Hello my lovelies!
Happiest of Mother’s Days to you all! I hope you all sent some love to your Mama!

Let’s see… exciting things this week.. the mission is getting a ton of new missionaries! We are expected to see about 120 new missionaries coming in starting from this last week up until September! To give you an idea of how many people that is, the mission currently has about 160 of us. Crazy stuff!

It was the same old same old week this week. Lots of calls, lots of studies. We were able to watch a baptism though over zoom! It was a little girl who turned 8 in the Decatur Ward, which was my first area! It was so, so cute! What a blessing.

So we have a Texas, Fort Worth Sister Missionaries Facebook page and every day a companionship of sisters is asked to write a post about their “Why”. Your “why” is the reason why you decided to serve a mission. Today was actually the day that Sister Swinson and I were asked to share on facebook, so for my email today, I wanted to share my “Why”.

Starting from the year I could until I got too old, I attended EFY every summer in Minnesota. It was by far the greatest week of the year. It was a week I devoted completely to coming closer to Jesus Christ. I was never great at reading my scriptures and praying daily, but EFY was always the time to get back into the habit. A gospel study was part of your daily schedule, we had classes where we learned about our Savior, people bore testimonies all throughout the week and we sang beautiful hymns at every meeting. The spirit was so strong there, you never wanted to leave.

My experiences as EFY helped me realize just how much joy comes from living the gospel and having a relationship with our Savior. It was like stepping into a bubble of divine light and joy for a week and then stepping out into the dark world again. But you long to always keep that light in your life because you know that’s how you always want to be and how you always want to feel.

For the first week or two after EFY you are still on that spiritual high, so you would get up, make your bed, say your prayers and start the day reading your scriptures just like you did that entire week because you never want to lose that feeling. But then you miss a day and then two… and before you know it, you’ve lost the habit again. But you strive to keep working on it.

But the pivotal moment was standing up to bear your testimony at the end of that week and declaring with everything you got that you know that Jesus Christ lives and He died for you and this is His church because how could it not be? How could something that is so incredibly glorious and beautiful and joyful not be true? And you stand there and you feel your chest start to burn and the butterflies go away as you speak and tears well up in your eyes and in the eyes of those listening because you know what you’re saying is true, you know who you are and who your Redeemer is and how He feels about you and you could never deny it.

I want everyone to feel that.

I want everyone to experience that joy, light, hope, peace, comfort and love that comes ONLY from coming to know the Savior. I know that when I live the Gospel and I am saying my prayers, reading my scriptures, keeping the commandments and doing what I know God wants me to do that I am most happy, I find the most success and every burden I have is lifted. Not necessarily gone, but lifted. What a blessing that is.

This Gospel and the light that comes from it is a gift and I would never dream of keeping such an incredible gift to myself.

That’s why I’m here❤

I hope y’all have the best week! Until next time!

Scripture of the week! Literally ALL of Alma 5😂 but especially verses 27-28

Get Busy, Get Lost!
-Sister Oldham