Monday, August 31, 2015

More and more miracles are coming our way‏

HI EVERYONE!!!
Can I tell you I love you all, and I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU ALL SOON!....
not that I am trunky or anything hahaha. just kidding. 
Well I just have a little bit of time to tell you all that I love you and I am so thankful to serve the Lord. This week was a rollercoaster of emotions. Sometimes I feel like a pregnant woman and I just go crazy. It is called emotional stress disorder I think haha, but it has all been worked out. My companion and I had an amazing week filled with miracles. We were able to work so diligently and then see so many people at church on Sunday. For a hard change opening a sector I felt so extremely thankful to God for giving me this one blessing of closing off this change with so many people at church. We found this one man who we just happened to call and we said hey church is on sunday here and at this time your invited and then he showed up. I was like "this does not happen every day hahahah" then we were able to visit him and he told us that he really wanted to recieve this guide. I think the best part of all of this work, is that we have been able to work with so many members here in Ambato and they are all helping us out with the work of the Lord and our investigators. It is so amazing when members tell us they want to come out with us and when we can see we have investigators to teach!!!
I am so extremly grateful for these blessings that I have seen. Like my mission President told me, you will see so many blessings in your last months of the mission and I feel like I am seeing them. 
Thank you all for your prayers, I am being lifted and helped by angels everyday.
Con mucho amor de Quito....(I am in quito today sorry forgot to tell you)
Hermana Dunkley


Monday, August 24, 2015

Listen the first time‏

I had this amazing experience. While on divisions, I just got stuck and was like what do I do next. Like usual sometimes all of our lessons fall and then you just say to yourself....what next? So as I started to walk in what direction I don't know where I saw a family walking on the street and I like felt in my heart this voice that was my own that said "contact them". So I did it. I went up to them and they were really positive like, "ya come on over anytime were home all the time" they gave me their direction and then we went to see them on Sunday. As I found there house I was like wow, I had passed that house a couple of times and everytime I felt you should contact this house. The problem was that I told myself, well it is a work place and if I contact them they will surely tell me they can't talk because they are working, but how wrong I was to not listen to the voice the first time. I should have listened, but thankfully God put them in my way another time and we could find them. As we walked into the house I showed them a picture of the temple and we talked about how we wanted to help them to be able to go there one day. The first time I have ever done that and they really were interested. I felt a special spirit about the whole lesson, talking about how they could have an eternal family made me anxious to see them baptized and sealed as a family in white one day. Sunday night was only the beggining, but I have faith that this family will become an eternal family one day. I just see them and think, wow I finally had the experience that I so desired. One of my goals before I end my mission is to see a family be baptized and I have faith that I will be able to see them and one other family be baptized between now and October.
I love you all and hope you know that even though we might forget or choose not to listen to the voice of the Spirit the first time, God will always repeat his answer to us, or he will put others in our path so that we don't forget them. I am so grateful that God gave me so many chances to find this family and I know that the same will happen to all of you if you choose to listen to the voice of the spirit not tomorrow, but now.
I am so grateful for my chance to serve, even though it is coming down to only a little more time, I feel that it will all be okay.
Con mucho amor de Ambato,
Hermana Dunkley




Monday, August 17, 2015

Wild flowers

Well what to say. I find myself sitting here so often and I just find myself awestruck at the work God has done in my life and in the lives of those around me. I have had the amazing opportunity to serve a mission and see imediate blessings. The grandest blessing has been that I have grown to have a personal relationship with God and understand his gospel and atonement in my personal life. The second most amazing blessing is that my brother and sister in law are going to be sealed for this life and the next.
The family is Gods most important creation. We can be reunited not just for this life, but also for the next. I am so grateful for that promise from God and I am so grateful because of the blessings we can recieve as his children. My companion and I have been thinking a lot about the family lately because we want to help the families here to be strengthened and flourish and I thought of this quote from Elder Quentin L. Cook,

"One of the remarkable characteristics of young wild sunflowers, in addition to growing in soil that is not hospitable, is how the young flower bud follows the sun across the sky. In doing so, it receives life-sustaining energy before bursting forth in its glorious yellow color.

Like the young sunflower, when we follow the Savior of the world, the Son of God, we flourish and become glorious despite the many terrible circumstances that surround us. He truly is our light and life.

In the parable of the wheat and the tares, the Savior declared to His disciples that those who offend and do iniquity shall be gathered out of His kingdom.4 But speaking of the faithful, He said, “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”5 As individuals, disciples of Christ, living in a hostile world that is literally in commotion, we can thrive and bloom if we are rooted in our love of the Savior and humbly follow His teachings."

so I hope you can all flourish like a wild sunflower. haha. Remember that it is imporant to keep on going even when we are growing in unhospitable soil. 
I love you all and here is my wild flower follwing the light of christ picture, with my daughter hermana Romero. Pure happiness
Con mucho amor de ambato,
Hermana Dunkley










Monday, August 10, 2015

Haz lo Justo

Well I would like to write you all starting with a story my amazing mission president told me.  One time he was traveling with President Eyring to BYU-IDAHO to see participate in some classes. They had gotten to campus early and instead of going to the devotional and having to make a presence and then speak to the audience, they decided to walk in randomly to some high school seminary classes. While entering President Eyring walked into a few rooms and would ask them what they were studying and would participate in the lesson sharing the witness from an apostle that Christ lives. They walked into one classroom and he asked what they were studying and the teacher told him that they were studying the Miracles of Christ. So then he asked the class what was the greatest miracle that Christ did? And I mean just like any class of students that is scared to answer an apostle, everyone was silent for a little bit, and then one girl in the back answered the atonement. Then President Eyring continued to give a personal witness of Christ and his atonement. My president continued to tell me..."The most important miracle of Christs ministry happened at the end of his ministry. If he would have ended his mission at 2 and a half years we would have never been able to witness such an amazing miracle. We would have never been saved from our sins. So just like Him the greatest miracles we can see as a missionary will happen to us as we finish."
I have thought about that a lot in this last week. As we worked really hard we saw a miracle. This sheet of paper with a name on it drew our attention so we called Gonzalo and he told us to come on over. We visited him and we felt the spirit and it was a great lesson, but then the next lesson as we went to see how they were doing Gonzalo told us that he knew he needed to be baptized because he had read in the book of mormon about how we shouldnt baptize little children. It was amazing because God literally gave him his reading assignment when he just randomly opened the book of mormon. Gonzalo and his wife will be baptized muy pronto!!! I am so excited and grateful for that miracle.
Even though we will have temptations and worries sometimes, we can always trust that if we choose the right God will help us. Just like when Adam was tempted, it was like he had the forbidden fruit in his hand and he said no. We can do the same. Even though sometimes the temptation is so strong and it is in our hands just waiting for us to take it, if we choose the right God will help us!
I am so grateful for you help and blessings, keep up the happiness....I always tell my comp hermana lopez where is your smile? and then we start laughing. The best way to choose the right is the happy way.
Con mucho amor de Ambato,
Hermana Dunkley






Monday, August 3, 2015

The hardest decisions He made‏

So I would like you all to just think for a moment and meditate on these things.
As He walked to the garden of getsemani He knew what He was going to have to do. As He asked for support from His friends He knew they were going to forget Him.  As He knelt down to pray He meet each and every one of us. He felt our sadness, our weaknesses, He suffered for our pains, our challenges, he struggled to make tough decisions with us.  Maybe throughout all the time that he suffered he was able to feel just for a couple of seconds what each and every one of us have felt throughout our lifetime.
Today I express to you all that there are two things I am extremely grateful to have been able to have learned throughout my mission.  The first thing is I have grown to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I now apply it in my life, I am not ignorant to things that I was ignorant of before and this Gospel that belongs to Him will help me throughout my entire life. The second and most important thing is I now have come to understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ even more. I have felt some of the hard things He felt for others. I have seen the tough decisions we sometimes have to make, I have physically, mentally and spirtually suffered and I have felt the pain of other people, which is a pain that can be even greater than the personal pain we sometimes feel. I have changed and am happy to see the change I have made in my life. As I walked around this week looking to find people, trying to get to know a sector and people that I had never meet in my life. I felt these pains as I saw the suffurings of some who had felt like they had been tried and could not overcome there own trials. I meet so many who suffered, and just seeing us two new sister missionaries gave them faith to keep moving forward. To work harder in the work of the Lord. The people have opened up so much to us and I am so grateful for that. They love us and I love them. I cannot be more grateful for anything, but that. I leave you with these words hoping that you all can see the great work that God has done for you as he has done for me.
Con mucho amor de Quito,
Hermana Dunkley