Week 66!

well hey there my FAM!!!

i am doing wonderful down here and just letting all of you know i got your thanksgiving packages from the atkinsons and the christmas packages from the Atkinsons, Gygis, and Grandpa and Grandma McBride!  thank you soo stinking much and i can't wait to open them on christmas.  :)  but this week was super good and lots of fun! first off i did divisions again to help a companionship in my district get better numbers.  they're super cool guys and i went with Elder Baer from indiana and my comp was with Elder Crawford from Rexburg.  i went over to their area and worked lots with Elder Baer who is a total Stud that has about a year out in Uruguay.  that was lots of fun being able to help him in his area that has been struggling for a little while.  after that we found in our area a super good investigator named Lourdez, she was a reference from a returned missionary in the ward named Gaston.  he's been home for almost two years from serving in argentina.  she's been to church twice her whole life and has been listening to us and loves the gospel, she has a baptismal date for the 17th of december and she's super excited.  she's even preying to find a new job so she doesn't have to work on sundays.  she didn't have to work this sunday so she came to church and absolutely loved it!!!!  other anouncement, we had a BAPTISM on saturday!!!  a kid named Leonardo Prestes has been listening to us for a while, his parents have been members for years and recently got re-activated and the week before i got here his older brother Fernando got baptized.  but i finally talked to him and we had a frank conversation and he told us why he didn't get baptized and he felt better so i just testified to him about the importance of baptism and we don't need that perfect knowledge to get baptized and the most important thing is to have this desire to want to follow christ in this life.  he accepted getting baptizewd this  saturday and was confirmed in church on sunday.  i would send you pictures but i have to fix my memory card because it has a virus or something... :( but for some reason i can still take pictures.  what else happened this week... oh yeah i threw up again.....  haha but this time it was super weird, we ate at the family Atunez and it was super good and tasty, i went home feeling super good, i went home to go to the bathroom normally and then BAM lkuvbhrlsudvh, gross.  but afterwards i felt super good and 100% fine before and afterwards... super weird but oh well... but besides that i had quite a great week and i think the relacion between me and Elder Principe is getting better!  he's starting to listen a little more and we're working together as a team.  so that's great!  i can't wait to get your next emails and i gotta go!
Love,
Elder Atkinson

Week 65!

why hello there everyone!  how is life going?
well i'm just dandy here in T-Bò.  we had an interesting week this week... so this week i did divisions with an Elder From Mesa Arizona named Elder Washburn.  he's a super cool kid that has served for about a year.  (it's super weird because i'm the oldest Elder in my WHOLE DISTRICT)  but i went over into his area and worked there for the day.  hahaha interresting story: so we were knocking doors trying to find new people to teach, we nock this one door and no one answers... so we knock again.  we hear some noise coming from inside the house so we wait for a little bit to see what's going on.  all of the sudden a big window next to the door swings open super fast and we see a BIG, HAIRY, OLD, WRINKLY, NAKED MAN standing at the door!!!!   i can honestly say that i was NOT expecting that to happen just knocking doors, the both of us were soo shocked that we didn't say anything...  all that he told us was that he was resting and couldn't attend us at this moment.  i'm honestly glad that at that moment he couldn't attend us because i think it would have been a little bit of an interresting conversation. hahaha but besides that the divisions went super well and we learned a lot from it.  ok not so funny story... Gladys...  so we pass by and talk to her on wednesday to see how she is and everything and she says that she's not doing very well...  she later tells us that she smoked and drank......  that was pretty tough so she couldn't get baptized this weekend.  we talked to her about trying again and that mess-ups happen and we just need to repent and put our Faith in the lord and try to keep going on being followers of Christ.  we come beck on thursday to chack on how she's doing with her plan to stop smoking ande there was a note that said that she had gone to her ranch out of town and that she's come back monday...  the only bad part is that she will be with her husband and she told us that she always has the desires to smoke when she's out there...  so we'll pass by today and try to see what happened.  yup...  but another good thing, we're doing a combined youth and missionary choir in the stake and they invited me to sing with a few missionaries a few men's trio and quartet stuff for Christmas.  so that's super cool!  so for this companionship, we're working super hard and we've got lots of work set our for us.  i'm not sure if Elder Principe likes me anymore... haha we'll be working on stuff together in companioship study or planning and i'll ask him if he could do something and he'll say "no" all the time.  but we're trying to work together and i baught him a cake today for his birthday today!  he turns 25 today,  so i hope that that will soften things up a bit.  but yeah i gotta go!
love you all and have a great thanksgiving,
Elder Atkinson

Week 64!

yo yo yo!!!!

how's it kickin in the U.S. of A?  i'm having quite an enjoyable time here in the lovely town of Teacuarembò.  but this last week we had a CRAP TON of rain!!!  and by this a mean that the roads next to our house were three feet deep rivers.  haha it was pretty funny because we were both soaking wet and i started trudging through the river and i get half way through and i look back and my comp doesn't want to cross... i told him "dude, it pouring rain, your shoes are already soaked and everything else is wet too... you'll be fine crossing the street."  haha so he finelly decided to trudge through with me! haha  he's a pretty funny kid, he's super scared of dogs, everytime we pass by a dog (big or little) he takes his backpack off and puts it between him and the dog as if it were a shield of something hahahahaha.  but NEWS!!!!! we have an investigator that is named Gladys, she's like 55 years old or so and has listened to the missionaries for a while now.  last week i forgot to tell you that we went over to her house and had a frank conversation about what her doubts were.  she wasn't sure about a few things like tithing and smoking, but i promised her lots of blessings that she will recieve for being obedient to ALL the commandments of god and she accepted a baptismal date for the 19!!!  she went to church this last week and she is super excited for her baptism this week and is quitting smoking!!!  she's doing great and we've recieved lots of blessings seeing her change.  this last week she invited one of her neighbors daughters over to listen to us while we were talking to her.  this is a 12 year old girl named Florencia, we talked to her about the Book of Mormon and how important it is in our lives and we invited her to get baptized the 26th of this month and she accepted.  yesterday she went to church and at church i talked to her and she told me that she was reading the book of mormon with her mom (who's not a member) and she told me that they both felt a super strong spirit while reading the book and her mom wants to talk to us about the church.  she also told us that they've been reading the book together and they can already feel the difference in the spirit in their house from reading about the gospel of jesus christ.  we planned with her to pass by on tuesday to talk with her mom.  man, this area is really filled with blessings!  the thing is that we just need to follow the promptings of the spirit to find them!  i have been loving every moment of being here in Taecuarembò and i've been working as hard as i can to be a great example.  i'm super excited to see all of these miracles come together.  we're working hard together and we can tell that this area is getting better!

love you all,

Elder Atkinson 

Week 63!

hey hey hey,
how's it going in the UNITED STATES???? well i'm just dandy here in Teacuarembo, my new ward is AWESOME!!!! i'm in Barrio Lopez and it's a super small area but it is just filled with hills, hills, and SOME MORE HILLS!!!! hahaha i think that in the time i'm going to be here i'm going to get a great butt workout "YEAH BUNS AND THIGHS"-Spongebob haha but i'm serious...i think with this super hot summer coming up i'm going to get quite toned!!! hahaha but the area is realatively poor but we've got LOTS of active members, around 140. yeah but this week we had stake conference so i didn't get to see only our ward but i've been hearing that it's a pretty strong ward that is even getting better!!! so i'm getting super excited to work over here! but stake conference was super good! a councelor from the temple presidency came with his wifeand also from the mission presidency came to talk. it was amazing how great all of the talks were and how they all were focused soo neatly to work hand in hand with how important it is to go to the temple. we are only about 6 hours from Montevideo so it's not TOOOO long of a trip to the temple and the stake president made a goal that they should all try to go to the temple once every 2 months AT LEAST! the councelor of the temple presidency also talked about the importance of the temple workers and that the temple ALWAYS needs more workers and how most of the time thy have temple workers come in one day in every 15 days to the temple and how they absolutely recieve blessing for these sacrifices for traveling and working in the house of the LORD!!! i know that is true and that the lord really does give us TONS of blessings when we do the errand of the lord. i can't wait to see what else the lore has for this missionary to learn because i'm learning a TON of stuff already!!!! Elder Principe is a pretty cool kid, he has about 6 months on the mission and is super excited to work here with me. i know that we're going to have some success!!!
Love,
Elder Atkinson

Week 62!

hey there!!!! 

yup there have been quite a bit of changes for this missionary!  first off, i'm leaving Artigas after 6 months!!!!  i'm going to Taecuarembò tonight, so tonight at 10:00 GST (guayan stardard time) i will leave here and get to Taecuarembò in 2 hours.  i'm going to Barrio Lopez with an elder from Perù named Elder Principe (Prince in English) haha so we'll see how well i get along with a "prince".  haha Does that make me a king??? haha just kidding! haha but i think it will be lots of fun!  i've never met him before but i've heard that he's a pretty good Elder so i'm getting super excited for this opportunity to work hard and watch things change and have miracles happen.  i'm also going to be given a little more responcibility because i'll be District Leader.  so now i have a larger responcibility but i think i'll learn a ton when i get there.  i'm super glad to go there!  so yeah that will be super fun to change and to be in a new area to learn even more.  but this last week has been pretty interresting, Elder Siegel (the other elder in our house) just died (missionary speaking) haha he is now in his house in Idaho falls it was super funny this last week with him.  Every night we went into our patio of our back yard and we went Star Gazing and ate Brazilian versions of Otter Pops and talked about life.  haha it might sound super fruity but i quite enjoyed being there talking with him about mission expiriences.  i can honestly say that he is one of my best friends that i've met on the mission.  we're going to be grand friends after the mission.  haha but this week has been super fun and we've just found a CRAP TON of people that are ready to be baptized in this area!  it seems like that always happens the week before changes.  haha i think that in this next month they will have LOTS of success.  luckily Elder Navarro's face hasn't exploded like the last one yet.  haha we're still waiting to see what the Doctor's diagnosis is to se what he's alergic to and/or why his face explodes.  haha so we've been working hard and i can feel that the lord has blessed us here for the hard work that we have done in this ward.  i honestly can't wait to see what's going to happen in this next area!!!  the next email will be on monday like normal so thanks for all the emails and all of the prayers and love!!!

LOVE ALL YA´LL

Elder Atkinson