SO MANY CHRISTMAS MIRACLES!!! : (Week 58)

Feliz Navidad y prospero ano!! :)

I hope you all had a great Christmas!  I sure did!  I loved talking to my family!  They are all doing great, and it was fun getting caught up with their life. I am grateful though that they didn't talk too much about me going home.  I look forward to it, but I don't want to go YET. haha :)  I have a lot of work still to do! :)  I found out that one of my other classmates is getting engaged and one of them is pregnant! It is exciting but at the same time it is weird because they are so young!  But I am so happy for them! :)  I also got a new dog! haha She is really cute.  Her name is Snowball!

So this past week has been full of miracles!  I don't know where to begin!!!! I guess I will just take it day by day! :)

MONDAY: As a zone on Monday, we went down to Balboa Island and went caroling!  It was really fun!  It was barely sprinkling and there were A LOT of people!  I was asked to conduct the music, and I really don't know how to do it, but I had barely learned how a few weeks before, so that was a blessing.  I messed up a few times, but no one was really paying attention anyways!  I finally got the hang of it pretty quick! :)  A lot of people would stop to listen and a lot of them even took pictures or recorded us singing from their phones!  Some people even cried because they felt the Spirit!  It was a lot of fun!  We decided that we would do it again, but on Christmas Eve! :)

TUESDAY: There is a RC/LA member in our ward who is very sick and has a hard time coming to church.  We went by to visit her for a little bit, and helped her out by rearranging her room.  She is a very beautiful artist, and she paints on stones.  Her work is AMAZING! Anyways, we had the Westpark Elders come and help us move some stuff.  We are planning on going over again and helpingher because she still has A LOT of stuff.  We had a window later that day and it was really fun because it was raining! :)  We talked to a lot of people and we handed out 7 Book of Mormons.  We talked to two guys who seemed interested in learning more. :)  Their names are Birzhan (Russian?) and Akira (Japanese).  We gave their info to Elder Summers since he speaks Japanese. :)  Hope that goes well! :)

WEDNESDAY: We had District meeting and we talked a lot about contacting.  I love trainings on contacting, because it something we can always improve on! :)  After District meeting Hna. Garcia and I went on a little mini exchange to go teach an investigator that the College Park elders have been *trying* to teach.  (They can't speak Spanish, but bless their hearts for their efforts! :)) She is from Mexico.  Her name is Ruby.  She has been investigatoing for a long while.  Elder Weiler originally started teaching her in Spanish, then Elder Fuell, and now us!  We called the Anaheim Spanish elders to see why we are the ones teaching them, and not them, because technically we shouldn't be the ones teaching them!  But they informed us that she doesn't want to be in a Spanish ward, she wants to be in an English ward for her kids.  So we are just going to continue helping the elders with the lessons.  :)  it was a good lesson, but she had a hard time understanding a lot of what we shared.  We are going to have to teach point by point with her for her to understand more.  After teaching Ruby, Hna. Garcia and I went to another investigator lesson and we met Gamal.  He is Persian.  He is really nice, and his English is really good!  He is being prepared to be baptized by the end of January.  We taught him the 10 commandments and he understood it really well!  He shared with us his conversion story to Christianity, and told us he read the Bible 5 times in 3 months!  WHATTTT?!  That is true dedication my friend! :)  Later that night we had our first lesson with our new investigators Guiti and Helena! :)  We stopped by and they were so kind to us!  They had a bunch of Persian sweets and pastries for us too. We talked a little bit and got to know them a little bit better.  We taught them the first point in Preach My Gospel, (God Our Loving Heavenly Father) and had a great discussion.  Helena asks A LOT of questions.  She was asking questions about the Atonement, the Plan, Joseph Smith, everything.  We promised her that we would answer her questions very soon, but we would have to take it step by step.  Guiti's other daughter was there too, and she seemed really interested.  She seemed really open to the things we taught.  Guiti asked us how they could become members and Sister Jensen and I looked at each other and smiled.  sister Jensen explained what baptism is and extended the invitation for them to get baptized if they found that what we taught was true!...
THEY SAID YES!!!!  :D
WOOHOO! :D
We talked a little bit more and had a great night!  They are so solid!  They are AMAZING! :)

THURSDAY: CHRISTMAS EVE!!!! :) Christmas Eve was so much fun! :)  We went caroling again as a zone and we did it for a few hours!  A lot of people were out and about and so many people asked us to sing for them!  There was this one lady named Carol who was sitting on a bench with her dog all alone and we stopped and asked her if she wanted us to sing to her.  She requested Silent Night and we sang it to her and it was as if the Heavens opened up and the Angels were singing!  She began to cry!  It was awesome! :)  There was this one guy who was standing next to me as I was conducting and his family was requesting so many great songs!  After we sang them, he shook my hand and placed $40 in my hand!  I tried to give it back, but he refused!  I was so surprised!!! I am going to donate it as a fast offering since we cannot pay tithing.  But it was really awesome! :)  Later that night we spent it with the Armstrongs! We love the Armstrongs! :)  Brother Armstrong is our WML, and we just adore their family!  We had a lot of fun and we had such great food!  I was SO full!  Then the whole family opened presents and it was really fun to see all the kids get all excited about that. :)  sister Armstrong gave us a beautiful gift!  Both Sister Jensen and I got a necklace with a little charm that is in the shape of California.  It is so beautiful!  We absolutely love them! :)  After everyone opened their gifts, I asked if I could share a family tradition that we do for Christmas Eve with their family, and they were kind enough to let me do it.  In the Duncan family, my grandpa always reads the book, "The Littlest Angel"  which is one of my FAVORITE stories.  I always cry when I read it because it is just SO good.  Brother Blume (Sister Armstrong's brother) read the story and everyone sat down and listened.  I couldn't help but cry again because it brought back wonderful memories of being with my family for the holidays.  Plus, it is just such a great book! :)  It was a great Christmas Eve, and we had a lot of fun! :)

FRIDAY: CHRISTMASSSS!!!!!! :D :)  We went over the Armstrong's again for breakfast and to Skype our families.  We had French toast!  I LOVE FRENCH TOAST! ;D Skyping with my family was so much funa nd I really enjoyed it.  I love them so much! :)  After Skyping and taking care of all of that fun stuff, we went back home and got ready for the rest of the day and then headed off to our dinner.  We had dinner with the Giolas family and it was really good. :) Then we went to the Stake Center for a fun little Zone activity. :)

SATURDAY: My mom's birthday!  Happy birthday mom! :)  Yay!  We had a window, and it was quite successful, literally as we were about to leave we contacted a guy at a bus stop and started talking to him.  He seems interested!  We gave him our info and we hope to start teaching him soon!:) 

SUNDAY: THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!! Guiti and Helena came to church again and it was amazing like last time!  She just gobbled it up!  After church, Guiti told me that we remind her of her oldest daughter, and she asked if she could be like our mom!  AWWWWWWW!!! MI CORAZON! X'D  Later that night we stopped by their house to "drop off a Christmas present"  *Wink wink* We ended up teaching them the Restoration.  It was an AMAZING lesson.  I wish I could tell you all that happened, but I don't have a lot of time left! :(  But anyways, long story short, we invited them to be baptized on January 31, and they accepted! :D YAYYYYY!  They are getting baptized! :)  We are so so so happy, and they are so so so  excited! :)

Yay miracles!  I love this work! :)

Hope you all have a very safe week and happy new year! :)

Con mucho amor,
Hna. Rachel Duncan

MITT ROMNEY YOU ARE MY HERO!!!!! :D (Week 55)

This week has been so awesome! :D

So many great things to talk about, but so little time!!!

So... We picked up a new investigator!  He has been investigating the church since 2009.  His name is Bob.  He first found the church through a member who got him to take the lessons.  He is nice and he let us come over last Friday and we shared with him the new Christmas video and the one from last year.  He really liked both of them and he liked the message.  Brother Armstrong, our new Ward Missionary Leader came with us and he shared some great insights with Bob.  The Spirit was there, but I knew that it could have been better if Bob was a liiiiiiiittle more open to it.  We did a good job teaching him though!  It was great!  We talked a little bit about faith and we invited him to act upon his faith by going to church.  He said he would go but he didn't come due to some miscommunication on our part, so we take the blame on that one, but next week he will come! :) 

About a week ago we received a HQ referral and we have been trying to contact the person EVERY DAY up until yesterday.  We had no luck!  Friday while we were planning we were like, "Okay.  This is the LAST time we are going to try contacting him."  Sure enough we called him and he answered!  We asked him if he was interested in learning more and he said yes!  We asked him when we could stop by and he asked up to come the next day!  We weren't able to, but we set an appointment for Sunday. (Yesterday)  Brother Armstrong joined us again for this lesson.  The person we were referred to teach was Sam.  he is Persian and he is from Iran.  He welcomed us right in and he was really nice!  We asked him why he wanted to learm more and he told us he works with someone who is Mormon and recommended that he check out Mormon.org.  We asked him what brought him up to this point and what interested him and this was his reply:

"I WILL GO!  I WILL DOOOOOOO THE THINGS THE LORD COMMANDS!" (Ha, I'm just kidding, Just the way I phrased that reminded me of the song. :))

Anyways!

This is what he said:

"I am very interested in knowing what makes Mitt Romney HIM.  He is just so successful and I want to be just like him.  He is different from everyone..."
Okay! :D

Can we all just take a moment of silence for Mitt Romney?  For being an example enough to possibly convert someone?

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Thank you.

We continued asking him questions and we started teaching him the Restoration.  The Spirit was SO strong.  It had been the first time I taught the Restoration since I came into English work.  (Don't worry, we will change that!)  We taught so powerfully as a companionship that I was just so amazed!  Brother Armstrong was such great help too! :)  We invited him in the end to pray to know if what we taught was true.  he didn't know how to pray (like us)  and so we taught him how to pray.  he prayed and immediately the Spirit filled the room!  It was so awesome! :)  We asked him how he felt and he said he has a very positive experience and he couldn't wait to learn more once he got to Seattle...
"Wait what?  Seattle?  Excuse me?"
"I'm moving in two weeks to go to Seattle for my new job."
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

COOL! :D

he told us that he really found the church to be really interesting and he couldn't wait to continue his investigation in Seattle.  we are really excited for him and for the missionaries in Seattle!  They will be blessed immensely for their efforts! :)  But we are really grateful that we got to plant that seed for him!  It was an awesome experience! :)

As you already know, I accidently deleted my email last week, so I never got to finish telling you about all the stuff we did.  But I will just briefly do that now! :)  Last Sunday the new Christmas video came out !  We absolutely love the new video: #ASaviorIsBorn

 (CHECK IT OUT!!!! https://www.mormon.org/christmas)We wanted to utilize this video as much as possible in our finding efforts.  We shared the video during third hour and invited the members to come out with us to share it with others.  We didn't really have anyone volunteer to help us, but we did get wonderful support from our new WML.  He came out with us on Thursday evening and tracted with us to test this new method of finding people.  What we did was this:
The typical solution to contacting someone is obviously giving them a card.  That is also known as 'card-tacting'.  It is not really affective at all.  yes, we give them a card, but it really isn't helping us to know them and vice versa.  Plus, majority of the time they only take the card to be nice and then they throw it away.  So!  This is where our awesome idea comes in! :)  Rather than asking them to give them a card, we asked them if they wanted to watch a new trending video!  Brother Armstrong was kind enough to let us use his iPad and we went tracting!  Almost every other door someone was home!  We simply introduced ourselves and we asked them if we could show them the video.  Almost everyone said yes! We showed them the 2 minute video and we just stood there and let the Spirit take over. Then we asked them how they felt.  In result, everyone LOVED the video.  They were engaged, and they were really receptive.  Because of this awesome experience we had, we now have 2 individuals and 2 potential families to teach. :)  I love doing missionary work the right way! :)

This week has been wonderful, and Sister Jensen and I are ON. FIRE. :)

I love this ward and I love serving here.  I feel like I am home away from home!  I just want to work, work, work all day long!  :) 

I hope you all have a great week everyone, and know that I love you all oh so very much! :)

Con todo mi amor,
Hna. Rachel Duncan

That awkward Moment when you delete your letter to everyone... Oops. (Week 54/Month 13)

Whelp.  I unfortunately erased my email that I was going to send to all of you... dang it! :P

I'm sorry guys! :(  I failed you! haha I would re-write it but I have to go! :(  But know all is well and I had a fabulous Thanksgiving!  I will make up for it next week! Promise! :P

Oh.. I have five months left. :P EW.

I'll make it up with pictures, how about that?

Love you all! :)

I AM ON FIRE!!!!!! :D (Week 53?)

Hola todos!!!

This week was awesome!  So many great things happened! :) 

Sister Jensen and I are ON FIRE!  We received a training in our ZTM this past week, and it really pumped us up to do more and to work really hard.  It was about Being ON FIRE!!!  it was awesome! :)

Right after our training meeting we had the new Christmas Initiative training, and that just made it 10X better!  I am soooo excited for all of you to watch the new video!  We got to watch it and it literally gave me chills and I felt the Spirit so strongly!  It was AMAZING!!!  Super stoked to work!  After the training we talked to our WML and got to work right away.  We are super excited to share the video with others!  We are going to share the video as part of third hour this Sunday and we are going to invite the members to get involved.  We also want to invite members to come out with us and contact people.  We have a plan of using their ipad or tablet and asking random people on the street if they have 2 minutes so that they can watch the video.  This way it is more than just giving them the card so they can just throw it away after.  This way they can actually see it, feel the spirit, and we can invite them to hear more.  We are SUPER excited! :)  When you guys watch the Video for the first time, PLEASE SHARE IT WITH SOMEONE!!! This video is not only intended to strengthen members and less-actives!  IT IS FOR NON-MEMBERS TOO!  Share it with a co-worker, a friend, neighbor, relative, WHOEVER!

SHARE IT!

SHARE IT!

SHARE IT!!!!!

We had an awesome miracle happen this week! :)  So we had a district Blitz in our area, and we had the elders split up so we were all covering four areas.  Sister Jensen and I went to the big Regional Park. (IT IS SO HUGE!)  We contacted Two people!  TWO!  But it was awesome!  We met a guy as we were walking into the park and he spoke Chinese... Not really good with that language, sorry! :P  So we gave him a book of Mormon in Chinese and pointed to a number we wrote in the book and told him to call them!  He was laughing the whole time... I don't know if it was at US or because he finally found true happiness.. ;D

Second person we contacted is Mark!  :)  Mark was sitting at a picnic bench just sitting there and looking at his phone.  Sister Jensen said, "Oh great, he has his headphones in..." I said, "it is worth a try!"  So we got up to him and say "HI!"  He looks up, takes his ear buds out and says, "Hello!  ...is that a Bible?"  We told him it is like the Bible, and explained to him that it was the Book of Mormon! :)  We asked him if he had time to listen to our message and he said we could sit down this him and share it with him!  We taught him the Plan of Salvation and it was an awesome lesson!  We is super open and he asked us a lot of questions!  :)  We asked him if he wanted to learn more and he said he would be open to it!  He lives up in the Anaheim Mission, so we are going to pass him over to the missionaries that work in his area.  It was funny because a random goose showed up out of no-where and started getting REALLY close to him! We were worried that it was going to attack him, but luckily, it didn't. haha :)  He is great though!  We invited him to pray and he was like, "Okay! What are you names again?"  so we told him our names and he started to PRAY!  We weren't expecting it because usually there is opposition towards prayer, haha.
We were like: OH!  WE'RE PRAYING! WE'RE PRAYING! (On our heads... haha)

It was great! :)

There is a deaf member in our ward, and we went over twice this week to help her out with some stuff.  She is super sweet!  Sister Jensen knows a little bit of ASL and she was signing with her.  It was awesome. :) 

We had a big dinner at a members home last night and a few different families from the ward came over.  There was also two non-members at the dinner.  Ani and Fransisco.  Ani doesn't speak any English, so I spoke Spanish with her, as well as one of the other brothers who served Spanish speaking.  it was really fun speaking Spanish again!  We had an awkward lesson though because it was in English and in Spanish, haha.  Sister Jensen would first speak in English and I would translate and at times we would both be confused and we would get messed up,  but it was great!  They want to learn more so we will pass there info off to the Anaheim Spanish missionaries since they cover this area! :)

yay miracles! 

Both Sister Jensen and I received beautiful blessings from Bishop Ritz this past week.  He likes to give the missionaries blessings, and he wasn't able to last week.  They were both wonderful! :)

I am so grateful to be serving here!  I don't want to leave!  I love my companionship, I love the area, I love everything!

I AM ON FIRE!!!! ;D

Super grateful for the Holidays!  I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!  Count your many blessings! :)

con Mucho amor,
hna. Rachel Duncan

Newport Beach is Where It's At!!!! :D (Week 51)

Hola Hola! :D

Hope you guys had a wonderful week! 

Great news!  I'm so excited to shared it all with you!!!!

I'M IN NEWPORT!!!!!! :D

I'm serving in the Newport Beach Zone in the University Park Ward with...

SISTER JENSEN!!!!!!

If only you all knew how happy I am!!!

So.  A little background information!  Sister Jensen came into the field the same transfer I did.  We were like immediate best friends because we didn't know anyone else!  We always joked around saying we always wanted to be together, but we knew that was IMPOSSIBLE because I was in Spanish and she was in English.  We were very fortunate enough when we were roommates when we both were in San Clamente though!  It was the best! :D  (That was the same time we had the whole lice thing go down... She and I were the only ones who didn't have it!)  So at transfer meetings, I had to give some stuff to the office missionaries since our area was closing down.  I gave Elder Degner the car keys and looked down at the table a noticed all these different plastic bags with pieces of paper in them indicating who they were coming from and who they were going to.  I noticed Sister Jensen's name and it said Uniersity Park.  I was like "Oh wow!  She will do great there!  I'm so excited to hear who her new companion is!"  Before the meeting I saw her and gave her a huge hug and told her that I knew where she was going and she said, "How do you know?"  I didn't tell her of course!  The meeting began and the were done assigning the new missionaries to their trainers and then they started with the Newport Beach Zone.  I wasn't really paying attention because I thought I was possibly going to Spanish... *cough-cough*  Then President Orgill said, "Now this is a new companionship covering the University Park Ward..."  I was like, "OH!

​I better pay attention so I know who Sister Jensen's companion is!"

"....... Hermana Duncan......

I MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT HAVE IMMEDIATELY STARTED SCREAMING....

*YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!*

I started running towards her even before he said Sister Jensen's name!!!!​

".....And Sister Jensen."

She wasn't paying attention because she already served in Newport and didn't think she would go back. Haha :)

Finally she caught on and started screaming too and we gave each other a huge hug and everyone was laughing and we turned around towards Pres. Orgill and the look on his face was between puzzlement and amusement, haha :)  We were then like

"....SORRY." haha :)

It was really funny, haha :)

I love sister Jensen!  We have been having way too much fun!  haha :)  She seriously is probably my best friend!  A little about her!  She is from Mesa, AZ and she graduated from Cordon Bleu Culinary School as a pastry chef! :D  She is 23 and she is awesome! :)

The ward here is awesome too.  I already love it here!  The members are awesome and we are having lots of fun!

REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS TRANSFER!!!! AHHHHH!!!

Not much more to say really!  I'll have more for you all next week! :)

Again.. Call Me Job. (Week 50...Dang.)

HOLA TODOS!

So.  I am just an accident waiting to happen.

You know how I had that horrible infection in my kidneys?  I now have ANOTHER infection!  But this one is different! :P  (I'm going to spare you the details, TRUST ME.)  I had to go to the doctor and get prescribed on some MORE meds... GUH. So... With me taking so many different medications, I have been experiencing some HORRIBLE migrains and have had the hardest time waking up and sleeping.  UGH.  But I am feeling much better.. 

 *Knock on wood*

​So.  I went on exchanges with the AMAZING Phinney this week (Sister Phinney, but Phinney just sounds better)  She is from Canada (EH.) and I freaking love her.  If I could be her companion, we would cause a lot of trouble... In a good way, of course.  :)  Anyways!  We were finishing up Temple Tours and I got in the car and shut the door and realized that my seatbelt was stuck in the door!  So I open the door and put my LEFT HAND on the top of the door (Remember this part, it is very important...) and buckled my seatbelt... And slammed the door..

OW.

OW.

HOLY COW.

I slammed my pointer finger in the door!  D:

:'(

IT REALLY HURT. :(  I thought I lost my finger!  But I didn't! :)

Phinney laughed at me.  Actually, we were both laughing. ​

Now on to the crazy stuff!

I'M GETTING TRANSFERRED!.... AND SO IS SISTER SMITH!

WHITE WASH! :O

Apparently I didn't do a good enough job to stay, haha. (I'm just kidding...)

I'm going to miss the people in Marina Hills!  They are all wonderful people, and I wish I could have gotten to know them all more!  But it is what is it! :P  I look forward to working in my new area! :)

Oh!  We made our goal by the way! 51 Book of Mormons! :)

What is possible to the Lord? EVERYTHING. :)

​Love you guys! :)

Sorry this is short, but I gots to go!!!​