June 30, 2014

Greetings!

Is June really almost over? It's amazing how fast time flies by. I can't believe how fast this past year has gone. This has been the best year of my entire life and I'm so grateful that I've been able to serve the Lord for that time.

ED IS PROGRESSING! This is a glorious time to be in the Las Sendas ward! I feel that we've been teaching him forever but it has only been a week and a half. I've never seen someone grow and progress so fast before and it's amazing! When we first met him he could not concentrate, he wouldn't pray, and he was too in the world that he did not recognize that the Lord was trying to help him. Now he will pray without being asked (and he also says the most sincere prayers. He sounds like he's actually talking with Heavenly Father and it's amazing), he concentrates on what we are saying and the feelings that he is receiving from the Spirit (he often teaches himself from the feelings he is getting from the Spirit), and now he is humble enough to leave his problems to the Lord and is recognizing the heavenly guidance he is receiving.

He is really growing and coming unto Christ and we can see it by his "fruits." He asking for help! We've been over twice in the past week to help him clean and organize. He wouldn't have done that but the Spirit is softening his heart and is being molded. We went over last night and read the Book of Mormon with him. We read Alma 32:21-27 and began the lesson by talking about faith, but as we continued teaching the Spirit taught us and Ed about repentance and he sees that he needs to repent daily of little things to have the Spirit with him and with that comes guidance from Heavenly Father. He's starting to recognize the Spirit and the blessings from living the gospel and doing the things that we ask him to do and it's amazing. He said he even feels that he needs to be baptized! He brought it up! We would have set a date but it didn't feel right. He's going through a lot of legal issues right now, but we're helping him to have the faith to ask for Sunday's off so he can go to church! Yay!

I feel so blessed that Heavenly Father is letting me be a part of this man's conversion to the Gospel and to Jesus Christ. PLUS! We went to the Visitors' Center on Saturday with him! When we went to the temple on Tuesday we received training afterward to learn more about the Visitors' Center and how we can utilize it more. The training we receiving on the Book of Mormon table helped us tremendously to teach him. Receiving this training after going to the temple is amazing. I finally feel like I know why we have the Visitors' Center and I have the knowledge to know how to use it the way the Lord intended it to be used.

Our wards are giving us service! We have been dying to do service because we don't have a lot to do and we feel that service will help us love the ward members. We've been super diligent in asking for service and the Lord is blessing us for our efforts! It's amazing!  We're going to paint and help organize papers and do dishes! I can't wait!

The wards are going to be getting better. Both wards during their 3rd hour meeting talked about family mission plans. The WML in Stonebridge gets what member missionary work is supposed to be like and it makes me happy :) Now, whenever we go and talk with members we are going to help them with their family mission plans and help them get it going.  I'm so excited! This is what I've been waiting for. I know that working with the members will be a bit slow, but through diligence, prayer, and faith we can help these member succeed and as a result help the wards succeed.

As you can probably tell, I am doing GREAT! I've never been as happy as I am right now. I love my companions so much. They help me, support me, encourage me, and love me. We work really well together. I'm working a lot on developing Christlike attributes this transfer and right now I'm working on gratitude. Yesterday's talks in church were all about gratitude and I felt that I received a greater understanding as to what it is and how I can develop it. One thing that really stood out to me was how powerful gratitude is. Gratitude is the catalyst to becoming like Christ. If you can learn to be grateful IN your circumstances then you will have faith that everything will work out, patience to endure, love for everyone AND the circumstances, diligence to receive more blessings, an understanding and love for exact obedience, and humility to recognize that the Lord can help you in any circumstance. I'm grateful that the Lord loves us enough that He gave us a way to succeed, learn, and grow. I love Him for that and so much more :)

Happy 4th of July weekend! Enjoy the fireworks and make July the BEST month ever!

-Sister Dunn

This photo is dedicated to all you "Johnny Lingo" fans. We found this and it proved to me that 10 cow wives really do exist!