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