Hello Family,
Life
is good here. :) I am very happy! Crazy to hear that Willie is still
staying in Joplin! I like having him there, because it means that we are
always in the same state, which is fun. Our mission is getting 50 more
missionaries (ending with over 300 missionaries. We already are the
largest mission in the world as far as numbers of missionaries go, but
now we will be easily the size of two missions!) including 30 more
sisters!! The work is going forward. :)
I am doing a lot better as far
as stress goes this week. Most the time I am doing great--there are just
certain days that are not good. In general, I really love my calling as
a Visitors' Center Sister Trainer. I feel like I am making a
difference, and I enjoy being a leader. I think it is one of my talents.
I am much better at leading than I am at executing tiny details like
making the bajillion phone calls we need to make every day. haha. I do
have a cheerful heart, mom. Life is good in the Inde-hood.
So last Thursday we had an
appointment with one of our investigators named Cecelia. We had dinner
together in a member's home, and then taught her. The members were
awesome and the perfect team ups. They said all of the right things.
Also, Cecelia mostly speaks spanish, so they helped translate. (Her
husband mostly speaks English, so it bothers him when people speak
spanish to her, but he will have to get over that. What a crazy
marriage.) We taught the first lesson, even though she has been taught
for years, and it went well. It came out that really the reason she
hasn't seriously investigated the church is because of her husband, who
is a member. He doesn't want her to. We asked him about when he joined
the church 5 years ago, and it turns out that he has never read the Book
of Mormon, and he never prayed about joining the the church. He just
liked the people, and that is the only reason he joined our church
rather than someone elses. So it makes him mad whenever we ask his wife
to do anything because he doesn't understand the importance. So really,
we have to teach one person in english to gain a conversion, and another
in spanish to learn the gospel (she already has felt the spirit and
knows it is true). Weird that it is the member we need to convert.
The other investigator we have
been working with is named Sandy. She is great. Her husband also is a
recent convert. They are great, and she knows that she will be baptized
eventually, it is just hard to give up her old church that she loves so
much. She just doesn't feel in a hurry. She wants to be sure before she
joins, but she is expecting that to come--and actually was pretty casual
about it.
I am so grateful that we
already have two such solid investigators. It is really hard to open an
area, actually. It was really hard on Sister Harding for a while to not
be teaching anyone and to have only 2-3 hours a day to try to find
anyone because we were at the VC the other hours, or studying. Things
are so much better. :)
Last week, two of the sisters
at the center had their car broken into, and their backpacks stolen with
everything in them. They were just grabbing a bite to eat and had
parked in front of the main window of the restaurant in broad daylight
in a busy parkinglot. But someone busted in the windows of their car and
took their backpacks=everything. planners, wallets with social security
cards, credit cards, and driver's licenses, scriptures, cameras,
journals, everything. Not only did that ruin their weekend as they
canceled all cards and couldn't drive or really teach, but the VC was
down a car that we all share, so we all had to take no car days. That is
really hard when you don't live in your area. Some of us don't even
live in our zone. Craziness. THEN, one of the cars got a completely flat
tire. So for a few hours until we got the other car back, we only had 2
cars for 8 companionships. Great. Talk about stressful for the people
in charge (pointing at self). but everyone was super nice about it, so
it all turned out (we did have one sister whose response to me asking
them to take a no car day was "It would have been nice to have more
advance warning." like it was my fault. My response, "Well, I would have
loved to have advance warning, too. I think those sisters whose bags
were stolen would have especially liked advance warning." She then
realized that she was not the only one that this was hard for. Then she
was nice about it.)
Last Friday we had interviews with President Keyes. Because of
recent drama at the VC I have prayed for days about what I could do to
help these sisters and what I could be doing better. None of the drama
is my fault or in any way related to me, but I want to be able to fix
it. So we started the interview and he joked around a bit with me about
how great I was. He was looking over the questionaire they always have
us fill out. On it you can write a question. The question I wrote was
"How can I help the sisters at the center? What is my role? How can I help?".
He skimmed over the whole page and said, almost casually, "Sister
Atkin, you're perfect. Don't worry about it." Then he paused and looked
up to see me staring at him intently, tearing up. (for some reason, I
always cry when I talk to him).
He said, "Do you want to know what you can do to help these sisters?" I knodded quickly.
"If I tell you what you should do, will you listen with real intent? Meaning, planning to act?"
"Yes!" I replied, with real intent, excited to do whatever he asked me to do.
"Be yourself. Be you. That is what you can do. Just be yourself. That will help the sisters the most."
The rest of the interview continued that way. He told me that I was
great and that since there are going to be so many more sisters in the
mission, the role of a Sister Trainer was going to be a bigger role in
the future.
I am just amazed at the trust
President Keyes has in me. It blows me away. I don't entirely understand
it. I am not perfect at all, but somehow he trusts me anyway. I
realized that perhaps he knows that that is the best way for me
personally to learn. If he told me how to be good, I would do it. But if
he just shows me that he trusts me and thinks I am wonderful, I thrive.
I feel like I have really blossomed under his trust. He gives me room
to learn on my own because he knows that I am going to try my very
hardest, and perhaps the standard I hold myself to is even higher
because it is self imposed instead of external. I truly enjoy being
accountable to him. I know I am not perfect, but I feel confident and
comfortable telling him about what I have done. I don't feel ashamed.
In a way, President Keyes
represents Jesus Christ to me, in the same way that I represent Jesus
Christ to those we are teaching. I have felt that as my understanding of
my relationship to my mission president has grown, my relationship and
understanding of my Savior has grown, too. I am very happy. I know I was
supposed to serve here with President Keyes.
On Sunday we had a great day,
too. We had an appointment with a 13 year old and her family that we
brought a young woman with us to, and it turned out super awkward, but
funny. I'm still glad we went. We met with the bishop and he is awesome.
He really has confidence in us, too.
Yesterday was Halloween. We
just stayed home and planned because we had no one to see, and we
weren't allowed to tract (for obvious reasons). So totally noneventful.
Life
is good! Transfers are next week, but there is no way I will get moved.
It does mean that my P-Day might change, so just be warned. I think it
might stay Thursday, but I am sure that it won't be Monday. Beyond that,
no gaurantees on when I will be emailing.
I love you all!
Love,
Sister Atkin
No comments:
Post a Comment