Hi all,

Sometimes I am just glad that I know this girl... And if I could, I would call an exterminator to her ant, roach and spider infested apartment! I guess I am just her mom. Dawn

"Take my heart, oh take and seal it! Seal it for thy courts above":)

Hello everyone!!!
As always, this week was nuts. this morning started out...wonderfully.... At 6:20 AM I started to stagger to the bathroom when all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I see a GIANT SHADOW of some creature. Paralyzed by fear I just yell at Sister Jones "Lights! Lights! Turn on the lights!!" And there it was. The cockroach LITERALLY THE SIZE OF MY FIST. I'M NOT KIDDING ABOUT ITS SIZE. Trying to run under my bed. Obviously I jumped on my bed. Sister Jones, bless her heart, courageously grabbed her tennis shoe and smashed it. From my bed I jumped to the top bunk of the bunk bed and there I sat hyperventilating until 6:25. I wish I could say I was exaggerating...Merciful, it was awful. The ants are....the same. Earlier this week, a colony decided to attack my laundry basket full of clean clothes that I still had to put away. You just reach the point where you can't stand the smell of Raid anymore that you just close your closet door and go eat an otterpop. haha, I realize how dramatic I sound. Meh. #reallife #mypoorcompanion But we're buying 4 cans of Raid today and are attacking the edges of all the walls and such and then doing a deep clean.
We got a call from President right before coming in to email that we are getting a 3rd companion again! Sister Pillar!! I love her! But we're covering a Spanish area again, so I've got to learn more than "I know God lives" in Spanish. Scheduling has been insane enough in our area this past week, so it'll be a little bit of a sacrifice, but we know that this is God's work, so we'll just trust that this is all happening for a reason :)

Okay! Lets see! Oh I realized I attached the wrong scripture two weeks ago.. I meant to quote Hebrews 6:10: "For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. " Heavenly Father is fully aware of all that we do for His kiddos. Even if we don't get recognition from the world for it. So keep serving. Keep loving. Keep ministering :)

I got to see Denis last week! I ran into him at the visitor's center when we were meeting there to exchange with some sisters! It was SO GOOD to see you Denis!!! He really has changed so much from living the gospel of Jesus Christ and having the permanent gift of the Holy Ghost. So proud of him.

We finished exchanges! So that's good!

This week, as always, was a week of miracles!

On average our mission gets 30 referrals a week per zone (which is for like 13 companionships). A referral is when someone gives you the number or address of someone they think might be interested in. Well Sister Jones and I got zapped again this week. (Heavenly Father is so patient with us, haha). When you ask for one referral.... you get one referral. When you ask for 15 referrals from someone, you get anywhere from 4-17 referrals!! So what we've been doing is having everyone (members, people on the streets, less actives, etc.) pull out their phones. We ask them to go to their contacts and we ask "Will you give us the names and numbers of 15 people from your contacts that need to know God loves them? We'll just call them and say we're your friend and ask if we can drop by a free dvd of Christ (the Finding Faith in Christ dvd), show them a Mormon message, or give them a picture of Jesus." It has been so cool! People just give them to you! We got 110 referrals! Now we just have to find time to call them all..........

Remember last week how I said we have developed the mentality of dropping people who aren't prepared to act now? This week we still had to drop our man Earnest. Remember him? Starting in August we just taught him every other week and saw him at church..But we put a huge emphasis on the Book of Mormon back then. HE has read it everyday! He sends us a Bible scripture and a Book of Mormon scripture every night. He's reading in Mosiah! But he still wasn't committing. So as painful as it was we went in to drop him this week. We re-taught the Restoration boldly, stated our purpose as missionaries, and our member present testified like a boss. We said we couldn't work with him anymore until he was ready to be baptized.... DID HE DECIDE HE'S READY NOW? AND WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED NEXT SUNDAY? YES. YES HE DID. We laughed, I teared up, Sister Jones put her head on the table... we were shocked, haha. Anyways! Earnest is getting baptized next Sunday! The Book of Mormon really did change his heart the past month. It was so cool. He is so cool. We are so proud of Him. The mission as a whole started over reading in the Book of Mormon together this week and we are following a schedule to all finish it together by Christmas. We are reading it focusing it on our missionary purpose. So fun. It's just a true book, you know? :)

We taught a lot of less actives this week and it was so cool to see how many came to church yesterday!!!
We had a mini-missionary this weekend! She was from Heather's ward and was so adorable.

Something I have learned about myself on my mission: I am a nuts-o planner. I mean, we all always knew that. I had written out 5 life plans and I can't go to an amusement park without my schedule. But I've also realized that that's why I would go skydiving and not scuba diving. I know exactly what will happen in the first one and I would go diving into the unknown, haha. I have a million 1-minute lesson plans for a street contact, so I'm not scared to do them. I just have to follow the spirit to figure out which one I need to do. Anyways, I realized how nuts I am about my plans. But I have learned to be flexible. But still, God says "if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear" haha, I just like to be prepared :) Also, I have learned from the Preach My Gospel manual that it is so important to "set goals and make plans". Anyone can show their faith and make a goal. But real faith comes when we show God we are committed to working hard to make our plans help us reach our goals. I probably already ranted all of this to you all like a month ago, haha. But there it is..

Something President said in our zone conference this week that I really loved was "Christ doesn't expect you to be perfect. He just wants your heart. He just wants you to want to become like Him." Which reminded me of the quote I put in the subject line from the hymn Come Thou Fount. Take it and seal it <3

Here is a lesson that we have been sharing with a lot of our less actives, so I'll share a summarized version with all of you:

When Christ is fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, Satan comes and tempts Him face to face. The very first thing he says to Christ is "IF thou be the Son of God, do this..." aka the very first thing He attacks is His identity as a son of God. Why did he do that? If Satan can convince us to forget that we are sons and daughters of God, then he can convince us to do anything. For example if I know that I am literally a daughter of God, then all of a sudden the decision to not be addicted to a substance becomes instinctive. Or all of a sudden my confidence shoots through the roof. If I understand I'm a daughter of God then I will never fall asleep in my prayers or be late to church, etc. Anyways, there are 3 things that God has given us to help us remember who we are and to give us that protection we need to deny Satan's temptations (just like Moses in Moses 1:6,12-13,16 [in The Pearl of Great Price Book] --he is a stinkin' boss). Those three things that literally keep us alive and are the key to being truly happy are: CPR. Church, pray, and read! Every day. Every week. He wants us to be filled with joy and purpose every day. Not just a verse a week, but filled everyday. Maybe somedays it's just a column we can read or a page, but it's worth it to feel filled. Don't get me started on the difference in my prayers pre-mish to now. IT's worth it to talk to Him the exact same way I talked to my mom everyday walking home from school. And then church. Oh mercy. Would you ever skip out on the day of your baptism? No! Taking the sacrament is jsut as important as the day of your baptism. So don't you dare miss out on that feeling of being just as clean as the day of your baptsim

Ah! Gotta go! Out of time! But know that I am so happy here. I can see that this is His work. The field really is white here, already to harvest. I feel like I am finally becoming the missionary and person I have always wanted to become. I love you all so much! Thanks for your support, prayers, and love. It really means a lot to me.! Make it agreat week!
love,

Sister Atkinson :)