Hello,
Yup, I did the impossible. I found a source of Mountain Dew. It's found in a store kind of like Walmart here, but more expensive. I was pretty happy. BUT, I am out of money this month so it will have to wait till next month.
Ok, so to answer your questions. Transfers are every 6 weeks. The old president liked to transfer more frequently. The new one likes to let people chill in one area for awhile. So in all likely hood I will be in Toledo for 6 or more months. But I love it here. It's kind of the coveted area, ha ha. But, after we lose our car in 3 weeks, I have no idea how this area is going to teach more than like 10 lessons. Half of our investigators don't live where a bus goes, and most of the people can only do appointments at night. So if we have to take a bus to their pueblo, and the final bus back to Toledo leaves at about 6:45 we are out of luck. So I think we are going to be spending a lot of time contacting in Toledo. But I am excited because our mission president is really trying to push creative finding ideas and I have a bunch. However, I really would love to hear suggestions. So, dígame if you have any.
The weather is really warm right now. We are back in tacky short sleeves for a bit. But it's suppose to get cold real soon. I think I am going to buy my winter stuff in 3 weeks when we go to Madrid so I will let you know to check my balance after that. We do email in a public library without problems. Our shower situation is a bit funny right now. Normally, we have our own shower, but our hot water broke like 7 weeks ago and is in the repair process. So right now we use a hot water heater thing that gives us each about 3-4 minutes of hot water. I will have to send you guys a picture of my shower. When I stand in it I can maybe extend my elbows out like 3 inches. It's pretty awesome.
Yesterday we had exchanges and I slept in a piso with 6 missionaries living in it. It's huge. Their kitchen is as big as our kitchen, bathroom, and study room put together. But ours is old so it's better. Ha!
So day to day life? Wake up at 6:30 and run for 45 minutes, stretch for a little, then eat breakfast and all that. Then we have personal study for an hour, companion study for an hour, and language study for 30 minutes. Language study kind of turns into a do chore and eat a snack time though. Oh, funny story. And yes, it is a fat joke. I broke a chair sitting on it. Ha ha. It was really old and falling apart. I leaned back on it a little and it just snapped. Needless to say the rest of that companionship study was spent laughing and me doing sit ups. Ha ha. So now I sit on a metal stool because I don't want to break another old wooden chair. Then we proselyte till 10, then plan and go to bed at 11. Yeah for awesome routines.
So one last funny thought. We were driving and my companion randomly said what if it like rained chocolate? You could just lick stuff and get chocolate. People would be licking each other. That could get out of hand fast. Ha ha. Stay pretty .
Elder Dunn
P.S. from Scott's mom - Some wonderful person left a darling Christmas stocking, for Scott, on our front porch awhile ago. I have no idea who did and I would love to thank you. I will be filling it and sending it to him next month. He has already started his list!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A Good Hair Day
Hello from Spain,
Last night, it rained pretty good. It was pretty awesome. Cold, but awesome. I think it gets colder here sooner than in Utah. Every morning during studies, I am wrapped up in a blanket. However, we also don't have heat. So maybe that is it. But there have been some cold mornings.
I am glad you received the Hanson's email and picture. The funny thing about that is only on Thursday do I do my hair like that. Well not even every Thursday, but last Thursday I did. We have our weekly planning session every Thursday and last week we had some extra time so I spent a fair amount of time making my hair ridiculous. It helps repel Spanish women. But yeah, things are a little better now with the companionship and the language. I actually I spoke Spanish while it was a rule, the mission president said that new missionaries don't have to speak all day, they just have to make goals with their companions on when to speak and always try and get better. So...that made it a little better. But I have to tell you, at first it was terrible. I actually started feeling more confident with time. So now my companion and I only speak Spanish during proselyting hours but try to speak it more all the time. So it's better. And also he is gradually becoming more normal. He now asks me question of how things were when I left, so we actually talk now! It's great.
I read Richard's letter and he said how his mission has 900 baptisms and a goal of 1100 or so. Yup, we have like 150 this year and a goal of 250. Ha, ha. Go Spain! And Elder Jon Clark won't even tell me how many baptisms he has. I am guessing quite a few.
Anyway, cool things that happened. We were knocking a street, and we had absolutely no luck. We had 3 kids following us mocking us the whole time, some guy used some expression that only is used for dogs and half the people were convinced we were Jehovah's Witness missionaries. Almost everyone hates Jehovah's Witnesses here - not sure exactly why yet. Our appointment was at 6 with some members and their less active son. At about 5:58 we had one more house on the street to contact. We debated just going or not and I am like, "Let's just finish the street." So we did and some Spaniard woman answered the door. She told us she wanted nothing to do with us either. BUT, we explained that we weren't Jehovah's Witnesses and then she listened to us. We kind of half taught her the restoration through the door but she was pretty good. Anyway, going to teach her Saturday. May not sound that big but first, a SPANIARD agreed to let us in. That does not happen very often. Next, a Spaniard WOMAN agreed to let us in. That happens even less. And it was the last house on the street. So it was cool. Important lesson learned from it.
Qué mas? Oh, and as for the money, I pulled out 100 euros for my emergency fund, but I am going to have to buy a jacket, scarf, and gloves here soon. I am just waiting to see what the mission home has first. Also, I think I am going to get my eyes checked here then have you send me contacts or something. They are getting worse. Also, don't worry. I started writing my Christmas list 3 weeks ago. I have no idea if that is normal or not, but yeah. And no, we aren't aloud to upload pictures. So when my camera gets a little more full I will make a CD of all my pictures and send that home. Right now I only have about 80 pictures.
Anyway - going to play some ping pong with some natives. Love you all. Stay Pretty
Elder Dunn
Last night, it rained pretty good. It was pretty awesome. Cold, but awesome. I think it gets colder here sooner than in Utah. Every morning during studies, I am wrapped up in a blanket. However, we also don't have heat. So maybe that is it. But there have been some cold mornings.
I am glad you received the Hanson's email and picture. The funny thing about that is only on Thursday do I do my hair like that. Well not even every Thursday, but last Thursday I did. We have our weekly planning session every Thursday and last week we had some extra time so I spent a fair amount of time making my hair ridiculous. It helps repel Spanish women. But yeah, things are a little better now with the companionship and the language. I actually I spoke Spanish while it was a rule, the mission president said that new missionaries don't have to speak all day, they just have to make goals with their companions on when to speak and always try and get better. So...that made it a little better. But I have to tell you, at first it was terrible. I actually started feeling more confident with time. So now my companion and I only speak Spanish during proselyting hours but try to speak it more all the time. So it's better. And also he is gradually becoming more normal. He now asks me question of how things were when I left, so we actually talk now! It's great.
I read Richard's letter and he said how his mission has 900 baptisms and a goal of 1100 or so. Yup, we have like 150 this year and a goal of 250. Ha, ha. Go Spain! And Elder Jon Clark won't even tell me how many baptisms he has. I am guessing quite a few.
Anyway, cool things that happened. We were knocking a street, and we had absolutely no luck. We had 3 kids following us mocking us the whole time, some guy used some expression that only is used for dogs and half the people were convinced we were Jehovah's Witness missionaries. Almost everyone hates Jehovah's Witnesses here - not sure exactly why yet. Our appointment was at 6 with some members and their less active son. At about 5:58 we had one more house on the street to contact. We debated just going or not and I am like, "Let's just finish the street." So we did and some Spaniard woman answered the door. She told us she wanted nothing to do with us either. BUT, we explained that we weren't Jehovah's Witnesses and then she listened to us. We kind of half taught her the restoration through the door but she was pretty good. Anyway, going to teach her Saturday. May not sound that big but first, a SPANIARD agreed to let us in. That does not happen very often. Next, a Spaniard WOMAN agreed to let us in. That happens even less. And it was the last house on the street. So it was cool. Important lesson learned from it.
Qué mas? Oh, and as for the money, I pulled out 100 euros for my emergency fund, but I am going to have to buy a jacket, scarf, and gloves here soon. I am just waiting to see what the mission home has first. Also, I think I am going to get my eyes checked here then have you send me contacts or something. They are getting worse. Also, don't worry. I started writing my Christmas list 3 weeks ago. I have no idea if that is normal or not, but yeah. And no, we aren't aloud to upload pictures. So when my camera gets a little more full I will make a CD of all my pictures and send that home. Right now I only have about 80 pictures.
Anyway - going to play some ping pong with some natives. Love you all. Stay Pretty
Elder Dunn
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
99 things left to do before I die
Hola Everyone,
Interesting week this week. First of all, time is the weirdest thing. Every day seems to drag on, then every Wednesday I think back about the week and it seemed to fly by. Luckily, I write down the important things I need to share with you. And by important I, of course, mean not important at all whatsoever but I have to share with you because you will appreciate it.
Last Saturday we had a BBQ with a Cuban couple. Cooked the food, ate the food, talked, fun times. They have a 2 year old daughter and a 2 month old son. We began teaching a lesson and in the opening prayer the son starts crying. (Usually something noisy happens during both prayers of every lesson, weird no?) Anyway, I guess he cries when he is hungry because the mom just starting breast feeding him right there 3 feet from us. So yes, I have now taught the Restoration while someone is breastfeeding. Don't worry, I checked it off of my list of 100 things to do before I die. I was worried about that specific goal and the difficulty of accomplishing it but alas, all is well. Anyway, great family. She is going to be baptized soon, he is a member, it's great.
Next item of business. There is something they didn't tell me in my call letter. It is that Madrid Spain isn't just a normal mission. It is the Super Mission. If I had known this I may have requested a change of calls. New rules as of last week. These rules are written, set rules, like set in stone. 1. We are no longer allowed to speak English. I am sure mom that you are thinking great! He will learn so much faster. However, this is false. I already had a goal of only speaking Spanish during proselyting hours, so I think I was learning at an OK speed. But now I am not allowed to speak English at all. And for someone who can only speak about the gospel, it's not a lot of fun. So pretty much, when the other elders are talking about stuff, I can understand what they are talking about but I can't participate in the conversation very well. So yeah, I don't talk now. Which actually just adds to stress. 2. No caffeine. At first appearance this is good. I agree as well. HOWEVER, what they don't tell you is that you can only drink whatever for 2 hours during the hottest part of the day, and then you only get on average 7 hours of sleep a night, you get headaches quite often. Yup, it's interesting.
So this week has been pretty stressful and sore. Oh, also I have had like 4 ingrown toenails the past two weeks. Walking all day in church shoes hurts. And... I think I now know what the hardest part of your mission is --- Companions. I just don't think I can live with one person for extended periods of time. I don't know how you married people do it. Lately my companion has been really passive aggressive. The way I deal with it is doing things passively back. My new favorite is to walk behind him at all times. I always walk the same speed as him but just a little bit behind. Sometimes he will slow down so I can catch up but I just slow down too. It's great. It helps me get through a day of silence.
I got to play ping pong and volleyball this last week. It was way fun. We played ping pong with future investigators and volleyball with a less active family and all their extended family. They are from Ecuador and there were like 20 of them. Their volleyball is a little different than ours, but I like it more. I am learning how to deal with whatever comes my way. Also I am actually writing in my journal now because I can write in English. So yeah, missionary work is great.
Mom, the comic you sent is great. You should post that on my blog, because my friends will appreciate it as well. Plus, I always pointed out ¨bingo arms¨ to my friends. Anyway, that is life. I am very excited to see the new look to the house. I still think you should move all my stuff into the downstairs rooms. Anyway, stay pretty.
Elder Dunn
p.s. from the mom...I saw this comic in Sunday's paper and it is a running joke Scott and I have. I tried to post it but it won't work. Sorry you can't get the chuckle about "Bingo Arms."
Interesting week this week. First of all, time is the weirdest thing. Every day seems to drag on, then every Wednesday I think back about the week and it seemed to fly by. Luckily, I write down the important things I need to share with you. And by important I, of course, mean not important at all whatsoever but I have to share with you because you will appreciate it.
Last Saturday we had a BBQ with a Cuban couple. Cooked the food, ate the food, talked, fun times. They have a 2 year old daughter and a 2 month old son. We began teaching a lesson and in the opening prayer the son starts crying. (Usually something noisy happens during both prayers of every lesson, weird no?) Anyway, I guess he cries when he is hungry because the mom just starting breast feeding him right there 3 feet from us. So yes, I have now taught the Restoration while someone is breastfeeding. Don't worry, I checked it off of my list of 100 things to do before I die. I was worried about that specific goal and the difficulty of accomplishing it but alas, all is well. Anyway, great family. She is going to be baptized soon, he is a member, it's great.
Next item of business. There is something they didn't tell me in my call letter. It is that Madrid Spain isn't just a normal mission. It is the Super Mission. If I had known this I may have requested a change of calls. New rules as of last week. These rules are written, set rules, like set in stone. 1. We are no longer allowed to speak English. I am sure mom that you are thinking great! He will learn so much faster. However, this is false. I already had a goal of only speaking Spanish during proselyting hours, so I think I was learning at an OK speed. But now I am not allowed to speak English at all. And for someone who can only speak about the gospel, it's not a lot of fun. So pretty much, when the other elders are talking about stuff, I can understand what they are talking about but I can't participate in the conversation very well. So yeah, I don't talk now. Which actually just adds to stress. 2. No caffeine. At first appearance this is good. I agree as well. HOWEVER, what they don't tell you is that you can only drink whatever for 2 hours during the hottest part of the day, and then you only get on average 7 hours of sleep a night, you get headaches quite often. Yup, it's interesting.
So this week has been pretty stressful and sore. Oh, also I have had like 4 ingrown toenails the past two weeks. Walking all day in church shoes hurts. And... I think I now know what the hardest part of your mission is --- Companions. I just don't think I can live with one person for extended periods of time. I don't know how you married people do it. Lately my companion has been really passive aggressive. The way I deal with it is doing things passively back. My new favorite is to walk behind him at all times. I always walk the same speed as him but just a little bit behind. Sometimes he will slow down so I can catch up but I just slow down too. It's great. It helps me get through a day of silence.
I got to play ping pong and volleyball this last week. It was way fun. We played ping pong with future investigators and volleyball with a less active family and all their extended family. They are from Ecuador and there were like 20 of them. Their volleyball is a little different than ours, but I like it more. I am learning how to deal with whatever comes my way. Also I am actually writing in my journal now because I can write in English. So yeah, missionary work is great.
Mom, the comic you sent is great. You should post that on my blog, because my friends will appreciate it as well. Plus, I always pointed out ¨bingo arms¨ to my friends. Anyway, that is life. I am very excited to see the new look to the house. I still think you should move all my stuff into the downstairs rooms. Anyway, stay pretty.
Elder Dunn
p.s. from the mom...I saw this comic in Sunday's paper and it is a running joke Scott and I have. I tried to post it but it won't work. Sorry you can't get the chuckle about "Bingo Arms."
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Agency in Action
Oh man, I fiddled around getting pictures on my camera for too long. I am so, so sorry but this is going to have to be incredibly short. That's OK not much happened with conference this last week. In summary, cheap Chinese food in a country where there isn't much of a health code means 2 days of staying in and using the toilet every 30 minutes.
Conference as a missionary is way sick. I will expand more about conference next Sunday, because I still have to review my notes a bit. OK, funny story. Sunday night I called in our numbers and I was depressed. We went from 2 weeks of 20 lessons to a week to 8 lessons. But my companion, Mr. Unbreakable Spirit said, its OK we have a good day tomorrow. And we had 5 set appointments. But Monday came around, 2 weren't there and 2 canceled on us. So we taught one lesson. I was like awesome week, huh Elder? He said, it's OK, we have a good day tomorrow. So Tuesday comes around with 5 lessons set as well. Guess how many we taught? Yeah, one. Great huh? But at this point I am laughing and saying "Wahoo, tracting is way better than teaching!" But, my companion is still Mr. Positive. Anyway, today we had 2 set lessons after preparation day, and about 30 minutes ago one called to cancel. I laughed for 5 minutes and now my companion is down. I said, "Elder, its OK because tomorrow morning we have our weekly planning session and no lessons set in the afternoon, so we can't even have more disappointment." So really, I am just learning of the humor of missionary work. It's great. I really do just love it. Agency in action! Wahoo! OK, yup, love you all. Stay extra pretty.
Elder Dunn
Conference as a missionary is way sick. I will expand more about conference next Sunday, because I still have to review my notes a bit. OK, funny story. Sunday night I called in our numbers and I was depressed. We went from 2 weeks of 20 lessons to a week to 8 lessons. But my companion, Mr. Unbreakable Spirit said, its OK we have a good day tomorrow. And we had 5 set appointments. But Monday came around, 2 weren't there and 2 canceled on us. So we taught one lesson. I was like awesome week, huh Elder? He said, it's OK, we have a good day tomorrow. So Tuesday comes around with 5 lessons set as well. Guess how many we taught? Yeah, one. Great huh? But at this point I am laughing and saying "Wahoo, tracting is way better than teaching!" But, my companion is still Mr. Positive. Anyway, today we had 2 set lessons after preparation day, and about 30 minutes ago one called to cancel. I laughed for 5 minutes and now my companion is down. I said, "Elder, its OK because tomorrow morning we have our weekly planning session and no lessons set in the afternoon, so we can't even have more disappointment." So really, I am just learning of the humor of missionary work. It's great. I really do just love it. Agency in action! Wahoo! OK, yup, love you all. Stay extra pretty.
Elder Dunn
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