Called to Serve

Alright, I am officially starting to panic!

I have already been serving my mission for 2 months!!!

I swear I just got here like yesterday!

Everybody that I have talked to has said that the first 3 months of their missions felt like a lifetime, but then the rest of it just flies by. And I've already been out for 2 months, but I have felt like it's flown by already! So if it starts to fly by any faster I am going to have no choice but to move to Canada permanently and just hang out with the missionaries 24/7 so I don't have to accept that it's over! The last 2 weeks have honestly gone by so fast, I don't know how it happened!

We were walking into the library today to do our e-mails and I thought.. "didn't we just do this?" And then I thought back over the last week and realized how much had happened, but how quickly everything went by!
So here are the highlights of the fastest week of my life:

On Tuesday we had interviews with our mission president in the morning. It was really great to be able to talk with him for just a few minutes, but it was a really breif, pretty uninteresting interview. I walked out and sat down and talked to Sister Miles while I was waiting for Sisters Allard, Trimble and Blaser to have their interviews since we all drove over together. Each interview got longer and longer, and every single sister came out of the interview drenched in their tears! At first when Sister Allard came out, I figured she had just talked to him about her struggles with the pains in her neck, and how hard she can be on herself when she is having those struggles, so I gave her a hug and talked to her for a little, but she just wanted to go to the washroom and take a minute to breathe. Then Sister Trimble came out- again, covered in tears. A little unsure, I just kept talking to Sister Miles, and let her walk past to the washroom where sister Allard was. THEN sister Blaser came out trying to wipe the tears from her face. I didn't say anything for a while but I was really confused as to what on earth was happening in their interviews!! I guess I was not doing something right because I was not anywhere even close to thinking about crying when I finished...

After the interviews we all grabbed lunch together and I asked them what had happened, and if I was not aware of something that was suppose to happen in the interviews. They all just talked about how they were struggling with different things, and President Miles helped them talk it out, and gave them some great counsel.

It still seems pretty crazy to me because I know all these girls and know how amazing and strong they are, and what fantastic missionaries they are!
Needless to say, I am appearntly not very normal becuase I really feel like life is great out here! And I don't really have anything that I am struggling with THAT much... I feel like I am learning so much every single day, and have so many oppertunities where my testimony has been stengthened. Yes, there are times where I am really pushed to get out of my boundries and grow and change. But that has been the best part of serving so far! I don't know, maybe I'll figure it out a little bit more the longer I am out, but so far I have just had an amazing time, and great chances to rely fully on my Savior and His Atonement and His love for me. I have such a strong testimony of Heavenly Father and Christ's love for me, and that has been something I have fallen back on many times the last 8 weeks. But like I said, through it all I have just been able to grow and become better each day.

Anywho! After we had lunch together we went on exchanges! So I went with Sister Trimble to the Bow Valley ward! And that was really fun to be able to go back to where Sister Allard and I were already working with so many people! We did lots of street contacting, which was both terrifying and awesome. And we even put a Book of Mormon with their phone number in one of those "take a book, leave a book" things... Funny enough the book was already gone by the next morning when we went for our walk... So I'm not too sure that was the BEST use of our Book of Mormon... But maybe someone just took it because they wanted it! You never know! :)

Then on Wednesday we had our district meeting. But before the meeting we had a breakfast all together! It was actually really amazing and really really fun! Each companionship brought something different, and everything just pulled together really well in the end! It was a really great chance to be with our zone and get to know each other even more. President Miles has told us several times that we have the most unified zone in the mission, so I feel really blessed to have been able to start out with such amazing people and make really great friends that I will hopefully see around from time to time once we're all back in Utah! (Since almost everyone is from utah, and if not, will be moving there after their mission...)

We also got our bikes finally on Wednesday! So that has definitely been an adventure. Then we met with Yohan, one of our Less-Actives we've been seeing every Wednesday for about 3 weeks. And he committed to coming back to church and working towards getting a temple recommend again! We are SO excited for him!

Thursday was the first time we really used our bikes. And if I had any say in the matter it would have been the last time we used out bikes. Turns out, our entire area is made up of very steep hills. Everywhere. So! We were an hour late to our dinner appointment because we had to go from the very bottom of our area to the very top. And it was All uphill. Needless to say, I thought I was going to die right then and there, and once we showed up we could tell they were not very happy that we were late, even though we called ahead to let them know we were going as fast as we could! But now we know how long it takes to cross our whole area, so we won't be so late in the future!

After Dinner we went to visit the Daly's. They're another less active couple that we are working with right now. They just bought a new camera so they were excited to take a picture of us when showed up on our bikes:)

Friday we met with Andy to talk about the Priesthood some more! It was a really amazing lesson, and Andy really opened up and started talking to us about how happy the gospel makes him, and how grateful he is for us helping him get back on the path. He said he talked to his mom too and she told him that she is so proud of him, and has been praying for him to come around to the gospel since the day she left him. I still don't know the whole story there, but it really meant a lot to Andy that she was proud of him and his decision to be baptized.

Towards the end of the lesson he told us that his cheeks have been hurting a lot lately, and when we asked him why he said "I guess I've just gotten in the habit of smiling lately." We wanted to start crying ourselves when we heard that because we know how hard Andy's life has been for the last several years, and knowing that the gospel has been able to help him find that happiness again was the best feeling I have ever had!

After our lesson with him, we were running late to our lesson with Jeremy, but Heavenly Father blessed us with a total tender mercy and Guara, (my favorite less active from Bow Valley ward) pulled up next to us on the street. She offered us a ride to where we were going, and we got to catch up with her on the way! It was so amazing to see her again because we hadn't seen her in almost 3 weeks!

Then on Saturday we got to see elder Christofferson!
I know you're going to kill me mom, but I am actually completely out of time this week! I love you all so much and I SWEAR I will tell you all about this week!
We are getting rides from the Bow Valley sisters now and they are very punctual about our e-mail time, so they told me they are pulling out of the parking lot in 2 minutes, whether or not we're there... so yeah! I don't really have any more options!

I love you so much! And hope you all have a wonderfully terrific week!
The church is true, and Jesus loves you!

Sister Dobyns