Staying in G Rap

well we got transfer calls on friday and i am staying in grand Rapids for another 6 weeks! i am excited! it has been good here! the ward is awesome and so are our investigators! one thing that did change is that our area got bigger! so we not cover the city of Rockford Michigan as part of our area not too! that will be nice cause its out in the COUNTRY! so we can do some COUNTRY knockin! with all the old timers and farm boys! im stoked! but everything else is doing good! lyndsay is doing great she just called it of with her fiance cause she wants to put her faith first! she is sweet! Fred is struggling we caught him smoking. so thats not good. but everything else is doing great! it has been frezzing cold this past week! it dropped below 0 a couple of times! last week me and elder bloskas went and bought some ropes and on our free time at night after planning and on pdays we practice our ropin! and we rope brother banner he gets a kick out of it haha. he says we suck but i think we are pretty good! the work is progressing though in Grand Rapids the ward is starting to get in that missionary mind set which is a huge step for the ward! things are looking bright for the future! in the last year the ward has had 4 baptisms from missionaries and 3 of them have been while i have been hear! i know none of it was me it was all the lords work! because this is his work! i know this is where i am suppose to be! even though things are rough sometimes i will learn though my downfalls and shortcomings and the lord will make up for the rest! i love you all! thanks for all that you do!

love Elder Dunn

 

 This is a member of their ward that was baptized awhile ago and had the opportunity to go to the temple this last week

 

Words don't even explain!!

Well Holy Crap this Week has been hard but amazing at the same time! to start of with we went to the temple on friday and it was great! we were  able to have a great time. i was able to feel peace and not stress for one of the few times on my mission! haha Bro banner is crazy as ever! he gives me more and more crap every day! but what ever. Well To the amazing part of last week! i will start from the first! so 3 weeks ago we got a refferal from church head quarters! Our refferal secratary actually called us and said she had a new refferal for us. she said that she had just talked to a women on the phone for about 30 mins and that she was golden! so we thought sweet we will contact her right away! so i called and no answer... well we thought that we would try later that week so we called her all that week but she never answered. the referral secratary said that this girl Lyndsay would be out of town for til the following sunday so we just figured thats why she was not answering. Well that sunday we finially got a hold of her she said she had just got back from colorado and she would love to meet and the sooner the better! so we scheduled the apointment for tuesday at 9. so like always we decide to take brother banner! so we should up that morning hoping for the best that she would just be there but we did not expect what happened next. we knocked and she was there. she welcomed us in and took us to her living room and told us to sit down. She then proceed to tell us her story from about three weeks ago and told us how she found the church. i will start her story from the first. She is 29 and has a boyfriend that lives in colorado. he is a green Beret is the army.  and they were playing on getting married in may. 3 weeks ago hey called her and told her that he was a member of the LDS church and that his faith was important to him even though he was inactive. and he asked her if she would support him in going back to church. and she said well i would but i dont want that kinda of marriage i want a marriage that we are right by each others side through everything! so i am going to look into the church! so she started talking to her boyfriends sister who is a member and started researching everything about the Church. as we were talking to her the spirit was amazing and she just wants to do what God wants her to do! we keep talking and she told us that she was 50 pages in to the Book of Mormon already and we asked what she had read and she told us all about Nephi and Lehi and Lehi's dream and it was awesome! it was amazing so we got into the lesson of the Restoration from there! everything just clicked with her and made sense! she then asked but how do i know this is true and how can i know i am feeling the spirit! and brother banner said i am feeling right now and just started craying. then elder bloskas had tears then she had tears! i bore my testimony of the holy ghost and it was just amazing! she is so prepared! we scheduled a lesson for thursday 2 days latter! we met with her again and taught the plan of salvation. and one of the first questions she asked was, " well if we have to come to earth to gain experience and a body to become like God, did God have to do the same on a different planet and does God have a God?!" what kinda investigator asks that! so we told her yes and she said ok makes sense! it was amazing! so we taught the rest of the Plan of Salvation up to the Earth life and left with a pamphlet. and invited her to church! and to come early so we could give her a church tour for her and her son parker who is 6. so they showed up to church and we gave them a tour! it was awesome! then we went to the rest of church. during sacrament me and parker drew pictures of monsters and he drew a picture of jesus i will send those later. then in gospel doctrine Lyndsay told us that after we have left her house on tuesday that she was reading the Plan of Salvation pamphlet about the atonement and it hit her! she said she just started balling! she realized what the savior had done for her! the she said she turn the page and it talking about repenting and so she starting pray and asking God for forgiviness of all she has done! She is awesome!!!!!!! it is amazing to she the gospel touch peoples lives like this! we are going to see them to night and have a family home evening with them! well i hope you all have a great week! love Elder Dunn

and transfer calls are on friday! so i will let you all know where i am going next monday if i am leaving!

 Detroit Michigan Temple

 the picture of Jesus that Parker drew and our monsters that we drew!

 

4 Months Down and an Amazing Baptism

Well whats up everyone! this week i was able to experience my first baptism and it was sweet i wil get to that in a min. The rest of the week has kinda been slow and a little different for some reason but it was good! we were able to see our investigator fred this week! and we were able to put him on a baptismal date again for Feb 21st the day after transfer calls! all he has to do is come to church next week and get re-interviewed and he is ready to go! if you all could please pray for him to make it to church and have the desire to do so that would be great! and if you could pray that his work schedule would work out so he can be baptized and confirmed that would be great too! So to Ethan's baptism! it was awesome! Ethan decide to be baptized against his parents will! he told us that why should he wait to be baptized and there is no reason why he should what to do the fathers will. so he called and told his parents and they pretty much cut him off. well he keep pressing forward through persecution and was baptized! know every thing is falling in to place little by little. his parents are talking to him again. they are talking to him about college and what might happen but they are starting to realize that he is their son and that they love him. Ethans girlfriend came from BYU to support him and so did her family who live in Ohio. his girlfriends dad was able to baptize him and that was really great! It was qutie and amazing experience to see how much the gospel truly means to him. i know that i use to take this church for grated but seeing how much it means to others helps me realize how much the gospel truly has played a role in my lilfe and that it is something that i should not take for grated! pictures are to come! i love you all and i hope you all have a great week! i will be emailing you this friday because me and elder bloskas and brother banner are going to the temple friday and that counts as our p day. so make sure you email before friday!

Elder Dunn

another sweet thing this week was we met frank! this is brother banners daughters dog he is huge and 150 pounds and he is only 3!

this is the missionaries who started teaching him and who baptized him! and his girlfriends family

First Baptism scheduled this week.

so i don't have a whole lot of time! but this week we are set to have a baptism for ethan Valentine! this kid is awesome! he has gone through so many hard ships by telling his parents that he is going to be baptized! but he is staying strong! the gospel is such a huge blessing in our lifes! i know i took it for granted until i came on my mission! out here i have realized how much we actually have as members of the True church of Jesus Christ! i would just invite you all to look and ponder what we truly have because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ! it is truly amazing! i love you all and i hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Dunn

 

we did not meet steve and sarah this week... on Wednesday night they called us and said that they had talked and because of their faith they would not read the Book of Mormon and that they would not be meeting with us anymore... so that sucks but they will come around one day! when they figure out that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and another testament of Jesus Christ then they will be baptized I know they will. Ethan is going really good he is just still trucking along. and he is definatley ready to be baptized. zeke and verra are doing good and aaron and Emily were prepared for us we are going to try to see them again this week.

The Week of Miracles

What's up Honkeys? (that was for you Palmer)  this week has been full of miricales and it has just been amazing! so lets start of with Ema. she is an investigator that we have met with once. we taught her the restoration and she didn't really understand I don't think when we taught her. She is a 60 year old native American woman by the way. well we got back in contact with her again and we sat down and taught her the restoration again. I realized that with the lessons me and elder Elmer were teaching they didn't really have any purpose to them we were just teaching to teach. so that has been something I have been working on in extending commitments to the people we teach so that they have that chance to change. so at the end on the lesson with ema I invited her to be baptized when she came to find out if these things were true and she said yes! it was awesome to see that when we invite people to change for the better they accept it but if we don't invite them then there is no chance for them to change. her date is for feb 21st. Next thing is Thursday we were able to stop in and see steve and sarah again. we didn't have a lesson but it was cool to see them and to have steve talk with elder bloskas a little bit about his concerns! we are hopefully meeting with them this week on Thursday at 7. so that was a miricale to be able to see them. next is Friday! we knocked a street by our apartment that we had been feeling like we need to knock for a while. so we went and knocked it and found a couple potential investigators but you will see later why this was so important for us to knock that street. then Friday night we get a call around 8:40 and it was the bishop from the Holland ward ( about 35 miles east of us) and said that a member had requested a blessing for her mom who was in the hospital from a stroke. the hospital is about 6 miles from us and it being that we have to be in our apartment by 9:30 we had to call and get permission from our zone leaders to go cause we would not be back by 9:30. so we called them and they told us to find members that could go and if we couldn't then call the assistants to the president. so after about 25 mins of trying to find members we called the assistants. after they didn't not answer how many times we called the zone leaders back and told them what was going on. while talking to them the assistants called back. we told them the situation and they said to call president and ask him so we called president Jacobsen. and he gave us the permission to go and give this blessing. when I had receive the call from the bishop I knew right then that I would be giving the blessing and I knew that I would tell this woman to be healed and I knew this through the Holy Ghost. it was pretty amazing. so when we got there we had to called the grandson of the lady in the hospital so find out where she was. his name is zeke. we called him and got up to the room and met him and his girlfriend and the lady we were going to give the blessing to. she is an amazing woman. so we told zeke and verra (the lady with the stroke) how the blessing would go cause they are non-members . and zeke said I am very familiar with this my good friends are from your church and I play basketball all the time with them. and he was really respectful and he was calling everyone he knew from the church brother and sister. so he knew the church pretty well. any way. I gave verra the blessing. verra is also unable to talk because of the stroke she can mumble some words but not much. in the blessing I told her to be healed and that she would be able to live a normal life again and that she would speak again it was truly amazing. after the blessing she was already talk better and it was truly amazing. then we told zeke and his girlfriend about our church and they both invited us over to their homes to teach them more and we picked up 2 new investigators. it was another miricale, then on Saturday we had planned to go door knocking for a while cause we hadn't been able to almost all week... except that one day. and so we thought we would go finish on that road and we would check up on the potentials we had found. so on our way there I felt like we should stop and knock on a couple houses so we did. no one answered on the first to houses. but on the third on someone did. a younger lady answered and she said on minute please. after a min or two later her husband came to the door and we thought o great. we started talking to him and the next thing we know is he invites us in. he said teach me the things that you would teach me in the first lesson and show me why I need your church. and he said I know people of your faith they are my good friends. but I am a minister for the calvary church ( one of the biggest churchs in grand rapids) and he said teach me why I need your church. so we taught him the whole resteration! right there his wife came cand joined in and she loved us! we had a great discussion and they are both really open to the things we taught them and they are truly prepared for us to find. the believed everything we said they just had a hard time with why baptism is essential and that they are nervous about the Book of Mormon being another gospel that in galantians 1 in the bible that it warns about. but they are looking for the truth it is really cool! their names are Arron and Emily. and at the end of the lesson. Arron prayed and asked the know the truth of the things that we are teaching it was really cool cause we didn't even ask him to he just did!!! it was awesome. The Last miricale is ethan. who is getting baptized of February 7th. he called his parents last night to tell them that he is getting baptized and the call went well. his parents were up set and they thought that they were going to loose their kid for ever. but he stuck his ground and didn't let anything phase him. they didn't completely cut him off like they said they would but his grandma is going to stop paying for his school. and his dad is taking him out of his will. but they are going to transfer him to another school and he is going to have to get a job and provide for him self. then he texted and said. so there's that. still going strong though I have found a foundation on God and I will not be shaken!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this kid is awesome!!! so his date Feb 7th still stands and we are looking forward to it! this has strengthen me tremendously and has help me I will always pressforward and ethan does because I have a foundation on God! "I WONT BACK UP! I WONT BACK DOWN! I WONT GIVE UP! I'LL STAND MY GROUND! FULL THROTTLE WIDE OPEN! THATS THE ONLY WAY I KNOW!" -Jason Aldean  I love and miss you all !

 Love Elder Dunn

Elder Nathan Brown's Birthday celebration

 

Favorite Missionaries

Thought you would enjoy this picture of your sons, two of our favorite missionaries. Had them over for dinner last Sunday.. They are a joy and a delight to have in our home. They are such outstanding young men and doing FANTASTIC as The Lord's Missionaries. Thank you for sent your sons on missions.  We love them!  God Bless, 
Bro. & Sis. Thaler, Lowell, MI

Happy Monday

Well whats up everyone?! it has been good to here from you guys every week! a couple of cool things happened this week! lets start off with our new investigator named Terignon ( terry-on). He is Awesome! so Elder Elmer and Elder Peterson met him last week and terignon had some sweet questions. his questions were everything that we answered like- why do we praise Jesus is God is the Father?, what is hell? where did we live before this earth? How do we know what is Truth and is the bible is true? and he just had all this great questions. so Me and Elder Bloskas taught him this week and it went really good we didn't have a whole lot of time but it went great! We told him that this church is the true church and that it is the church that Jesus Christ sent up 2000 years ago when he was on this earth! then he said I have a question, what was happening here is the Americas 2000 years ago! and we said well we have an answer for that! ( The Book of Mormon). it is really cool and he is truly prepared for us to find and to teach! we finally got back in touch with Fred! is was awesome. so fred really hasn't been him self since after the baptismal interview! he lost that light that he had and he lost the drive that he had and he was just a completely different person! he even looked different to me! well we finally got a hold of him again and we were able to me with him! it was a great lesson it was a lot on hope and perseverance! and at the end of the lesson Brother Goats ( high priest group leader)  ask fred about what he thought about getting a blessing. and fred said yeah I think that would be good! so we gave him one. brother goats gave it and in the blessing it said fred be uplifted and regain the light you once had! and as soon and Brother Goats said Amen. Fred was back he was happy he was laughing and he had regained that light that he once had and it was amazing! he came to church on sunday and he still wants to be baptized soon he just wants to make sure he is ready. so another sweet thing is I don't know if any off you remember ethan valentine if not he is one of our investigators. he has been meeting with missionaries for about 8 months. he knows the church is true but he is having a hard time with getting baptized cause if he does his parents said that they would cut him off from his college funds and pretty much disown him. well elder Bloskas was talking to him yesterday while I was taking investigators home and he was kinda joking with him saying so you are going to get baptized soon right and you just tell me when and it would take about  3  hours to feel the font. and ethan said well I almost will take you up on that offer. and Elder Bloskas said k well when do you not have track meets and ethan said the 31st of January and 7th of February. and ethan said well the 6 of February is my birthday so it would be cool if we did it on the 7th. so elder bloskas said ok the 7th its is. and then Elder Bloskas said all joking aside do you really think you could prepare yourself for that day and be baptized and ethan said yes I do! it was awesome! so ethan is going to call his parents soon and tell them that this is what he knows he needs to do and this is what God wants him to do! and just go from them it is awesome! well another thing is we watch a coulpe drug deals go down this week. pretty much everytime we go down town we see them happen. only this week we saw them do down 10 feet from us. and the guys that made the deal saw us and thought we were the cops! so he can over to us and asked if we were 5-O we told him no we weren't then he asked us for 10 bucks and we told him that we didn't have 10 bucks. and brother banner was with us. then this guy started rippin into us and saying horrible stuff about brother banner . well I open my mouth and said you know what man.... then I stopped and the spirit said close your mouth and walk away. so that's what i didn't. we just walked back got it the car and drove way! it was awesome! well it has been a pretty evenful week i love you all and i hope you guys all have great weeks! i know this church is true! and i know missions are flippin had but it will be worth it is the end!

love Elder Dunn

i found the geo the other day!!!

and this is the crew!