I love to see the temple AGAIN

Well It's been a good, very busy week! 
We had soo many appointments this week, it was awesome! 

Probably my favorite feeling is knowing that everything you do, you have to do quickly and efficiently because you have somewhere else to be. And we had that for like 3 straight days!! Partly because poor Sister Barlow was sick for a day and a half, so we had to reschedule everything that we had planned for those days in the rest of the week! 

But this thursdays is transfers!!! We aren't anticipating any changes with us, but We'll letcha know next week! 

And of course we're pumped for mothers day this weekend! It's so hard to accept that it will be our last skype call, but we're excited to chat with our families as always:) 

On wednesday we got to go to the temple again!!!
I KNOW RIGHT! 

But it was a special trip our mission got to do! So all the missionaries in the south part of our mission went on wednesday and the north went on tuesday. 

That was of course an amazing time!
It is so powerful to be in the temple with the entire session just PACKED with missionaries. i don't think you could ever get better than that! (Besides maybe a session full of Apostles...) 

I just sat and pondered about everything in life in the Celestial room for a long time, and then we got to have lunch all together after too! 

This week has been CRAZY as far as the weather goes... 

We got to PLUS 29C for 2 days!!! I remember when it was minus 29C.... 

And then the next day it just starting pouring rain out of nowhere!!
So Sister Barlow and I had a good time running like crazy people through the rain, and sitting in our appointments literally dripping wet! 

But that's about it! No crazy stories to really tell this week! just an overall grand time:)

Love you all, 

I'll make up for the lame email with pictures:) 

Love, 

Sister Dobyns:) 

Sister Barlow

Sister Frandsen

Just me:) 

The Sisters:) 

our beautiful pday last week! 

Sunny and beautiful!! 

other side of the temple:) 

I tripped on the sidewalk last Monday and scraped my knees like a toddler... 

now i remember why they cry so much:P 

So grateful for each of you ❤

Well, this has been quite the fun e-mailing day! So much exciting news from so many people that I love! Thank you all for your e-mails and please always remember that if I don't respond to you immediately, I am super sorry, I just have limited time to respond to everyone!! But I thoroughly appreciate and enjoy your emails:) 

Okay so this week was good:) We had an awesome district meeting that was all about following the spirit and really being God' instrument. That has always been my goal, but I am really focusing on it more than ever right now:) 

We had another lesson with our investigator Mike, and holy cow, IT WAS AMAZING! I felt prompted that we needed to have some members of our ward come to our next lesson which was the Plan of Salvation, but I wasn't sure who to invite! The people we knew know him weren't available, but then when we went to our supper a few days before our lesson we found out that couple knew them pretty well too! So we invited them to join us and they were thrilled to come! And everything just worked out so perfectly! The spirit was SO strong, and by the end of the lesson literally everybody was crying- including mike. We testified of God's love for him, and invited him to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon and pray with his wife this week and really ask if what we taught that night was true. And for the first time, Mike didn't just shrug off the commitment and say he wouldn't promise anything. He thought about it, and said yes! So we are so so happy about that! So as always, I am really looking forward to seeing them again:):):) 

I also got to see 2 members from my last ward this week! Stuart and Cody! That was the best! Stuart was coming down for his graduation so he stopped by to say hi and update me on all the priddis homies, and then Cody just happened to be at my ward on sunday! I gave a talk this week and just randomly saw him sitting out in the congregation and just about died! But thankfully I was able to keep my cool until after the meeting when we got to talk for a bit! 

Then this week I got an e-mail from my convert back from the beginning of my mission- we talked for a bit and then he said something that just hit me really hard. I've heard it before, but for some reason today it just really hit home. He said "keep up the great work, keep doing what you're doing! You have -- days to miss home but you have the rest of your life to miss your mission." 

But how true is that! whoo. I love love love love my mission- and I know I am going to miss it for the rest of my life. But thankfully, I have come to understand that being a missionary doesn't have to end. I may have to take off my name tag someday, but I don't have to take Christ's name off of my heart. 

So don't mind me- I'm just going to focus on that, and not on the end of anything else. 

Sorry, that was probably a really trunky sounding e-mail, but I promise it's just the opposite:) 

I love you each so so much!
have a fabulous week!
Much love!
Sister Dobyns:) 

Our sweet RC's Brother and SIster Thompson celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary:) 

President Gedleman(mission presidency) had the 2 zones here in lethbridge get together at his house last:) 

My Bae! And sort of Sister Robison in there 

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 

2017

Happy New Year everyone:) 

I'll keep things brief this week. 

We have seen many miracles yet again:) This area is truly blooming:)
I am loving it SO much! 

Transfers are this week... we're not sure what will happen this time... Odds are I go south! But We're praying to stay together another transfer:) (As always...haha) 

We had a really fun new years:) we had to be in by 7 so we had a bit of a spa night:) we even dyed Sister Frandsen's hair! It looks SO good! we all love it:) 

Umm... yeah, we had our less actives, and new investigator at church this week and that was wonderful:) 

Most of our ward is moving this month, or leaving on their missions, so things are about to change a lot! 

I hope you all have a good week! 

Always remember to pray, and read, and do the little things. I promise they will bless you in ways that you don't even recognize:) 

Love you all!
Sister Dobyns

Sister Frandsen's new hair! 

We ran out of food this week due to poor shopping... so we resourted to eating popcorn, nachos, and putting left over cookie dough in the waffle maker! 

It was delicious... but also as poor of a decision as you are imagining... 

Merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday too!

Well... This may have been one of the busiest weeks of my whole life!! 
Having a birthday 2 days before Christmas has never been convenient, but this year I think it was a little crazier than every other year of my life haha:) But it has been a really amazing week! We have truly seen many Christmas miracles! 

On Monday we got to go to a live nativity put on by the church every year. We met our investigator Alyssa there, and she had a really great time! And it was actually pretty warm out too! Afterwards we went to the church and got some hot chocolate, but there were a ton of ysa wards there for their fhe's too, so I got to see a lot of members from my last ward and that is always a blast:) 

This week we also drove out to a city in our area called Turner Valley, which I had never been too before! But turns out that it was way further away than I thought and it was a miracle we were able to find it since the sun had long gone down by the time we started leaving familiar territory! We met with a less active out there who was really sweet, and had the longest beard I have ever seen in person! He stroked it the whole time we were visiting with him! I thought it was a little funny:) But he was really nice and said we could come back whenever we were in turner valley again:) 

THEN! We had another miracle with a less active who we had been trying to contact for months! He was always just really flaky with setting up appointments, but then HE TEXT US! And asked if there was a time we could meet up! So we met up with him and brought 2 members of our elders quorum presidency Austin and Bryce, and it went SO great! He said he really wants to start coming back to church, and he really connected with the brothers we brought, and then he said that he would be at church on Sunday! AND THEN HE ACTUALLY CAME! Even though it was blizzarding outside and he lives 30 minutes away! It was an amazing miracle! And now we have an appointment to see him this week as well!:)

We met with another less active we have been trying to contact for a really long time this week too! We brought a sister in the ward who is preparing for a mission right now and again, we had an amazing lesson! He realized that he knew the brother of the member that we brought with us to the lesson and then went to church with them to the family ward this week since it was Christmas! And we are going to see him next week again when he gets home from his cabin:) 

AND! (The miracles just kept on rolling this week!!) 

We met with Sam, our recent convert, and invited him to bring his friend Henry to our lesson because he had brought him to church with him a few weeks ago and said he had really enjoyed it. So Sam agreed, and then showed up to the lesson with Henry AND another friend named Edi! So we got to teach all 3 of them! They had some great questions and it was even cooler to see Sam answer some of his friends concern by bearing his testimony. And both his friends agreed to meet with us and take the discussions! 

And just for good measure, one last miracle I'll share: 

We had a great day full of miracles and when we came home to plan for the next day we decided to call a random number in our phone that said Potential investigator next to it. Long story short, he answered, and agreed to meet with the sisters that are in his area up in the NW of Calgary. 

So just incase anyone is wondering if there really are people out there who are ready to be taught, and accept the gospel, the answer is YES! But I do know that it all happens in God's timing. And I am so grateful for an amazing companion who is so in tune with the spirit, and is so dedicated to the Lord. I know we have seen many miracles because of her amazing faith. 

Alright. So that was really just the beginning. . .

On Friday I turned 20 years old! Holy cow... I really can't believe it! But, it is true nonetheless. I woke up to all the sister in my apartment singing to me, and bringing me all my birthday packages and gifts! I opened them, and then they all ran and decorated our apartment with all the decorations my mom had included in my packages:) Then after our regular morning routine we had a lesson with Shaun who brought us Donairs to try for the first time! I thought it was pretty good, and they assured me that they are actually usually even better than the one I had gotten. 

Then we had a really sweet lesson with a less active we have met with pretty frequently over the phone! He had called because he was dealing with some really frustrating things. We talked him through some things and then bore our testimonies of our Savior and of His literal enabling power and how it can help him right now if he will choose to accept it. By the end of the lesson he read us some texts from the person that was causing some of the trauma and they had resolved things. It was so cool to realize that you can really "have a lesson" anywhere and any time. It didn't matter that it wasn't a traditional lesson setting. The spirit was there, and we were able to pray with him, and bear testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ. It was one of my favorite lessons I've ever had! :) 

Next we went to Costa Vida with a few of my absolute favorite sisters, and then we spent the rest of the evening making cookies, and writing christmas cards to some of our favorite members, and then we went NOEL CAROLING with some of the missionaries in our district:) (Yeah... That pun has been used a few too many times this season haha) One elder even beat boxed while we sang and it ended up sounds really really cool! :) 

Okay, Birthday check!
CHRISTMAS EVE! 

So Christmas Eve was a ridiculously crazy day!! We got to go to the baptism of one of the members in Sister Frandsen's last area. (Fun Fact: her last name was Mooreman haha) Sister Frandsen and Sister Blake sang an arrangement of He Sent His Son, and I accompanied them on the piano!  But thankfully my lack of skills was made up for by their beautiful voices and it went really well:)

But Wait there's more!
After the baptism there was another family getting baptized from my old Shepard ward in that same stake! But before the baptisms, the parents had to get lawfully married! (They had been traditionally married back in Zimbabwe years ago) So they asked sister Blake and Sister Frandsen and I to perform some musical numbers in between the wedding and their baptisms while they were all changing into their suits!  SO! I got to play that same song for a second time with an additional song for sister Frandsen to sing, and Another song for Sister Blake to sing! I honestly thought I was going to die. But thankfully, Heavenly Father is so loving, and helped me to not detract from the spirit their voices brought too much. 

Then we spent the rest of the night at a members house with the family ward sisters as well and got to watch almost every missionary allowed movie they had! haha (because it wasn't a prosylting day). 

OKAY! FINALLY CHRISTMAS!
We woke up at 5:30 and opened all of our presents with the Hermanas we live with, and then drove straight out to Okotoks to have breakfast with a member and the family ward elders:) That was great, and then we left to go to church where 5 less actives came, AND one of our Potential Investigators!! 

After church we got to Skype our families! :) Which of course is the best Christmas present of all:) I was really happy to see eveyone and get to talk to them for a little bit. But I was even more grateful when afterwards I didn't feel homesick, but rather felt excited for the things that are going on in my mission, and knowing how much it blesses my family at home:) 

Then we had dinner with our bishop and his family, and they invited our 2 recent converts Tagen and Sam to join as well! So it turned out to be a really wonderful night! :) And we finished it off by going to bed early to make up a little bit for waking up so early:) 

Okay, and final story: Yesterday President Miles gave all the missionaries permission to watch an approved movie!! Hooray! So our whole zone got together and watched Finding Dory! And oh my goodness I LOVED IT! I miss movies and tv a lot haha so it was really fun to get all together and watch a really cute, funny movie together:) 

Okay, sorry I wrote a novel this week! But there is still so much I didn't even have time to include! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! And know that I love and miss you SO Much!   

Have a wonderful week! And thank you for all your letters, emails, and birthday & Christmas wishes!
LOVE YOU!
Love, Sister Dobyns:) 

Birthday fun 

Noel Caroling out in the snow:) 

Traditional Christmas Pajamas on Christmas Eve! 

Merry Christmas! 

Skyping home to the Family:) <3 

Here are just a few more pictures from this week! :)