Elder Dunyon is HOME!!!!

Well - it's been a wild week or so.  Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Church decided to send all the foreign missionaries in the Philippines to their home countries.  So....James came home yesterday!  We were so excited to see him and welcome him home.  He is currently in a 14 day self-isolation, but his mom got hugs in anyway (as mom's should). 

Because of the isolation, we were not able to have anyone come over and properly welcome him home, but we had so many come and drive by, wave and honk horns!  What a grand welcome home.  He wasn't officially released last night, but things as they are, change very quickly.  He was officially  released honorably tonight, and will not be going back out for reassignment.  So, that makes this our last blog post to chronicle his missionary experiences.

I want to say how proud I am of James and his dedication and devotion to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  James has been an instrument in His hands, and blessed the lives of countless individuals and families, in helping them to feel our Heavenly Father's Spirit and turn toward the Savior.  He has been a great example to me and our family, and I hope to all those who have followed him throughout these past (almost) 2 years.  Now....on to the next phase of his life's adventures.

May our Heavenly Father bless you all!

Love,
Adam Dunyon

Pictures - Coronavirus Update

We heard from James’ mission President regarding the Coronavirus in the Philippines.  Here are the highlights from his message:

All missionaries are to

1.  Avoid all physical contact with others, including fellow missionaries, members and investigators, including handshaking, fist bumps, elbow bumps and hugs;

2.  Wash their hands frequently and avoid touching their face with their hands;

3.  Carry alcohol-based hand sanitizers and use it frequently;

4.  Cough into their elbow;

5.  If they have any flu-like symptoms, including fever, cough or shortness of breath remain in their apartment and immediately notify the mission nurse or wife of the mission president;

6.  Avoid sharing personal items such as towels, drinks, toothbrushes, water bottles, etc.

7.  Avoid meeting with anyone who is ill with a cough, fever or other flu-like symptoms. If those you are teaching show these symptoms, excuse yourself and return when they are well;

            8.  Wear a mask if you have any flu-like symptoms.

James is doing well.  We chatted a bit with him, but not too much new.  He sent a bunch of new pictures 

Here are some of the highlights:

This week, the sisters had a wedding/baptism for one of their friends!! It was my first wedding I have really been too and was assigned a bunch of stuff.  I was the best man and the witness for the marriage (so I had to sign a bunch of paper work), part of the surprise choir, cake deliverer, and chorister at the baptism, and helper for decorating everything.  Let’s just say Friday and Saturday were really busy.

This week we will have Zone Conference on Wednesday, we are excited for that because it is being made into a focus on Joseph Smith and the restoration, so we are really excited for it

Temple and Service Project

 This past week was a Temple week for us.  Our whole zone went, then the session after us was the whole Antipolo zone.  It was great to be in the Temple again!  Such a great spirit there.

Also, this past week, we also had a service project for a member. IT WAS FUN!! I was hiking 80lbs cement bags up to the second floor, shoveling, and also cooking Adobo (no not all at the same time).  Adobo is a dish with Chicken, toyo (soy sauce), Suka (vinegar), Cebuyas (onions), Bawang (garlic), Paminta, then you can add in additional stuff.  It’s so good!

OUR FRIENDS ARE DOING GREAT!!!

We have Brother Deguzman who is the asawa (spouse) of a long-time member. He would have been baptized a long time ago but he had work issues where he had to work on Sundays, and he also had a word of wisdom issue. He has since then, stopped it, and shifted his work schedule because he is close to retiring so now, he can go to church again! His baptism will be on March 13.
Then Julie, who has been an investigator for a while now came to church this last Sunday! (It was stake conference) She had a great time and has since then gotten more curious and serious about wanting to be baptized!! The Lord really is bringing blessings down on us!!

THEN!! Remember Jana? The one who got baptized just a couple weeks ago? Her aunt, who wasn't supper interested in the message before, has loads of questions for us, and she only wants us to answer them because she knows we speak the truth.  She loves it when we come, because we were able to open up scriptures in both the Book of Mormon and the Bible! She is also really excited to start reading herself. She said, probably this year may be the year she joins the church!! So, we have been happy helping her find answers to her questions!!

The hard part though is, we are still needing to find new excited friends and just have to keep on working because the Lord will provide!!

Inspirational thought!

When pondering a little bit this last week, I thought back to some studies I had related to receiving revelation and some things that my President shared about prayer. I think it is safe to say, one of the best ways for us to grow closer to God is through prayer. If we are struggling in any way shape or form, if we are feeling kulang (lacking), reflect on your prayers and how they are. Are the focused, sincere, honest, out loud? If we strengthen our prayers, we will be able to grow so much closer unto Him!!

Love, Elder James Dunyon

Great week with baptism and new friends

This week was a pretty good week!!!

We had a really amazing day where we got 2 referrals, 9 new friends, and tons of lessons!!

The Aton family is doing great! They were baptized Sunday morning along with a child of record!! They are doing so good, and when we visited them Sunday night, they were asking us tons of questions about the temple!! We are so happy and excited for them!!

We have a new family - The Siervo family.  They are a referral of a member and there are 7 of them. It is a really cute family and they are all really open to the message. The two daughters came to church yesterday and we have only taught them one time so far.

Another referral is Dang, she has been searching for truth for a while and is really open and willing to read the Book of Mormon!  Jeff is still going strong, he said he will eventually be baptized, but he is just not ready yet.

The Castro family is still doing alright as well, know what we are teaching is true, but not quite ready to be baptized. We are also teaching their manugang (daughter in law) who is also really, really receptive.

One of the fun, but hard things this week, was that we have SO MANY FRIENDS that said they are willing to be baptized BUT are just not yet ready, they said they will be baptized and get there, but just not yet. We told the ward in missionary coordination meeting so we have a ton of members willing to come help fellowship and get them ready! So, we are excited to hopefully get our friends to church!! This next week is stake conference!! So, that should be fun too!!

Spiritual thought:

One of the things I also noticed was my constant need to increase a spiritual understanding. I love understanding the scriptures and deeper meanings and how it can truly apply to me. I felt a little lacking this week up until the end where I thought of ways to fix my studies and really invite the spirit back in. Sometimes it is just simple things to do rather than large things, but they really do make a difference in inviting the spirit!

Continue to always find ways to grow closer to Christ

Love Elder James Dunyon

Transfers, but staying

The sisters got dresses made and they also made us ties, so we were matching, then Jana wanted to join

Transfers are here once again, but I am still going to stay here!! Elder Yaba is going to Taytay zone and my new companion will be an American, Elder Bottoms. He is from Saint George and he is my second companion that is white, so this is interesting, hahaha.  We have to find new ways of finding in this area, because there are a ton of people that just want to talk to the Americans.  We get along great though. He goes home in the batch after me, so he is a long time in the mission too, still struggles with Tagalog though, but it is all good. I have come to learn that I actually have deep Tagalog, while others still have a slang Tagalog.

So, this week when it comes to work, we had a good full day of work with trying to figure out how to work this area with two Americans. But we had some great lessons. We have sooooo many friends we are teaching that all have a testimony of Joseph smith and the Book of Mormon but haven't come to church yet. They are still holding on to their former comforts, so we are trying to be patient but also trying to give them pushes to take the jump of faith. But things are going great. This last week all of our friends said that they wouldn't be able to come to church this week, but next week is a for sure, so we are hoping for a lot!!

The Aton family is set to be baptized this upcoming week!! So, we will be praying and are so excited for them!! Castro family is doing good but taking a little bit of time. They keep inviting their friends into lessons though so we keep getting some new friends to teach!! Jeff is doing great too!! He wasn't able to come to church this week but has been reading the Book of Mormon, so that is good!! A lot of our other friends are still pretty new and haven't been able to get back to them, but we are excited to help them out to!!

We had a meeting this past week about a new program that is being done here in the Philippines.  The missionaries and the members are "linking arms" to get missionary work and ministering done!!  Missionaries are now going to be assigned around 5 ministering companions, each of which will have 1-2-part member families that we will go with to visit. Through this, the missionaries will encourage, but not take over, ministering and at the same time, meet families with members who have not yet been baptized. So, both ministering and missionary work gets taken care of!! It should really help here in the Philippines because around 60 percent of the members in the Philippines are either Part-member or less active.  So, we are excited to get that started to!!

Spiritual thought:

You never know where help will come from. Sometimes it will come from those you never expect it too! When you ask for the Lord’s help, He will provide, just be patient! This week for me, there was a day where I was just struggling, and I wanted to feel peace. That day we were working hard like we normally do and were able to teach 6 lessons, and every single friend (they all are not baptized) where able to share some testimony of how the Lord has helped them overcome trials, and all of what they had said, helped me feel that peace that I needed. I thought it would come from a missionary, the scriptures, a thought, even a song, but it came from the friends that we were able to meet previous and all able to teach!

Love, Elder James Dunyon

This thing is called a Halo-halo (mix-mix in english) it is a ton of things put into shaved ice

 the night the volcano spewed ash, we were coming from a members house and we used bandannas to cover up, so yeah, we were outlaws 

Jana and Jericho got baptized

Jana and Jericho got baptized this week!!!!  Here’s a picture of the entire family.  It was so AWESOME!!!! Jana is doing amazing!! Is a ward missionary, going to institute, choir practice, Mission Prep!!!!

We met a friend of a member this week who is really interested in the message too! We felt that we should visit a member family that just came back from vacation and we haven't seen a ton. When we went to their house, the mom was outside cleaning up the yard and she was excited and happy to see us. She said that her son had friends over and we should share a message with them!! So, we head on into the house and start chatting with a group of 5 teenagers and invite them to hear a message.
All of them, except for one, were actually heading out as we were showing up, but the one, Jeff is his name, stayed and was willing to listen. We shared about Christ' visit to America and he was blown away! He never thought that Christ had visited other places and was more than excited to read the Book of Mormon.

Then…..Jeff came to church today with his friend Daryl, they are friends of a member and they had a great time!! Jeff was so receptive, asking and answering questions in class!
We also met tons of new families as well this week as the Lord help us change a little what we are doing! We will keep you updated on how they are doing next week because they are all still new, but they were super nice, receptive, and willing to read the book of Mormon!!

We also had zone conference this week and it was pretty good. The mission is starting to roll things out that are brand new to everyone else, but are some of the things we did in the San Pablo Mission, so we are on an uphill now and hoping to get even better!!








We also have been able to teach our Bishops friend Fidel! He has his own water business, is really busy, but really nice and willing to listen. He doesn't have a current religion but has gone to just about every church. We shared about the Book of Mormon and he was willing to read it. The one thing is though, all the answers to his questions, he wants from the scriptures. And we are more than happy to help him with that. This last week has been such a blast in amping up my knowledge of the Book of Mormon along with the Bible and truly making them "one in hand".

D&C 42:12 “And again, the elders, priests and teachers of this church shall teach the principles of my gospel, which are in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, in the which is the fullness of the gospel."

Throughout my mission, I have really tried to use the book of Mormon at all times and to answer all questions so I love this challenge that is placed before me to do even more research and further that understanding. The goal that I would love to hit, is making all my words and lessons, straight from scripture, so they aren't my words, but words of the prophets and the Lord

Quick update on the volcano - Volcano is nothing of big importance right now. It is still on alert level 4 I think, which means that It is going to erupt, level 5 is erupting, so people aren't allowed to go close to the volcano.  Back in the 70s, the volcano was on alert level 4 for 6 months.  No more ash fallout here, just chilling on the streets in piles though, but it looks just like regular piles of dirt they leave everywhere too so it doesn't make much of a difference.

So yesterday morning, when we woke up, we walk outside and we see this GIANT HOLY BIBLE FLOAT!!! There is a Born-again church right next to our house and they were having a blast with their drums, and yea, that was the first thing we saw yesterday morning!! Here is a picture of that!










Spiritual thought goes along with the challenge given to us from President Nelson in General conference.

As he had challenged us in conference, to study the first vision and ponder the restoration, we, as missionaries, have also been challenged to read another assignment given by Elder Cook.  It is to read 3 Nephi 11 and find how this chapter relates to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I started to read over Lesson 3 in preach my gospel, Joseph Smith History, and 3 Nephi and started to realize the connection of all the things I was reading. The things the Savior taught to the Nephites in America was the fullness of the gospel, which was restored through the book of Mormon and the prophet Joseph Smith. Without the restoration, we would not have these simple truths, and the fullness of the gospel to guide us and direct us closer to God. I and my district leader are trying to go through the Saviors visit in America and see if he has reference to all 42 principles of the gospel which are listed in Preach my Gospel. So, we are really excited to further our understanding of it!!!

 

Typical intersection 

Sunset from my appartment

Sunset and laundry

Love Elder James Dunyon