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

Miracle's

This weeks email is going to be a bit of a longer one so I apologize
for that haha. This weeks miracle would be probably during the hardest
day of the week Thursday. Despite all that was thrown my way that
normally I would be incapable of handling I felt the hand of the Lord
in helping me through the day and opening up doors that made it
possible for me and my companion to do what we needed to do to receive
comfort and  time to just deal with life. I really felt the spirit
comforting me and telling me it'll all work out and not to worry and
it was so strong it was amazing. With our 6 scheduled appointments for
the day (including dinner) only one kept their appointment and it was
truly divine intervention from Heavenly Father. That lesson was what I
needed to help comfort me and strengthen my testimony of why I am
serving a mission and I was so grateful for that. I also received all
of my packages that have come in the past couple of weeks on Thursday
from the Zone Leaders and it was literally like Christmas for me and
just what I needed. It just strengthened my testimony in the tender
mercies that we can receive as we do what we are asked and have hearts
softened to see them as they come to us. I have a strong testimony of
the power of the priesthood and the blessing it is in my life and how
grateful I am to have zone leaders who are worthy and willing to give
blessings and help the sisters out when we need it. Priesthood
blessings are available to all who need them and I am so grateful for
that because we can truly receive divine comfort through them.

Today I feel it's important for me to bear my testimony of the plan of
salvation and the reality of temple covenants and promises. Heavenly
Father loves us all so much that He gave us a road map to make it back
to His presence along with our families. This plan of redemption
allows us to know true joy among the trials and sorrows that come with
life as we look to Heavenly Father in all we do and continue to access
the Atonement through faith, repentance, partaking of the sacrament
each week to renew our baptismal covenants, listening to the promoting
of the Holy Ghost and feeling His comfort and then enduring to the end
or repeating these things continually. I have a firm testimony that as
we do these things and live worthy of the covenants we make in the
temple we will live with our families forever. The temple sealing is
real, there's just no way around it. Because of this truth the day
will come when our joy will overpower any sadness and sorrow we felt
in this life. Christs atonement makes it possible for us to have a
fullness of joy despite the hardships of life. He has felt and
suffered for it all so that we can be strengthened and eventually
overcome all sorrows through Him and His infinite atonement. This
knowledge that I have gained as I've been on my mission carries me
through all the things that have been thrown at me this past week and
helps me have hope and will enable me to more powerfully bear
testimony of the gospel truths to those I encounter on my mission and
I am so grateful for that.

I want all of you to know this for yourself, to truly pray for comfort
and peace and then feel it come into your life because it will. We
received the Holy Ghost after baptism for a reason so find out what
that means for you. Never loose sight our our eternal identity as sons
and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father who will always be there.
Jesus Christ came down to earth and atoned for our sins and felt all
our of individual pains, sicknesses, heartbreaks, everything. Nothing
we feel hasn't already been felt by our savior which means he can heal
us and comfort us through the power of the Holy Ghost that we all
have.

Funny story of the week to lighten up the mood, we went to a ward
party Friday night and we were shaking everyone's hands and meeting
people and this little kid taps my leg and says "hey you can be a
missionary when you're small now?!" All shocked and confused we busted
up laughing so hard his parents felt so bad but I needed that comic
relief more than anything with the week I've had it was truly heaven
sent! Hope that made y'all laugh! Lol.

I love all of you so much and hope that you can all know of these
things as surely as I do. Thank you for all of the love support and
prayers I truly feel and rely on them. Tell someone you love them
today and give them a big hug for me and think of someone who could
benefit from the knowledge of the restored church that we all are
blessed with and make a goal to share it with them. I am praying for
all of you daily and hope you all have a good week!



Love from Vernal,
Sister Dunkley

Sister Dunkley the 15 year old missionary

This week was pretty awesome! We had a lot of lessons and even got 5
new investigators which was so cool! Hopefully they will continue use
to want to meet with us and progress cause that would be way cool. I
went on exchanges with my sister training leader sister Gold Saturday
in Roosevelt Utah which fun fact is smaller than vernal and I didn't
even know that was possible haha. Anyways it was super cool cause
she's actually from Glendora 5th ward and we know a lot of the same
people it was so fun talking to her and about our mutual friends from
back home. We had a good time contacting referrals and doing service
for a member family in her area it was so cool. Other than that not a
whole lot happened just another great week in Dinosaur land serving
the Lord. A funny story from this week would be when my companion
dared me to fit into a tractor tire and didn't think I could do it but
boy did I prove her wrong haha. Oh I also got asked if I was on a
temporary youth mission because I guess they thought I was 15 and on a
mini mission and I was like nope I'm actually 19 and they laughed for
a long time so that was fun haha. A cool thought I found this week in
the September ensign was "If you are trying to pay for your sins,
understand that you are missing the very essence of God’s plan for
you. The Savior has paid the price already. Only Satan wants you to
think you can’t be forgiven and that you have to pay for your own
sins. Let them go, and do it today. Your daily happiness comes as you
free yourself from thinking and worrying about your past sins.You may
ask, “But what if I sin again?” Then you repent again. Let the
redeeming power of the Savior’s Atonement work for you as you make
repentance a daily part of your life." -elder Brent H. Nielson of the
seventy 'Can we live "after the Manner of Happiness"?' I loved it
because when we feel guilt after repenting it's not from Heavenly
Father. He has forgotten our sin and now we have to also. Faith in
Jesus Christ and his atonement will help us through anything that
comes our way and I am so grateful for that! I hope everyone has a
great week!

Love from Vernal,
Sister Dunkley