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| Just me, Hermana Meanea |
Hola Amazing Family and Friends! It has been a grand week here in Chicago. It has actually reminded me a lot of home in Utah this week because it was beautiful and gorgeous one day and snowing the next! It was a great little piece of home!
On Monday night we had a great Noche with a wonderful member family. On Tuesday we spent a lot of time looking for former investigators to see if they had interest to continue learning about the Gospel. No one really did but we did have a good Noche that night with another member family. We had a lesson about the Atonement and it was great.
Wednesday was a really good day. We had a pretty intense District Meeting. We just got a new District Leader, Elder Perez. We spent all of the meeting making goals for the District. I have to admit, they are some insane goals! They are completely possible but will make all of us stretch and work like never before. We also all felt like we were being called to repentance, which is really good because he did it in a good way that just makes all of us want to be better and work harder. We then went on Exchanges with Hermana Whitney and Hermana Jones. I went to their area with Hermana Whitney and we had a great time. We did a lot of walking and looking for different people. We knocked some apartment buildings we found unlocked and got a couple of pretty solid potentials. I had a great time and learned a lot from Hermana Whitney!
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| Hermana Black and myself ready for another day of sharing the good news of the Gospel. |
On Thursday we finished up Exchanges by having studies and then exchanged back. While I was gone Hermana Black was finally able to teach one of our promising investigators, so that was super exciting! Thursday was a roller-coaster of emotions because we finally found out how they were changing area borders to accommodate the new set of Hermanas in the ward (that will now make 10 missionaries assigned to our ward) . They cut our area off at along a main road right through a large portion of our area, that is a huge chunk we just lost! Hermana Black and I were heartbroken because one of our amazing investigators lives on the wrong side of that road! We also lost two of our less-actives that we LOVE working with. It was so sad! We were on our way to our final appointment with that amazing investigator when we got a phone call from the Hermanas saying that they had talked with the Zone Leaders and the ZL's said that we could keep teaching him!!! We were soooooo excited! It was a great lesson with him. We read in the Book of Mormon and he understood and applied it to his life so well! He also said that he finally found someone he can trust to work on Sundays so that he can go to Church! He will be able to go in 2 weeks! The rest of Thursday we spent Weekly Planning.
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| It was warm enough to open our windows! |
Friday was a gorgeous, warm, sunny day! It was so warm (about 35 degrees) that we went out without our coats because it was too warm to wear them! It was a great day! We did some more weekly planning and then went to a lesson with one of our newer investigators. It was a really fun lesson. She is such a fun and interesting lady. We read in the Book of Mormon and helped her understand it. She seems to really like us and our message and wants to come to Church and maybe even get her husband going with her. She couldn't stop talking about her daughter who just had a baby that past weekend. They only thing is that she didn't know her daughter was pregnant until she got a text message with a picture of the baby girl. Her daughter lives right here in Chicago and this lady sees her daughter every weekend. We aren't exactly sure how that works but our only explanation is that it is Chicago :-) She also told me, lovingly, that i have a baby face and then she taught us some of her truck driver self defense moves, it was fun. That evening we had a very long lesson with one of our amazing less-actives that we are losing because of our area border changes. She is so sad to be losing us. We have really gotten close and she loves meeting and talking with us. She talks to us in English so we really are able to have some great conversations. She made us really good carne tacos and gave us a lot more recipes. We are going to miss visiting her so much!
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| Received a "box of Sunshine", ironically on a cold snowy day. |
Saturday, it snowed! Of course! Just like Utah, i feel so at home! We tried to go to an appointment with a potential that we set up a week ago. It was with an African-American woman and it was across a major road that divides the Latino community from the African-American community. Hermana Black and I were so jumpy the whole time we were over there! We went to her address and it was a business but we couldn't tell if there were apartments at that address as well. We asked a man if he knew this lady that we were trying to find. He said, "Hate to tell you this baby doll, but China (the name of the woman we were looking for) is dead." We were just like "What?!?!?" We couldn't tell if he was serious, if he had no idea who China was, or if he was trying to protect her. Anyway, it was kind of crazy and we quickly returned home to finish studies. That evening we were able to go to the Adult Session of Stake Conference because the First Presidency requested the missionaries attend because the theme was Hastening the Work of Salvation, something we are involved in just a little bit :-) It was sooooo good and really got everyone excited for the work.
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| Cool wall art in Chicago where we walk to see our investigators |
Sunday we had MCM which was really good. We planned a lot of activities and ways to get the work moving in the ward. The ward mission leader's family were so sweet and had brought Tinga (spicy chicken eaten with beans on tostadas) for us to eat before Stake Conference. We attended the Spanish session of Stake Conference and it was so great. I was able to understand pretty much everything, granted it was mostly white men talking in Spanish so it was easier for me! It is really neat because our Stake President speaks Spanish and so he was just able to talk without a translator and I think that is so great! It was such a crazy thought to me that i was attending Stake Conference in MY stake in Chicago, Illinois! That is is really neat!
It was a really good week and i am looking forward to this upcoming week to work harder and always try to be better! Thank you so much for all of your love and support! I hope you all have an amazing week!
Hermana Allyse
