Happy Thanksgiving!                                                                                               11/25/12                                    

How was your holiday? This week was really great and packed with A TON of food. My goodness I thought I was going to burst. We started the day was a few hours of rugby, and it was a blast. I am way out of shape and my body still aches, but is was such a good time. We then went to Sister Longs and met her daughters and Marcie and her family came and we got to meet the rest of her family. It was a lot of fun and Marcie's family was rattling question after question, we are having a lesson with all of them tomorrow night. After having a good time with them we went to the Frosts for a meal until the Roots. It was good food and company. The Roots then had a prepared a good country WV thanksgiving. It was awesome to eat with them. The day before we had come by and taught Christina.

We knew going into the lesson that she needed an understanding of the blessings of the gospel and her potential as a daughter of God. We prayed that the Lord would grant her a vision. We taught a good lesson from the scriptures, and towards the end, she asked if she could have a blessing of comfort. After the blessing, she was kind of speechless, and then began to cry. She said," when you gave me that blessing, I suddenly saw myself walking down a dirt road, not really sure where it was headed, and then I saw the Lord. He was calling me towards him and I kept walking and was shaking off Temptation and things that Satan was throwing at me. That has never happened to me before, I have never seen anything like that." It was especially incredible, because we didn't mention anything about vision to her before or during the blessing. We left their house giving thanks the Lord had heard our prayer. The amazing thing is that she is acting on it. She came to church today for the first time and hadn't smoked all day. She continues to read every day now and plans to be baptized at the end of december.

Today was an amazing day at church. All of our investigators came, so we had 9 investigators there. The Lord truly is hastening the work. The family that referrred themselves came for the first time, and we will find out this week what they thought of the service. John McDonald keeps plugging along, and I hope to see him baptized before the end of December.

We exchanged with the elders in Roanoke this week which is a 3 hour drive, so I got a good 12 hours of driving in 40 hours. And Elder Klain had his wallet stolen so I have been doing lots of driving, :) I am definitely grateful for the amount of pondering time I have. Today I had to teach an impromptu gospel essentials class because the teacher didn't come, and a lot of it came from things I had been pondering about. I am super happy and thankful for all the blessings we are seeing.

Love yall and see you soon

Elder Dumke

Ah Gratitude!

I love being a missionary.

Today was stake conference and there was a new stake president called for the stake, because the current one was moving to Texas. There were two seventies that came in, Elder Murray and Elder Golden. They explained the revelatory process of calling a new stake president and then invited the old stake presidency to bear their testimonies. The new stake president is a very humble WV man, currently serving of one of the smaller branches. After the testimonies, Elder Golden is part of the curriculum for the church, taught doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost and the Savior. It spurred alot of questions and we were able to discuss it with President after the Conference. It has been amazing to be tutored by President Pitt in the Gospel. I am extremely grateful for it. We were also asked to teach the Priesthood Preview to the 11 year olds turning 12 this year about the Aaronic priesthood in Stake Conference. It went really well.

But now for why I love being a missionary. The Lord is hastening the work. This week we got a referral for HQ for someone who got on Mormon.org and requested a visit. We went and taught him tonight and met his whole family. He had a Book of Mormon once, but lost it, and since Mitt Romeny ran, he became interested in the church. He has been studying Mormon.org and ordered a Book of Mormon off of amazon.com. We had a great first lesson with them tonight and are seeing them again Wednesday. After that we had the prompting to see the Roots. They are doing okay, extremely well considering where they were 1 year ago. We visited with them and had a prayer and they explained that they had been in a fight and Tommy had our number dialed ready to call and talk and then we came. He stayed up till 5 studying the scriptures and had over 25 pictures of the temple on his phone. I am so grateful for the things that are turning him around.

Marcie is doing great. She drove down from Morgantown to come to Stake Conference. Her daughter has been defending the church all week, and John is doing okay. He has had some more complications with his surgeries, so we are praying he will be alright. He continues to have baptism on his mind though. Our Thanksgiving plans are looking great. 10 to 12 Rugby Turkey Bowl, 1 to 3 Thanksgiving with the Longs and the McDonalds (both investigating families), 3 to 5 dinner with the Frosts and a few active members, and 5 to 7 thanksgiving with the Roots (investigator family) and dessert with a recent convert at 8. The day is packed with food, but we are trying to make it as productive as possible.

I am so grateful for you. For your support and love. I recognize that I am below par at sending personal messages and keeping in close contact, but I am so thankful, every time I hear from you. I can't wait to be with you all soon! Sometimes I wonder how much the mission has changed me. This week as I began pondering the temple interview questions, I got a little emotional thinking about how much firmer of a testimony I have of those things. I have known Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, now I feel like, I know the Prophet Joseph and I love him. I am thankful for the restoration and for the Holy Ghost to testify of these things.

Yall be good

Much Love

Elder Dumke

I like Being a Missionary

11/12/12 

This week was really great. We had Zone Conferences from Monday to Friday with lots of driving with President and Sister Pitt. It was awesome to be able to learn from them both in the doctrine and things of life. After Zone Conferences we worked on Transfers. I can't believe another 6 weeks has come and gone. Thankfully I am staying with Elder Klain another one, which means that I will finish off here in Charleston. This has been amazing week especially with Sis. Root. She has really been coming out of the woodwork. She is excited about the gospel and has been reading a lot of the Book of Mormon.

Sister Surface is doing extremely well and is so much more comfortable at church. Last night we went over to their house for her son's birthday and met more of her family. They all seemed happy that she had made the decision to join the church. Marcie was up in DC this week for John's surgery. We gave him a blessing last Sunday and he was very appreciative. Some unexpected things happened in the surgery and it was pretty scary there for a bit. His nurse was LDS and that turned out to be a great comfort to their family. After his strength returned, while still in the hospital, he said that he felt God was urging him towards baptism. We bought Marcie some Large Print Scriptures and we engraved her name and the whole 9 yards. We are giving them to her tonight at FHE with them. I love those two.

Sounds things are going well at home. I am glad. It was 70 degrees yesterday. Looking forward to seeing you soon.

Love yall

Elder Dumke

Week of White

The Surface Family

11/7/12

This week was another incredible one, I didn't think anything would top last week, but amazing things continue to happen in Charleston. There are so many prepared people in West Virginia!

It was ZLC on Tuesday so all the Zone leaders started to travel in and then this insane snow storm came and put 18 inches of snow in a few hours. It knocked out almost all the power and so we did ZLC in the mission home with no power and then had all the Elders sleep over there. It was a ton of fun and a very unifying experience. We have been pondering on what we could do to unify them a little more, and this was an answer to prayer. It was miracle all of them arrived safely in Charleston. We then had zone conference the following day in Huntington. It went well and I learned alot, as we taught. There just isn't enough time to prepare and so the spirit teaches you as you teach. It was a good day. Friday we had a few incredible lessons. Right now we are teaching 4 families, which is incredible.

Last Sunday we talked with Christina Root out on the porch and this week we taught her and her husband and they are way elect. She was glued to every word during the restoration and explained she hadn't gone to church for the last few years, because she felt that they lacked the fulness. She definitely felt we were an answer to prayer.

Saturday morning, so yesterday, we had a lesson with Sister Surface and it had been a while since we taught her and so we really wanted to gauge where she was at. Elder Klain bore a very strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and discussed with her about the importance of her knowing for herself, mind you we have taught every lesson on her outside porch, (because her husband works alot) and it is starting to pretty chilly out here. I said to finish 2 Nephi before next Sunday, the Spirit told her to finish it by tomorrow (Today). About 3 o clock Saturday afternoon we got a text asking us about baptism from her. We told her to read Mosiah 18 and pray about it. She texted back that she was ready to be baptized! What?! So amazing we were freaking out. We went over and talked to her and told her we could do it tomorrow morning before church. And she could be confirmed that day with Marcie. We did the interview that night and she got baptized this morning. It went so well and was so cool to see the completion of this family. They will be going to the temple this time next year.

Marcie was confirmed today too. The member we asked to do the confirmation didn't come to church today, so as we gathered in the circle, Bishop Larsen handed the microphone to me and asked me to do it. It was my first tim and it was really neat. Marcie was so happy and her husband and daughter were there too. After the confirmations, the deacons were passing the sacrament and the power went out. They continued to pass and after they were finished, the bishop stood up and said we would cancel and immediately the lights turned back on. It didn't last long though, the power went out right after sacrament meeting ended. We then taught Marcie's Dad and daughter and it went really well. Marcie was testifying of the Book of Mormon to them. Ah she is so great. She reminds me a ton of Mom, they are going to be such good friends I know it.

I love you all so much and this has been the most amazing past few weeks.

Ya'll be careful

Love

Elder Dumke