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

White Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! This week was really good, a little crazy at
times but good. It started off with a temple trip to Payson on Tuesday
which was awesome and then we had a mission Christmas party Wednesday
which was super fun even if we did get lost on the way up haha. The
highlight of that was when one of the AP's did a monkey impression in
the talent show I'll attach the video cause it's hilarious. Christmas
Eve was nice we didn't really know what to do because we only had one
appointment before we were done proselyting for the day so we ended up
playing Christmas songs at a nursing home in town and it was really
nice they seemed to like it a lot. That night we went to one of our
ward mission leaders homes and spent Christmas Eve with them it was so
fun they are awesome. Christmas was awesome!!! An investigator that's
been taught for 4 months now finally made it to church for the first
time yesterday it was the best!! Then a family made us this huge
breakfast before we skyped our families it was so good and it was way
awesome to see my family. Not gunna lie I was most excited to see Beau
but that's just because he's adorable haha. I am so grateful for the
opportunity I've had this month to be a missionary as we celebrate the
birth of our savior and turn our focus to Him. I absolutely love being
a missionary and I'm so glad I have a whole year to continue to do the
Lords work here in Utah :)

Love from Nephi,
Sister Dunkley

Nephi: Gods Country

Hi everyone! 

This week has been crazy but so good! I LOVE my new area and companion we have been having a blast these last couple days I just know this transfer will be great! She has been in this area as long as I've been on my mission so she knows it pretty well which is nice! She has trained and been a sister training leader for a while so I'm excited to learn from her and have a good time. Her name is sister Reynolds from Salem Virginia and she's awesome. Nephi is pretty small but Vernal got me used to small places so I'm really comfortable here. I like being out on the Wasatch Front because it's beautiful and I'm so close to the mission home compared to before it's a blessing for sure! I've already had my first encounter with the black ice here and needless to say I lost the fight. Thank goodness we have a car and I don't have to walk a whole lot but I'm going to be more careful because my back can't take another bad fall like that... it's a good thing I'm closer to the ground than most people at least that's what my companion says haha. The people I've met here are awesome and our little apartment is adorable we love it here. It's tiny but it's home I like it. Here in Nephi we cover 2 stakes all the way from Levan up to Rocky Ridge a polygamist community and yes we have an investigator there.. we can't proselyte there so we meet at the closest church building. His family is the TV show "My 5 wives" if anyone's seen it so no big deal I'm just teaching a tv star haha jk. We are teaching one of the 18 year old kids in the family who is moving out and wants to join the church he's really awesome! Lots of questions but he's really great. It's cool having a bigger area and a lot more wards to cover because you meet tons of people and they are all so nice it's great! It has its challenges but I feel really blessed to be serving here. The Lord has wonderful things in store for me and my companion in the next couple weeks I just know it. I hope every one has a merry Christmas and keep Christ at the center of your celebrations! He is what brings us true and lasting joy :)  "The peace of Christmas is “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.” It is the peace that the Apostle Paul promised would “keep [our] hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” And Paul was right. That peace we seek is only through and because of Jesus Christ." President Eyring 2016 Christmas Devotional. 

Love from Nephi

Sister Dunkley 

Baptism number 6!!

Well first things first we heard about transfers this morning! I am leaving and going to Nephi to be companions with sister Reynolds so that should be cool! I've never been there before but I'm hoping it's warmer than Vernal haha. Holy cow I can't believe this stake has had 6 baptisms in the last 4 months that I've been here it's amazing! There are so many prepared people here for us to teach and meet it is such a blessing. We have been really tried hard to find new investigators recently which has been hard but we will keep trying and see what happens! This past week flew by like crazy because of all the things we were busy doing. At Kathys interview we played a prank on the elders because they were 30 minutes late and she told the elder interviewing her that she no longer wanted to be baptized because he was so late but couldn't keep up the joke too long because I blew it by not controlling my laughing haha. At her baptism she apologized for the prank and he looked at her and said "well, don't worry about it it's washed away in your baptism!" And we all laughed it was pretty funny she thought it was hilarious. We attended Christmas parties this week and it was so fun my companion got to meet Santa Clause for the first time and she thought it was the coolest thing ever it was great. More about Kathys baptism though because it was so special! In the font right after she was baptized she had the biggest smile and was just filled with joy it was so cool to see. A lot of people there were teary eyed and the spirit was so strong I will never forget that experience. I am so grateful to be serving here in this mission and I'm Vernal it is such a blessing and I am having so many experiences that will bless my life forever. I will probably always have to deal with people commenting on my height multiple times a day but you know it's the life of a midget missionary. Maybe that'll be my trademark, sister Dunkley the midget missionary lol. Anyways spiritual thought for the week comes from the Sunday school class we went to today with an investigator. It was on real intent, faith and hope. I liked how the teacher talked about our motives or desires why we really do things. We are good people doing good things but we can be even better when we evaluate our intentions and if what we are doing brings us closer to Christ. I really appreciated that and it was perfect for our investigator that went I hope she got something out of it cause me and my companion knew it was what she needed to hear as she prepared for her baptism next month. I hope you all have a great week! Kaya Anuma! Si se puede! Love from Vernal, (for the last time)  

Sister Dunkley 

Baptism 4 and 5!

This week has been the fastest week of my mission holy cow! It went by crazy fast and it was full of miracles and fun times. Taylor and Deagan were baptized Friday night and it was so good! A ton of family and friends came it was great! We all felt the spirit so strong and the boys were beaming it was awesome. Saturday we got to go to Payson and listen to Elder Cook it was awesome and I was so happy to be there! We all rode in the van on the way down it was fun we all had a good time talking and getting to know each other better. It was a looooong drive but so worth it. Elder Bjorling was driving which was interesting because he's from New York... I don't think I need to say anything else. If anyone knows Brother Cicon just think of him driving hahaha. We will have another baptism this weekend right before transfers which will be really good I'm so excited for her! Cathy is the best she's so humble and has the strongest testimony of Christ and the Book of Mormon it's amazing to see and to be able to have taught her. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be serving here and to see so many blessings it's amazing! 

This week I wanted to share something from a conference talk by elder Holland 

"I do not know who in this vast audience today may need to hear the message of forgiveness inherent in this parable, but however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines. I testify of the renewing power of God’s love and the miracle of His grace. His concern is for the faith at which you finally arrive, not the hour of the day in which you got there."

Elder Holland 'The Laborers in the Vineyard' April 2012 General Conference 

I hope you all have a great week and serve someone! 

Love From Vernal, 

Sister Dunkley