Surprise Visitors, Exchanges with my trainer, Successful Branch Noche

Surprise Visitors from Utah

My home ward Bishop and Sister Sardoni

AMAZING Family + Friends! Hermana Pearson and I have had a wonderful week here in Indiana! We are getting a long really well, working hard, and serving The Lord. It doesn't get any better than this! :-)

Last Monday for P-Day we emailed our families and did our grocery shopping.  We splurged for lunch and at at Chick-Fil-A.  I really enjoy the Mexican food that the wonderful people here feed us, but sometimes it is good to have something else.  We had to stop by the mall and do a little shopping.  I needed to get a new pair of winter boots for this coming winter, as the ones that I had last winter I totally wore out!  That evening as we were back at work we headed out to a branch member's home.  The hermana made us some really good, spicy, enchiladas and we enjoyed being with her and her family. Her husband shared a little Noche de Hogar with us and the family.

A new pair of winter boots I purchased because I wore
the soles off of my other pair last winter in Midway

Tuesday we had some good studies and made up our little game for teaching a couple of our investigator families about the Word of Wisdom. We stopped by one of our investigator's and just talked with her for a couple minutes. She still isn't feeling really well so we told her we were praying for her. After talking with her, we went to our appointment with the one of the families that we had made the game for. But before we could even knock, one of the girls came out and told us that her mom said she didn't have time right now because their grandpa was over and he was drunk and they didn't want to make him upset. She told us we could come back tomorrow. So since we couldn't see them we decided to go see another investigator to give her an invitation to the Noche de Hogar on Friday. This is were we have a super awkward story. We get to her house, pray as a companionship, and are walking up to her doorstep when we see some JW's also getting out of their car. Nothing too unusual because there are a lot of them around. We knock on her door and waited when the JW's come up to her house and wait on the doorstep with us! Her son opened the door and we asked if his mom was home and he said yes and that we could talk to her. He told us we could come in so we walked inside but the JW's just moved up on the doorstep. I didn't want to be rude and shut the door in their face so I just left the door partway open and they just continued standing there! The lady JW asked me if the lady of the house was there and I told her I thought so. As we were waiting for her, her son asked me to close the door. So I went to the door, told the the JW's I was going to close it because they asked me to, and then shut the door in the JW's face! I felt kind of bad. After I shut the door, the house phone started ringing and we looked outside and they were calling our investigator from the front porch! At that point, she came out and talked to us for a minute before explaining that she had other people coming over that she had an appointment with. Yep, our investigator is meeting with us and the JW's! #exasperatedface She went and opened the door again and tried to call the JW's in, but they had retreated to their car and told her they would wait. So we shared our little invitation to the Noche de Hogar with her and then got out of there. I was so bummed because she has so much potential.  Hopefully she will feel and experience the Spirit when we are in her home. We went and picked up a member hermana for our appointment with the other investigator family we had lined up to teach today. It went really well. They had Little Caesar's pizza for us, along with some really good Italian bread sticks.  We were able to teach them about the Word of Wisdom and play the little game that we had made. After our lesson with them, we took the member hermana home and then headed home ourselves to make a Tres Leches for our District Lunch tomorrow.

Wednesday we drove to the District Meeting. But this time, for the first time in nearly 5 months, I was not the one to drive the car! Hermana Pearson felt ready to drive and so she drove all of today. It was the weirdest feeling to me because I have been doing all of the driving straight for 5 months! We had car inspections which went well. We had a good District Meeting where we learned about good finding ideas and also got to use our coloring skills to color a page as we talked about the blueprint of Christ's original Church. After that we had our District Lunch which was really awesome because we had a barbecue. A less active member had given our Elders a barbecue grill so they brought it in their car and grilled us some really good hot dogs and some of the most amazing burgers I have ever had, so good! Everyone really loved the tres leches, so I was happy. We then headed back to our area, stopping to do some Facebook contacting. We were able to go and teach the family about the Word of Wisdom that we had re-scheduled from yesterday. It went pretty well. They told us that they do drink a little bit of coffee and tea but that they will do their best to give those up and follow the Word of Wisdom. We played our little game of where we have pictures of what we can and can't eat and they have to be the first one to hit yes or no, with them and they really liked it. After that lesson we met up with a branch couple so that they could come with us to some appointments.  We stopped at one investigator's home for our first appointment but she had a ton of family over wasn't able to meet with her. We went to our next two appointments and neither was home.  We tried some backup plans without much luck. We even tried calling another hermana investigator that we didn't have plans with to see if we could meet with him but he wasn't going to get home until 8:30. After striking out there, we decided it would be really good to try and see this certain family and invite them to the Noche, especially because we had the members with us and they get along really well. We drove to their house and saw the hermano just getting home. We knocked on their open door 15 seconds after we saw him walk inside. We knocked 4 times and called inside several times, but no one would come. I was absolutely heartbroken because that absolutely sealed the deal that they don't want anything to do with us anymore :-( I think that the member couple that we had with us felt bad for us after that so they offered to take us to Burger King for dinner.

Thursday I really enjoyed personal study because it was a really nice day outside and so we sat out on our little piece of concrete in the sun and air, studying. We had lunch with a less active hermana. We had some really good food with her and also talked a lot with her. At MCM that night we were able to plan with the branch mission leader for the Noche de Hogar tomorrow and discuss all of the people that we are working with. They also fed us dinner and then the STL's got there for us to go on exchanges. Hermana Pearson was able to go back up to Midway with Hermana Kinghorn and Hermana Toney came with me! It was really fun and kind of crazy to be with Hermana Toney again (she was my trainer, my first companion in Chicago)! We drove home and just talked and talked, getting all caught up with each other.

Hermana Toney and I back together again (for a few hours)

Hermana's Pearson, Kinghorn, Meanea & Toney on exchanges

Friday after personal study we actually drove to Valpo for the chiropractor because Hermana Toney told me how much she had been needing one and how messed up her back and shoulders were. The member chiropractor was able to fix her right up. We did some proselyting on Facebook and then went and taught a hermana that we have been teaching for a few weeks now. We read in 3 Nephi 11 with her and she seemed to understand it pretty well. The only problem is that there were wasps all over the place so Hermana Toney worked on keeping them away from us while I read to the hermana. After that we went to the Church to get set up for the Noche de Hogar. Our activity went really well, we had food and watched 17 Miracles. There were quite a few people there and through a lot of phone calls and arrangements, a hermano that we have been teaching came and even brought his nephew who is visiting from Mexico! I think everyone enjoyed it. At the end I got up and spoke for a couple of minutes tying in what we had seen in the movie to our lives, all in Spanish without anything written down or any preparation! It was really neat to just hear the Spanish come out of my mouth through the Spirit. Hermana Pearson and Hermana Kinghorn got there just as the activity was ending. We had to push back the exchange time because the Hermanas had been able to get an appointment with the family back in Midway that Hermana Pearson had been teaching with her recent convert so that she could see them all again. It was so fun to be with Hermana Toney again, one last time before she goes home at the end of this transfer.

Saturday ended up being mostly our weekly planning day. It went pretty smoothly. The big prayer that I said took about 20 minutes and then we were able to plan pretty well for everyone. We drove to Chicago Heights for our lesson with the hermana who had come to the Noche last night but he called and asked if we could come by an hour later, unfortunately we were already halfway to Chicago Heights so we just continued on and sat at McDonald's and worked on weekly planning some more. We then went to the hermano's house but he wasn't home and called to let us know he was going to be a little late. There wasn't going to be any women at home plus we needed enough time for our next appointment so we just had to reschedule with him. We went to see a less active hermana at her store. She fed us some super good food. We were able to help the hermana with some service, being of service is always wonderful.

Hermana Pearson and I with Spencer Sardoni
(he is a legend around these parts as a former missionary)

The formerly famous (not infamous) Elder Sardoni
sharing great council for the final 6 months of my mission.

Sunday we had a meeting at 9:00 with our branch president and President Cabrera of the mission presidency. It was a really good meeting where we talked about working better with the members and getting them excited about missionary work. A less active family that we have been working with came to Church but no one else that we are working with came :-( A hermana from the English ward that meets in the same building came and pulled us out of our combined Relief Society and Priesthood lesson. We walked out the door and standing there, beaming at me, were two people. I was so stunned that it took me a second to realize it was Bishop and Sister Sardoni (my home ward Bishop and his wife)! I couldn't believe it! It was completely surreal to see them there in Indiana. I feel like I have two lives, my mission life and my former normal person life. To see someone from my "former life" was super crazy but really neat. Sister Sardoni and I hugged a lot, Bishop tried to hug me to but I told him I couldn't. Spencer (Bishop's son who served his mission in the same mission as I am in, and has been home for just over a year now) was also there.  It was really good to see him and meet his new wife, she is really nice and was taking pictures of us the whole time. They texted pictures to my Mom and Dad of me with the Sardoni's that they had taken with their cell phone. We were able to talk for a few minutes and then it was time for them to leave and me to continue my work. It was so crazy to hear that after Ronnie Passey gets home next month, I am the next missionary to come home! It was so weird to say, "See you in 6 months!" to them as they left. It was so nice to hear them tell me that they loved me, that I was doing an amazing job, and that they are proud of me. Spencer told me to just tear it up and that is what I intend on doing! After Church we drove to Chicago Heights and spent the rest of the day trying to contact and meet with people.

P-Day Selfie

Wow! I love you all so much! Time really is starting to fly and it is pretty crazy! I cannot thank you all enough for everything that you do for me! I hope that you all have a great week! Remember that I love you and more importantly that God loves you!

Eternal Love,

Hermana Allyse Meanea