The Lord commanded Nephi to go and build a boat!... I will go, I will do the things the Lord commands!"

Monday, August 5, 2013

 

Hello!!!!!!!!!

Oh my goodness, I don't know where to begin. This week has been insane.

So sorry to hear about Uncle Boogie! [Note from Dawn: My Uncle Boogie Thaxton (her great uncle) passed away last week]. But I'm grateful that his disease is no longer paining him and his sweet family though. He was always so sweet. He would always take me and Mick up to his truck to get us Spearmint gum. So obviously, he was one of my favorites.Love you all! And obviously, I'm very upset I missed Uncle Skip mooning the pictures. [Just after extended the Miller/Gibson family photos during the family gathering last week.] Sending my love and prayers to you all!

I am coming to love the Hispanic culture. (Obviously I knew nothing about it before...) Two of our neighbors both had Fiestas on Saturday night. But secretly, we highly enjoyed the Babylon music break. [She usually only listens to Sacred Music] Our area's signs and such always have hilarious spelling and grammar. For example this week I saw a "Toe-Truck". YES. Apartment updates: we finally got a fan for our bathroom and it is the best thing that ever happened to that place. Also, one morning during exercising this week I went to scratch my arm to find a GIANT SPIDER. I'll let you imagine my reaction. It was awful.

This week we got to go on exchanges with the ASL (sign language) sisters! It was SO COOL. Even though I couldn't communicate. I could understand a lot though, since deaf people are so expressive. It was super cool to feel the spirit, even though I wasn't sure what was going on. I have loved being a sister trainer this transfer.  Getting to know these sisters and exploring other areas is a huge blessing. Like I said before, being a missionary is very challenging. But there is no doubt in my mind that Heavenly Father takes care of His missionaries. It is so obvious that these sisters are His daughters and they are in His hands.

Okay this week was nuts like I said. It all started last P-day in Food4Less. Sister Jones and I were sitting in the motor scooters at the front of the store (naturally) eating a box of wheat thins (naturally) waiting for the sisters that we drive around on P-day (They're on bikes in their area. Counting my blessings on that one). I looked at Sister Jones kind of frustrated and asked "How can we see more success in this area? Our branch is dying." [The Branch is a smaller church unit] Within 20 minutes and between the car and 'Marshalls' (I'm telling you these are the places of inspiration), our outlook of missionary work changed forever. Sister Jones is super smart and is always 3 steps ahead of everyone. But Heavenly Father just gave us a lot of inspiration this week. It has been so cool. ANYWAYS. She turns to me and says "They've approved missionaries to use social media and the internet, right?" "Well not us yet, but yeah..." "Then why wait to use our resources? We can go through our members at least!"

I don't know if any of this is going to make sense, but one thing has lead to another and we are starting a "Save the Branch" campaign. We have gotten a lot of our ideas from the "I'm a Mormon" media campaign. We got permission from our mission president (because he is most inspired, humble, and ingenious men of all time) to use facebook if we have a member there and wix.com to create our own website! We have started filming our members "...and the branch saved me" and one of our members is editing them for us. WE CAN ACTUALLY SAVE OUR LITTLE BRANCH. There is just too much to say about it, so just stay tuned for the progress of it.  I can already tell this email makes no sense. Meh. Sorry.

It's so cool how all the little things that we have been working on have led up to this. One thing we realized about the new "work of salvation" website and such is that the brethren have asked us to stop separating all the different organizations in the church. Everything we do in the gospel should be united into one effort--the work of salvation! Everything should revolve back to helping individuals along the path to the saving ordinances and on to eternal life. So we're trying to help our leaders understand that we're not just concerned about nonmembers. We have a huge meeting with our branch presidency tonight. So exciting.

First we need to build the branch. There needs to be some reorganization and change to the way we're doing things. And then we can build the ship. We're building the tools (social media, etc.) with the intention of our members building the ship and letting it sail. The goal of all of this is to target different groups 1. strengthen and unify our branch members 2. get active Young Single Adults in the stake who aren't attending to come to the branch 3. the 800 less actives in the stake that we'll never be able to reach without ol' facebook 4. nonmember friends/making inviting so much easier.

I don't know if that made any sense, but we are so excited. It has actually been super hard to "drop the sickle" or stop doing traditional missionary work this week. I'm all about key indicators, so it was secretly super hard for me. But I can honestly say I know that this is what God wants us to do. This has been something huge I have learned on my mission: "Not my will, but Thine be done." I'm still learning to ask Heavenly Father what He wants me to do and then being okay with it. I'm coming to accept that it's okay if He doesn't want me to see 50 people baptized on my mission (not that that still isn't possible. You know. Just saying. I have faith :) ). He knows the desires of my heart, and I'm working hard. I honestly can say I'm trying to do what He wants. Even if it is to stop every missionary tradition I know for the next 6 weeks to see this "campaign" really get hold, so the branch and future missionaries will be able to see a lot of success. Where's my sickle? I have no idea. But I'm learning so much gratitude and humility. And I simply love this work. I love being here. I love Sister Jones. Love these people. I love this branch. I love my Savior. And I love each of you. Thanks for all you do! Sorry this is so scatterbrained. Make it a great week!

All my love,
Sister Atkinson :)