Hello hello fam+friends. I hope your Christmas was the bestest and that Santa treated you well. This week was totally INSANE - a jam packed missionary work fiesta. Time is flying so fast it’s scary. Part of that may also be because of the Winter Solstice passing by on Thursday (where the sun peeked up for a quick three hours and then bounced) and now each Alaskan day gets lighter and lighter #superblessed ☀️
Okay, this week. Sister Burdick came on exchanges with me Tuesday and Wednesday where we taught some lessons, wiped up someone’s dirty bathroom floor (yay for service), had a fab dinner at a member’s house where they started spitting marriage advice to Sister Burdick because she goes home soon, and then went and crashed the youth “Minute To Win It” party because THREE of our investigators were there. AND it snowed #goteamwasilla.
Sister Melton & I drove down to Anchorage on Thursday morning for Trainer & Trainee Meeting and saw one of the prettiest sunrises in my LIFE as we drove through Eagle River. President Toone shared a pep talk training about Doctrine & Covenants Section 4 and how guess what...you are qualified for God’s work by your DESIRES. Not by how many times you’ve read the scriptures, or your high school GPA, or your favorite ice cream flavor - it’s all about your HEART. “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called”. We are all enlisted. He needs you. He needs me. He uses our talents and personalities and gifts and abilities as INSTRUMENTS in His hands to bless the lives of those around us. There you go. Sidenote: one of the blessings of training a new missionary is that Anchorage has all the good food places so after T&T, you can go to lunch with some homies real quick 💕🙌🏼
On Friday afternoon, an investigator asked us to come help him move some stuff from his house into the broken down old school bus sitting in his front yard that he was using as a storage unit. Alaskans. Then we went and helped a member who has asked us to organize his “Man Cave” which was full of guns, books on deep doctrine, photos out the wazoo, and this giant warthog head that kept staring into my soul. Then we were invited to the most awkward family Christmas party of all time and history. Moral of the story: when you invite the missionaries to dinner, talk to them and make them feel loved. Maybe even let them sit at the table with you because we all know how hard it is to balance a plate on your knees while sitting on a squishy couch.
Christmas weekend: our sacrament meeting was combined with the Memory Lake Ward so I got to see a ton of my favorite people #christmasmiracles. I teared up as I sat between one of our cutie investigator girls and Sister Melton (with another investigator next to her) right there in that chapel as I thought about how lucky I am - my cup overflows. God is so good. We popped in at a few families houses on Christmas Eve and then went caroling with our zone in Willow. We spent Christmas morning with a family and then came home and Skyped our own [❤️👌🏼🎉] before continuing our house bouncing. We had moose for Christmas dinner (it’s super good, you’re missing out) with the Willow elders at a family’s house and then got to share a little bit of the Plan of Salvation and share the Book of Mormon with a potential investigator that was there. So. Good. We wrapped it all up with another caroling party with our zone and then crashed in bed. Best Christmas.
I hope you know how loved you are.
Merry Christmas. See you next year.
XOXO Sister Dunlop
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