Week 26!

hey there FAMILY!!!

 

how's it going? hey we had a super cool expirience with Katy this week!  so on wednesday morning we did some service for her like cutting trees and grass and bushes in her little back yard.  well while we were doing service we kept seeing these two lady Jahova's Witnesses walking around and passing by her house but not talking to us or Katy, it was pretty weird but we finished our servise around 12:30 or so and scheduled a visit for the next day to have a lesson with her.  so the next day we talked with her and she tald us about an expirience that she had that night.  so i guess that right after we left the Jehova's witnesses came by and started talking to her (because in the past they came by every wednesday morning for Bible study with her).  she told them something like "I'm sorry guys but i'm going to be baptized into the mormon church"  i guess that they just went crazy and whipped out like poligamy and a bunch of other different stuff that wasn't true.  that night she was SUPER confused on what was true or not.  so before she went to bed she knelt down and in her on words she "released her heart to heavenly father" about if what we had taught her had been true or not.  she said that she was crying and HONESTLY wanting to know.  she said that during the prayer she really didn't feel anything, but she said that right as she got into bed she felt an overwhelming feeling of peace and calming in her heart.  she said that she heard a soft voice say, "it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true" she said that once she heard those words she fell straight to sleep and that she had probably the best night sleep in her life!!!  when she shared that expirience with us, she was crying, i was crying, and the spirit was SUPER strong in the room.  so right now she HAS a REAL ANSWER, and in super excited to be baptized.  we changed the date of her baptism from the 26 to the 25 because if we do it that day we will have a huge stake baptism with about 8 other people getting baptized at the same time.  there's going to be a choir singing, and once again i have to sing a special musical number with two other people. haha so that will be super exciting!!!  i'm PUMPED for this friday!!!!!!  oh yeah our next change is coming up this coming week!  so i won't be able to email you this monday, it will be on a tuesday!  and i'll know if i'm staying or leaving, and if i will have a different companion.  hahaha this change has gone by so stinking fast i can't even believe it!!!  like honestly! hahaha this week the bishop came up to me and asked when will i find out if i'm staying or going, and i said next monday night.  he told me that he called the MISSION PRESIDENT and begged him for me to stay one more change!!!  haha and the president told him "Don't you ever ask me anything like that again!  it's not up to me it's up to the lord!" haha so we'll see what happenes ;)

 

thanks for the love and prayers!

Elder Atkinson

Letter to Grandpa and Grandma McBride

The following is from Tyler:

Grandpa & Grandma
Thanks for sending me that letter!  I really appreciate you two thinking of me and sending me that.  Grandma, I hope your surgery recovery goes well, I'm praying for you.  Uruguay is AWESOME!  I'm having a blast down here!  I'm in my 3rd change. (1 change is about 6 weeks) and I have my 1st Latino companion.  He's Elder Segura from Peru.  For the most part we get along with each other very well.  Because he knows almost NO English.  My Spanish is getting better and better every day! (smiling face)  I'm definitely NOT fluent, but I get better and the longer I'm out here I feel more comfortable in the language.  Right now down here it is HOT + HUMID!  Like I mean at nights the temp. is about at 90 deg. F.  in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!!!  During the summertime there isn't as much rain as in winter but we still get rain about once or twice a week.  HaHa  I just had a random thought, with 24/7 Spanish for these past couple of weeks it really changes the way I think!  For example, every night before I go to sleep I read a couple of pages in "Jesus the Christ" and I just realized that I start translating it from English to Spanish! haha  It's pretty random but I thought I'd let you guys know that!  But besides Grandma's surgery, how are you guys doing?  Have you done anything fun lately?  Do you two have any plans coming up?  Thanks for sending me pictures in your letters that you send!  I always love getting pictures (smiling face).  I don't know if it is the same here as it is like in Brazil and Paraguay when you visited there but there are TONS of people on scooters down here!  It seems like every family has at least a scooter. haha  It's crazy how many stinkin scooters there are here!  But hey I don't have too much time left so here is a picture of one of the terantulas we found in our area! haha I hope you enjoy it!  Love you Guys tons, Thanks for the letters! Elder Atkinson

Some Pics and Letters to the Taylors

Here are some pictures that Ty sent in his letter:

Remember in the Christmas Call I talked about the 3-D Book of Mormon?

Well, this is it! HAHA it's pretty cool, I'm not going to lie ;)

Remember how I e-mailed about the spiders? Well here's the one we took home :)

Me and my trainer with our Elders Quorum President "Williams Borba"

!Zone Paysandu! This is Change # 2. Time is going fast!

So, here are some parts of the letter that Ty sent us:

"In the letter that you sent me you asked me what it is actually like to "be a missionary" HAHA, Well... It's definitely NOT ALL flowers and spiritual experiences every single hour of every day! ;) HA here's our usual schedule for the day: 6:30am- wake up, pray, exercise. 7:00am- Shower, eat, get dressed. 8:00am- Personal Study. 9:00am- companionship study. 10:00am-language study. 10:30am-WORK! Usually people are making lunch so we try to get street contacts and references. We usually eat lunch at like 12:30pm or 1-ish. Usually we have 3-4 days per week that we eat with members, the other days we cook at home. For food we eat LOTS of rice and veggies covered in Mayonase! and LOTS of noodles and sauce. Now, after lunch,, we have the siesta................................ AND lots of missionaries said that in Paysandu is one of the worst siestas because of how long it is here! From about 1pm-6pm there is NOBODY in the streets because they're ALL SLEEPING! We try to only knock doors that are opened because people get TICKED if you wake them from their siesta!...

Also, in your letter you asked me if there was a difference between my American comp and my Latino comp. I can tell you that there are LOTS of differences! For example: 1st off the language, but now it's not too much of a difference because I'm getting better:) Another thing is that, I don't know if it's that same with all Latino's but mine right now is SUPER CHEAP! HAHA for example: it will be super hot out an we'll walk by a place that sells ice cream for like 4 pesos (20 cents in America) but every time that I get one he doesn't want one! HAHA but it's all good. But he is super TRUNKY! He still has 3 changes after this one but he doesn't stop thinking about home and getting married and stuff like that....

You also asked about flooding here, let's just say that last week, one time it rained and there was a 3 foot deep river complete with rapids, floating trash, and a brown coloring. HAHA AND we had to cross it in our church clothes...

Honestly my Latino comp does not know much English. But he knows random phrases like: "I want to get married", "I hate the mission", and "I just farted". Phrases like that HAHA but I am having fun! I wake up every morning with a smile because I am here!:) I know I'm supposed to be here!"

Week 25!

well hey there!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!  i know you're all wondering, but DON'T WORRY!!!  i only have ONE person on my mind ;) THE SAVIOR!!!  hahahahahahaha but yeah they do celebrate valentine's day down here too but it isn't as big as it is in the U.S.  this week we had a Zone Conference with our Zone and the zone from the department "Mercedes" which is where Elder Shaw (one of my MTC Comps) is!  it was great to see him and see how he's doing.  haha he's gained 30 POUNDS since he's been here because he's constipated!  hahahahaha it's stinking histerical!  our zone conference was really good!  the focus of the mission president's talk and all the other talks and activities was about the atonement and how we should use the wonderful gift of the atonement to help our investigators feel the spirit in their lives.  it was AWESOME!  we had a ward activity with the other ward that shares our same building this last friday!  it was pretty successful!  we had like 25 or so people come to it in total!  everyone seemed to really enjoy it and was having lots of fun!  it was mainly just like little kid games but everyone had a lot of fun!  i'll send you a picture soon of our activity!  haha the bishop's wife came up to me during the activity and told me "Elder Atkinson, can you promise me something? can you promise that you won't leave this next shange? absolutely NO ONE likes Elder Segura... and we LOVE YOU!!!!  it was tough enough having Elder Ashby leave, but if you leave this ward is going to die!!!"  i was terribly flattered and at the same time upset.....  i just realized how much wards down here ONLY function when there's some good missionaries in the ward.  but my goal is to try to keep this ward strong for when i actually get changed. haha  here's a KATY UPDATE:  oh man she is stinking prepared!  ¡i mean FAH! really the LORD prepared her so much for before we even met her.  everytime we meet with her and talk to her about the scriptures we left for her she whips out AT LEAST one page of notes that she took while she was reading about what her thoughts, understandings, and her feelings.  this week was week number 3 of her attending church and she is looking forward to her baptismal date on the 26!!! she already has good friends and everything in the church that sit with her and talk with her all the time!  haha  she is going to be a really strong member when she is baptized.  it is so spiritually uplifting when you see that all of this hard work is starting to pay off!  i have been working at ABSOLUTE CAPACITY since i've got here and it's esciting to see results!!!

thanks for all the prayers and love,

¡HLJ! ¡Vamo ARRIBA!

Elder Atkinson

Week 24!

hey there!

i'm doing great! :) this week we didn't have any rain which was super weird for a change.  haha there's a celebration down here that just started last night called "Carnival" and it is like a 2 week straight party where they just party all night it's pretty crazy!!! haha i could hear it from 8 blocks away in our apartment.  oh by the way, in case you didn't know there are 2 big futbol teams down here one is Peñarol, and the other is Naciònal, and they are SUPER rivals it's kind of the equivalent to the BYU, Utah rivalry.  if you are wondering i am a fan of Peñarol.  but they played like last week and they tied!!!  so NO ONE is happy because they can't tell eachother that their team is better... haha that's one of the things i absolutely HATE about futbol is that games can end in ties! haha oh yeah!!! i got's a GOOOOOD story!!!so me and my comp were walking down the very furthest road in our area which doesn't have a lot of traffic and way in the distance we see like 4 or 5 brown blobs in the middle of the road and we both were just saysing stuff like "what in the world is in the road?" we walk up to them and we find 5 HUGE Terantulas (i don't know how to spell it) all were about the size of my HAND!!! it was absolutely INSANE!!! i had heard from other Elders that Paysandù was known for having big spiders but i had never seen an actually HUGE spider until then! haha we found a spider that wasn't as big as the other ones but was dead, and we decided to take it home so we could take pictures of it!  but it's still a fairly big spider! hahaha i have the picture and i'll send it to you this week!  but besides that honestly not too much has gone on this week.  the one really good investigator we have is still doing AWESOME!  she's getting excited for her Baptismal date!  she came to all 3 hours of church this week and became really good friends with one of the recently activated members that me and Elder Ashby activated so it's good to see that she is doing soo well!  oh have any of you guys drank tonic water before????  oh my goodness i had some yesterday at a member's house with Elder Segura and it was terrible!!!  the beginning wasn't bad until the AFTER-TASTE came in!  oh my goodness i don't think that i am going to drink tonic water ever again!  but it's stinking HUGE down here!  everyone loves stinking tonic water.  something that i thought i would never become a fan of is carbonated water but EVERYONE drinks that down here too!!!  and quite frankly i'm starting to become a fan of it!  haha as gross as i thought it was before the mission i'm actually becoming quite fond of it ;) hahahahaha 

well thanks for the emails and the love,

Elder Atkinson