September 30th

Hello,

Thanks for keeping me up to date with the other missionaries. It's nice to be able to read about other missionaries lives. Also, I can now cook some mean chicken. With a few tips from other missionaries, and your spices, I am a pro. Olive oil seems to help too. I think when I am married, in 10 years, I will just cook. I like being able to cook whatever sounds good to me at the time. I just need to learn quicker meals. And yes, fastest three months of my life. The MTC seems to have been so long ago now. The field seems way slower than the MTC. Just because some days drag on, and others you don't want to end. But I am glad you don't miss me too much. Or at all Haha. All mission presidents say stop worrying about your family and your girlfriends. Your family is just fine without you, I promise. And your girlfriend is probably on a date with another guy not thinking about you, so stop thinking about her. Haha, probably the most true statement I have ever heard.

But yeah, I am way jealous of the amount of baptisms in your branch. Toledo has been a slow area for teaching and for baptisms because the majority, like 90% of the members, don't live in Toledo. They all live in pueblos about 20-90 minutes away from Toledo. So teaching is hard, having members present at lessons is hard, and finding people is hard. We are mostly to find people in Toledo so we actually have members here, and right now we have around 7ish investigators from Toledo. One is a Muslim guy who is way cool. We gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to church 2 Wednesdays ago and last Sunday he came to church and said he read the Book of Mormon twice and knows it is true. But I think he also thinks the Qur'an is true. So we have some work but we can't teach him till he comes to church 2 more times. Silly rules.

So, this week was kind of a spiritual week. We had a couple of lessons where we were either going to convert investigators or lose them. So we tried really hard to just let the spirit teach. And those lessons were amazing. One guy said he wants to get baptized, he just isn't ready yet, and his wife, who never wanted to listen to missionaries before us, is thinking about baptism as well. They are so good because they said they have seen a lot of people fall away after their baptisms so they want to make sure that if they do get baptized it is what they really want. So, WHEN we baptize them they will be good members. They have 2 kids too, so they are a great family. This week I have learned a lot about having the spirit teach in lessons and doing all I can to invite it. It's cool too because some experiences I have had yet haven't remembered them until the moment I start telling them. So, it's good.

Anyway, there is the spiritual side. On the language side, I am rocking it! No, not at all, but some of the members and investigators tell me that they have seen a lot of progress in me. And I have started to notice it too. I can talk with decent speed, and I am able to understand people a little better now. I sometimes do phone calls in the car now, and those are always fun. But I am able to communicate now. It's great. I started a goal last Thursday to only speak Spanish during proselyting hours and it is helping me. It builds my vocabulary, give me practice with more verb tenses, and forces me to think of different ways of saying things. I am excited to be able to come home and talk to you guys in Spanish. I think I will only talk to you in Spanish actually since you seemed to only want to talk to me in Spanish after I got my call. Anyway, I have to go. Have a great week. Stay pretty.

Elder Dunn