June 20, 2011

Hola!
All here is great. We have transfers next week, so i'll be emailing on tuesday. I'm pretty sure i'll be getting transfered. the next two preparation days are probably going to be a whole lot of eating. we're able to go all over the city on preparation day adn so we're visiting some of the members in the branch to say bye and things. next wednesday evening there's a farewell fro all the elders that leave in the mission with a slideshow and things and so i'm sure that most of our spanish ward and branch will be there to say bye and take pictures after since 6 of us are leaving.

yesterday at church, my most recent converts from the branch in the south showed up to get their patriarchal blessings. there's a spanish patriarch here in our ward in the north which is neat. they're doing great and estefania was telling me that she already spoken at church and given a testimony. the branch president really felt that they were ready to get their patriarchal blessings.

another investigator that i taught for 4.5 months from a previous area is getting baptized this sunday as well which will be neat for my last sunday.

One day during the week, we stopped on a street to knock on a contact address we had and while we got out of the car, I noticed a row of houses across the street and had the thought that we should knock on them. After the contact didn't answer, I asked Elder Nielsen where he thought we should knock, he mentioned one of the houses across the street as well and so we crossed and began knocking. No one answered until the last house. It was a member lady from an english ward and we found out that her husband speaks spanish because he is from Portugal and that their next door neighbor is a lady named Carolina from Mexico. It was a small miracle, but it strengthened our testimonies of the power of the spirit in guiding us during the day. We haven't yet found Carolina at home, but hope to work with the members to help her recieve the gospel.

thanks for everything! love u all. see u soon.

con amor,

elder dunlap

June 13, 2011

i'm not goign to have time to write today. we rented a van as a zone and a member is driving us all to banff and some other places in the mountains and so we have to leave as soon as we can. here's a neat miracle that we had yesterday though.

We were able to teach Isabel yesterday. She has came to church for 3 weeks now, but has seemed less than interested in the messages and more interested in just making connections and trying to find a job. She was found by the Brintons after a 7 day challenge in downtown only a couple days after she arrived from El Salvador. She actually has been sleeping through most of church and has refused to really participate. But, she has continued to come and we knew that she was guided to the Brintons by a miracle. We decided to pray earnestly that she would have an experience with the spirit that would change her desires and spark more interest. We were able to finally have a teaching situation with her in which we taught the first lesson. The Brintons were able to testify that they felt God had placed her in their path and then she started to open up and tearily shared that she had been praying earnestly to find someone to help her out the weeks before coming to Canada. The spirit strongly bore witness as we taught the Restoration and especially the first vision and a change was very apparent by the end of the lesson. She teared up and told us that she knew it was true. To the firm, she expressed that she has been thinking about returning to El Salvador within the next 9 days if she doesn't find work or a place to live. We're praying with her for a miracle and hope to be able to follow the spirit to help her be baptized soon whether she stays or not.

talk to u next week!

con amor,

ELder dunlap

June 6, 2011

Hola familia!

Everything is great here. There's still not too much new news. We continue to work and try to find new investigators. We wee able to see a couple of small miracles during the past week.

While stopping by english members during the week, we were able to recieve a reference for a neighbor of a member that spoke spanish. We stopped by his house and we realized while talking to him that he's a lost member from Chile. We were able to testify to him that God had sent us to him to come back to church and change his life. We can tell that he felt the spirit and expressed that he knows he needs to come back to church and accepted an appointment with us for the coming week. We were also able to be led to a lady from Ecuador that is good friends with an investigator that Elder Galloway and I taught over a year ago together. The investigator had came to church and was very interested in baptism, but then moved and dissapeared. Her friend that we met said that she is goign through a really hard time right now and is searching for spiritual help in her life. She's goign to talk to he friend for us and give us her information during the week. Hopefully, they'll both begin taking the lessons during the week. We've grown in our testimony this week of the power of the spirit in guiding us in small ways daily and hourly that can accomplish miracles in this work.

We're just trying to stay focused on the work. It's kind of hard because so many of the members know us well and want to talk about plans and things aftere the mission instead of missionay work when we visit them.

I heard that canada might be in a mail strike, or will soon be in one. So, I'm not sure if we'll be recieving letters for a while.

Con amor,

Elder dunlap

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