Allyse on a Mission: 1st Letter from the Mission Field!

Hi Family & Friends!

I am here, in Chicago, in the US, and it is awesome!!!! I have so much to say but not a ton of time! So here is a breakdown of the days since my last P-day in the Mexico City CCM...

10/25/13 (Friday) - We had infield orientation where we learned about finding, teaching, working with members, and planning and goal setting.

10/26/13 (Saturday) - Our last work day in the CCM was good, really hard to concentrate though :)

10/27/13 (Sunday) - Today was our last Sunday in the CCM. In Relief Society we studied President McConkie's talk on teaching from the last general conference, it was soo good. We had Sacrament Meeting and Elder Allen, head of the missionary department was there! He conducted a little focus group with my Zone and then gave our fireside tonight. We watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration and it was incredible. I didn't remember it from before but it really touched my heart and I felt the testimony of the Restoration and of Joseph Smith.

10/28/13 (Monday) - After two hours of sleep, we got up, got ready and packed, and got on the bus for the airport!!! Finally I got my bags checked and we got through security and I was able to call home! You all know about my contacting experience with the Spanish family I met on the flight from Mexico City to Dallas. The plane to Chicago was good and when we got to baggage claim there was our Sister Training leaders, APs and President Woodbury and Sister Woodbury there to greet us. They are all soo nice! There was a group coming in from the Provo MTC at the same time. That group from Provo (English Speaking Missionaries) immediately got on the train and went contacting in "The Loop" in Chicago while us "Mexicans" as President Woodbury calls us went to the Temple for photos and then the Mission Home to start interviews with President. The Fall colors here are so incredible! It is the perfect time right now, I am so glad I didn't miss them! My interview with President Woodbury was good, he just got to know me and welcomed me here. Sister Woodbury then took us to see the Bahai temple and then Lake Michigan. Then, we had Chicago Deep Dish Pizza, the real deal from Illuminades(?). It was soooooooo good!!! Hna. Woolf and I then spent the night in the home of some members in a house that was built in the 1920's, it was so neat!

10/29/13 (Tuesday) - We had some training and got a lot of information then it was time for the transfer meeting. My companion in Hermana Toney and we work in the Midway Central Area of Chicago. She is so nice and such an amazing trainer! She is from Lehi, Utah and has been out 7 months. Then, we got in our car with another companionship of Hermanas we share the car with and traveled through Chicago towards our areas. We stopped at Walmart so we could do a little food shopping and it was so weird doing it completely for just me! We then went to our apartment and it is so fun, I love it! I unpacked a little and then we had a Noche de Hogar (FHE) with the T. Family. We read the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 19 & 20, and they had me pray. Then we had dinner, Pasole soup. It was such a fun thing.

10/30/13 - (Wednesday, first full day as a missionary in the field) You just go. No easing into it or anything, you just go to work! We had all of our studies. We do this great thing where we get up at 6:30 and exercise for 30 minutes. Then, I have an hour to get ready while Hna. Toney has Personal Study and then we switch. This way we have plenty of time and aren't waiting on each other. Then we have 2 hours of companionship study because we are training. Then an hour for language study. Next we did Facebook which was so weird! (The Illinois Chicago Mission is one of the early adopters of using Facebook to contact people to teach). We had a lunch appointment with Hna. R.. She is a very sweet, 90 year old, very deaf. We had amazing food and she just wanted us to eat more and more, I think I had 20 tortillas! We shared a scripture with Hna. R. and left. We contacted a referral and set up an appointment. We were able to go an visit two "lost sheep". Lost sheep are investigators that we have lost contact with. We set up return appointments with both. One of them dropped off of our map because her father in law was kidnapped in Mexico and is being held for ransom. So the family has been working really hard to get money to pay the ransom to find out if he is still alive and will be released. Ummm, yeah, wow! Hna. Toney acted like the was pretty normal but I was flabbergasted! We shared a scripture and then were getting read to go and she asked if we could read more! It was great!

10/31/13 - (Thursday) Happy Halloween! Today I dressed up as a Sister Missionary :) We had lunch with Hna. I. today. She is Cuban and we had the most amazing food! It was sooooo good! Hna. Toney's mom had arranged for a candy basket with Halloween balloons to be delivered so we went back to the apartment and got that. Then we had Facebook contacting. We went to see Hna. E. and her girls, who are recent converts. We saw the girl's Halloween costumes. Next we went to a Panaderia and got cookies and brownies to have while we were in the apartment tonight doing weekly planning. We had to be in by 7:00pm because tonight is a night for other people to go around knocking on doors :)

11/1/13 - (Friday) Today was Zone Conference. It was wonderful! It was with Elder James B. Martino (http://www.lds.org/church/leader/james-b-martino) and I learned a lot of great stuff about working with members and working with our might and mind. He used the story of Alma and Amulek to illustrate the importance of having the right Amulek for our investigators. After ZC we went and saw Hna. M, a less active, and she agreed to come to Church and bring two of her sons.

11/2/13 - (Saturday) In the middle of studies we found out our MCM, Missionary Correlation Meeting, with the Ward Mission Leader was changed to 10:30 am, in half an hour! So we went to that and discussed what we had done this past week. We then had an appointment with Hna. M where we taught the Plan of Salvation part 1. I would introduce each topic simply and then Hna. Toney went into more detail. It went pretty good!

11/3/13 - (Sunday) We studied this morning and then had Church at 1 pm. Relief Society was first. It was good but I didn't understand a lot (the Chicago Midway Ward that I serve in is a full Spanish Ward, so all of the church services are in Spanish). Then we went to Gospel Principles and learned about the Law of Chastity, I understood a good bit. Then we had Sacrament Meeting. I bore my testimony in Spanish and it went really well. Hna M. came to church with her two sons and they all liked it a lot! We spent the evening trying to contact some less actives but either no one was home or their gates were locked.

I love you all so incredibly much! Thank you for your love and support and prayers!

Yo se que este Evangelio es la uniquia manera podemos volver a Dios y vivir con felicidad. Nosotros somos hijos de Dios y El tiene que much amor para nosotros. Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y puede nos ayuda con todas cosas!

Hermana Allyse Meanea

Editor's Note - As this is a public blog, and to protect the privacy of those people with whom Hermana Meanea works with in Chicago, individual names that Hermana Meanea writes about will be replaced with initials.