Then sings my soul! My Savior God to thee -- how great thou art!

Written December 30, 2013

Hello everyone!

Okay, I've got to type super fast today. Can't wait for a new baby niece this week! And I'm super sad to hear about grandma! Please keep her in your prayers everyone. [Note from Dawn: Since Ali wrote this,  my mom, Ali's Grandma Gibson, passed away on Thursday, January 2, 2014, and Brittany had her baby girl, McKinley Emma Leavitt was born on December 31, 2013.]

We had a baptism in my new area for Margie! She is 52 and the sweetest person. She has been through a lot in her life and has made some very dramatic changes recently! The elders in our ward texted us to say "every time we see Margie she just seems more and more Mormon!" and it is so true. Her baptism was so sweet and then was confirmed a member of the church and given the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday. After her confirmation she was so radiant and practically bounced down the aisle back to her seat by us. She hugged us and then looked at her friend who introduced her the church and enthusiastically declared "I DID IT!" So happy.

On Sunday we got to head back to my beloved branch to see Joyce's baptism. It was incredible. The spirit was SO strong there. She just gets it, you know? Like she could be a general authority's wife. The decision she made to be baptized not only will effect her and her family now, but her ancestors, her future family, and countless others. It has been such a blessing to be apart of her process. (Did I ever tell you about how one night when she had a doubt she just went online and literally watched 5 hours of Mormon messages? or how she has read almost the entire book of Mormon? Seriously. She was so prepared and is so solid.)

I love my new area. I love my Sister Rackleff. Since the MTC, we never thought we'd be companions but it has been super happy. She has so many mannerisms of the one and only Kellie Javins, so that's super weird, haha.

I love my new area. We have a car since we are sister training leaders, but we bike most of the time. Which I actually love. The ward is mostly young couples and families and older people (a ton of widows). There is only one young woman and young man and they are siblings, so I would love to find 12-18 yr olds to baptize. Being in a family ward is very different (like we spent some time helping a woman in our ward in a nursing home glue Christmas bells together), but I really love it. And I realized that we are all kids. no one ever really grows up, haha.

Our area is the beach, so there are tons of tourists and Europeans. It's so different. There are also a ton of homeless people. I'm going to just spit off random stories and quotes for the rest of this email....

Here's my Christmas day:

Woke up at the usual 6:15 am. Went running in reindeer antlers and S. Rackleff wore a santa hat. Got lots of comments. Better believe we ran with the Christmas spirit!

Sister Rackleff felt bad taht she didn't have anything for me since we just got emergency transferred together, so she wrapped up stuff from my desk. I asked her "Where's my camera?!" so i could take a picture of all of the things she wrapped. "Oh... I think Santa brought it back to you." "The best gifts you can receive are the ones you already have!"

Our zone of missionaries went and sang Christmas carols at a nursing home. It was super precious. Except this one woman asked me to scratch her back. Which I did. And then she said, "Under the sweater." Oh I don't think I can do that. Then she gave me a kiss on the cheek. Which was precious, but
then she said, "Now give me your lips!" AHHHH. NO....
We stopped by sweet Margie's house and then we went to the Burrell's! They are the best. And no, I'm not just saying that because she googled me the first day I came and read my blog, so I know she will be reading this...They are the cutest young couple (he's a stand up comedian---follow his podcast! Sis. Burrell will comment with the link ;)) and took such good care of us for Christmas. We had a scrumptious dinner and then we skyped our families for 40 minutes...IT WAS SO GOOD TO SEE YOU ALL!!!!! I'm sorry if I was awkward. I figured if I didn't talk much, then I wouldn't cry. So nailed that one. Britt told me I lost all my hick and ghetto in my voice and just sound like a Valley Girl now. UGH. LOVE YOU ALL.

We caroled at some less actives doors (one yelled at us in front of her young children...SO SO SO SAD. she even served a mission but has gone less active. broke my heart.). Then we went with the elders in our ward and caroled at the pier. So I spend my Christmas night at the beach caroling :) It was really cool. It might sound cheesy to say I felt like angels were singing with us, but it's true. I really did. Afterwards we gave a homeless man some candy. There was another homeless man a few feet from us sleeping, so I instinctively went to place some candy by his head (looking back, I recognize this was not my best decision to approach a sleeping homeless man... SORRY MOM). He woke up in a jump because I scared him. Then he threw the candy at me pretty hard and screamed some profane words and yelled "GET AWAY FROM ME!" Another homeless man didn't seemed phased that he was yelling at me, and he calmly came over and picked up the candy and stole it, haha. Then we were biking home. And there was this giant hill. Ugh. We were joking about it before we even got there. I just was too tired, and I walked up it. (I know have raised my bike seat up a few inches, and my thighs very much appreciate it...) But on the other side of the street there was a homeless man walking up the hill as well. He saw me get off and he yelled teh following across four lanes at me...I'll try my best to edit the language..."BULL HONKY. GET BACK ON THAT DANG BIKE. DON'T LET THIS HILL DEFEAT YOU. PUT THAT BIKE IN GEAR. LOOK. LOOK! IMMA BEAT YOU UP THIS HILL. BOTH OF YOU!" (he ran up teh hill and yes, he beat both me and sis rackleff [who was on a bike] up the hill) "YEAH. THAT'S RIGHT. I'M AN EX-PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL PLAYER." we were DYING laughing. I thought he was kidding. We tried to yell Merry Christmas or what team did you play for? But he did not respond. He was not joking and he was not happy. HILARIOUS. Ahhh, and that was my Christmas! It seriously was one of the best. I felt so close to my Savior.
Other quotes of the week:

"I woke up to a knock at the door. My neighbor asked me to move my car off of her front lawn!" -A sweet woman with dementia in our ward telling us about her party years

"And I'm looking for a good Christian woman to be my wife, or even Mormon. so keep me in mind if you're single." -this homeless man that gave us his resume. He is an actor and his resume had a picture of him on the front of a TV guide. Sister Rackleff is a little gullible, so I had to explain that he Photoshopped it, hahaha

Another guy came out of a Jack-In-The-Box with a ton of ketchup packets in his pockets. He said he was starving and had to go home and eat but that he would come to the Visitor's Center with us that night. He gave us a legit address and phone number, so he wasn't homeless...just high. Guess what? He actually came to the VC! His phone died while he was there, so we didn't run in to him. I 80% believe him, so we'll see where that one goes.

In LA there are just random crosswalks with no stop signs or anything. But you just have to keep a look out and stop for pedestrians. Well one night we were driving home from teh Visitor's Center and this homeless man was pushing himself across the crosswalk one legged, backwards in a wheel chair. Sis. Rackleff didn't see him (he was blocked by another car), but I yelled and she slammed on her brakes. But in plenty of time... so no worries. But he still was mad, gave us the bird, and yelled another few bad words at us... I'm just not having a very good track record with the homeless people of Santa Monica...
Oh yeah, we saw 2 different men peeing into trash cans. One was homeless. One was not. WHAT. NASTY.

Remember my investigator Chris from my last area? His work is in my new area!! So i got to stop by and say hi! SO that's happy.

Oh and THE ENTIRE BYU MEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM WAS AT OUR SACRAMENT MEETING YESTERDAY. I GUESS THEY'RE IN TOWN FOR GAME. Since I'm the new missonary, I gave the closing prayer in sacrament meeting and it took all I had not to stare at them. I mean the missionary phrase "lock your heart" had a whole new meaning for me yesterday.....

We're doing a lot of finding and a lot of less active work. So keep that in your prayers.

Oh and you know how I asked you to pray for our mission's baptisms for the month of December? We have prayed for it in every prayer and we have worked super hard andddddddddd we broke like a 5 year record! We had about 60 baptisms. Almost double our usual. Super happy. I just love this work!

Okay, I think that's it for now. I'm sorry this wasn't more spiritual. Basically, I just love the Savior. And some people completely miss the whole point of the gospel. It's all about progression. Because our Savior came, we can progress. We can overcome. We can change. This new year is going to be one of the best! I can just feel it!
LOVE YOU ALL SO SO SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MAKE IT A GREAT WEEK!
Sister Atkinson