mission. We are proud of his accomplishments and are excited for his return. For this who would like to attend his homecoming please see the information below. Again, Thank you for your support.
A big thank you to all who have read this blog to see Elder Dobbins progress through his
mission. We are proud of his accomplishments and are excited for his return. For this who would like to attend his homecoming please see the information below. Again, Thank you for your support.
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10/9/16
My beloved family and friends i hope you had a great week! As of yet i have only seen half of general conference but we have a plan to see the rest of it throughout that week. we were just busy with appointments and stuff and we got called to go help a member. we thought it would just be a normal service project like clean something or move a heavy box. but it turns out that this meber bought a house but didnt look at it before she bought it so when she got to her new house that she had already paid for is was an absolute dump, no walls or anything. no windows. she got scammed really really bad. and so the mebers of her ward and sometimes the missionaries go to help her. so we dug out the floor for a while and then we took a sledge hammer to a wall for the next while and then we went to go eat noodle soup. not a bad evenring. i love service,. so as some of you (mom, dad, grandma, uncle josh *cough cough*) have been hinting at, i dont have all that much time left out here in south korea. and on my mission i have learned many things many many many things i probalby cant tell you all fo the things that i learned. but alot of it comes down to the scripture Matthew 22:37-39. the two great commandments. we have to love god and our neighbor. thats it. and if you look at john 14:15 if we love god we will keep his commandments. so if i were to sum my mission experience up into one sentence i would quote the words of my angel mother "Son, remember who you are, and ACT accordingly" on my mission i have learned the reality of what it means to be a son of God and now i must act like one. i love you all. see you soon but not quite yet. elder Dobbins 9/26/16 this last week we had te opprotunity to meet some interesting people. most of them had little or no interest in the gospel. but i remember one man named mister lee that elder miller and i met on exchanges. we actually pulled him aside after english class asnd asked him if he would be ok it we talked with him a little about God. he said yes and so we did and one thing to another and he has no desire to change. but if that desire comes he said he will come to us. which is kind of good but mostly sad becasue alot of people jsut have no desire to change and without that desire there is not much that can happen in our life. i am very very excited for general conference. it is such an amazing opprotunity for personal revelation and guidance. and me and elder lee were thinking about it. and we concluded that that skill is very important. i think as for as the missionaries in our mission. they are outstanding. of course there are a few cases where someone is a little questionable but for the most part all of the missionaries in our mission are great. i think there are some people who are still trying to find their testimony but that is everywhere. elder dobbins went to daegu from busan on the ground of a train. a hike we went on today
9/19/16 Hello everyone! i hope you all had as good a week as i did but i hardly doubt that that is possible. this last week i ran a 10k. it was awesome! i havent run that far in a very long time but i enjoyed it alot. there was a mission event over the korean holiday of chuseok. we also met a new investigator named Lee euijeong. he already believs that the book of Mormon is true! ill keep you updated as time goes on love you all! silly faces
9/12/16
this my response to a email president Barrow sent me and asked me to read these three scriptures about remembering. I wntd to chare it withyou all today. President Barrow!When i read Alma 5:6 I tried to 'liken' it unto me and inserted my name in the verse. and I feel it gravely importnat to always remeber my own captivity. I must always remeber the Mercy and Long Suffering that the Lord has so kindly extended towards me day in and day out. Most of all i must always remember that he has indeed "redeemed [my] soul from hell". If i forget that i will quickly find myself back where i started. and that is nowhere to be foudn in my post-mission plans. When i read Helaman 5:9 i was reminded yet again that ONLY through Christ we can return to the father. ONLY by following him will we find "peace in this life and Eternal Life in the life to come". And I must spend my life trying to help others come unto him, becasue everything else is pale in comparison. When i read Moroni 10:3 i thought about why Moroni in that verse is exhorting us to remeber how merciful the Lord is? in 'moroni's promise' the Lord couldhave put anything he wanted to say, why then, did he counsel us to remember how merciful he is? i think it is because alot of people on the road to truth soon come to know that they "are nothing, which thing [they] never had supposed", and that is a pretty stressful situation coupled with guilt, shame, and probably a mountain of discouragement that can only be moved by faith. I think it is a loving reminder to us, that God is not here to hand our past over our head all they days of out lives. he is here to help us, to love us, and to guide us back to our heavenly home. I am so greatful for the mercied of the Lord. the Great ones and the Tender ones. without them i would surely fail. love, Elder Dobbins 9/12/16
I had a great week this last week. My new Compnions is Elder Le sunho and he is awesome. he was actually just working in the mission ofice as an Office Assistant like i was and he is amazing. he works super hard! i wouldnt want to spent my last transfer with anyone else. we are actually trying to find new investigatros right now. we have met alot of people on the street who say they have interest so this week as we try to contact them all we will see if they really do or not. but our other investigators are just kind of not very interested at the moment. I actually over the last week and a half have learned so much! specifically i have learned alot about what it means to truly love people. if you read James 2:15 it says 'faith without works is dead' and when i read that scripture i thought about how the important thing in having faith is actually acting in accordance with that faith. and then i tried something. i switched out the word 'faith' with 'love' and it turns out that Love without works is dead as well. for some reason it never clicked all the way until now that if we love people we have to show it trough actions. alond the way i knoew it and had an idea of what that meant. but for some reason it clicked this week and i understand that principle more than anything i think i ever have. and so i have been trying to apply it all over the place. and it has been so wonderful. all of the sudden everything i do is no longer about me. ive always had these underlying misconceptions that if i work hard enough I will be a good missionary, if i work hard enough I can be succesful and as true as that is i think i missed the essence of missionary work. of course i want to work hard and i have tried my best to work hard throughout my mission but for some reason there were times where it was really really hard to keep doing that. especially last transfer elder No and I kept pushing along. but it just wasnt enough. and then it clicked that this work is awork of love. and one thing to another. the Lord had finally humbled me enough to the point that i could accept that message fully. I was finally ready to hear what he has been trying to tell me for the last 20 years. the whole reason god gave us life is to bless others. Mark 8:37 attests to that. and the Work and glory of God is to bring to pass the immortality and Eternal life of man. (Moses 1:39). so if we are going to lose our life for his sake we need to do all we can to help others rise to Eternal life. as soon as i started workind towars that end, a whole new power came into my life. I understand what life is all about now. It is about helping others. elder dobbins 9/4/16 I was thinking about this next transfer and i think it is going to be a great one! there are countless opportunities ahead of us and i just cant wait for us all to see them and take them. Yesterday at church i got to thinking alot about the Savior and Elder Dustin talked about Elder Bednar's "the Character of Christ Talk" and in that talk he talks about the difference between the Natural and the follower of Christ. the difference was when faced with a trial the natural man turns inward. while the follower of Christ turns outward. I feel like that is key to everything! and there is the scripture i dont remember where it is right now, but it says something like 'if you seek your life you will lose it, but if you lose your life for the sake of the savior you will find it." i know that that is true. if we spend our whole life trying to do nothing else but build us up we might build something, but it wont be anywhere near what God has in mind for us. God made us to be like him and he is engrossed in helping others. Service is the life of the Celestial Kingdom. Turning outward is key to becoming like God, because that is all he does day in and day out. And i have found that when i turn outward, my problems seem much smaller. I am happier and life is exhilarating. so elder no has gone home now and my new companion is elder lee sunho. he was just an office assistant last transfer and i have heard nothing but good things about him. im excited to meet him and get to work. this last week was extremely busy. we had a million things to do. and transfers just added to it. but now all is working well and the stress is vanishing by the moment. assuming no more teams miss their bus. there is actually a new transfer system being put into place right now. the way it used to be is everyone would go down to the mission office on transfer day. and then go to their areas. there was a transfer meeting. but the quorum of the twelve apostles said that transfer meetings are no longer allowed. and now it is just kind of an inter zone transfer circus. it is not as bad as i thought it was going to be but it still is complicated and there is alot riding on people NOT missing their trains and buses because if they do then everything else gets messed up. so far only one team missed their bus but it actually worked out decently anyways. as i said before i am excited for this next transfer and cant wait to see what happens. love you all1 elder dobbins the church is true The district last transfer me last day meat buffet
8/29/16
this last week went by insanely fast. i actually got to go back up to my training area andong for the day on exchanges. that was pretty fun. we taught more lessons on the street in 3 hours than i think i did my first transfer therein andong. glad to see the mission has progressed since then,. i have been focusing on studying the new testament lately and it has been going really well. that and reading jesus the christ. by james e talmage. his vocabulary is quite better than mine. the Zone Leader thing is going well. you never really know exactly what you are doing but you try your best the Lord makes up the rest ant it all works out. our zone is actually really really strong. we have alot of amazing missionaries who work very hard. i would say that this new assignment has helped me see the innate goodness in people as children of God. really this transfer has helped me do that greatly. As a leader in the mission you know alot more about missionaries than i figured i would ever. and we do spend a considerable time trying to help people overcome weaknesses and grow their strengths. but something i have learned that is incredibly important is not to define people by their mistakes and weaknesses, because that is not what they are. we are all first and foremost children of heavenly parents, with problems. not problem children. personally i have found that this difference in approach to looking at myself and others has helped me greater see others how the Lord sees them. and that is indispensable because if you cant see people the way that the Lord sees them then you cannot help them. because you will not be able to love them fully. this next week we are slammed though. we have to clean the carpets on the church on tuesday wednesday is district meeting. Thursday i have to go up to seoul. friday we go to busan for a meeting. and saturday will be normal and sunday is church all in our spare time we have to prepare for the stake presidents meeting which takes about a day but we dont have a full day so we will have to split that up. love, Elder Dobbins |
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