Obedience is key

This week was pretty fun and full of driving in snow which was grand
cause it means I'm getting better at it! I had to drive to delta which
is an hour south for a meeting Wednesday and then the next day up to
Provo for another meeting for the trainers and trainees it was so
good! I learned a lot and enjoyed seeing some friends.

The work here in Nephi is picking up like crazy!! Our teaching pool is
expanding and we are finding so many prepared people that are willing
to listen to our message and accept the invitation to be baptized it's
amazing. The hard part is with so much good happening you also get
thrown major curveballs and problems to solve but eventually things
get sorted out especially when we ask for the Lords guidance through
it all. This week I've been super grateful for my loving and
understanding companion. As a trainer I've been trying my hardest to
not let my imperfections and weaknesses show through which I've found
is impossible but she has been so understanding and patient with me as
I learn from my mistakes and do my best to improve.

Also so many people came to church yesterday!!!!! #blessings

Spiritual thought for today: be obedient it brings blessings!
“Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as
they are to come. …
“And no man receiveth a fulness unless he keepeth [God’s] commandments.
“He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he
is glorified in truth and knoweth all things” (D&C 93:24, 27–28;)

Love from Nephi,
Sister Dunkley

Rylee and Riley back together again ❤

7 month mark🎉 and Car troubles

I left home 7 months ago today crazy stuff! That seriously flew by
like crazy. This week was pretty great! It had some hard parts but the
good outweighed the bad. Gavin and Heavenah got baptized!!! They have
been taught for about a year now I think and finally were able to be
baptized on Saturday it was so special! They were so excited and so
many people came to support them it was awesome. I loved seeing their
huge smiles and how happy they were it was so great. To be completely
honest it feels like nothing else that happened this week is worth
talking about it was good just nothing crazy interesting haha.

Oh, our tires are our of alignment on the car and is it an easy fix?
Nah. It's about a $400 fix because parts have to be ordered and the
whole 9 yards so that's fun. The good news is I can still drive it
until the parts come in and it can get fixed so at least I didn't get
it taken away so that's nice. Fun stuff about having a car you still
have to deal with all the crap that comes with it I'm just glad it was
a natural thing that happened and I didn't cause it to tell the truth.
Other than that life's good and being a missionary is great!

I really do love it. I feel so much love for the people here and my
desire to serve them is growing the more people I meet and experiences
I have. I had a new investigator we found tell the fellow shipper
after we left that she felt like within the first 15 minutes of
meeting me that we were best friends and it made me so happy to see
that they realize it to and it's not just me. That's what the gospel
does though, it brings us closer to Christ and each other and helps us
make lasting relationships that we will never forget and I'm so
grateful for that.

I hope y'all have a great week!

Love from Nephi,
Sister Dunkley

"Peyton manning is like Thomas S. Monson in a football jersey"

This week was a week. So much happened and yet it feels like nothing happened at the same time. Welcome to the life of an especially stressed out missionary.  

A lot of good stuff happened, found some new investigators and had some good lessons with the people we have on date for baptism for march. A lot of people came to church again yesterday that haven't come in a while which was awesome to see! We have a baptism this weekend and I'm so excited!! They've been taught for a little over a year now I think so lots of missionaries are excited to see them baptized it will be a super special day! 

We got lectured in one sacrament meeting about marriage for what felt like a year and then we had to speak last minute in the other one because the speakers had the flu and as president Nelson says when you have a problem "ask the missionaries!" I'm starting to not like that talk as much.... haha. It was good though I spoke on Elder Utchdorfs talk about the plan of salvation and just bore my testimony for about 10 minutes and sat down I can't really remember what I said but apparently it was good so I'll take it haha. Sister Dalley did a great job though she spoke about Joseph Smith and it was solid. Most of the time I wonder who the trainer is in this companionship cause we all know it's not me lol. 

We had exchanges the other day and it was fun! The Spanish sisters are hilarious and they make my day. I didn't understand 75% of the words said that day but it's all good I had fun and felt the spirit. We also had a Zone meeting this week and it was good we all learned a lot and our leaders had a lot of good things to train us on I liked it. I felt like all the trainings were geared towards me and what I need to improve on but I think a lot of people feel that way in those kind of meetings. Something funny that we've discovered in the zone is that about half of the elders are taller then me on their knees so they were having fun getting on their knees and seeing who was taller or shorter than me. Elders get entertained by the most random things I swear but as president Hodgman says " don't you remember elders are guys? And guys are dumb?" Best quote I've ever heard haha. 

"Fortunately, Latter-day Saints never have to look very far to know what to do. With your knowledge of a loving Heavenly Father and the great plan of happiness, you have rudders deep in the water. Now, put your oars in deeply as well and pull hard and even." With all thy getting get understanding Ensign January 2017 

I really liked this talk because it helps us learn more about how to get real understanding and how it will help us in our conversion to the gospel. 

Have a great week and do something nice for the missionaries around you! 

Love from Nephi, 

Sister Dunkley 

I've got nothing

Not going to lie I'm too lazy to come up with a subject line this week so yeah.. This week was pretty rad! We had a ton of people make it out to church yesterday it was awesome and I'm so grateful for fasting and how much it works! Life in Utah is the usual trying to not freeze and meet people that aren't members already can be tough at times. Something hilarious that happened the other night was we were out trying to contact a referral and none of the houses on the street had numbers so we decided just to knock on a random door and ask if they were who we were looking for. So who's house do we end up knocking on? That's right, our ward mission leaders. But did me and Dalley know that they were our ward mission leader for that ward.... nope! So he answers the door and we ask him if he's the person we were trying to find and he says no and my companion says "well are you familiar with the LDS church?" And he busts up laughing and tells us he's our ward mission leader and I was SO embarrassed. You can't blame me though because it's not like he's ever showed up to our meetings but still mega awkward we had a good laugh about it later when we got home though it was pretty funny. Only in Utah. We had a meeting in Spanish Fork on Friday with our mission President and the missionaries serving in the area and it was really good! We talked a lot about the new schedule and how to best use the extra time it's given us I really appreciated what they had to say about it. Other than that not a whole lot happened, Nephi is great and I learn more about polygamists everyday it's interesting haha. On that note I guess I'll share my spiritual thought since I can't come up with anything else to say..   

"Obedience to the Lord’s commandments provides us confidence in our chosen path, qualifies us for His guidance and direction as we pursue our efforts, and offers us the potential to become like our Savior, Jesus Christ, and return to our Father’s presence"

Bruce A. Carlson April 2010 General Conference 

I hope y'all have a great week! 

Love from Nephi, 

Sister Dunkley