I think we all receive tender mercies in ways we don’t always recognize them. I had a realization this week as to one of the ways Heavenly Father sends me little reminders of just how much he loves and knows me.

Last Monday evening, Sister Swinson and I went on a long walk. We started the walk passing by the horses that live in our barn and we pet them and it made me smile. We passed the longhorns grazing in their field and they looked up at us. It made me smile. A little further along the walk, a lovely german shepherd ran up to us and I rubbed that dog until my arms were sore and it even followed us for a bit. That made me smile again. We continued. Next was a herd of cows that of course, I had to moo at. They all looked at me and they even came a little closer to us. Once again, it made me smile. Finally, as we were picking flowers along the road, a small green bug made us laugh as it crawled along the stem of one of the flowers we held. Even on the way back home, the longhorns came close to the fence to say hello which brought yet another grin to my face.

I never realized this before, but ever since the thought came to my head and thinking of the many evidences I have seen, I am convinced that Heavenly Father sends little animal friends my way to remind me He is there and He loves me. It is something that is so little, but it brings me so much joy. Whenever a dog will run over, straight to me, I cannot help but recognize God’s hand in it. They are like little angels He sends to me and I am so grateful for that.

Well! This week was actually a pretty busy week. We had the greatest opportunity to go to service 3 times this week which was a real blessing. We mainly helped get clothing to homeless people and we talked to and got to know a lot of really awesome people.

The coolest thing that happened to us this week happened yesterday. President and Sister Martino, former MTC President and his wife, invited us to speak to the youth of the stake in their mission prep class. We were asked to speak on talking back to negative thinking and we were asked to do it in the form of a role play. The scenario was a companionship of Sister missionaries who just came out of a lesson that didn’t go very well… We focused on the thoughts of one of those sister missionaries. I played the voice of the negative thoughts in Sister Swinson’s head and we did the role play two different ways. The first time, Swinson reacted how we tend to naturally respond to negative thoughts in our heads and the second time, she responded in a positive way or “talked back” to the negative thoughts.
It went something like this:

Negative thoughts: “That was a terrible lesson! What did I even say?? Do I know anything from the Book Of Mormon?? I wasn’t able to keep them engaged during that lesson and the spirit was definitely not there… That was the worst lesson ever.”
Natural response: “I never want to open my mouth again…”
Positive response: “Hold on, I know that lesson maybe didn’t go the best. But I know that I can study more, prepare more and try again. I can figure this out, it just takes time. I will improve.”

We went on to explain how to tell the difference between the adversary feeding us lies and thoughts we receive that can help us. When thoughts are degrading or discouraging, we can recognize that those are from the adversary. It is important however, and even essential as missionaries that we recognize when there may be room for improvement. So having thoughts that lead to a positive action such as “yeah, that wasn’t great, but I know I can prepare better..” are the kind we want to listen to.

One point we also brought up that I would like to emphasize in this email is understanding that we are targets. As disciples of Jesus Christ, not just missionaries, but as followers of Jesus Christ, we have a target on our backs for the adversary. He KNOWS the good we can do, the light we bring to people’s lives and he doesn’t want that! Even when we ourselves are coming closer to Jesus Christ after maybe being further away than we wanted to be, we must prepare ourselves for that opposition. That is the adversary’s sole purpose. He focuses 100% of his time and existence on trying to bring you down. We must be prepared to recognize his influence and not let him convince us of false information. We know who we are!

But anyway, what a great experience that was to be able to speak to those youth. I have so much respect for them. They are so strong.

Well I will wrap up this email, but I hope y’all are doing so good and are staying safe. I love y’all!

Scripture of the week! 2 Nephi 2:27

Get Busy, Get Lost!
-Sister Oldham