Aug 26th

Since there's a new rule where we can go to the temple with our recent converts if they go with their own names, we decided to take a shot at finding names for our first convert. We thought it would involve complex computer work and struggling through Cambodian writing to find anything until we visited the Family History Center and they pulled out a sheet of paper where all our recent convert had to do was write down the name of his parents and voilà! We can go! We haven't been able to meet with him yet to get the info and plan the day to go (which is pretty important) but the fact that we can potentially go to the temple with him is so exciting!

Other than some more service and finding two new investigators (yes!), it wasn't as busy a week as we'd hoped. We do have a baptism planned for this Friday! It's a 50 yr old man that's come to church twice, has been taking the lessons for awhile and loves it, so we're hoping that he'll be able to get time off work soon to go to Sunday school as well as Sacrament mtg with us - we're so desperate to get members to Sunday school. We haven't held it in a few weeks because one key member's out of town, and the other knows English well enough to go to the English classes, so we've been seeking some Cambodians that are willing and available to come. 

As I've met several interesting people at door-steps, and heard their arguments about their concept of God and life in general, it's really sad to hear some of their misconceptions, but it gives me a chance to read the scriptures and find answers to their questions. Recently I read these two scriptures:

  

"He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation." (2 Nephi 26:24)

 "Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves - to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life." (2 Nephi 10:23)

That's basically the sum-up of our purpose in this life. It's so easy to get caught up in little priorities that draw us away from the main focus of life, or ideas that there's just some things about ourselves that can't change, and that's false! We have the agency to change, no matter how long or hard it may be. We have the Atonement to help us through any challenge we may face and I'm not just talking about repentance, but about believing in and receiving support from someone who knowsthe effort and pain it takes to change. It doesn't have to be something major, because as Elder Neil A. Maxwell put it, "God's personal shaping influence is felt in the details of our lives." (Becoming a Disciple, June 1996) So even if it's as simple as being a little more patient, or finding joy in someone else's achievement, it's possible!

Sister Dunster

Aug 19th

I guess every town has this, but Tacoma never ceases to amaze me with the diversity of people it holds. Instead of listing off the many colorful people we've met here, I'll just go straight to a less-active we met who lives under a tree. It's in the backyard of his parent's house, so if he needs, he sleeps on their porch or something, but when we visit him, we sit under a roof of pine branches tied together to keep most of the rain and sun out. His bed is gymnastics tumbling mat on top of a sheet of wood, and one of the first things I noticed when looking up, was a Book of Mormon rolled into a scroll and tied above his bed. I've heard of people doing things like that to holy writings to keep bad luck and spirits away, but the funny part was when we offered to give him a new one and he took down the old and pried the pages apart as if to prove he could still use it. It didn't work very well as the pages were obviously rain damaged and permanently curled, so he accepted the new one.

Saturday was a big day for us as our goal for the district was to talk to at least 700 people by the end of the week, and since Sundays are always so busy with member meals and going to multiple wards, this was our day to hit home. We paired up with the English sisters in our ward and found a festival going on in town where we decided to draw the Plan of Salvation in chalk so whoever walked by would see it and we could talk to them about it. It turned our really well, and by the end of the day our district added up to exactly 700 total of people we talked to that week. It's exhausting talking to nearly every person you see, but it was fun!

Sunday we got one of our investigators to church! He has work, so he couldn't stay the full three hours, but he liked it, and we're hoping his baptism date sticks for the 29th! I never imagined I'd see the time when we had a baptism nearly every month, but that's what we're working and praying for.

Sister Dunster

                 Plan of Salvation! The festival blocked off a street, so we just took one of the intersections.

Aug 12

There are weeks where you have a lot of lessons, a lot of news, or, a lot of service. That was one of those weeks. We had a service project nearly every day, one to help a woman in the ward unpack and rearrange things, one to weed a flower bed of another, another day to paint the house of a non-member, and the most memorable would be cleaning our investigator's kitchen. 

She's around 80 years old and has terrible health, which we attribute partly to the fact she does not have a very clean kitchen. So one day we just went over there, threw out bad food (which Sister Loy had to do because Sis. Walker and I didn't even know what half of it was), cleaned the counters, did all the dishes on the counter clean or not because even the "clean" weren't that clean, and scrubbed the outside of the cupboards. There was still a lot of work to do when we left, so we decided to enlist the elders to help us finish it up. They just happened to have a painting service project at their investigator's house the next day, so we did a deal where if they helped us finish cleaning the kitchen we would help paint at their investigator's. I thought it was a great deal since I love painting, but what we didn't realize until afterwards was that we had another painting project the following morning as well, and we painted for hours. Needless to say we were exhausted by the end of the week and out of clean service clothes, but we accomplished a lot.

We also had Zone Conference this past week about opening our mouths to invite people to learn about the gospel. We had different workshops, one really fun one on practicing using clues around you to open up a conversation and talk to people instead of awkwardly going up and asking them flat-out if they'd be interested in religion. Our district leader then made it a competition within the district to see who could extend an invitation about the gospel to the most people, whether or not they accept. 

So yesterday while we were in the Asian market, I saw a woman looking over an odd vegetable, and not knowing exactly how that was going to lead into the gospel, I asked her if she knew the name of it in English. She only knew it in her native language which was Tagalog, and I don't even remember exactly how we got into it, except that it involved an embarrassingly extensive list of questions about the vegetable before she asked what my nametag was for. Ha! It's always exciting when they're the first to mention the church - but she'd seen a lot of missionaries in the Philippines, and even though it turned out she's really active in her current church, it was a neat experience meeting so many people as I tried harder to talk to everybody, as awkward as it can be at times.

Sunday one of our investigators disappeared - their trailer was gone, and their neighbor had no idea where they went. We were devastated, as she was on date, and they were such a good family! They were screening our calls, and we didn't know where the wife worked, so that night we just prayed that somehow we'd be able to get in contact with them. The next day we randomly decided to call them again, and the wife answered! She told us where they'd moved, and that she wanted to keep learning, so we hope to be able to continue teaching her soon, but she now lives with her mother-in-law who's Buddhist, so we can't teach her at their house just yet. But in spite of current complications, we're just happy that they're still nearby and we can still keep in contact with her, and continue to pray that we'll be able to meet with her soon.

Love you!

Sister Dunster

Aug 5th

A few weeks ago we had a burst of new investigators which meant we had several appointments everyday, which is very unusual, and we almost didn't know what to do with so many! Since then it's slowed down, but with Sister Loy as a native speaker we realized can get a lot done, so we decided to think of creative finding activities to help boost our investigator pool again:

Parks are a great way to contact people, and there's a public blueberry park free for the public to pick blueberries from that a lot of Asians frequent. Although we haven't had much success in catching an interested Cambodian, we talked to some members, Koreans, and part Filipinos amidst scavenging for ripe blueberries here and there. So many people go it's hard to find some that are actually ready and not sour, and although we offer our help, most people avoid talking to us anyway, so we scratched that one off our list for now.

Many doughnut shops are actually owned by Cambodians out here, and was actually a somewhat successful finding activity for one of our Cambodian speaking elders from the MTC serving in California, so we decided to put it to the test. Sadly, I can now say I am a doughnut connoisseur. But of the four doughnut shops we've tried, we found our favorite place, and talked to two about the church. Still, no solid game, but one of our investigators works at one of them so we plan on asking her if there is anyone she knows of who might be interested in learning as well.

Sunday we went down to Lacey to visit Say with the headphones we use to interpret. Even though he was the only one using them, and he sat right next to us, he loved it! And it was fun taking turns to translate testimonies, even if we did a better job of it because it was on simpler material than Pioneers, or the Fourth of July. If there was only a way we could get him over to our building it'd be awesome, but someday we'll have a group for him to come to.

Although it can be slow, the work is progressing in the WA-TAC, and slowly, but surely, we are bringing people to a knowledge of their great Redeemer.

Love you!

Sister Dunster

    Sister Loy likes to make seafood! And in spite of the hard work it took to get so little meat, it was really good.

                                                                      Sophary's baptism.

                                                                 The sunset on Mount Rainier

July 29th

For some reason all our investigators decided to get sick and cancel all our appointments. So it was a really slow week, but we did get to go to Transfer mtg this past Tuesday! We welcomed 15 new elders and 13 new sisters into the mission before 13 sisters and 10 elders gave their final testimonies over the pulpit. I really love how we do it in this mission, because as President Blatter stood up afterwards, having witnessed his very first Transfer mtg, he said there wasn't any better advice he could give than what was already given by those finishing their missions. I'll miss going to every Transfer meeting, because it's a boost for the next transfer, and keeps us focused on the long run.

Here's just a little note on surviving as a missionary: We had a member take us out to dinner this week which we love and dread at the same time. He takes us to a buffet that serves Asian and Samoan foods, so it's good, but he's also Samoan, so he makes sure we go through several plates and dessert before we go. It's exhausting, but we've learned to be creative in disguising our plates to look bigger than they really are, and he loves telling stories, so it helps to keep him distracted as we shuffle things around. But he does tell really good stories, so we always enjoy his company.

We have an eight-year old's getting baptized today! Technically she's a child of record since her dad's a member, but her dad wanted us to teach her, and we're teaching her mom as well during her days off work. Unfortunately she's really busy, so they weren't able to get baptized on the same day, but we tried, and the mom should be coming to the baptism tonight which we're excited about.

Sorry this week's email was short, and I forgot my camera cord so I couldn't insert pictures, but I'll have more time next week.

Love you, and thanks for the support!

Sister Dunster

July 23rd

Last Monday we were invited to join the Young Women play soccer (side note: I've never played so many sports in my life as I have on my mission, but I'm getting the hang of it) and gathered in a circle afterwards to hear from: the missionaries. We weren't given a heads-up, so the other sisters went first and Sister Walker and I just spoke briefly about why we came out on a mission and what we've learned from it so far. It was a really fun experience being able to address the youth and something I hope to do again as that was something I would have loved if I'd had sister missionaries in my ward growing up. 

The following Sunday the father of one of the girls at soccer pulled us aside and said his daughter asked him if it was too early to start preparing for a mission. He said it was the first time she'd ever mentioned it, and he just wanted to thank us for being a good example and encouraged that we continue working more with the youth. They have the English sisters for that, but we'll see if we can pop in every so often as well.

The other day after we taught a yiay (the word for grandma), Sister Loy began fishing around her bag for a nickel while yiay took off her shirt. We asked Sister Loy what was going on and she said she was going to coin her. So there's this thing in Cambodia, where if you take a coin and scratch lines into the persons back - not so that it bleeds, but until it turns very red - it releases "bad air" and makes the person feel better. We'd heard of it before and had heard stories of it from our fellow missionaries in the mother country, but had never seen it done ourselves. At first we had Sister Loy do it, but seeing it would take awhile, we pitched in to help. It looks painful, and it lasts several days, but apparently it does hurt and afterwards yiay said she felt a lot better. It's a mystery!

Sunday we had our part-member family come to church, as well as the active Cambodian father and his son from another ward who speak Cambodian. It made Sister Loy and I very self-conscious as we translated/taught a bit of related doctrine to keep the flow because the topic was on pioneers, and everything they went through from crossing frozen rivers to the speaker's friend who had surgery on her eye. Neither Sis. Loy nor I knew any vocabulary for that. But it worked out well, and we had four people at our Sunday school class (excluding us) so it was exciting to have a bigger than tiny group. It's never the same week to week, but we're making progress!

It's crazy how time flies and every day presents its own challenges, but it's rewarding to see a little change in people or to see a little more growth from our efforts. It's all the Lord's work and we're only here to bring the Spirit into the people's lives and guide them back to their Savior, but it's a precious work I have the privilege to be a part of, and I love it.

Sister Dunster

 cleaning moss off a member's roof. It's a lot harder than it looks. 

1. Some service projects we did last week. This is raking up a woman's back yard of old grass, and cutting the new. Before when the bin was full ... and after when we made more space. (below)

                                                    Coining Yiay's back. It looks worse than it is!

                                    Helping scrape/paint primer on a nonmember's home. We had fun. :)

                                                        Eating a chili pepper together.... bad idea.

July 15

We've had abnormally dry and warm weather in Tacoma lately, and we did a lot of service projects, so surprisingly I got a tan! But we got to rake and cut tall grass in this woman's back yard, scrape moss off the roof of a member's house, and scrape/paint primer on a non-member's house which was the most fun because it brought back memories of painting with dad, and most of the ward was there so it was really fun getting to know them better.

We were able to get an eight-year old (whose dad's a member) and her mom on date for later this month on Sister Walker's birthday, so we're working especially hard to make sure we set solid appointments in order to teach them so hopefully everything will go well! The only draw-back is that's the day of transfers, and we have a dinner that day, so it's going to be a little packed.

Sunday was hectic as we had to make sure we had a ride for an investigator we've been teaching for the past like 8 months, who FINALLY came to church!! She's really old, and blind in one eye, so it's taken a lot to get her to come to our church and not go to the Buddhist temple, but she decided to come this week. We also wanted to make sure the family with the two on-date were able to make it, and although they weren't ready when we dropped by their house before church, they got ready and we were able to get them a ride to church! So here we had three investigators, and two recent converts at church, and we were a little late, but Sister Loy and I got the station set up for translating, and did that throughout the meeting. I translated for a speaker leaving on her mission, so it was super easy and made me feel really good about my translation although I know it was help from the Spirit, and I still said a lot of things wrong. Not everyone was able to stay for the rest of church, but after getting them rides, we still had three people attend our Khmer Sunday school!

I'm out of time, and on the way to an exchange, but the church is true, and the work is moving forward!

-Sister Dunster