June 17th

Of all weeks, the week I'm too busy to email - EVERYTHING happens!! I don't even know where to start (if I had changed missions it would almost be as dramatic) and I've been waiting all week for this time to come because there's just so much but I'll try to be logical and start where I left off.....

Ok, so as you know, my trainer and companion for the past 9 months Sister McQuivey's been sick a lot and hasn't been able to get out of the house. Over the course of last week we kept in touch with President and even considered having her work English rather than Cambodian since it's less stressful, but in the end, gave her the option to go home. She was adamant about staying and didn't want to consider the idea, but after a long time of agonizing over the idea, she suddenly became at peace with it. As hard as it was to face the fact, (especially with her only having 4 months left) it felt right. We talked to President about it, and although we didn't know when he would send her home, we figured it might not be for a little bit, and weren't surprised when at transfer calls we would stay together and be training Sister Loy from Cambodia!!

I was fine with the idea of training with Sister McQuivey the first few weeks, that's not so stressful for a new trainer, until when walking into transfer meeting President says I will be the sole trainer...... so I would be a single "parent" a little sooner than I thought. We'd joked that Sister Loy would have abandonment issues with Sister McQuivey (one of her "parents") and Sister Noun (her "grandmother") leaving within the same transfer she just arrived, but I didn't anticipate be the sole trainer so soon! But it's been going well and Sister Loy is the cutest ever!! She speaks about as much English as I do Cambodian, only she can understand more than she speaks, so the majority of our communication is in English, although I try to speak Khmer often to make her more at home. At least she has Sis. Noun here to talk to before she leaves in 2 weeks. But I've getting ahead of myself.

The next day we had a baptism; Brenda's. This didn't happen for my first baptism in Lacey with Say because the ward mission leader there is phenomenal, the ward is very supportive, and we had the elders there helping out, but this time - EVERYTHING went wrong. I doubted whether or not the baptism would go through several times; 

1. The day before Brenda wanted to change the day because she had an important errand and didn't know if she'd have time, so we just changed the time to the evening. 

2. Next, her grandfather Tom decided he didn't want to baptize her, so three hours before the baptism we had to find someone to baptize her while graduation is going on in the ward at which everyone's attending. 

3. Brenda's normal ride had work at that hour and couldn't drive her.

4. The suits weren't in the closet, but the other sisters were preparing for their baptism the coming Saturday, so we had to run back to our apartment to pick up a suit... 

5. Run the sisters to a dinner we couldn't attend and apologize profusely so we could... 

6. Make copies of our program because the copier in the building where the font was wasn't working. etc.

By the time we were in the car on the way to the font (with a headache), and we finally got all the wrinkles smoothed out we realized everyone going to the baptism was doing something... and we were one priesthood holder short. Knowing they'd asked if they could come, and needed anyone available in the next 15 minutes, we called the elders (on bike) and asked them if they could speed to the other building in time to witness Brenda get baptized. 15 minutes and a deep breath later as I sat behind the piano playing my beloved Jon Schmidt hymn music, when who should show up but Brenda's grandfather Tom! He wasn't willing to baptize, and everyone else in her family was to "busy" to watch her make this important commitment, but she had family there!

The baptism went well, Brenda was SO happy (her ride's work schedule was miraculously moved by one hour so it worked out in the end!) and in spite of the water being cold, she was baptized!

Two days later (Friday), it's about 10 am and we get a call from President saying Sis. McQuivey will be leaving in 3 hours. She hadn't even started packing. So we all pitched in in organizing things, and she'd already decided to leave most of her things behind, so it was just a matter of her choosing what to take and leave behind. Those were a stressful and sad three hours as we said our goodbyes, and just like that she left. In mission terms when someone leaves or finished their mission we call that dying. It seemed pretty applicable in this case as one moment, the person I've been with every day 24/7 was there, and then gone. Only in this case we just had to wait four days before we could communicate with her via one email, but it's still quite an adjustment. At least Sisters Walker and Noun are still here, and of course I have Sis. Loy who, poor thing, is going through a very abnormal first week of mission-life.

All that, and our mission President will change in 9 days. Like, I said, the whole mission's practically changed for me. But it's been going well - the sisters went through similar trauma as their investigator got baptized the following Saturday, but we saw them both confirmed on Sunday, and the work is still progressing. My daily diet now consists of rice at every meal with vegetables, and fruit for dessert - thanks to Sis. Loy who loves to cook. (Last night she fried 4 chili peppers with the veggies, but with tissues to my left and a glass of milk to my right, it was really good.) Life is good, and the work is progressing. I will now end the epistle of a mission life-time in one email.

Love you!
Sister Dunster

                 1 Me with Sister Loy, McQuivey and Nanto (Sis. Noun's trainer who trainer sis. McQuivey)

                                                                     2 At Brenda's baptism!

                                               3 Me and McQuivey together for the last time here!

                                                              4 The four of us for the last time

June 6th

Except for a few appointments here or there I go on exchanges with to meet, I haven't gotten out of the house much because Sister McQuivey's been sick. She's making some improvement now so we can leave the house for a few things, but it exhausts her, so we have to go home right after. But Brenda's making progress towards her baptismal date coming up next week, and she's excited. The other sisters have a Cambodian baptism this week too, so it's been cool to have two Cambodians on date at the same time! Both of our investigators have been coming to church, so they've been teaching school in Cambodian the past few weeks and that's the most progress we've made towards becoming a group until someone is called, but it's progress.

Last week I forgot to mention when the Jehovah's Witnesses came to our door. I was doing language study and had no desire to bash with them whatsoever, but when they opened the door they pointed to the picture of Christ we had on the door and said "I see you're a Christian?". I showed them my name tag and at their request explained the process of becoming a missionary, and why we're here. The two women glanced at each other at the mention of prophets, but they listened and shared their message about whether or not misery ends from a scripture in Revelations. I agreed that we do believe there is an end to misery, and took their pamphlet (to add to the vase we have stuffed with those we collect at doors). I thought about trading it with a mormon.org card, but I knew they wouldn't care for it and I didn't want to be pushy. Before they left one paused and said, "You have a sweet spirit." I was surprised, but thanked them. I can now attest that even though they might not be willing to listen, showing respect can still make a huge difference. I love this gospel and I want everyone to feel the power of the full gospel in their lives, but I know everyone will listen in their own time and way, so we might as well love them through the journey.

Sister Dunster

May 27th

Mystery of the week: It took 2 and 1/2 weeks from the time a friend emailed me saying it was on its way, for a letter to get from Salt Lake, to my hands. If it had come from South America, or Russia, it would make sense, but I can officially say I've received an opened letter. It's both hilarious and disturbing how the top is completely cut off (also cutting off my friend's name), and the side, to be stapled together once on the side, with a little piece of tape to seal the top. We examined everything about to see if maybe my friend did it before he sent it, but the stamp itself had been stamped by the mail, and the edges of it were cut off, so it had to have happened after it was stamped. I have yet to ask the office if that's the way they found it, but the letter itself was fine.

Sister McQuivey's been sick a lot lately, so I spent hours one day completely cleaning the house. It was time well spent because we just had inspections today, so we didn't have much to clean in preparation because of it. It makes for slow missionary work, but she's been trying different diets to see if they help, and they haven't, so Sister Weaver said she'll get her a doctor's appointment soon.

The other day when we were still on foot we stopped to rest at a bus stop when the bus snuck up on us and we took it out of courtesy (we have unlimited bus cards). We went several blocks before getting off, and after walking down a street in a predominantly white area (if people are not Asian we categorize them as white), what should we see but a Cambodian walking with a bag of groceries! We looked at each other, then dropped our bags to run after him. We caught him before he reached the street and talked to him to see if he'd be interested in learning about Jesus Christ. He was somewhat busy, but not apposed to us coming by to teach him and his wife! So we're going to meet with him sometime this coming week hopefully.

It's been a little hard staying at home for so long, but there's only so much you can do about circumstances you can't control, and I'm learning that sometimes it takes faith to be happy. I didn't realize that faith could play a role in such a simple thing, but it takes faith to know that all trials are temporary, and know that no matter what, they will end. And God has a plan for us, so as long as we do our best in the circumstances we're given, all will work out in the end. :)

Love you!

Sister Dunster

May 20th

The other day we went split tracting with the Parkland sisters and Sister Bishop and I were walking away from a door when the woman in the garage asked if she could help us. She's an avid church member of Champion Center (you'll hear more of that in the future, or if you want you can probably Google it) and wasn't interested in what we had to offer, but when we offered to serve for free, she couldn't believe us. Her husband's mother and great-uncle just died three weeks ago so it's been a little rough for them lately, and she, Crystal, had just gotten back from buying cleaning supplies to get back into the groove of things. Not only that, but she said that morning she had just prayed that God would send someone to help her. That evening we arrived. After we set an appointment with her to come weed her flower garden, she asked if she could take a picture of us and send it to her friend to tell her who God just sent to her door. The second we said goodbye she was on her phone with a friend, saying as we walked away "Jenny, you just won't believe who just knocked on my door..." 

Crystal wasn't Cambodian, but we still got the opportunity to do service for her, and as we left her house today, who should we find walking down the sidewalk but one of our more solid Cambodian less-actives who lives nearby! We stopped to chat with her and told her about the new Cambodian Sunday school we're starting (if we can ever get them to stay past Sacrament Mtg) and she said she would tell her husband about it but that they would be out of town this weekend. I asked her what time we could meet up with her this week and she said her goodbyes. Not very subtle, but if we can get her and her husband back to church, they'll all come, so we're not giving up so fast.

Thursday we had Zone Conference which was amazing! It's the last ZC we'll have with President and Sister Weaver, and I'm going to miss them! I took loads of notes just to stay away because apparently I have issues with that, no matter who is speaking - it's ridiculous - but the benefit is that I now have record of everything they talked about, and it was a powerful meeting. They talked about how "extra ordinary prayer will lead to extra-ordinary effort" which I have found is very true. We discussed the parable of the talents and how regardless of how many talents you have, all that matters is that you give them all: the Atonement makes up the difference. 

President shared an experience he had at a meeting with Elder Dallin H. Oaks where the question was asked: "What is the one thing we should teach our children?" and Elder Oaks responded, "To learn to recognize the spirit and react." I thought that was a really powerful statement and helped me recognize how I could better listen for, and act on the Spirit, and it emphasized what Elder Neil L. Andersen talked about when he came last November about looking for the things unseen, which takes having a strong relationship with the Spirit, and is something I would like to work on more.

Yesterday we were just finishing our shopping at Kmart when the car battery died. Again. Our mission leader came to jump us and when his cables didn't work, he went and bought some new ones before giving them to us! That was so sweet of him, but he just told us to go have fun for P-day instead of sitting in the Kmart parkinglot. So we did; we were an hour late for the zone activity, but we still made it in time to BBQ some hotdogs, steak, and squid. Yes, a Korean member gave some sisters squid and Sister Noun loves it, so she cooked it up. Can't say I liked it, and it especially took more effort than I expected to get the tentacle near my mouth, but I managed. We then played Ultimate Frisbee which was a little more difficult with so many people and so little space, but it was still pretty fun. And that was part of my week!

Love,

Sister Dunster

May 13th

The other day when we arrived at Brenda's to teach her, she was soaking wet (as were we, but usually she's dry). When we asked she said she'd gone to the bus stop to see if her brother was there, and when he wasn't she called the police. She told us how her mom had dropped her brother off as usual, but a few hours later his work called saying he never showed up. His mom remembered telling him about a different bus that was potentially faster, so they thought he might have taken that one. That day was the first time McQuivey and I chose to take the bus, so we happened to have the book with all the bus schedules on it and where they went, so we looked at all the different options and stayed while Brenda's dad went to go look for him. 

To keep her mind off her lost brother while waiting for the cops, we sang a few Primary songs and started the lesson. Her mom sat nearby, completely distraught and quiet, but listening. It took another phone call to the police for them to come as usually they don't send out a search warrant without it being past 24 hours, but since her brother Gosal is even more handicapped than Brenda (he's 22, but has about a 7 year old mentality) they came. This all miraculously happened the day Sis. McQuivey and I were there to teach Brenda, because the mom can understand some English but can't speak any, and Brenda is extremely shy of boys, so she wasn't able to communicate/translate anything her mom or the cop said. So McQuivey and I acted as interpreters, doing our best to get all the information needed. After some difficulty, the cop finally got everything he needed, and left us with the card to discontinue the search if Gosal was found.

We spent a few more stressful minutes with the family as we waited to help comfort them when the mom got a phone call from the dad saying Gosal had shown up at work. At 10am he'd taken the wrong bus, taking him the opposite direction of his work, and not knowing what else to do, he'd walked miles south, to work, showing up around 5pm. His dad drove back the way he'd come just to gauge how many miles he'd walked, but we haven't heard yet how many that was.

During our stay there were many times we could have left, and contemplated it, especially once the police had all the information he needed, but we couldn't just leave them like that. The next day Brenda called us, thanking us for helping her find her brother, and said she wanted to go to church with us Sunday. It's such a small step for most people, but for Brenda this was huge! Sunday came, and even though she couldn't stay for all three hours, she came to Sacrament meeting! And we're hoping this will also help her mom warm up to the idea of coming back to church as well, since her grandfather is coming back as well.

So that was our big adventure for the week. Also, Ross came to church again, but he wanted to just come to church instead of having McQuivey and I come over to teach, so we gave him to the other Sisters so Noun can communicate with him better.

In spite of the excitement, the highlight was Mother's Day when I got my call home. :)

- Sister Dunster

                                  1. Me with Sister Clayson (my twin) after exchanges last week

                    2. McQuivey and I chowing down on the snack mix the YW Beehives from back home sent!

    

                               3. All the sisters missionaries in our ward, plus a future missionary. 

 4. My boots have slowly been coming apart, and I've Gorilla glued them a couple times, but this happened when we were on foot.

                      5. So on our way to a less active's I found this shoe lace half hidden under a bush. :)

May 6th

Last week Sister Walker had an idea. As a way to help remind President how badly we need a car, we decided if one of the new Sister Training Leaders wanted to go on an exchange with us (which we haven't had one before 'cause we teach in Khmer so it's not like they'd be able to understand or participate) we would have the person they're with, walk. No matter who has the car, we'll switch to show them how hard it is to walk from a less-active's to another every other week. As it was, two days later we get a call from the STLs saying they wanted to do an exchange with us! Sister McQuivey and I had the car that week and the other sisters had an appointment, so we made that as an excuse to give them the car. I had a hard time warming up to the idea since President's already looked for ways to get us a car and he promised us a car this transfer, but after waiting patiently, it still hadn't come. So we thought if anything, going on an exchange would hopefully speed up the process.

The day of exchanges came and I had my planner full of people to visit and backup options in case any of them fell through, all organized according to proximity, as usual. While McQuivey went to Highland Hills, I stayed with Sister Clayson who's my twin. Her trainer told us we were the same, but we found out that not only do we have the same dark curly hair, height and frame size, but we're both quiet and I found I could relate to her really well.

After a member dinner we tracted a governmental housing community where there's a large ethnic diversity and where some less-actives live close together. Afterwards came the real test as we walked to one less-active's house and they didn't answer. That's pretty normal, and we had another one on the other side of the community that wasn't too far away. She was not home. Fortunately we have our reliable, 80 year-old less-active Son Him who is always home, so we walked several blocks away to see him. For the very first time in the history of modern Cambodian Sisters serving in the WA-TAC, Son Him was not home. Sister Clayson said this always happens on exchanges, but this was ridiculous. There was another Cambodian two blocks down I decided to visit. Her son answered and said she was already at work and he was about to leave, so we walked up the street. I wracked my brain for any more Cambodians in the nearest vicinity, and I caught one at home that spoke only Cambodian, but she said she didn't have any time. The next day wasn't any better; every single person I had lined up, either didn't answer, or wasn't home. Later I retraced where we went and totaled almost 100 blocks that we walked in the proximity of 6 hours we were out walking during the exchange (it ended a little early though because they had some baptisms to attend) and not once did we have a sit-down lesson. I apologized to her for that, but she said she gained a new respect for the work that we do.

Later that day, after we'd traded back Sister McQuivey and I didn't know where to tract, so I drove (the luxury!) to a random street, and the first door we knocked on we found a guy that had started the lessons and had been reading the Book of Mormons with the elders in that area when he was randomly dropped. Those elders have since been transferred, so we gave him the number of the current elders as well as texted them ourselves that this guy was wanting them back.

Another miracle happened later as we got into our car when McQuivey spotted a Cambodian whose roommate we'd tracted into awhile ago and said he had a Cambodian roommate. We hadn't yet gone back to check again, but here he was - the Cambodian roommate! He also knows two of our less-actives, so we were excited to get a hold of him.

We also had an investigator come to church, again! And after a long time of wondering what to do, we acted as if Brenda had already said yes to baptism by asking what she would want for her baptism which led to planning, and then the date! So Brenda's on date! :D

Love you!

-Sister Dunster

April 29th

None of us really stressed out much about this transfer and who was going with who, 'cause there are only so many possibilities with four people who live together, with a fifth on the way. As it is, we found out last week that Sister Loy is not coming this transfer. She's coming from Cambodia, and will be Cambodian speaking, but the MTC decided to keep her another 6 weeks because apparently her English isn't good enough. Yeah, we weren't very happy when we found out, but we still only have one car and no Cambodian group to speak of yet, so at least by the time she gets here hopefully we'll have a group, and another car to get there. As for the rest of us, we're staying exactly the same; me with Sister McQuivey and Sister Walker with Sister Noun.

This past week one of our less active's now 3 year old daughter had a birthday party. She went all out with a Frozen/Sofia the 1st theme, purple everywhere, food for family and friends with a bouncy house outside. We went the day before for service by helping her decorate for it as her husband just got out of a visit to the hospital so she didn't have enough time. (He's the one who finally got a heart transplant!) It was neat to see most of the family together when we visited the party the next day to finish helping and meet some more extended family members. It got a little awkward when one of the sisters who's had us a over a couple times and asked us not to tell the rest of the family that she's wanting to go back to church, saw us at the party. She still gave us hugs like normal, and when her sister came out to ask if she'd met us before it got a little awkward, but if they both end up coming to church someday (hopefully soon) they'll be seeing each other there anyway, so it's about time.

Brenda and Malrut are two people we've been working on long time to go to church and this week they finally said yes!! So hopefully, if they stick to their word, we'll have two investigators at church Sunday, and all we need is one to start a Sunday School group in Khmer. Whether or not we're able to keep it up will depend on how many less-actives/investigators keep coming, but until Bishop calls a Sunday School teacher, we'll be teaching them ourselves. Thank goodness we have at least one fluent Khmer speaker!

Monday we were just about to go do an activity with the other sister and I'd just changed into my gym clothes when President Weaver called. We couldn't think of any reason why he would be calling and ask us to go to the mission home unless it had something to do with Sister Loy, but as it turned out it wasn't that dramatic. He was just calling to ask if I would accompany Elder Oliphant on the violin to replace Elder Rhodes' musical number in the fireside since he's going home and the other cello player wasn't confident he could pull it together in a week. Nothing can replace the cello, but it ended up sounding alright, so we'll get to go up to Bremmerton next Sunday for one of the last four musical firesides!

Thanks everyone for the packages and letters you've sent for Easter and my birthday, I loved them!

- Sister Dunster