Long Letters Home (06/02/2014)

June 02, 2014 to Mom

Holo Mommy!
Just some Spanish information...hahaha. 
Te amo mucho = I love you a lot. Me amo mucho = I love me a lot.
Just thought I'd let you know for future reference in your emails ;)
<Mom Note: I had emailed Sister Duenas and was trying to be cute and tell her in Spanish that I love her, but I wrote Me amo mucho (I love me a lot) instead of Te amo mucho....oooops!>

So, as expected, I am not getting transferred. I will be staying here in Eugene with Sister West. I'll actually be "killing" her since she'll be going home in July. <Note: Lest some blog readers be concerned..."killing" a missionary is not literally killing them, it just a term used for the missionary's last 6 week transfer of their missionary service when their mission ends and they return home to their family>.
I will likely be staying here in Eugene for a total of 6 months and Sister West and other sisters are threatening me saying I'll be training someone after Sister West is gone. Don't know quite how I feel about training someone yet.

That's very clever to print out the blog and keep it in a binder at church. I think people at church will love it :)
For P-Day, we have to wash and wax our car as well, but we have a rental now so we just have to wash and vacuum it. It is a big black Nissan and looks like a pretty sketchy car when we are out tracting. People think we are scary government people, then we get out of the car and they see we are two nicely dressed women who are completely unintimidating. It's pretty comical. A member told us that we should dress in black super professional clothing and get briefcases and go out tracting like that. An entertaining idea, but it would totally distract from the spirit :)

This is what happens when a sister missionary with multiple colored pens studies the Family Proclamation. It turns COLORFUL!

We have a bunch of less actives here and I think it's technically one of the smaller wards, but the attendance could be better which would help :) We have a whole list of less actives to work with.

We just visit them and see if they want to come back to church, and if they still have a testimony and if they do want to be reactivated then we give them the lessons, kinda like they are investigators, and get them fellowshipped with other members. We involve them in Visiting Teaching and Home Teaching, church activities and service projects.
We haven't had baptisms in a while, BUT we have a goal and believe that we can accomplish it this transfer. Sister West and I are super excited. Since she'll be leaving soon, she wants to have a BOOMING last transfer :)

<Mom Note: a little background before Sister Duenas' next comment. I shared with her a game that the missionaries in the New York Utica Mission play while they are tracting. It is called the Celestial game. While they are out tracting, they look for objects shaped like the sun, moon and stars. Suns are 5 points, Moons are 3 points, and Stars are 1 point. The first companion to 20 points wins.>
We play games like that here in the Oregon Eugene Mission that relate to the Book of Mormon or the restoration. Whenever we see odd, funny things while driving or if we happen to think of non-missionary things (like Disney songs or other movies) we have to turn it back to the gospel to keep ourselves on spiritual track. Or if we see a colorful hippie van or young kids being bad, we have to figure out what we'd teach them from the lessons or which story in the Book of Mormon we'd share with them. That is the extent of our Book of Mormon/Restoration game.
But that is an interesting game they play in the NYUM, so we'll def try it out :)

Love you!!!!!!
Sister Duenas