Sunshine!

Dear Family,

 

This week has been a rainy one. Yesterday it finally cleared up just in time to make for a beautiful Sunday. The temperature was in the 60's to low 70's and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. With all of the rain we've had, everything is green and in full bloom. After companionship study yesterday we were so happy and full of energy that we jumped on our bikes and rode to our appointment with Aaron. Elder H seems to get depressed when the thunderstorms roll in so it was good to see his spirits up. It's moments like these that I truly understand an "opposition in all things." Even the weather! How the rainclouds of life help us appreciate the days of sunshine, and vise versa.

 

Such a beautiful day was coupled with wonderful church services. In elders quorum we reviewed President Monson's talk from the 2012 October General Conference called "Consider the Blessings." In the talk Pres. Monson shares a few experiences in which the Lord answered his prayers and brought about blessings in his life and others. At the beginning of the talk he challenges each of us to take a step back a realize what we are grateful for. Tyler (our branch mission leader) was teaching the lesson and he asked us to think about what we had been blessed with. Naturally, I thought about how much I love all of God's creations and being in the good ol' outdoors. But as I continued to ponder an interesting thought came into my mind, most definitely from the Spirit. I receive so many blessings from the people I'm surrounded by. And even more than that is the blessing of learning from those individuals. My mission has helped me realize that there is always something to be learned from each one of God's children, whether good or bad. It may sound silly, but I'm grateful for each moment I'm with someone - learning from their wisdom or thier mistakes. Kinda makes even the smallest and least of conversations with a human being seem like a glorious opportunity to learn something new! Sorry if I'm not making any sense... Either way I'm grateful. I'm just glad I'm a missionary and that I'm learning. God sent us to this earth to become functionally independent learners.

 

Saturday was a day full of miracles. Heck, this week was full of miracles. I don't know what we did right, but I guess the Lord saw fit to dump a few tender mercies on us. I don't have enough time to share each story, but I'll tell y'all about Steven. On Saturday night we had just finished tracting down in Lowell when we headed back up to Bentonville for our dinner appointment. As we were getting close, I looked at the clock and realized that we had 12 minutes until our dinner appointment. Talk about inconvenient! Not enough time to really get anything done, but too much time to just sit in front of John's apartment until dinner (April, I'm sure you'd understand). But as I was wondering what to do, the Lord simply took charge of the situation. Before I knew what I was doing I took a left at the stop sign, took another left next to a soccer field, and there we found ourselves in front of a few apartments - hidden from the view of the busy street. I felt a strong pull to these apartments and I already saw the door that I knew we needed to knock on.

 

Before Elder H could ask what the heck was going on, he followed me to the first door in the small complex. I knocked once, didn't feel it, didn't wait, then headed to the door previously mentioned. We knocked and a young man with long hair and a beard stepped out to greet us. We explained who we were and began to talk to him. He said he believed in Christ, but he was acting really weird. After a few minutes of talking and asking questions I looked at the clock and asked him if we could come back in an hour. Steven's laughter and irreverence suddenly changed to complete seriousness. "Where are you going? Can I come with you? Take me with you! I'll do anything. I'll walk. I'll knock doors with you. I need God in my life. Take me with you. I knew that you were going to knock on my door - I could feel it..." We were shocked. I didn't know what to say. After begging us some more, I didn't know to say anything more than, "Get dressed. We'll call our dinner and see if you can come." To make a long story short, Steven came to our dinner and we taught him about everything from the Book of Mormon to the Spirit to modern-day prophets. It was amazing! I barely ate anything at all. We're going to see Steven again tomorrow.

 

I know that the Lord is in control of his work. When he needs to get something done, he leads his servants through the Spirit. There was no way that I could've found Steven otherwise. It's my guess that it would've been years before the missionaries tracted those apartments again. I'm so grateful that I was able to be an instrument in the Lord's hand that evening. Isn't that so cool??!! The other little miracle with this story is that Steven didn't make it to church yesterday (he also begged to come to church with us) because he had some stuff come up. The reason why it's a miracle is because the OKC temple president and his wife gave talks on eternal marriage and covenants that were specifically catered to an all-member audience. They were good talks, but I would've been so embarrassed if Steven had come and listened to the in-depth doctrine. Gosh, they went deep! It was almost even over my head... He'll enjoy fast and testimony meeting next Sunday. Along with Steven, we found another new investigator and a couple other potentials through tracting. Cool thing is that most of them are YSAs!! What a miracle! Our hard work is finally paying off.

 

Should be a great week coming up. We can only keep improving and getting better. I'll have many many more stories to share with you on Mother's Day. Take care and be safe.

 

Love, Elder Atkin

He's sure stretching me...

Dear Family,

 

It's sure good to hear from you. I'm so grateful that I have a family back home to write to and receive emails/letters from. Heck, I'm so grateful that I even have a place to call "home." Today is one of those Mondays where I just wish I could see your faces and spend some time with you. I often feel like Ammon did in the end of Alma 26 when he referrs to him and his brethren as "wanderers in a strange land." I've met some of the greatest people here in the OTM, and yet at times I feel so detatched and so foreign. I don't think I've ever been more at home, but far from home at the same time! Friendships and becoming "part of the family" can only go so far when I'm just temporarily in an area doing the work of the Lord. Missionary life is so weird.

 

I'm not going to sugar-coat it. This week was a rough one. I haven't taught so few lessons in almost a year and a half. It's been very humbling to come into the YSA branch and try to find people to teach. I'm used to knocking on any door and being able to teach that person. Such is not the case here. Everyone we've found so far we've referred to the surrounding family wards. I can at least find joy in giving our zone referrals. Elder H (it's Hironymous, Mom) and I joke with each other that we're going to be the favorite missionaries in the Rogers Zone because we find people to teach for everyone. We're hoping that what goes around, comes around. As we give everyone potentials, maybe we'll get potentials back?

 

The good news is that my son is doing well. He's a natural complainer, but he's doing okay. He doesn't let things get him down. I've been doing my best to help him know that not every area is like this. But I've also helped him understand that with sufficient faith, we can do anything. I've told him once and I'll tell him again that he should never let anyone tell him how something will turn out. For example, if a missionary says, "Oh, that stinks. You're going to a dead area." This is exactly what expectation Satan wants a missionary to be instilled with when he goes to a new area. Sadly, this is the expectation I was given at the beginning of my mission. It's taken almost 2 years for me to learn that I should never let a missionary tell me how it is. I want Elder H to start off right and be able to go into each area with full faith and trust in God.

 

So we've been trying to listen to the Spirit. I've been teaching Elder H how to pray over a map and find certain streets. We've done it a few times and each time without fail we've found a potential investigator on that street. Granted, we don't ever get to teach them ourselves, but it's been neat to see the Lord guide us. I sure hope the other missionaries take care of those referrals! And right now, as I'm typing, I've realized another miracle: we haven't met anyone rude yet. Not even one single person has yelled at us or slammed the door or anything like unto it. I don't care if people are rude to us (in fact I love it), but I think it's a miracle because it's helped Elder H open up in his teaching/door approaches. He's very nervous when it comes to teaching the Gospel. I feel bad because the other day I threw him under the bus in the Milewski's (counselor in the branch presidency and his wife) when I asked them to give a shy missionary advice. He was a little embarrassed, but they gave some good counsel. At least the branch loves having a new missionary :) Every morning in comp. study I have Elder H practice his door approach with me. Fun times.

 

Crazy story of the week: Yesterday we went and ate dinner with Wes, a 25-year-old guy who moved here from Utah about the same time we got here. He's out here selling pest control door-to-door. He joined the church 4 years ago and he's awesome! Anyway, as we were chatting he was like, "So you said you're from Logan?" I answered in the affirmative. He then said, "Hey do you know someone named Stuart Edgington?" I about flipped out. "Yeah, I know Stuart Edgington! In fact, his little brother Stephen was one of my good friends back home!" Y'all remember "Edge," right? Come to find out, Wes was roommates with Stuart at about the time I was going to BYU. I guess Stuart is a big deal nowadays because of some videos he made that have gone viral on the internet. He's even been on national television. Cool stuff! I know a famous guy. Small world.

 

We expect this next week to be better than the last. We have a few potentials and we have some great activities that we're planning. Though things may be tough now, I'm excited to do some fun stuff with the YSA branch. Opportunities will open up that I couldn't have done in a normal area. Should be fun!

 

Man, I already feel so much better from just emailing you. Also, guess what I found out? Just like I predicted, Willard is exploding! They have 7 with a date, one of which is Tom. What a miracle! I just wish I could've been there when they set it. So all my efforts weren't wasted. Gosh, it feels good!

 

Hope y'all have a great week! I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ with all of my heart. It keeps me going.

 

Love, Elder Atkin

 

P.S. Yep, we got a lot of rain this last week. There was one night where we go like 5 inches of rain! The tornado sirens were going on and off all night, but it was no big deal. We have a little closet under the stairs we can hide in.

ahh...Bentonville

Dear Family,

Howdy! It's been a good week to say the least. I'm so happy to have Elder Hironymous as my companion. Yeah, that's his name. We've only been together for a few days, but in some ways it seems like we've already been through an eternity. I cannot tell you how fun it's been to train this guy. Taking him tracting for the first time, teaching our first lesson to an investigator who thinks he's a gangster, studying together... Let's just say that I'm constantly laughing to myself :) I feel like I have a little brother in tow. It reminds me of when I was first trained almost 2 years ago. It really puts everything into perspective. Was I really that immature?

Elder Hironymous is from Webberville, Texas (near Austin) and he is the youngest of 5 - like me. He loves sports, his favorites being basketball, football, and soccer - like me. He's a pretty cool guy - like me!! Haha but really he's super different from me in many other ways. I have never met anyone that was more proud to be from Texas than this guy. To be honest, it's quite annoying sometimes... But I have to give him props for sticking up for his Longhorns in Razorback territory. Gosh, he takes it personal! I don't dare say anything bad about his favorite university. He has a UT flag, UT shorts, UT pajamas, UT this, UT that... I'm not sure if I'll like the color of burnt orange after these 2 transfers. But it's all fun.

Well, I don't have much to report as far as the work goes, but we're planning on having a killer upcoming week. We've already contacted a few of our investigators and we have an investigator named Dakota (the one who thinks he's a gangster) with a date for the 25th of May. I've been trying to help keep Elder H excited about everything and think that there is a lot to do. And there is! We have a whole stake to cover and there's a lot of people in the Rogers/Bentonville area.

Speaking of Bentonville. Talk about a nice town! I love it here. As you may know, Bentonville is Walmart headquarters. This means that there is some type of Walmart office on every corner. The fact that Walmart hires people from all parts of the world makes things a little bit interesting too. I cannot tell you how many Indian people we have already met. Most of them are Hindu, so they don't have a concept of Christ. I'm so used to teaching Christians that I just don't know what to do! I'll figure it out.

Since we don't have many investigators, we've just hit the streets and have done a lot of tracting. Our plan is to find tons and tons of people, keep the single adults for ourselves to teach, then hand off everyone else to the rest of the zone. All the missionaries will love us! Don't worry, I don't do it for that reason alone, but I like to think of myself in their shoes - receiving referral after referral from the YSA missionaries tracting in my area. I feel like I get to be Santa Claus in this situation.

We already love the branch and they love us. I had no idea that we'd have a full dinner calendar on our first sunday. The people here are just great. I'll admit that it's a little strange serving in a branch with people my age, but it opens up a lot of fun opportunities too. Our ward mission leader recently returned from his mission in California so he's pumped and ready to go. We're going to try and think of cool activities that the YSAs can invite their friends to. If y'all have any really cool ideas for activities or finding new investigators, let this guy know.

There's just so much to be excited and happy about. Elder Hironymous is absolutely terrified to teach and to testify, but I'll change that with a little help from the Lord. Every day we practice door approaches in companionship study. He's already getting a lot better. I can't wait to see what this upcoming week will bring. I hope y'all are doing fantastically well. I love you and pray for you.

Love, Elder Atkin

P.S. Here's a monumental picture for you. My one and only son :)

April 8, 2013 - Transfer stuff...

Dear Family,

My goodness, what a wonderful week! Despite our zone dropping below 100 lessons, Elder Heindel and I not reading 20, and a really bad zone meeting on Friday, I feel great. There's nothing quite like General Conference to uplift my spirits and give me confidence. With so many meetings getting in the way of our schedule, we did quite well - 4 new investigators and over 60% member present lessons. Sunday night was full of miracles as we taught many new investigators with our priest exchange in tow. He loved it! How can I be sad when we're having such great priest exchanges? How I wish I could've gone out with the missionaries a lot more than I did before my mission (1 time). I know that the experiences these young men are having will shape the way they start their missions and even give them extra incentive to serve in the first place. Nothing makes me happier than having a priest walk up to me at church and say, "So when are we going on exchanges again?" I hope our efforts help these young men serve missions.

Transfer calls came on Saturday and my dreams came true. I'm training!! You have no idea how much I've prayed to train someday. It's been one of the biggest heartaches of my mission, to be quite honest. Nevertheless, the Lord is merciful and I'll be privileged to be training in Rogers, Arkansas in the Rogers YSA branch. I'm so excited! I'll be ending my mission in the state I started it. I absolutely love Arkansas! Now comes the waiting game where I wait to find out who i'm training. He comes into the mission home on Wednesday and I'll get him on Thursday. Who knows who he is! What's his name? What does he look like? Where's he from? Haha I could go on and on :) I hope he reads this someday and realizes how excited I was to get him. I should be really interesting to serve in the YSA branch. That means that I won't have an absolute area to be restricted to and that we'll be proselyting in a different way. This means that I'm not necessarily going to be teaching everyone I meet, which could be tough, but I'm also excited to teach people my age. So many unknowns. I know the Lord will take care of me.

So yeah, I'm leaving Willard. Kind of sad to leave an area that I feel like I just came to yesterday. We have so many great things going on that it's ridiculous. I don't think I've ever found so many new investigators my whole mission as compared to these last 2 months. I always ask the Lord to pour out His Spirit upon this area and He truly has - I can't complain. Just to give you an idea of what Heavenly Father has helped us do in the last 2 months, we first came to an area with around 5 investigators, a few less-active families to work with, and a couple of potential investigators (mostly member referrals). Hours and hours of tracting and hunting later, we've handed out almost 100 Book of Mormons, we've found close to 30 new investigators, we're working with 15 less-active families, and we've found close to 60 potential investigators. Of course, not all of those potentials are solid, but many of them are starting to turn into new investigators. Last week I mentioned Lori. At our return appointment she came prepared with questions, she having read lots of the material we left with her. We had an excellent lesson on the Restoration and she sincerely wants to know if it's true. It feels good to know that it all started with a successful door approach a few weeks ago. I know that she'll get baptized. I can honestly say that I'm leaving Willard a lot better than I found it, which feels so satisfying. In a town of less than 5,000 we've seen miracles. So it will be hard to leave. I feel a little sad because I didn't really get close with anyone here, but I did my job and I did my best. Elder Heindel (bless his soul) will be staying here with Elder Fritschi and it'll be a transfer of harvesting. They're going to baptize like crazy!

Haha crazy story of the day: I mentioned that yesterday Elder Heindel and I had a great evening exchange. We went out to Walnut Grove to try by a family that we tracted into and said we could come back. Their names are Nikki and Shawn and they have two cute little boys. Luckily they were home and they let us right in. As we were introducing ourselves, they said we could have a seat on the couch. Elder Heindel sat down first, but then scooted over to give Josh (our priest exchange) some room to sit. As he moved over, he suddenly jumped up and yelped. He instantly grabbed his rear. In his hand was a large piece of glass that had stabbed him in the bum! He was trying not to make a big deal out of it, but he was obviously in pain. They responded by saying, "Darn, I thought we cleaned it all up." (referring to a broken pane of glass) Not wanting to prematurely end a first lesson, I said, "Aw, he's alright." But then I leaned over and whispered, "Dude, are you okay? Like is it bad?" To make a long story short he toughed it out and we finished the lesson, thus picking up 2 new investigators who want us to come back. Nikki especially liked the message of the Book of Mormon. My companion is such a champion! We're not too worried because we don't think the actual glass went into his buttock, but it sure bled a lot. We were joking around that he got in a knife fight. Hard core Walnut Grove! (pop. 600ish)

Well, as always, there's so many other stories from my week, but not enough time to share. If I did I would talk all about my last ZLC, our trainwreck of a zone meeting, and some of the crazy people I met. Love ya bunches! Happy birthday April! .....and.... Jesus loves you!

Love, Elder Atkin

April 1, 2013 - Great week!

Dear Family,

Hey thanks for the Easter package! You know how much I love snickerdoodles :) And those chips were pretty good. You betcha that I'm "bigger, bolder, thicker" - to be honest, I've gained over 50 pounds on my mission. The people just feed me so well out here! Ain't nothin' like some good old fashioned BBQ. Yum yum yum. It's tough to fit into my clothes nowadays, but I make it work. I've busted out a few pairs of pants, but no big deal. You might not really recognize me when I come home because of the extra poundage that's distributed throughout my body. I don't mind having a beer gut either...

I'm playin'. April fools! Don't worry, I haven't gained 50 pounds.

I'm happy to say that Elder Heindel and I had an awesome week! Despite a really slow start to the week, we taught a TON of people, we set a baptismal date with Kara for the 13th of April, and we found another 4 new investigators - all from tracting. I'm constantly amazed at how many people are being prepared to receive the Gospel, even if the missionaries have tracted their street a million times before us. I used to be afraid to knock a street that had recently been tracted, but now I have no fear. As long as we have the Spirit with us and we trust in God, we'll always find people.

Such is the case with Lynette. Lynette is an older woman who lives down the street from the Halles (members). When we first knocked on her door a few weeks ago she said that she wasn't feeling too well, but would like to talk to us some other time. She seemed extremely nice and spiritual so we stopped by every few days. We finally caught her on a good day on Wednesday as we were visiting people with Bro. Bird. She let us right in and we had a wonderful visit. Almost 2 hours later we left the house having taught about the Book of Mormon and committing her to read and pray about it. Lynette has such an amazing understanding of scripture that Bro. Bird even taught her about the Pearl of Great Price and the doctrines within. I about flipped out when he started, but I relaxed as she said that she already felt it was true. On more than one occasion she mentioned that the Spirit was really strong in the room and that she "felt" that the Book of Mormon was true. She's so amazing! Lynette has such a deep love of the Bible and is more spiritual than most members I've met. As we were leaving, she kindly said, "See you later! God loves ya." Yes he does, Lynette.

That's what I love about my mission. While I have met the most ignorant, hypocritical, selfish, and misled self-proclaimed "Christians" on my mission, I have also met the nicest, uplifting, loving, spiritually-minded God-fearing people who are truly trying their best to do what it right. How I wish that these people would become a part of the true church and receive the blessings thereof. It's just like the scripture says - they are "blinded by the craftiness of men." They would join the church in an instant if only the barriers of misconceptions and misinformation were removed. Most often those barriers can only be removed by missionary-minded members they're acquainted with. Just the fact that I have a nametag prevents me from talking to the most prepared people on this planet. It's downright silly sometimes how prepared some people are!

For example, we tracted into a lady named Lori who's divorced and has a 12-year-old son with aspergers. She immediately constructed a brick wall of, "Sorry, I'm Catholic," but we persisted and she let us come back (that's another long story that I'll have to tell you sometime). We visited her on Friday and had an awesome lesson. She is absolutely hilarious and her son is the coolest kid in the world. She explained that she was Catholic just because of it's tradition and family values. She recognizes the flaws in every church you can think of, and she totally hates Baptists (hooray, I found a new best friend). Every single thing she said she wished churches had we responded by saying our church had it. By the end she agreed to read and pray and we set a return appointment. Talk about GOLDEN. She just doesn't know it yet.

Well, I have to go, but thanks again for the package and all of your love. Have a great week!

Love, Elder Atkin