Living the Life

Dearest Family,

I don't know if I will be able to write about everything I want to say! But I will try! First of all, I want you to know I am very happy. :) I feel like I worked harder this last week than I have in my entire life/mission, and it was wonderful, even if our numbers don't really show anything. That's how it goes. Willie can attest to that. There were a couple of points where my soul was tired, but that was for a moment, and I am feeling wonderful today. It is in the 60s, and I don't even need a jacket. I'm feeling the humidity today, and I like it. It is a beautiful day here.

For the openhouse, I'm super excited to be the happy face at the end by the cookies. But we don't get to go to the actual dedication or the cultural event. I don't mind. There are more productive things we could do.

A reminder about Selene. One night she and her boyfriend came on tour at the VC. I took them, and it was a wonderful tour. I really felt the spirit, and I really felt a love for them both. At the end she didn't feel ready for missionaries yet, so I just let them walk out the doors. She had read through most of Alma by that point. Then we got a text referral a couple of weeks later. We called and set up the first appointment, and when we showed up, it was her! My mouth literally dropped open, and all I could do was say "Wow!" and hug her. I already had taught her the first lesson! Since then she's progressed quickly. I feel like I'm learning so much from her. She really understands the gospel. I just love her so much. We're not sure when she will be baptized, but I know she will be baptized. She knows it is true. We've had so many miracle lessons with her! I know I've written home about her a lot, so you'll have to look it up again. You could send her a journal if you wanted. That would be cute. :)

Mom, way to go being a missionary on pinterest! That's awesome! It is totally addicting, but I'm glad you are making it worthwhile.

You can share any of my spiritual thoughts you want, mom. I'm glad you liked it. :)

Okay. About this week. Wow.

Well, first of all, Sister Lewis and I are really clicking. It took a little time, as always, and we really are different, but I love her. The other night our planning took an hour because we had a very important conversation. I knew that there was something that I needed to say, but I didn't know how to say it, so I started talking, then I paused, then I started talking. I didn't even really know what it was that I needed to say. But then it came out. I said stuff that I didn't even know I thought, and it made sense, and it was perfect. So what I finally pieced together is that Sister Lewis and I feel the spirit differently, and it has led to some frustration. Sometimes we are doing something and she will say, "Can we stop and listen for a minute?" Or "Do you feel peace about that?" and I look at her like she's crazy because honestly, I don't feel anything. "Sure we can pause for a minute if it will help you, but I think you are crazy." is what I was thinking. And she would ask me every hour or so if I felt peace about something. But I didn't feel like I was feeling anything! One night in our area I got really frustrated with myself and with her because I didn't know what the spirit was telling us to do next because I didn't feel a thing!

And now, as I thought about it, I realized it was because I was trying to feel the spirit in the way Sister Lewis feels it. To me, promptings from the spirit come in the form of ideas and thoughts more often than anything (at least as a missionary). So I'll be doing something and get the idea to go do something else, and a miracle happens. But pausing to see if I feel peace about it doesn't help. I just act. I get ideas and thoughts and I go and hit the road and work hard. I just go. And miracles happen. And that is how the spirit works in me.

So we talked about it. It never had even occured to Sister Lewis that I didn't feel the spirit the same way that she does. And I hadn't really realized why it bugged me so much when she asked if I felt peace about something. I do get peace from the spirit sometimes, but that happens when I need a strong prompting, not for normal stuff. "The Lord won't use a floodnight when a flashlight it sufficient". He knows I don't need those feelings to act on it, so I don't get them. Sister Lewis is very sensitive to the spirit, and those feelings are quiet to her, but that's how she works.

Anyway, that is something very important that we learned this week. I think it will help us be more effective as a companionship, and I won't be looking at her like she's crazy as much. :)

Remember how last week we street contacted this awesome crazy family? Well, our appointment with them was on Saturday. We called the single's branch's ward mission leader for a young, single, male team up. After we hung up we realized two things 1) we had called a young, single guy that lived outside of our area, which is a no-no and 2) wow, this is potentially very awkward. So I worried about it. We called our District Leader, and he gave us permission, so it's all good, and it is all for the investigator, so we hoped it wouldn't be awkward.

Well, we showed up to our appointment. The guy we called met us there. He's 27 and little awkward in general, which made me glad. He wasn't distracted by the fact that we are sisters, so it's all good. We knocked the door and a woman answered the door. We asked if Alan and Steve lived there, and she told us that no one by that name lived there. I could tell by her face that she was telling the truth. But the car they had been changing the oil in was sitting in the driveway. She was considering saying goodbye and closing the door on us. We almost lost her.

But then Sister Lewis asked her if anyone by these physical descriptions lived there. "Oh, you mean Casey and Bill. Casey is here all the time, but he doesn't live here. Bill lives here." SO, it turns out that they had lied to us about their names. That's cool.

We brought up the fact that we know her son's best friend Cam (he's a member of our ward). So we started chatting with her, and she let us in! Phew. We almost lost her! So we actually stayed at her house for an hour, just chatting. I was hoping to get a lesson in, but...that didn't happen. Our team up had no problem jumping in and talking over the missionaries, so we didn't get to talk much. We asked if Cam had told her anything about what we believed. She brought up the fact that we don't use birth control and don't drink caffeine. I started to explain, but then our team up quickly rode right over me and started saying some slightly weird stuff. What he said made sense to me, but I knew he was just confusing her. But he was loud. So I didn't know what to do. We also found out that Casey is only 16, so we didn't need to bring a single's ward team up.

BUT it turned out to be a miracle. This woman (her name is Franchesca), has a daughter with special needs. She and Bill have wanted to be married for over 2 years, and bought a dress and everything, but then found out that if they got married, she would lose a lot of the help she needed to help pay for her daughter's expenses. As a married couple, the finances would be bad. Really, they honestly couldn't afford to get married. The team up we brought just happens to own a business with his mother that helps people get more financial help from the government to help with their special needs children. He said he knew a way to not only make it so being married wouldn't affect the help they recieved, but also that they could be getting more help than they were currently getting. It was perfect. They needed to meet him. And now with the option of being married, that is an obstical out of the way of getting baptized (that they don't even know about yet). So even if our team up was sometimes overbearing, he was a miracle.

We did get to talk about religion with them. We had already built a bit of a friendship, so she had no problem opening up and telling us more about what she believes. We talked about our church too. It was relaxed and non-pressure. We asked if we could come back and talk to her more about her son's best friend's religion. She agreed, as long as Cam came along. Of course! So it was a miracle. I really love Franchesca and Bill already. They are such good people! Franchesca already has a lot of light and love in her face, and she's open to hearing what we have to say, even though she's not really looking for a new religion. We just need to help them feel the spirit. Pray for our appointment this Thursday!

Franchesca's son is the star player for our ward's young men's basketball team, so the ward was happy to hear that his family was getting taught (even though we had no idea! We had just tracted into them!), because it meant that he might be able to play more in the future. Hopefully we can get the Young Men's president's motivations straightened out. :)

What a miracle!

The other thing that happened this week is that we found a ton of people to invite to church! I don't have time to tell you about all of them, but we invited three families to church, all headed by single moms. We were really excited because we had worked really hard for those invites and we really felt like two of them were promising. I've never prayed so hard for someone to come to church in my life. One of those moms had 8 kids between 4 and 19 (I'll try to remember to tell you more about her next week), so we called the young women president and primary president to warn them that there might be extra kids.

In the end, none of them showed up. :(((( (I don't know of that is double chins or not, but it is showing how disappointed we were). One said "my son has a nose bleed, so we're going to our church this week." WOW. Maybe you should think of a good excuse next time.

But, the Lord knows how hard we worked to get those people to work, so he sent us some miracles. Two extremely less actives came to church. One of them hasn't been to church for probably 6 months. She called us and said, "I woke up this morning and decided I wanted to go to church today. What time does it start?" The other one has come before, but is actually progressing in her battle to quit smoking. It is like the Lord is showing us that this is really His work. He's in charge of it, so if anything happens it is from Him, not from us. We worked hard, so He blessed us, but in His way, and clearly by His hand. We'll take it.

Anyway, moral of the story is, I am super happy. I can't even imagine doing anything else right now. I am very happy to be a missionary. Thank you so much for helping me be here! You are amazing!!!

I love you all

"have a blessed day, everybody"

Sister April Atkin