Best Day Ever!

HELLO EVERYONE!!!

OK so best day ever! I totally got my package and at an amazingly fast rate!! WOW!! The sugar cookies were gone in two minutes all the Latina sisters loved them!! The elders were so excited and green as can be of jealousy!! I loved it! It just made me feel so close to home to read the funnies in my bunk bed here! So great!

So pretty much proselyting this past Saturday was rough. We actually didn't proselyte we looked for less active members in RIMAC, the poorest part of Lima. AKA the hill of houses! Crazy! So many dogs and people everywhere. We got to go with two young women in the ward they are so amazing!! The only rough part was none of the less active members were home or had moved or disappeared and the one man we did talk to said he had a problem with his bishop and never wanted to hear from us again. My first experience of almost literally having a door shut in my face. It's rough work, but after we got to go talk to some member families and their testimonies are impenetrable! Someone once talked about our testimonies being a wall of shields and we need to keep each shield and each part of our testimonies strong so we don't have any weak links or spots where the devil can get us. These people had the strongest testimonies I had ever seen! I was really humbled to be able to hear them and they always shared their drinks with us. Just so awesome!

PS. why does Conner feel like a cowboy. That is what I am really going to miss this fall is the garden, but here they have amazing vegetables!! Great cucumbers huge grapes, comote Spanish for yam, and great beets!!! I am so happy for food all the time. and in a week it will all change! So crazy I get more nervous for the field with every passing day but more wanting to just dig in and go. I just hope my Spanish is more up to par than I think it is.

OH YA HUGE PLUS THIS WEEK!! Other than ice creme! was MY mission president came to speak at a devotional! It was crazy awesome and Derick was right he has an almost comedic low voice and sounds like he could be a cartoon! Wild! Loved it and his wife was so sweet and out going and they are just fabulous and we got to talk with them , Hermana Capunay and I! WOW best part of the week I was just beaming with smiles and it was great!! Then we got ice creme after! I said to the mission president of the CCM “meet my mission president and ice creme all in one day BEST DAY EVER!” He just laughed at me but wow, time goes so fast!

Love you all Sister Atkinson

Ice Cream and Real bones!

OK, so this week has been insane. we went on tour last week and I bought an awesome orange soccer shirt I have no idea what team it is.....all good it's orange can't get much better! We totally went to Pizza Hut after an awesome trip to the NATIONAL museum where they had lots of artifacts about Peru and its people! TALK ABOUT SISTER ATKINSON IN A CANDY SHOP!!!! I even got to see REAL BONES and I tried to date the skulls how cool No?

The other thing this week that was awesome was SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM Bones and ice cream all in one week I am as happy as a clam!! I am kinda getting field hungry. When we have been here so long and practiced so much there is not much else that is too exciting. except the new elders let the sisters play futbol with them! Yay! There are a ton more elders and sisters this time! Over 100 in total! Lunches and Dinners are insane!! My new companera is going to my mission along with a TON of elders! and Hermana Kajec who actually lived in Idaho for two years her story is quite awesome!! A lot of the elders and sisters here, their parents are converts and they are here on missions!! That just blows me away! How could I have ever doubted for one second about going on a mission.  I have had it my whole life and so have my parents and my grandparents and almost all the way to great grandparents as well! I am so blessed to be raised in a family where we are just born into a great heritage of worthy and loving and down right awesome people! I am so glad to have had the examples I have had. Almost no one here can say both their parents and one set of grandparents served missions! They are simply blown away! I am so blessed! I can't wait to meet people I can share the gospel with ! Just let me out there! I am hopping ready and waiting! Yes, it will be scary and hard to go from our ¨Garden of Eden¨here to the big huge world and not be in school anymore and only really have me and my companion, but man I am so hungry for teaching real people! Almost at my two month mark!! Where does time go!!

Ps. I don't think dear elders are getting through we think they are simply throwing all our mail out the window of the plane on the way over here or something. We never get mail here and at this point they ask you just start sending stuff to the mission home!! ) Only two more weeks! Woot!

BUT I did get an AMAZING DEAR ELDER from Terina that made my day! Rain or shine do not whine through and through tuff and true TERINAS mail ALWAYS GETS THROUGH!! :) Gracias! I hung your letter below my mirror and it uplifts me every day PACE!! positive attitude changes everything!! LOVE YOU ALL! Have a great week! Enjoy the pics! love you family! Write you this week!

What's a Rama?

WOW where does time go??????

First of all our branch is called RAMA ABUNDANCIA so when ever they call over the intercom and say Rama abundancia porfavor encontran en la capilla en tres minutos. I think RAMA!! WHAT}s a RAMA? from forever strong. BA ha ha.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROCK!! <i am so glad you have awesome friends that make your life awesomely happy and early in the morning and embarrassing for you birthday"! Thank them for me!°

We played soccer with just the No rte Americas district this week and i totally biffed it on the turf....not fun but soccer was great even our grammar teacher was able to play with us!! yes in his Sunday shoes and pants. ;) we have the coolest teacher ever!! Hermano Lazo is just so amazing and uplifting and short AH!! So great! WE change teachers for the next three weeks because we are now known as ADVANCADO norte Americana missioneras! Woot! doesn't mean anything just that we have been here for six weeks and still not in the mission field due to our Spanish speech impediments! ;)

 

So Saturday was the big day when we went out for proselytismo!!! YES BIG CITY HERE I COME!! So mediocre bus ride to my mission! So cool! Lots of houses and they gave us tons of literature and folletos and set us loose. yes me and my companera did have a teacher proselytize with us. My Latina companion (i will try for pictures next week.....sorry) is very tiny a pixie! So knocking doors was pretty much hysterical! huge white chick with no Spanish and a tiny Latina ;) but it was awesome. We entered four houses that day and gave two book of Mormons (books of Mormon??) whatever libro DE Mormon. The first house we went into was a house of a seventh day Adventist! Oh boy... and of course I begin the lesson with the first vision and howI know that Joseph Smith was the prophet of the restored gospel. The spirit was so strong and fabulous! Then my companera goes to share a scripture from the bible and the father in the family goes off about how the book of Mormon can't be scripture!!  We bible bashed for what felt like forever!! crazy! I just keep smiling and looking around like WHAT IS GOING ON?? They are talking really fast and the spirit is gone and I just taught the first vision in an Adventists home and all sorts of other various thoughts. then the mom came down the stairs to see a gringa on her couch. we started talking and through her we were able to give her a book of Mormon to read. she said she would read it and was very open to our message even though she only got the last half!. OH the miracles of GOD!! she talked to me although I didn't know much Spanish and we were able to return the spirit to the house of this awesome family. So many miracles during that day!! So many great people. PS, Ian what do 7th day Evangelists believe in ? and what do materialists believe in? (ya that door was interesting I only understood Machu Pichu and you are from the USA and I hate the USA....good times good times)

After it was all done we just felt so fulfilled and my companera and i just loved it!! i didn't talk much but what i could say brought the spirit.

Thank you all for the letters sorry I will try to write more in a hand written letter I only have two stamps left.

You could send me pens I have gone through so many have stopped working.

My new companera came in yesterday and Hermana Seversons at midnight last night their Spanish is very clear and I understand most things my Spanish is better and better! OK got to go love ya!!

General Confrence was great.

Hello family and everyone!

Sorry not much time today they watch the clock here like a hawk!!

Dear Tasha thank you for your email and picture. sorry i cannot look at the website but i did get the picture!! MUCHAS FELIZIDADES!!! Oh your baby is so cute! General conference here is great! we got to sit all day and listen to ENGLISH how much better can it get. Sorry Mati could´t go to St. George with everyone, but school is good.

We loved conference and received a lot of inspiration I really loved the talk about are we the fish in the tank that don´t say thank you when God feeds us. I am trying to be more positive. Me more positive impossible!! but serio. I realized I need to start writing a gratitude page again. Just one or two things daily. WE really have it so well here good food three times a day air conditioned classes, volleyballs footballs. I get to go proselyting this Saturday with my Latina companion and some of the places are REALLY poor or really rich. I am so blessed to be here and to be able to serve! It is the opportunity of a lifetime! I am so happy to get Ian and Dia´s emails and know there is life outside the CCM! Its so crazy to think I have been here for almost three weeks and with any luck next week when we get a whole new set of Latina missionaries for 3 more weeks hermana C will be with them!

Dia I totally understand your emails very well now that I am a missionary. The heartbreak when an investigator doesn't commit and the lessons you teach and the hard times, but i am so glad to know WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, bringing people unto CHRIST!!

WE watched a movie in a fireside after general conference about a train of people. this train was going really fast and the conductor realizes it is going to crash due to a malfunction on the track his only son ( a young kid only about eight) dives under the train to save all the people (smokers, sinners, lost souls) in saving the train the young boy gives his life away. The father can only stand in horror while the train passes by in anguish. All the people on the train have no idea his son just died to save their lives! Only one girl on the train sees his anguish. Later the father sees this young mother who had previously been an alcoholic. The father sees her in the train station and she is happily married and has a child.

If you shall bring but one soul unto to me how great will be your happiness?

Please remember always that god loves you and because he loves you he gave his only begotten son to die for us. Don´t just ride the train of the atonement and take it for granted. Actively participate in the Santa Cena and remember why it is so important. I am here to be able to teach others about how they can use the atonement and return to live with god. I love you all so much and really am so glad to have you as a part of my life!! What great examples!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU! have a happy Easter and just love everyone!!

Hermana Atkinson!

love you! have a good Easter and happy b-day Brock!