Wow wow, time is flying by! Can you even believe it is almost May?? I feel like just a few weeks ago it was January. Does anybody else feel that way?

Okay, so fun thing about the barn…there is a pleasant array of various species of insects and spiders ALL OVER THE PLACE. We had one unwelcome guest in particular this week that was quite an adventure. We woke up to a wasp on our window. Not sure how long it was there for… but I got the fly swatter, said a quick prayer and waited for it to get into a position where I could get a good swing at it and DESTROY IT. It would move a little occasionally and every time it moved I started squealing because that thing was GROSS and it freaked me out so bad. I just couldn’t build up the courage to swing…hahaha. If I missed it, I knew it would come at me and probably kill me and I prefer to choose life. So Sister Swinson just kinda watched me squirm and dance around the thing for like ten minutes😂 Until I finally asked her to do it. Man, when she swung that fly swatter and it smacked over that little nasty thing’s body I freaking SCREAMED🤣🤣 I booked it out of that room so fast. She killed it right away so I don’t know why I was so spooked by it. But I was just absolutely frazzled…hahaha. So that was fun.

Sister Swinson and I also cleaned out a bunch of spiders and spiderwebs in our stairway and that was like.. grody to the max… but it was awesome! After all the adventures with the bugs this week and being all brave instead of asking the Elders to come do it, Swinson said: “The barn is teaching me how to be a real woman!” Which is so true. 

We had Zone Conference this week over zoom which was way awesome! I love the Chapman’s, they are the kindest people on the entire planet and you can just feel love oozing from them whenever you see them. They put a big emphasis on us figuring out why we are still here. They made the excellent point that there have been SO MANY missionaries go home this last month for various reasons all over the world. A ton from our mission as well. But we are still here. They invited us to pray to our Father in Heaven to ask to know for ourselves why we have been assigned to stay. We are here for a reason, there’s no doubt about that. 

It also made me realize how lucky I am to still be out. It is a real blessing. I have to take advantage of every moment! Heavenly Father chose to keep me out here and there’s a reason why! There are people I still have to meet and words I still have to say and things I still have to do out here. And I am so pumped to still be deep in the work.

We have challenged ourselves to make more calls every day and that is basically all we are able to do. We have had quite a few awesome experiences with that though. There have been many times where it seems like we call just at the right time. Many times we call people and they end up opening up to us completely and telling us their life story and what their struggles are. I’m so grateful people feel like they can open up to us, it’s a blessing being able to feel Gods love for them. 

It is also amazing how the spirit can still be present even through the phone. Of course, we would love to share messages in person, but what a miracle it is that the spirit can still bring comfort and testify of truths even in our unique circumstances. It is beautiful to witness. 

Well I’m gonna wrap up this email for the week! You will have to forgive me if I ever repeat myself hahaha. All the days mesh together and I forget what I write about in past emails. 

Y’all are fantastic and I hope yall have a great week! Lots of love!❤❤
Scripture of the week: D&C 84:60-61
Get Busy, Get Lost!-Sister Oldham