HELLO HELLO 💕 can you believe it’s already been another week?! Crazy. It dumped snow all week on us up here & it was amazing. Fresh white snow on the mountains? I mean COME ON 😍 Alaska is the best.

Let’s jump in.

Last Monday night we went to check in on Joyce and see how she was doing. We get in there and sit on her couch chatting and catching up with her and then she’s like, “Sister Dunlop you look so exhausted and sick - are you okay? You look like you might need to go home and sleep for a few days or something,” and then she proceeded to stare into my soul for the next eternity and a half. Thanks. I’ve just been scarred for life exhausted ever since they had us get up at 2am from the MTC and fly up here forever ago and haven’t had time to catch up on sleep. I’ll sleep when I die.

We put two people on date for baptism this week! We solidified Emily’s date (see last weekly) and then invited another kid named Billy, a senior in high school who calls himself “Mormon” even though he’s not baptized [yet], to be baptized in March. God is good. We visited Barb this week (the lady we had been teaching 5ever who was actually a member) and Sister Parrish from Fairbanks 5th came down and took us to IHOP. When we were at IHOP, we met this guy named Dan and his little daughter there and asked them if they’d be interested in learning more about how the gospel of Jesus Christ blesses families. HE SAID YES. He gave us his address and we found out that he lives in the Knik-Fairview boundaries so we called the elders to come with us to a pass off a few hours later and when we showed up at Dan’s house, he had an Alaska State Trooper truck in his driveway #convostarter. Dan was home AND let’s us in (a rare occurrence for missionaries - people both being home for return appointments + actually letting us in) and I asked him about his AST truck. He told us about how he was one of the original cops that inspired the idea for the Alaska State Trooper tv show #bigfan. Anyways, we shared the message of the Restoration with Dan and he ate it right up! He told us how “it makes sense” and the elders have another appointment with him this week. Sister Bentley and I are so tempted to drop in for it but...we’ll see. Other than that, we are knocking doors and tromping through the snow. I love it.

Sunday morning we were up too early to be living for a Ward Council meeting that everyone just talked trunky with me - good stuff. And then was followed by a three hour block of people either asking me where I’m getting transferred to or how soon I’m getting married. Listen, friends. I’m going home to see my fambam and then putting some comfy clothes on - that’s all I’ve got planned so far. Also, I have some mad respect for elders serving their mission for two years - I am so ready to hug my mom and they still have like five months to go #prayersforelders. I have so much stuff to wrap up in the next ten days #organizeyourself but I’ll see you on the other side.

Love you as big as Alaska.

XOXO Sister Dunlop

Here Comes the Sun || Wasilla, AK

Hey friends! Here we are again. I hit my eighteen month mark this week #gross. I haven’t hugged my mom in eighteen months #doublegross. IT WAS SO WARM THIS WEEK (*knock on wood). I didn’t even wear a coat for a few days. The sunlight is finally starting to be “normal” up here and it’s the best thing ever - I love sunshine ☀️. This week was insane & I loved it. Being so busy sometimes makes me forget that my timer is running down so quickly.

On Tuesday morning we had zone meeting and then Sister Bentley and I went to Joyce’s for lunch with her and Sister Rosendale (she’s a member in the Wasilla Ward). We talked about the Plan of Salvation and invited Joyce to be baptized. It started out pretty good and then turned awkward real quick when she told us that one of her best family friends was the pastor that baptized her and he recently passed away and she thought we were hating on him for not having priesthood authority. So we had to clear that up and explain priesthood more but she still wasn’t totally feeling it. She told us she wouldn’t be able to make it to church this Sunday because she was heading down to Anchorage this weekend to be with her granddaughter. IDK, stay tuned. We had dinner with the Musgrave Family (big fan, always a good time) and then went with some of the elders to help this random lady move. Sister Bentley and I got a call from this random lady about a week ago saying that the sisters had knocked on her door around Christmastime (go Sis. Dunlop+Melton) and said that if she ever needed help with anything, to call them. So she did. And we helped her move some stuff from a house on one end of Wasilla to the other. Moving. Oh man.

Wednesday was the best Valentine’s Day ever. Our Zone got to head down to Anchorage and meet up with the North Anchorage missionaries (aka Sister Pike 😍) and help out with Iditarod prep all day. And it was hardcore snowing, like the kind of snowflakes that just fall in giant clumps, so that was good too. For the Iditarod, they had us in this huge warehouse in official yellow vests unloading trucks of dog+musher food, loading them onto pallets, wrapping them, and then they’re flown out to certain checkpoints along the trail. They had me up in the trucks unloading the bags and passing them down to the assembly line for weight and sorting #godunlop. Each of the bags weighed around 50 lbs. and so we were all hurting for a little while after, just a few weighted squats yanno 🙃. Wednesday night we had dinner with the McGuire family and Brother McGuire told us all about his theory on Big Foot. Then we went and heart attacked a few houses but Alaskan doors in the wintertime have this curse where tape will not stick to them to save my life - it’s the worst! So we tried to organize the chaos of love on their doormats quick enough to ring the door bell and run before the wind blew everything away. Spread love everywhere you go.

Thursday morning we helped at the Wasilla Food Bank and then it was sunny and happy outside so we tracted all day before dinner and FHE with the Boothe Family. Then we had a lesson with the Olivera girls, who are some overage youth we’ve been working with.

On Friday I went on exchanges with Sister Fa’anunu in Colony across the valley in Palmer. For those of you who don’t know, Sister Fa’anunu is the BEST and that was a major blessing. We reminisced (big word) on our old days back in Fairbanks 💕.

Saturday morning we met the Palmer Zone for Zone Tract over in Lazy Mountain’s area (#tbt) and Sister Fa’anunu and I talked to a ton of people which was super awesome. After lunch we exchanged back and Sister Bentley and I headed over to Rachael’s for a lesson. We talked about faith and read Alma 32 in the Book of Mormon and Sister Christensen (another Wasilla Ward member ❤️) came with us. Rachael is super awesome and has genuine questions about the gospel and the Book of Mormon. We’re hoping to have her and her son, Maddox, start coming to activities and things so they can get to know the members in Wasilla. Love her.

Church on Sunday (duh) and then we went and had a lesson with Emily, an overage youth that we’ve been working with. We invited her to prepare to be baptized and long story short, it’s happening in April and we are super excited for her and her family. And Emily made us these rainbow unicorn cupcakes with glitter sprinkles #mybff.

This is getting too long and I know y’all have bigger and better things to do with your life so I’ll wrap this up and you can move on.

I love Alaska.

I love being a missionary.

I love the gospel.

“And I love you random citizen”

See you in 18.

XOXO Sister Dunlop

Limbo || Wasilla, AK

Hello hello my dear friends+people! I’m not even going to tell you how many days we’re at because it’s getting so bittersweet and I’m sure my family will tell you if you ask. It honestly just feels unreal. Who are all you people that read my emails every week? Are you even real? There’s life outside of Alaska? Weird. Also, I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve sent you a good+long Sis. Dunlop email, so hopefully this one makes up for the prior lameness. Photos included #goteam.

Tuesday morning we had a lesson with Glenn and Stephanie (the cutie newlywed granola couple that Sis. Melton and I tracted into back in January) about the gospel of Jesus Christ and invited them to start attending Institute. They attend a non-denominational Christian church here in the Valley and have a lot of “deep doctrine” questions that we’ve been working through. They’re also on their way to Ireland this week for a little while so they’re on pause for a hot second. They’re great. Later that day, we went and saw Joyce (another lady that Sister Melton and I tracted into a while ago) and talked about the Restoration with her and she LOVED it. After our lesson, she wanted to feed us and so we had spaghetti and she told us about some of her life adventures - like living in India and then letting a homeless man come in and get warm at her apartment the other day and he left his dog there. I’m a Joyce fan. After dinner on Tuesday night, we went and had a Family Home Evening with some members in our ward and their less active son and his family. Sister Bentley and I taught them how to play Spoons and I CREAMED all of them. We’re going to have a tournament before I go home because they said they needed a few weeks to practice #sorrynotsorry.

We knocked and knocked and knocked on Wednesday and it wasn’t too cold (didn’t even need gloves), so that was a major blessing. We met a few people, and a lot of big and barking dogs. We treated ourselves to a visit with our friends over at Donut King that day because if you knock doors for more than six hours in a day, you’ve earned a good donut. Long story short: after a donut break (and once it was finally dark enough), we had to do a sketchy Book of Mormon box drop at a lady’s house but chickened our because her caretaker is terrifying so we dropped the box at the neighbor’s house hoping that the next day the neighbor would just think the FedEx guys didn’t know how to read house numbers or something and then would bring it over to the lady...worked like a miracle. I’ll give you more deets about that story if you want when I get home.

We helped at the Food Bank on Thursday morning then had to get the windshield fixed on our car that afternoon. Did you know that it takes like a hundred and five years to get your windshield fixed? Goodness gracious. Because we’re the only Sister Missionaries in the zone, none of the elders were able to come and pick us up and the car place isn’t in a residential area and we didn’t just want to just sit in the hard and cold waiting room chairs at the car place so we walked across (more like booked it across) the highway over to Wal-Mart and talked to people there. Sometimes I feel bad for cornering people, but also not bad enough to not do it because the gospel is so GOOD. There were a few times that we didn’t really know how to approach people so we just started talking about cereal (or whatever aisle we were in) and then tied it into the gospel or missionary work or something. I think we scared/annoyed just about every human being in Wal-Mart before our windshield was finally done. Sorry friends! We went and knocked some more doors but this time it was actually pretty cold and our hair turned frosty and white. After dinner, we went and met Glenn and Stephanie at Institute where Brother Shammy taught Helaman 7-11 like a BOSS. They said they really enjoyed it (same) and so hopefully they can come again when they get back up from  Ireland in a few weeks.

I survived my last ever Zone Conference on Friday - just kidding, I love those things. After lunch and Wasilla Zone picture, we were folding up chairs and then President Toone was like, “Sister Dunlop, are you ready for your departing interview now?” I almost threw up. How did this get here so fast? Don’t get me wrong, at the beginning of my mission I never thought this day would come. But it did. Crazy. We had a good life chat, cried a little, laughed a lot, and then at the end he handed me a big white packet with my passport and flight itinerary in it and we wrapped it all up. Boom. Done. Then he asked me to say the closing prayer for our last little meeting together and let me tell you, there were tears. I’m a baby. Then we had to pull it together and go back into the rest of Zone Conference. AND THEN THERE WAS EXTRA TIME AT THE END AND I HAD TO DO A DEPARTING TESTIMONY *Kim K. cries 😭. Somehow survived that. It’s hard though because how do you summarize all that you’ve learned about life and God and people and the gospel and everything like that into words? You can’t. Now I feel like I’m in this weird limbo stage where I have my ticket home but also still have to go out and work like a missionary #sisterdunlopisnotdeadyet. Life is weird.

I felt dead sick+tired on Saturday. Rough stuff. Being sick as a missionary is the absolute WORST but sometimes you have to put your big girl pants on and deal. We went and contacted a few part-member families that morning and then had a return appointment with a lady named, Amanda, and her family that Sister Bentley and I tracted into on Wednesday. We talked about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and that He blesses us with families and prophets to lead and guide us. We shared the Book of Mormon with them and invited them to begin reading it. Amanda has two younger sons and her boyfriend has a younger daughter that lives with them too. They’re going down to Anchorage this week and so we are going to meet with them again next week. We contacted a few more families after meeting with Amanda and then had a lesson with Rachael. Sister Melton and I tracted into Rachael and her younger son, Maddox, around Christmastime and had shared a few messages with them since then but life is busy so Sister Bentley hadn’t met them yet. Rachael is the best #fangirling. She has lots of genuine questions about the gospel and we read 3 Nephi 11 with her and she loved it. We have another lesson with her this weekend and hope that she continues to progress so she and Maddox can have the joy of the gospel in their life.

We had early, early, early church meetings on Sunday - something I’m not going to miss when I get home. And it snowed! And then guess who came to church? Joyce! She showed up in the most colorful outfit I’ve ever seen and stayed for all three hours #realdeal. Love her. After church we came home and cranked out some weekly planning and set goals for the week/rest of the transfer...it’s going to be good.

I hope y’all are happy and spreading light and sharing love wherever you are and wherever you go. Have the bestest week 💕

XOXO Sister Dunlop

This Too Shall Pass...Like a Kidney Stone || Wasilla, AK

Hey hey hey. WE ARE AT 31 DAYS PEOPLE 🙃☹️😍😂😫🤯🤭😬🤮😊 

Can you believe it’s February?! I think it all started to set in for reals yesterday as we were sitting in the chapel for sacrament meeting and I looked around at all these people and families that I have come to know and love over the past few months and then I got to thinking about everyone else that I have come to know and love over the past even more few months and my heart wanted to burst because this adventure has been so good. To all of you who are thinking about going on a mission, in the wise words of Nike, “JUST DO IT”. It’s definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s also been the best thing I’ve ever done. Go & do.

Weather updates: the wind this week has been ridiculous - hurricane speed winds in the freezing cold making it around -20 outside. The wind blew all day, every day this week. But Alaskans are tough and they just keep on keeping on like it’s no biggie. I’m honestly impressed we didn’t get decapitated from tree limbs or someone’s roofing flying around while we were out tracting. It felt like we were knocking doors in a frozen wind tunnel. Also, the daylight is starting to get a little better up here! Each day is getting longer with more and more light 🙌🏼 sunrise is around 9am and sunset is around 5pm. Still not quite “normal” but nothing is really “normal” in Alaska anyways.

Missionary updates: we’re continuing to do a lot of tracting and contact attempts and had a few people added to the “Forget Me Not List” this week. We’ve been visiting all of the part-member families and overage youth this week and met this goldmine family that has a few kids in high school that are wanting to take the discussions and get involved. Yayayay!

Wasilla Stake had Women’s Conference on Saturday and this cute lady named Calee Reed came up for it and Sister Bentley and I now have major girl crushes on her and her inspirational speaking skills. Anyway, she spoke about how we all go through hard things (#icandohardthings) because that’s just part of life and at learning and growing and becoming. At one point she said, “this too shall pass...like a kidney stone”. AMEN. AMEN. AMEN. 

Life is tricky and rough sometimes, but it will all work out okay. Want to know why? Because God is in charge and we are His children. I feel like I could write a whole novel on how God gives us trials because of His love for us but I don’t have the energy and you probably don’t have the time to read it so I’ll just put that on my list of things to do when I get home. The moral of the story is that everything is going to work out. You can do hard things.

I should just let you know that on the rare chance that any of you decide to vacation up to Wasilla, there’s this ghetto little family run donut shop here called “Donut King” that is the only good food in Wasilla. Worth the whole trip. Sister Bentley and I go visit them on Fridays after weekly planning (other missionaries know how rough these can be sometimes) and celebrate life because donuts are good and so is God. Just wanted to include that little piece of travel advice in here from me and give Donut King a shoutout. PS we actually met THE Donut King this week and he was super nice and gave us free donut holes, that was a bonus. 

Another week of a pathetic photo assortment from Sister Dunlop - I'M SO SORRY! I’ll try and convince our Zone to go on a hike with me or something so this part of my weekly isn’t so sad next week. Although it’s highly unlikely that they will come with me, it’s worth a shot #yolo.

See you next month. 

Loves from Alaska+back. 

XOXO Sister Dunlop

Backpacking with God || Wasilla, AK

Hello hello my fam+friends 💕 

I have to start out with this: yesterday we had a regional broadcast and so the wards in Wasilla gathered together at the stake center to watch it and then afterwords we were helping fold up chairs and a bunch of people from Memory Lake were super impressed that I was still up here. Me too kids, me too.

Other fun and exciting things: the earthquake. Maybe your Facebook feed wasn’t as jam-packed with Alaska Gulf Earthquake updates like mine (I would be really surprised if it was) but there was a pretty big earthquake up here earlier this week that started in the Gulf and echoed up to Wasilla. Sister Melton and I slept right through it - most likely because I’ve never been so exhausted in my life than I’ve been as a missionary - but a bunch of people up here told us it shook their homes pretty bad. Nothing too insane. We’re all good 👌🏼. Also, the wind this week has been crazy but that’s just another perk of being in the Valley.

Wednesday morning we drove down to the airport in Anchorage to pick up Sister Bentley and then headed back up to Eagle River to drop off Sister Melton with Sister Jewel. I maybe cried, it’s fine. Sister Melton is a rockstar and Alaska is going to look so good when she’s done with it. This week has been full of updating Sister Bentley on all the things going on in Wasilla so she feels comfortable and confident taking it over when I go home at the end of this transfer. Weird.

If my mission has taught me anything, it’s this: God will never give us a pack too heavy to carry up the mountain. At first, the backpack is heavy and it takes a little bit of time adjusting to its weight, but He knows how much you can pack and He knows that adding a little more weight each time makes you stronger - “God needs strong soldiers”. Jesus Christ knows what it’s like to carry that much weight because He has done it for all of us before and continues to do it with us as we ascend the mountain. It’s hard. But hard is good. Keep climbing.

You’d figure that I’ve written enough weeklies by now that I would remember to take good photos during the week to send home, but some weeks that just doesn’t happen. Sorry kiddos. Here’s a few. And sorry that this one has been pretty short and sweet, transfer weeks are insane.

XOXO Sister Dunlop

Getting ice cream with all the new sister missionaries
(ps I've been on a mission longer than the four kiddos in the back COMBINED)

Waiting in the missionary line up at the airport