12/9/09

Hola!This week has been a pretty cold one. We had a snow storm on thursday and friday. The roads turned out pretty bad and we weren't able to drive our car friday or saturday. This made working pretty hard, but we managed to walk to a couple of appointments both days. I'm not sure how much if snowed, but probably about a foot and a half and then with drifting it was a lot higher in places. The snow ended up canceling the temple trip that we were supposed to have on saturday. We were pretty bummed, but still got to take a preparacion day on saturday. The snow was bad enough to shut down some of the main roads and I heard that people slept in malls aroudn town because they weren't able to get home. Alot of people rely on buses for transportation and the buses were getting stuck. We heard though that this is one of the worst snows in a couple years. The work is still going well in the area. The snow was kind of frustrating because it made visiting people hard for a couple days. We're going to start volunteering at some english classes aroudn town. We had the idea yesterday during the day. Last night, we had an appointment with a less active who started talking about his wife taking a class nearby. We stopped by last night after the appointment to talk about volunteering, and met a former investigator in the lobby who wants to meet with us again. The Lord is already blessing us with people to teach from this.Yesterday was zone conference. It was very spiritual and centered aroudn the atonement. President talked about how people carry burdens at this time of year and how we can apply the atonement to their lives and teach the atonement to help them overcome these challenges. I learned a lot about the enabling power of the atonement in our lives. We often teach the redeeming power of the atonement- the ability to repent and be forgiven and redeemed of our sins. But, the conference was focused on the enabling power of the atonement. The strength that we can draw from the atonement to overcome our weaknesses,struggles, and burdens in our lives. Sometimes we pray for the Lord to lift our burdens, or to change our circumstances. But, the enabling power of the atonement is the understanding that the Lord can help us through our burdens. Can give us the strength to have hope and remain steadfast and have joy through our burdens. We also learned about how it applies to our lives as we try to become better. The BOM is a history of the teachings of prophets and of this struggle of man. The struggle to go from bad to good and good to better. To become saints and perfected through the enabling power of the atonement. I really love zone conference. We always find answers to our prayers about the people we're working with and ways to improve our teachings.The phone call rules have been changed. We're calling now on Christmas morning sometime between 10-2. I'll send yuo our cell phone number on the 23rd adn what time we're worked out for you to call. Members have alligned christmas dinners for us, so I'm sure we'll be recieving lots of love. Our christmas starts this sunday because a family in the ward is having a dinner for all the spanish elders in the mission at the church for us. It should be fun.I'm glad to hear that everything is going well! I love and miss you all and look forward to talking to you in a couple weeks! Love, Elder Dunlap