One Happy Missionary

Dearest Family,

It has been a wonderful week. Where to even begin. :)

Well, first of all, we are coming to love the people here more and more. They are just wonderful. We live in the Stanly Ward, and so we have unintentionally grown extra close with that ward. They are so willing to help and take care of us. We have a list of four or five families that are begging us to let them feed us when something falls through because our meal calendars are full up to September. I am very happy here.

This week we were able to meet with our investigator Jesse a lot. Do you remember me telling you about him? He's 15 and has been in foster care since he was 3. Well, we taught him three times this week, and he is doing great. What a good kid. He has really opened up to us and shared some things that were really hard that he's been through. Things that no person should go through, let alone a person as young as he was (is). He was able to talk to us about the things that are hard for him, and I really think that we were able to see what his hurdles are that he will have to overcome to be baptized. The spirit has been so strong in our lessons with him. We were able to bear testimony of God's plan for us (and love for us), and the power of the Atonement to help us heal. He has some healing to do, but his heart is soft. He agreed to pray about it.

On Thursday we had a pretty solid appointment with a part member family. They called us and set it up. We had some back ups, but we didn't really want to visit them, so we were hoping they would follow through. Well, they weren't there. So we had to do our back ups. One of them was a man named Ed. I had met him before to invite him to the open house, but he wasn't really excited to see us then, so I didn't really want to go back. But we did need to eventually follow up, and he was closer than the other back up, so we decided to visit anyway. Well, when he opened the door, he looked surprised, and then he said, "Oh! I recognize you." I asked about the open house, but he hadn't gone. There was an awkward pause.

Then he said, you know, I'm really going through a hard time right now. I don't really want to talk about it (he was on the verge of tears), but," he said, "I will take anything you have. I need it. Sometimes I am mad at God, but things are always better when I'm close to him. Where do I meet you? What do I need to do?"
jaw drop.

We explained what we do as missionaries, set up an appointment and talked for a minute, but he was about to lose control so he didn't really want to talk to us that minute. Then he said, "I believe in signs. I was praying for help when you knocked on my door." wow. 

God really does have a plan. We weren't supposed to go to our other appointment. We needed to be there for Ed. It was the miracle of our week, too. It's crazy because I didn't even recognize that I was being led by the spirit to take us there, but God was directing it, and we were led. 

We got a new mini-missionary on Friday. She was just 16, too, but she was our favorite of the three. She was so willing to do everything, and wasn't afraid to do it. She was excited to be there. She was super pretty, and we might tell the Liberty Stake to help their missionaries to dress like missionaries, but she was great. She was adopted from Russia when she was 8, so technically she was a convert baptism. It was cool because she got to teach Jesse with us twice. I don't think it was a coincidence that we had two mini-missionaries that were adopted out of hard circumstances to come to those lessons with us.

On Saturday morning we went with a bunch of other missionaries to help with an event at Deanna Rose. It was a Chicken Run (a race). Normally we don't do service on weekends, but the mission likes us to help with these events. There are a lot of people. Our job was to help sort the kids by age and gender into lines to wait their turns to run. We were standing at the bottom of the hill that had the Commentator on top. There were speakers blasting the most popular music of right now. It was killing me. I thought I was going to melt into a puddle. A lot of it I don't recognize anymore. Some of the elders looked more and more grouchy the longer the music was on, and others were singing every word and dancing. It was embarrassing. They said they knew all of the words to the brand new song because they went to Walmart a lot. I believe them, but singing along like that was probably a bad choice.

The event was okay after they turned off the music for the race. They didn't have enough adults enter, so a lot of the missionaries ran and some placed in their jeans (it was a really short race). I didn't run.
On Sunday we were a little disappointed because the two less actives that had promised very convincingly to be there didn't come. But it was alright. We taught Sharing Time about the Articles of Faith, which was fun. It went much better in the senior primary. They love any kind of game that includes candy, so we were good to go (although some of them actually noticed that our candy was kind of old. Oops. It was left over from other sisters).

We think Megan is doing okay, but we weren't able to see her this week because she had family in town. Then she didn't come to church, and her phone was off later so we weren't able to see her. We are a little worried, so pray for her! She has only two weeks left to baptism!

Sister Hodson and I are getting along wonderfully. I sure do love her. She has had a rough start to her mission (MTC companion, her grandmother died, and other bad news from home) and I really believe that we are companions so that I can help her. It's humbling. She's amazing. Sometimes I wonder why my life has been so good. I really have been so blessed and I just don't understand why. But I think I'm here to show people that it is possible. It is possible to have the fulness of the gospel and the fulness of the happiness and a fulness of the standards, and the fulness. It's not just a fairy tale. It's real. Now I have a responsibility to show that to others. What a responsibility! I know that I've said that to you before, but it hit me again this week. I am supposed to be a light on a hill to show that the light is real. The light that Christ offers is real and unlimited. It's a lot to digest.

Scripture chase of the week: Read 2 Nephi 3 (especially verse 12), JST Genesis 50:24-38 (in the appendix. Especially v. 31), and Ezekial 3716-17 (and maybe to the end of the chapter from there). The Book of Mormon and the Bible support each other!

I love you all.

Love,

Sister April Atkin

So there you go. Another good week. I love being a missionary!