Running

OUR HALLOWEEN COSTUME: LAMPS

Well, it's been quite the week! I love being a missionary! It's the craziest and weirdest thing I have ever done, and we often end our days laughing so hard due to exhaustion and stress overload. But I wouldn't have it any other way! The Lord's work is moving forward and upward, and we're running to keep up!

POPCICLES FROM HERMANA SALGERO

We got our car back, and we've been making up for the time lost by visiting a bunch of inactive and less active members and inviting them to the Branch party this weekend. Some significant members are the León family, Camaro family, Ruby, and Omar.

León: this family hasn't been to church in a long time, and missionaries haven't visited Hmna in forever because she works every day, almost all day at KFC to single handedly provide her 3 children. She is a powerhouse! We stopped by their home to invite them to the activity, and talked to her sons. They said she was at work. We decided that since we've stopped by multiple times and haven't been able to contact her, we might as well try to visit her at work! We went to KFC and awkwardly stood there looking for her, and we decided we should buy something so we could talk to her, and we made the mistake of buying a big chocolate cake because we hadn't eaten dinner yet and we were super hungry. Well, we ate the whole cake while plotting how we could get in contact with Hmna León. We decided to... ask the guy at the front desk if she was there. She was, and she was happy to see us! We talked for a bit and she wants to come to the party Saturday! Yay for miracles!

Camaro: this family makes my heart melt. A mother and father, two sons, and one grandson. One of the sons is mentally disabled due to his own previous mistakes, and his son (the grandson) is also disabled because of it. His brother lives with them to take care of the disabled brother, because their parents are older and can't do it all on their own. They were so happy to see us, and all sat down on the couch to listen to us and talk to us. I wanted to cry at some points- they are all so genuine and have so much on their plates. We plan to visit them at least once a week, and also bring the hmnas visiting teacher with us.

Ruby: Ruby came to church!!! We had an awesome lesson with her Friday, and we were sure she was coming. But we received a text Sunday morning saying she was leaving to visit someone in the hospital. But 30 min later, she came into sacrament meeting and sat by us, and stayed all 3 hours! She is making so much progress and the branch welcomed her
warmly back.

Omar: the less active brother of President's wife. (Could you follow that?) his wife Clarita is not a member, and we've been trying to get in with them both for weeks. We went over yesterday and had a great time! We got to know them as they shared all their experiences traveling to church history sites, Salt Lake City, and visiting family. We shared a message about Christ and showed a mormon message. All in all, they like us now and want us to visit again!

We've taught some fun new people this week, along with our normal amazing investigators.

OUR PUERTO RICAN RICE!

Diomara: she has been sick this week so we haven't been able to teach her. But we stopped by and brought her cookies, and ended up being a translator between her and the cable guy setting up her wifi. :) she also taught us how to make Puerto Rican rice, and gave us half the ingredients (even though we insisted that we could buy them ourselves). We made it that night, and it was so good! (See pics)  

Ción, Ivan and the girls: what miracles! This family is so prepared. Monday we forgot to ask the other hermanas to drive us to our appointment, so we started walking while frantically calling every number we have for them to say we will be late. No one answered at home, and Ivan said he wasn't home yet so he didn't know if they were home. A few minutes later we got a call from Ción "the girls are waiting for you, they miss you! are you coming?" At this point we started sprinting! We got to their house and the girls were outside waiting for us. They saw salvation running at them full speed! Needless to say, we were pretty gross by the time we got there and we got asked about 3 times if we wanted water. Haha. When we got inside,
the girls had drawn us a picture!! (See picture). I pretty much melted with happiness at this point, and we had a great Restoration review and watched the first vision video. We taught them again Thursday (This time with a car) and talked about Repentance. We know this lesson was inspired, because it was touching some hearts, including ours. Ivan told us he decided to come to our lessons on Thursdays instead of go to the bar like he usually does. All in all, it was great.

THE PICTURE DRAWN BY THE GIRLS

Daisy and Mari: after that lesson, we were walking down the street and remembered that a potential investigator lived nearby. So we went to visit Maria. But Maria wasn't home. We instead talked to her daughters Daisy and Mari. After a long awkward conversation on the doorstep, we asked if we could show a video and they invited us in. They are super cool! Their brother has cancer and so we shared a message of hope with them.

Vanessa: the daughter of Karla (member). She was almost baptized a few years ago but something happened and she decided not to. We have been trying to reach out to her and help her feel loved. She is graduated and going to college,
and loves art (so we have a lot in common!). We got icecream with her and saw some of her drawings. It was good, and we hope we opened her up a bit to coming to church.

Wow, that was more than I thought I would type. Thanks for reading all that! Love you all, have a great week full of miracles! God loves you a lot.

Hermana Hokanson

IT GETS REALLY COLD SO WE STUDY BY THE HEATER

3 GENERATIONS OF MISSIONARIES!