July 30, 2012

Dear Family,

Mom, I'm so proud of your missionary moment! Doesn't it just feel great?? I flippin' love sharing the gospel these days. Gosh, if you were out here you would wonder what happened to your son (in a good way of course). I still having my flaws and I still get nervous, but I just itch to talk to people about God and religion. It's the thing to do around here. Especially in the Tulsa area. It's "cool" to invite your friends to church. We spent a lot of time talking about that in my last area because if you say it in the right way, inviting your friend to church is very smooth and easy. It's like, "Oh, I'm sad to hear that you don't like what your preacher said last Sunday. Ya know what? You should just come to my church this Sunday and see what it's like. You'd love it!" I'm really good at what I do :)

It's true, Mom. There is a lot of junk about our church on the internet. Have you heard about the Bloomberg Business article yet? If you haven't, I'm sure you will. Apparently the article is all about how our church is a wealthy business and is taking over the world. What a bunch of junk! I'm so sick and tired of the anti that's out there. Of course, there needs to be an opposition to what is good, but you'd think that the anti could just cool off a bit. This last week we met with a recent convert who left the church because she got offended. She knows it's still true, but she thinks everyone hates her at church (not true, by the way). And just the other day her brother showed her a bunch of Google anti. She was going to come to church, but instead she sent us texts during church meetings citing the Doctrines of Salvation and the Journal of Discourses. She's really doubting what she knows. It's so sad! She hasn't answered our calls for a while :( And what's worse is we looked up each reference and they were totally misquoted or taken out of context. Anti = stupid.

But anyways. Good news! Shelby's ready for baptism this Saturday! We went over the baptismal interview questions with her this week and then Elder Lund interviewed her on Saturday. We'll meet with her one more time before this Saturday and watch "On the Lord's Errand" and talk about prophets. I'm just so stoked :) She's so ready. I can just see it in her eyes. Sadly, we can't get her to pray yet, but she promised that she would after her baptism. I'll try to send pictures of the baptism next Monday.

This week we went on exchanges with President Shumway. I have to admit that Elder Quinn and I were very nervous. We tried our best to set up an amazing dinner and an appointment with Ashley. Result? Miracles! We had a wonderful dinner with the Buells and our appointment with Ashley went very well. Although she missed church, she is progressing and is reading the Book of Mormon. Our 40-day fast continues to bless us.

Have a great week and stay cool. It's like 111 right now... Love ya loads!

Love, Elder Atkin