A Mission Life

Posted by: thayneatkinson | February 20, 2012

Troy – Week 11

This was a good week for Elder Atkinson. It has been exactly one year this week since Nathan received his call. The post is saved here.

Yes, it is snowing as I type this. Elder Gast is excited. I keep giving him a hard time about loving the snow so much. He has gone through almost all of his hand warmers already and he keeps buying more and I haven’t even used mine. I’ll probably end up giving them to him because I really won’t use them that often. I got the package on Saturday, so I guess they’re pretty quick now! Thank you for all of the candy! Elder Gast loved the paddle ball and the straw rockets. He hit himself in the face with the paddle ball at least 4 times until it broke off because he was swinging it around so fast. It was pretty funny!

Things have been going well for us. We have a lot of potential and I am hoping that it works out like physics and we have a lot of potential energy built up so that we will have a good reaction when it turns into kinetic energy eventually. We’ll see.

In the story below, although they have not had any confessions, it does sound something like what Brother Searle would do. Brother Searle is the Young Men’s President in our ward and a really good friend to Nathan.

We got two media referrals this week. One that was real and one that is for a Ben Dover who happens to live at our ward mission leader’s house… We haven’t gotten any confessions yet, but I think it was Sister Toala. We have a lot of potential investigators that could become new investigators pretty soon. I really think this area has a lot of potential, we just have to get out and find it. We are seeing small miracles every day with finding people and stuff.

So the family that is crazy and used to be drug dealers is doing a little better. They wanted us to pray for them last week because they were getting a large sum of money for taxes or something. Anyway, they thought they would be tempted to do bad things with the money (I’ll leave that open for interpretation) so we prayed for them a lot. They didn’t do anything stupid! They paid off bills and bought a car so they can get around. We are going back to the basics and we are trying to help them understand what they are reading in the Book of Mormon. It is a challenge, but we are trying to help them take baby steps towards conversion. I think they already know that this Church is different and there is something special about it and about us, but they haven’t quite got enough knowledge to know what to do about their feelings from the Holy Ghost. They want to be baptized, but it is going to be a very very very long road (optimistically, they could be baptized next February). But at least the desire is there!

A miracle last night: We got home from an after church lunch with a family and we decided to use an hour for dinner then as well and just work all night until 9. So I was praying very fervently about who we should go and visit and who we should go and see. I just prayed that we would be led to those who would be home. Then we just drove. The first two people were home, which is a miracle in and of itself! We visited with them for a little bit and found a lady we had been looking for for a long time. Her address wasn’t on our new ward directory and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I thought I had checked on an older ward directory, but when we looked again yesterday there was an address on there. There was also a note: “Husband not friendly.” So of course we went to try to find this lady. And of course she was gone and her husband was home. But he seemed pretty nice and he said to come back later when she would be home. It was a really cool experience.

Then I drove back to the apartment and the Spirit told me: “Walk.” Now, keep in mind, it is 20 degrees outside and we have a warm car with plenty of miles. So I parked the car and Elder Gast said “Where are we going?” And I said “We’re taking a walk.” So we walked for about a mile at 7:30 at night in 20 degree cold and dark. We walked to a less-active house and got there at exactly the same time that their home teacher got there to give them the sacrament. He had forgotten his scriptures, so he used mine for the sacrament prayer. I realized that night when we walked home that that is what’s been missing for this past month or two. I haven’t been listening to the promptings of the spirit. I have just been going through the motions! So now I am going to pray more fervently for guidance from the Holy Ghost every day now. I will put pictures in another e-mail. I love you all and I know that this is Christ’s true and living church restored to the earth today.

I love the experience that he had above. Listening to the Holy Ghost more frequently is something all of us should do more often.

Here are some pictures that Nathan sent this week.

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