Hello From San Diego!

Ok everyone!

Lots to say, lots to say! I get an hour to email at the local library and ONLY ON TUESDAY!!! I ONLY receive mail and packages on Tuesday too! So if you don't hear a response right away that's why. Plus I'm SUPER busy and hardly even have time for myself to get ready for bed even! No time No time.

Lot's of drama with my call but I just want everyone to know that it's all going great! The church obviously wanted me to be close to better medical care JUST IN CASE anything did happen. BUT NOTHING IS WRONG! I'm healthy and well and there was no change in my second MRI that I got. Salta was just too remote for me to be there in case anything did go wrong. So i was reassigned to San Diego, CA. It was hard to get the news. i was called into the MTC Presidents office and he told me. i did cry and was upset for that day and a little down the next day too...cause i mean come on...i was called to Argentina originally! but with the help of my wonderful teachers and leaders and the love and support they gave me along with my district and ESPECIALLY the lessons that they gave definitely helped me realize just how much I need to have faith and trust in the Lord... and that He works in mysterious ways. It was hard to accept it at first but like I said...with the help from those powerful lessons that seemed to be just for me, I was able to more easily accept the will and way of the Lord to come here to San Diego. I love it here! of course there's' family here and I've been here lots! So the day they told me about my change though I only had 5 days left in the mtc! I had only been there for 7 and 1/2 weeks instead of 9. They said they were doing this because my leaders all said I was great and ready to get out there....otherwise the next group leaving for San Diego would be end of September. So they shipped me out early. I was all by myself at the airport and on the plane. No normal procedures for me. No exiting group or companion. I was the only one coming into the mission because I had come a week after the recent group came for transfers. The Mission President, Pres. Donaldson, was there to greet me in the airport. He's super nice and WAY awesome! Then my companions...yes I'm in a trio....came to pick me and my junk up. haha. It was p-day so that was nice to just have an easy day after all this new shock that I was thrown into. I didn't get the regular orientation or meet the president's wife or go to there home or anything. Then 6pm that night we went to appointments.....in Spanish. haha I just sat and listened. The next day was zone conference and was sweet! Pres. Donaldson is an AMAZING MAN!!!! Tons of DEEP deep insight and studied Hebrew and has deep stuff about the gospel and scriptures and knows everything!!!! He's a really intelligent man.
I have to share something interesting too. I definitely don't mean to brag or anything but my trainer told me that when he was set apart as a mission president by one of the 12 apostles, they told him in his blessing that they would send the best missionaries in the world to him! He told us that! So I thought that was way cool and it made me feel a lil better because this whole week I've felt totally inadequate and useless because it's all so new and different from the privileged life in the MTC. Made me kinda forget Argentina too.. haha.

I'm in San Tee, live with members in their basement and sleep on the crapiest hardest mattress haha. My trainer is Hermana Pineda who was born here but is Nicaraguan. My other comp is sister Thomas from Kansas city. I love them both! They rock and we get along really well. It's hot here, but pretty in it's own way. All the hills around are covered in these huge boulders and just weird looking.....brown mostly but lots of palm trees and other trees around and flowers and just pretty. I have this INSANE amount of love for the people already and I don't even know them. It's amazing!. I love this feeling of being able to help people feel the spirit and grow more to want it in their lives and to follow the gospel and apply it in their lives and truly see how it changes there lives for the better.
We only have 30 min to exercise which stinks because it's right when we get up at 6:30 which I have NO ENERGY AT ALL! haha. Oh and I'm definitely gonna starve cause there's hardly ever time to eat because we are always running to appointments. we have like 9-12 investigators, so it's crazy! Three girls with one shower stinks...plus we can't go upstairs unless we all go since we live with members so that stinks too because if we want a snack we all have to go. haha I sleep and shower with the ants but it's coo! we tight! haha :-)

We're the Guinea pig mission so anything new to teach or how to teach we do it and then let the rest of the missions in the world know if it works or not. We're Spanish speaking and have lots of Hispanics around for us to teach. If we talk to anyone in English we send the English speaking elders to teach them because were supposed to do Spanish only. We talk a lot in English though so it's hard!!!!!!! HARD to get better at Spanish. but I jump in the lessons when I know what's going on and know how to say stuff. haha. Lots of the time though I have a hard time understanding what people say because of different dialects and slang and stuff. My comps all think that I have way good Spanish though so that's comforting.

Now for the best part! I GOT A BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!!!! lol It doesn't really count fully as mine but my comps say it does. I got here Tuesday and Miguel Soto our investigator is GOLDEN! He believes it all wants to apply it in his life and follow Jesus Christ and did. He really has a strong testimony. He was taught for 3 weeks and I helped teach him from Tuesday to Sunday. He was baptized on Sunday the 15th and I sang "I Believe In Christ" for a special musical number...in Spanish of course. So that was awesome. Great to hear his testimony too. It was strong. Also a local member family, except the mom, I really love! Marco's is 23 and just got his mission call last night to California Fresno! We got to be there for it which was cool! His sister Paloma is 17 and super sweet!!!! and their mom Maria is SO NICE I love her. They have fed us twice. which is always nice but we sisters never get fed....never make appts which I always root for but it never happens. We only have an hour for meals so the food is instant stuff that I have to eat cause that hour turns into 30-45 minutes because we're always late or running somewhere so I'm hungry lots of the time but I'm gonna get more munchy stuff to grab and go for the day.

Well this is a novel now. I love you all! I love my mission! I love my comps and I love being a missionary!

ps. We have a car....which stinks. I hate it but for San Diego it's necessary. I will have to drive too once Mom and Rod send me a driving record from the DMV or wherever your supposed to get it. I can't till I get that and need it ASAP please!

Con Amor,

Auntie :-) Hermana Dunn

I LOVE YOU LINCOLN SKY FOWLER!!!! hope i get pics of him soon! OH YEAH !!!! my mailing address is

7404 Armstrong Pl

San Diego, CA 92111-4912

United States

Friends, please use this address to write me and FAMILY please Email me or write....! We come to email in the morning and get our mail later in the day so if you have any questions for me and want them answered right away then email them so I can answer you through email. Just remember I only get an hour too. and I write novels. haha.

pss I don't know what will happen, but I wonder if after I get my 6 month MRI and everything is good and no change,....if they'll send me to Argentina then. I have no idea. Pres Donaldson doesn't know either....any thoughts?

To my district and teacher! I met Elder Moreno Elder Christianson and Sister Voyles from the District movies! haha! It was cool!

Mission Change!

Hey everyone! Tawny's mission has been changed to the San Diego, CA Spanish Speaking Mission by an apostle. The Salta Mission was just to remote if there was any medical changes with her cyst. She's really bummed about the change but is handling it very maturely! She was comforted in the fact that only an apostle can change a mission but of course she's still bummed. Let's be sure to keep her in our prayers to help boost her morale. She reports Tuesday at 5am to the San Diego Mission cutting out about 3 weeks of MTC time. We'll keep you posted about where to send mail and stuff to. She doesn't have an address yet so we'll let you know when we know.

week 6 at the MTC

Well! last week was dramatic with my MRI. News is that there is no change in it and that my call is now in the hands of the prophet and apostles and Drs in SLC right now and they will have the final say in if I stay in Salta or not. the Dr. here that's a tough cookie was saying that he would at least root for Buenos Aires if I changed and still stayed in Argentina cause there's a British hospital there....but I honestly don't know when or how I'm gonna hear back from SLC. Oy vey! Well it's been extremely hard to think that i might not be going to Salta anymore but throughout the week I have been blessed by my amazing teachers and leaders here! they have given amazing lessons that seemed to be just for me and what I needed to here. I've been trying to just be patient and accept the will of the Lord. it's been hard since my heart is set on Salta but then this lesson that hermano Messer gave was amazing! He compared Matt 25 the parable of the 10 virgins to the premortal life and how we were given talents to come here to earth and use and magnify and gain more to help others hear His gospel. He thought that in the pre-mortal life we made promises to people that we would come and find them in this life and teach them the gospel and boy that made me think, "wow I really do need to just accept wherever I go with an open heart and a smile cause I made promises to people and the Lord only knows where they are and that somewhere might not be in Salta. So I'll wait to hear from SLC" Again I still would love love love to stay in Salta but I have NO CLUE at this point. But I've been learning my lesson. I love my teachers. They are sooooooo awesome!!!!! And that conference talk I told you about in the last email...."but if not..." did anyone read it?! It's amazing and that helped me a lot too! Just know everyone...that the Lord gives us trials in our life to test us and our faith in him. He gives them to us to make us stronger to learn and grow. Is that not the whole point for this life on earth? To learn and grow, gain experience and see how well we endure it? When we endure it well, meaning don't complain but be happy and still try and enjoy life, then Heavenly Father will bless us even more and help us through our trials by giving us peace, being with us and giving us patience. Look up D&C 121:7-9 it's a comforting scripture. Just press forward with faith in Christ and ask yourself, "what is Heavenly Father trying to teach me right now?" and then work hard to be obedient and he will Greatly bless your life. D&C 130:20-22? Just do your very best. That's all He asks of us. Well I went to the RC as we do every week and we had to make TWO calls in Spanish!!! Our comp was aloud to listen in and hermano Hidalgo listened in and helped us with what they said so that we could talk to them. GUESS WHAT! my VERY first call IN SPANISH the girl wanted to meet with the MISSIONARIES!!!! I bore my testimony to her in Spanish about eternal families and she totally agreed to the missionaries coming over! I have to give credit to my comp and teacher cause they helped me with what she said but that was my very first person I sent the missionaries too! She almost sounded Mormon already ha ha I wasn't sure if she was or not but obviously not! That was awesome! ha ha I was beaming that day! Well I don't have too much else to say except thank you Brenna for the letters and I NEED your WY address right now so I can send you the one I have for you to Cheyenne.
I love you all and have no idea when I will hear from SLC or if I'll get to call you or not but hopefully soon! Love you all!

Hermana Tawny Dunn

MRI Results

Hello everyone,
If you read Tawny's latest email home from Tuesday you will know the reason I am writing this...
I just wanted to let you know that I waited long enough today for a call from Provo with Tawny's MRI results... I finally called the MTC Medical this afternoon just before closing and talked to the nurse to find out what the results of the MRI were....

It remains the same, No growth in the cyst!!! As fully expected...

The MTC & Dr's are now looking into the availability of an adequate medical facility in Salta for the recommended replete MRI in six months. That will likely determine if her August 23rd departure (still the same) remains to Salta!! Then they will meet together to discuss the plan, whether it be Salta, somewhere bigger in Argentina or ?? At this point it sounds quite possible for a mission change, but we will see??
I will keep you posted...
Karel

Week 5 at the MTC

Ok...there's a lot to say. Thank you mom and Rod for the goodies package. I just got it yesterday because of the mail being closed on Saturday. It's funny though, because there are PLENTY of goodies and all you can eat food here at the MTC which is terrible! but I'm trying to control myself ha ha. But the goodies are good! Maybe just not another box though ha ha. If anyone want's to send me stuff, a good idea is pictures! I love them! and everyone else does too. :-)

Please copy and send me an article from April 2004, Sunday morning session of General Conference. (sent) It is called "But if Not..." by a member of the 70 and send it to me? It's really good and I encourage you all to read it. It's about having faith whether or not things go the way you planned.

Well, the beginning of this week stunk! Yesterday during gym time I went to check and see if they had scheduled my MRI for next week. As most of you know I have a stupid brain cyst thing and it's given me a lot of grief !! (but no physical side affects) As I did that, the Dr. came in and the girl who was scheduling it asked him some questions about it. Then he, a little insensitively and frustrated, asked me why I hadn't "taken care of all this before I came to the MTC" (we did!) and that in my situation he would probably say that I'm not going to go to Salta because they would want me to stay in the states if anything about my MRI looked questionable! I told him that Salt Lake City Medical had reviewed it and that the Dr's had approved me to go to Salta... as long as this MRI looked good. He was just kind of rude and said that they had never let him in on anything ... so he was kinda taking it out on me!! He just kept mentioning how he doubted I would still go to Salta and that I needed to get the MRI right away! So they made the appointment for that day asap. I asked if I even had time to go change into my skirt because we were in gym clothes... they said no, you have to go now. Well I had forgotten my name tag, so we went back up and got it and I just started crying because of the Dr and the fact that I wanted a blessing before I went to get the MRI, but I couldn't because all of the elders in my district were at the gym. We went to the classroom to get my cough drops so that I wouldn't cough and move during the MRI and luckily my teacher hmo Messer was there early.. I asked him to give me a blessing so he pulled a teacher out of the hallway and they gave me one. ....still bawling I went out to the curb and waited for the shuttle and my elders came by and asked what was wrong and said a prayer with me and my other teacher hmo Hidalgo too. Originally they wouldn't let us go off MTC campus in gym clothes but they let us since I had to get there right away. I got there and they had to stick me 3 times to put an IV in because my veins are too small, so that stunk. But luckily I was calm and didn't cough during the MRI. Then we went back to the MTC and I got to call mom and talk to her for 15 min and tell her what was up, so that was nice. When I went back to the Dr. here that had been kinda mean, he was like, "you didn't take your original MRI with you?!" I was like ...uh, NO I thought you were going to look at that and compare the two and you NEVER told me to take it!! So there was TOTAL lack of communication throughout the whole day and I had to go BACK to the clinic to give them my first MRI. SO, it was a long, stinky day and I was super tired and had a headache from it all in the end.... But life goes on and the elders, my companion and my teachers were all very loving and supportive.
I went to see the results today but they of course are not back yet, so I have to wait till tomorrow, which means you all will have to wait till next p-day unless I get to call home again. ugh!!
So what have I learned from all this......Patience and long suffering and to trust in the Lord and have faith in him. I've done all I can do and now it's all up to him. That's where the talk, "But If Not..." comes in.... so read it everyone!

On the up side, I got to go to the temple today!! It's finally open, so that was GREAT and felt really nice.

Well love you all!

Hermana Dunn

Mission Photos!

Tawny's district group photo by the world map from left to right

Elder Bunnell, Elder walker, Elder Edwards, Elder Cathro, Tawny, Hermana Papenfuss, Elder Nelson, Elder Johanssen and Elder Obray (who is behind Elder Johannsen and you can only see his ear.)

Tawny's district group photo by the temple. Back row from left: Elder Nelson, Walker, Johannsen, Bunnell & Obray. Front Row from Left: Elder Edwards, Hermana Papenfuss, Hermana Dunn, & elder Cathro.


Tawny and MTC Sign

Tawny Studying


Tawny and her companion Hermana Papenfuss

Tawny and World Map

This is a picture of Tawny and Nicole Meyers. Nicole Meyers is a friend of Tawny's from Coeur d' Alene who got there a couple weeks before Tawny did! So funny how those things work sometimes.


Hermana Papenfuss studying


First Day Dork :)

Hermana Papenfuss First Day

Week 4 at the MTC

OH WOW!

I sure learned my lesson this week ha ha. Also another lesson as well. So we are just starting to speak more Spanish now and starting to outline the lessons in Spanish. well the plan of salvation, lesson 2, is hard! And in Spanish it's worse ha ha cause there's different tenses you have to use which is confusing. So the other day we practiced lesson 2 in Spanish for the first time just winging it and it took me FOREVER!!! The language is just all jumbled right now in my mind and I still need to learn more vocab everyday so I'm struggling to get it all organized and use it right. Well I was frustrated, and for this last Sunday the 18th or whatever the topic for everyone to write their 5 min talks was the plan of salvation.! Since I was called last week, the counselors wife said I wouldn't be called again cause they like to hear from other people. So I started to write my talk and then quickly got frustrated with my language skills or lack thereof and quit. The next day, Sunday, we went to church and had opening exercises and then of course they announced the speakers right before they are supposed to speak. Well he called an elder up and then he said MY NAME!!!!!!!!!! You can imagine the shock on my face and on everyone else in the congregation! ha ha! They all looked back at me and I was just in shock mouthing to them, "DID HE REALLY JUST CALL ME AGAIN?" Everyone was like ....uhhhhh! ha ha including me. I couldn't believe it! ha ha So I was like well, I guess I have to, so I had to borrow my companion's Spanish scriptures and she was nice enough to find me a scripture because I was just sitting there flabbergasted not having a CLUE what I was gonna say! and ONLY having gone over it in Spanish ONCE!!! ha ha OH NO!!! So I took up the lil plan of salvation pamphlet that I had and opened it up to the diagram and just looked at that and had one scripture in mind and ended up not using my companions, so as I awkwardly walked up to the stand I stopped to make sure that they wanted me to talk and said...."Well I talked last week" and Brother Jergens, who is always stern and blunt and kinda intimidating said, GOOD. lol. So I had no idea what I was gonna say. At first I said awkwardly... "surprise..... para mi!! (for me)" ha ha and everyone laughed. Then I wanted everyone to know that I hadn't prepared a talk ...and to kinda rub it in brother Jergens face secretly, that I was still doing it off the top of my head. I went for it though and talked mostly about the pre-mortal life, the fall and the atonement. And I did pretty dang good! The words just kept coming to my mind and the conjugations!! Luckily I was reading about the Plan of salvation in that pamphlet before church. And the lord just totally helped me!!! ha ha I kept looking at the native speakers for the support and when I would say a word with question in my voice as to whether or not it was the right conjugation they would smile and nod at me ha ha. Then when I bore my testimony the spirit definitely came and helped any lack of speaking ability. This whole time the two counselors couldn't understand me because they both speak German and no Spanish!! I was kinda bummed because I did pretty dang good for barely going over the lesson! Then brother Jergens had to give me a hard time on the stand and kinda scold me that I wasn't prepared but whatever. ha ha. I learned the lesson to always be prepared which I normally am! But my companion told me something different. She said that she really didn't think it was to teach me to be prepared because she said that I was always prepared for lessons and everything, but that it was a lesson to trust in the Lord and not in my outlines or talks! To follow the spirit and do and say what the Lord wanted me to say! I hadn't even thought of it like that but it's totally true! Trusting in the Lord may seem hard at times because we like to know "now!" and control our lives, but just remember that the Lord is the one in control and will watch over us and we need to trust in him. So I learned two lessons that day!! ha ha.
The best way to be prepared spiritually is to always study the gospel and the words of the Lord and the prophets and understand them...then you can do anything and say what the Lord wants you to say, like what was doing....hopefully ha ha. Read D&C 84:85

I would like to challenge everyone to read their scriptures (particularly the B.O.M.) for at least 10 min each day and I promise that if you do that, your day will go so much better and more organized or whatever! Try it for a week and see how it goes!

Pues, LES AMO!!! I love you guys!

Hasta La Vista BABY!

Tawny

PS....might I add that Sunday....the line for the showers was horrendous!!! and I didn't have time to take a shower that day....so naturally....the day I don't shower and am not prepared I get called A SECOND TIME in a row to speak!! ha-ha

OH AND they called me up because they forgot that I went last week!!!! THEY FORGOT! They said I was a good sport and a trooper and so did the native speakers who thought I did really good. ha ha. I don't mind that I got called up again...just having to do it in Spanish for the first time was the only part I minded.