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 :)