be. What I have learned here is that yeah we are going to have hard times in this life, even impossible times, and we will even suffer so much, but all we can do as servents of God is with our faith, work through all of the difficult times to be able to realize that we are feeling a little of what he felt for us. We must become as little children and we will be able to know that why we are here, why we obey him, why we do everything, is because we actually love him and will do what he asks us to do.

I love my Father in Heaven, Jesus Christ, and am so thankful for all that they have done for me. I love you all, y espero que estèn bien. 

Les amo muchisimo, ¡¡sigan adelante!!!

Con mucho amor de Guranda,

Hermana Dunkley

                                      My companion Hermana Romero

                                            Happy Birthday Blair!

                                           Sister's Mission Conference at the mission home

                                                             My last companion Hermana Morales