Snow+driving+sister dunkley= one worried mission President

This week was a week that's for sure. So many hard things but so many
good things! We had to walk a lot because our mission President asked
us not to use our cars a couple times because of the bad roads but we
made it through. We got to go to the temple Tuesday night to see our
concert do baptisms for the dead it was awesome! Best way to end the
transfer. Wednesday we headed up to Provo to pick up my new companion
and to drop sis Reynolds off to her new area at BYU central. I was
pretty overwhelmed in the trainers meeting feeling super inadequate
but I was really excited at the same time it was a pretty weird
experience to be quite honest haha. Driving in the snow... no comment.
All I will say is we are alive I haven't crashed and I'm still
driving. Lol. We had some good lessons and Sister Dalley is picking
things up so well! She is from Plano Texas near Dallas and has the
white handbook memorized so I don't need to worry about her not
knowing rules which is nice haha. She is a champ and just goes along
with me and is so great in lessons. She has a love for the people that
I've worked for months to have and she's got it down in 4 days it's
pretty incredible. She knows her stuff and I don't even need to train
her it's pretty cool. She started college at 15 and has an associates
degree and is planning on attending law school after her mission so in
reality I'm learning a lot from her it's awesome. We found two new
investigators and they both had a desire to be baptized and when we
extended the invitation they both said yes and seemed so excited which
is rad! We have plans for a lot of baptisms this transfer so I hope it
works out because these people are awesome and progressing so well. I
really have a love for this area there are just so many nice people
and so many prepared people to teach and bring closer to Christ it's
awesome. I'm excited to see what will come I'm the next couple of
weeks as we work hard and help these people progress towards baptism
it will be awesome. Also some cool stuff happened on Wednesday they
altered our daily schedule and our p-day schedule it's awesome! So
many things are improved and I've already seen such a benefit from it
it's awesome.

For a spiritual thought something I liked from the broadcast was when
someone talked about will we do the right things despite whether we
have success or not. It made me think about something Sister Reynolds
said when we were talking about obedient missionaries and baptisms and
she said that an elder told her that disobedient missionaries have
baptisms so don't base your success on your obedience. Heavenly Father
wants to be able to trust that we'll be obedient no matter the outcome
and I really appreciated that thought. Obedience isn't necessarily
there to bring us success it's to bless us and give us opportunities
to grow and learn.

The mission life is wonderful and I just love it so much. There are
hard days but we are promised blessings when we suffer in the work of
the Lord and I know that's true. I love you all and hope you have a
wonderful week!

Love From Nephi,
Sister Dunkley

My first official transfer call

So first off we got transfer calls last night and me and sis Reynolds
literally got what we wanted it was crazy!! She got re called as a
sister training leader at BYU central and I'm staying and training a
new missionary I'm super excited but super nervous!! This transfer has
helped me so much and I'm excited to see where this next one will take
me. I'm really nervous to train a new missionary but it will be great
I'm sure!! This week was really good though we had a lot of work and
saw a lot of progress with our investigators it was awesome! We found
some new investigators and had a baptism it was so great! Ravens the
best I'm so happy for her! I'm really thrown for a loop with transfer
calls so this isn't going to be the best email sorry my mind is racing
and not functioning properly haha.

For a spiritual thought I'll share something I read in studies this
week. This whole month I've been studying charity because our Zone
leaders invited us to and it's been a really cool experience. I came
across a conference talk from this past October women's session and in
the talk it says "the greatest form of charity may be to withhold
judgment." I've seen this as a missionary in different ways. First off
if we were better at withholding judgment there would be a lot less
offended people, and if missionaries judge people's readiness to hear
the gospel they could be missing out on a golden investigator. This
week I skyped into a baptism that happened in my last area for someone
I taught my whole time in Vernal and we almost dropped her like 3
times because she wasn't keeping commitments but because we never gave
up on her she got baptized and is doing so well! That testified to me
that the spirit will help us have the gift of discernment if we choose
to listen to it and not to judge. I'm so grateful for the blessings I
see every day in my life and for the wonderful opportunity it is to be
serving.

Love y'all have a great week!

Love From Nephi,
Sister Dunkley

I gave myself food poisoning

So as you can guess by the title my health issues aren't quite done yet because last night I was sick for a little bit and it's pretty much my fault. I ate some food I knew wasn't the best but thought I was fine and quickly found out how wrong I was but other than that this week was great! We had a lot of lessons and saw so much improvement in the area. Like crazy improvement. We got a boat load of referrals from people this week and as we've contacted them we've just felt the spirit so strongly and the people we are meeting are so prepared it's amazing. February is shaping up to be a great month for baptisms so I hope it stays that way and continues to progress. We are set for a baptism this Saturday and there is one in my last area too so technically I have two baptisms Saturday I'm so excited!! We taught heather my whole time in Vernal so I'm so excited to see her get baptized finally. Technology and a loving mission President make for a happy missionary who can Skype in for baptisms. Such a blessing. I had the overwhelming feeling last night of how grateful I was to be serving in this mission. So many wonderful opportunities and people to meet here I just LOVE utah so much! It's just great. We had duke conference for one of our stakes here and it was amazing. The adult session Saturday night was all about missionary work and me and my companion loved it so much so many inspiring messages that the members needed to hear. We had a general authority 70 come Elder Echo Hawk and a member of our mission presidency, President Blickenstaff they gave great talks and encouraged the members to help us out and give us referrals it was just such a tender mercy. They took time to talk to me and sister Reynolds after the meeting and it was just so great. We had President interviews this week and it was awesome he's just the best. He gave me some great counsel and you just feel so uplifted anytime you meet with him it's great. I'm so grateful to be a missionary and to be having these amazing experiences. I probably say that every week but it's so true! It's just the greatest. 

"The gospel of Jesus Christ is the plan by which we can become what children of God are supposed to become. This spotless and perfected state will result from a steady succession of covenants, ordinances, and actions, an accumulation of right choices, and from continuing repentance. “This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God”" Elder Oaks 'The power to become' GC oct. 2000 

Have a great week! I love y'all! 

Love from Nephi, 

Sister Dunkley

Cancelled appointments and hospital trips

Due to the wonderfully frigid weather and Sister dunkley's nonexistent
immune system I have successfully contracted a respiratory infection
and the possibility of pneumonia if I am not careful and stay out of
the cold but thanks to wonderful doctors in Nephi I'm all set up with
lots of medications and an inhaler so I'll be doing good soon. Now
that we got the worst news out of the way the week wasn't terrible
just not great. We have some flaky people that we work with which is
hard but it opened up an opportunity to find a new investigator that
we put on date for this month in the first lesson it was one of my
favorite lessons I've been in on my mission so far! She's awesome and
I'm so excited for her. Thursday was the beginning of the lock in
because there was a blizzard and we had a half day meeting planned in
Payson that got canceled because of the weather so we had to stay in
and weekly plan. The weather was better on Friday so we were able to
have the meeting then and it was really good! We learned about charity
a lot and how it qualifies us for the work. I really enjoyed it and
since then have been really trying to learn more about it. I think the
most powerful thing I learned about charity is that if we are trying
to be like Christ we will inherently be charitable towards others and
I really liked that. As his disciples we all are asked to be like Him
and to have charity and that is something that I'll probably have to
work on my whole life to be honest. I love this work and I'm so glad I
can be here in Nephi helping the people and bringing them unto our
Savior Jesus Christ. I hope you all will do something this week to be
more charitable and like our Savior I know it will bless your life and
increase your faith in Him. I love you all have a great week and stay
warm if you're in Utah cause it's colder than Alaska here ❄️

Love from Nephi,
Sister Dunkley

🐥- fil-a

Not a whole lot happened this week other than we had to be in Provo Tuesday for a meeting and we got chick fil a and I wanted to cry of happiness it was the best thing ever! (Hence the title of my email) other than that pretty solid missionary week. We had some great lessons with investigators which was good but none of them went to church so that was a bummer but there's always next week! We just keep telling ourselves that haha. We are currently getting this weird combo of snow and hail so that's cool.. utah weather is weird as heck sometimes not gunna lie. Funny story of the week, during a phone call with the elders in our district at the end of of them yelled "love you appropriately sisters!" And his companion says "why'd you say that you're so weird!" And we all just busted up laughing and now we all tell each other we love you appropriately in honor of elder Ingersoll it's the greatest. So yeah here's my spiritual thought for the week! 

"Sometimes we can learn, study, and know, and sometimes we have to believe, trust, and hope." General conference oct. 2016 Elder Ballard  

Faith is such an important principle to Heavenly Father because it's how we learn and grow. It's how we show him our devotion and that we are trying and that we trust him. All he asks is for us to trust him. There have been plenty of times on my mission where I've just wanted to shake my head and say what are you thinking Heavenly Father I can't do this I can't handle this situation why did you put me here? But when we learn how much He truly loves us and wants us to become better we will be more able to trust Him and His timing. He has a specific plan for each of us and falling away from the church or becoming angry or bitter towards God does nothing but push us farther away from happiness. I've seen that in the lives of so many people in Utah who get offended or loose faith and you can tell no matter what is happening in their life they aren't happy. There's no way around the fact that we can only be happy when we have faith in Christ and his atonement that heals us spiritually and makes it possible for us to live with him and our Heavenly Father again. There are times when we doubt things because we are hurt or confused but we can choose to let that strengthen our faith or weaken it. It's 100% up to us. I love this gospel and the chance I have to bear my testimony on it each day and multiple times a day. No greater joy or peace comes then from doing that I'm sure of it. Please never lose hope and always strive to strengthen your faith because Christ will never let us down. It's not in His nature to do so. 

Ok rant over haha. I hope everyone has a great week and enjoy the new year! 

Love from Nephi, 

Sister Dunkley