Exchanges and The Miracles of Walking

Yep Family

Fun Hermana Exchanges

Another crazy awesome week here in Aurora! I'll touch on some highlights: 

Some significant lessons: We had another noche de hogar with Andres at
the home of the Monrreals. This time we taught about the spirit and
listening to his promptings, to help him receive an answer about if he
should be baptized or not. He seemed to enjoy the lesson, but not be
any closer to baptism. He has been baptized into 3 other churches so
he doesn't want to be baptized again. A bit of a pickle, but we have
faith that he will know for himself that this is true! 

We taught the Cortez familia (inactive members with 2 non member kids)
the plan of salvation, and it went really well! They seemed to like it
a lot, and Destiny (age 16) was participating and asking questions. So
fun! We love this family and hope for the very best for them. 

Exchanges: for exchanges this week I went up to Wheaton and I was with
Hmna Osborne! It was insanely fun. We taught a new investigator that
we will be passing off to the English elders because she is English.
But she was way cool and loved the Book of Mormon! We had a solid
contact with a Latino lady on the street, and talked to her for nearly
30 min about the Book of Mormon and having a sure foundation. She even
gave us a referral! We ate dinner with a single older lady in Hmna
Osborne's ward and had amazing burgers with sweet potato fries, and
home made rice crispies. I would call that very successful.

Rain at the food pantry: Friday it rained harder and longer than we've
seen in a long time! We were at the food pantry as usual, and spent
the whole time running people to their cars with umbrellas over them
and their food. About 5 minutes in we were completely drenched, and
that isn't an exaggeration. It was pretty fun for the first hour but
the 2 hours after that were a bit cold. :) people were so grateful
though! Even just a little protection from the loco tiempo made them
smile. There was a small boy with his mom there- Hmna Walton was
helping her and I was helping the boy. He was pretty scared of the
rain and was covering his face with his hands, but he felt a bit more
safe as I encouraged him and held the umbrella close to him. It was so
sweet and genuine and I loved being a part of this work. We also had
one of the workers come up to us and say "they can help you" referring
to a lady who looked really upset. We were confused, but she said she
just needs prayers for someone named Tim. The worker referred her to
us because they knew we could pray for Tim. We kind of tried to
explain that everyone can pray for Tim, but we ended up just agreeing
to help her relax. It is so interesting how much people turn to us for
religious leadership and guidance, even though we are the youngest
people there. #HolyGhost #MissionaryLife

Walking Miracles: We did a lot of walking this week because we have a
limit for how many miles we can drive, and we went over (partly
because we are super bad at planning but also because our gps is
broken so we have do do a bit of exploring). But it's alright, because
we've had lots of little miracles due to our efforts to walk more and
drive less! We've met lots of cool people, gotten some appointments,
given away some Books of Mormon, and waved at a lot of people.
One of the cool people we met was Chris, the son of Fernando
(Fernanado is a man we set up an appointment with, but he texted us
and canceled the morning of and we haven't been able to get back in
with him again). We saw Chris park in front of his house and get out,
still wearing his uniform from work (McDonalds) and holding a bag of
food. We talked to him for nearly 30 min about religion, the Book of
Mormon, prayers, how super heroes are stories from the bible, etc...
It was a great conversation and we have a return appointment for this
week.
We also met Isaiah Christmas, a friend of a member of our ward that
Hmna Buehner and I taught one time. He is a retired African-American
man who rides a motorcycle and loves God. He was excited to see us and
we talked for a while. He said he still thinks about what we taught
him (we taught about service, using the scripture in the Book of
Mormon from King Bengamin). After a pretty in depth conversation about
our testimonies and service, we gave him a Book of Mormon and a
restoration pamphlet, and said a prayer with him. We walked by a
minute later and saw him reading the pamphlet! I also got a genuine
100% leather jacket at a yard sale for $3. 

 Wow, you read the whole thing! Thanks, that means a lot to me. :) I
love you all- remember who you are!

 Hermana Hokanson

With Hermana Osborne!