week 3 at the MTC

Hello all!!!

One thing I wanted to share this week is, making time for the Lord. I've learned a lot more about when you make time for the Lord, go to church, say your prayers, serve others and strive to keep his commandments HE WILL BLESS YOU!!!! You make time for Him and He will make time for YOU!!! Remember that! I can promise you He will because I've seen it in my life!
In the Referral Center I talked to this man on the phone for 15 MINUTES and basically gave him the first half of the first lesson, all by myself!!!! It was AWESOME! He's strict Catholic which he kept saying, but was interested in the Mormon church....either for the heck of it or for more!? I couldn't tell, but I re-sent his order which he had never received and also a book of Mormon, because he wanted one. He was really nice and said that it was really nice talking to me too. He wanted me to call back in 2 weeks so I will, to see if he got the things and to talk too him more. My heart was pounding like crazy talking to him as it was basically the first time I taught most of the lesson to someone real and not role playing....and all by myself!!!! lol He didn't think the name Tawny was very feminine but loved my middle name when he asked for my name again hahaha.. So mom, I guess you slipped up on giving me a good name hahaha. Just kidding. I laughed when he said that.

ANOTHER AMAZING STORY!!!! Sundays, everyone is supposed to prepare a 3-5 min talk on a given subject IN SPANISH plus include your testimony of course. Then they randomly pick 2 speakers that morning in sacrament and a member of the branch presidency is the concluding speaker. GUESS who got called up! ME! hahah Yup the first Sunday we did that and the topic was on the restoration of the gospel. haha. I did pretty good even though my heart was in my throat. lol. .....In Spanish!! By the way my Spanish is coming slowly. I've forgotten a lot and yesterday we had an "English fast" where we could ONLY speak Spanish and it was HARD!!!!! It stunk because I am so slow at speaking and conjugating and putting it all together to make sense. So it''s been a little frustrating.

THEE BEST STORY NOW! Sunday night we had a fireside like always. My companion and I were a little slow getting there and the room was FULL!! We were just standing there trying to find open seats and about to go to the overflow when this elder walks up to us randomly and says , " I have two seats, do you want them? and we were like OK! He took us all the way up to the 4th row from the front, kind of on the side and next to the piano. As we were singing the opening hymn guess who walked through the door! ELDER DALLIN H OAKS! Member of the 12 apostles! We were literally sitting 3 rows behind him, 20 ft or so away!! His daughter, "Jenny Oaks Baker" was the speaker/performer that night!!!! IT was AMAZING!!! This girl started violin at age 4 and went to some crazy school in PA and Julliard too I think and performed with so many people and at Carnegie Hall! Look her up on the internet. She played about 7 songs? and spoke in between! THEY WERE AMAZING arrangements of, "Be Still My Soul", "I Need Thee Every Hour", "Amazing Grace", "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" , This is the Christ" and some other songs that were AMAZING!!! Her nephew played the piano and I could read her part and his from my seat because I was on the isle! She's world renowned or something or should be! It was beautiful and I was flipping out how amazing it was and how I was sitting SO DANG CLOSE! IT WAS SO AMAZING!!! I went up to her nephew Jared Oaks, after the fireside, introduced myself and asked if they had arranged those. He said no but that she had violin albums out with arrangements like it, that I could buy and a Christmas one too! So I want to get those and her CD's when I come home. The elder that seated us was really a blessing that day. We asked why and how he picked us?? He just said "you were the ones"! It blew my mind! That probably made my whole MTC right there just getting to hear her and her testimony. Plus sitting right next to Dallin H Oaks!

I only have 5 min left. Sorry I can't send pictures to you! AGGGHHH! I don't know why but these computers here won't allow me to! Sorry I'll just have to print them out and send them.

Love you all,

Tawny

July 6th

Ok so 30 min on email stinks so I'm gonna write you the rest of what I had to say in my July 6th email, "Trust in the Lord"

My motto for my mission is "No Regrets!" along with the lines from Elder Jeffery R Hollands talk about Missionary work, that I loved! (1) When you study...STUDY! (2) When you pray...PRAY! (3) When you work...WORK! "You only have 18 months! And then the rest of your life to think about what you did on the Mission!"

The devotionals and firesides and all the meetings we have all the time are amazing! You feel the spirit so strong and they just make you want to work so hard and also be a better person. I think one the THEE most important things I've learned here as a missionary is that it is NOT about you! It is about finding those that the Lord has prepared for you to help & to teach. It is about the Lord's children! There are millions of people out there waiting to hear & learn about the gospel and it is our duty to follow the promptings of the spirit always & find them. One thing that has been stressed is that we need to look at these people as the Lord would see them. Love them like He loves them, treat them as He would treat them, see them as He would see them... Picture everyone dressed in white, because that's how the Lord sees us. Sadly, there are those prideful missionaries out there that are only in it for the # of baptisms... I hate to say it, but there are and that is SO NOT what they teach us to do here! But rather to truly grow to love the people as Christ & Heavenly Father loves them and to truly help them in whatever needs they have and teach them how the gospel really blesses them and their families and their lives. Through the Gospel of Jesus Christ we can truly return to live with our families and with Heavenly Father. That's His whole purpose for it!!!! To give us joy and to grow and then to return to live with Him for eternity with our family's.

There are two places that we go for teaching experience. The RC which is the Referral Center, where we actually call people up and confirm whether or not they got the DVD's or free Bibles or Books of Mormon that they requested from our website. In there our teacher challenged us to bear testimony to them or teach a little bit about the church. It is nerve wracking but exciting at the same time. Cause you don't want to tick people off, but at the same time you can really teach them or share something that they needed to hear that day. I've mostly got answering machines but with a couple people I've talked about Heavenly Father's love for us and the atonement and Jesus Christ and eternal families... It was awesome! Then there's the TRC "Teaching Resource Center" where volunteers from the public ...who are members...come and act as investigators so we can practice teaching with them. That's what Spike did! Only he does it for the Portuguese speakers. When we first taught it was awesome!!! Having the spirit in the lesson really is the only thing that matters. What converts people is the spirit...the missionary is only acting as a mouthpiece for the Lord.

So.... Here's something I never thought I would admit or even come close to think! It has to do with a lesson I had about enduring to the end & never giving up or turning around!!! They used this marathon analogy in one of our classes. A marathon runner from Tanzania was competing in the Olympics or something and got injured before the end of the race. Because of that injury he limped the rest of the course not giving up until he crossed the finish line. He said: "My country didn't send me 5,000 miles to start the race. My country sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race!." It made a triathlon sound sooo much more appealing. Purely for motivational purposes and being able to say, I worked hard, I endured and I made it!!! No matter what time you got, it was the effort that counted and I just thought, "Huh...maybe someday... I might want to do a triathlon!?" HA! Then I laughed hysterically at that thought & said to myself..."That would be the day!!! ...long from now when I could actually be fit to do one!" But I think... if I had strong motivation & maybe even someone to do it with?....Em? Leah? Up for it?! ... That I might actually try! But that's a long time from now. Who knows, I never thought I would go on a mission & look at me now!! Same goes for the triathlon thought... Maybe I will Someday... LOL. "Maybe" & "Someday" are KEY words in that statement people... I'm not makin any guarantees.. HA HA!

One last story. Just something really stupid & embarrassing but really funny haha! The other day my companion and I were walking to class and one of the Elders who is our Zone leader & really cute I might add, called us from across the way. We turned around & talked to him from where we were. Well, when we said goodbye I started to walk & immediately turned around & LITERALLY walked right into a pole! LOL! well almost... I was a half of an inch away from hitting my nose/face & probably get knocked out because I turned around pretty fast. Well my reflexes we're cat-like luckily & I caught the pole & pushed myself back & my head jerked away from it as well... but basically I walked into a pole!...and a bunch of Elders were walking by too & probably saw. Luckily elder Grover, the Hot zone leader, didn't see! Hermana Papenfuss and I burst out laughing. As probably all the girls at the office will too. ha ha... yes I'm giving you permission to spread my humiliation for the "Humor at the MTC". LOL It was pretty dang funny though. I guess I was just so "awwed" by Elder Grover. LOL! HA!

Well that's all for this week.
Love You! Hermana Dunn

Week 2 at the MTC

Hola everyone!
Well ALOT has happened the two weeks I've been here and it has definitely gotten better. It's good to know that I'm surrounded by other missionaries that are going through the exact same things as I am. We help each other and encourage each other. If there's one thing that I've learned here it's how wonderful it feels to always have the spirit with you. Not that I didn't before, but here at the MTC you can feel it SOOOOO DANG STRONG! All the time too!! It's truly amazing the joy that comes out of living the gospel. It's really not just rules and do's and don'ts, but ways to help edify and strengthen our lives and family ties here on earth and have a happy and abundant life. PMG (preach my gospel) is amazing and gets better every time I read it. So I encourage ALL to read it and study it and mark it up! Just today I read a single sentence that spoke to me louder than anything out of the entire book. That is... "Remember, however, that your confidence and faith should be in Christ, not in yourself." pg 97. No matter how many times I told my self something similar to this sentence it never pierced me as much as it did today and totally made everything that I've been learning here make even more sense. And what I've learned, that as missionaries it doesn't matter what our strengths are or how good a lesson plan we have, but that the most important thing is to teach with the spirit and follow the spirit...even if it means throwing out your lesson plan in that very moment...because like recorded in D&C, it says to study the gospel and scriptures as often as possible and the Lord will tell us what to say in that very moment. Now don't get me wrong...self confidence is good and healthy and helpful...but not as important or crucial as having confidence in the Lord! He is our loving Heavenly Father! He loves us and we are literally his children! He is loving and forgiving and caring and is sad when we're sad and happy when we're happy. More importantly he wants the best for us and knows us better than we know ourselves. Our lives are in his hands and when we show our faith in him and our confidence in him and do what he asks and commands, he blesses us GREATLY for it! More than anyone can imagine. Showing our obedience to his plan shows our love for him. That's one thing that I've come to appreciate and learn, that when we are obedient , we are blessed with the spirit. I have definitely learned that I depend greatly on the Lord! That is why the MTC is so hard though, with all the doctrine and lessons to learn and how to talk to people and how to help people and then to learn a whole new language all in just 9 weeks!!! So little time.....it really is good though because like I say, we all depend on the Lord and sometimes forget just how much we really do. But I know that with his help and with our effort and sincere desire to learn and do....we can do anything with the Lord cause he is always by our side ready to help us when we ask.

It's amazing with how strong the spirit is here and how isolated and scheduled we are. I forget a lot about the outside world. I saw a friend of mine who works here, Kofi, and he called out my name...Tawny....and it was SO WIERD hearing it! I pretty much have forgotten my own name ha ha. I also saw Spike here one day! He volunteers to be "an investigator" that we practice teaching. I've also forgotten about music ha ha. Because they don't allow us to listen to it ....Mainly because the only time we are in our rooms is to sleep....but of course we still sing. Throughout the day I often have hymns stuck in my head but then occasionally a few songs from different musicals will pop into my head. ha ha Random I know but oh well.
My companion Hermana Papenfuss is from Fountain Green, UT and is really sweet! I've learned a lot from her including patience as I move a lot quicker than she does ha ha. I have definitely learned a lot about the scriptures and doctrine and whatnot just from her as well. She has a lot of great input and we get along really well. We balance each other out I think. The guys in my district (class) are awesome! Elder Bunnell is going to Las Vegas, Elder Obray going to Paraguay Asuncion, Elder Cathro Fort Lauterdale FL, Elder Johannsen Argentina Bahia Blanca, Elder Nelson Argentina Neuquen, Elder Edwards Eugene Oregon, Elder walker Carlsbad CA and Hermana Papenfuss Argentina Resistencia. I love them all.
For all you Dr's in the fam! Elder Cathro...yesterday just out of nowhere his right side of his face went paralyzed! but he's ok....He went to the hospital and it was NOT a stroke, but Bells Palsy. They don't know why or how he got it but he's been a good sport about it. It could last 2-6 weeks they say and he's taking Prednisone and Acyclovir. He can't shut his eye or raise his eyebrow and it's really funny to see him try to smile. So yeah it's a mystery why he got it but he's a good sport about it.

I only have 5 min left. Oh this is weird... I met an elder who looked really familiar and it turns out he went to Canfield middle school!!! He's a year younger so Emily look in the yearbook for me....his name is Phillip Mckay and his brother who's a year older is Matthew Mckay ha ha and get this!!! THEY WERE IN DALTON GARDENS WARD!!! only for middle school though...not high school. He's cute and looked so familiar but I don't recognize the name.

So love you all! Hope to hear from you by dearelder.com!

Love Hermana Dunn

TAWNY'S FIRST LETTER HOME!

Ok first rule of emailing me.. I only get 30 min on my pday only to email......that's read and write.. i now have 18 min left and it times me and cuts me off.. plus the service is really slow and keeps cutting out.. they also don't have a slot on the computers for the memory card and mom i dont have the usb cord that can plug into your camera........i need it please if you want to see pics.. so sorry no pics this week.. next rule! please use dearelder.com you need to set it up or whatever......you need my name my mailbox # which is 182 and my Departure date which is Aug 23rd.. you can email me everyday and they print it out here for me and give it to me to read at dinner.. that way i dont have a million long emails to read only on pday in only 30min and then respond.. so please use that if you want to email lots.. well the first couple days were overwhellming.. i felt inadequite, not organized and felt like i knew nothing!!! which i still kinda do.. but i made it to sunday which people said from there on would get better and would fly from there! so here i am.. i'm in intermediate spanish and leave in 9 weeks on aug 23rd.. I feel like i have forgotten ALOT of spanish! oy ......it's gonna be hard......but then i think of the people that are learning manderin, vietnamese, or laotian in 12 weeks and am greatful i have spanish.. haha.. it's super busy!!! wake up at 6:30 only i get up at 6 to take a shower which is nice cause it's like my only alone time.. theres 6 girls in our room and it smells like feet! hahaha it's sick and we can't open the window plus wer're on the top floor so it's super hot! but it's fun.. my companion is Hermana Papenfuss.. she's from fountain green UT and 24 and got her masters in agriculture......cherrry trees. she's super sweet and nice and i like her.. my district which is also my class mates are awesome! we are the only girls and theres 7 other elders.. my teacher Hermano Messer is AMAZING!!!!!!! i love him! he's awesome and totally makes the MTC for me! he went to chile on his mish and speaks amazing and teaches SO DANG WELL! i wanna be able to teach like him.. getting organized though is tough.. that's all you do though is study study study and class room is wehre you live and then you eat all the time which the food isn't that great or great for you and all we do is sit allllll day from 7am to 9pm.. when i first got here i was jsut like......what the heck am i doing! i can't teach! or speak! ahhhh! but i'm putting alllll my trust and prayers and faith in the lord and know that he will make these weak things become strong unto me.. Either12:27 is my new fav scrip! our branch pres is awesome and really nice and of course interviewed me about my MRI which sucked just cause i hate thinking they might keep me in the US if they want.. but i really don't think i will........i still feel like salta is where i'm going.. i have one scheduled for beginning of august! ahhh i have 6 min! oh i saw my friend Ryan! that was fun! he left yesterday for australia and i also see nicole alot.. oh and i saw RICHard G Scott! i walked right passed him and didn't know it till i finally realized who it was......he's short haha.. it was weird too cause i felt this strange reverance as i passed him.. we listened to elder oaks talk but i was in the overflow.. oh mom please send me 501 verbs in spanish to me! and brenna thank you for your package i loved it! oh and mom please send me more photos of CDA Fam and the back yard! love you all got 3 min before it kicks me off so love ya! use Dear elder!

hermana dunn!

June 23rd off to the MTC!

Getting in some last minute studying on the way to the airport at 4:30AM

At the airport!

goodbye's are always the worst but she'll make a great missionary!


Tawny's farewell cake! yay for Argentina!!!

News at home from Karel: "Upon returning from the airport, I found Tawny's cat Jazzy under Tawny's bed where she stayed the entire day, a sure sign that she is unhappy with Tawny's departure. She had been acting unhappy and aware days before, as Tawny packed her bags. This morning showed further signs of her disapproval by leaving 4 small unwanted complaints on the floor around the house instead of in the litter box!! Hopefully she recovers soon!"

Argentina Mailing Address!

Argentina Mailing (letters) Address!

Sister Tawny Nadene Dunn
Argentina Salta Mission
POB 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150
USA

(This is ONLY FOR LETTERS!!! No packages through this please. It's actually really expensive for me to get the packages too, because of customs...so check with my mom first if you are thinkin about sending me anything haha. And this is pouch mail so you only need to worry about regular postage and then Salt Lake will take care of the international postage.)

MTC mailing address!

Tawny's MTC address!

Sister Tawny Nadene Dunn
MTC Mailbox #182
ARG-SAL 0824
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

(This address will only be useable from June 23rd till mid to end of august about.
After that I will be in Argentina and it will be a different address.)