Hey Family!
How'sit goin'. It's going pretty "fly", as Willie would say, out here in Missouri. It is a beautiful spring day. The sun is out, there is a slight breeze, it's warm, the birds are singing--all around beautiful. Dad, you will be interested to know that I saw my first cardinal the other day. They really are really red. Hm. who knew.
First of all, I want to tell you about what happened last monday after I emailed. We went to take a tour of the Community of Christ Temple. The elders are teaching a guy that is a member of their church and works there. He is going to be a tour guide soon, so they let him take us on a tour (they probably don't know he's meeting with missionaries). So, we went over to the building. It's actually pretty cool inside. The emphasis of their religion seems to be acceptance for everyone and making it a worldwide faith. It felt like a well-run business or maybe an nonprofit NGO or something.
Anyway, so this guy started the tour. He offered to take us into the break room which is not a normal part of the tour. It sounded pretty boring to me, but one of the elders that were with us wanted to see everything. So he took us back there saying it wasn't a big deal. We got back there, and sure enough, it was just a normal looking break room. Nothing too exciting.
And then walked in some fairly normal looking people. Our tour guide suddenly looked shocked. Turns out it was three of their apostles. One of them was the president of the twelve. They were very friendly, and shook all of our hands. They asked where we were from and all sorts of stuff. They knew who we were--name tags.
Then one of them (a woman. Susan Skoore? something like that), offered to take us upstairs to see the offices of the twelve. That is not a normal part of the tour. We accepted. :) So she took us upstairs where we saw all of their offices, their conference room where the 12 meet, their secaretary, all that. We met a member of the first presidency up there. Then she took us to her office, where she told us more about what she does. She is in charge of Canada, the west coast, and French Polynesia. She did a little ceremony from French Polynesia where she gave each of us a shell necklace and a kiss on the cheek (an air kiss. You know. Cheek to cheek air kiss). I don't remember the word she said when she did it, but it was pretty cool. One of the elders let her do it, but the other one didn't. It was hilarious. She then told us that some of the shells were pretty valuable. I admit, I was pretty in shock and thinking of how this would never happen in Salt Lake. So that's a souvineer to take home--a shell necklace from a woman apostle in the Community of Christ. She was very nice--they all were--but there was no feeling of a mantle on her, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, then we continued on our tour, including seeing the cool organ that fills the central spiral part. I'm sorry. I forgot my camera, so you'll get pictures next week. The rest of the building was pretty cool. They have a little museum/gift shop that was pretty cool. They had some original stuff from the area that I could really appreciate. We noticed that all of the accounts of the first vision only said that Jesus Christ appeared, and that all of the stuff about Joseph Smith said that "he claimed" to have translated by "what he called 'the power and authority of God'," implying that it might/probably isn't all true. It was strange. Also I found out that all of the presidents of their church have been Joseph Smith's decendents until the latest one. I think he's the one that has changed everything.
Anyway, it was a very interesting experience. Our tour guide got in a ton of trouble for taking us into the break room. I guess it's the back entrance that the apostles use to avoid the public, and he kind of missed that point. But the apostle was the one that decided to show us everything, so he still has a job. He just won't be taking tours for a while. And I bet he eventually gets baptized.
We all left kind of in shock and had a good laugh about it later. My mission is in a really interesting place, it turns out.
That night we went and visited Lyric. It was sooo good to see her again. I still don't know how to help her, but she'll let us keep coming back. She just doesn't have the desire to act on anything. So I don't know what to do about that.
This week we also met a woman named Kesha. (I think her real name is Laquisha, but who knows how she spells that) She's a single mom in her 30s who has no job and is going to be homeless soon. She has four kids. They are black, of course, and I don't remember all of their names, but the twins are Unique and Malique (girl, boy). Anyway, we just met her and taught an awesome first lesson on her porch. She cried. It was amazing. So we've been in contact with her a lot recently. Her kids love us. I don't think they have really been around white people before. One of the girls is obsessed with Sister Lewis' hair (blonde). She just pets it and pets it, and even said good bye to it when we left.
We invited all of them to church on sunday, and when the ride we had set up for them got to the meeting place, they weren't there. So we thought we had lost them. But they showed up so that they and their ride got there for the sacrement hymn! They were all in jeans, but there you go. They came.
Sacrement meeting felt like it lasted eternity. We sure were glad that we were sitting on the back row. Those kids don't know how to sit still or be quiet. They talked through the whole meeting. They were eating their trail mix and chatting up a storm. Unique sat by me and kept playing with my hair. "It's so long!" she said, "It's so long! Did it grow jus' now? when I was playin' with it? You should braid it. Or one of these strings will fall out and float away and you'll be sad. Here, let me braid it. Has it been this way your whole life? I bet when you were little everyone played with your hair. Did they? I bet they did. It's so slippery. You should braid it. I braid my hair tight, but I don't want to braid your hair tight because then you'll be like, "that chick braided my hair all bad". It is so long. My hair will be like yours when I grow up. Can I braid it?" It was like that through the whole meeting no matter how I begged her to be quiet. She even complained about the babies being loud, and I told her she was loud, so she told me I was mean. She kept talking.
Then we took them to split them up into primary classes. They were running around the chapel. I was very firm. "We are quiet and reverant at church because it shows Jesus we love Him." Unique said, "sorry Jesus!" to the sky. And kept talking.
The twins went together to Primary. Malique is very very very bad. He has ADHD and is autistic. So within five minutes of Gospel Principles the primary teacher (a bald man) marched him into our class by his elbow and said he could learn in our class. I hope our ward doesn't hate us. Kesha smelled a lot like smoke. We were talking about the life of Christ, which she liked. She pointed at the picture of Christ calming the seas and said, "I like that one. They are all freaking out, and Jesus held up his hand and told the the red sea to stop splitting and it was like 'whoosh!' and it went back together." So that was a fun class. Malique sat still playing with a chocolate bar someone gave him. miracle.
Then we went to Relief Society. A man offered to take Malique to Priesthood, which we were grateful for. We took Kesha to Relief Society. At the beginning they needed volunteers to help with dinners and stuff. She volunteered for everything. They just ignored her. Then they needed someone in nursery. She paused, no one volunteered, so she did, "I love babees!" she said. Another woman stood up very quickly and said, "I'll go. My son is in there." She was obviously being protective.
Relief Society was on the priesthood. No one even tried to explain what it is. Kesha just zoned out the whole time. thank goodness.
When church ended, we said goodbye to all the girls, restole Sister Lewis' name tag, took away a random pair of glasses from Malique, and smiled real big. Whew. Church is tiring. And missing an hour of sleep for daylight savings didn't help. But it was still a good day. They came. :)
So we will have to find a way to make next week a better experience, and somehow train our ward to accept the ghettos a little more.
Selene is still having a rough time, so keep praying for her! The journal sounds great, mom. Her kids are older, and I don't know how soon they will join, but we'll pray.
My watch broke (the pin holding the band to the watch part) so I safety pinned it. I will buy a new one because a Sister Leader told me it didn't look professional. Fair enough.
Anyway, I'm out of time, but I love you!
Love,
Sister April Atkin
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