Email Alyssa

Reminder:  Alyssa LOVES to get letters, packages and emails!  (She was the #1 best missionary writer to her brother and all her friends so we know how important it is to her)

Email her anytime at

alyssa.hokanson@myldsmail.net

She can read emails as they are sent, but can only respond when she has time on Mondays.

Letters can also be mailed to 

Hermana Hokanson/Chicago West Mission

1319 Btterfield Rd Ste 522

Downers Grove Il, 60515-5515

Hola from Illinois!

With Hermana Buehner

Hola! Como le va?

Here is some technical stuff: 

Contacting me: letters get forwarded to me from this address, and
packages are held for me until zone conferences (or the tech Elders
stop by the office since they are in our zone and can deliver them to
weekly district meetings). Ether way, I get things semi quickly.

 1319 Butterfield rd ste 522 

 Downers Grove IL 60515-5515

 I can read emails throughout the week but can only respond Monday's.
(We have iPads) Feel free to email whenever and I'll get back to you
when I can. I also love the pictures you guys send, thanks a ton! :) 

 Now for the fun part!
I'm in the beautiful area of Arora Illinois. We are one of three
companionships in the Spanish ward. (yes it's a ward, not a branch. So
awesome!) we are the only hermanas, and we cover the west side of
Arora. We have two companionships of elders in our ward. I love the
people already and can't wait to work with them and serve them. Even
just being here for one week has improved my Spanish significantly.
My new compañera: Hmna Buehner! (Pronounced Beaner) she is almost 10
months into her mission, and one of the most amazing missionaries
ever. She is very fun, hard working, obedient, and easy to talk to.
She is very confident in the gospel and direct when teaching. Her
Spanish is amazing and she works really well with the people. I hope
to learn a lot from her.

The weather is so back and forth here. When I arrived it was 80, but
it dropped down to 50 real fast. It rained for a couple days which was
super nice. We have our own apartment with a kitchen and washer and
dryer and living room/study spot. We have a 2016 Ford Fusion that we
drive. I feel like we hit the jackpot. Missionary work is booming here
and we have all the means we need to continue it. This has not been as
hard of a transition as I thought it would be from the CCM.

I ended up buying bedding and a pillow, which I'm happy about. We
contacted and taught many people this week. I gave away my first Book
of Mormon to an African American man named Morris. What he lacked in
teeth he made up for in enthusiasm. :) He felt disconnected from the
bible because everything happened so far away in Jerusalem. We took
this opportunity to explain to him that God loves his people in every
nation, and communicated with them just as much as the Jews. We showed
him pictures in the Book of Mormon and explained that he can learn
more about God's dealings on this continent in this book. He seemed
open to reading it, and later we saw him flipping through the pictures
while walking down the street. :)

I had an interesting experience on Saturday. We went to an appointment
with a wonderful Latino woman named Marina. We had run into her Friday
as she was getting home, and she had wanted us to come back later.
When we got there, her nieces answered and let us in. We talked with
Marina for a while (she spoke perfect English and preferred we taught
in English) about religion and families and life. She seemed to really
like our church's focus on becoming good people and teaching good
values in the home. Also she liked the idea of Primary and teaching
children about religion in a way they understand. She suddenly asked
"how old are you?" We told her our ages, and she said " I thought you
guys looked young. why do you guys care so much about your church?
Most kids your age don't care about anything but having fun." This was
a bit of an eye opener for me. I had never been asked this question,
and I didn't realize it was something people would notice. I responded
by saying "Christ has made a difference in our lives, and we want to
share that with others and give them the opportunity to feel that joy
too."

This experience really opened my eyes to how the world will be seeing
me and all other missionaries for the next 18 months. We are
different. We have something that will bless every person, if they let
it. We are eager and ready to share.
My question for you is this: why do you care so much? Why is the
gospel important to you? And what are you going to do about it?

I love you all past the moon, and am so grateful for your prayers and
thoughts. 

Stay awesome!

Love, Hermana Hokanson

Arrival in Chicago!

From Alyssa's Mission:

Dear Parents,

The missionaries have landed safely in Chicago, have met President and Sister Griffin and are headed towards the Mission Home where they will be oriented, treated to Chicago deep dish pizza and spend the night. President Griffin will interview them tonight and decide who their first companion will be. Tomorrow they will meet their trainer, have training from President Griffin, and then head out to their area. It is a very exciting time.  

 Just a reminder that our address is:

 (Your missionary's name)
Illinois Chicago West Mission 

1319 Butterfield Rd. Suite 522 

Downers Grove, IL 60515 

 The address above is where you should send all of your missionary's mail and the address you should give to family and friends. It is easier to send letters to the office so that when he/she is transferred we don't lose mail that is sent to the wrong address. We forward all letters to the correct address. Also, if packages are sent to apartments and the missionaries are not there to receive it, they can be stolen. If they come here we get them out as quickly as we can; although it might take up to three weeks, so please plan ahead for birthdays etc. We take them to meetings or send them out with leaders.

Please make sure that your letters only have paper in them. If you send something else and they are the least bit "puffy" your missionary will be charged as if it is a package. Our Post Office is very particular.

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact me either through email or phone. 
We are so grateful to have these fine young men and women in our mission. Thank you for sharing your missionary with us.  

 Sister Tolman
Mission Secretary

The Best District!!!‏

Para siempre Dios esté con vos‏

That is Himno #89, God be with you til we meet again. It is sung to all missionaries here on their last Sunday. guess who gets it this weekend?

Hola familia y amigos! firstly, DO NOT SEND ANY EMAILS TO CARPACKAGE AFTER FRIDAY. If you do, I will be gone before I get them. thanks!

Things are pretty normal here! We are doing a lot of travel prep, and tomorrow is completely dedicated to in-field training. I leave Monday morning at 5:30 am. I´m the only one going to Illinois (surprise surprise) but I think a few other missionaries are driving up with me. They have a bunch of weird rules and extra charges for carry ons and more than one bag, so I may be getting rid of some things before I go. We spend our gym time on Saturday packing. I don´t know how soon I will get to email once I get to Chicago. 

The temple last week was wonderful! We get to go again today. The virus is pretty much gone, and thankfully I didn't catch it at all. super lucky. On Tuesday we had an extra compañera: Hermana Jones, who´s whole district left before her. She stayed with us all day and slept over, then left Wednesday morning at 2 am. It was way fun! She is serving in Fresno California. We finished with teaching all our investigators, which was so sad! We wanted to stay and help them to baptism (even though they are our teachers just acting as investigators). 

I am delivering a postcard for an Hermana in my mission. It came after she left the CCM. That´s kinda exciting. :) We found out far too late that the cupboards in our classroom are perfect for storing treats and drinks for between classes. SO much potential lost! Oh well, we made sure to use them this past week. Hermana Hunsaker in our district was sent a ton of food from her mom, and shared it with us. (side note, one of those things was trail mix. I innocently ate 4 handfuls before realizing it had cashews. I had a headache for about an hour. )

Our maestro (teacher) Hermano Lara has a fun way of making sure we pay attention in Language class. Any time we don´t repeat back a sentence perfectly, we owe the class 20 galletas, or cookies (hermanas) or pushups (elders). Hermana Schaffner is in extreme galleta debt. :)

I have homework for you! read 2 Nephi 31. It isn't super long but it is so good!! Please do it. 

Our district leader challenged us to take the test in Preach my Gospel that determines our level on all the Christlike attributes, and ten to study about and work on one we scored low on. I chose Patience. There is a Book of Mormon challenge, I believe from Elder Bednar, that is: If you have a question about something or want to know more about a particular topic, get a brand new cheap Book of Morn¿mon, and read the whole thing cover to cover while marking all the things about that particular topic or question. Then do it again with a new topic. I plan to do it with Patience. 

I love you all and will soon be in the same country as you again! Work hard, Love the Lord, and eat chocolate. Til next week!

love,

Hermana Hokanson

11 days!‏

That´s right, 11 days until I fly to Chicago! Craziness. 

Hello friends and family! I miss you terribly. But life is good here in México. 

First: CONFERENCE! The weirdest part was singing Secreta Oración in English. That´s my favorite Spanish song. Conference was full of amazing insight and inspiration I needed so much! My favorite talk was probably Holland´s, simply because it was so applicable to my life right now in el CCM. Our prophets and apostles are so inspired. I love it. 

Bad news: I may have developed an allergy to nuts while I've been here. It started with a salad with pecans and almonds on it. My tongue hurt really bad and my throat was sore. It lasted nearly an hour. Then, I had some cashews to see if those affected me too. My tongue and throat felt a bit swollen and I got piercing pressure behind my ears. I talked to the doctor (who is also the music director, fun fact) and he said they have no specialist here to test me, so to just not eat nuts. Though there is a bright side: I have no reaction to peanut butter! yay! 

My Compañeros: They are my favorite people, seriously. I love them! Whenever I get distracted, I hear in my mind "Hermana, ¡Foco!" which is what my compañeros say to me all the time. haha. I often receive carepackage letters for Hermana Leavitt because we have the same first name. It makes me laugh. Hermana Schaffner will conjugate verbs in Spanish.... in her sleep. out loud. She also dropped her dictionary on her waffle covered in peanut butter and syrup. Never a dull day with Hermana Schaffner. As a companionship, we are still reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish out loud each night, singing a Himno each night, and Fasting each Sunday for El DOn De Lenguas. If you would like you are welcome to join us for our last two Sundays of fasting. You could fast for us, or all missionaries, to gain the Gift of Tongues. 

Enfermo: There is a virus going around here. Elder Thomson was hit, the day before his birthday. Hermana Scheffner got hit yesterday morning. I´ve avoided it so far. But we aren't allowed to shake hands with anyone, and we use hand sanitizer on top of washing our hands before and after each meal. Gatorade is a jinx because the Doctor told people to drink it if they were sick. The Tienda has sold out of it multiple times. everyone is drinking it! I and my compañeros are taking On Guard Essential Oil pills. (Thanks mom)

Spiritual truths: Teach people, not lessons. "charity, like faith" leads to action" "You cannot convert people beyond your own conversion." We get so much Spiritual support here. IT will be strange to get to the field and not have devotionals all the time. I love it here But I´m excited to go!

Our District motto that we decided on is D&C 123:17

Also, for your last 2 weeks here, you are supposed to speak only Spanish as much as you can. So we labeled our nametags. 

Finally: Random things of the week! There was a bird that flew into our hallway, back and forth, and then strait into a window. It died instantly. Not sure what we were supposed to learn from that. Poor bird. 

They had fresh, whole mangos last Thursday! They were sooo good! I ate 3 of them. (Emma Grace you´d be jealous). Our toaster caught on fire multiple times. It´s not a normal toaster though, it´s like industrial sized with a conveyer belt. They also don´t have fry sauce here, so sad. They are missing out.

We had daylight savings Saturday/Sunday. So we lost an hour. The power kept going out all weekend, but never during Conference. Divine intervention? I think so. We also accidentally have been using fabric softener instead of laundry detergent. Everything is written in Spanish.... oops. But on the bright side it is Aroma de Sol. (how can something be the scent of the sun? no idea.)

Elder Wise and Thomson made a piñata for Elder Thomson´s birthday. Pictures attached. 

That´s just about it!  keep me updated on your lives and I´ll try to do the same! Yo les amo mucho! 

Hermana Hokanson