Ah yes, the wonderful life of being a missionary... 

Where to even begin! That is the struggle every week! 

For starters! There has been a rumor circulating that we might be loosing one of our wards! There is just so much work to be done in our area, the mission president is talking about getting another set of missionaries for just the Bow Valley Ward, and then Sister Allard and I would just cover the 17th ward! That is such a bitter-sweet thing because I have really come to know and love the members, and investigators in that ward, but it is a really good thing that the work is continuing to grow, and so more missionaries are needed to be able to get everything done! I honestly can't even imagine how much easier our lives would be if we only had one ward though... I just think we could be SO effective, and really be able to reach out to everyone that we simply don't have the time for right now. 

Okay so last Monday, Sister Allard and I met with a woman named Debrah. Sister Allard and her previous companions had just bumped into her on the street a few weeks ago, and we'd been trying to set up a time to meet with her since, but she was being kind of flaky, and would cancel on us at the last minute all the time. But we finally met up with her and her friend. And the kindest way of phrasing how things went that night is to say that it was a very interesting, and informative experience. 

Debrah and her friend are members of the Truth church. and for those of you who don't know... they have a lot of similar beliefs to our church. But then they also have quite a bit of things that are very very different. 

After we had sat down, she started asking what we believe in, and of course, that is the whole lesson that we have prepared to talk about! But we could not get 2 full sentences in about anything without her coming in and asking us to show her where it says that in the bible.

.  .  .  sooo then she and her friend continued to enlighten us on exactly what it is that THEY believe. As it turned out, they had come prepared with a lesson to teach that night as well. So we sat for about an hour and listened to her and her experiences with her church. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am very impressed with the amount of faith and devotion Debrah has for Christ! I've just never been invited to a missionary discussion for another church, especially when they know that I am currently serving a full-time mission of my own.. 

Anyway! We finished with her around 9:15, so we knew we needed to race home as quick as we could, but we didn't have the car, and we were on the very border of our area, that was the furthest from our apartment. 

Debrah's friend said that she lives in Ranchlands too, so she told us to go around the corner and get on the 10 bus, and it would take us straight home. 

Long story short- it did not take us straight home. 

For the next 2 hours we were busing all over Calgary. We didn't make it home until 11:30!! Needless to say, I was on the verge of tears all night, but was doing everything I could to hold it in so Sister Allard wouldn't feel even worse than she already did! But once we got back to our apartment, I collapsed on the floor and cried silent tears of joy to be home again safe. 

(Sorry mom, I know those aren't the kind of stories you want to hear, but at least it was a happy ending!) 

Then on Tuesday we had Zone Conference! And that was amazing! President and Sister Miles came out and taught us a lot of really amazing things! AND... They announced that Elder Christofferson and Elder Martino are coming to speak to our mission on April 16th!!!!! So I am crazy excited for that! 

Also, I hit my one month mark on the 17th! 

I cannot believe it!
Everyone has told me how fast a mission goes by, but I honestly was having a really hard time believing that until I realized that I have already been a missionary for a full month!! And April 1st will mark my one month in Canada date! So that is really crazy! You really have to make every day count, because the next thing you know, you've let another month go by! Today is Day 34 of the wonderful life of being a missionary! Time is flying by too fast! 

On Thursday Sister Allard and I did some LAST MINUTE exchanges with our Sister Training Leaders! We were supposed to do them next week, but they called and said that they can't make that work, and asked if there was anyway we could do them that day instead. We said sure, and then 10 minutes later they called back and said that they couldn't pull it off because they didn't have enough clicks (Kilometers we're allowed to drive per month) to get down here. (They live in Banff, which is the beautiful place everyone told me about when I got my call. It's about an hour and half away from our area.) So we just decided we wouldn't do exchanges this transfer. 

But then...a few hours later, they called us back and told us that they had been praying about it, and they really felt like they needed to do exchanges today! So they jumped in their car and headed down, and got to our apartment at 7:50! We had an appointment with a less-active at 8, so when they pulled up, we all jumped into our cars, and Sister Blaser (Blah-zer) and I raced off to Jeremy's house! 

We had a really great lesson about prayer, and then we went home to do our planning for the next the day.

In the morning, the sisters we share the car with called and asked if they could have the car at 10:45, but we had been planning on trading right before dinner! So Sister Blaser and I had to totally change our plans! We ended up doing some service in the morning with some elders in our district. We were collecting donations for the food bank! After that, we did a lot of walking! We went to visit a less-active who lived near the church where we were going to have dinner, and along the way, we talked to 3 different women that I think are going to be really promising! We gave a restoration pamphlet to one, and an Easter message pass-along card to the second one, and the third we gave a Book of Mormon! We got all of their information, and will be visiting them this week! 

I really learned a lot with working with Sister Blaser because she is really good at just opening her mouth, and letting Heavenly Father do the rest! 

Yesterday Sister Allard and I taught Andy again! 

He came to us with some questions about the Word of Wisdom, so we were able to talk about that for a little while, and then we taught him the first, restoration lesson! Andy is so amazing, and always has the PERFECT answers! When we told him about coffee, he was like "Well, I guess I better go home and throw that out!" 

I was completely blown away by his amazing desire to follow Christ in any way he can! 

Anywho! Time is a little short today, so that's all I've got!
Life is wonderful, and the gospel is true! 

Keep on keeping on, and I will talk to you next week!
<Lots of Love and Hugs!> 

Sister Dobyns 

Just a glimpse at what my P-days consist of... 

My FIRST Canadian Snow!!! (The weather is ridiculously bipolar here...)

We had dinner at this sweet couples house, and he showed me all of his wood carvings! I don't know if you can tell, but they are crazy impressive!! 

That awkward moment when you're a missionary and you forget that St Patrick's day is a thing, and you don't even know when it is, so you show up to dinner and get pinched by everyone in sight... 

1 MONTH! 

Just to give you an idea of the amazing person I live with... 

Today I woke up and felt really really sick, and once I finally got myself ready for the day, I found this on my study notebook...