May 24, 2011

Hola familia!

I can't remember if I told you, but yesterday was victoria day in canada and so the libraries were closed and we weren't able to email.

all here continues to go great. we feel really good about our area and have seen several great miracles during the past week in finding new investigators and working with members. We have grown this past week in our testimony of the power and blessings that come from following the spirit. We felt inspired one day last week to walk a little bit while passing by some contacts and members that we had planned. While we were walking, we passed a lady with her grandson and daughter and contacted them. Through talking, we realized that she was an inactive member from Guatemala. She hadn't had contact with the church for several years and invited us to stop by her house anytime we liked and gave us her address. On Saturday morning, we felt like we should pass by. When we showed up, a man named Manuel answered the door to the house and let us in to teach him some of the principles from the first lesson. The original lady wasn't home, but Manuel really opened up and agreed to continue learning about the church. He has a lot of word of wisdom difficulties to overcome, but we were able to testify that we had been guided there to help him. We hope that the spirit will continue to guide us in working with him to help him progress towards baptism and come to know his Savior.

we aren't sure exactly what will happen next week yet, but we should still be emailing on monday. we're supposed to go to the temple on the 4th of june and so we won't have our normal preparation day next week, but should still email on the same day.

sorry the emails short, we just got a text from the assistants and have to be somewhere in 15 mins, we'll try to come back later and finish emailing.

thanks for everything,

con amor,

elder dunlap

May 16 Pics

may 16, 2011

Hola familia!

We just recieved transfer emails and I'm going to be staying here in this area for the last transfer with elder nielsen. we're enjoying the area and the people and so i'm content to be here for the last 6 weeks of the mission. it's warming up here and becoming a little uncomfortable at times during the afternoon in the sun with our suit coats. i'm ready for june so that we don't have to wear suit coats anymore.

We have been able to see some miracles over the past week. We were blessed with a reference from the Sisters in Airdrie of a man from Chile that has accepted an invitation to recieve the lessons. His wife had previously accepted a baptismal date in the past, but then the sisters lost contact with her. She's currently in Peru on vacation, but through their persistence, have softened her husband to begin taking the lessons. We have been very grateful and recognize it as an answer to our prayers. We also visited with a somewhat less active that has been experiencing a lot of opposition from family members and friends and has been thinking about leaving the church even though he knows it's true because of how hard it has been for him. We found all of this information out as we sat down and started talking to him. The message that we had prepared for him fit perfectly with the doubts he had. We found him at a crossroads and the spirit had guided us before the lesson and guided us during the lesson to say the things that he needed to hear in that moment. It was a choice experience for both of us as we felt the love of Heavenly Father for him. We grew in our testimony of the importance of planning and following the spirit regarding our lessons.

all else is going well. we're goign to be writing emails next week on tuesday again because the libraries will be closed on monday. it's victoria day here, which i'm not too sure what that means, but it's a national holiday. we'er also going to be able to go to the temple on saturday june 4th which we're excited about. thanks for everything!

i haven't sent pictures in a while, so here's a picture from yesterday of my companion and i with an elder fromt he mandarin program that is going home tomorrow. also, we had a pizza party yesterday because we had the cleanest cars in the mission and it's a zone picture that we took after.

con amor,

Elder dunlap

May 8

Hola familia!

It was great to talk to everyone and hope that you all had a wondereful mother's day. I think that every organization at church made some type of treat to pass out to all of the mother's and as missionaries, we got to taste a lot of it.

Not too much has changed during the past week to report on.

We had somewhat of a tough week with canceled appointments and busy members, but we felt inspired to go by a certain member on Saturday and to seven day challenge him. He had just arrived home when we showed up and he told us about a friend that he met recently that was asking him questions about the church and wanted to come to church. He commited to invite him over and hopefully we'll begin teaching his friend this week!

We had zone conference this past week and it was all centered around revelation and the role of revelation in our missionary labors and daily lives. We studied the talk from general confernce by Elder Bednar about a light being turned on in a dark room and the light coming from a rising sun. I've found those examples so true during the mission.

Thanks for everthing! Miss yuo and love you all

Con amor,

Elder Dunlap

May 2, 2011

All here continues to go well. It was a fast week with some of the different trainings and things that we had going on. The weather has warmed up as well. Today is the hottest day of the year so far at 19 degrees. i think that's probably aroudn 60 or 65 but i'm not really sure. we're still not able to take our suit coats off though until it's consistently over 22 degrees. that probably won't be until about june.

We've been focusing on making our seven day challenges more effective and more spiritual. We were able to extend a challenge to an inactive member that is somewhat of a recent convert. It was a very spiritual lesson and we saw some immediate success in his personal spiritual development. He came to church this past Sunday and it's been a couple months since he came. He accepted the challenge willingly and is praying and trying to seek inspiration to find someone.

thanks. love u all!

con amor

elder dunlap