Dudley, Emma

¡Feliz Navidad! This has been a special Christmas week llena con milagros! ☆We had a special Christmas mission conference. We celebrated Christ's birth by reading scriptures, bearing testimony, and even dressing up and "walking through Bethlehem." This transfer, we have been pondering on a gift we could give the Savior, which we wrote down on a piece of paper. Our mission president and His wife dressed up as Joseph and Mary, and as they held "baby Jesus," we each individually got to offer our gift to the Savior. It was a sweet moment.  ☆One night, we went to a teaching appointment and our friend was not home. We knew there was a reason we were there, so we knocked on the door next to our friend. As we were waiting for the door to open, across the apartment complex a young mom (Karina) was entering her apartment with her laundry. We called across the apartment complex and asked her if she would be interested in hearing a Christmas message. She said yes but she wa...

Merry (almost) Christmas!! It's been a busy week to say the least! We've been covering two areas, La Rosa (the Spanish branch) and Pleasant View (the English ward that Sister Clements was serving in before). We are busy from when we wake up to when we go to sleep and there's still more work to be done! Here are some highlights/miracles from this week: ☆Sister Clements agreed to speak Spanish with us from 9-9! Her Spanish has improved so much. And we even ordered her an Hermana tag!! ☆We had MLC (Mission Leadership Council). I love MLC because the counsel we receive always gives me opportunities to exercise my faith to be more obedient and consecrated! I also got to see my friends, Hermana Votaw and Hermana Young!! ☆Exchanges with Sister Langi! I love Sister Langi. She was in my zone when I first came into the mission. She came to the Spanish area with Hermana Clements and me. My favorite part of the day was when we were eating at a member family's house which was all de...

Merry Christmas! Oh how I love this time of year! It has been an unexpected week to say the least. For the first few days of the week, Hermana Amezquita was sick so we did a lot of studying and phone lessons! We even found a new friend who was referred to us from the Mexico missionaries named Gonzalo! He is a 30 year old single dad who has gone down a hard path in life but has seen signs that God exists and wants to come to know Him! Then on Saturday, she finally felt better so we did exchanges! Sister Winterbauer came to my area and we got to play morning soccer with some members, friends, and missionaries! The rest of that day we had lessons with a few Hispanic ladies who are so close and searching for truth but their hearts were hard to the message of the Restoration. I am really grateful for the opportunity I had to get to know Sister Winterbauer.  Yesterday and today have been pretty crazy because now we are in a trio! Sister Clements is our new companion for the rest of the t...

Merry Christmas!! First full week in Huntington Beach! I honestly love it here so much. I know I am supposed to be here.  We had a couple good lessons with some sweet ladies who have been learning about the gospel for a while, Araceli and Maria Gaudalupe. They both want to be baptized, have read the Book of Mormon, and received all the lessons. We are just working on growing their testimonies and helping them come to church because they both have one last obstacle they have to overcome before they are baptized. We also had a lesson with Rosendo and Maria, a couple who was on date for December 17th. We went over the Baptismal Calendar and the Baptismal Interview Questions. However, we found out they are not ready quite yet because they are not ready to lice the commandments. Please pray for Araceli, Maria, Rosendo y Maria, y Luis Vargas. Luis was baptized a few weeks ago but hasn't been able to be confirmed at church. We know that baptism is not complete without the reception of the...

Hey everyone! This email is from Thanksgiving week:)) So we started last week still in quarantine in Raymond. I love Hermana Votaw. Even though it was hard being inside so much, I think there were definitely some reasons we were supposed to be companions longer. I learned so much from her.  Highlights from the week: -Zone Conference was so inspiring, as always! Hermana Votaw and I were  We talked about the importance of using the Lord's time wisely and preparing powerful Christmas messages to share with families.  -Thanksgiving miracle! We were finally feeling better so we were able to get back to normal missionary work. We write cards for our friends and members and delivered them. Then we got to have dinner with the Garcias (my favorite family) and the Elders! It was so fun to spend time with them! -On Saturday we finally exchanged to our original areas so now I'm in Huntington Beach! We were able to find a new friend named Sandra. She lives with her sister Myrna who ha...