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