A 20 lb. Torta + Week Long Snowstorm + Crashing a Wedding = January 6, 2014 Email!

Side note from John... Today the high temperature for Chicago was a Negative 14 degrees.  With the wind chill figured in, it would actually feel like a negative 43 degrees!  Baby it is cold out there in Chicago!!!

Now on to her letter....... John

Four Hermanas taking on downtown Chicago

From: Allyse Meanea
Date: Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 11:05 AM

Hello Family & Friends! Happy New Year! It is 2014! This has been a pretty good, COLD, snowy week!

On Monday (last P-day) we got some shopping done and then had our Noche de Hogar (FHE). Everyone bore testimony of how their year had been and their goals for next year. I talked about how it had been a year of BIG changes and how I had made the goal to be a more consecrated missionary to the Lord. They gave Hermana Toney and I a gift. They had made us hats and scarves, it was so neat!

The next day we had a New Missionary Training Meeting. It is a meeting where all of the missionaries who have been out less than 12 weeks, and their companions, receive training. This time only half of the mission, about 100 missionaries, was involved vs 3/4 of the whole mission for the same meeting last transfer! I drove us up to the meeting (across the city). We had to leave kind of early and we drove into downtown as the sun was coming up across the lake and shining on the buildings, it was so incredibly beautiful!  The meeting was amazing! The theme was on being a consecrated missionary and I am definitely going to work laying my fear on the "altar of sacrifice" to the Lord. We then drove home. It took almost three hours! The snow was bad, the roads were bad, and we went between 5-10 mph the whole time. Back at home driving in Cedar on snow packed roads was hard enough for me. But truly a blessing from the Lord out here is that I no longer freak out driving. I actually enjoyed it and we were able to be safe.

The Missionary Skit...
Those are our ZL. It was so funny!

Our Ward knows how to throw a party!

We drove straight to the chapel and made it there about 5:45 pm, 15 minutes before the big ward New Year's Eve party was supposed to start. Of course, when you combine Mormon Standard Time and Mexicans, no one was there yet, including those in charge. We waited for quite a while, not too concerned because that was typical. Finally, after a side trip to McDonald's for fries and smoothies, people started to show up and the party got underway. It was so fun! There were games for the kids and they had a little dinner so the missionaries could eat before they had to leave. We had some investigators attend as well. The big dinner wasn't until later which is tradition. Us missionaries did
really funny skit too. It was a great night, we even had some investigators attend as well. . As we were leaving the New Years party, the ward gave each missionary companionship a present. They gave us each a HUGE 20 lb. Torta (sandwich)!!!

Hermana Toney and I with our 20 lb Torta!!!

Our ward's New Year's Eve Party

Wednesday was a little dull after such a crazy Tuesday! We had District Meeting which was good. We learned about setting goals, go figure :) We also found out our DL was getting transferred that night to be a ZL up north, so that was a little sad. One of the Elders in our Zone gave everyone Rosca. It is a Mexican tradition for New Year's. It is the pastry that has little plastic baby Jesus' baked into it. Everyone takes a piece and whoever gets the baby Jesus has to host the party the next year. We then went home and did weekly planning the rest of the day. because we were supposed to be getting a mini missionary the next day and didn't want them to have to sit through an entire day of weekly planning. We did go over to a member's house because they invited us to have Pozole for New Year's.

The snow that had fallen from Tuesday - Friday.
 It continued snowing the rest of the weekend
 so you can imagine now!

Thursday we were supposed to go and pick up our mini missionary. Mini Missionaries is a neat program they do in the mission. Youth are able to spend four days and three nights being a missionary with the full time missionaries over the Christmas break. Unfortunately our Mini Missionary canceled at the last minute, so we didn't get one. The rest of the week we spent walking and on buses because the other Hermanas had a mini missionary and we thought one of the seat belts in the car was broken so we couldn't ride anywhere with them. That day we had a lesson with one of our investigators. We talked about the 10 Commandments and it went really well. We then finished the night with weekly planning.

Friday was a VERY cold day! It was the one day this entire week that it wasn't snowing. Which, of course, meant it was super cold! We went walking and taking buses everywhere, but, no one was home or would answer. We finally got into one recent convert home and shared a message. By that point we were so cold we went home and had dinner and worked on converting our area book to the iPad.

Saturday was our "Menos Activos" day.We were able to find someone who even Hermana Toney hadn't met yet (Sister Toney has been in this area for almost 8 full months now). She was super nice and we found out she isn't even really less active because she is just gone to Mexico so much, and her husband was even a bishop there. We then rode buses to the church. There was a baptism that night for a 8 year old girl. I played the piano for part of the baptismal service.  After the baptism there was a wedding reception going on in the church for the daughter of the Stake Patriarch. They invited all of the missionaries to stop by the reception to eat (they know that missionaries will take free food whenever they can get it :). So we ate dinner at a wedding reception, it was great!

A COLD Chicago Sunset from our apartment window!
Even though I miss the mountains,
the sunsets here are amazing!

Sunday we got up and got ready to leave because our ward block meetings changed to 9:00 am. Back at home it would have been really hard to get up so early. But out here because you are up at the same time every morning no matter what, it wasn't too difficult. We left the apartment at 8:00 and waited for 45 minutes for the first bus we need to catch, in the snow and wind. It was great because everyone was looking at us like we were crazy and this one random guy tried to pick us up three times! We were then waiting for the second bus we needed to catch for a long time as well. Finally, some members on their way to church saw us and pulled over and gave us a ride to Church. It took us and hour and a half to get to church, we were 20 minutes late :) The meetings were good but of course not too many were there. The storms were so bad (another ward canceled their services) and it was early (especially for Mexicans). But testimony meeting was great. Everyone was talking about how amazing missionaries are and how the ward members need to support us. We then went home and did our studies and worked on our area book.

Today is COLD! Everyone has been talking about it. They told us to fill up our gas tanks last Saturday because if we didn't' the gasoline would freeze in the car today! Last night the Assistants texted and told us not to leave our apartments unless we had an appointment and a car! So yeah, it is cold! How exciting and what I experience! Life in Chicago as a missionary, I love it!

Thank you so much to everyone for everything that you do! This is not just work for missionaries. It is the work of the Lord and everyone plays a part! Have a wonderful week and remember how much I love you all! Be strong and safe!

Hermana Allyse Meanea