Called to Serve

Another amazing week!

We had 1 baptism, picked up 3 new investigators, and had a family of 6 come to church! This next week is looking really promising! I am really looking forward to it!!

This week the ward has really gone out of their way to make Andy feel welcomed and loved! It has been so amazing to see the difference their love has made in his life! On Monday we went to dinner at the Pearson's home, and they invited the Bunes family over, and invited Andy to come too! Both families have sons that are around his age, so that really helped him to make some friends that will be in the YM's with him!

On Tuesday we had our last district meeting with our old district! It was Transfer's this week, so we lost 3 elders and 1 of the new elders is straight out of the MTC! So I am no longer the "Newbie!" Hooray!!! It feels pretty good to be honest! We got a new district leader, Elder Parker. He seems nice, but it was really sad loosing elder Varble. You just become good friends with your zone so quickly and then it kinda stinks once they leave! But I am really looking forward to getting to know the new elders! I love seeing how different we all are, and how different all of our backgrounds are, and yet becoming friends so quickly because of our common purpose! :)

Later on Tuesday we went to check out a referral the elders gave us, and we walked to the house just as he pulled into his driveway coming home from work! We started talking to him, and he seems really interested! He said that his wife isn't opposed to talking to us either so when we go back to see him she will sit in on the lessons with us! He said that his 26 year old son also lives with them, but he doesn't think that he would be interested- but we're not giving up on him quite so easily:) We made an appointment to go see Alex and his wife tomorrow! So we are really looking forward to that!

We also knocked on the door of an Indian couple that told us we could come back some time this week too, but they wouldn't set an exact day and time for us to see them, so fingers crossed that they will be home, and really will be interested!

Wednesday we had another lesson with Yohan, and he is doing really well! He is keeping commitments, and coming to church every week! We talked to him about the priesthood and he seems really excited to work towards getting the Melchizedek Priesthood.

Then we went over to the Heninger's house and had Andy's baptismal interview! It went really well, but we forgot to have Elder Varble sign the paper that says he passed the interview... so we had to call our mission president because Elder Varble was transferred the next day, and we couldn't get his signature! Luckily President Miles said that our new district leader could sign the paper and we didn't have to interview him again!

On Thursday we were able to finally get a hold of the Aubert Family again! (Nadia & Jonas, and their 4 wildly active kids!) We haven't been able to see them in about a month, so we were really getting sad and were starting to have to think about dropping them. So when we were going to visit a less-active that lives right by them, we decided to try and knock on their door one more time. And thankfully when Nadia answered the door she was so happy to see us, and invited us in right away! We talked with her a little about the Restoration finally and gave her a French Book of Mormon. She was SO excited to see that we had the book in French! She told us that she would start reading it right away! After we had been talking to her for a while her husband Jonas came home. He stayed in the other room for a while, but then finally came out and joined us. He started asking us a lot of questions about the church, God, and our life as missionaries. After answering lots of questions he told us that he was so impressed with our answers. He told us that we had all the right answers about God, and was grateful that we never told him we didn't know, but would find out and call him with the answer later. (That happens a lot with other churches I guess..?) He was so impressed that we pause our lives for 18 months and are missionaries 24/7. He then said that when he was in the other room he could feel that he needed to come in and talk with us. And then continued to call us angels and thank us for coming into his home because we brought God with us everywhere we went. We gave him a "The Family:A Proclamation to the World" and he really loved it. Then he asked us what time our church services were, and where they were held. We told him we would text him the address, and they told us they would love to come this week!

On Friday we met our new zone members, and played some get to know you games at the church for a few minutes. Then we stayed at the church and made up Andy's Baptism program!

And finally! On Saturday we had Andy's baptism!!! We went out to lunch with him and then went to the church. We had over 60 people show up for the program and even more come to the Heninger's house for food after the service! It was so great to see all the support that the ward has given him! Several ward members all pitched in to buy Andy a white church shirt and new tie! He was so grateful, and ran and put it on as soon as they gave it to him!

His confirmation was amazing as well!

...We actually almost missed it! We were standing outside waiting for Nadia and her family to come, but they were running late, so at one point we just had the prompting to run inside and check on where they were in the meeting and we were JUST in time for his confirmation! Everyone was just walking up to the front for the blessing! So we hurried and scrambled into the back for the blessing and then ran back outside to find the whole Aubert Gang walking up to the door! When I saw them all dressed up I had this amazing feeling of joy and love come over me! I knew that Heavenly Father loved them so much and was so happy to see them coming to church! So we ran into the meeting with them and sat down. They were there for about 20 minutes and then Jonas got a call from his friend that said they had a flood and they had to go right away to go and help him. But they told us they are still looking forward to seeing us this week. We called them again after the meeting was over to see if they needed any help with the flood, but Jonas said they had it covered. They felt really bad for leaving early, but they enjoyed the small portion they got to be there for.

SO that's it! Like I said, It's been another quick, busy week! It has been such a blessing to get to work with Andy and see all of the progress he's made in these short 2 months! It's a pretty weird feeling realizing that he is no longer an investigator!!! But we love it! His baptism was an amazing reminder of my own baptism and all of the joy and peace that has come into my life because of it. I love this gospel, and I love my mission! I can't wait to keep teaching people about Heavenly Father's beautiful plan for each of us.

I hope you all have a lovely week, and I encourage you all to think back on your own baptisms and the blessing the gospel really is in your life. I think we forget all too easily how much we owe to our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ. Keep them in your lives and you'll see the blessing unfold all around you!

I love you all so much! Can't wait to hear from you and how your lives are going!
-Sister Dobyns

~This week we took lots of pictures! It was a really beautiful, bipolar week weather-wise so made every day count!~

After our dinner appointment we did some drop-by's and a little tracting, and contacted some referrals. Then we had a little time before a member was going to give us a ride home, so we ran up this hill and took some fun name tag pictures!

This one is for you mom! You asked me to take a picture with my name tag in the snow, but there hasn't' been any since I got here!!! Instead it was 25 degrees for 2 days and all the flowers and trees started to blossom!

I can't believe I hit my 2 month mark already! I swear I JUST hit my 1 month mark!

The days are flying by so fast!!!

We got Andy a tie for his baptism this week, and using my extremely sad sewing skills, put this on the back so he will be forced to remember us whenever he wears it! haha:)

Earth Day was this week! So our STL's told us to take pictures of us hugging a tree... this is in the Heninger's back yard! (He is our ward mission leader, and the one that lives next door to Andy!)