June 18, 2012

Dear Family,

 

How's it going? Do you know what I can't believe? That Reggie's coming home soon! It seems like I just saw him at his farewell. What a man, extending his mission for another month. I would totally do the same thing if y'all let me. I'm just having too much fun out here. No offense, but I just never want to go home. So many missionaries get "trunky" nowadays, but I'm as fully invested as ever. This whole mission thing is quite the cool gig :) It's funny how I don't really know what to say in my emails even though there's a lot happening. Haha whenever Monday rolls around, the only thing I can think about telling you about is the latest BBQ I've tried. Joplin has some excellent resaurants. There's nothing quite like some good smoked meat... Yummmmmmmm...

 

Amber got baptized on Saturday! What an exciting day! It's taken a long time for Amber to finally get ready for baptism, but she was totally ready. She seemed a little nervous leading up to the 16th, but as it got really close she was super stoked. She looked so happy at the baptism :) Frankie (her cousin) baptized her and Bro. Pulsipher confirmed her yesterday at church. I was kind of expecting something crazy to happen at the baptism because every baptism I've been to on my mission something's gone wrong. But it went very smoothly. She only had to be dunked once and Frankie said the prayer right :)

 

Time out - you just emailed me! Hooray!

 

Hey I've totally been to fairlds.org before. We've been given permission to check it out every now and then. I really do think that it's a good resource. I've told many people before that though I may not have all the answers, there is an answer for EVERY question out there. You just have to go to the right source. Don't Google Mormonism!!! It's just like they say - don't go to the Chevi dealer to find out about the Ford.

 

This week I got to go on an exchange with Elder Jensen in Pittsburg. Best day of my life! He sprained his ankle really bad recently so we just sat in the apartment all day, but it was still fun. It was just like old times :) We also went on an exchange with the Assistants, so that was fun. Besides that, this week was kinda slow. We spent a lot of our precious time driving to Arkansas and other places in Missouri to get stuff on our car fixed. It was really frustrating actually. I was hoping that we could fix the car here in Joplin, but I guess we have to take it to places far away. I did get to see a bunch of different missionaries though. And Arkansas! I miss Arkansas so much. The more time passes, the more I realize how much fun I had in Springdale. What a great place to be trained. And I wonder how Elder Navratil is doing these days in Canada. Maybe he's married...

 

I'm still working my tail off these days. It's sure paying off. We have countless potential investigators that we're waiting to teach and we've picked up a cool family to teach. The mom basically already knows the Book of Mormon is true and so we're stoked to start teaching them. It's just hard to get a hold of them. So many people are like that around here! Whether they're interested or not, people just don't answer phone calls or their door.

 

Cool experience of the week: I went to a bible study with a bunch of people from the Church of God. They were very very nice and we read from 1 John chapter 2 or 3 (I think). We talked about how we need to put worldly desires behind us and do what it takes to please God and make it to heaven. It was kinda weird at times, and the preacher talked way too much. They were great people, but I kept on wanting to say stuff about the Restoration and Eternal Life and such. It wasn't exactly the right environment for it though. They're just missing some key information! Gosh, I love the Book of Mormon so much. The Bible is so cloudy sometimes. The people there were all about Holiness. It was starting to bug me. Talk about vain repetitions...

 

Anyways. I gotta go. I don't really remember what else happened this week anyway. It was good though! Sorry I'm so boring. Life just flies by at a million miles an hour. Love you!

 

Love, Elder Atkin

 

P.S. Happy Father's Day, Dad! I was thinking about you all day yesterday. Your the best dad a son could have :)