My Friends....Zone Conference.... and an African Buffet!!

I always hear my name in the Rua (Street) from the kids...Elder Dunkley!!

Ola Familia! Wow Time flies I can't believe that I have been in Africa now 15 weeks! The mission isn't easy, there have been times when I have been way overwhelmed and their have been times when I have almost been broken down, literally not knowing what to do, but i just keep on moving forward and pressing on and with hard work and moving diligently and it reaffirms my testimony.  There will always be trials but as we move forward with faith we will see the blessings.

We are now teaching Serestly Grandy's brother he has read the Book of Mormon and believes that it is true! We were so pumped!  We went to Pedro's and Tani's and we read the Book of Mormon with them, he can't get baptized because he is a paraplegic so we just try and read with him every week.  Pedro is saving for a surgery that he can get in Cuba so they are just hoping.  We went by Dorival's who was recently baptized and talked with his mother about African culture.  We are hoping to be able to get closer with his family so that Dorival can have more support from them for joining the church.

We had Frangilitila off the side of the road for the first time it is a chicken wrap it was delicious!

We had a missionary Zone conference and we got to know our new Mission President and his wife. President and Sister Merrill.

Zone Conference

They showed us a slide show about their life and Mom you were in it, when you met the Merrills!  All the Elders turned and looked at me in shock, funny moment...Anyway we had a lot of training and then we ate Brazilian food and then we changed and went over to the campo de futbol and we played soccer for the rest of the night and spent time with the President.  This was on the 4th of July so it was kind of nice to spend it this way, super fun, I love our new President so much!

At church I bore my testimony and shared Ether 12:4 and my experience as to why I decided to serve a mission, which basically came back to my desire to give people hope and to share with others what has given me faith and hope and light throughout my life to others in the world.  We then said goodbye to the Elders that were flying back to their areas. Elder Yeanolpolus was in the MTC with me, was going back to Lubango.  Then we went to Irma Sidonia's house and read with her "The Family: A Proclamation to the World"  since she had a problem with hitting her kids so we decided it would be good for her to hear this message. She wasn't offended, super awesome night.

We had to go to the President's for interviews and we got to know him better, he is such a humble and down to earth person, that is what I love about him.

On Sunday we invited the work crew working on a house next to us to church and they just went in their work clothes with us and also our neighbors asked if they could come to! Super awesome moment we had 5 people come to church with us at the last moment.  It was great Dorival bore his testimony for the first time!

After that we went to Rita and Paulos and taught their family about the 10 commandments it was funny because after each commandment they would tell us a story about someone who had broken that commandment and we were there for about an hour, I love them so much..they have a wall of pictures of all the missionaries and their families.  We talked about 2 Nephi 32:3 feasting upon the words of Christ super awesome visit.

I ended up having to get a new phone because I lost one a few weeks back and my companion did also. It was 600 Kwanzaa. We went to Antonio's cantina (store) he is still struggling financially and not many people are stopping by but he believes that the Lord will help him have more success in the cantina and we are encouraging him and helping him endure his trails, we try to buy some drinks every once in awhile to help him out.

We met Graciano who had a lot of questions from the pamphlet he had read, he was in jail for about 3 years for something he was wrongly accused of.  He and his wife and 3 kids are looking forward to starting their life over and getting a fresh start, so the Gospel is perfect for them.

We did a service project the entire day for Irmao, he wanted to do a service project for all the drivers and security guards in his complex and all the people who have helped him and his family in the 5 years that he has lived there.  He asked that the missionaries do all the grilling, so we grilled all the hamburgers and got the leftovers and we were able to talk to a lot of people about the church during that time.  On the way home we got into the Taxi and we heard "Elders" and it turned out to be someone that we had taught that we had been trying to find for some time now and he asked for our number.

At church on Sunday, the room was full to the back, so we sat in chairs behind all of the benches (like how they do in America) super cool so many people came to church.

We met Enda and answered her questions about God really great discussion. She is one of those really loud praying praise the Lord women and she says amen after every single time we talk, we invited her to come to church with us on Sunday.

We had Zone meeting in the new mission office building which is way nice, the church went all out and it is nice. We discussed our goals as a Zone and what we need to work on and improve super awesome.  We had pizza and drinks after at Kero.

We went to Joao and Paula's after for a lesson and they have this pet rat, its massive and it runs around us during the whole lesson and people try to touch it and it just jumps and hops like a rabbit. Super funny, ( Mom, you would die it is huge) some of the rats here are the size of a basketball. We invited Joao's and Paula's daughters to be baptized on Aug. 10th. Now it is going to be great because the entire family will be baptized, super excited!

So after that we sat with Diogo and Novo and answered all the questions they had for us, they had written down a lot. 

We then went to Gelson and Paulo's and taught the law of tithing and fast offerings, it is such a hard thing to ask people here seeing that they already do not have much, love to see the faith of those that accept and see the purpose of tithing.

We taught Dorival a new member about the Priesthood and he is getting prepared to receive it soon.

Crazy moment a Vietnamese guy came running up to the taxi that Elder Stewart and I were in and jumped in yelling said he would pay for everyone if we would just go and he started yelling about the police in Angola and illegal immigrants, it was obvious he was running from the Police.

We visited Lima first someone that we had met in the street just a few days ago, we taught him and his family, he works to take care of his mom who has been sick for the past 13 years not sure what she has but she showed us her foot it had green pus coming out of it and the skin was all gone, extremely painful.

I thought I saw Samira and walked up to her, wasn't her funny thing here all of the women where the same clothes, sometimes I am clueless about telling them apart!

We went to Paulo and Rita's for dinner they are such an awesome family, they cooked us a buffet.  I love them so much it has been such a blessing for us to teach them and get to know them , we had a lesson and bore our testimonies, awesome night.

Helping cook at Paulo's and Rita's

Paulo's and Rita's buffet for us!