Miracles Happen !!!!!

In the short time I have been in the Mission Field, people have been telling me that I can do miracles. It's not that I didn't believe it could happen, but parts of me doubted it. I know, I know, FAITH Hermana Atkinson, never doubt the power of God. 

I have been struggling as of late... I am not going to lie. THIS IS HARD!!!!!  But worth it (see the atonement and missionary work on youtube as a reference). I am still struggling with the language, I'm not sure what I am saying. This leads me to struggle with the spirit, because I can't use the words I want to use. 

But here is what I want to share:

ANY THING IS POSSIBLE!!!!!!! ANYTHING!!!!! 

For Christmas a member (Jorge) gave all the missionaries in our ward gift cards to Chipotle (there are 9 of us.... super sweet). All 5 of the Hermanas went to Chipotle together, with Jorge and his cousin (Junior). We had such a large group, we had to split into 2 tables. Hermana Christensen and I sat at a different table. Junior isn't a member, the other Hermanas were talking about baptism and giving him a hard time. I guess he had enough, he came and sat down with us.  

MIRACLE #1 ... He was talking, Hermana Christensen and I were replying. Amazingly enough we had a complete conversation in Spanish.... I will get back to Junior in another miracle.

MIRACLE #2 ...   Jorge is really involved with missionary work, and  goes out with us a lot. Saturday morning he went to the temple. Unfortunately, he fainted and had a heart attack right in the temple. He was rushed to the ER. We got frantic calls from his sister, brother and mom.  He was able to go home later that day.  There was a baptism Saturday night, he tried to go, but just couldn't get up the energy. After the baptism, we went to check on him. Something was wrong, he was struggling. You could tell he just wasn't feeling well. He said his arm felt funny again, his leg was hurting and he was struggling to breathe. His brother Juan called 911. The ambulance arrived, and off he went to the ER.  We followed the ambulance. 

I called the Elders and quickly explained to them what was going on.  Immediately, the Elders headed for the hospital and upon arriving promptly gave Jorge a blessing. It was quite miraculous!  Jorge's heart went right back to normal, he could breathe again! The doctor came in and said it was like he wasn't having a heart attack at all. I have never in my life witnessed anything like that.  As we left the hospital and headed home I felt extremely peaceful for the rest of the evening.

For MIRACLE #3 ..... back to Junior. Junior has been through all lessons a couple years ago.  He enjoyed going to church but continues to say he likes our message,  but he never felt right about being baptized. We had dinner with him on Friday and talked about so many things, and of course the gospel came up a few times.  I purposely didn't really teach a principle as I just wanted to know his feelings.  Saturday we taught Junior a little but then the Jorge thing happened and of course we had to stop teaching to go to the Hospital  We decided to go over on Sunday (yesterday) and Junior was anxious to hear a message ..... so we talked about prayer, the comfort we can receive from the Holy Ghost and the fruits of the spirit.  Right at that time I felt I should ask him how he felt and he said he wanted to write it down.  Of course I gave him a pen and paper and he wrote,"me voy a bauptizar"! Even I know what that means! "I am going to be baptized".   Junior is going to be baptized this Saturday! My first baptism But more importantly salvation and blessings to Junior. I have shed tears on my mission for many reasons, but last night my tears were for Junior because it was amazing! 

Sorry I don't have any funny stories to tell this week but I love you all and hope you each can find your own miracles during this New Year!

Love,

Hermana Atkinson

Missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Washington D.C. South Mission

Almost Christmas

Life is GREAT!!!!!

Just in case you are wondering what a Missionary does all day, my daily schedule is as follows:

Up by 6:20 AM, exercise, shower, breakfast,study alone, study with my companions, study language, lunch, then teaching, teaching, teaching, dinner, more teaching, planning for the next day and finally sleep( if we are lucky). This may seem like a lot, but it is really tons of fun. I LOVE IT OUT HERE!!!!!! 

Still no snow but I am praying for some before Christmas.

We had a very eventful week. We are teaching 2 new families. Both families came to church and the ward Christmas party. We were also able to go to the Temple and see the lights with one of the families. YES ... I will send pictures. Last Monday I went to go see the National Christmas Tree. YES ... I will also send pictures of that.

Spanish is slowly coming along. When members come up and tell me their problems, I can reply. I also can understand them. MIRACLES ARE HAPPENING! 

I went to my first Quinceanera this week. When a girl turns 15 in Hispanic culture, they believe this is the age that marks the transition from childhood to adulthood. They have a big party, organized dances and lots of cool traditions.... 

As far as food this week ...  we went to a sisters house, she is amazingly cool. I was extremely grateful for the whole chicken, plate of rice potatoes, salad and the fruit cake. I took it home, it was just enough for 3 or 4 meals. One of my companions decided to put some of her chicken in her pocket. She then asked if she could use the bathroom. She tried to flush the chicken down the toilet, but you can't flush chicken down the toilet. No more food in our pockets, lesson learned. One other thing, don't ever offer to make food for a Hispanic family. I made some French fries for a family. I told them if they made some quesadillas I would bring French Fries. I made my French Fries, put a ton of Chile Powder on them, they loved them. Now the Mother of the family just keeps saying, "You can get married, because you know how to cook"....... AWKWARD!

Oh, one more thing. The scary part of the week, I had to go to the hospital. We were at the Quinceanera and I had an allergic reaction to something. I was having a hard time breathing. The Mission President was called and off to the ER I went. I have to carry Benadryl and an inhaler with me. But everything is great. 

So yeah that was my week. I hope that you have a great week, a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Love,

Hermana Karlie Atkinson

Missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Washington D.C. South Mission

Mexican Jumping Beans

Mexican Jumping Beans!!!

Soooooo this week has been going great! I am finally starting to feel comfortable around people and I am beginning to talk to them in Spanish!. I am learning the language slowly, but surely. The learning curve is steep, but worth it.

Yesterday we had 8 investigators at church! We have one with a baptismal date and 6 that want to be baptized, but have to have permission from parents or are still progressing through the lessons. So that's awesome! We have one prospect that is 7 years old and he is determined to be baptized next month as soon as he turns 8.

We also had a very fruitful week proselyting,surely, as we met with 9 new investigators and it seems like everything is going great in our area. Being so new to this whole missionary thing, I seem to have this dreadful feeling that I am doing everything wrong! I feel that I need to learn so much and that I might say or do something that I shouldn't. But yeah, other then that I love it out here! It seems that almost all of our members and investigators are illegal immigrants, but hey, I just love them anyway. It seem that they are super hard workers and amazing people with fascinating stories ….. and by the way, it is super funny how many illegal immigrants work cleaning government officials offices!!

So yeah I know the title sounds really racist but it is kinda true for this week. We were invited to attend some of the churches of our investigators, and we think it is always a good idea to attend other churches since we ask so many to attend ours! So off we go on Sunday to another Church's worship service ….. and honestly it wasn't terrible, it was just different compared to what I am used to. There was a sermon which I don't understand much of because its all in Spanish ….. and you know how good my Spanish is …... There were a lot of AMENs in Spanish! They also love to sing and dance and are cheering to loud music ... needless to say it was a learning experience for me, and a fun one!

Other then that, food wise we had one appointment this week and I asked the members if we could have quesadillas ….. so that was good and I offered to make some fries, hoping that they would approve .... now remember they are from Mexico and they like everything hot, really HOT! This is the family feeds us every Thursday ..... so any way I put enough chili powder to kill a cat on these fries, and then I made a couple of batches that didn't have any chili powder for all the missionaries. I didn't want the members to think we were skipping the hot stuff, so I put paprika on our fries so they looked hot!! I give the members my really hot fries …. and they were all in tears! Then you look at all 5 Hermanas and we are all eating the fries just fine.... which would have been great had the members not put more fries on my plate! I thought I was going to die.... tears were shed...

But I love your logo... Nice design and mom is looking good! I am so happy I have the opportunity to be out here. I don't want you to think I don't but, it is hard.... Harder then then I ever thought it was going to be, but I know I can get through it. Sorry about my complaining.

So cool things I have noticed this week is that there is always joy. I Love being here around the holidays! Emotionally this week has been a roller coaster, but on the other hand I have seen miracles.I love seeing the smiles on people's faces and how people want to give to others around this time of year. Any way, thank you so much for all the pictures, I love them and I hope your week will be fantastic.

But other then that I had a great week this week, all in all, life is great....

Until next week,

Hermana Atkinson
Missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Washington D.C. South Mission

Thanksgiving and life in D.C.

Thanksgiving and life in D.C.

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was amazing! Mine was great, we did a lot of visiting different people and helping out with so many different things …... mostly cooking and cleaning. So many of the people here have so little that it is truly humbling to remember how much I am blessed with. I am starting to understand more Spanish which is cool and now I get to hear some crazy insane stories about how people got here and what they are thankful for. They have so little and they are thankful for so much. It makes me think …...

I hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving! An addition to my “things I have learned file”, if someone asks if you want more food at dinner, just say,” yes please” and they will give you a little bit more food, if you say “no” they just put a LOT more on your plate and say that, “she doesn't know what she needs!”.

I don't mean to be rude, but I have eaten at least 5 lbs of cilantro with cabbage and onions at every meal with a smile on my face, pretending it is the best salad EVER ... So, other then that I have had some really interesting food selections already. I have found out that purple potato salad isn't bad... not sure why it was purple though, and turkey and a lot of hot sauce taste better then turkey without hot sauce for some reason, but the grass hoppers taste better then the turkey? But the Turkey is definitely better than the nasty soup with pig skin in it and sometimes I am grateful when I don't get meal appointments because while I don't mind most of the food it gets old after a bit.

It is still a little hard to be myself because I cant joke in Spanish. This week I am planning a language fast for one day. That means I wont speak any English for a full day .... wish me luck.

Thanks for all the pictues! The puppies are growing so fast. I have a new slogan for your puppy website,”life is better with a Dane!”. I was telling someone why I liked our dogs and that is the only real reason I had. Soooooooo, life is great here! We were having dinner with some ward members the other night and this is a great family ….. they feed us every week. Anyway, the Father dared me (the GREENIE) to eat a whole pepper. I'm not really sure what kind of pepper this is, but I just thought “What the heck”, and that's right, I ate it, the whole thing! Well, much to my surprise and especially to everyone around me, It wasn't that hot! And after I am done eating this thing I am told it was suppose to be an insanely hot pepper.... But I liked it! I guess my taste buds didn't get the memo that the pepper was suppose to be hot or maybe I am starting to fit in better already.

So we are teaching a lesser active family and they have a beautiful little girl named Nichole. She is absolutely the cutest thing ever. Her dad calls us,The Hermanitas, so when we come in to her house she just runs around and yells mis hermanitas mis hermanitas, then she runs and gives us hugs. When we sit down she always sits by me and asks if I have any stickers, she is adorable! All in all, I am better friends with the kids then with the adults because I have MANY stickers to share with them. So advice for others who are on missions or going on missions, ALWAYS HAVE STICKERS! I think if you get to know the kids, well the parents have to talk to you!

I bore my testimony in Spanish this Sunday because I had this great idea that if we all went up and bore our testimonies about our missions that maybe it would get the ward excited to help with missionary work. Out of the 9 missionaries in this ward, 3 of us went up and talked, My hands were shaking and my voice was cracking and I thought I said everything right. After the meeting a member here that went on his mission to Ecuador came up to me and offered to give me Spanish lessons ..... sooooooo I guess it wasn't as good as I thought. Oh well, I will learn more each and everyday. Until next week.

Hermana Atkinson
Missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Washington D.C. South Mission