Another Good one in Charlie!

6/4/12 The last 6 months have been great and have really flown by, but I can tell you right now the next 6 weeks will be the best of my mission. I really love serving with Elder Syndergaard. We are nearly the same person. He was a river guide on the Salmon River for 4 years and is a big time kayaker. We are not so much the same I guess in that respect, but you can see how I might get along with him. We had a phenomenal week teaching and finding, especially working with Vince.    His girlfriend and her sister have begun siting in on the lessons and are keeping their reading commitments better than him. They once again didn't come to church this week, so after the block we drove down and stopped in on him. We weren't exactly sure if it was the right thing to do, but we did want to him that we cared enough about him to tell him in person that we missed him. As we walked up to the door their screen door blew open and charlene opened their real door literally right as we were to knock on it. It was a beautiful little way of the Lord letting us know, that it was what we needed to do. We talked with him and watched a President Monson's last priesthood general conference talk with them. It was perfect.   My whole time here I have tried to reach this Less active family and we have been able to talk to them 2 or 3 times. But have stopped by over a dozen. Well this last Sunday the father showed up to church and told us that he wants to come back and to have his 3 children baptized. It will be a little while because the bishop wants him active for a few months, but it was wonderful to see him step into the church building and make that decision himself.   Liz, who is the little 9 year old and her family have now been active for 4 months and she is geting baptized in a few weeks. It has been such a testimony of working through Priesthood keys. As a result of the bishops request to have them active their cousins family is now coming to church regularly too. Just from Liz getting baptized it has reactivated 6 other family members.   While tracting in the the downpour this week we met with an Evangelical Preacher who knows quite a bit about the church. We had a nice discussion with him and he was more receptive then you may expect, but we are following up this week, to see how vested he is in finding the truth. We have great faith in the Lord and hope to see some more wonderful things.   Love yall, Elder Dumke 
 This is called a Hooptie, common in West Virginia.

Transfer Week

5/29/12 Don't you fret, I didn't forget about you!   This week is transfers and surprisingly I will be staying another one. President called Elder Butler and I in and met with each of us. He told Elder Butler that he would be transferred down to Wytheville, VA to help some struggling missionaries and I would be staying in Charleston for another go around with Elder Syndergaard. I have only met him once, but I am way stoked to be with him. He came out with Elder Maxwells group and is a really cool kid from the one and only Pocatello. It should be a really good 6 weeks. I am pretty happy to be staying in Charleston, I just can't imagine leaving right now. The ward is good and I really love our investigators. Elder Brady is the new assistant so I am way happy to be sharing a ward with him, and Elder Maxwell is the Zone Leader down in Blacksburg (VT). The crazier thing is that there are 12 zone leaders in the mission and this tranfer they are adding a young single adult zone leader so there will be 13. Within the last 2 months there will have 12 new zone leaders, so I am the only remaining one. It kind of feels like Agatha Christie's 10 little indians...   We were able to see Vince after 6 weeks of not being able to see him and we had a great lesson with him. He committed to come to church and then didn't show. It was a big disappointment, because his family really needs the gospel. Luke got back together with his gf after her grandma died and so he started breaking the law of chastity again. There is NOTHING more spiritually destroying then breaking that commandment. He went from the true elect, to hardly giving a care about God. It is black and white what it has done to him. I still love him, but he needs to get his act in gear. Life falls apart everytime he goes back to her. Goodness.   Saturday we had an awesome time helping Angela Dorsey out at the Vandalia festival. Vandalia is what West Virginia was going to be called but called it WV instead. It is culture festival with lots of music and crafts. It is a neat event. We volunteered with the Lyons club and got to serve beans and corn bread. I was dripping in sweat, but it was sweet to get to talk to lots of people!   I had a neat experience with receiving revelation this week and gave me a strong reassurance of the power of the priesthood. On mothers day I told you that story about that guy coming up to us at the gas station and told us about how his cousins were on missions and his fiance was LDS and wanted to have dinner with us. Well this wednesday they took us out. Beforehand they asked if Ashley could have a blessing, becasue she is pregnant and having complications. In the blessing the words didn't come out easy, nothing was that smooth, but I had complete knowledge that their child was a boy and that things would work out for them. I don't know if they knew it was a boy or not, maybe it was just a reminder for me that the Lord knows a lot more than we do. Later that night I had a more sacred experience and found out that I will be coming home early for school in January.    I am jealous of the Montana chill, because it is an oven out here. Hope things are going well. Talk to you next week!   Love yall Elder Dumke

The Lord Blesses Us

5/21/12 Dear Fam,   This week was incredible. After seeing Luke Sunday night we saw him again Tuesday. He had showered, cleaned off the dining table with the Book of Mormon open and was ready for the lesson. He said that he read it and enjoyed it. We continued discussing it and explained the importance of it. Just a side note. The table also had fossils and lots of rocks he had pulled out. He had a story behind each one. Some found in West Virginia, others found overseas in Oman and Iraq. He talked about how he is searching for the truth, and we explained the path to follow and the entrance to the gate is baptism. He expressed that he would like to be baptized. It was pretty surprising, but so exciting! We saw him again Thursday and explained the commandments that Heavenly Father has given us, and he was receptive to them and is going to work towards a date in June. He wants his son baptized with him. He couldn't make it to church because he got sick. But he should still be on track.   We gave Brother Dorsey a call this week to see if we could help him paint his house. He said he had some workers already, but wanted us to come to the house he was building (he is a contractor) and teach his "heathens." When we arrived they were all sitting around literally waiting for the paint to dry. I was on exchanges with a younger elder and so it was tough teaching. I felt like I was in Hyde Park soapboxing the Restoration. It was a new experience. One of them was interested and we referred them to the other missionaries. Sister Dorsey came to church, but isn't confident with her date. Probably have to push it back.   And finally the coolest thing of the week. While on exchanges with the Assistants I began to study the importance of nourishing physically and spiritually. Unknowingly Elder Crane likewise studied compassion and mercy. Realizing this was no coincidence we set a goal to bless someone today by showing mercy and love to those who really needed it. More specifically we prayed to find someone we could take to lunch that day. We had a wonderful morning teaching and with just 10 minutes before lunch, we prayed to know where we needed to go to fulfill this purpose. Elder Crane felt Walmart, so we headed that way, took a wrong turn and there stood a man looking worn out and homeless. We asked him to join us for lunch. He walked over to Chick Fil A with his wife and we bought some lunch. His wife had been meeting with missionaries the last 6 months in North Carolina and had attended the ward Christmas party as well as other functions over the past few months. They were so grateful for some food, they said they hadn't much over the last few days. The miracle of being able to meet Tracy and Crystal was how willingly the Lord blessed us. Our desire was purely to bless someones life and He granted that to us. How quickly the Lord will bless if our desire align with his will or command. We were ecstatic. Just to put a cherry on top the dinner appointment we had that night, felt they needed to give us some extra food. If there was any loss in the situation it was on our wallets, which was then almost immediately doubly made up, by the members giving us a pot roast and frozen salsbury steaks.   I am so grateful to have seen the Lord's hand so prevalent in our week. Sure love yall   Much Love, Elder Dumke   PS - The mission has 97 baptismal dates this week. That is a record for mission history! The zone has 21, which is also a record!

Good to Chat

5/14/12

Hey there Family

It sure was good to chat with all of you. Really though, it helped me a ton to hear all your voices. Not that much I guess has changed from a few hours ago except we got to see Luke last night. We hadn't seen him in a few months and he has really been humbled. He feels like his life is in shambles and we were finally able to get through at least a little a bit about how much the gospel could help. Believe it or not we gave Alma 32 to read, just for mom on Mothers Day ;). This morning I studied the following chapters a little more in depth and was able to see how closely he is in the exact situation of the people near Onidah. Chapter 33 they basically say thanks for the sermon on faith now what? 34 -  Amulek explains  that it comes down to one great question - whether or not there is a Savior? (v. 5-6) Despite the difficulties and complexities of the gospel it always comes back that Christ died and rose again. I know the power of the atonement and I know that Christ lives today. I love you all so much and can't wait to hear from you again soon.

Love,

Elder Dumke

A Crush on Us

5/7/12 We had a good week teaching Fred and he came to church and he committed to quit smoking. Then we stopped by to see how the first few hours were and he hadn't even given it a decent shot. And a whole mess of ridiculousness lead to us having to drop him. Basically came down to that he just a had crush on us. So we are back to teaching 2 people. We had an awesome lesson with Angela Dorsey on Friday night. We were on exchanges and we had dinner with them and then taught about eternal marriage and both her and her husband said they want to be sealed. She said,"I guess its time to make up my feeble mind and get baptized." She is working towards June 3rd. We are pretty stoked cuz she has investigated for 17 years on and off and has only set a date one other time. Keep her in your prayers please.   The zone is doing really well. We have 7 baptisms set for this weekend and 3 for the following week. Pretty sweet considering last month the mission had 14 baptisms. I know I know, its not only about baptisms, but someone has to be helping these people join the church. Thank you for the email too. I appreciate the President Monson quote. Thanks for your words of encouragement. Love yall, ELder Dumke

Difficulties Stretch

4/30/12 This week was good. The difficulties have really stretched us to go outside of our comfort zones. We have been going to members home and doing referral activites with them and trying to help em with the missionary efforts. We have tried to avoid tracting because we find, teach and drop. We went to this cool national guard park called - Coonskin Park (thats what I am talkin about) and went talking to people there. There was a little pond with some guys fishing so we spent some good time talking with them. The same principle with sharing the gospel on a ski lift of airplane, a fisherman isn't likely to leave his hole. It was kind of fun.   We had 2 full day meeting this week too. They were mission wide leadership meetings so all the Distrcit and Zone leaders came up, so we spent a night in the mission home with all the Zone Leaders, it was a good time. The meeting was focused on conversion. Somewhat changing the culture from, have they stopped smoking for 2 weeks, to are they converted to the word of wisdom. It was a good meeting.   Our good buddy Fred is in the hospice house for the weekend. He goes up there once a month, but it for people dying. We aren't sure how he is really doing, but his last request is to join the church, so we are working towards that.   Thank you for sending out my line of authority. We taught Sister Dorsey on Friday night and we had to explain the priesthood to her, as well as President suggested we all carry it with us. We went thru explaining how Nephi was rebaptized, but she is still isn't ready to make the commitment. I love you all and appreciate your support in this time of my mission. Endurance is a true principle ;). The Pizza was delicious. I will probably be calling in the late afternoon probably around 4 my time.   Love you ELder D