September 2, 2013
Hello everyone!!!
Merciful. Do every one of my emails say "this week was nuts"? Well, this
week was nuts. And it has only been since Wednesday that I last wrote, haha. I
actually did a pretty good job writing in my journal this week! So I'll try to
just write from there this week :) obvi, I will be more personal than I probably
should with you all. Got to keep my emails home interesting ;)
Some moments were pretty exhausting, haha. I think it's because we had
deadlines. We never have deadlines, haha. Some mornings we say it's a "school
tired" when we woke up. #donotmisscollegerightnow And then we had to change our
logo on our website because we can't have Angel Moroni on it (no official
affiliation with the church). But it turned out okay! Excerpt from Friday "No
time to write, but I'm watching (the sister I went on exchanges with) skateboard
on her stomach across our bedroom. That basically sums it today, hahaha".
Saturday was just kind of a nightmare honestly, haha. We were on exchanges.
I get a call at 10:09 from one of the assistants to the el presidente.
"Are you coming to the meeting?"
"The one at 12:30 for sister training leaders? Yup!"
"No...the one that started at 10 for all of the YSA missionaries."
"Uhm...no...?"
"Did you not know about it?"
"When can you get here?"
..............-_- (we live an hour away).
I go to my bathroom to brush my teeth super fast to find a TON of ants on
my toothbrush. Lets just say it went down hill from there, hahaha. Of course
Sister Jones and I laugh-cried (when you cry from laughing so hard...or just are
so frazzled you let out the tears...) our way through that day. We lost the keys
for 45 minutes and ran over a curb and almost ran out of gas on the highway in
95 degree heat, etc. etc. etc. hahaha.
But I just felt frustrated with some missionaries and some circumstances
and my weaknesses and the ants, etc. I remember just looking at Sister Jones
with tears in my eyes just saying "All I want to do is teach and baptize." But
God asks us to do His to-do list. Not our own.
I can't remember if I shared this insight with you all before. So obviously
I will share it again. 3 Nephi 17 is one of my favorite chapters in the Book of
Mormon (probably because it's my mom's, haha). Anyways, Christ just finished
visiting and teaching the people in America. He basically says 'Heavenly Father
has some things for me to do, so I gotta go, but I'll be back later.' But...He
looked at the people. They had tears in their eyes. They wanted Him to stay.
Obviously if God needed him to do something it was very important. But did He
leave to go do that? No. He stayed. He ministered. He healed. He helped. He
loved. Sometimes Heavenly Father asks us to delay one of His to-do lists for us,
so we can do a more important to-do list for Him.
Anywaysssssssss----Sister Jones is a champ and half and obviously gave me a
bajillion otter pops and a bajillion feel-good scriptures. This one was my
favorite in Doctrine and Covenants Section 78:
" 17 Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have
not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and
prepared for you;
18 And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for
I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours,
and the riches of eternity are yours."
From my journal "It felt good to let it all out even if it was
completelyyyyyy against my nature, haha. Remember that God knows I'm trying.
Have faith. press forward. It will all work out-just trust Him. I'm not here on
this mission or here in this life to be recognized for the work I do. I'm here
to do His to-do list. Not my own. Be humble. Love Him. Love His children."
And that what happened? OBVIOUSLY, SUNDAY WAS A DAY OF MIRACLES.
I'll just write from my journal again.
"We had 26 new people at the branch today!! (nonmembers, less actives, and
active members from the stake who should be coming...including 13 Samoans :) :)
:) ) We taught a combined Sunday school were we "launched" our website, taught
about our true identity as children of God, and member missionary work. SIDNEY
PASSED HER BAPTISMAL INTERVIEW. We "mobilized" our branch missionaries (members
whose calling it is to help the missionaries, aka help us find, teach, baptize,
reactive, and encourage member missionary work---lets be serious: have we ever
met a ward missionary who ever did that? Who knew that it was all in the church
handbook?). Each of them is assigned 1 unknown name from the ward list to call
each week. They can follow a script we made if they want to, so it is so simple.
It will help us clean up our ward list and find and teach inactive members. They
are also assigend 1 active member to call each week. With the referral activity
we did last transfer (3 amigos), we have tons of potential member referrals, but
following-up has been awful. So our branch missionary will call the member (once
again they can follow a very simple script) and follow-up on each of the
member's 3 amigos. The goals is for us to have them set up 1 appointment with a
less active each week for us and 1 appointment with a member's nonmember friend
each week. And there are 6 branch missionaries.
Operation #sos or save our singles with our zone is going super
well!!!
We FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYY planned for our people!! It was a huge relief for me.
From #sos (stake, less actives and actives), our investigators, our potentials
and referrals from the past few weeks that we haven't been able to contact since
we have been planning and organizing and ministering SO much, we have well over
100 people to contact ASAP..... What?!?!?! But it is more exciting than
anything.----Sister Jones just leaned over to me and said. "Sister. God wants us
to teach and baptize this month. I can just feel it." I'm so excited.---- Also,
the stake president gave us two less active YSA's info from the stake that he
and his counselor went and viisted. And from those visits we got a legit
referral! Now if the stake president is taking time to do this.........SO cool!
And I know I already mentioned it, but Sidney's getting baptized next
Sunday!!!!!! She cried in her prayer yesterday as she said "Thank you so much
for sending the sisters into my life...I am so eager to get baptized." Happy
Happy! Joy Joy! We are just praying her parents will be understanding. Whew,
September 2013 is about to be the best month of my life. The past month took a
lot of faith to drop the sickle and build tools and organize everything. But it
is so evident to me that God is consecrating our efforts. But this is His work,
so whatever happens is going to be just fine. Love my Savior! Love you
all! Sister Atkinson
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