¡Feliz navidad!

Light the world

Trio power!

           

Lunch Christmas Day with the Talmez family

         

Sorry, they changed our preparation day to Tuesday this week. But merry Christmas everyone!

So many new things this week! So we got transfer calls last night, and I will be staying in Bloomingdale and training a brand new missionary! I'm super excited and pretty nervous. But it will be so fun and I'm excited to pick her up tomorrow! Also I will be driving, and I haven't driven in 9 1/2 months, so that may or may not end up well.

We made nativities with members!

 

Christmas miracles of the week:
- we spent Christmas Day with Janice, our English investigator. We ate dinner with her and Skype our families. It was her first Christmas! (She was previously Jewish)
- 4 new investigators! Maria and Aldolfo, a family we met while sharing Light the World. We taught about Christ and the Book of Mormon, and got a return appointment! Gabriela and Miguel, our English students. They came to the Christmas party, to church, and we've had 2 lessons with them!
-a man opened the door we knocked, he was not Neff (we were looking for Neff) and he at least had pants on! That was a miracle. People seem to open the door in anything they may (or may not) have been wearing. Anyways.
-we taught Edgar again! He seemed to really understand the restoration but we have a feeling he is a bit stubborn. But! He committed to read the Book of Mormon, so we'll see if the spirit softens his heart.
-we taught the Ramirez family- twice! They are doing pretty well, reading and participating. But still no church. Hmm. We gave them Book of Mormon reading calendars to mark each day they read.
-our investigator Rosi (cornrows)! We were able to visit her and she was very happy to see us. This is such a contrast from past missionaries.
-we got in with Ruby! We are trying to get her back to church and in with a good group of friends that will be a good influence on her.
-so many lessons taught, I can't keep them all straight! In Arlington heights we taught Janice a bunch, Vicky, a less active named Cristino.
Lots of new faces and we've been running the entire week!

District lunch

Cool experience of the week:
We were visiting a part-member family in Arlington heights, where the mom is a member but the dad is not. They had a friend sleeping in their living room, she was really really sick and just went through a separation with her husband. she had two little boys at the house with her, and two more kids staying with an uncle. When we got there she was fast asleep, but she seemed to be getting worse. We called the elders to give her a blessing (bishop was with them), and when they
walked in the spirit was so strong. What a contrast- the moment that 3 worthy priesthood holders walked in. They gave the blessing and the members rushed their friend to the hospital. The whole experience was surprisingly peaceful and I have such a strong appreciation for the priesthood, and every worthy priesthood holder.

Well, have a good New Years! Love you all!

Hermana Hokanson

The Zone

Trios and literally no degrees

Christmas

The Trio (we were cold)

I'll try to keep this one shorter- I could talk for hours about this week! The main points:

We are in a trio until next week with hmna Albrechtsen! Her previous companion (my amazing trainer) Hmna Buehner finished her mission last week so we get to cover both Bloomingdale central and Arlington Heights! It has already been insane and we picked her up Thursday. :) it's been so fun though! Before Hmna Buehner left, I got to go on exchanges with her. That was super special- we were together to start my mission and we got to be together to end hers! It was a super fun day and I am going to miss her so much.

Hmna Buehner and I

We found a giant icicle!

Last week and most of this week I've been pretty sick, so that is lame, but it's mostly due to the fact that it is literally in the negative degrees here! We hit a low of -6 last night, and with wind chill it felt like it was near -20! Every day I'm thankful for our car and our coats and our overly warm heater in our apartment. One time we
went outside for something after I had taken a shower, and my hair froze solid. (See picture)

My hair froze

The branch Christmas party was a huge success! We had 3 investigators there: Gabriela and Miguel our English students, and Rosi (The investigator that gave us cornrows)!! We also ate dinner at Presedente Montesino's home with Clarita (investigator) and Omar (her less active husband), it went really really well. Hopefully they will be coming to church for Christmas!

Ción and the girls and Ivan: we had 2 great lessons with this awesome family! We have been reading 3 nephi 11, the chapter in the Book of Mormon where Christ visits the americas. They love it and have tons of questions. We brought with us a return missionary named Victor who really helped answer a few questions and bring the spirit. They are doing well, but still not coming to church or activities. Step by step!

-6 degrees!!!!!

Diomara: we got in with Diomara! And it was a miracle lesson. Her friend Cristina came over at the exact same time, and sat in on the lesson! We talked about the Christmas initiative and our relationship with Christ. Her friend was super interested to learn more. They both committed to coming to church this week but didn't make it. :( but Diomara is a little missionary herself and really wants us to start teaching Cristina!

Janice: An awesome English investigator from Arlington Heights. She grew up Jewish but over the course of the past few months with the missionaries, has developed a testimony in Christ and will even be celebrating christmas with us! We are going over to her house to Skype our families and eat Christmas dinner. The gospel does amazing, crazy, beautiful things. She came to church on Sunday and seemed to like it. We were split between 3 wards- Arlington Heights English, Arlington Heights Spanish, and Bloomingdale Spanish! So We had to go on splits with a member for a little bit, and hmna Albrechtsen was without a real companion for a few hours.

Carlos: an awesome Spanish investigator from Arlington Heights that is getting baptized soon! He is the brother of a member and practically a self referral, when he met with the bishop and asked "when can I get
baptized?" We love people that do that. :)

If I have learned anything this week, it's that God loves us and is very aware of every little thing in our lives. Everything He does is for our benefit and happiness. Turn to Him and you will know what to do, where to go, and who you need to be. I hope you all have a merry Christmas and remember the reason for the season- our wonderful and all knowing Savior, Jesus Christ!

Love,
Hermana Hokanson

Also we went to Red Robin for district lunch

Mid-mission thoughts

Us with Virginia at Lexington!

So this past week I officially hit 9 months in the mission- exactly half way done! Looking back on the past 9 months, I have changed in so many ways. Some ways are obvious, and others a lot less noticeable.  But one thing is for sure- the mission has made a difference in my life already. I feel far from a perfect missionary- I still feel brand new! But I know what I want in life and what I need to do to get it. In the end, God has a way of taking us exactly as we are and making us into something far better than we could ever imagine. And all we have to do is let him!

We saw a cool christmas house and had to share

This was a strange week. But good! It seems that car problems and bug problems always come together for us here in Bloomingdale. We took our car into the shop and they couldn't really fix it, so we will see what we can do with that. But we found cockroaches behind our oven! We are still waiting on the exterminator guy to come save us.

So much snow!

We got 3 new investigators this week! The first is a referral from a member- his name is Edgar. He is an older man from El Salvador and speaks pretty good English. He is so nice and loved having us visit him! He has a Book of Mormon that this member gave him, and has read some of it already! We are excited to see him progress.

The other 2 new investigators are Ines and Andres. We met them through. The Light The World Initiative. Presidents wife Sis Griffin gave us the idea to put fliers on a street, saying that we would be stopping by tonight share the initiative and if they wanted to learn more about it, to turn their porch light no. If not, turn it off. It's super nice because then we don't spend all night knocking doors to see who is interested, we just look for the lights! it worked pretty well, most of the people were English speaking and we accidentally thought
they weren't so that was awkward because our notes were in Spanish. But we met Andres, who said we could come back another day. So we went back Saturday, and him and his wife Ines were home! We shared the
video and had a great discussion about Jesus Christ, and ended up on the topic of life after death. We will be going back next week to teach the plan of salvation!

Us with the Smith family, awesome members!

We Read the Book of Mormon this week with Ción and the girls. They are doing better, thank goodness. They still need many prayers though! I got to choose the movie that the elderly watched at Lexington this week, and I chose It's a Wonderful Life. :) We took a picture with one of our favorite people, Virginia! Today Diomara finally texted us back! We will be meeting with her this week!

We have an awesome neighbor named Mary who takes care of us. She brought us cookies. They were great. One night she knocked on our door while we were planning for the next day, and asked us to come outside
with her. She got a stargazing app and wanted to show us! She is so cute. She helps us feel safe.

Our zone (well, most of it) at the fireside

On Sunday we had a musical fireside with the stake. We sang two songs- noche de luz z(silent night) with our branch choir, and Savior Redeemer of my Soul (in Spanish) with all the Spanish speaking missionaries in the stake. It was so much fun! One of our members, hmna Marin, wanted to wear a name tag so she fit in with us hermanas. So she wore my extra one all night! I hope there isn't a rule against that. :P

Our third o pasión, hmna Marin!

This was a good week. The church is true and the work is moving forward. Stay safe and have a good week-before Christmas!!

Love,
Hermana Hokanson

1319 Butterfield rd ste 522
Downers Grove IL 60515-5515

Twinners!

El Nieve

Snow Selfies!
First snowfall of my mission! WOO! And it was quite the snowfall- far more snow and far more quickly than I've ever seen in Utah. 

There isn't much to say for this week- we had a lot of meetings. They were super good though, we planned some awesome stuff for our Branch and had a great Zone Training! President Griffin even came, and we got to have interviews. We helped plan and set up for the Relief Society activity, which was super successful and fun! These members are so fun and crazy, and are so great at helping people feel welcomed and loved. We had a less active member there and she felt right at home! 

Relief Society Activity!

Our little Christmas tree!

We eat with the Gutierrez family every week- they were baptized a little over a year ago and are super strong! Hmna comes to church every week with her two kids, but hmno has work on Sunday.  But the miracle- hmno has come to church the last 2 weeks! I don't know how he got work off, but he has been at church with his family! This has been their biggest roadblock from getting to the temple, so we are so excited!!  

We had a Noche De Hogar with Cion and the girls in the home of the Gutierrez family in Tuesday. IT was AWESOME. the spirit was there and we think it really helped them to hear the testimonies of people who aren't full-time missionaries. :) We are a bit worried about the progression of this family, and hopefully will be seeing some better results as this month goes on. We pray and study for them a lot, and we know God has a plan for them!

We made a tree because we only have a little one,
also we made count down chains

We have had little- to- no progression with Diomara. :( It's difficult to get a hold of her and actually get in for a lesson. She loves everything we teach her and we know if she took the time she would know this is true. She really is so amazing! Lots of prayers for Diomara please.  

We did LOTS of service this week to kick off the 25 days of service! This challenge is so fun and we've seen miracles already! We got to help out at Lexington (The old folks home) for their Christmas party and I loved seeing these people's faces light up as we brought them food and pushed their wheelchairs into the nicely decorated rooms, and talked to them about their families. They are all so innocent and sweet- well most of them!

Cornrows with Rosi, the cornrows artist

We also got Cornrows so we could get to know a former investigator that is married to a less active member. She is super cool and did them for all of us hermanas! (only on one side, we aren't completely crazy). But now she loves us, when before she wouldn't even talk to us! Missionary work takes many forms. :) 

Cornrows

 I loved the Christmas broadcast, and hope you all had the chance to watch it! 

Elder Neal A Maxwell taught that regardless of what the world says, we must stand fast in our testimony of the Savior: “At the center of the Father’s plan is Jesus Christ, mankind’s Redeemer. Yet, as foreseen, many judge Jesus ‘to be a thing of naught’ (1 Nephi 19:9), or ‘consider him’ merely ‘a man’ (Mosiah 3:9). Whether others deny or delimit Jesus, for us He is our Lord and Savior! Comparatively, brothers and sisters, it matters very little what people think of us, but it matters very much what we think of Him. It matters very little, too, who others say we are; what matters is who we say Jesus is” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1984, 27; or Ensign, May 1984, 21).

Keep Christ in Christmas! I love you all and pray for you every day! 

#LIGHTtheWORLD 

#ILUMINAelMUNDO

Hermana Hokanson

Ugly sweater Christmas pic with our branch.

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Thanksgiving, mice, and the Christmas Initiative

Diomara and Fam

This has been a good week. This will be mostly pictures because they explain better than words. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I had a great thanksgiving. We ate with our investigator Diomara and her family, and then ate with Crissie (from Ecuador), her daughter and her fiancé's nephew. We ate way too much, and it was great. 

Crissie and fam on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Morning Selfie!

 We had a solid book of mormon lesson with Ción and the girls Monday night. They are doing well, but went to Chicago for the weekend so we couldn't get them to church. But Gabriela, our english student, and her husband Miguel came to church! Sunday was just a miracle- all the missionaries had investigators and/ or inactive members at church! It was because of the primary program. Children have secret powers or something, because they get people to church better than we do. :)

Our stake of missionaries at the service activity last week

 We got the Christmas initiative, which means we have the purpose and focus of the church for the month of December. The hashtag is #LIGHTtheWORLD and we will be doing service worldwide! It's going to be awesome, the members here love it already and we don't even start til December. :) Which is this week. But yeah.

Me with some trees.

All of us with some trees.

So we got a phone call from a lady named Nuri that was in our phone but not in any of our records. So we talked to an hermana that served here before and she said she was sweet, but kind of weird and to be
careful. We decided to visit her, and it was actually a pretty good experience! For the first half our. But it got weird. She is an older lady from Cuba, super nice and sweet, and also super sick. So we helped her out a bit in her house. She got home 3 days ago from being in the hospital for 3 months. She can barely stand up, so we helped her vacuum. As we were cleaning up the closet a mouse ran across the room! We all screamed. It was kind of a weird bonding moment. But so scary! So, she has mice. We helped her clean up a bit more, shared a message, and tried to leave. But she wanted to tell us about all her conspiracy theories. That's ok though, I'm not sure if we'll be going back. She got a good impression of us though!

 I was reading a talk by Robert D. Hales where he said: "Dark moments of depression were quickly dispelled by the light of the gospel as the Spirit brought peace and comfort with assurances that all would be well." That really hit me- what power the gospel of Jesus Christ really has! I have felt the spirit do this very thing for me many times on my mission. Jesus Christ is real and He is so powerful. I love being a missionary and I love sharing this joyful message with the people of West Chicago.

Til next week! Love you!
Hermana Hokanson

The new b2 crew (The missionaries in Bloomingdale 2 branch)