Dear Mom! Dear Dad! Dear EVERYONE!
It's so great to hear from you! I really can't say it enough. Road trippin' to St. George, baby Eli's blessing, April's endowments (which I'm so excited about I'm about to dance in front of everyone in the Library and sing Called to Serve and do some jumping jacks...), the Napolis...... I love to hear about life at home :) The pictures are so fun and cute! I just can't stand it.
Well. I'm just doin' dandy! I feel great and I wouldn't want to be doin' anything else right now. There's so much to do every day, and it's just too much fun being a missionary. Being a greeny kinda stinks sometimes, but I do have to say it has it's perks. The members here are SO nice to me, and as you can see they like to contact home and tell you how I'm doing (which, by the way, I hope you received a call from a certain Bro. and Sis. Clune who I had dinner with last night)
Anyways, I just love the ward here so much. Church was amazing yesterday, and Elder Navratil and I were able to share our testimonies in Sacrament meeting. I went first just because I felt prompted, and of course the Senior comp. couldn't back down :) Everyone thanked us for our testimonies and said we would work well together. Which we truly do! Elder Navratil only has a couple months left in his mission, but he's not letting off the gas, and we are sure trying hard to find and teach.
Speaking of finding and teaching... Everyday we have our personal and companion study, but once it's time to go out into the heat and actually be missionaries, we go full force. There's nothing like biking in missionary clothes out here in Springdale, Arkansas. The wind is always blowing in your face (yeah, how does that work??) and we seriously just get soaked in sweat. But the cool part is stopping on somebody's porch, drenched in sweat, red in the face, and them answering. Talk about spiritual intimidation yeeeaaahh!!! Like I said, people really have a knack for not being home or not wanting to let us in, but people are pretty nice when we do get in. But really, it is SO hot. But I feel the Lord has blessed me because I actually enjoy sweating buckets and biking for miles and miles. It's actually very satisfying, and I feel like I'm working hard. But I don't think I'll ever get used to biking in 113 degree weather (yeah it got that hot the other day. It felt like 125 because of the humidity).
The investigator we have closest to being baptized is a girl named Ashley. Ashley has had to quit smoking and she has been doing really well. She actually has a baptismal date set for the 13th, but because she took just ONE PUFF the other day, we might have to move it back, thus complicating things and maybe giving her time to rethink. Man I despise the devil... We haven't been able to tell her yet, and the toughest part is that it might really hurt her feelings. We fasted and prayed like crazy yesterday for her, so I hope it all works out and that she'll be excited for another day. Pray for Ashley, ya'll!
Man, the people sure are weird out here. It's only been 2 weeks (almost) like I said, but I've already had so many people yell at me or thank me for my service. Weird, huh?! Speaking of persecution... On Saturday we were at Walmart. I was standing across the aisle from a man and just started chatting with him. I found out his name was David and that he knew who we were. I then made my first mistake by asking him what he knew about us.
It's Bible bashin' time, babay!!!
But really. To make a long story short, this man (a Born Again Christian) was very rude and was pretty much looking for a fight. I kindly listened to his beliefs, but he interrupted me every time I tried to say what I knew, and he basically told me I didn't know/believe in Jesus. Thankfully I had 3 other elders with me and we were able to end it (Well... Elder Rodriguez bashed back) The funny thing is (after this was all said and done) was that the man had studied the Book of Mormon and our church for years and years, just to be able to bash and shoot down my testimony with the Bible. And yet I pretty much knew nothing about his faith besides he thinks he can drink and smoke and still get to heaven. Oh man that's adorable! But anyways, I learned a great lesson about leaving before the fight starts and how the absence of the spirit can pretty much ruin anything. There's no feeling quite like the spirit leaving the room. This is why missionaries pray for it all the time.
It's definitely been a little bit cooler the past couple days, so that's nice. It's still almost 100 degrees, but compared to hotter temperatures, upper 90's sounds great. I experienced my first real thunderstorm the other night, and it was pretty awesome. I was informed that it was only some baby showers, which is just nuts! There was one lightning strike that sounded like a cannon being shot right outside our house. I can only imagine what a normal thunderstorm is like. Good grief!
Well, I'm running out of time, but I hope you enjoyed my little stories and such. I can't express my love for you enough! Just so you know, I recieved your letters you sent all the way on the 24th of July, so it was fun to read stuff that was meant for a missionary still in the MTC :) Hopefully I didn't forget anything I wanted to say. Tell everyone in our family that I love them and that I pray for y'all. Continue to feel free to send letters, emails, and goodies (tee hee) whenever you want. They are muchly mucho appreciated.
Talk to you soon!
Love, Elder Atkin
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