Thanksgiving!

 (Sister Putnam)

This week has been so interesting! First of all, my nametags still haven't shown up, & I fly out to Washington on Tuesday, so I’m praying that the nametags come by then, otherwise I'll have to go without a name tag or I'll borrow my comps in the field until they show up in the field 😬

On Sunday I attended Church with my grandparent's ward, & the main ideas that I noticed seemed to parallel each talk was the importance of continuous spiritual "working out" like physical working out, because if we just stop altogether, we lose what we gained & have to earn it back. Then we went to my grandparents for an early Sunday dinner, & that was fun. I, being unfamiliar with the Dark Side of the Phones, aka Samsung, got help from my uncle Dave, who tried to convince me that Samsung is better than Apple, but I know that apple is the way :) Then after that we went to my other aunt & uncle's house, Paul & Katy's, & we had an early thanksgiving dinner, so that was awesome.

On Monday, Sister Israelsen & I had a TRC with a girl named Aubrie, who we taught last week & I forgot to write about. We felt like it went really well. She asked for some advice this lesson about remembering to trust God, because she's a very independent person, & so often she forgets to remember to trust Him. I thought, "hey, that sounds like me!" so I suggested that she pray to the Lord to ask him to help her to remember to trust him, & she said she felt that really applied to her, & that was awesome!

On Tuesday, we had a TRC with a girl named Malory, & we also taught her last week & I forgot to write about it. But she's awesome, she's trying to find a stronger connection with God, so last week we challenged her to ask the Lord to help her see his hand in her life, & she said this week she's felt closer to God & one of the ways she's felt closer to God is when she bought food for a homeless man, & that was amazing! Also, in class we were talking about thanksgiving traditions that we have, & one tradition in my family is to eat pie for breakfast the next day. One guy said he really liked eating tur-duck, and we were all like "what the heck is that?" and my brain was like "turtle ducks?" and apparently tur-duck is stuffing a duck and also a turkey or something. Never heard of that but sounds great! Also, after watching the devotional on Tuesday my district got together on zoom & we talked & got to know each other, & we've all just become so close as a district, & I'm really gonna miss them! They're all just amazing people!

Wednesday was the 2-week mark of me being a missionary. Now I've been a missionary for 2 1/2 weeks!

  In class on Wednesday, we were talking about safeguards for using technology, & an insight came to mind. The safeguards rules said that when you're feeling vulnerable or susceptible, to speak with your companion & to turn to God. Well, one of the ways Satan tries to make us more vulnerable or susceptible is through putting thoughts in our minds that we don't want there. AKA intrusive thoughts. So, with intrusive thoughts, we can always turn to God for help, and doing so is so helpful!.

In a video I'd watched in a particular series I followed closely (I was a theorist in the fandom before the mission) a guy also talked about how to deal with intrusive thoughts. Now, when he talked about how to deal with intrusive thoughts, he said to just keep doing whatever you were doing, with no mention of turning to God whatsoever. And noting that contrast helps us to see how subtle Satan can be. I'm not calling the guy who made this video Satan by any means whatsoever. In fact, learning what intrusive thoughts are is very important, especially because so many people have them, so this guy making that video was very validating and important. I understand he's trying to be inclusive to everyone regardless of whether or not they're religious, so in order to not offend anyone, he didn't make any mention of turning to God. But God is exactly who Satan wants us to forget to turn to. Why? Well, the devil knows that God can help us to deal with intrusive thoughts better, and Satan wants us to be miserable, so naturally, Satan would find a way to avoid having us turn to God to better handle our intrusive thoughts, and one of the ways he does so is by telling people "you'll offend someone with talk of religion," & influences them to just leave any mention of God out of the conversation. And the subtlety of Satan's tricks is so scary because, sometimes it just goes right underneath our noses. I'm a theorist, I notice things, but that went under my nose, and that's terrifying! And also, we need to be sooo careful to retain the truths that we know, because so often we're focused on looking for the falsehoods Satan throws at us that we don't notice the truths he subtly leaves out! I'm probably not making much sense but I guess what I’m saying is that it's really important that we be listening to the holy ghost because Satan can be so subtle it's scary!

Thursday! Thanksgiving! Food! Oh, also, family too! My mom & I prepared mashed potatoes & French silk pie, & custard pie, & orange rolls! And then we went over to some family's house, my aunt Becky’s house (wow I have a lot of aunts & uncles) for dinner, & i got to hang out with them & with my cousins, & at some point it came up that "hamburgers are made out of hamsters" so that was interesting. I love my family to death though, I'm gonna miss them! And I can't believe how privileged I am. If it weren't for home MTC I wouldn't've had thanksgiving with my family. It was good.

Friday! On Friday, we had a workshop on transitioning from home MTC to the field & because it was on zoom we had a zoom group chat, & so for some reason one elder would not stop talking about whales the whole time. And there were some elders debating on whether ramen should be baked, or deep fried, or soaked in mayonnaise, or eaten dry & then the powder by itself, etc. I finally was like "okay, ignoring the chat now."

Notes from class & other stuff!

- as children of God, we should not demean or vilify ourselves. (elder holland, be ye therefore perfect, eventually)

- my mission is an opportunity to focus on the gospel 24/7 likely won't happen again. If my focus is on the savior, it will be a sacred, treasured time!

- god is anxious to speak with you!

I love you all!

~Sister Putnam