Hello hello! Alaska continues to be my greatest adventure despite the fact time is flying by - it’s a love/hate relationship. I think one of the worst parts about people finding out that you’re on the homestretch is that they just automatically assume you have the next five years of your life planned out and ready to go. Yeah, nope.

Talkeetna Report: It was cold and windy and we didn’t get to see Mayor Stubbs, but a nice man bought our lunch at Subway and Mt. McKinley was so pretty on our drive in that I started to cry #worthit 😍🙏🏼🏔

Missionary Report: one of our Zone Leaders always says, “you can do missionary THINGS or missionary WORK,” and let me just tell you that Sister Melton and I have been putting in some serious missionary WORK these last two transfers. It’s awesome. We’ve been doing a ton of tracting and the other day it was so cold out and we had been tracting so long that our jaws started to freeze up and we couldn’t formulate words at the doorstep. We had a good long thaw out session in the car after that. We’ve also been going through lists of former investigators, which is always an eventful time. Lots of door slams and almost getting decked with a frying pan, but we are still alive. Wasilla Zone Conference was this week and all got our new smartphones - they are super weird. They’re Samsung smartphones and I have zero idea how to use them but luckily I’m surrounded in a zone of greenie missionaries that all have Samsung tablets so they just rock and roll with everything #grandmadunlop. Go team. 

There you go, short & sweet. 

I love you from Alaska and back. 

XOXO Sister Dunlop 💕

2018 || Wasilla, AK

Hello hello! HAPPY 2018 FRIENDS 🎉👏🏼❤️

I can’t believe that another week has flown by and it’s already time for another one of these weeklies. Life is crazy, but also super good #nocomplaints. Also, I FINALLY convinced my Zone to actually do something fun on PDay instead of playing basketball all day so we’re going to Talkeetna 😍

Side note: the mayor of Talkeetna is a literal cat #AK

Last Wednesday evening we had blocked out some time to go knock doors. We’ve set a goal in our mission right now to spend at least an hour each day finding new people to teach and then scheduling at least one return appointment with someone. It’s been really successful and has helped us grow our teaching pool a TON, but it also means that sometimes we have to put our big girl pants on and go tract in some ridiculously cold wind + weather, but it makes you tough #icandohardthings. Anyways, the sun had set a few hours ago and it was about four degrees outside with the glacier winds ripping through the Valley for an added bonus. It. Was. Cold. We had a quick dance party in the car (with the heat cranked all the way up), prayed that we would find someone whose heart was ready and open for the message of the gospel, and then made the polar plunge outside and started knocking. It started out with the usual: a few slams in the face, “we’ve already been saved but stay warm out there”, some conversations through a sliver of an opening in the front door and over loud barking dogs, “we’re JW”, etc. All that good stuff. We had been out for about an hour and still hadn’t set up a return appointment yet and everything from our nose to our toes felt like an ice cube. But let me just tell you that when you ACT IN FAITH, God ALWAYS provides. Faith + works = power. We have a few more doors to go and are hoping and praying our little hearts out that we can find someone to bring the joy of the gospel to, and then we met Glen. After we spit out our “we’re the cold little sister missionaries at the door trying to spread goodness” line, HE LET US IN 🙌🏼 I will praise his name forever. He had questions, like real and genuine questions that didn’t come from a place of hate or trying to bash (like usual), that we answered and then shared the message of the Restoration with him and invited him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He was all about it. We set up to meet with him again a few days later and brought a few members of the Wasilla Ward to come with us. We get there and Glen pulls out his computer and has an entire list of things he wanted to talk about, which was completely loaded with Bible and Doctrine and Covenants cross-references and General Conference talks and everything. This guy is a smart cookie who had some deep doctrine questions that we usually don’t go into with investigators but he asked, so we answered. It just about got to the level of talking about the body temperature of a translated being. Deep stuff. We eventually roped in all back in and challenged Glen to continue read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He said he would read the whole thing. Stay tuned people. 

Spoiler alert: when you find out that your investigator has already been baptized. 

There’s this lady that we’ve been meeting with since I came up to Wasilla in August - Barb. She lives in Wasilla Ward’s boundaries but had requested for sister missionaries to teach her, so I met her when I was serving in Memory Lake and then when they pinkwashed me into Wasilla, I just got to keep her. She’s this sweet old lady who has had some rough stuff in her life’s journey and has been going to another Christian church for a long time and loves it there. We had usually just stopped by off and on to check in on her and see if we could do anything to help her because she’d said that she wasn’t interested in having missionary discussions anymore. Sister Melton and I had decided that we would try to slip in a few lessons here or there and so on Thursday night we stopped by with one of our cute ward missionary ladies who had just moved into the ward. Let me just tell you, those two were a match made in Heaven. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and at the end of the lesson, we invited Barb to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the Priesthood authority. She paused and said, “want to hear something funny?” then she goes on to tell us that she thinks she was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when she lived in Washington like 60+ years ago. I died. 

We did some FBI missionary research and found her records. Yep, she’s a member 🙃

We finished cleaning up the “Man Cave” (see photo evidence below), helped carry some giant drawers from the truck to back porch, and then fixed some welding tools in the garage #whenthesistersareasbossastheelders. 

We had a Zone Tract for the Memory Lake Elders on Saturday and went to this neighborhood that Sister Yeates and I had tracted out a few months ago. It hadn’t been super successful when Sis. Yeates and I were there but it was so interesting to see that just in that little amount of time, people’s hearts had been changed and we were able to set up return appointments and share the Book of Mormon with families. 

Go Memory Lake. 

We had to be back to our apartments early last night because of New Year’s Eve but spent the day after church having lunch with one family and then dinner at another. At dinner, one of the daughters’ boyfriend was there and he isn’t a member of the Church (yet) so the dad asked if we could share the first discussion with them about the Restoration. The Willow elders were there again too #quadsqaud. We invited the kid to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and he said he would. He seemed genuinely interested, and not just because his girlfriend’s dad was sitting right next to him. So that’s good! We were going to turn our apartment into a blanket fort for New Year’s Eve but remembered that we had to give all of our extra blankets away to some sisters in Palmer so we didn’t have any extras. Plan failed. 

I hope you have a super sparkly 2018 and that you love & laugh every day. 

I love you. God loves you. Life’s a party. 

XOXO Sister Dunlop 

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas || Wasilla, AK 12/26/17

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

writing weeklies is rough sometimes but you only get ten more from me || Wasilla, AK

Hello hello fam+friends. It’s been another crazy busy week of Sister Melton and I running around Wasilla trying to squeeze everything in before the sun sets and then stumbling around lost in the dark looking for addresses in a place that doesn’t believe in putting numbers on their houses 🙃 Luckily, Winter Solstice is this week so we will finally start to see the sun a little bit more up in the Great White North ☀️ Let me just tell you, as scary as pinkwash training is, the Lord provides. We have seen blessings on blessings and miracles on miracles - it’s so amazing. Missionary work is hard, don’t get me wrong, but it’s worth it. Missionary work is how God shows His love to His children. All the door slams and the unkept commitments don’t even make a dent in how amazing it feels to help someone feel the Spirit or to share the Book of Mormon with them or to see them dressed in white ready to make covenants with their loving Heavenly Father. It’s. So. Good.

Fun stuff: the Settler’s Bay elders came to dinner with us on Friday (long story) at a family’s house in Wasilla where they always eat ribs when the missionaries come over. The standing record for “most ribs eaten in one sitting” at their house was fourteen. Elder Litchford ate sixteen like a champ then had room for dessert after 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Only one new sister missionary came out this transfer and she is getting trained over in Lazy Mountain - lucky ducky. On Thursday morning we headed over there with the Colony Sister to decorate their little red barn (#tbt) before she and Sister Lake came back from Anchorage. We covered their desks with confetti and sticky notes and strung streamers and balloons up the stairs. I still have no idea how we managed to smash a trio of sister missionaries in that thing last December but...it was a good time. 

The Young Women’s President invited us to come and speak with the youth on Tuesday night about missions & missionary work and have an open floor discussion with them. It was awesome. They asked questions like, “what’s the worst thing you’ve had to eat” or “can we watch your call video” or “why are you on Facebook now” or “what is the coldest temperature you’ve been in” and things like that. We wrapped it all up with the missionary pep talk of the year about how THE LORD QUALIFIES the called and that your DESIRES qualify you for the work (read Doctrine & Covenants 4 to join the party). Missions are the hardest, bestest, funnest, weirdest adventure ever. 

You won’t regret serving a mission.

Just do it. 

Spiritual stuff: Sister Melton and I have set a goal to read the entire Book of Mormon together by the end of this transfer (which ends at the end of January) and this week we have been studying in Mosiah. Here’s some good stuff for your Monday: Mosiah 27:25 reads, “and the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.” AMEN AMEN AMEN. Earlier in Mosiah we learn that “the natural man is an enemy to God”. We all have struggles and challenges, that’s just a part of being human. It’s part of His Plan. God knew that we would mess up. But He still [and always] loves us, and that’s why He gave us a Savior, His Only Begotten Son. It’s because of love. Jesus Christ came to their Earth as a perfect example for us and He atoned for each and every one of us - all of our sins, sorrows, everything. He knows. And He knows because He felt it all. Because of love. Now, the ball is in our hands and it’s up to us to “be born again”. It’s up to us to choose God and to choose good. Choosing God doesn’t immediately make your life rainbows and unicorns though, sometimes it’s even the opposite. But when we choose God and rely on Him, the blessings overflow. We read repeatedly in the scriptures that when we keep the commandments, we prosper in the land. Change your heart, change your life. 

Merriest Christmas. 

Loves and hugs.

XO Sister Dunlop

PS part of being a missionary and running around with your head chopped off means you’re really bad at pictures for your weekly #newyearsresolution #sorrymamalaura💕

Slippin' || Wasilla AK 12/11/17

Hello fam+friends! We’ve survived another adventurous week in Wasilla. It’s an ICE RINK up here [because it was really warm and all the snow melted, then it rained and cooled down so everything froze into a slippery mess] and as such, Sister Melton and I have had some pretty epic wipeouts this week. Bruised elbows, borderline broken fingers, etc. #hardcore #AAMproblems. 

Long story short, we spent a huge part of the week contacting people from lists that the ward auxiliaries had given us and Christmas partying. It was a good time. K cool. 

On Saturday night we had a pass off lesson with the Fishhook elders with this cute lady that told us about how she feels like something is missing in her life, but she doesn’t know what it is (@PMG!!) and we are really excited to start teaching her. She got really sick yesterday and wasn’t able to make it to church, but we have an appointment set up with her later this week #staytuned. 

In other news: because our zone is so small, President Toone is dissolving the two Wasilla districts this transfer and now we’re just one big district/one tiny zone. I love it. Also, our mission is getting smartphones in a few weeks which means we can finally be in group texts and send emojis 😍🙌🏼🎉

We are all just praying for some snow up here so it can look like December already. I haven’t worn a coat all week✌🏼

XOXO Sister Dunlop

WASILLA DISTRICT (the cooler district because it has the Sisters in it)

   WASILLA ZONE #homiescanbetogetherforever

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Wasilla, AK

Hey fam&friends. Happy December. Can you believe it’s December already?! What on earth. It’s so dark up here. The sun rises at 11am and sets around 3pm. We’re all just counting down the days until December 21 so it can start to be light longer. The weather in Wasilla this week has been garbage-rainy and upper 30s with those glacier wind gusts that rips the air of out your lungs.

This week. 

We drove up to the Willow chapel (bless) on Tuesday for District Meeting and had a training about having the faith to find the elect people whose hearts are open and ready for the gospel. We were talking about training and at one point an elder said, “what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? You get shot. That’s quick,”. Maybe it’s only one of those things that’s funny if you’re a missionary but Sister Melton and I have been joking about that all week #thingselderssay. 

There are a handful of girls that come to the Young Women’s activities on Tuesday nights regularly that are not members of the Church [yet] and the YW President wants us to start teaching them so she invited us to go to their Smoothie Wars on Tuesday. YW is the BEST. I want to be in YW for the rest of my life. All three of the YW that aren’t members showed up and we got to know them and set up lessons and it was just all good errywhere. I’m pumped. 

The weather on Wednesday wasn’t all that bad and so we got our tracting pants on and went crazy. We knocked out a whole neighborhood sharing the #lighttheworld video, inviting people to the Wasilla Ward Christmas party and the Messiah concert, and we’re giving the Book of Mormon out like Halloween candy. It was awesome. And it wasn’t even that cold. 

Thursday morning we had a Trainer/Trainee Meeting down in Anchorage so Sister Melton and I road tripped it down there, then stopped at the Mission Office to snag a box of Book of Mormons and other fun missionary things like that, then lunch with Sister Melton’s mom’s cousin in Beach Lake (who I had met last year in Lazy Mountain haha), and then made it back up to Wasilla in time to go and help an investigator couple decorate their Christmas tree. Someone needs to make a brilliant+genius invention that makes Christmas lights less of a struggle because those things are ridiculous. Every. Year. You start by having to untangle the knot ball of lights and then checking to see if they still even work and on the rare occasion that they do, then you have to risk your life by stringing them in the tree and try not to bleed to death. Someone should fix that. 

Sister Fa’anunu and I went on exchanges in the Colony Ward this weekend. I love that girl. I had to drive because she doesn’t have her license and I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that we spent the majority of our exchange being lost. She’s new to the area and I have no idea where stuff is in Colony. We survived. It was a good time.

The Wasilla Zone has started “Zone Blitz” where our entire Zone (the smallest in our mission #notmad) all comes out and tracts out a huge part of someone’s area together. It’s the best. On Saturday we planned to blitz in Wasilla so earlier in the week, Sister Melton and I had prayed about knowing where to take the zone and had felt prompted to go to this neighborhood that neither of us had been in before (#pinkwash). We drive over there to check it out and it was this grumbly trailer park in the boonies with shacks and little cabins built off the trailers. Someone was hanging out with these barrels on fire in their backyard. Someone was chilling in a field all by themselves doing who knows what. Someone had pushed their trailer INTO this dirt hill and it was just suspended there-probably illegal but AK has weird housing laws (aka like none, or at least none are followed and people just do whatever they want). ANYWAYS we decided this neighborhood was calling our names because everyone needs the gospel so Saturday afternoon we met up with the elders and started divvying out who goes where and they started freaking out because past elders that had served in Wasilla had been to chicken to tract this neighborhood. Listen kids, it’s going to be fine. So we’re all out there working hard [and praying harder] and at the end of it all, every companionship ends up with at least one return appointment. BOOM. 

Yesterday was a little crazy. We only had Sacrament Meeting because a huge part of our ward was involved in the community Messiah concert that day so there weren’t enough people to play the piano in Primary or teach the Sunday School lesson or things like that, so Bishop Walther just canceled the last two hours. There were two performances of the Messiah, one at 2 and one at 7, and some of our investigators said they were coming to the one at 2 and then others said they were coming to the one at 7, so we ended up going to both. Holla. In between them we watched the Christmas Devotional broadcast at the Stake Center and had twenty minutes to run home and break our fast with some mac+cheese (bad idea) before heading back out to the Messiah. Go team. Sundays as a missionary are insane. 

Hopefully it starts dumping snow soon so Alaska actually starts looking like Alaska. It looks like Break Up up here. Life is good though, I can’t complain. 

Read your scriptures and #lighttheworld. 

Love you all from Alaska and back. 

XOXO Sister Dunlop

Wasilla 11/27/17

Hi friends. 

Here’s a one minute update of this week: I dyed Bobbe’s hair blonde from a box, locked the keys in our apartment, survived three Thanksgiving dinners, helped a hoarder move a pile of stuff from her driveway and into her fourth storage unit, tracted in ten degrees+glacier wind+dark, ate a 1/2 lb Reese's pb cup #noshame, sat through a three hour meeting with Bishop and his counselor and a homeless lady that wanted to get a ride from Wasilla to Soldotna, and Zone Blitz tracted out Settler’s Bay’s area. Go team.

Use your life’s energy for good.

XOXO Sister Dunlop