Thank goodness for Trains and Vinyl records...

Buenos Dias Amazing Family and Friends!!! ¿Cómo están?

My Mexican Blanket

This was a good week. It started to warm up just a little, we worked really hard, and we are missionaries serving in Chicago so that just makes it good! It was a little tough because all of our appointments canceled, for various reasons, but that is OK because it gave us plenty of time to go finding, tracting, and contacting!

Monday we spent the rest of P-Day at 26th Street. We ate at a little place called El Pollo Feliz and then spent a lot of time at the discount mall, shopping. :-) The discount mall is this huge building that just has hundreds of little shops inside. I found some neat things. I got a couple of soccer jerseys, Mexico of course, and a Mexican blanket. Everyone is pretty nice and we did get some discounts because they recognized us as missionaries and because we spoke Spanish. That night we were supposed to have an appointment with one of our investigators, at the Church and then they could attend the baptism that the Elders were having. She never showed up unfortunately. We went to

One of the Soccer Jerseys
I picked up from the
26th Street Discount Mall

the baptism and it was so great! It was so exciting to watch someone that I have seen the Elders working with since the beginning get baptized. I played the piano for the service. I didn't do a very good job at all. I definitely regret all of those years of piano lessons and not practicing or trying at all! I wish I could just play the piano! Oh well! The great thing about the baptism is that one of our other investigators, who is amazing and who is so ready, was able to come to it!!! We were so excited, we were beaming! It was actually a miracle that he made it on time. When we had invited him a few days previously he wasn't sure if he would make it on time. He said the earliest he could be there would be about 7:30. The baptism was supposed to start at 7:00. But, knowing Hispanics + being Mormon = a lot lot later than scheduled, we told him to try anyways. Miracle of miracles, that night about 6:55 a train went through. The church building is literally right next to the tracks and so this prevented a lot of people from being able to get to the Church, including the person being baptized, for about 10 minutes.  The train finally finished passing by and a few people were able to get through. It looked like our investigator might not make it, but then a second train came through! Because of this second train and needing time for the investigator getting baptized to get ready, the service started really late and our investigator was able to walk in just a few minutes before the actual ordinance! Hermana Black and I were sooooooooo happy! He seemed to really like it and we hope it helps him a lot!

Tuesday was a finding day. We walked a lot, which I love doing, and looked for former investigators and less actives. It was a really nice day and I just enjoyed walking so much, it just feels so missionary-ish and it is great! Our landlord was also able to come fix our sink for us. It stopped draining, which is just a small problem! We had tried Drano and stuff like that but nothing worked. Our landlord only speaks Spanish so it was interesting trying to tell him what we needed help with and then to work with him, but it all worked out and got fixed so we are happy! That night we had our Noche at member's house and it was good. We learned about repentance and then had good Mexican food so it was a great end to the day.

Wednesday we had a surprise 3 hour lesson with one of our new investigators. We hadn't been able to see her for several weeks and so we stopped by trying to find her. She was home and let us in. It was very obvious that she just needed to talk so we just sat and listened. All we had to say was the occasional "sí" or "verdad" or "que bueno hermana!" and she talked for almost 3 hours! We were able to share a scripture, Ether 12:6, about faith and we talked about that for a while too. She has so much faith and now we just need to work with her on developing that faith in the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ! The rest of the day we spent working on finding potential investigators, people that were found previously that said they might have interest in learning more about the Gospel.

Thursday was Zone Conference! It was sooooo good! President Woodbury talked to us about

Our prize from Zone Conference, a MoTab vinyl record!

doing at least 5 hours of service a week, specifically directed towards members. He gave us some ideas of how to get these opportunities because it can be really hard for members to let us serve them, especially being sister missionaries with Hispanics.  He also talked a lot about the Atonement. He used something that I thought was really neat and I had never thought this way before. We read The Atonement section in the Plan of Salvation lesson together and as we were reading he had us think of it as if we were reading it through 2 different lenses. One lense is as the world would read it and the other is how we understand it having the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. It really hit me how blessed we are because of the understanding we have of the depth and breadth and beauty of the Atonement. Most people don't have the peace that knowledge can bring and that made me want to share this Gospel even more! In our breakout session as a Zone we talked about turning potential new investigators into new investigators. Hermana Black and I also got a special prize because we had been the fastest number reporting companionship in the Zone last transfer. It is an actual factual Mormon Tabernacle Choir RECORD that Elder Crawford found here in Chicago in a thrift store, it is super neat! We also had a really neat testimony meeting about the Book of Mormon that was very powerful. I love these meetings so much because they are so uplifting and recharge my batteries and make me want to go out and be better and work harder.

Because we had Zone Conference the day before, Friday was our weekly planning day. It actually took most of the day just because we had a lot to plan and make goals for. It was a long planning session but we got a lot done and I think it will really help us make this next week a really good week.

Saturday was another big walking and finding day. We also had MCM, our missionary correlation meeting with the Ward Mission Leader. It went well. He really is working hard to get the whole ward going on missionary work, both finding and teaching new people and working on reactivating which is so important.

We had a good Sunday. Church was good. One of the members brought a friend to Church who just happens to be in our area and wants to learn more about the Gospel so we picked up a new investigator! That is always really exciting. We did our studies and I finished the Book of Mormon! I had such an amazing experience taking President Woodbury's challenge and highlighting all of the references to Christ and the Atonement. The word really did become sweet unto me and I learned and had so many things stick out at me that help me in exactly the places I need right now. I am excited now to start it again and take even more time to study more in depth and slowly so I can truly learn and apply the things that I read. We also went to the house of a recent convert because it was her daughter's birthday. We took her some presents because her family doesn't have much. She really appreciated them and it was so neat to see how happy she was.


It was a good week. I tried to work a lot on being a harder worker and also talking and contacting more to people. It is just so hard for me, but I am getting better. "Poco a poco"! Spanish is coming along, I understand so much and am able to speak well enough to get my point across, most of the time :-). Hermana Black and I are getting along really well too. Thank you so much for all of your love, prayers, and constant support! I love you all so much and hope you have an amazing week!

Hermana Allyse