> Subject: Re: > From: robertatwood@myldsmail.net> To: telliehike@hotmail.com> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:05:42 +0000>

> hey mom, >

how is everything going for you. well i am going to re-read your letter and try to answer all thy many questions one by one. my week was really good it was really short, shorter than normal. i think it is because my comp and i have been trying extremely hard at being exactly obedient. like we try not to let one rule pass us by. like waking up and moving right at 6:30. and planning the full 30 minutes and doing our studies the best we can. it has made the difference in our week that is so incomprehensible. i think that is how you spell it. the past few weeks we weren´t as obedient as we should be. then i realized that we weren´t being obedient and it was like a smack in my face. i said to myself it is really easy to fall in this rut of disobedience if you let little rules slide by. in this few weeks, we had success, but we didn´t have all the success that we should of been having. we just had average in our numbers and you know me, i just always want to succeed in what ever i do. i looked at that as a booster. we started being obedient and we just found so much more people to teach and when we would teach we taught with conviction. i could tell they felt the spirit when we taught because i felt it. if it was a changing point in their lives it was a changing point in mine. i realized for myself once again that it may seem easier to take these shortcuts and do stuff the easy way and slack off a bit, but actually we aren´t happier when we do this. the only way that we can be truly happy is when we do the things how the lord wants us to do it. not how we want to. It will always be better the Lord´s way 100% of the time. i don´t have any doubt about that. I just feel like we have the spirit all the time now and like i never feel depressed. it just makes missionary work so much easier when you have all the blessings of the spirit. well next question. i sent two different ones to kim so you can invite her over and come and look at hers and yours. wow, mom you have no idea how fast my mission is going. sometimes it feels like i have been a missionary forever, but at the same time it feels like these six months have gone by in just a matter of weeks. i wont get depressed about how fast the time has gone until i have six more months left in the mission, so i will be o.k. for about a year. but after that who knows how i will feel. this just reminds me again that i don´t have anytime to lose. i need to work hard when i need to work and i need to do all i can to prepare and teach these people so that they can have eternal life with God. Their eternal salvation lies in my hands and i can´t let them down. yea i have lost a little bit more weight. but i think the fat is just going to my belly. i hate these good tortillas here. i swear they eat tortillas with everything. the new pants that i had bought were pretty tight when i bought them and now they are starting to get looser. oh and daisy is the dog of zayra(oh and she made a huge comeback. she is getting baptized next week hopefully) oh and with the santa thing i used about two huge pillows and i used a whole bunch of different clothing. it was so hot trying to be santa. i am not too sure who baptized the little santos girl. the problem is that she is afraid of water and i am not sure if she feels comfortable with anyone else. and with ricardo, he hasn´t got baptized yet because he is still out of town, but he is still planning on getting baptized. and the cool thing about that too is that his parents are going to get baptized. oh and so much more people that elder rincon and i found are getting baptized. elder rincon said that it is all thanks to me, but i am not sure about that. he said that his new comp. is really lazy, so he said these baptisms are more yours than his. i don´t really care about the numbers, but i sure am happy that i am seeing fruits of our labor. and that people are opening the door to the way of God so that they can be blessed forever and ever. well mom i think i felt your hug all the way down here because i had a dream you hugged me the other day. oh the guy that we fasted for has a baptismal date for next sunday, but he still isn´t sure if he wants to get baptized yet, but he does like the church a lot and feels it is true, but he just needs to take a few things out of his life first like the things with the word of wisdom. but i am sure that he will get baptized and all next transfer. the other family is doing great. they are still all having a hard time getting to the church and all but they are all pistols. they always remember what we teach and say every time we come over there is such a peaceful presence and when we leave they feel it leave too. i taught them that that was the spirit trying to tell you that you can have this in your home all the time if you are baptized. it is so amazing to have the ability to have the spirit to be with you always. well i have had some other cool experiences this week that i need to tell you also. this week i have been being more obedient and more prepared like i told you before. this past saturday i had divisions with a 14 year old boy and he was so nervous. it was funny because he looked like he was going to pass out when i knocked the first door. but after about 10 doors he got used to it and then i knocked a door that i should have never knocked. i swear it was the wicked witch of the west. she opened the door and said i don´t want to anything with you guys you can basically die for all i care, i don´t ever want to hear about joe smith or your stupid religion i am telling you once and pointed to me i already told you twice and if you annoy me again i will call the police. then i got mad at her and i said calm down i knock doors all day and i can´t remember them all. if you don´t want to listen just tell me no and i will respect that. i have never done anything to you. then we left and i was like i need to have a lesson in this street. i feel that we are going to have a lesson in this street. then i took out a pamphlet of the restoration and then i said we are going to give this to someone in this street. then i knocked two more doors and a lady came out and she seemed so excited to hear this message and i let the 14 year old boy explain the pamphlet and you could see his heart beating through his shirt. then after that i explain fully about the restoration. it felt really good and she seems like a golden investigator and we have an appointment with her in a few days so i will see how it goes in a few days. then we went to lunch and then after lunch we had a few appointments and then an appointment fell through so we had time to knock some more doors. we only had about an hour left until the divisions were over so the first door we knocked i knocked the door of a father of the catholic church and he didn´t let us know that he was a father until we got halfway through our lesson. but when he let us know he was a father he tried all he could to prove us wrong and i was like oh no what am i going to do. my comp doesn´t know that much. then for some reason i knew exactly where all the scriptures i needed to use were in the bible. and i swear if i had not prepared this guy would have smashed me. but i ended up leaving that guy wondering about his religion. he told me that he knew everything about our religion, but he got almost all of his information from a church website. then i quizzed him about our religion to show him he knew nothing and then i told him that if he didn´t get his message from a website of our church, the information probably isn´t correct and you need to look at the information on that. but in the end we respected each other and gave one another a blessing the way that we do it. and then he said if i pass by i can knock his door again and chat and i was like yea, i will because i will have my comp who knows a lot more than me. but i am not here to prove him wrong, just here to show him the truth and he can accept it if he wants. well mom i love you so much and i hope that you enjoy this extremely long letter. i love you>

love,> elder robert atwood