September 26, 2011

Dear Family,

Today is a wonderful preparation day.

It's great to hear about April's talk from both you and Rachel. It must've been soooo good!! And thank you for the pictures. Just so you know, I LOVE pictures. Most of the pictures you've emailed me I've saved on my card and then printed out at Walmart. I now have 3 more to add to the collection :) Oh man I wish I wish I wisssssssshhhhhhh I could've been there for April's farewell talk!!! Is there any way you could send me a copy of it, or maybe a summary of it, or anything? I just really feel like I missed out... You see, every time I tell somebody that I have a sister going on a mission it reminds me that I won't be able to see both her farewell and her homecoming talks. Bummer! I'm sure she spoke wonderfully about the Restoration.

I can't help but get a little teary-eyed when you talk about Floyd Israelsen. What a giant of a man. I feel the same way as you in the sense that I feel that he touched my life individually also. He always shook my hand at church and he always asked how I was doing in such a sincere way. If only I could become like him someday. Whenever we're riding bikes I like to think that I'm bikin' all over the Ozarks just like Floyd did. I probably would've bawled my eyes out if I had been at the funeral. But wow, it sounds like y'all have had quite the emotionally and physically draining week.

My week was actually pretty slow. Elder Navratil's been sick most of the week and so we didn't get too much done. We've also been suffering from a baptism hangover. Nichole's baptism was so epic that it's actually a little hard to be motivated to find more investigators.

On Wednesday we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. It was pretty awesome because it was my first exchange where I stayed here and made all the plans myself. I was kinda nervous because I'm still getting the hang of things, but it went well. Elder Gordon was the Zone Leader that came here, and we really worked hard. We biked about 20 miles and visited a good mix of investigators and less-actives. I'm pretty sure Elder Gordon was impressed with my work ethic. I'm totally going to be the next assistant. Haha jk :)

That night (with Elder Gordon) we met up with a potential named Entimo. Entimo is a senior in high school that was first found by Elder Gordon himself a few weeks ago. He referred Entimo to us because he was in our area, but we weren't able to get a hold of him until Elder Gordon came here. Totally meant to be! We began by just asking him what his beliefs were and such. Man, he's such a great guy! Entimo expressed his feelings about how he had heard we had apostles and prophets, and how he didn't know why churches didn't have that organization today. You can only imagine how eager Elder Gordon and I were :) So we talked about Christ's original church and how Joseph Smith restored that same organization. Entimo was totally eating it up and kept on saying, "I like this, you're totally answering all the questions I have in my mind." It was so cool! The only disappointing thing was that he was a tiny bit wary of the Book of Mormon. He didn't accept a copy and he told us he'd think about what we said. We're going to see him this Wednesday, so hopefully he'll agree to start reading and praying. Cross your fingers! This guy could be golden!

Well, I'm looking forward to a week with the car. This will probably sound bad, but I think that sometimes we get a lot more done when we have the car. But I truly am excited to shake off some dust and get things rolling. We have a few people we're going to visit this week that have a lot of potential, so things are looking up. Thanks for emailing me! I'm loving life and I'm excited for the work. Good luck, April! I love you! And I love all of you :) I look forward to hearing from you again.

Thanks for updating the blog! I really appreciate it.  Hmmm... how is Reggie doing? I'm super excited for Frank to get his call! Please tell me where he's going when the time comes, okay?

Love, Elder Atkin

P.S. Frank is totally going to..................................... The Japan Saporro mission or the OTM :)