A Tribute To The Ones That Raised Me....

Have you guys ever thought about how amazing the gospel is? 

Okay, yeah, of course you have. But really. Just pause for a second and think about it. 

I think we take the beauty of the gospel for granted all too often. At least I know I do! 

I think part of it may be because I was raised having the gospel always there. 

Some days I think of that as a lame thing because I don't have this "powerful conversion story" and I can't relate to my investigators as well. But I will tell you. I can never repay my parents for blessing me with raising me in the church. 

I was thinking about it the other morning. It is amazing that I am here in Canada right now dedicating my life to my Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ. I don't mean to say that in a boastful way at all! But I mean it in the most grateful way possible! I thought of the rest of the world, and exactly what other people my age are doing with their lives right now... For the most part, they are doing very different things than me. They are have very different dreams and hopes and hobbies and habits. 

Then I thought about the family that I will have someday, and how badly I will want my children to have strong testimonies, and know the things I know. And that's a little daunting of a thought. I mean, you can do everything right as a parent and raise your children perfectly, but in the end they still have agency! And they still have to come to gain their own testimonies in this crazy world! And I just thought of how strong my testimony is, and how I can never deny the things I know to be true no matter what experiences and trials I go through in this life. I want that so badly for everyone! But the thought just occurred to me of how proud I hope my parents are of how they raised me. Congrats guys, you did it! You don't need to worry about me. 

Now don't get me wrong, every one, and every relationship has their weaknesses and things they can do to improve. So I am in no way saying that my parents are perfect;) (Sorry to spill the beans). But I am saying that, even with all the bumps we had a long the way, the day I moved out from home I knew who I was, and what I wanted. And that was that I am first and foremost, a daughter of God. And I want to become the daughter that He knows I can be. I want to fulfill all the potential that He sees in me. And I'm going to do whatever it takes to become the daughter that He is proud of, and knows He can always count on, and that makes it back to live with Him forever with complete Joy.

And that's all I think you can really do for your kids. Because once they have they witness for themselves, it's up to them to live up to it! But you've taught them how. 

So once again, shout out to my parents! On the days when you feel like nothing is going to way you want it to, just remember that something that you did worked, and it worked perfectly:) I just hope and pray that someday I can be as successful as a parent as you have been for my own family. 

Anyway! It has been a ...good week. I mean, I am having a great time and make the most of every day, So i naturally want to say it's been a GREAT week! But then when I actually reflect on it... it kinda stunk! haha! We had pretty much every single appointment we had made cancel on us for one reason or another... and that was pretty crummy! But opposition in all things right? That just means we're about to have a stellar week now, so watch out Calgary! We're coming for ya! haha:) 

So yeah, Sorry I don't have much to update you on! 

We're still working with Emanuel... that is, when he actually shows up for our appointments haha. And we're working with an amazing Less Active who is seriously such an inspiration to me! He is basically reactivating himself. It's amazing. He is so determined to change his life around and make improvements, and he's come to church to do it. Amazing. He is struggling with so many things right now including several addictions he wants to quite. And yesterday he had a moment where Satan really hit him hard and he started to feel discouraged and like it was hopeless. But we helped him understand that is Satan working on him, and how Jesus Christ understands how hard it is going to be, but how He also knows he can do it! So keep him in your prayers this week! :)

And now, it's time for me to run again!
I love you!
I really really do!

I hope you will always remember who you are, and who you want to become everyday and then do something about it! Change is real, and it is amazing. Whatever your struggle may be today, just know that with the help of our Savior, it can be put behind you. But it's always going to be a work in progress. Don't be discouraged by that, instead be grateful for the opportunity we have to improve continuously. 

Love Sister Dobyns

I left my camera at home again, so this is me right now! :) 

Sorry about that! 

Tender Mercies All Around

This was a wonderful week! :) 

I am really loving serving in the east! 

Last week for p-day our zone got together and had another little Olympics! It was especially fun this week since all of us were wishing we could watch the actual Olympics! No surprises when I say our time won!:) Haha, it was all thanks to Sister Ence and her extremely sporty self! :) 

On Friday we had our re-trainers meeting with President, and all of the other missionaries that came out with Sister Ence. That was really fun for her to get to see all of her old friends again! :) And President gave a great training on Relying on the Lord in all that we do, and choosing to be happy every day of our lives. 

This week we almost got 4 new investigators! We had 4 lessons set up, but then... one by one they all fell though for one reason or another... That was a total bummer, but just means that we are going to get 4 new investigators this week instead! :) It's pretty funny because right now we are teaching so many people with names from the scriptures... We've got Emanuel, Jacob, Solomon, Isaiah, Benjamin, Elijah, and Peter, James, and John! We got a kick out of that! 

And then yesterday was the greatest tender mercy in the world! 

I got to back to the West to my old chapel for a YSA fireside! 

AND! I got to see my recent convert Andy! AND my last companion Sister Blake! 

It was SO amazing to see them all again! And, to my surprise, I found out my old area is only 15 km away from my current area....

My dream is to get called to Calgary Central next so I can be right in between my areas! :) 

It really dawned on my the other day how fast this time is going by, and how it's just gonna get worse. I've already spent almost half of my time with Sister Ence! AH! 

But I have seriously been SO blessed when it comes to companions... I mean, I love Sister Allard (she goes home this week! CRAZY!) she is the most compassionate person I have ever met, and Sister Blake is basically my twin and soul mate in life and who will be forced to be my friends forever, And Sister Ence! Who is the biggest spiritual giant I have ever encountered, as well as THE biggest goofball... SO there have been a lot of really good times! :) I hope I'm not jinxing myself when I say I'm finally not nervous about who I'm going to be companions with after this. God's got it under control and I would't have it any other way:) 

So that's it for today!
it's been an awesome week! 

Also, Shout out to Hannah Davis getting her mission call! I cannot believe it even for a second! Congrats!! :D 

Love Sister Dobyns

My kind of Oil! change

I look like a TOTAL hobo because it was a crazy long day,
but I HAD to take a picture with this beautiful beautiful sister:) 

Got to see Andy at the YSA Fireside!! 

Our Zone had a P-day Olympics in honor of... well, the Olympics.

(Egg race)

This picture best sums up our relationship.... 

No, Actually this one does. haha Happy 6 months/50 Days old to us! 

I can't believe it's been 6 months....

Hello everyone! :) I hope you have all had a great summer so far! :) It hasn't felt like summer here too much lately. We've been getting buckets of rain on a daily basis for quite some time now... but supposedly it will be a sunny day all day today, so I'm looking forward to that! :) 

This was a great week:) 

We started it off AMAZING by taking a trip up to BANFF!!! 

We went with our ward mission leader and the other sisters in our district! 

Like previously mentioned, it was a rainy day, but we felt so blessed because it wasn't ever too hard of rainfall, and there would be a few minutes without rainfall every once in a while! Also it was a fairly ward rain, so it didn't ruin the trip in the slightest:) 

We had a lesson with our investigator Emanuel on Tuesday, and at the end of the lesson Sister Ence invited him to be baptized on the 27th of August and he said yes!! It was so exciting! If you have seen the district, Emanuel reminds us SO much of German! We love it! :) 

Some missionaries in our zone had a baptism on friday, so we invited Emanuel to come with us so he could see what his own baptism would be like- we arranged for a member to pick him up and take him to the baptism, and he seemed excited to go. But... Emanuel has a reputation for being hours late for things so he only made it to the closing remarks of the baptism. So we just showed him the font afterwards and talked a little bit more about baptism, and invited him to come to church on Sunday, and to have another lesson Saturday night. He said he'd love to, but then once again, did not even show up for the lesson on saturday. We rescheduled for Sunday, an hour before church starts, and He didn't even make it to priesthood. Needless to say we're not exactly sure what to do with him right now. We're doing what we can to be encouraging and trying to help him understand the importance of time, and church, but we're not too sure what else we can do for him. 

We're optimistic that he will still be baptized, but we will most likely need to push the date back to make sure he understands the importance of it, and of attending church and lessons. 

On Thursday we had a little "Mini Zone Conference!" Which is basically just zone conference that lasted half the time it usually does. It was a great meeting, and I loved everything that President Miles taught us! He really focused on relying on the lord and involving Him in every stage of this work. I always look forward to hearing from President, and am really excited about applying all the things that he taught to our work. So far it has been going really well! We know there are many miracles God is just waiting for us to be led to them! :) 

We also sang at a cute old folks home as a district on thursday. There were about a dozen cute seniors that came down just to listen to us sing some hymns and children's songs. Some of them even sang along with us using the hymnbooks we brought. It was a really sweet experience to see tears well up in each of their eyes as we sang songs that testified of God, Jesus Christ, Prayer, and Their love for each of us:) In my opinion there is no better way to bring the spirit than by music:) 

On Friday we had a really neat experience. We had a lesson with an investigator fall through and we weren't sure what we were going to do with that time! In our rush to make it to the appointment ontime we left our directory, and binder of people to visit in the apartment which was a 30 minute drive away! By the time we would have made it back to our apartment it would have been time to turn back and drive right back through where we were to go to the baptism at 7! 

At that exact moment our STL's called us to ask about something, and also mentioned that we should try and drop by the Shelly family if we got the chance. (The STL's also cover the Shepard ward with us, which was the area we were in) And they had been the 3rd person to mention their name to us this week! So we took that as a sign and were able to get the address from the STL's. 

As it turned out, they were just a few blocks away from where we were! So we knocked on their door and Sister Shelly came outside and started talking with us. She told us they have been inactive for over 30 years, and had gone to church the other day because he husband John was recovering from cancer, and that was their way of thanking God. She then immediately informed us we shouldn't get our hopes us because they weren't being activated anytime soon! Then she asked us what our plans were for the rest of the night. We told her we were going to a baptism at 7, and she asked us if we were going to have time for dinner. 

Sister Ence and I had just been planning of grabbing something quick as we drove to the baptism, but in attempts of being invited into her home we told her we didn't have a place to go for dinner and didn't really have time to go all the way back to our house in forest lawn. She then offered us some protein shakes to take with us, and we said that would be awesome!:) Our tactics worked as she invited us to come in as she grabbed them for us! Her husband John was sitting on the couch right there and invited us to sit down for a little. So we gratefully sat down and were then able to spend another hour talking to and getting to know John and Kelly(The wife). They are both really sweet people and we are really excited to keep getting to know them and teaching them again! 

But that's one thing I love about the church. Even after being inactive for 30 years, we still knew who they were, and there have been people reaching out to them for years letting them know we love them, and haven't forgotten them. 

And then the last big news is on Sunday we got a new bishopric in the ysa ward! Which was REALLY unexpected because the bishopric had only been there since the ward was created in December last year! But we are really excited to start working with the new bishopric now!:) 

Phew! That's it! I love you all, hope you enjoy the last few weeks of summer! 

<3/ Sister Dobyns! 

Enjoy these amazing pictures of banff and other things:) 

BANFF BABY!

Alright, we are currently in a car with some members driving up to BANFF! So it's going to a bit of a short e-mail this week! 

On Tuesday we had a tender mercy and had Taco Bell for dinner! Haha! Yup! That was a total blessing!:D We were driving around visiting former investigators, and found one in the middle of nowhere! For those of you that don't know, Taco Bell is really rare in Canada I guess... They say it's the McDonald's of Canada as far as quality of food goes, but it was a little taste of home that Sister Ence and I were both REALLY excited about:) haha  

Another blessing was we went to see a former investigator and caught him right as he was leaving his house, and when he saw us he was so excited to see us, and asked if he could come to church this week! Then he ended up leaving for a business trip, but wants to come next week! So fingers crossed for Ken! 

Then on Friday we got a new investigator! The Valley View Sisters had been teaching him, but he's YSA so they passed him off to us! His name is Emmanuel, and we're super excited to start working with him! :D 

Then Sunday was super packed! We were busy running around every single second of the day! I have missed that feeling the last few weeks, so it was nice never needing to get creative to fill our days! :)
We had a few lessons with some recent converts, and less actives, and taught the gospel principles class, and also had ward council and a missionary correlation meeting! :) 

Anywho! Another fun week with Sister Ence! She is the cutest girl I know! She honestly feels like my best friend, and I'm so grateful for that! I was always so nervous that I would struggle with companions, but I have been SO blessed with the most amazing sisters! <3 

I love you all! Sorry I'm lame this week, but I kinda want to look at the mountains instead of the computer screen....

I hope you have an amazing week! Church is true! I love being a missionary SO much!

k, Love you bye!

SIster Dobyns

It shall be given you in the very hour...

I  YSA! 

This week has been so great! We've been able to make a lot of appointment and find things to do with our days besides tracting or street contacting! It's so exciting! :) 

We've been working really hard to get to know the members here and start building relationships with them so they feel comfortable referring their friends to us, or asking us for service and that kind of stuff! So we met with most of the Relief Society this week and that was really great! A lot of them even gave us names of other sisters in the ward we could try and stop by and see:) 

One of the sisters we got to meet this week was Robin. We actually didn't even know that she was less active until we were talking with her and she told us she was! She was baptized 5 years ago and has the most amazing testimony, and sweetest personality ever! She is just one of those people who the minute you meet you want to be friends with forever! 

Then a few days later we had an appointment to meet Jarios, a recent convert in the ward, and we needed another person to come with us to the lesson. We text our RS president and she asked Robin if she would come and she said yes! We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon, and our favorite scriptures and stories from it and the amazing lessons we've been able to learn from them! Robin shared a scripture from Alma that I loved, and then Jarios shared his testimony of how he came to find the church and he knows it's "the one." It was such a cool experience to sit and learn from the two of them! And after the lesson Robin told us we could call her anytime and she'd love to come with us to any appointments we have!!! We're hoping that she will come to family home evening tonight so we can slowly help her ease into coming back to the ward! :) She is so amazing and I know she would bless so many lives by sharing her testimony and knowledge with others:) 

So like I said earlier, this week we tried to reach out and meet a lot of the members of the ward. One of those people was another recent convert named Ben. We sent him a text saying we were the new missionaries in his ward, and asked if we could meet him sometime this week. He replied by telling us that he isn't associated with our church anymore. At that point, we didn't really know how to respond because we didn't have any other background information about him, so text a member in the ward Steven who told us a little more and said he would try to reach out to him. 

We had a meeting planned with steven and some other members of the ward later that week and right before we got there Steven sent a text and said Ben would be there too... We we're really sure what that meant so when we got there it was a pretty awkward situation. We had just wanted to meet ben and get to know him a little bit, so when we realized about 20 minutes into an awkwardly drawn out conversation that steven thought we were going to have a lesson with him, we had to make up a little impromptu spiritual thought. Needless to say I was glad when the meeting was over:P Afterwards we did set up a time to meet with him again. 

We planned to see him sunday at 4:30, and I was SO nervous about it! I had NO IDEA what we were going to teach him! We dedicated the next several study days to Ben and trying to figure out what we could say that would help him. But to my despair I felt like i wasn't receiving any direction whatsoever!

And then Sunday came around and we had to make a plan. Sister Ence came up with the great idea of just reading a chapter of the Book of Mormon with him and then discussing it. Then we went to church and to our surprise, Ben showed up for the 2nd hour and stayed until our lesson at 4:30! 

After the 3rd hour was over we went outside and had our lesson. We asked him a little more about his story and how he came to find and join the church, and a little bit more as to why he left. Then we read Mosiah 24 with him. We stopped every few versus to discuss what was happening and apply it back to our lives. I felt the lesson was going as well as I could have hoped for, and then the Holy Ghost took over the lesson. We started talking about his life and his testimony, and the hard things he's going through right now. He is at a point in his life where he feels like he doesn't have anyone who cares about him or that he can depend upon. 

I was able to relate a story from life to him (Clarification: just college when i didn't have friends. My family has always been there for me<3) where I felt like I was alone too. I shared how in that time I turned to the scriptures and found friends and hope in their stories and in Jesus Christ. We talked more about the Book of Mormon and Prayer and how Heavenly Father wants him to know that He and Christ will always be with him. We promised him that if he would take the time to read in the Book of Mormon everyday and pray to know that it is true, and this is Christ's church, and this is where Heavenly Father wants him to be, that he will receive that answer, and be able to feel of their love, and find greater happiness in his life. 

It was an amazing spiritual lesson that I felt came out of nowhere! I was so grateful for the Holy Ghost and for the promise found in Doctrine and Covenants: "Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your mind continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be metes unto every man." I know that because we took the time to study out what we should teach Ben, the Holy Ghost was able to speak through us to help him hear exactly what he needed. 

later that night we got a text from our RS president who had talked to Ben afterwards and she told us that Ben had said he loved the lesson and didn't want it to end, and wanted to cry the whole time because he felt so hopeful.

So overall it has been an amazing week with many miracles! We are so hopeful for the things that are going to happen this transfer!
I love you all!
Have a great, safe week! 

and always remember how much you are loved!! :) 

Love, 

Sister Dobyns