Hello. Yes, I am alive. I'm so sorry for the silence, things have been a little bit crazy up here. Crazy but good I guess. So here's a double dose for you...
The night before my birthday a few weeks ago, we had a pre-bday dinner at our [Mt. Baldy] Ward Mission Leader's house with his family. They had invited their neighbors, Lesley and her husband, to come over as well. I'm such a Lesley fan you guys-she is the cutiest lady and has the kindest heart of gold. She is not a member of the Church [yet] but it's one of those people you meet that would be a fantastic Primary President or YW Camp Director kind of thing. She's amazing. She owns a wedding cakery down in town and makes the cutest cakes #fangirling. Anyways, she told us to come and stop in at her bakery some time to get some cupcakes. As y'all know...my sweet tooth is occasionally a little bit out of control (shoutout to Mama Laura for that gene) and so I'm always down for treats. Of course, we stopped in and she gave us a ton of free cupcakes #superblessed and then we got to chatting with her about life and stuff. Did you know that one of Lesley's hobbies is that she goes around to garage sales buying Bibles? She then takes these garage sale Bibles and has a big stack of them in the corner of her wedding cakery and freely shares them with people, whenever she feels prompted to do so. She told us that even though there's a random assortment of versions of the Bible (King James, etc.), she has full faith that whichever one is on top of her Bible stack is exactly the Bible that the Lord wants her to share with that person. SHE IS SO FANTASTIC!
Then we talked about the Book of Mormon and she told us that she had started reading it and really likes it. She told us if we brought some by, she would add them to her Bible stack and share them #sheisgold. Then we talked about Jesus Christ and prayer and even shared a fangirl moment about David Archuleta, she loves him haha. Lesley told us she wasn't really interested in necessarily being "taught by the missionaries" right now, because she goes to another church, but maybe one day. Something I love about the Restoration of the gospel is that in no way does it diminish or crumble the beliefs of other Christian churches, but instead it builds and adds on to things they already know. It restores the FULLNESS of gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel does not change, but instead, it changes us. It shapes our hearts and our desires to see more than just what's going on right now. It influences the choices we make and gives us hope in our adventures to grow and become all that our loving Heavenly Father wants and knows we can be. I'm grateful for that knowledge and I'm grateful to know that despite my struggles and flaws, Heavenly Father knows and will always love me. He knows my weaknesses and my stumbling blocks, but He also knows my hopes and dreams. And yet, He does not give up on me. I am grateful that He is in charge and have such a testimony of being called to where you're called because of who you are "the Lord doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called". Sometimes (more like all the time) becoming "qualified" requires some Refiner's Fire, some steep and slippery switchbacks, but as we trust Heavenly Father and remember that through Him we can do hard things, it all works out as we trust in the process.
We go out to the Eagle River Nature Center each week with the Beach Lake sisters-Sister Randall and Sister Clawson-and volunteer there cutting trail, building bridges, chopping wood (this week I got to be Lumber Jane and use a wood splitter like the one at the cabin #iamapro), and things like that. It's the best! A few weeks ago, these two girls came by the volunteer office and were like "we're up here visiting our family for a few weeks before heading back down to AZ & CA for school, can we help?". HECK YES. So we absorbed them into our volunteer crew and it's been so fun to get to know them. On Friday, we were heading to our dinner appointment and knew that the family we were eating with was part member (the wife and her two kids were members and the husband and his two daughters were not). Anyways, we knock the door and guess who it is?! Our Nature Center friends! Haha it was so awesome. We had a good dinner with them and then they started asking us questions like "what do missionaries even do" and "what made you decide to go on a mission" and things like that. I love those questions because sometimes people think we're like nuns and are personality-less robots...PSYCH! LEMME TELL YOU WHY BEING A MISSIONARY IS BOMBDIGGITY. We told them about missionary life and then I shared my Tincup Canyon car accident story. The Spirit at that little dining room table was POWERFUL you guys. As much as I'm not a fan of cars tumbling off cliffs or icy roads and rivers, whenever I feel prompted to share my story I do it, because there's something about "I Shouldn't Be Alive" moments that make you think and bring the Spirit. So we talked about prayer and the Restoration of the gospel. Want to know something? The Restoration makes logical sense. God loves us so He gives us families because being alone on Earth would be a major bummer. He wouldn't leave our families without direction, so He gives us prophets to act as His mouthpiece helping guide us back home to Him. They tell us what we need to do and what we need to know in order to return. So He sent Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son, to set the example for how we should live our lives. Christ set up His church with prophets and apostles and priesthood power (the authority and power of God for men to act in His name, it's like Heavenly Father's "stamp of approval") to bless the lives of His children. Jesus Christ performed the Atonement, He being the only one capable to do so because He was perfect, which solves the two problems we have as humans- a dying problem and a sinning problem. Christ atoning for our sins makes it so that each of us are able to repent and be forgiven for the shortcomings, sins, and mistakes we all make. That heavy load of guilt and grief that comes from sin can be taken away, should we chose to repent and utilize the Atonement of Jesus Christ and as we do that our lives can become bright and peaceful. I don't know about you, but I would way rather live a bright and peaceful life than one filled with grief and guilt. How does the Atonement solve our dying problem? Because Jesus Christ was resurrected (the reunion of your spirit and body in perfect form) after being crucified, everyone who has ever lived, currently lives, and will ever live will be resurrected too. No matter where they were born, what they did on earth, or what their favorite flavor of ice cream is, ALL will be resurrected because God is our loving Heavenly Father. But here's the catch, after Jesus Christ died, people were still wicked. They killed the apostles and prophets and eventually the priesthood authority was taken from the earth, this is called the "Great Apostacy" or the "Dark Ages" like what you study in middle school history. Things on earth were a little rough. There were still good people and fragments of what Jesus Christ had taught remained on earth, but there was no "fullness" or priesthood authority. As a result of these fragments, people began to form their own churches but still none of them had the full teachings of Jesus Christ- there was a need for a Restoration. And so when the time was right and just like He has done throughout the history of the world, God called Joseph Smith to be a prophet, just as Adam and Moses and Noah and Abraham. Joseph was confused about which church he should join and so following the council given in James 1:5 to ask of God, he went into a grove of trees and prayed to know the truth. There Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph and told him that none of the churches contained the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ but through Joseph Smith being called as a prophet, that fullness would be restored. And now here we are, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints containing the fully restored gospel. This email is getting ridiculously long so basically we talked about the Restoration and then each of the girls accepted BOMs and our invitation to read them. They were really excited and even came to church yesterday but are heading back down to the Lower 48 on Wednesday for school #sadsadsad but hopefully those seeds we planted will bloom some day.
"Sister Dunlop, there is no better time for you to eat a fried Twinkie than right now, as a missionary. What other time will you be more prepared to meet your Heavenly Father?!" -Bro. Lemon #eatwhileyoucan. Bahaha I died but we got distracted by talking about other fried things (fried Oreos, fried butter (this is actually a thing at the AK State Fair), etc.) and forgot to get the Twinkies out, next time. And now that I just wrote that out, I feel like that might have been one of those moments you just needed to be there for #awkwardsorry.
Anyways, sorry about the super long email.
Have a fantab week xoxo.
Loves and hugs, Sister Dunlop
Here's a random assortment of photos from the past few weeks.
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