Tender Mercies

Today was a harder day for me in maths class, especially when we started going over base 8. Helen was trying to illustrate to us, as future teachers, how hard learning place value for kids is, even with base 10, so she has us doing operations with base 8, and I got really frustrated. At the end of the day I was even telling Kara that I didn't know if I wanted to be a teacher anymore, if I would be good at it, if I could do all the assessment, daily work, observing, teaching, and planning that it requires 24/7, and still wake up every morning loving my job. It was a distressful day, and I must add the rain didn't help. Rain is not good for me; it makes my mood tour sour, so I guess this means I should never live in really rainy places. Ironic that I love lots of green trees, because they are only that green when they are watered a lot!

Anyway, this afternoon wasn't the best, but Kara and I went with our host dad to the YSA fireside where Elder Anderson was speaking to a smaller group in North Auckland. Elder Bednar was speaking to the YSA of South Auckland. Kara, our dad, me, and 3 other girls, Victoria, Rosanna, and Victoria's cousin were all sitting on the bench close to the door, so not too far from the pulpit, and Elder Anderson was walking around and shaking hands with people. Well, he looked like he was about to go back to the stage and so he started to wave at us, but then he looked a little longer, and came over to our bench and shook our hands. It was such a wonderful feeling to feel the love of the Savior just through his hand shake. There is a reason for everything, and I am grateful that he took the time, even when it wasn't convenient to shake our hands.

If that wasn't a good enough tender mercy, I got another one through his talk. His talk was about 4 different people and 4 different scriptures that described or inspired the 4 people and how we can learn from their experiences. Ultimately, his talk was about putting trust in the Lord and letting go of what we think is best, since with our limited vision, we really don't know what is best for us. I started to think about my doubts earlier in the day and how I was being taught to put trust in my Heavenly Father instead of living in fear. As President Monson says, "Decisions determine destiny." When I make the decision to live with faith and not fear, ask for help with this weakness of mine to live in fear, and then go and do, then I'll have a more promising destiny, I am sure of it.