happiest

Bonjour famille je parle français maintenant

(This week we are learning French due to the new French investigators we have!) haha!

Today is a good humid day. A good P day. We goin to the Brooklyn Bridge and to a museum. Yesterday day I invited President Smith's two daughters to come hang out with us! They are 15 and 13 years old. Savannah and Lauren. :) so it will be way fun!! Excited. 

FRIDAY is the Yankees game!! We are excited. I love my mission.

I know I say this all the time but NO WAY is it July 1st. No way no way no way. Sometimes I feel that time isn't moving at all and sometimes I want to cry at how fast it's going. Right now it's goin fast. But tomorrow afternoon will probably be going slow. Hahaha. THE MISSION. 

WE ARE SO BUSY. We are slammed. Planning like psycho's. Hahaha. This transfer is insane busy with SO much to think about. I knew I would have a lot on my plate but now it's like "oh yeah.. I have a lot on my plate." There are like 101 things to think about and myself NOT one of them. On Thursday we started the lovely weekly planning sesh and Holy. Cow. My brains were seriously mush by the end. Answering questions for Sister Sam, explaining who people are, calling investigators, setting up interviews with sisters, planning exchanges, setting goals, planning our lesson for Sunday, meeting with the zone leaders, planning MLC stuff, planning mikes baptism, and more endless little "to do's." That list doesn't even do it justice. I'm like sitting under a pile of things to do and trying to make sure I'm meeting sister sams needs as well. Haha I love her. We are so similar. Luckily we BOTH don't get stressed out very easily. I'm just takin it as it comes. But I will say SUNDAY was a stresssssssssss day. Sunday's are so not "rest days" as missionaries. Especially when you're in two busy Harlem wards. 

Something CRAZY and SO GOOD:

PRESIDENT & SISTER SMITH ARE HERE!!! And their 3 adorable kids. (Two of them I mentioned earlier) Savannah (15), Lauren (13), and William (11). We met the Smith's on Tuesday! Yesterday! And to be honest I've been a little slightly nervous about how the change would be! Only because President and Sister Morgan were literally the best ever. But when the Smiths walked in the chapel and sat on the stand I was so overwhelmed with love. You know those little baby tears that tend to come when you feel something so strong? I felt SO much love for them. As I stared at them sitting on the stand I KNEW that Heavenly Father called them to be HERE in NY. For US. For ME. I was just dying inside at how much love I felt for them. I love the Smiths. I would be okay if they adopted me into their family. Hahaha (mom & dad, I love you too. And you know I'm teasin.) but holy cow. President Smith told me we will have to plan a Lake Powell trip when they're home ;) I love him. 

We had Mike's BAPTISM. Woooweee! It was great. Mike is such an awesome person. He and his family are golden. They are obedient and faithful and becoming so Christlike. It's AMAZING what the gospel of Jesus Christ can do to people when they're open and humble. I have loved teaching their family. I love them and I'm pretty sure I will forever keep in touch with them. Good people. 

We have Natasha's baptism coming up on July 12th! We are SO excited about her. I love Natasha. We have become SUCH good friends. We have a plan to move into an apartment in NY together once I'm done with the mish. :) She's darling. I'm grateful for her example to me. I'm grateful that I've had the opportunity to teach her. She is so strong. Her parents have fought against her getting baptized for years and now she has finally decided to move forward on her own. Ah love her. She's beautiful and so talented. I was for sure meant to serve here. 

We got a NEW baptismal date with another YSA investigator. Deshawn. He's the coolest. He's on Broadway and he is a wedding singer, a cruise ship performer and a dancer. We taught him for the first time yesterday and extended a baptismal invitation and he said YES. We set a date in August and we are SO excited about him. We got talking about dance and he takes at some of the same studios that I've taken at here in NY from when I came with dance company! When I told him I used to dance he lit up and we just had this little connection. Haha I love him. 

We got ANOTHER new investigator named Marie. She is also AMAZING. She's a 40 year old mother. So great. We taught her the restoration on Friday and it was one of those amazing "oh my gosh that lesson couldn't have gone any better" lessons. Haha she is so sassy and I LOVE it. She asks perfect questions and she is sincere and really wants truth. We hope to set a bap date with her this next week :)

ran into this cute girl. #twoabbeys

We had such a good week. I wish I could tell everything. 

Here were some highlights--

*Making those homemade Oreo delightful cookies for an elder's birthday and spilling powdered sugar ALL over the kitchen floor. Ha. Ha. Ha!!!! I was a mess.

*Finding possibly the biggest cockroach I've ever seen in the baptismal font before mikes baptism. Straight screams coming from inside the church. Ahhhhh. Death.

*The pouring rain coming down on us as we happily walked around Harlem. 

*Watching cute Sister Sam's shocked face at all the crazies we talk to!! Funniest ever.

*Waking up one night after the loudest thunder storm to Sister Sam thinking NYC was being bombed Hahahaha okay that was hilarious. (Those half asleep confusing moments you know?)

*Realizing that my morning prayers are possibly the funniest tiredest most mumble jumbled nonsense and Heavenly Father probably laughs as he listens to those 6 am prayers. (I need to work on those hahaha)

*Finding a new exercise route along the east side of Manhattan with the prettiest view of the city. (Running along the river) it's nice :)

*Translating our iPads into French so we could explain who we were as missionaries for our french investigators hahaha. So. Funny. 

Anyways. It was quite a good week. I am so content. So happy. The mission is hard and so good. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's pure happiness. 

I love you!!

Love Sister Dunford :)

another transfer.... quit it

June 24th? Slooooow down... AH. 

It was a very good last week of the cycle! Very happy with this transfer. It was hard indeed. But I feel that I have been able to change and come closer to my Heavenly Father because of it! Its because of the hard things that I love my mission so much. If this weren't helping me to grow and become stronger, I wouldn't love my mission the way I do.

Transfer NEWS: 

SASSTER Checketts is going upstate to New Rochelle! And I will be training a brand new missionary named SISTA SAM. (Cutest name right) I love new missionaries. I feel like they teach me more than I could ever teach them. Sister Sam is coming into a BUSY area. Which makes me happy. She will get some super great teaching and finding opportunities. As well as some Harlem shock.. Haha Harlem is SO different from Utah. So I hope and pray that Sister Sam can see the good here like I have been able to. Sister Sam and I will have such a good time. Sister Sam is from Vernal Utah. She has a full ride scholarship to BYU. For MUSIC. She is like an amazing piano player. She's SHORT JUST LIKE ME YES YES!! I love her.

Some random moments:

*Okay this was funny. So Sister Checketts and I are walkin down the sidewalk, and this man comes up to Sister Checketts and points to me and goes "is this your daughter? Because she's beautiful." HAHAHA you can just picture me bustin up laughing as Sister Checketts explains that she is not my mother. As we walked away she was like "wow either you look like a baby or I look like a 40 year old." Hahah. Oh my gosh. The laughter. 

*Sister Checketts and I rescued a baby rat. Poor thing was like brand new, just born!! And it was gross. But it was sad. And my tender heart just HAD to move it away from the path that people were walking! So we did. We moved it. We are heroes. 

*I got to go to the "train the trainers" meeting again in Scarsdale on Friday. That was so good. President Morgan was fabulous as always. I felt lucky to have gotten that good training from him. One of his last as our mission president. He loves to tease me in front of other missionaries hahahah. He will like straight call me out in front of everyone and laugh. Happens all the time and I just laugh with him. We are good friends. I truly love him. Ah he has changed my life forever!

*It rained a lot. And it's SO HOT. Oh. My. Disgusting. 

*We had Anaiya's BAPTISM!!! It was great. (Except for the green baptismal font water) HA HA HA. I was dying. Poor girl had to be "cleansed" in muck. Haha

*Here in Harlem there are fights happening right and left!!! I've seen some crazy things. Things that are like movie status crazy

I just wanted to share some thoughts I had this week! 

After feeling very condescended to, I was discouraged. Just that feeling of death and "oh my gosh I know nothing and why am I here and holy cow this is forever hard the mission never gets easy even after being out for 1 year." Anyways. (Those struggle thoughts in your head that you have as a missionary) well I know this is the most common scripture like in the world but this one is one of my favorites right now:

"Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise."

Alma 37:6

That scripture gives me confidence and HOPE. Hope that even though I am small and simple, I can bring about great things. And because of that hope it gives me, I am able to act in FAITH. I have faith that if I do my part here, (follow Christ's example, open my mouth, serve others, love others, study, do the small and simple things,) that great things can and WILL happen. Which brings me to CHARITY. 

Elder M Russel Ballard said this:

"Hope helps faith develop. Likewise, true faith gives birth to hope. When we begin to lose hope, we are faltering also in our measure of faith. The principles of faith and hope working together MUST be accompanied by charity, which is the greatest of all. According to Mormon, ‘charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever’ (Moroni 7:47). It is the perfect manifestation of our faith and hope." 

So if I just pray for charity and am filled with that love, then it doesn't matter if somebody is condescending to me. It doesn't matter if people judge me, it doesn't matter if people say rude things, doesn't matter if they are wrong. Because I would be filled with Christlike love and know that they are imperfect. And I would love everyone and everything. Elder Ballard also said this:

"Real faith fosters hope for the future; it allows us to look beyond ourselves and our present cares. Fortified by hope, we are moved to demonstrate the pure love of Christ through daily acts of obedience and Christian service” 

So I don't really know if my thoughts are making sense to you. But I do know that they make sense to me. I know that faith hope and charity are what I want to build the structure of my life around. I know that these 3 principles give me the eternal perspective that I need to get through life's toughest challenges. I'm grateful for the pure love that Christ had. Because of that pure love, I can do all things. With out Christ's love for US, we would literally be nothing and nobody and going nowhere. Thank heavens Christ has charity. I love him. So, pray for charity ;)

our investigator 

I love my mission and I'm so eternally grateful for this experience. 

Love you!!

Love Sister Abb Dunford 

Ps forgive me for how scattered my emails are. I'm losin it today hahah.

little house on the prairie girl

HEY. where to begin....   

I was just thinking, how can I make my emails better? and then I just got lazy. I just really need a video camera recording every week. Because it's just impossible to explain. But here goes randomness. Wish there was something amazing to write about.. Sorry :)

I'm still here in New York Citaaaay. 

Loving it. Still very much out of my comfort zone but very much growing and stretching. In many ways. If I could explain better I would, but I can't! I'm just growing! 

Today's P day is going to be good. We are taking it slow today. We are calling it our pampering spa day. That means we are painting nails, going to get a pedicure, doing face masks, hair masks, doing my hair color, eating cucumbers and putting them on our eyes. Etc. all the goods. Missionary work goes like this: Forget yourself and go to work. (but, on P day remember yourself) hahaha. it actually is the best because then you don't have to worry about yourself the rest of the week. I love it. 

It's SO BLASTED HOT here. humid. Hot. Yucky. Sweaty. Red face. Subways=disgusting. Hahah New York is so extreme. Freeeezin winters and sweating hot summers. 

rain rain rain 

HAHA. The other day, we were walking down the sidewalk and lovely gangsta brother of ours making his way toward us goes "hey little house on the prairie." Hahahaha. I was dying. Like WHA hahahaha. In my head I was like "I feel it too Brotha. I feel it too." But it's FINE. Whatever.

So transfers are in ONE week. Um woah? That's definitely weird. 

Next transfer will be busy. Thinking about the responsibilities I will be taking on... I will need Heavenly Fathers help!! Solo Sister Training Leader. Training. New mission president coming in. Being over two wards. It's going to be a busy cycle. Bring. It. On. Because I love this work.

We are back on Facebook did you see did you see?? It's crazy!! Bien.

Book Of Mormon goodies:

So something super interesting and fascinating and cool was this fireside that we went to at the temple/church. There was a man, (a member of our church,) who came to talk to us about his life living in Saudi Arabia. This man was sooo smart. And coolest ever, he basically re-traced LEHI and his family's journey through the wilderness. He made it clear at the beginning that this evidence that he has found shouldn't make up one's testimony but that it could help strengthen or support. Our testimonies are spiritual. And no SIGN will make us believe. 

"..signs shall follow them that believe in my name." Ether 4:18 (I mean obviously) like Laman and Lemuel had like one million signs. Did they believe? Not really. You guys. WOAH. We read verses together from 1st nephi and paid very close attention to the wording in the directions of where they were traveling and what they were bringing, etc. He showed us maps of where they left Jerusalem from and where their journey took place. He showed us where (they assumed) the river of Laman and the valley of Lemuel were. All these locations that they found fit the exact things that the Book of Mormon says. It was so fascinating. I wish you all could have been there. But it's alright. You can read the Book of Mormon and know that it's true. The stories are real, they happened. Lehi and his family were so courageous and righteous and obedient and amazing. Joseph Smith did not stinking write the Book of Mormon himself. There's just no way he could have. I'm grateful that I have received my very own PERSONAL revelation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Because of that single testimony I have of the Book of Mormon, I will forever be faithful to this gospel. A testimony of the Book of Mormon can get you FAAAAR. So I invite you to read it and pray about it. But for reals do it. 

I gotta go. But I love you all!! 

Love Abb. 

another week mannnnn

Hello!! 

P DAY man. Today we are riding bikes with our whole zone in Central Park. FUN. (This is my VERY first time putting jeans on in 11 months.) #kindofhateit  weeeirdest feeling ever. And then to do my favorite ever... Window shopping down on fifth and like 18th street. BEST STORES. (Remember it helps me feel normal.) and then we might go stop by FIT the fashion institute because my dream will come true of going there after the mission. So anyways.. 

It was a good week. Highs and lows as always!! I feel like so much happened. How do I even get this out.. I'll just jump right in. (This email is random sorry)

Friday we went to MLC upstate in Scarsdale with all the leaders in the mission! It was President Morgan's very last MLC!! SAD. Awh I just die at how much I love President Morgan. He's taught me so much. For reals President Morgan is an amazing human. I can't explain the impact that he has had on me and my life. I LOVE The Morgan's.  At MLC we had Cafe Rio salad!!!! Sister Morgan made it for all of us and I was in heaven. (You don't understand the cravings I've had for that food.) man. YUM. MLC was just way good. President gets us all pumped to be leaders in the mission and we all just want to DO WORK. Straight up motivation. Loved it. 

Friday night we got to go to a museum at Columbia University for our relief society activity. That was grand. Every time I walk on Columbia University's campus I decide I want to be a smart human and go to school there. HAHA. (realistically never gonna happen.) but.. You guys it's dreamy. I feel like I'm walking in a movie. I have actually felt like I'm walking in a movie majority of my mission. I LOVE MY MISSION. The museum was way cool. I wish I took more pictures. But I will send the ones I have. OH and then after the museum we were on our way home and we talked to a man who had a giant white bird that he let me hold!!! I have always wanted a talking bird. It was a really good Friday filled with fun things. 

Oh this was HILARIOUS. 

Hahahahahahah. So. Thursday night I was going down the stairs of our apartment building. (In my pajamas, hair on top of my head, no makeup, slippers, etc.) well I start hauling down the stairs when I suddenly took a wrong step and bam bam bam bam bam. HA HA HA. On my bottom side down down down. The amount of laughter is indescribable. If only you could have seen. Hahaha you guys I'm like crying laughing as I'm typing this haha. And the BRUISE. Oh. My. Gosh. I am wounded. The biggest darkest bruise I've ever seen in my life. And I'm still laughing about it. If anyone even cares to know. It was a highlight hilarious moment. So there! Lesson: don't haul down the stairs in your slippers. 

Monday night Sister Checketts and I had a miniature spa night. We did nightly planning with my new green Glymed face mask!!! Mwaaaahhhhahah. Heaven. Who says missionaries can't be beautiful. Nonstop laughter again. 

Let's see what else. Our investigators are moving right along!! We may need to scoot some bap dates back a tiny bit...  But it's all good!! Just need a little more time. I get overwhelmed when I think about how much information I could tell you about all of them.. That's why I lack in letting you know more details about our investigators. But just know that we are busy busy.

Unhappy moment when:

We had a dinner appointment scheduled last night. For 7:00. Well we went to teach one of our investigators at 6:00 just before. Well. She (being the nicest human) decided to feed us dinner. And she dished up our plates for us. (I'm standing there like screaming in my head nooooooooooooooooooooooo) but out of the love in my heart I kindly shovel the food in my mouth, knowing that in less than 30 minutes I get to go eat ANOTHER dinner at a members.) 

To say I was full is a complete understatement. You guys. I was compacted with food and I wanted to cry. There was also desert involved in both appointments. HAHA. Who knew charity involved being full SO MANY TIMES. Daaahhh. 

A simple short thought to close!

Haha. For my little "spiritual thought" I decided I would quote Elder Perry's closing testimony from conference!! I love him. And I loved his last talk. What a great man. I miss him already! He said:

"Let me close by bearing witness (and my nine decades on this earth fully qualify me to say this) that the older I get, the more I realize that family is the center of life and is the key to eternal happiness."

SUCH a cute little quote and testimony from him. He is so right. I LOVE MY FAMILY!!! Dunford's I miss you more than you could ever imagine!!! You make me happy. Keep being the funnest bestest coolest dunfuns that you are. Love you so much. I'm grateful Heavenly Father put me in the family he did :)

LOVE YOU ALL. 

Love abb