Hay nuevas cosas cada día ( pero no sé como eso aplique al correo...bueno )‏

Well today is another new week, new companion, new baby pool....sorry qoute from she’s the man, yeah but we are in a new sector everyone! So exciting and extremly sad at the same time. This transfer both my companion and I left the area, because it was a little dangerous for various reasons, but we will not go into detail for the sec of my families sanity. haha. And so it was hard because we had been working hard in the area and boom we are all leaving so yeah. Now I am with Hermana Rojas and we are in Argenia. It is pronounced like (Arhania) kind of I don’t really remember how white people speak...haha. I can only remember the latino english accent which is way funnier!

Anyways Alfonso was baptized!! whoop whoop.And there are some pretty funny pictures I am sure my mom will show you all. Iam to lazy to put them in the email because it always takes forever!.  So this week I am a little loopy because I got la gripe. a cold. and it sucks but that means I get offered the funniest conocotions to cure my cold. Yesterday I was given 6 lemons,cinnimon sticks and this spice called panela. So my companion andI cooked it like she said and then we go to drink and boom it tastes just like throw up. So after two sips I decided I better let it go and stick with my drugs and apple honey tea. so much better!! haha!!

Ok back to the spirtual stuff. So Alfonso was baptized and how amazing was his baptism. We had some problems at first because there wasn’t any gas to heat up the water but after some break backing work thanks to my companion and I, we had gas. And everything was worth it for the reaction of Alfonso when he was baptized. He started to cry as soon as he came out of the water and then he just told everyone that he was so thankful to finally have his true baptism. When we told him yesterday that we were going be leaving and he would be with new elders he broke my heart. He just said you guys were the first people who planted the seed in my soul and because of you I can return to live with my God. I was just amazed and crying and everything. I am so grateful for him and all that I was able to learn from him! Anyways all I want to say today for this week is that if we can remember our covenants that we made with God when we were baptized and try to remember the promises that are given to us in the sacrement prayers, your lives will change. You will see so much more brightness and just cherish all those moments you have all the more.  As usual I am so grateful for all the words that you have given me each week because they always enter my soul and help me to continue to look forward to the work that I am here to do. Continue to look forward and live worthy of the Holy Ghost each day. I love you all and look forward to next week!

ps you really need to check out these pictures they are gold! haha

Amor de Quito,

Hermana Dunkley

12 weeks

Well hello to everyone in another new week. Today is the last week of the transfer so we have transfer calls this next Sunday.  we don't know if Hermana Flores will leave or me but she only has two transfers left so we think she might be leaving so we are a little sad...a lot of sad....but that is the life of the mission.  

This week we have the baptism for Alfonso!!! My third grandpa. He is so funny. He always invites have to have wawita...water (in Quitwa the original language of Ecuador) and crackers. We sit and listen to his stories about everything and we try to get a lesson in too. haha. He is so excited for his baptism! Oh the other amazing thing is we gave him a book of mormon two weeks ago and right now he is in the middle of Alma! He loves this book. It is so amazing because he just reads it all the time. haha. Anyways we have something great to look forward to right before the transfer ends. 

Today I have just been thinking a lot as I recieved emails from a lot of you and got to hear a lot from my friends who are serving in other parts of the World.  I was shocked to see that my brother shaved and it is just so hard to believe haha. Anyways I was thinking of how we make changes a lot in our lives.  Sometimes we feel that everyday is the same, but really we change so much from year to year, in features....haha like Parker.....and just in personality and other changes that we have to make just to live or to continue moving forward.  One of my investigators needs to make a lot of changes in his life to be baptized.  He struggles with these addictions, but he always tries to change his outlook.  I know that sometimes these changes can be extremly impossible, but when we have goals and do these things to make the changes we need to for this gospel, this church, and in reality God, we make changes that we need to make to better ourselves.  We can always do this with a little bit of faith and a whole great lot of action...haha...but a little bit of action at first if we need too...

I have learned so much from those of you who have shared your lives with me and shared your experiences thank you for this.

also congrats Drew Forester for graduating!! and congrats Foresters for the two new grand children!! Happy Birthday to Grandpa Don and to Hayden!! Keep moving forward and always remeber those covenants you have made with God

Love you all so much.

Amor De Quito,

Hermana Dunkley

Chocolate

Well a new week yet again.  How fast these weeks go. I dont even know what to say.

La Obra Misional

Well the missionary work is going good as usual. It is always going good because my companion and I are working hard to help the people here to continue to progress and know for themselves that this church is true.  We try all the time to be exactly obedient and I think there is a power in doing this.  They teach us as missionaries a lot of the time to do this and that or as members we here it a lot, but I think with every principal of the Gospel actually putting these things into practice is totally different.  I have learned so much from acting and not only listening. I have learned so much from teaching this to other people.  This is probably the most vital part of our work. Action. "Faith without works is dead" says the scriptures right.  But how do we act? Well a member who has come with us to lessons a couple times uses this example a lot.  If there is a cell phone sitting on the chair and you have faith that it is there what are you going to do?  You are going to move and pick it up right? That is what faith is. We want something and so we need to move, act, and use our faith.  There is a difference between always listening and hearing and saying oh yeah I'm going to stop eating chocolate tomorrow when you don't actually do it.  Because honestly I think I said that like three weeks ago and I like chocolate too much to stop eating.  There is this one bread here with chocolate in the middle that is RICISIMO really good, or tasty....and lets be honest I probably won't stop eating chocolate, but I can change my attitude and set goals to only eat a little bit this week or only one of these once a week.  That is how we make differences in our lives.  When we know that something is good we need to act to make that thing apart of our lives.  We know that the scriptures are good and that prayer is good and that God will bless us, but we need to always act to have these blessings we need to excercise our faith to gain more faith and there is one scripture that I have grown to really like.

it says

Moroni 7:48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all theenergy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed uponall who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons ofGod; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is;that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.

If we pray like Moroni says we can be filled with the love of God.  We can become his true children and followers of him.  And i love this last promise. that we can be pure even as Jesus Christ is pure.  what we must do as followers of Christ is love him and give our all to him.  Pray and keep his commandments. Read his books and act to actually know if they are true. I am so grateful for this work and for all that I can do each day.  I am so grateful for your love each week and what I have been able to learn!. May God bless you always. and as Alfonso says Dios bendiga. en el nombre de Christo Jesus Amen.
It is always good to have a little Alfonso quote. haha. 
Love from Quito
Hermana Dunkley

Fast and Prayer

Well what an amazing week de verdad. whoops. just like truly. My companion says this a lot so I have caught on to it haha. Sorry for my english I have become worse? I dont know how you say it haha. It is like trying to put a puzzle back together that you have already done before, but you can't put it together because it is impossible to remember.  I dont know if that simile worked, but that is my life haha.

Anyways this last week we had another baptism for a girl that is 11 years old (Danely).  She is so great and we have had so much fun teaching her and helping her.  Her situation has been really hard, but through prayer and through the help of members we were able to have her baptism this last Saturday.  She has such a strong testimony and when she prays and when she shares it with her family you can feel the Spirit so strong.  Honestly God loves his children and if we can all be like children and come unto Christ we can learn so much.  I have learned so much from her!!

Also I had a really special experience this last week. We have an investigator who is called ( whoops se llama...no recuerdo como decir en ingles) Alfonso.  He is a really good person and for 75 years he has accepted this different knowledge with open arms. He loves the Book of Mormon and wants to come to church but has a problem.  artritis..arthritis?  Yea so his bones hurt like all the time and he can't walk very much. So this last Saturday we told him that we were gonna have a member with a car come and pick him up to take him to church he said oh yeah I like that idea but then we told him it is like 15 minutes in the car and he said no.  Because it hurts him a lot to sit in a car for to much time because his legs go stiff. So we taught him that sometimes we have to experience a little bit of the atonement and experience pain to do things that God want us to do like go to church.  And then we prayed and my companion thought it would be a good idea to give him a video about John Tanner.  It is the conversion of him in the time of Joseph Smith and it is such a great story about how he was healed from his infimities and all this.  So we told him we were going to fast for him and do all that we could to bring him to church the next day. Then Sunday we decided that we weren't going to plan anything if he said no. So we had no doubts that he would go to church, because we wanted to excercise our faith in God more.  Then we went to his house with the member and he told us that he had watched the video 3 times because he loved it so much.  As he started to cry I just saw a person who had truly been converted and who wanted the same blessings as John Tanner.  He accepted to go to church and stayed all three hours with us.  It was truly amazing.  He was able to learn so much and really have more friends in the church.  He is such a sweet old man and I always get a little feeling like he is my long lost latino grandpa. hahah mi abuelito!! 

Anyways what is so great about this experience and why I wanted to share it with you all is that there is a special power in our fasts and prayers.  Sometimes we do not see results immediately like we did with Alfonso, but the point is that there is a power in obeying Gods commandments and trying our hardest to do all that we can to dedicate what we have to him.  When we fast we must try our hardest to fast for those two meals. And if you can 24 hours.  Here we eat lunch Saturday, because it is our biggest meal, and then we fast for dinner and breakfast the next day and have lunch and dinner on Sunday.  If you can try to do something like this in your fasts I know that you can recieve so many blessings.  Fast and pray with faith! Look for the meaning in these moments and seek after the blessings of God!

I truly love you all with all of my heart

love from Quito,

Hermana Dunkley

"yo se que vive mi senor"

Well wahoo!!!! All I gotta say, is that these last two days have been amazing! There is no other feeling like watching someone you taught the gospel to and invited to be baptized actually be baptized. wow. I don't know my first baptism went really well.  We were a little late to start out with, but I made cookies the Elders in our ward and my companion and i sang,"yo se que vive mi senor"...I know that my redemmer lives...and it was just wow.  When she was baptized and then shared her testimony after I knew that I was able to meet her so early in my mission to prepare me for the other people I am going to have to work harder for.  Anabel was so prepared by our Savior to recieve this gospel and I know now that I just need to continue to work hard for my Father in Heaven and see what I can do to continue to help more people like Anabel.

Then the next day she recieved the Holy Ghost and that was so great. She was so happy and she was just beaming. It was awesome because she even got a skirt from her aunt just to come to the church and receive the Holy Ghost.

Anyways I just wanted to share a couple more things.  I have really started to feel so good in this country.  I have so many members here who have become like my family and I have been able to meet so many new people and really start to understand our church and gospel.  I think this has been a big blessing for me.  I thought I knew so much about our church, the Bible, and the Book of Mormon, but through my studying of these books and through assisting the church and seeing it through the eyes of an investigator I have learned so much.  All I can really say is I understand so much more that this work is not just for those of us who have plaques with our names on it and the name of the church.  It is actually so much more for the members of the church who live in the area.  The missionaries truly need your help and need you to help them fulfill their purpose.  Which is invitar personas a venir a Cristo. Invite people to come unto Christ.  If you can do all that you can to serve others and make this your purpose I know that your life will be filled with much more.  The love of Christ will become manifested in your hearts and there is no other feeling that is more glorious and satisfying then this feeling.

All I have been doing, All that I am doing, All that there is to do...is to live for Christ and to give all that you have for him and his church.  One thing that is very common here is that practically everyone believes in God. And they always say. There is one God and everyone that lives believes in Him in someway. I think this is one thing that has become manifest for me all the more.

It is a blessing to be here with this little area of the world to serve God's Children.  I wish you all the best and continue to keep you in my prayers!

Love from Quito,

chou mi amoroso familia

Hermana Dunkley

No Sé...lo siento‏

ok so this week we didnt have a baptism again, but we officialy have a date set for Anabel this saturday so please keep her in your prayers!!! and this weekend we are planning on having a noche blanca!!! which is when a lot of people are being baptized and they are all wearing white so it is a noche blanca...haha. i didnt understand that for like three weeks hahaha.

preguntas

i go tracking almost everyday and we knock on doors or talk to people in their stores there are lots of little stores around here.  i actually like doing this a lot. people are so different here in Ecuador because so many people actually want to talk to you and learn from you and stuff so it is great because we always have people to talk to. 

We basically walk everywhere. there are buses for 25 cents and we use them probably two or three times a week, but we are changing chapels this week for one that is probably a half hour away by bus so we will have to use those on sundays too. there are also taxis everywhere but we only use those like once every once in a while.  

ok so this last week was....i dont know normal. haha it is just that i am so used to the day to day things that i forgot what it was like not to have everyday, every hour mapped out to exactly what you are going to do.  oh yeah i remeber someting interesting this last week we ate la parte de la vaca se llama pauta.  that means the foot of the cow.  like you could tell. it was weird. i ate the toe part.  the funny thing is that i thought it was like the mouth of the cow. and i am grateful for this because i think i would have been more hesitant if it knew it was the foot while i ate it.  everyone here thinks it is so rico...really tasty or good....but i honestly didnt really taste anything because it was in a soup so. yeah that experience went really well...haha. it was chewy. really chewy.  you guys should try it.  

what else....

We have some new investigators this last week and the lessons with them were really awesome.  I honestly love teaching and learning and just like making friends i guess.  the people here love laughing with me....actually i think ate me...but it is all good. i have a lot of friends because of it. haha...but back to seriousness. i ahve been blessed so much. Yo siempre senti el amor de Dios.  Tambien en que manera yo necesito mejorar, porque a veces este mision es ful dificil, pero la realidad es que esta vida es dificil y podemos cambiar cuando sabemos que este es la solo camino y necesitamos cambiar para EL. 

Les Amo!!!!

SiEMPRE

Recordar que Dios nos ama y quiere que pudimos cambiar para El.

you should  probably just use google translate cuz i dont got time to change it to english hahahah
love from Quito

Hermana DUnkley

Patience, and Trust‏

Ok first off sad news of the week.  Anabel wasn't able to be baptized.  Her grandfather went into the hospital and her mom needs her to be with him like all the time because her mom works and so we havent seen her all weekend and we are a little worried about her. All my companion and I want for her is this opportunity to be closer to God and she wants it too, so it is sad that she wasn't able to have it this last week, but I have faith that she can make this covenant with God this week.  

Anyways I have learned so many lessons from this experience. First of patience. Second of Trust in God. I think one of the things I have accidently done is that I get carried away in helping people and doing things for them based off of my own opinion that I forget that the most important thing to do is to first seek that of the Lords opinion. Because if he knows everything, why am I not asking him more? haha. yes I need to start doing that a lot more and praying a lot more specifically like we teach so many people to do. tambien I just need to trust in the will of God.  This has been interesting. It is hard when you feel like a horrible missionary or some things happen because you dont have enough faith, but really truth is that you need to have trust in the Lord and his plan for you.  Wow has that been an eye opener.

Well in other news! end of the first cambio...Change...and wow has it been an amazing learning experience. I am so excited for more time with my companion and I know that we can really do wonders in this little sector mariscal of the world. haha.  Anyways I really am grateful for this work and all that I have been able to do while serving the Lord!! At times it is hard, but there is no other language I would rather hear...there is no other people I would rather be with...and there is no other person I would rather serve than the Lord.
I love this scripture that I read today Psalms 100:2
Serve the Lord with gladness : come before his presence with singing .

So always serve the Lord with gladness in whatever way in whatever form and to whom ever that you can.  He will bless you and you will surely be able to kneel at his feet in the day of judgment and be happy for all that you have done in this life.

love to you all
cuidanse ( is like take comfort )

amor de quito

Hermana Dunkley