She sent this today - wild stories, as always. I think I am still laughing
at some of them. Love, Dawn
Hi!
So many updates and not enough time! We want to go to the alley
downtown so I can load up on cheap California t-shirts. [Note from Dawn: Souvenirs! She is coming home soon!]
This week was seriously all over the place. Exciting, depressing,
hilarious, spiritual, you name an emotion and we felt it this week. Above all, I
am just so grateful. God is so good.
God loves me so much that He let me be exchange companions with two of
my past companions in the areas I served with them this week.
-Sister Rackleff came back to Santa Monica!! We show up to exchange and we
are in matching outfits. #nailedit Some people will always be one heart, one mind, you
know? She got a bee sting and I got a parking ticket all within 90 seconds (yes,
it was my second parking ticket in a week. THE WORST. I hadn't had any in over a
year! Street cleaning is the most genius scam ever.), but other than that it was
such a tender mercy.
-Sister Perry is back in the HPYSA area with Sister Oakes (she and I were
companions there for a week). Awesome? Yes. Sister Oakes and SIster Black had
doctor's appointments so we went on a short exchange and I got to go street
contacting in my ghetto of South Central for a few hours. The dream? YES. We
were talking to a man outside of his house and we said a prayer together. In the
MIDDLE of my prayer (#respecttheLord), someone walks up and starts talking to
the man we were praying with. Man we were praying with goes inside for a minute
and comes back and whispers in my ear "It looks like there may be some trouble,
so ya'll should prolly get out of here." I immediately said "Okay everyone! God
bless ya and have a great day!" Oh how I love that area. (Don't worry Mom, it
was just some baby mama drama :( ) And we found a WV sticker on the back of a
truck, so God loves us even more. (Remember that she is from WV too :) )
-On another exchange with this hilarious sister from Tahiti (she is
learning English and just says "blah blah blah" like every other sentence) we
were in mid city LA and watched someone throw a dollar bill out the window at a
vendor and the vendor threw his popsicle back at him through the window.
Hahahaha, what the people in LA will do when it gets over 100 degrees. (Were
those few days miserable? Yes. But it's back to our perfect beach weather, so
thank heavens).
We found a golden investigator who had every plan to be baptized the
weekend before I go home, but then he got into anti-mormon literature and broke
our hearts and God's. I've realized that every time someone disappoints me on
the mission (not coming to church or drops us or whatever), the scene from the
3rd episode of Star Wars plays in my head where prego Padma says "Anakin! you're
breaking my heart!" Yeah. It was an interesting self-realization that I do
that.
Sister Black is amazing and I am so grateful I had her during this
crazy week. We had a lot of random things go down (giant cockroach, emergency
exchanges and such with sisters who are struggling, giant spider, broken fridge,
three of our strongest investigators say they don't want to meet anymore, skirt
tucked into underwear, etc) and then we had the following experience which I
will entitle "The things we do to reach 20 conversations". Our mission has
really been pushing for 20 conversations every day, but this day we were running
low because of all the craziness. Sister Black really needed to go to the
bathroom, so I asked her if we could just run home since we were literally 2
blocks from home. She says "No. We need convos." Then she said the words you
never want your companion to say "Lets go bathroom tracting". It's where you
knock on doors and use as an excuse that you need to use their bathroom to start
the conversation. Have I ever done it before? OF COURSE NOT. But I am so excited
to tell you how it went. I, like the awful companion that I am, stood behind and
observed the following:
Door #1:
"Hi! How are you? What is your name?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Well we are missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints and I know this is random, but I really need to use the bathroom."
"Not interested." She then proceeded to SLAM her door 3 times.
Door #2:
I started talking first this time to a 21 yr old guy, wearing only swimming
trunks with wavy beach hair down to his shoulders aka total Santa Monica
hippy,
"Hi! We are missionaries....AH!"
He tried to hug me. I screamed and cringed. Nailed it. Tried to apologize
and explain our mission rules. We ended up having a spiritual conversation and
getting his contact info, there definitely wasn't a 3rd female in the house and
I couldn't even bear to ask. [about the bathroom]
Door #3
Sister Black this time in desperation,
"Hi! I'm sorry. I know this is super random, but can I use your
bathroom?"
Man in broken English, "Uh sure."
"Also, I know this is super awkward as well, but is there another female
that lives here?"
Once again in broken English "Yea. this is awkward, but yes. Come
in."
We proceed to go to the bathroom off the kitchen while he disappears
downstairs. My companion is finally in the bathroom when he comes around the
corner to me carrying something. What is it? A box of tampons. WHAT. I
awkwardly take them and then realize that 1. he thought she was asking for
feminine products instead of an actual 3rd female. 2. we were currently breaking
rules by being in a house alone with a man by accident.
I proceed to knock on the bathroom door and says "Uhm. sister? I have
something for you."
She just takes the box without a word. After she closed the door, I just
lose it. I haven't lost it before on my mission, but I just start snorting and
crying trying to suppress my laughter so the poor guy couldn't hear me. She
still had the energy somehow to try and offer him a passalong card on our
hurried exit, but he told us he was Jewish and I just walked out of the house
because I was still crying from laughing.
Bathroom tracting at its finest.
I also got hugged by a male investigator at church in front of everyone
and had to explain the rule. It will be SO awkward when I go home, hahaha.
Other highlights include climbing on a man's roof to see the sunset
(and to get a return appointment out of him) and fulfilling my mission dream to
climb over a fence in my skirt to make sure an investigator was awake for
church.
Keep praying that our investigators quit smoking!
All is well! Lots more miracles to share but I'm out of time!!!
Make it a great week! Love you all!
Sister Atkinson
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