CHRISTMAS!

We were able to talk with Christopher on Christmas Day and he sounded great!  He has come a long way since he left back in March and continues to grow every day.  The language is coming along for him and he is adjusting to the culture.  He continues to have wonderful experiences and I know he is blessing many lives.  We are very proud of him and love him very much.  Here are four of his latest pictures and hopefully we will get some that he took on Christmas within a few weeks.

Part of Christopher's latest email: 

So! Life here in Brazil! We had a baptism on Saturday!!! Leurianne, that young woman I told you all about, got baptized! She is super awesome and will be a great addition to the church, a strength to the young woman, and especially a strength to her family. I hope we can start teaching the rest of her family now and find success there. She shines and is great. Elder N. Rocha baptized her and I confirmed her a member. My second confirmation. I feel like it went well. 

The rest of this past week was super good. Christmas Conference for the zone was great! We played Basketball and Soccer, watched a movie with Robert De Nero and Cuba Gooding Jr. Called ´Men of Honor´, and it was really good, and we went to this all you can eat Chinese Resturant which was WAY good and had dessert in the church building and had a Ámigo Secreto´ where you drew out the name of another Elder and bought him a gift. And we just played, talked, and had fun. It went really well. i got a box of choclates from my Elder, Elder Riviera, and I gave Elder Crithfield some chocolate too. He was my friend.

I also went on a split Friday with one of the ZL´s, Elder Leite, and it went well. We taught two new young men and they were super cool.

We are working to try and find new people to teach. Daniel and Eveline are doing well. We haven´t been able to teach them a ton this past week, but we will work on that. We did a split yesterday where Elder N. Rocha went out with another young man, Morôni, and I went out with another young man too, David, and one of the brothers, Irmão Francisco. We passed by Daniel´s house and Eveline´s three other sons, that she had with another man, where there, so I shared a spiritual thought with them and got their names and addresses. One of them, William, lives in our area, so we will go visit them.

Latest Pictures!

Christopher has been able to send us quite a few pictures recently from his mission. They range from pictures taken at a recent baptism of a family he and his companion have been teaching, documentation of how hot it is in his area, discovery of Vol's Fans in Brazil, and an outing to a local fort.  I hope you enjoy!

The Map

Updates!

August 28, 2012

Speaking of baptims! The family I told you all about last week was bapized on Saturday!!! It was such a cool experience. Elder Crithfield baptized the dad, Elder Xavier baptized one the one daughter over 8, and I baptized the mom. It was my first baptism and a really special experience. The spirit was there so strong and it was amazing to see the happiness in their faces. Then we confirmed them on Sunday and I confirmed the daughter, and tha was a super awesome experience too. A lot of new things happening and a lot of new things being learned. I am so thankful I am here! Being a missionary is great!

We had Zone Conference yesterday too. President and Sister Scisci and the Assistants all gave training and all of it was great. Plus myself, Elder Crithfield, and two other elders sang I´m Trying to be like Jesus as a special number for Sister Scisci that she requested which went well. President and Sister Scisci are so great. I can feel their love for us and their desires to serve. I want to be my best for them.
I´ve got to go now, but I love you all! I hope things continue to go well at home and I will write to you all again next week! Oh! And Elder Crithfield is sick, possibly something bad called dengue, so please keep him in your prayers.

Love, your son,
Elder Christopher L. Dunn


September 10, 2012

Thanks for praying for Elder Crithfield! He is doing much better now and I know your all´s prayers helped him to get better. Also! Could you both get me Eryn´s address? I would love to write her and see how she is doing.

I got the package! AND IT IS AWESOME!!! Thank you both soooooo much for it, espeically since it cost so much to send. I really appreciate what you both sent me and I will make sure to take good care of all of it - especially ´Jesus the Christ´ - and use it all well. Also, I was wondering. One of the main focuses here on the mission is setting goals, learning, and growing. I was wondering if you both could think and maybe send me some goals of things you both would like me to learn, improve on, and grow in here on the mission. I´m trying to make and set goals to grow in many areas, and I would love some advice on goals I could make and how I could accomplish them.

SO! This past week has gone well. We are working a lot to try and find new investigators to teach, since Elder Crithfield was sick for a while, and that is going well. Elder Crithfield only has a little bit more than 5 months left in the mission, and he is getting tired. We´ve talked some about that because at times I feel like we lose focus maybe, but we are both working to do better with that and be the best we can be.
We have found some new people to teach, which is great. And I think we will have a baptims this coming Saturday! The nephew of the man we baptized a couple of weeks ago. His name is Renato and he is super cool, so hopefully that will work out. Also! Exciting news! We are getting Sisters in our Zone! i´ve never been around the Sisters, so it will be cool to have them here.

I´ve got to head out now, but life here is good! Thank you both for your prayers, love, and everything! You both are the best parents in the whole world! i love you both!

Love, your son,
Elder Christopher Lee Dunn

Santa Rita 2

Here is part of Christopher's email from last week:

So, the first transfer finished up yesterday! Kind of crazy to think that it is already over. I still feel like yesterday was the first day. So, we are getting a new zone leader - Elder Munhos. He is a super cool guy. Also, big news - I´m getting a new companion. Elder Santana is being transferred to Santana, haha, and the Elder leaving there, Elder Shannon, is going to be my new companion. He´s from Idaho and is a cool guy, so I´m excited to serve with him.
Also, Presidente Campos and Sister Campos are heading back to their home in Recife at the end of the month and our new mission President, President Cici, and his wife will begin being our new mission leaders. So yeah! A lot of things have been happening and are going to happen here soon.

So! Things are going well with the work. We have 3 baptisms, I believe, for Saturday, which is good. Tiago, Marcini, and Valginae are our investigators we have for Saturday, so that is awesome. We have another baptism for the 30 too, so hopefully that goes well.
So, more about my area! I´m serving in the Santa Rita 2 area. The area, compared to the other areas in our zone, is really big. We can only walk, so we don´t cover a ton of the area, but when we need to go somewhere far away we take a bus or a member drives us. And let me tell you, drivers in Brazil are CRAZY! I feel like it is race weekend everyday here. You´ve got to watch out or else you are going to get hit. There are a lot of dirt roads in our area, but mainly concrete, so its different but good. The people are super awesome and accepting of the gospel - generally whenever we extend a baptismal invite they agree to prepare to be baptized which is awesome - they are humble, but sweet people.

Mother's Day Phone Call

Christopher had a chance to call home on Mother's Day, two weeks ago.  His parents, older brother, Andrew, sister-in-law, Marianne, brother-in-law, Steve, younger sister, Elizabeth, and older sister, Caroline were all able to talk with him on the phone.  It was great to hear his voice and hear a little bit about the mission so far.  At that point, he had only been in his first area for two weeks.  He is working on adjusting to mission life in Brazil.  He lives in an apartment with two other sets of missionaries and his companion.  Of the six Elders, four are from South America (Argentina and Brazil).  This will hopefully help move the language along for him.  The other Elder, besides Christopher, is from the states.  Christopher's main focus right now is learning the language so that he can understand those he is teaching and so that he can teach them about the Gospel.  We are all so proud of him and know he is doing a wonderful work.

Here is Christopher's mailing address if anyone would like to send him letters in the mail.  This will be his address for his entire two year mission unless we inform you otherwise.  It is always exciting to get a physical letter in the mail from someone familiar! 

Elder Christopher Lee Dunn
Brazil Belem Mission
Av. Nazaré, 532 Sala 412 4º Andar
Royal Trade Center
Belém, Pará 66040-143
Brazil

Pictures

I do not have any pictures yet from Brazil but here are a couple pictures leading up to Christopher's mission.  First, Jamie had the opportunity to drop Christopher off at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT so here is the final picture before saying the final goodbye.

 We were able to attend the Temple with Christopher before he left on his mission.  The LDS Temple is a place where we attend as members of the church to learn more about Heavenly Father's plan for us while on the Earth and where we have the opportunity to make covenants with God.  A covenant is like a promise - God makes promises to us and we make promises to God.  As we live up to those promises or covenants then God blesses are lives in various ways - peace, guidance, the companionship of the Spirit, etc.  The Temple is a special and sacred place.

 Before leaving on his mission, Christopher had a chance to speak at church and many of us were able to come home for the weekend to be there and hear him speak.  Our Uncle Jimmy and his family came from Oak Ridge, Jamie was able to fly in from Utah, Steve and the kids came from NC, as did Andrew and his family, and Caroline.  It was wonderful to be all together one last time before Christopher left.

Here is a short section of Christopher's letter from this week:

Ok! So! Things are going great here! Elder Cook came yesterday with Elder Clayton from the Presidency of the 70 and another area 70 came. They spoke to all of us, and their wives spoke too, and we got to shake their hands before the meeting. Plus the international MTC director who manages all of the MTCs came and spoke on Sunday, so we had two straight days of fantastic talks on missionary work. All of the talks I heard were inspiring.   The talks really inspired me to be the best missionary I can be, so I'm going to give it my all!

Not much more to report. Things are the same. We only have a week left which is crazy. The language is coming along and I still have so much to learn, but I know as I work hard the Lord will help me.

A few more things:

On the way back from the temple - we take big tour buses to the temple - I got to sit up front with the driver and talk with him in Portuguese. Brazilian drivers are CRAZY! Small cars, zipping in and out, and avoiding crashes are the norm, but it is fun, and talking to him showed me just how much I have to learn.