Good News ~ Bad News

Wow this week really flew! I felt like I didn't really have much to talk about because it went by so quickly, but then when I started going through the week in my mind I realized that quite a lot has happened!! 

So last monday we had our Zone Pday and we went to a cool place called Riding on Stone! Sister Barlow and I left a little later than everyone else to head out, and were getting the directions text to us as we went. But once we were about an hour away from Lethbridge we stopped getting texts and realized that the other sisters had lost service. Great. So we were lost! Thankfully, we were able to still find our way by nothing short of a miracle!! We met up with everyone else out there and had a great time! it was hailing/raining the whole morning through so it was a little chilly, but we still had a lot of fun:) 

Then we had Zone Conference with the Cardston zone! You know what that means?? SISTER ENCE was there!!! :D I am always so happy to see her! i just love her to death! I also got to see lots of other amazing sisters I've gotten to serve around, so that was a huge blessing!:D The actual conference was amazing too of course, but I'm always a little too happy to see my baby again:) 

GOOD NEWS: It's finally warming up again, and I"m in a family ward! so that means.... I ACTUALLY GET SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES AGAIN! it's been so long! haha:) So this week we had several sweet experiences helping out some less actives, and non-members with yard ward, and cleaning and such! YAY! 

AAAANND! WE GOT TO GO TO THE TEMPLE AGAIN! I know, I just went to the temple not too long ago, but Sister barlow hadn't been to the temple in 10 months! So I got special permission to go again so quickly:) 

So the Cardston temple is beautiful! I still the outside is a little odd... haha but the inside is absolutely stunning! I am a huge fan of the dark wood:) 

It was an amazing day, and an amazing time! I am really grateful for the blessing it is to be able to go as a missionary so often:) 

I always get so pumped to be a missionary after going through a session and remembering all the incredible blessings that I have in my life that not everybody does- I just want to help everybody make it to the temple some day!! :) 

Also, I don't want to talk about it but... as of wednesday this week.... I only have 100 days left of my mission.  (That's the bad news)

Yesterday was 1-year since Andy was baptized! What a crazy thought! i can't believe where the time has gone!! 

Any who! I love you each very much and wish the best for you as you go throughout your week! :) 

Always remember! 

I love you! 

Jesus Loves you! 

and satan hates your face. 

Go out and kill it this week!! 

Love, 

Sister Dobyns:) 

Beautiful Cardston and Beautiful Barlow!

This is my house. I live in the basement with the spiders.

The wonderful sisters of Lethbridge and Cardston<3 

Sisters(left to right): Shaffer, Johnson, Kunzler, Hatch, Poll, Russell, Zimmerman, Rasmussen, Stash, Barlow, ME, Frandsen, Burns [Sister Ence is not pictured because she was lame and had to leave really quickly]

Happy Easter Loved Ones!

Ah guys. I'm stressed for time, but here's the gist: 

This week, we had ZTMs! They were great! It was my first one not as an STL anymore so that was weird, but kind of nice! 

We also had interviews with our mission President, which pretty much consisted of me telling him how much I miss him and sister miles, and calgary... but I loved it! He is the sweetest man in the world and is so good at helping me to feel the spirit and recognize what God is trying to tell me. LOVE HIM! 

Then we did probably 200 drop bys of Less actives, new move in, or unconfirmed addresses... It was really exhausting, but great! I always feel like a Private Investigator hunting people down and finding out what their story is haha it's great:) 

Then WE FOUND OUR MISSING INVESTIGATORS! No big deal! (HUGE DEAL) 

There is this family that has been taking the discussions for a while and were doing really good right up to a few months ago when they fell off the face of the earth and no one heard from them again. 

We were seriously scared for them, but thanks to sister barlow and her amazing ability to follow the spirit, we dropped by a house when we were planning to go somewhere else, and low and behold there they all were! And better than that, they were excited to see us and told us everything that happened and where they've been, and that they'd be at church on sunday! AND THEN THEY CAME! wow, miracles are real you guys! So we're going to see them tomorrow and hopefully get them back on track!:) 

We also had this stellar lesson with a part member family that are my new best friends! We just sat down with them and told them what our purpose was, and why were there. They have been meeting with missionaries for a while and when we finished, the husband just looked at us and thanked us for explaining to him. He had never understood before what we were trying to do- but now that he did, he said that he would be happy to take the formal missionary discussions now!! YAY!!! 

He also said "I mean why not? I've got nothing to loose, and everything to gain." And I couldn't agree more!! 

For Easter we had all of our regular church meetings and then we raced over to a less actives house who had us over for "linner." We had some bacon and french toast and then immediately headed over to dinner!! Big mistake:P haha But dinner was AMAZING! and needless to say we rolled out of there! 

After that we visited with some of the older members of our ward that didn't have family over today. That was really sweet:) 

And by the end we were ready for bed!! 

Overall, it's been a good week, and I'm excited for this week!
Hope you're all doing well! LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU! 

~Sister Dobyns:) 

Our zone this morning at Riding on Stone! 

We saw a dinosaur thing on our way to where we were going this morning and had to stop to take a picture... haha 

Thanks mom for the awesome Easter package!! 

My new wall above my bed:) 

Wind. Spiders. More Wind. Welcome to Lethbridge

Well... I'm pretty exhausted!
This week may have been the hardest I've worked on my mission thus far. 

Don't worry, there's not much to show for it, but that will come with time. 

This is a great area with so much potential. I know that as we keep working our hardest, we will see miracles 

I love lethbridge, but still miss calgary! I'm not too sure if that feeling is ever going to go away anymore! But I really am happy to be here:) 

We had some amazing lessons this week, and lots of meetings! We met with both our WML's and one of our bishops and just talked about how much potential there really is here, and how we are going to make things happen! :) It was awesome! I have also loved getting to know new people as we have met with them! The members are so sweet, and the investigator that we met with this week is maybe possibly one of the coolest people I've ever met! can't wait to tell you more about him! 

It was fast sunday in both our wards this week, so I was grateful for the chance I had to bear my testimony there and introduce myself. It's funny being back in a ward where babies are crying nonstop, and only 3-4 people get the chance to bear their testimony because all the old people speak for 10+minutes! haha! :) But I'm loving it all despite the nerves that I had going back into it. 

Thankfully I still have a ysa ward too, and tonight will be the first fhe I get to go to! so I'm stoked for that too! 

OH! And I'm back in Sister Frandsen's zone... nbd but kind of a big deal. 

So that's a HUGE blessing getting to be with her every monday!! 

As I was studying in John 21 this week I had this connection to what I feel was a general theme in Conference this last weekend . Christ does not want us to go back to our former lives. There are greater things in store for each one of us. We have to be better every week. We cannot, like Peter, "go a fishing." We can't go back to what is comfortable. We must let the daily efforts we make to follow Christ change our lives. 

This is something I have really striven to apply on my mission, and I hope to be able to apply the rest of my life. In order to get to where we want to be, we have to make continuous strives to get there each day. So I would invite you all to evaluate your lives right now. Where are you? Are you walking with the Savior? And are you letting that journey with Him change your very nature? If the answer is no, I would plead with you to do all you can to be able to say yes. Pray for strength and a greater desire to do better- to be better. 

I love you all so so much and hope you have a wonderful, Christ-centered week!
I know even in the busiest of times, if we will make Christ the center, everything will work out the way it is meant to. 

LOVE YOU SO SO MUCH!
~Sister Dobyns<3

 ps sorry my email is lame this week... my mind is super fried! :) Love anyway! :) 

Dinner with BAE! (I can no longer take pictures because the WIND is always ridiculous!) 

Also. That's all my pictures because I forgot my camera again:P