Yep. Still in Fairbanks. It snowed this week. And hailed. Love life.
Also, so sorry that I have lost all my creativity in thinking of subject lines for my emails. I'm boring now #9months. And sorry that I never have good photos for you anymore. I'll try and be better.
We've been doing a hecka ton of tracting this week #faithtofind. Every time we knock doors, the people that actually talk to us/we get return appointments with end up being YSA so we have to pass them off to the elders and it's the worst. We've seriously passed like four referrals off to them! #weareallonthesameteam #butstill.
Our last zone conference with President & Sister Robinson was this week. And in all honesty, it was filled with a lot of bummers: President & Sister Robinson leave in a few weeks, we got TIWIs (they're these little computer things that monitor your driving and say things like, "check your speed", "check your seatbelt", and "aggressive driving" but they have a hard time with all the dirt roads and pot holes in Fairbanks so they just beep and yell at us all the time. They're super stellar and way awesome), and the Fairbanks+Juneau zones don't get to fly into Anchorage for the missionary conference with President Nelson in a few weeks so that's #lamesauce. We will just PVC into it. Woo. But other than that, ZC was good. We talked more about the Book of Mormon and being "all in". It's so easy to glide through your mission; a little here, a little there. But Heavenly Father wants us to be all in. "You only have eighteen months to be awesome". That goes for all you real lifers too. It's so easy to just slide through life and make it out okay. But God wants us to be great. He wants us to do great things and feel great joy. Be all in.
Another gross AK service experience for you: the 6th ward elders texted us and asked if we could come help them and some other missionaries build a fence for one of their members...sure what the heck. So they sent us the address and it's the same lady that we got to spend all day filling sand bags for a few weeks ago (can't remember if I told you that story or not, but she's a cray cray gypsy cowgirl chick). Killer. So we go over there and she asks us to straighten this sketch barbed-wire fence that's all over the place and so that was just a hot mess because in all honesty, no one knew what they were doing. But we did it. The fence looked straighter(ish). So that took like an hour. Then she moves us all up to the front yard to fix another fence and tighten up the wire there and then she thinks that because I'm a sister missionary I love animals like some Sleeping Beauty/Snow White Disney princess living in the woods kind of a thing and so she has me clean out this nasty, nasty abandoned chicken coop (it was just about as bad as the maggot dog food last week) #sos #momcomegetme #nothanks #isthisreallife. Then she starts ringing a cow bell and yelling at us to "come eat grub". I look at Elder Miller like dude, no freaking way #weareallinthistogether. We all endured and survived the mystery soup lunch before she sent us back out to work.
Side note: we all thought this was going to take like two hours max. No. We were there from 11am-6pm. Here comes the worst part. She puts the elders back to work on the fence and sends Sister Fa'anunu and me down to the garage with her son (also loco) to BRING THE CHICKENS BACK UP THE HILL AND INTO THEIR NEW AND IMPROVED HOME sponsored by Sis. Dun over here. I'm freaking out but am way too scared to tell this lady no. So we go down there and Josh (the kid) opens the garage and there's two giant boxes-like the big ones you see at Sam's Club or Costco that they put oranges or watermelons or whatever in, like the big giant huge ones-FULL of chickens. This is not real life. And these chickens aren't like cutie little Easter chicks. They're like legit chickens. I was dying. And when we opened the lid of the second box, these black turkeys flew out! NO THANK YOU. Then Josh left for a second and Sister Fa'anunu and I were freaking out trying to figure out how to get these birds up to the chicken coop without having to touch them. We found a big blue bin and started scooping the chicks in it. I am not touching these things. They want to kill me. Then Josh came back with Elder Miller and Elder Caldwell and they rescued us and started picking up the chickens and filling the bin. Basically, service as a missionary is always a good time. So while Josh+the Elders were running a blue bin of chickens back and forth from the chicken coop, Sister Fa'anunu and I cleaned out the chickens’ water thing. Then we had to load the gigantor empty Sam’s Club boxes into the back of the lady's truck to take to the dump and there was still chicken mess all in it. It took all the missionaries to load it. So nasty. Then we finally told her we had to go and so we bounced. I think I'm done doing service in 6th ward for a little while #maggots #poopscoop #fences #chickensthatwanttokillme. I'm sure there's a billion other details I am forgetting about this service learning experience but I'll just tell you all about it when I'm home.
Something Fairbanks, AK has definitely taught me: Heavenly Father has a much different timeline than our own. Be patient. It will all work out. He knows what He's doing. Trust Him.
Love your faces.
XOXO Sister Dunlop
Queen of Fairbanks
How Tuf are you? #xtratuf
Crazy AK hair, don't care
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