"So.. are you nuns?"

Nature

"so... are you nuns?"
"no. no, we are not nuns."
"but... you're kind of like nuns right?"
"yeah I guess you could say we are kind of like nuns. but only for 18 months."
"so... you are nuns then?"
".... yes. we are nuns."

If I had a baptism for every time we have this conversation, The whole state of Illinois would be Mormon. :P

This has been a good week! We don't have a ton of time to write today but I'll give you the highlights.

We taught Diomara on Monday and had an awesome lesson about the church organization, The plan of salvation, and the second coming. She learns so quickly and has so many questions! She said she wanted to bring her whole family to the Thanksgiving party but they weren't able to make it.

We saw a car in the road so I helped the officer push it,
 and my comp caught a pic. :)

On Tuesday we taught Ruby, our less active member that is our age. She is amazing and has been significantly improving. She has been praying every day, and making a real effort to read her Book of Mormon! She says she wants to come to church ,but every week something comes up. She needs some prayers, but she is also doing super well. We also met with an awesome member from the Dominican Republic, hmna Casado. She is so cool! After her we stopped by an inactive home named Jocelyn. She is a teenager that is the only member in her family. It's a super sad situation, and she doesn't have much support church wise. whenever missionaries have stopped by in the past her dad answers and says she isn't home, and he isn't interested. but last week we talked to the dad for a while, and he warmed up to us! So when we passed by Tuesday he invited us right in, and we had an awesome discussion with Him, his aunt, and Jocelyn. Long story short, we are going over tomorrow night for dinner!

On Wednesday we went ALL DAY to a food storage place and did service! It was so fun! We packed and unpacked boxes with all the missionaries in our stake. We then taught English class, with 3 great students! Super busy day.

Thursday we taught Cion and his family and Ivan. Cion is struggling right now, and we feel like he is conflicted between our church and his wife's church. He is also working a lot and is so tired in our lessons. We are praying to know how to move forward with this family, and what will help them the most. Ivan is doing well, but still not attending church. Prayers as usual.

We got gas station food because we are broke

Friday we ate breakfast with our mission leader's wife, Hmna Avila. She is so cool! These members are so hard working and genuine. We then volunteered at Lexington (the old folks home) and met some new friends. 

Saturday We visited Ruby again, which went well. We had hmna Rendon- a super awesome member from Columbia- come out with us to a few lessons. We had a sad visit with Justa, where we pretty much had to tell her that if she didn't come to church we couldn't visit her anymore. but hmna Rendon was great at helping her understand and Justa says she is coming next Sunday! We also visited Karla, which always makes our day better. That night we had the Thanksgiving party/ Talent show! it was so so fun! And a really good bonding moment for the Branch. They were there far longer after we had left. We also did a talent, but you can only watch it if you promise not to make fun of us. :) I'll attach the video. 

5 minutes before church starts,
and no one was there. #mormons

Sunday I was fasting because we had a stake thing on fast Sunday. I felt like I should for our Branch, which is super general but I did it anyways. At church we had an inactive member that we have been trying to teach for months show up at church, with no notice! We also had so many people at church! after church we felt inspired to visit hmna Smith, a super active member that wasn't at church. She really appreciated it. we then had an awesome lesson with Omar (less active) and Clarita (investigator) with Presedente Montesinos and his wife as member presents!

Today, we got locked out of our apartment when we went to do laundry. without our keys or phone, and with the oven on with chicken in it. We broke in through the window, with the help of our neighbor's windshield scraper. and our chicken didn't even burn! That was crazy. 

Well, that's my week. love you all. have an amazing Thanksgiving! 

Hermana Hokanson

More Nature

We made gluten free pizza shaped like a pumpkin!

---

Staying in Bloomingdale

Selfie to start out the new transfer together!

The B2 crew (Bloomingdale 2nd Branch) with our branch mission
leader hmno Avila

Another transfer's come and gone, and I survived! I am still in Bloomingdale, with hmna Eldredge! This has been a refreshing week of missionary work, in comparison to last week. We did a lot of teaching and even a little tracting in the cold Illinois wind! This is the life!

Aleida on her birthday!

We had a solid lesson with Ción, Ivan and the girls. After reviewing the plan of salvation, we addressed a few of their concerns about church, and why they haven't been coming. Their lessons are going great, they learn quickly and the spirit is there. But every week, they say they are coming to church- and don't! Please pray for them, they really are amazing and so prepared. We have a lot of hope. For this family! We also watched the Joseph Smith movie with them, which they loved. They were so sad that people wanted to kill the mormons so much. We had brownies with them to celebrate Aleida's birthday!

We went to half of the other Zone's zone conference because of what we missed last week, and afterwards Sis Griffin (president' s wife) came out with us! We visited some less active members, and visited Karla. She had some non member friends over and we had an awesome discussion with them about Christ and missionary work, and Karla bore her testimony- it was great! One of them has experience with missionaries in the past and wants to come to church! She lives in the other Chicago mission though, so we sent her info right over.

We had another great lesson with Diomara- you guys, she is so prepared! We can't even believe it sometimes! She loves everything we are teaching her, and told us strait out that if she doesn't believe what we teach or doesn't want to learn anymore, she will tell us. So we can know that she really believes and really wants to know! She tells us that what we teach her just makes sense, and has so many questions. We explained the book of mormon a bit more in depth this week, and how important it is. She has had trouble reading it in the past because she doesn't understand it but this week, she asked us if we could text her and remind her to read. Before we even could, she texted us the next day to tell us that she was reading!! Woo! She also was very concerned that one of us was getting transferred, and texted us to see if we had "buenas noticias" or good news to tell her. :)

We taught Justa again, and got her to commit to come to church! Now that her husband likes us, she doesn't have anything holding her back but herself. We are so excited for her! We taught the Camaro fam again, they are doing alright. They're might be coming to the thanksgiving party this weekend! Lots of prayers please.

Me with a bunny, Chris with a dog (chris is a member, we eat with
his family every week. He reminds me so much of Brock!)

We had a cool experience where our english student Gabriela reached out to us, and we went over to her home and shared a message! It was super cool because they aren't really religious, but they really respect us and loved our message. We got to know them and they said we can come over whenever we want "mi casa es su casa".

Well, that sums up my week! Here is an awesome quote I found in Preach my Gospel:
“There is neither man or woman in this Church who is not on a mission. That mission will last as long as they live, and it is to do good, to promote righteousness, to teach the principles of truth, and to prevail upon themselves and everybody around them to live those principles that they may obtain eternal life” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [1954], 322).

Love,
Hermana Hokanson

Our Zone

 

No title describes this week.

The missionaries of our branch at hmna Vargas' house, plus
Presedente's brother.

 Well, this week has officially hit the top 3 of the most interesting and crazy weeks of my whole mission. Firstly, THE CUBS WON THE WORLD SERIES! Wooooooo

Hmna Vargas' daughter Alexa :)

The rest of the week I need to describe day by day.

Tuesday: we had an awesome lesson with Diomara, who now wants to meet with us 3 days a week! That was a huge miracle. She also wants her whole family to come to church with her, and she is working with us to find times where we can teach them all together. She was also a bit worried to inform us that she doesn't believe people should be baptized until the age of 8. We informed her that that is s completely fine because that also happens to be the doctrine of our church. :) we also helped hmna Vargas in our branch pack up her house to move.

Wednesday: we helped hmna Vargas some more and had an awesome lesson with Ana and Leo the recent converts.

Thursday: We helped hmna Vargas some more, and also helped hmna Carroll pack up to move! They are the english family I told you about, that decided to attend a Spanish branch to teach their kids. We are super sad about all these awesome members moving. We then taught Diomara again, And the Ramirez fam. Both lessons went really well!

Friday: I woke up Friday morning and looked in the mirror- and guess what? I HAD LICE! My head had hurt really bad the day before and had been itching for a few weeks, so I wasn't super surprised. But, this started a very long and crazy weekend with very little opportunity for missionary work. We started with running to Walmart at 7 am in our sweats, and me with a beanie over my bug-infested head. We bought over-the-counter lice removal stuff. We then combed for around 5 hours, and found out that thankfully hmna Eldredge didn't get lice too! That was a big relief. But, we were able to finish in time to go to the second half of our Zone Conference (Which was super amazing and we loved it). Before we got out of the parking lot of the church, we
got a flat tire! But God watches out for His missionaries, and the elders right behind us knew how to change tires. Yay for mechanics that go on missions! 

Hmna Eldredge decided to take a picture of me putting Mayo in my
hair. I thought I'd share.

Washing everything we own.

Another miracle, the appointment we had right after zone  conference canceled, so we weren't late for anything! After taking the car to the shop we went home and found out I still had lice! We then ended up going to Walmart 5 times for different things, including more lice killing cream stuff. Also a tub of ice cream, because we ended up staying up nearly all night combing bugs out of my hair. We vacuumed our whole house and washed almost all our clothing. But the dryer broke! But, the guy came and fixed it! So many miracles, i wish i could remember them all. Our awesome neighbor Mary looked up home remedies for killing lice, and we ended up putting Salt, Essential oils, and mayo on my hair overnight. We also didn't want to sleep on our newly vacuumed beds, so we slept on the floor. We didn't sleep much. 

Ice cream to keep us up.

Saturday: so we got up around 6am and kept on combing! After finding that 3 1/2 bottles of lice killer and all our home remedies still hadn't killed the lice, we (and our amazing mission nurse) got a bit worried. She called the doctor and I got a prescription for some super strong stuff. So we got to go on a field trip to Geneva (Which is in the ward boundaries for the Aurora ward!) to pick up my weird prescription that none of the pharmacies in Bloomingdale has.  Then we put it on my head, and it was some strong stuff. I think it was acid, at least that's what it felt like. But because I have a lion's main for my hair, the two bottles weren't enough! We then spent the rest of the day calling and driving to different pharmacies to find this medication. No one had it, but then we decided to just pray and hope for the best. All the while we are re vacuuming and re washing everything. And we had yummy pizza!

Sunday: we woke up that morning around 4 am to remove the medication from my hair. And after a few more hours of combing, we found that all the lice were dead!!!! Wooo!! We were so relieved, and we even made it
to church on time! After about 18 hours of combing, way too much money, and a few sleepless nights, I am clean! I may not have a scalp anymore, but I don't have lice and so all is well!! The Lord has blessed us in so many ways, and I am so grateful that we have awesome people here to help us.

Well, that's my weekly. We didn't teach much, but we did learn much. And I know now as much as I ever have, that God is aware of His children in every little - even lice sized- thing. God is good, and miracles are real. Til next week!

Hermana Hokanson

Us waiting for prescriptions for my lice. I had to wear a turban made
out of my shirt. We got McDonalds. It was a weird day....

Happy Halloween! 🎃

Do you ever get sick of me saying it's been a crazy week? Well, it's been a crazy week! I'll be sure to tell you if I ever have a not-crazy week (don't hold your breath)!

We have literally no time today to email, but I'll mention a couple cool things that happened this week. We had 2 great lessons with Ción, Ivan, and the girls this week, and one of them was a member present with the Gutierrez family! I forgot to mention that Ivan came to church last week too! But this week none of them came, sadly. But Ción and the girls came to our branch Halloween party!! That was a huge success, we had some less actives and our English student Gabriela brought her husband! Afterwards we gave them a tour of the church and invited them to come the next day. They didn't, but they liked the tour!

We had new missionary training, which was a blast. I learned a lot about being more consecrated and really giving my all here in the field. We are with some members, visited Karla and the Camaro family, and taught a great English class with Ivan and Gabriela!

We also got a new car, and we had some drama with it but its all good now. The brethren trust us so much to let a bunch of teenagers use their cars. Remember Daisy and Mari? Well we taught their family! We shared a video and everyone was crying and we are going back next Friday! Yay for the spirit! We also started doing service at an old folks home and it was really fun! We painted some ladies nails and just kept them company. (See pictures) these people are so sweet and genuine, I wish I could be with them all the time! Also our neighbor-across-the-hall Mary is like a mom to us, and brought us cupcakes because the Chicago cubs wade it to the World Series. (Pictures)

 I hope you know that the only reason I am still here today is because of the infinite, loving power of Christ's atonement. He is real, and He loves us so much. There is nothing that has not been covered by the atonement- not one single sin or pain in this world cannot be erased through Christ's eternal grace. 

"No mistake, sin, or choice will change God’s love for us. That does not mean sinful conduct is condoned, nor does it remove our obligation to repent when sins are committed. But do not forget, Heavenly Father knows and loves each of you, and He is always ready to help."
-Elder Ronald A. Rasband (oct 2016, lest thou forget)

Have a wonderful week! Enjoy your holiday!

Hermana Hokanson