HOW I FEEL BEING OUT ON MY MISSION FOR 6 MONTHS: *kshfisufhsfnslfjksf​u* Yeah.(Week 26)

Hola everyone! How are you doing? :)

This email is going to be short.. Sorry! :P

This week we got a lot of things done!  We really wanted to focus on visiting members whom the bishop assigned to us, and we contacted most of them!  It was great!  We visited a lot of less actives, actives, and visited our investigators.  We got dropped (kind of) by Maria, so that kind of stinks...  She had not been showing up to church for the past 4 weeks, so we called her asking her what was up, and it turns out she is in Riverside... :P  She told us she would call us when she was back... Yeah.  But it is okay, she is really strong, and I know she will get baptized!  It is just a matter of when. :)  Anyways! :)  Margarita is doing great! :)  she is sooooo excited to get baptized!  Unfortunately, because of the lack of time, and for the fact that we still have a few more lessons to teach, we are going to move her baptismal date to May 17th! :) So yeah! Super excited! :)  Yasmin is same as usual!  Still trying to work with her!  We are having a lesson with her today hopefully! :)

Well... Not much more to say!  My brain feels a little fried this morning... I don't know why!  Oh well!  

Oh!  6 Months out on my mission!!! WOOOOOO!!! Time goes by really fast! :P  I feel really weird.  yeah.  I just feel... numb.  It is not a feeling I really like! :P  Oh well!  

Oh!  So, it has been raining a lot lately here!  Very dark and gloomy for the past week, but it is now nice and beautiful!  It was very refreshing! :) 

Love you guys!!!! :)

Con amor,

Hna. Rachel Duncan

I CAN'T READ COLORS! (Week 25)

This week has been wonderful!  I love my new companions!  Hna. Williams and Hna. Christensen are the best!  It has been interesting working in a trio... But I really like it!  :)  Hna. Christensen is so great!  She is so hard working and she is so determined!  Her Spanish is so good, and all the members are really impressed by it!  She understands and speaks a lot, so that is really good!  We have had a lot of teaching opportunities this week, and she has jumped right in!  We have taught her most of the big lessons, such as the Resto, Book of Mormon, Plan, and Gospel.  We have taught all of them too, so it has been great!  As trainers, we are really trying to focus of getting studies in.  They are so important!  And they truly make a huge difference!  She has been adapting so well, and she is just giving her all, so I am super excited to work with her and with Hna. Williams! :)

We picked up to new investigators this week!  They are both girls, Mia (Me-uh) and Aris (Ah-rees).  Mia is maybe 13 years old, and she lives with Mariana and Ana, who we visit a lot.  She just sat in on our lesson and we showed them the He Lives Video.  They both really liked it! :)  We asked them is we could have a return appointment with them for this Wednesday, and they said yes. :) Quite honestly, is Mia ready for the main lessons? We really don't think so.  We are just going to work with her little by little and get her faith going.  There really was no indication given that she is what you would consider "Golden"  but hey, we are going to take every opportunity we get to teach someone the Restored Gospel! :)  Aris we actually met in the middle of our lesson with Margarita!  We were teaching Margarita The Plan of Salvation, and one of her friends was walking by, and Margarita invited her to sit down and listen to our message!  Does that count as an investigator present lesson?  Haha :)  Anyways, The lesson with margarita went really good!  She was very accepting to our message and we confirmed her baptismal date with her, for the second of May!  That is next Saturday!!! We have so much to teach her still, so we are going to be working really hard!  But Aris seems really interested, she said she felt like she needed to come by, and TAADAAH!  She also mentioned that she feels like "something is missing" .... WE HAVE WHAT YOU ARE MISSING! :D

So funny story!  I have been getting my senses kind of mixed up this week.. I am now the designated driver in our companionship. (Yikes!)  Our first day together was kind of scary.  haha  Putting a farm town girl in a city is not really fun, haha, but I really enjoy driving, so it's not a big deal!  But anyways!  So I was driving and we were heading to the Store and I was in the turning lane to turn left, and for some silly reason, I stopped (because the light was red) and then I started going again!  (AHHHHHH!)  But I quickly stopped and Hna. Christensen and hna. Williams may or may not have freaked out... And then this comes out of my mouth.. "AH! I'M SORRY! I CAN'T READ COLORS!"

......

Let's just say that both my companions were dying of laughter.

Not much more to share this week!  I hope you are all doing great! :)

Love you guys! :)

Con Amor,

Hna. Rachel Duncan

I hope you have a great week and know that you are in our prayers! :)  Thank you! 

Love,

Hna. Rachel Duncan 

I'M GOING TO BE A MOMMY!!!!! ;D (Week 24)

Hola Everyone!  :)

How are you guys doing?!  I hope you are all doing great! :)  Guess what?!  I have been asked to train a new missionary!  I am so excited! :)  I am so grateful to have this opportunity!  I am really excited too, because I will be in a trio!  I have never been a trio!  I will be with Hna. Williams and one of the new hermanas!  Oh!  Did I also mention... I'M STAYING IN MISSION VIEJO!!!!! YESSSSSSSS!!!!! I am so happy!  Woo!  I still get to stay in my greenie area, and I hopefully will be for the next transfer as well! :D  Yay! :)

This week we didn't have any lessons with our investigators, mostly because they couldn't see us, or we couldn't see them... Ugh.  It is really hard sometimes!  But we have seen a miracle this week! :)  The first day I got here, Hna. Roos and I went to see an investigator, Edith, but when we went to her house, someone told us she actually was in Mexico!  About 2 weeks ago, Hna. Bullough and I have been trying to see if she is home, and we FINALLY caught her home!  She wants to see us again! :)  The only thing is that she will be moving soon!  But it is okay! :)  So we are planning on visiting her on Wednesday! :)  I'm super excited!  She is super nice! :) 

Another miracle happened this week! :D  YASMIN FINALLY CAME BACK TO CHURCH!!!! Oh, I was so excited to see her! :)  It has been 2 months since she has gone to church!  So I really hope that she will continue to keep going!  The Young Women have been such great help!  I love it! :)  

Guess what....

I SAW DISNEYLAND.

Yep.  Be jelly! :D

There is a member in our ward who got severely burned 2 weeks ago, and she is currently in the ICU in Orange, CA, and so we got permission to leave our mission to go visit her.  She is not doing really well... And it really is hard!  We have been praying for her, and we hope she will be able to leave this week.  Her feet, part of her right leg, and right arm got badly burned by hot oil at work.  She is the sweetest lady ever, and I just feel so bad!  But anyways, we went and visited her on Friday!  On the way there, we kind of got lost... And we drive right next to Disneyland!  I saw the Castle, Space Mountain, It's A Small World, and The Tower of Terror!!!! IT WAS SO FREAKING COOL!  I loved it!  Kind of made me a liiiiiiiiittle trunky... But it's okay!  I will have to go back once I get done with my mission, that is for sure!  I literally live 30 minutes away from Disneyland!  It is the best! :)

SARAI WENT TO THE TEMPLE!!!! AHHHH! It was the best!  I am so grateful that I got to go to be a part of her special day!  The Newport Temple is so beautiful, and I love going there!  i am so grateful that I have a Temple in my mission, and that we get to go every once in a while!  I love it!  One thing that I have decided is that I will go to the Temple as much as I can once I return home!  I love it so much! :) 

Well!  I hope you guys have a great day! I love you all! :)

Con Amor,

Hna. Rachel Duncan

PS: I CAN SNAP LIKE A LATINO!!!!!! :D

Spanish of the Week:

Vale la pena! (val-ay-la-pen-ah)

It's Worth It! :)

LOVE YOU GUYSSSSSS!!!!!!

85,147 Missionaries --- AND I'M ONE OF THEM!!!!! :D (Week 23)

Hola Hola! :)

Como estan?!  Hey guys! :)

Can you believe that there are 85,147 missionaries? AND I'M ONE OF THEM!  WOW!  But guess what!  There are now 15,372,337 members! And you are one of them too!  So really, there are 15,372,337 missionaries!  Every member is a missionary! :) 

I LOVED GENERAL CONFERENCE SOOOOO MUCH!  I loved every single talk!  I don't even know where to begin!  Every single talk had such a significant impact for me!  And the cool thing is that I have such a desire to put all these great attributes into my life, especially as a missionary! :)  I will point out some different talks that I really loved:

Linda K. Burton:  LOVED THIS ONE!  I loved how she put such a great emphasis on the importance of priesthood for fathers and husbands.  In my notes I wrote: "I want to marry a man who loves me like the prophets and apostles love their wives."  and below it, I wrote, "I want to marry a man who loves me like my dad loves my mom."  The thought of this as I wrote this down, brought tears to my eyes, because my father is so special to me, and I love him so much.  He is my best friend, and I hope that whomever I am to marry, he will be just like him. :)

President Henry B. Eyring:  I have never paid a fast offering before my mission.  Is it sad to say that I had really no knowledge  of this until I came out on my mission?  Hey!  You learn a lot while you are a missionary!  haha :)  But I love this talk so much, because it truly is important that we help others.  And it is a promise by an apostle of the Lord, that we can recieve eternal blessings from the Lord, if we contribute a little to fast offerings.  I have seen the blessings of it since I have been out on my mission, and I want to continue to do so for the rest of my life!

President Thomas S. Monson:  I always love hearing his talks, and they are ALWAYS about the importance of going to the Temple.  There are always promised blessings when we are in full attendance to the Lord, especially in His House.  I am so grateful that my family and I are sealed for all time and eternity, and I will not lower my standards to NOT be married in His Sacred Temples.  I will always have my eyes on the Temple, and there I will feel peace! 

Jefferey R. Holland:  NEED I SAY MORE?  Okay yes, I can, haha :)  I loved this talk so much.  It penetrated my heart so deeply.  I always feel so moved by his words!  Yes, Christ will always be there to lift me up, and you as well.  Even if it is with scarred palms and wrists, I wouldn't want anyone else to hold me up when I am on the edge of falling to Spiritual death.  

President Dieter F. Uchdorft:  The gates and windows of heaven, are TRULY and PERMANENTLY open.  They will never close.  And it is all because of our loving Savior.  As well as having the Restored Gospel on the Earth.  I am so grateful that we can be enriched by the blessings of eternal and sufficient grace, and that the Atonement is for EVERYONE.  We are all imperfect people.  But the least we can do, is try to step in the footsteps of our loving Savior and Redeemer. :)

There are so many other talks that I really enjoyed, but because of the lack of time, I will only share these few thoughts. :)  But I hope that you loved it as much as I did! :)

I have been really excited/nervous/scared/impatient about transfers!  I just want to know already!!!!!  There is a 50/50 chance of me staying in Mission Viejo, or going to San Clemente... (Duh.  Those are the only two options... :P)  I would really love to stay here!  I feel confident about myself and the work here, but who knows!  Maybe I am suppose to go to San Clemente!  I get emotional every time I think about it, but it is not my choice, it is the Lord's!  And I will do what I need to do.  I am not here to serve MY mission, I am serving HIS mission. :)

This week has been a very good week!  We only had a few lessons this week, but I am so grateful that we could teach the people we taught.  Margarita is doing great, as well as Yasmin and Maria!  We are still working with them, and hopefully we will be able to see more progress with them! :)

Hope you guys have a great week! :)  Love you all so much! :)

con Amor,

Hna. Rachel Duncan