No longer a greenie👍🏻👏🏻👌🏻💚

Hey everyone! 

Today is a special day because I've finally finished my training and we get to watch Zootopia tonight while we are locked into the chapel yay!!! I'm so pumped. I love the 12 week program but it feels so good to be done and to not have an extra hour of study anymore haha. This week was pretty good here in Vernal! Lots of treats since it's Halloween and people houses are all decorated it's so cool everyone goes all out for Halloween here it's so fun to see! Sister Lenogon has never celebrated Halloween before so she thinks it's the coolest thing ever it's so cute how excited she gets about it haha. We went to a couple ward parties this week so she could see what it's like to trick or treat and she loved it it was awesome. We got 2 new investigators this week!! So exciting. One is Marley she is a sophomore at Uintah High and we went to her house looking for someone else and it turns out she's never been baptized but has been interested for awhile so that was way cool! The other one is Savannah a 10 year old her mom is a member but the dad isn't and doesn't really want anything to do with the church but is fine with them going and with her being baptized so that's good! It's sad to see when one parent just doesn't care and wants nothing to do with us but it's hard here in Utah so many people get offended by someone in the church and have no desire to go back. It's taught me so much about the importance of just being kind. Stop caring about what others do and how they live their lives we aren't the judges of others we are commanded to love them no matter who they are and to forgive everyone. So many people here would go to church if we all just tried harder to love our neighbors and not judge people. I have to work on that everyday but I've noticed a change in myself when I try hard to have charity for everyone I can have the spirit with me. If I'm thinking about how dumb it is that this guy is less active when he knows the church is true I can't have the spirit and I'm being insensitive and rude. I'm grateful for the atonement that helps me improve and forgives me of my shortcomings (which are many) because without it I wouldn't be able to be an effective missionary. There's a quote a sister missionary shared with me a couple weeks back that I found hilarious as well as so true 

Nothing ever said is more true than this statement haha. No matter what we are all divine children of a loving Heavenly Father and nothing can change that. 

I hope everyone has a great week and try's harder to be kinder to everyone around I know I will! 

Happy Halloween eat some candy for me! 

Love From Vernal, 

Sister Dunkley

Gotta love Hunting season

Hunting is most people's religion here in Vernal and it's pretty much all we hear about as missionaries and to be quite honest it's a foreign language for this so cal girl. I don't understand what they are talking about most of the time so I just smile and nod like I care so much about how big of a buck they got last week on the mountain haha. Last night at dinner though was a first. We were at a young couples house who are less active and he pulls out his phone to show us his deer he just got the other day and points down to what we're eating and says look this is what you're eating! My companion and them got a good laugh out of the face I made when he said that! It was just so weird to be shown the animal you were eating that was an experience to say the least. I'm happy to report that it was really good though! He cooked it really well and made it not taste so much like deer so I appreciated that haha. A lot of people here miss church during hunting season which is frustrating but it's how it's always been so it's really hard to try and change it especially when most bishops are doing it to which is it great. Keeping the sabbath day holy means so much to Heavenly Father because it's the one day he asks us to put Him first before anything else and I've found that as we do that we receive so many blessings. Peace, comfort, rest, and countless others. We get more out of church when we have an attitude of worship and gratitude and really try to focus on why we are there taking the sacrament. Sorry don't want to get all preachy on ya just how I feel. This week was good though we had some good lessons with investigators and others that fell through which was hard. We met this really nice lady named Cathy though she's awesome! She has a lot of LDS family members but has never joined herself and decided she wanted to learn more and it's been really cool seeing how open she is to us and the Book of Mormon. She is a great example of having an open mind and being able to have a religious discussion that is uplifting and positive rather than bible bashing and trying to force beliefs on one another. I really appreciated her attitude towards us and I think once she gets a testimony of the Book of Mormon she'll really progress fast. Tuesday was exchanges in Roosevelt with the sister training leaders and I got to be with my old companion and it was so fun! We had a blast even though we had a horrible lesson with a Ute family who don't really respect women so that was interesting to say the least. I'm just glad I don't have to go back there again cause it was rough but the rest of the day was great haha. Today we are going to hike to the U so I'm really excited about that! I love that everyone in vernal loves the Utes and not BYU it makes me so happy even the high school here is the Uintah high Utes it's great

Spiritual thought: make church a priority that's all I have to say about that haha

I hope everyone has a great week! 

Love from Vernal, 

Sister Dunkley 

Golden investigators⭐️

This week was pretty average compared to the craziness I've had here this transfer. We have been meeting a lot of potential/new investigators which has been so cool! This little boy Cayden is just great and he is the epitome of a golden investigator who was prepared for us. The first lesson we had he was so involved and had such a huge understanding of what we were teaching. At the end of the lesson we invited him to be baptized on October 29th and he said yes! His mom was all for it and really happy for him. The bummer is yesterday at church we found out that his dad will be out of town that day so we'll have to make some changes but still it felt amazing to meet someone so ready and excited about the gospel. That made it so we have 4 people with baptismal dates for November which is unheard of in this area and it can't believe how far this area has come in the 10 weeks I've been here! So many investigators and people ready for baptism it's amazing. We met this hilarious old man a few weeks back who loves the church but is struggling to know whether or not he should be baptized and we are hoping to help him get that answer because he goes to church faithfully for like the last 2 years his only hold up is his wife doesn't want to be a member so he's worried he'll create a divide in the marriage if he gets baptized but the last time we met with him she joined us and told him up front that she sees no reason why he can't get baptized he's been living the gospel for years so nothing will really change which is so true and I'm so glad she was able to express that to him and help him resolve that concern. Who knows maybe we'll get him on date this week as well!

 I hope everyone is doing well! I love being a missionary everyday it's seriously the greatest gift that Heavenly Father allows me to be here and teach his children. It's true in Doctrine and Covenants when the Lord says that he uses the weak and the simple to preach his gospel because if he didn't I wouldn't be called as a missionary! He strengthens me everyday and I am so grateful for that. 

The quote I wanted to share today is from a talk/Email thing that gets shared around by missionaries called "The 4th Missionary" and it basically just talks about 4 different kinds of missionaries and their effectiveness and the 4th one is who we should all strive to be like. It says "To believe that weaknesses and deficiencies in your character are unchangeable is to reject the central truth of the plan of salvation. You are not cast in stone. You not only can change but you do change all of the time. You are a dynamic, changing, evolving being. You are always changing. You never stay the same. You cannot stand still.You are right now the sum total of what you have thought, said, seen, heard and done. What you think, say, do, hear and see, cause you to change; to change for good or evil; to become either stronger or weaker; to either internalize the qualities of light or the qualities of darkness. You are responsible for who you are and you are responsible for who you will become." 

I love this because accountability is such an important trait for all of us to acquire and as missionaries it's important for us to teach this to investigators to help them understand that they have to be willing to take the steps necessary for baptism. We can only do so much to help them but we will not take away their agency or accountability. I know that as we decide to change for the better and ask for help Heavenly Father will be there every step of the way. He never leaves us alone, we only loose sight of his presence in our lives. I am a witness of that truth. 

I love you all and pray for you daily! 

Love From Vernal, 

Sister Dunkley

Kamusta!

This week it feels like to focus of my prayers has been asking Heavenly Father to help me fight discouragement when people cancel or I feel like me and my companion are doing our best and the numbers aren't reflecting our efforts and we just feel lost or stuck. What I've learned is that discouragement comes from the adversary and doesn't do us any good but as we turn that into godly sorrow we can be comforted and strengthened by the atonement. Heavenly Father doesn't want us to be discouraged but he does want us to feel sorrowful enough to repent or change our ways and improve and we can only do that through the atonement of Christ. 

In this area it's so hard to go finding unless you have referrals because we don't know who the nonmembers are here so if we tried knocking doors we'd spend an hour just meeting all the members of our area and not getting any work done so it's hard to know what to do once we've contacted all our referrals and have some free time. Well sister L had a great idea to contact all of the former investigators in our area book and see who's still here and if they are interested or not and it's been amazing to see the progress we've had. So many people seem to be prepared and ready to repent and it was just so cool to me to see what it's life to meet someone really prepared to hear the message of the gospel. The tricky part is helping them want to go to church and not go up on the mountain to go huntin' and stuff like that cause that's all people do here in vernal haha. I'm really excited/ stressed about this upcoming week because we have so many lessons with new and potential investigators so I hope it goes well and we can see some progress in the are instead of the standstill that it's been at for so long. Last night our district leader asked me why I think our area is finally booming and see progress and I honestly had no idea I just told him how hard we are working and that we try to implement all that we learn in training meetings so that's why I think it's going well but who knows. I just hope we can have a baptism this month in case I get transferred on the 1st so I can at least see some of the reward from all the hard work. 

The thought I wanted to leave for today was a quote from Elder Cornish in this last conference 

"Please, my beloved brothers and sisters, we must stop comparing ourselves to others. We torture ourselves needlessly by competing and comparing. We falsely judge our self-worth by the things we do or don’t have and by the opinions of others. If we must compare, let us compare how we were in the past to how we are today--and even to how we want to be in the future. The only opinion of us that matters is what our Heavenly Father thinks of us. Please sincerely ask Him what He thinks of you. He will love and correct but never discourage us; that is Satan’s trick." 

I hope everyone is doing well and has a great week! 

Salamat Po!

Love from Vernal, 

Sister Dunkley

Spanish for a day and I'm blind

This week was pretty cool! It flew by like crazy but it's good cause
it means I'm working hard. We have met a lot of former investigators
in the area who seem to want to be taught again so I'm hoping it works
out! We could always use more people to teach for sure. Also fun fact
I will now forever need glasses because my distance vision is failing
so that's fun! Driving has been interesting these last couple weeks
and I can't wait to have my glasses so that I can see better when I
drive haha. Luckily though I don't have to pay for them because
members are so nice here and I've been saving up money they give us
but man we are spoiled rotten here in vernal it's ridiculous. The eye
doctor served his mission in Arcadia and knew President Becerra the
mission president a couple years ago so that was super fun! He was
Spanish so he never served in Claremont but he knew it and said all
the missionaries loved it there and I was like yeah pretty much it's
the best place in the mission haha. We had a special zone conference
on Wednesday with president and the assistants and it was so good! I
learned so much and we also had fun with role plays it was great.
General conference was just amazing and I am so grateful for the
blessing of having living prophets and apostles to guide and teach us
how to improve our lives and come unto Christ. On Sunday my companion
and a bunch of elders in my zone got to attend the afternoon session
so I spent the day in lovely Roosevelt with one of the Spanish sisters
and it was the greatest. We had 2 lessons in Spanish and I couldn't
say very much but what I understood from the people we taught and the
sister I was with was so powerful! I was able to bear my testimony of
Joseph smith and the Book of Mormon and even though I sounded like a
gringa they appreciated my effort haha. Needless to say I wished that
my sister Madison was there to translate for me and help me but it's
all good cause I'll probably never have to do that again on my mission
haha. The church is true and I am so grateful every day to be a full
time missionary! I love and pray for you all have a great week!

Love from Vernal,
Sister Dunkley

So much to do so little time

I think the subject of the email pretty much sums up my week. This week has been a little more stressful than others because of transfers and getting a new companion to show around the area and get to know. My new companion is Sister Lenogon from the Philippines and she's the best! We are getting better at communicating but it's rough sometimes because all she wants to do is just talk to me in Tagalog and have me understand because after all day speaking in English she gets headaches and I can't imagine how hard that is having to translate everything and not understanding people in lessons. We had a lot of people cancel on us this week which was a bummer but it gave us more time to plan and set goals for the transfer which was nice. I really want to help the area grow so much in these next 5 weeks so I'm hoping we can do that as we work our hardest. It's already getting cold here and I want to cry because it's not even October yet what the heck vernal!! I'm breaking out my tights boots and coats knowing that it's only going to get colder and darker earlier which makes finding houses at night miserable but I'm learning. On Thursday me and my companion team taught an investigator with our District leader and his companion and it was the coolest thing ever. This woman has had bad experiences in the past with elders and since she lives in their area the AP's asked us to go over and help teach so that she feels more comfortable and safe since it's not just her and the elders. We spent a lot of the time talking about her faith and why she wants to be baptized and it was just so cool to see how prepared she was. I really felt the spirit in her house testifying to her of the truth of our message and helping her feel comfortable with the elders. At the end of the lesson she said "I guess you were right sister Dunkley these guys aren't so bad!" It made me laugh so hard because ever since I met her I've been trying to talk up the elders to her so she would be excited to meet them and it worked! Miracles happen people. I honestly say that like 5 times a day haha.  Saturday night was heaven sent for me I had been stressing and wet from all the rain and just so done with the day when I remembered we had dinner and the women's general session of conference! Best thing of my life. It was exactly what I needed to help me relax and regroup from a hard day/week. I learned so much about being a woman of faith and gaining a "bedrock understanding of the doctrine of Jesus Christ". Another thing I read this week that I loved was 

"Conversion is an offering of self, of love, and of loyalty we give to God in gratitude for the gift of testimony.

A testimony is spiritual knowledge of truth obtained by the power of the Holy Ghost. Continuing conversion is constant devotion to the revealed truth we have received--with a heart that is willing and for righteous reasons. Knowing that the gospel is true is the essence of a testimony. Consistently being true to the gospel is the essence of conversion. We should know the gospel is true and be true to the gospel."

Elder Bednar 'Converted unto the Lord' Oct. 2012

I hope you are all doing well and have a great week! The church is true and I'm so grateful for the blessing it is to be the Lord missionary here in Vernal even though I might freeze to death pretty soon haha. 

Love From Vernal, 

Sister Dunkley

Vernal

This week was pretty awesome! For starters we had exchanges with the
sister training leaders again and it was the best I loved it. I was
here in Vernal with Sister Horne who's from Napa Valley CA so it was
fun to spend the day with her! Also I'm not sure if I mentioned it but
the other sister training leader is from Glendora! Sister Gold I think
she's in the Glendora 5th ward but it's the ward with Bishop Whitworth.
She's awesome and I love her too. We also got to go to the temple on
Friday!! It was amazing and just what I needed. The Vernal temple is
beautiful! Super small but so cool. I got some funny looks cause
without my name tag I look like I'm 16 so people were really confused
when I wasn't going to do baptisms with all the other high school kids
haha. We had some great lessons this week and almost all of our
investigators made it to church which is huge! Only one didn't make it
and it was because he was with his mom for the weekend but he would've
went if he was here so I was still super excited. We got to go to a
baptism that one of the elders in our district was having and it was
way fun the kid was hilarious it was a good time. Other than that it
was a pretty regular week! I had a cool experience Friday evening we
were driving around trying to find something to do before our last
lesson and all of the sudden we were driving by a less active families
house and I yell at sister brown to stop and pull over cause I felt
like we needed to visit them. Long story short two older ladies who
are sisters live there together with one of their daughters and her
husband and as we are talking one of the ladies sons and his family
shows up (less active wife isn't a member and kids are all over 8
haven't been baptized) and we start teaching a lesson and it's so
good! The kids loved it and everyone was super attentive. We set up a
return appointment at the end of the lesson and the son asks if they
are invited and were like oh yah!! It was such a miracle because he's
really been against the church for a while but is really opening up to
us. They don't live in our area so we have to get them comfortable
with the elders there but it still was a really cool thing to happen.
Also transfer calls came this morning and I'm taking over the area
with a new follow up trainer and my companion is becoming my sister
training leader in Roosevelt!! I don't find out who my new companion
is until tomorrow which is so nerve racking but I'm really excited I
can stay and see how the area improves with all of our progressing
investigators. I hope everyone is doing well and has a great week!

Love From Vernal,
Sister Dunkley