12/16/09

Hola!I hope all is well at home and that everyone is preparing for Christmas! The weather here has warmed up a bit. We had a couple days last week of negative 30s and 40s. Today and yesterday have both been around freezing or a couple degrees below. It has felt like summer in contrast. We had a Christmas dinner on Sunday after church with all of the Spanish missionaries. President gave us permission for the south elders to come up and be with us as well. We had a short christmas program and the family had prepared a Christmas dinner for us. They put together a slide slow of all of us and santa also came and gave us all matching ties and letters from our families. Thank you for all your letters of love. It's such a blessing to have members here that really love us and take care of us. We've already been invited over for christmas and christmas eve by many members, and so I'm sure that we'll be taken care of. We're still teaching a lot and our investigators are progressing well. We've felt like we were extending ourselves in too many areas. So, we've prayerfully selected several families that we're really concentrating on and really trying to make short daily visits to. We've challenged almost all of them to read all of 3 nefi before christmas, adn so that's given us a good excuse to stop by daily adn check up on them. Through this, we've had some very powerful lessons and really seen the spirit working in the lives of our investigators and their families. We've really learned the value of daily contact. The families feel our spirit while we're their, but the advesary works in their lives the rest of the week. Daily contact has also increased their daily accountability to us as we check up on their reading and prayers. The basic principles that fortify our lives are really fortifying and building the faith of our investigators.Often as missionaries, we go to appointments in the evening and are surprised with a second dinner that is already prepared. This happened last night. We had fasted all day adn then ate a big dinner at a member's house. We hurried to an appointment with a Columbian family and the bishop was meeting us at the appointment. We were surprised by a meal already on the table waiting for us. As missionaries, we've learned that we just have to say a prayer adn eat as much as we can. But, the bishop tried to talk his way out of eating- saying that he didn't know and was full, and that his plate had too much food on it. The family kind of shrugged him off and gave him the response we always get- that they're sure we have room to eat more. He looked scared, but managed to stuff down his whole plate. My companion and I thought it was pretty funny that he got a little taste of what it's like for us sometimes. I think for some people, they just show their love for us by making food. We've just came to accept that sometimes we just can't talk ourselves out of eating.As we focus on the Savior and emphasize that to those we teach, my testimony of the atonement and the mission of the savior has definetely grown. People seem to have a more loving and caring spirit at this time of year. A spirit that I wish could be carried with all of us always.I love you adn miss you all. I look forward to talkign to you on Christmas. I think that you'll probably be calling at around noon my time. I'll give you the number and specific details next wednesday in my email.
Con amor,Elder Dunlap