@Michael_Granberry my first question is this. Are you trying to just use Realm as a local object data base, or use Realm as synced data base that is connected to a shared Atlas cluster? In the first case, you would be using Realm to cache data locally for your application. In the second case, you would be using Realm to sync data with other devices running the same application but sharing a common set of data stored on the server.
I may have just assumed that you were working on the second scenario. If this is the case, you must first create a RealmApp object, you must then authenticate the user, and lastly you must issue a Realm.asyncOpen call with a user configuration to actually prep a Realm for downloading data from the server. Once you have completed these tasks, you then set up a query on the realm along with a notification call back.
I have detailed how to do this in a Medium article that I wrote a few weeks back. There is some open source code in a Github repo that you are free to download.
Richard Krueger