Getting Carmen Registered for Classes

Oct 2010
The past few weeks I (Susan) have been working to get everything in order to get Carmen registered for Classes at BYU for January (winter semester) 2011.  She and I have emailed back and forth about it, but mostly I have worked with the department head at BYU and received information/direction from him.  Carmen was accepted into the Print Journalism Program with a deferral - to start the semester after she gets home. She applied while she was attending winter 2009 before her mission.  I had to get a few things straightened out with holds on her account: Mary had received a parking ticket on BYU Campus while she was a student at Paul Mitchell and driving "Bruce" our green Nissan Sentra that was still registered with Carmen's info.  Of course BYU couldn't get ahold of Carmen about the ticket since she was in Argentina and not responding to that old email address they had on file.  Mary just threw the ticket away thinking they had nothing on her since she wasn't a BYU student.  It got sent to collections!  All that took a certain amount of sleuthing and paying and calling and ironing out.  Even after I had paid for everything there was still a hold on her account that I had to make a phone call about to get removed - good thing I checked back before trying to go on at midnight for her assigned registration time!  Well, anyway - I finally got everything lined up and figured out and registration completed.  Sort of.  When I went on at midnight, one of the class times that I had slotted had been changed.  Yikes! I had to do some quick arranging.  Luckily She is upper class and therefore had a pretty good chance of getting the classes she needed anyway.  Except for maybe the basketball!  I also had to sign her up for one one a "rain check" basis.  Once she is okayed by staff as qualifying to take it, they email her and she is allowed to officially add it.  So I contacted the lady responsible for that and gave her my email and explained the situation.  As it turned out, she still sent it to the wrong email and I had to call and get the OK and then add the class.  It was all quite complicated and time consuming, but all worked out okay in the end.  The dept head told me more than once to be sure she wasn't registered for more than 12 hours since it is such a demanding class load this semester - one of the classes includes a lab that is like a part time job with a journalistic "beat" - interviewing and writing assignments and deadlines for articles in the Daily Universe, the University Newspaper. Wow!  writing this in hindsight - Carmen got the assignment of human interest type stories and cultural event coverage.  She had dozens of articles published - many were front page!  She even had one that was so good the Deseret News (SLC Newspaper) publish it.  Very cool.
She also realized after school started that she needed to carry at least 14 credit hours to quailfy for her scholarship.  So she added a 3 hour Spanish class. Crazy.  Plus she was working at her warehouse job.  Crazy Busy.  And she did a great job and got great grades. Amazing.

Somewhere Only We Know

Tuesday Oct 19, 2010

SO this week was good, a little full of unnecessary drama once again. but it was fun.

we are still teaching mateo. he is such a little cutie and he will get baptized on sunday! we are very excited for him.  we also spent some time this week preparing for the ward activity (a lot of times unfortunately it is the responsilbility of the missionaries) but it was difficult too seeing that we had a rival acitivity- from someone in our own ward!!! i wont go in to more details on that, but basically there is a member of our ward that doesnt like and as such does not wish to see any kind of success on our part. we are honestly clueless as to why. (other sisters have told us that she is the best and nicest member- i dont know how i have incured her wrath on me)

so for the activity (the noche de postre, night of desserts) i made chocolate chip cookies. they were brown because they dont have brown sugar here just "black sugar" but they tasted pretty darn good. even though i was translating the mesasurements and mixing by hand and using less than par ingredients. i am proud to say my cookie "skills" haven´t disintegrated completely.

my comp made bon bons with smashed up cookies butter and dulce de leche rolled in coconut. for the finishing touch we drizzled chocolate on top. they were SO GOOD.

Luckily the activity was done with the other branch that shares the chapel. because VERY few members came to our activity due to them having been in another activity that lasted an hour too long.

But the branch is so cool! it was really fun and some menos activo came from our ward and set up a sound system so we had members singing with their guitars.  my bishop is so great and went a little crazy with the tambourine. then all the members wanted us english speaking missionaries to go and sing (the elders were there too) they went up and sang hotel california and more than words. then they were like hey hermana come on! i was like no i cant!! haha but i went up and they were all cheering quite wildly! i felt like i was famous or something. i sang a special song (refer to subject of email) and it turned out well! it was really fun too.  so for me the activity turned out well too. it was really nice because the next day in church we really got some great support from the bishop. he thanked us (in sacrament mtg) for putting on such an awesome activity and for being such good missionaries and for making such great desserts.  then the high councilor said that they should be more grateful to have sisters that cna play the piano and direct the music and should sing with more vigor. it was nice to see that someone supported us. 

I love my comp a lot we are getting along quite well, and im nervous and anxious to see how my last transfer will be.  (we find out thursday).  anyway, i love this church, it is a church to help us grow and worship our Heavnely Father and Saviour. And yes, Jesus Christ established it and then restored it through His prophet Joseph Smith.  (phew that was hard to chug out in english.) We CAN receive exaltation and life eternal. It is our Heavenly Father´s goal for us. We should make it our goal too. and Yes He will help us!

i love you all.

lOve Sister Carmen Dunford

Look for Tender Mercies

Monday Oct 11, 2010

SO this week was a tough. ooh im already tired of saying that. haha. So for some reason a lot of the members have beef with us. I dont know what or why.  There has a been of lot of drama and gossip involving some members and us as missionaries. We have been earnestly seeking ways to serve them and to love them. even though its been really tough. my comp and i are learning that we also are a little proud. but we have both admitted many times we´d be dead if we didnt have each other. Yeah. my comp is really that awesome!

So amidst the tribulations, we have witnessed many ways that the Lord is blessing us.  We just look a little and see that there are miracles every day.  For example, a child of the family in the ward turned 8 and we were able to offer our help to fill the font. it filled perfectly.  We have also been able to plan with the enthusiasm of the bishop a ward activity for this saturday that should be hit.  (night of dessert, with prizes, and the invitations we made are good too- the only image we found was a stack of giant pancakes and two crepes that accompanied an article in The Friend titled ¨Pancake Parade¨ hee hee)

We have also been led to teach some families and some great people with desires to learn. -one man opened the door and said, oh wait let me get my wife she is the religious one, (she had been a previous contact) and he went back in to watch tv. but we invited him to come listen and he did. then the fourteen year old daughter showed up. i felt really happy to teach a full on family. they are married too! Our Heavenly Father truly is merciful.  Even if there isn´t progression ( which i have faith that there may be) it was a miracle that really saved us that day.

There are also some members willing to help us with lessons and to give us referrals phew! (even though im still finding many problems of false doctrine being taught...que va a hacer, por lo menos sus testimonios son muy fuertes) 

Our area is still huge and there are still millions of menos activos. However, one is trying to come back and her nine year old son wants to be baptized. he comes with her to church and all we have to do is teach him. yay! baptism! side note: mirian, the sister of Fabian, and her son were also baptized this last weekend. YAY!!!!!

I love the gospel. I love that even though a lot of times the majority of things seem smelly, we can look and uncover the tender mercies of the Lord and see that He is also willing to bless us, and that He loves us.

Love Hermana Dunford