i heart NY

Konnichiwa! Watashiwa Dunford shimaidesu!! Hola, en la cabeza! Esta
muy bien, Yo como mucho!! تنثني بتت يثق ,心里有数 一四四年 льва квот вал шаль л зло удача!!!! Jovi ilhéu doge!! Vida jiló! (Unsure what I just said)


HELLO FROM THE BIG APPLE!!!

Not kidding you I am going to speak 100 different languages when I get home. HAHA. New York is too good. So many different people here. I LOVE it.

Toni!!

I had a fabulous week. Let me start with some of the highlights!

Well Toni was BAPTIZED. Yippeeeeee! Awesome right? She had some of her family there and they weren't members and it was cool because they were super interested in what we believed in and all that fun stuff. So I loved that. Toni was super happy. Hopefully when her daughter is old enough she will be baptized as well! I heart baptisms and the Holy Ghost. good stuff. #enduretotheend

We had Zone Conference on fridaaaay and that was awesome. SO good. I absolutely love being surrounded by other missionaries. It's really a cool thing. President always has good stuff to tell us. This zone conference we talked lots about how we can better use our iPads. We are very lucky to have these! Where much is given much is expected. Right? So we need to be extra awesome missionaries and use our iPads the correct way. The iPad is just another proselyting tool. It is not to look at the news feed on Facebook or to play games on or anything like that. The iPad is to help us invite others to come to Christ. And they are AWESOME. I think every mission should have iPads. I feel so organized! I also feel very professional. Haha. Planning with the iPads is awesome. We have these cool apps to help us out. We use bar graphs and spreadsheets and pie charts and all these great thingys. The area book is cool too. It's very convenient to be able to just whip out my iPad and either look somebody up or watch a Mormon message or find a conference talk or take a picture or read a scripture or read the ensign or Skype an investigator that's all the way across the world or type some notes and awesome other stuff toooo. So anyways. iPads are great. If used correctly :)

Sister Mitchell and I are the two blondest Sisters in NYNYN Misson!!

President also gave the whole mission a challenge! This challenge is
to read the Book of Mormon by Christmas!! He gave the whole mission a 120 day reading schedule. Which is AWESOME. Because I happened to just barely finish the Book of Mormon last week. So it's PERFECT timing. The whole mission started in 1st Nephi on August 25th! We are all reading the same chapters everyday which is so cool. We will be kinda like united I think. So that's real great huh?

On Saturday we had a Princess party!!! We dressed up like princesses
and invited little girls to come to the church! We had little stations and did crafts and shared little spiritual thoughts that had to do with the princesses. They dressed up like princesses as well. I got to dress up like ELSA from frozen. Hahaha!!! I can't even begin to tell you how many pictures I had to take with all the little girls. They straight up thought I was the real Elsa. They were pulling on my braid and holding my hands and singing and yelling ELSA! ELSA! the whole time. So funny. But the party was way successful!! Every little girl was invited!! It was for non members and members as well!! We had like 30 little girls show up! Which was way more than what I thought!! So yes. That was a success. Maybe the little girls that weren't members will want to come back to church to see Elsa! ;)

Funny story- hahah. My companion and I were in the car (we borrowed from the other sisters) and we were switching out our Mormony cd for another Mormony cd and when we took the cd out to switch it, the Radio started playing and my companion and I sat in amazement for like 15 seconds HAHA we then started dying laughing because we were like hypnotized when we heard real life radio music in our car. We were like WOAH CHANGE THE SONG. Hnhahah I couldn't stop laughing. It is the funniest thing being a missionary. Like HI I'm a missionary. I'm Sister Dunford.

We still don't have our car...... Haha. Transfers are in a week and we have only had the car for 2 weeks out of this whole transfer. I will be straight up honest.. The work is TOUGH without our car. I feel like a 15 year old again asking and begging for rides everywhere. You see, our area is pretty darn big. Sometimes we will drive far away just to get to a members house to teach. And so it's   not like we can walk to all our appointments. And president doesn't want the sisters riding bikes. (Cool right?) he says it's not okay to make sisters ride in their skirts and we would just look ridiculous. Haha!! So yeah. We NEED the car. It will hopefully be done like tomorrow. But it's been good for us to not have it. Because missionaries in cars are invisible. Right? President says even just walking around town can bring the spirit. I agree. I like smiling at people. Letting my light so shine ya know? Haha! 3rd Nephi 12: 15,16. like think of a candle. What are candles for? Light!!! (And good smells haha) Why would we hide a candle under a bushel?? We wouldn't!!! We let it shine!!! :) we need to follow the light (follow Christ) and then shine bright like a diamond!!! Yes I just quoted Rihanna.

So I'm currently at the Stamford train station waiting to catch a
train to the city!! Haha I feel like I'm at the airport. My companion and I are hilarious because we have NO idea what we are doing. We have to make sure we get on the correct train and get off at the right time. It's so funny. Two 19 year old girls all confused at the train station. So we will be in the city all day today. Fun stuff I tell you!!

CTR everyone!!! Don't forget to be kind and humble and confident at
the same time. Love you all. Have an AMAZING week. Xoxo



Love,
Sista Dunford

Well well!! Hey!!

So another GREAT week!!! Where do I start... Well ISIS GOT BAPTIZED!!! Yaaaaaayyy!!!! That was a miracle. She has had the lessons for so long and she finally was baptized!!!! My heavens. I am so happy. So if you remember in my last email I said that Isis needed to work through some things with the mission president and that we weren't sure when she would actually end up being baptized. Her date was set for Saturday the 16th but after finding out a few things we for sure thought it wasn't going to happen. Well she came out of her interview with President Morgan and she was crying and SO HAPPY!!!! And then sister Amorim and I were smiling from ear to ear because President said ISIS is getting BAPTIZED on Saturday!!!!! Miracle. I talked to one of the sisters that was here before I got here and she had taught Isis for a looong time. She was shocked that she actually got baptized!!! Something that Isis said to my companion and I right after she came out of the water was
"Out of all the sisters that have taught me, YOU TWO got me baptized. You sisters are going to help so many people out here because of your sincerity and your understanding and your nonjudgmental thoughts." I was speechless after she said that. I love her. Isis has made some huge huge changes in her life and it's been amazing for me to see the happiness that has come to Isis from making these changes. Isis is walking proof and a perfect example of (my favorite thing to study)...The Doctrine of Christ! She had faith. She started to come unto Christ. Her faith was growing. She noticed things in her life that were wrong. She noticed her weaknesses. (Remember Ether 12:27?!) And she repented. And she then got baptized and received the Holy Ghost!! And now that she has the Holy Ghost she will experience more personal revelation and she will have the spirit with her and what do you think that will do for her? It will help her faith grow even more. And she will be coming closer to Christ and then seeing more weaknesses (cuz that's what happens when we come closer to Christ) and she'll be wanting to be better and better and BETTER! And she will have to ENDURE to the end. Enduring to the end is so important. We can't just stop after we receive the Holy Ghost. We must keep growing and gaining faith and repenting and so on... Because that is the cycle. And that is our life!!! :) goodness sakes. The Doctrine of Christ is awesome. Once again.. I love it.

Filling up the font and I had to strike a pose! ;)

Isis!!!

Wellll Friday we went on splits! Sister Barker came to be my companion for the day! That was good! Things were a little difficult because we didn't have our car and we were kinda stuck. (we won't have our car for another week.... Ha) But it all worked out and I got a member to save us. Haha. I basically had to plan Isis's baptism all by myself because my companion went to Danbury, CT for her split. So I was left here to plan a baptism. Haha I somehow pulled it off. Phew!!! And it was wonderful! Let me tell you.. I'm quite the baptism planner :) haha!!! Saturday (the day of the baptism) was fabulous. We were so happy the whole day. Baptisms are awesome. Sunday Isis was confirmed and that was great as well! We have a baptism Thursday!! For Toni!!! YAY Toni!!!! I am so excited for her! She is so strong. She is a single mom with a cute 4 year old named Alaina. They are awesome. I will have to write more about her after her baptism :) 

pinkberry helps with my red mango cravings!

Stamford Giraffe 

Monday was great as well. We have district meeting every Monday and we usually go somewhere fun for lunch after. So yes that's fun. We then taught some lessons and went tracting that night. Met some fun people. It's funny what some people think about the Mormons. They always have some crazy questions... One lady asked me if I liked being married to my dad... I was like excuse me? Hahaha we don't marry our dads? Funny stuff. I love when we start talking and they say well wait a second you seem normal to me!! I'm like yes we are normal. Hahah. Monday night my companion and I got asked out on a double date. Haha!!! We were like uhhhhh nope sorry! We are Sista mishs we don't date right now :) ha!!!
My random thoughts this past week-
There are SO many people here on earth. SO SO many people. Think about the world. And all the things we don't know about the world. It's pretty mysterious if you ask me.. :) And there are soooooo many different beliefs. So many religions. There is SO much more than just this world. Wellllll I love the diversity of my mission. I absolutely LOVE hearing other people's beliefs. It's crazzzzzy to think about. I've always considered myself to be a humble person... But I am realizing I have SO much to learn. Like FOR REALZ.. There is SO much to know!!! We ALL have sooooo much to learn. and I have been VERY humbled this past little bit. I'm learning sooooo much about tons of different religions. And you might think id be questioning what I believe just because there is so much out there that I don't know... But my testimony is getting SO STRONG. and the more I study about this gospel, the more I can relate with other religions. Because its super cool to hear other beliefs. A lot of people have truth. There is truth all over the world. So much good out there. But. I know that they don't have the priesthood. The authority from god to act in his name. People don't have the FULLNESS of the gospel. I know that Joseph Smith restored the priesthood back on earth. I just have so many thoughts exploding in my head and I can't believe it!!!! I'm rambling randomness. (Sorry) but This church IS true. It's truer than true could ever be!!! God is real. God is there. There is NO way that he isn't there. I know he's there. He's listening to me. He loves me. He loves all of us. He wants us to make it back to him. And the world is a big place. And there's lots going on. But behind all the craziness of the world, God is there. I've been thinking tonzzzzz and I'm just so thankful for a loving God. I'm grateful for the prophets that he has given us to help us on our journey here on earth. I'm grateful for Jesus Christ's example. And for his atonement. Because without Christ, we are nothing. And I'm grateful for the Book of Mormon that god gave to us!! My mission has been the BEST decision I've ever made in my whole 19 years of life. (I'm still young I know) Haha. Yes it's hard and yes there are mornings that I feel like throwing my alarm clock at the wall.. But oh my heavens. I'm growing and learning more than I ever thought I could. This gospel is WAY too important to not share with the people in this world. I invite everyone this week to share your testimony with someone! Do it I dare you!!! It's so fun. It can be anyone. But do it! :) pretend you're a missionary for a second. Get out of your comfort zone! It's good for you :) hahah okay so now that I am blind from staring at my iPad for so long I will peace out!! (And I just poured my heart out via email) haha I love you all. Have an amazing week.

thuggin in the projects 

Love,
Sister Dunford

I LOVE MY MISSION

HI HI

Let me apologize in advance for the lengthiness of this one. I have so much to share and I can't even get it all out!! Aaand I probably have lots of misspelled words. But...ain't nobody got time to spell check!!

HELLO!! Wow sounds like life is awesome at home!!!

(But not as awesome as the NYNY North mish) :) I CANNOT believe that I got called here. I can't believe it. I love my mission... !! I love love love it. Sometimes I will just be thinking and I'm like wait woah I am so blessed to be here in the NYNY North Mission. Wowza I'm so grateful. haha Aaand mom don't worry about back to school shopping for McCall and Ellie just send me your credit card and I will head to the city on Pday and shop till I drop for ya!! but for reals you could send your credit card if you want. ;)

I am so jealous of all those cute Alex and Ani bracelets at the

store!!! People love those bracelets over here. My companion and I

were dying over all of those. So mom feel free to send some Alex and

Ani love :) ha! Teasin. But not really..

Okay. So let's see. First of all. Just let me be (missionary) for a
second here okay? Don't stop reading just because this looks real long and spiritual.. (Well you can if you want) but... I cannot even believe this gospel. My whole life I've been raised in the church and I don't think I ever REALLY understood just how awesome it is. I have been studying the Doctrine of Christ during my study time and it's amazing. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. My mind has been thinking about it nonstop. I've been thinking about FAITH a lot lately. And faith is the FIRST principle of this gospel. Right? So how important do you think faith is? ITS SO IMPORTANT. Faith drives us and motivates us. It promotes hope and trust and humility. Faith in Jesus Christ is probably the MOST IMPORTANT thing in this life. Think about our life here on earth.. Why are we here? We are here to learn and grow and gain faith. Right? And we are tested in life. A lot of people don't have faith because they want to see something to prove to them that there is a god, or that Christ is our savior or that Joseph Smith really was a prophet of god. WELL Nothing can be proved because the WHOLE purpose of being here is to have faith!! Okay now just bare with me because I am so excited about the doctrine of christ. I won't rant for much longer... But..  Having faith in Christ leads us to want to become better and more Christlike. When we want to become better (more Christlike) we start to see all our weaknesses. Ether 12:27 "if men COME UNTO ME (faith in Christ) I will show unto them their weakness..." If we are feeling weakness it means we are coming to Christ! Therefore you are headed straight for REPENTANCE, because you are wanting to change yeah? And then comes ..baptism/sacrament and then Holy Ghost and then enduring. And HENCE the doctrine of Christ. And I could talk about all of those for a long time but for the sake of your entertainment and time I will conclude this missionary talk. Hahah. I am loving my mission so so much. I'm realizing how happy it makes me. And the doctrine of Christ is so important in ALL of our lives. It is a pattern. It is our way of life. So have faith. Start with a little seed. And nourish it and water it and make it grow bigger!! And yes. Then repent then take the sacrament or be baptized and then listen to the Holy Ghost and gain more faith and endure to the end!! And repeat!!  I LOVE IT!!

I had an awesome week. On Thursday my companion and I and two other
elders went to dinner at this yummy restaurant. So good. And fun. My
companion and I then had to go teach Rick and Maria. That went well!! Their daughter was there! (She is a member) it was so good for them to hear their very own daughters testimony. Rick and Maria are awesome. Maria had a baptismal date for Saturday but her daughter just had a baby and it didnt work out.. So we rescheduled.
Well after that good lesson Sister Amorim and I decided we wanted ice cream. And the other sisters in our apartment wanted some as well. So we headed to the grocery store to get my FAVE Haagen Dazs ice cream. Woah so good. We went home and had a SLEEPOVER in the living room of our apartment. Party. Ha when we woke up the next morning the power was out! So we got ready in the dark. Then my companion and I headed to a meeting with all the new missionaries. President Morgan talked and my goodness it was so good. I left feeling motivated and ready to help others come unto Christ!! :) we had the best NY pizza for lunch there. The pieces were giant. The food is so good here it's not okay. Sister missionaries should not be allowed to eat. Ha!! Teasin. Anyways. Don't worry I am not gaining weight yet... I refuse.

Side note: Everyone here tells me I look like Elsa from Frozen! I'll take that. Thx haha

Yesterday my companion and I got a media referral. (A media referral
is where people go on Mormon.org and request to meet with someone tolearn more.) So we went to go look up this random person that
supposedly wanted to meet with the missionaries. And media referrals
are usually never legit. So we were expecting to knock on the door and have them tell us to leave and that they didn't request anything. Well we knocked and a mom answered. We were like hello! Are you kris? And she was like no that's my son. We said oh! Well did kris request to meet with the missionaries? And she looked at us like we were crazy!!! Then she was like I will go see... So like 5 minutes later kris came down the stairs. Kris is 18 years old. He plays rugby. And he is catholic. He told us that he has a friend that is LDS and that he is always so happy. His friend goes to BYU in Provo. He said his friend has a "light" with him. And then he said he wants that light. Kris has already read the whole Book of Mormon!!! He is coming to church on Sunday! And his mom agreed to listen in on the lessons!!! WOOOO. Like how cool!?! He requested to meet with us!!! He is amazing. Such an awesome boy. I'm so excited to teach more about what we believe!!

We had 2 baptisms scheduled for this Saturday... Toni. She is so cute. And Isis. She's awesome. We just found out that Toni is pregnant!!! Haha. So apparently we need to go over the law of chastity again.. :) it's okay tho. We have to be patient and keep helping our investigators. It's crazy to see people from complete different lifestyles coming to Christ. It's definitely a HUGE change for so many people to make. And Isis was SO close to being baptized this Saturday but we discussed some things that need to be taken care of before she is baptized. So yeah we are workin hard with Toni and Isis. They have so much faith and they are awesome.

Sister Dunford and Toni

I just arrived in Manhattan an hour ago! We drove here with a
member in my ward. Her name is Lynn Orn. She was a famous model in
Paris!!! She is so awesome. She is taking my companion and I to dinner tonight here in the city. Her friend is coming and he is a fashion photographer...So yessss. We are at the church in the Manhattan temple right now. And here's an embarrassing sorry. Hahahahah. My companion an I had to use the restroom and so went to go find the restroom.. Well... We were washing our hands and a man walks out of the stall... Then a man walks in. HAHA. We were in the men's bathroom. Hahahahah. I am still laughing. So. There's that!

I LOVE MY MISSION!!! I love it. I'm doing great. CTR. Love you all. Have an amazing week!!! I will send pics :) aaaand I apologize for the length of this email!! Super long. But there is so much to tell. I can't even get everything in here that I want to tell!! So anyways.
Love you!!



Love,

Sista Dunford

a little accident...

HEY!!

Sista Dunford here.

Wow!! Another week already? Wait woah I've been out for one month already!?! What the heck!

Haha well. I had a great week!! Aside from this little incident... I

have a story. (Mom don't panic) So my companion and I got in a car accident on Saturday. Yeah. No bueno!!!

Well let me explain. So my companion was driving and we had just

picked up some books from a less active member to go donate to this book place. Well we were just happily driving and my companion looked out the window for a split second and said Sister Dunford look it's Urban Outfitters!! And I looked over and didn't even have time to look forward before I heard the loudest sound evaaaa. BANG. Yikes. Ouch. Next thing I know there is a man swearing up a storm in front of us. My companion started crying and I was just sitting there all confused. There was this cute 13 year old boy that came to rescue us. Haha he was so nice. He was like "ARE YOU GUYS OKAY!?" We both looked at each other and we were like uhhhhh. So confused. Well my companion got out and was crying and then I tried to get out but the door wouldn't open. So I climbed out somehow. Long story short.. There were a ton of police out there and people and craziness. They were like asking us questions and we were like ahhh oh no!! This isn't our car, and we are missionaries, and we don't know what to do!! But we got it all figured out and we are safe and sound and nobody was hurt. Just a few bruises and sore muscles.

WELL. let me tell you somethin. As of Monday, within the last 5 days there had been 3 accidents in the whole mission and the last 3 weeks there had been 8 accidents. Now that is not normal!!! So president is having the whole mission do a "car fast" so today and yesterday nobody is allowed to use their car. President Morgan wants us to realize how lucky we are to have our cars and how careful we need to be!! I can't believe how much of a blessing it is to have a car. Now that we don't have a car and won't have a car for the next week, I realize how lucky we are in this mission. We really are so lucky. We have iPads, phones, cars, nice apartments and so many other little blessings. We are blessed. So. Yes. Everyone WEAR YOUR SEATBELTS!!! And be so thankful :)

Well today's email is gonna be a little random but I will say some

highlights of the week!! 

So me and my companion have been meeting with a couple named Maria and Rick. They have two kids that are members. (Their kids are married) They can see the blessings that their kids have had in their lives from the gospel. Rick is catholic and has a lot of faith. It's really cool when people from other faiths start to read the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is so powerful!!! Rick is finding for himself that the bom is the word of god. It's SO COOL. I love the Book of Mormon.

Here's a little story-  well yesterday my companion and I had to walk to the church to sync our area books and update them and we needed wifi. Well it was dinner time and we were tired and hungry and thirsty. And it was so hot outside. Well it took a long time to get to the church and when we had finally got there we realized that we didn't have our keys to the church because the key was hooked to our car keys and our car keys were with our car at the tow place... So we walked alllll this way only to find out that we were locked out. Ha. So we sat there. Bummed out. Well then I decided to say a prayer that somebody would magically come and have a key to the church. Literally 3 minutes after my prayer a member came to pick up a book that they had left at the church. WHAA YES I was so happy!!!!! Tender mercies tender mercies. They are always happening. I was SO thankful. Heavenly Father was watching out for us. He knew we didn't have our keys. And he knew that that member needed their book. So boom. Yes. Awesome. 

I love Heavenly Father!

I only wish I could share all my little experiences here on my mission but that would take a year.. Haha! But I am loving it out here!!! It's SO amazing being a missionary. I love wearing my name tag and I love when people stare at me. It's too good. I hope everyone has an amazing week!!!

My fave chapter from the week- 3rd Nephi 17.

Feast on that one you guys. I had a great feast the other day. It was good.

LOVE YOU ALL.

LOVE,

Sista Dunford