December 19, 2011

Dear family,

Merry merry Christmas to you too! Boy, Sunday can't come quick enough. I have so much to say to you in so little time today, so I'm happy that in less than a week I can just pour out my soul into the phone. I sent Dad an email talking about some of the details, but I'm still not sure on everything. I just hope and pray that I can just call successfully and talk to my family. That is ALL I flipping want for Christmas, Santa. That is all I want for the rest of my life, too - to just spend time with family and hear your wonderful voices. I'm already satisfied anyway. I received probably the best present I've ever gotten in the mail the other day. You know, the picture chain. When I opened it I seriously wept like a baby. I just laugh about it now :) It just goes to show how much I miss your faces! I'm going to treasure those pictures forever. And all of my little nephews are looking so adorable!

 

Mom, I loved hearing about your story with the Napolis. That scripture you shared is awesome :) Your story reminds me of Jim - the geneology buff. His mother is going through a lot of pain in her very old age. He just doesn't understand why she's going through this and why she's still here. We met with him last night, and we talked a little bit about the Plan of Salvation. Jim agrees with basically every doctrine our church teaches, and he loves the Plan of Salvation. I've mentioned before that he thinks that Mormonism is the closest to the truth. It's just frustrating that he's still not doing anything and refusing to accept our beliefs. He submits names to the temple, he loves our church and the missionaries so much, and he dearly wants to have the ordinances of salvation for himself. But there's just something holding him back. We think that it's his mother. She was a preacher for another church for basically her whole life. He feels like he'd be betraying his family heritage (even though his dad has had temple ordinances done for him). Golly, Elder Jensen and I just don't really know what to do. At least Jim loved the William Atkin journal.

 

This week wasn't the best number-wise, but we're still happy as ever. Elder Jensen and I are still pals, and we're working super hard. It's a little frustrating at times, especially since this area hasn't had a baptism since 2010 and we haven't had any new investigators yet, but the Lord blesses us in other ways. We've done a bunch of tracting, but it hasn't been successful. Everyone out here is Baptist. I mean EVERYONE. At least they're all pretty nice to us. It's just that I ache to teach the Restoration. I've seriously only taught a new investigator a couple of times. That's another thing that I want for Christmas - someone to teach!

 

We did a lot of service this week for the local Community Resource Center. They do a Toys for Tots sort of a thing and we helped give presents to people in need. It was so much fun! I loved seeing all of the peoples' faces light up when we'd hand them a bag of toys and goodies. Charity never faileth, my friends :) We also got to talk to a man (who was also helping with the gifts) who is a member of the Community of Christ church. It was really interesting to talk about the priesthood and the Book of Mormon with him. It was really cool to talk to someone who isn't a member of our church, but still believes in the same stuff. But at the same time it was really frustrating. Flipping PROPER AUTHORITY. Ugh...

 

Well, I'm about out of time. I look forward to talking to you on Sunday! Don't cry too much when you answer :) Haha have a great week!

 

Love, Elder Atkin