Happy

Dear Family,

I have had a wonderful week! Something clicked this week that I have been working so hard for, and I finally feel comfortable and confident in this area. I am very happy. :) Confidence is everything as a missionary, because if we lack it, missionary work is so hard, and we are tired all of the time. But when we have it, we are alert, happy, successful, motivated, and able. I guess it really is faith. I struggled with my faith in myself for a little while there, but it is back! I can talk to anyone!

Anyway, it has been a good week.
So last Monday night, a series of strange events happened. We were feeling a little discouraged, and it was about time to go home. But we wanted to talk to one more person, and there was a woman on the street watering her lawn. We went over and talked to her, and she was very nice. It turned out that she had a chinese Book of Mormon (she's chinese), and had been to the Visitors' Center several times. Crazy! We talked to her about the Book of Mormon, and we set up a return appointment. She said she wasn't interesting in changing religions, but she would hear more from us. New investigator! Sweet! But later in the week, she called us to cancel her appointment because she really didn't see the point (asian culture is wonderful because it requires people to cancel instead of just avoiding us). The weird thing was that her name came up when she called--she was already in the phone from past missionaries. hm. That's weird. So we looked in the area book through all of the records of former investigators and potential investigators, and we couldn't find her anywhere. strange. I said, "there is no way she would be in here..." and started to flip through the ward list. There she was! A Do Not Contact on the ward list! She was already a member! Then I said again, "I have an idea, but there is no way it would be here..." and there in the back of the area book was her teaching record and baptismal record!! Weird. She was taught and baptized five years ago and got antied. So anyway, no new investigator there. How strange. I think the Lord wants her to come back. We are erasing the Do Not Contact next to her name. :) We're sisters now, after all. :) 

Then on Tuesday we got a third companion! The Liberty Stake are doing these cool things called mini-missions. I think I already told you about that. Well, Sister Riddle arrived on Tuesday morning, bright eyed and 16! I thought they would be older, but she was only 16 and going to live with the missionaries for three days! Crazy. I don't think I would have done it at her age. She did well. She was a little shy, which was expected, I guess, but she was up for anything. We walked a lot those few days because we had a no car day. She brought the wrong shoes and got blisters, but at least it was only short term. It was great because we had standing next to us all day the motivation to do everything perfectly and boldly. We wanted her to have a good experience, so we gave everything 190%. It was exhausting, but we taught so many lessons this week. My goal is to teach 20 lessons in a week someday. We taught 17. So close! We are going to get another mini-missionary this week, and we already have ideas to make it a better experience for her. We are going to give her a Book of Mormon the first day and tell her that she has three days to give it to someone. Sister Hodson has her half empty MTC planner, so we are going to give her a planner to use for the three days, and then she can tear out the pages when she leaves and put them in her journal.Then she can actually plan with us and be involved in everything we do. We're excited--the second of three.

This week we discovered a miracle--there are two tiny ghetto streets in all of Overland Park and we found them. It was awesome. I didn't realize how much I missed the ghettos until we found those two streets of duplexes. It was amazing. I was in my happy place. It was healing. That is where I regained my confidence. We taught four lessons there. We are going back. :) People smoke there, people have imperfect yards, houses, cars, they work at McDonalds, and they talk to strangers. All in all, a missionary's happy place. Sister Hodson has never seen that before, and she just laughed at how excited I was getting.

Also, we got a full time car this week! It arrived on Wednesday. It is dirty, but when we wash it and love it, it will be wonderful. The elders brought us our new car and a new phone, and it was like Christmas came early. I was so happy. :) We are combining phones so that we don't have separate phones for the two areas. I'm glad. That will be nice. And this one is a touch screen. Nice.

One sad thing that happened this week is we visited a less active old woman in the Red Bridge Ward. I love her. I love visiting her. But this time, she was discouraged. She feels like she has nothing left to look forward to, and she is a little mad at God. Everything is going down hill, and she knows it won't get better for her or her husband here-on out. I am glad she doesn't see well because I cried the whole time we were there. I have never seen such lack of hope. We talked about eternity and the Plan of Salvation. We encouraged her to pray. I was a soggy wreck when we left, but the gospel does give us hope! We know that what is now is not what forever will be! There isalways something to look forward to. This sadness is so short in comparison with the happiness that is ahead of us if we endure.

We got a phone call this morning from President Keyes. I have been called to be a Sister Trainer. All that means is that I do exchanges to train the sisters nearby. Our mission is so spread out that I just have two other sets of sisters to look out for, so I just have to do two exchanges a transfer. No big deal. But I'm excited because Sister Lewis, who I trained originally is in my area, Sister Van Camp, who I came out with, Sister Thorne who is my best mission friend, and Sister Sant, who is amazing, are all in my area. It's going to be fun to do exchanges. :) I hope I get to stay and do it for two transfers. I feel like my whole mission has been grooming me to be a Sister Trainer at one of the Visitors' Centers. We'll see.

Also, Selene, the first woman I taught isn't doing well. She's great in that she is active and has been called as the Relief Society Secaretary (which is wonderful for her), but she is going through a very very hard time. Pray for her.

Well, I better go, but I love you all. It's going to be a great week!

Love,

Sister Atkin