What a Great Week!

 

Dearest Family,

 

What a great week. :)

Wow.

So first of all, I LOVE Sister Aldous. We get along great. We laugh really hard. I guess I haven't done that in a while, but she is hilarious. Several very funny things have happened.

Her first day she forgot to take her luggage off of the transfer bus, so it got to ride all around the mission out to Wichita and back, and she didn't get it back until 5:30 that evening. What an adventure. But that's alright. We were able to laugh about it.

Then that night we had a great dinner with members, and I planned for us to drop by on an investigator that is so prepared and excited to meet with us, but her son has RSV, and that has prevented her from really ever meeting with us. So we just showed up. We had only 20 minutes, but we were able to teach a great first lesson together. Sister Aldous is a natural teacher. I had been coaching her all day, and so at the end of the lesson, she invited Toni (that's the investigator's name) to be baptized! Toni interrupted her to say yes, that is what she had always wanted, and even set a date! It was one of the most perfect lessons I have taught on my entire mission. We laughed and smiled and said prayers of gratitude all the way home. pumped.

Since then not every day has been that successful, but we teach well together, and she is ready to work hard and be obedient. We get along so well. I feel like the Lord is giving me a gift for my last transfer (pretend I didn't mention that).

Before her mission she hurt her knee and had to have surgery, which post-poned her MTC date, so she ices her knee every night. Her first night she forgot to put her icepack in the freezer, so she got in the freezer to use vegetables just for 10 minutes. She asked if it was okay if she used the peas, and I said, "Yes, I don't like peas." Then we both fell asleep, so she forgot to put them back in the freezer. In the morning when she got up she looked down and saw a stain on her brand new sheets. "The peas leaked!" She gasped. She stumbled sleepily into the bathroom. When the light came on, I heard loudly from the bathroom, "THOSE WEREN'T PEAS!!" as she found a large stain on her pajamas.

She came back to the bedroom and we turned on the light to find a large purple stain on her bed. She had grabbed a half used, open bag of BERRIES. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to die. They had melted everywhere. So we had to have some of the other sisters help us out and wash her sheets that day. There is still a faint purple spot, but we got most of it out. Oh, man, just laughed so hard. So did she.

Nothing too eventful has happened for the rest of the week, but we have started teaching a lost sheep named Kristine (she's a member technically, but her records are not in the ward). She's 24 and has a 2 year old. She only went to church from when she was 10 until she was 12 (although she read the Book of Mormon from front to back during that time). She was put into foster care after that, and her life has been really hard. Her 2 year old is 3 feet tall and weighs 50 pounds (what a normal 5 year old weighs). He's huge and adorable. He is projected to be 6'6". He's covered in rolls of fat.

We came back the next day after teaching her, and she had read a significant amount of the Book of Mormon. She was smoking with her baby in the room, which makes me sad, but she put it out and let us in. I am just so excited for her to come back. She's basically at an investigator's level of understanding. She's excited about coming back. She told us that she remembers feeling the Holy Ghost ("It's like this light, bursting inside...I don't know how to describe it", she said sheepishly), but she said she hasn't felt it for a long time. I know she felt it while we were there.

Her 2 year old is a bit crazy, and doesn't sit still well, but as we left the second time we said we wanted to leave with a prayer. He reached out for our hands. We just went for it, so we all held hands as we prayed and he stood perfectly still in silence as we prayed. It was amazing. After the prayer he didn't want to let go. He just wanted us to stay holding his hands. I'll have to send you a picture of it. It was so cute!

This week I have been studying the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the scriptures (faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end). I have discovered that often when the gospel of Jesus Christ is taught, there is a reference made to the fact that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one and united. I realized it is because they are united in their purpose of helping us make it back, and the gospel is the way. That is why we are baptized "in the name of Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost". They work together to help us make it back, and Jesus Christ provided that way. It was a cool thing to read about.

The Visitors' Center is also doing great. It is pretty slow, so not much is happening there, but we have a lot of new sisters (four) and seven of the eight companionships were affected by the last transfer. We have a lot of fresh excitement, and it is really encouraging. I enjoy being there.

Wow! Life is so good!

I love you all!

 

Love,

Sister Atkin

 

P.S. Here is a picture of me with 3 of my 4 daughters. Sister Hodson wasn't there, and neither were Sister Crick and Sister Thompson, my grand daughters. My posterity is increasing! :)

 

Sister Lewis, me, Sister Aldous, and Sister Harding