Angular - "nest" service calls?

I have a page with a button on it. User clicks on it and a modal opens. In the modal, I have some text fields and some dropdowns. I set the dropdown values to the selected value that I read from the database.

This is the issue: sometimes when I click on the button, the dropdowns aren't populated. I close the modal, open it and I see them populated but again not always.

Someone at work said I need to "nest" the calls that populates the dropdown values and sets their selected value but I don't know what that means. Someone else said I need to change the order of the service calls that populates the dropdown values and then the selected value. Another one said I need to put a timeout on  

contactService.getContactDetails(contactId)

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to make sure first the dropdowns are populated.

This is what I have. How can I change it? This is ContactController.js. I have other code in there like save and delete but I will leave those out. I'm typing by hand so I might have some typos.

(function () {
  'use strict';

  app.controller('ContactController,ContactController);
  ContactController.$inject = [...]

  function ContactController(...)
 {
     $scope.saveChanges = function ()
   { ...}

   activate();
   function activate()
    {
       contactService.getContactDetails(contactId)
        .then(function (ret) {

             $scope.contactDetailInformation = ret; //this gets the contact detail for Id xyz
          
             $scope.selectedDist = _find($scope.dists, {name: ret.DistName}); //I set the selected value that this user has
            $scope.selectedstate = _find($scope.allStates, {name: ret.StateId});

           $scope.selectedCountry = _find($scope.allCountries, {name: ret.countryId});

          $scope.selectedStatus = _find($scope.allStatuses, {name: ret.statusId});

         
       });

      //then here I get the dropdown values
          contactService.getStates
           .then(function (ret) {
              $scope.allStates = ret;
           });

         contactService.getCountries
           .then(function (ret) {
              $scope.allCountries = ret;
           });
             

            contactService.getDists
           .then(function (ret) {
              $scope.dists = ret;
           });

          contactService.getStates
           .then(function (ret) {
              $scope.allStates = ret;
           });

              contactService.getStatsues
           .then(function (ret) {
              $scope.allStatuses = ret;
           }); 
 
   }    
   

})();

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