Alyssa's Chicago West Mission Adventures : Mid-mission thoughts

Us with Virginia at Lexington!

So this past week I officially hit 9 months in the mission- exactly half way done! Looking back on the past 9 months, I have changed in so many ways. Some ways are obvious, and others a lot less noticeable. But one thing is for sure- the mission has made a difference in my life already. I feel far from a perfect missionary- I still feel brand new! But I know what I want in life and what I need to do to get it. In the end, God has a way of taking us exactly as we are and making us into something far better than we could ever imagine. And all we have to do is let him!

We saw a cool christmas house and had to share

This was a strange week. But good! It seems that car problems and bug problems always come together for us here in Bloomingdale. We took our car into the shop and they couldn't really fix it, so we will see what we can do with that. But we found cockroaches behind our oven! We are still waiting on the exterminator guy to come save us.

So much snow!

We got 3 new investigators this week! The first is a referral from a member- his name is Edgar. He is an older man from El Salvador and speaks pretty good English. He is so nice and loved having us visit him! He has a Book of Mormon that this member gave him, and has read some of it already! We are excited to see him progress.

The other 2 new investigators are Ines and Andres. We met them through. The Light The World Initiative. Presidents wife Sis Griffin gave us the idea to put fliers on a street, saying that we would be stopping by tonight share the initiative and if they wanted to learn more about it, to turn their porch light no. If not, turn it off. It's super nice because then we don't spend all night knocking doors to see who is interested, we just look for the lights! it worked pretty well, most of the people were English speaking and we accidentally thought
they weren't so that was awkward because our notes were in Spanish. But we met Andres, who said we could come back another day. So we went back Saturday, and him and his wife Ines were home! We shared the
video and had a great discussion about Jesus Christ, and ended up on the topic of life after death. We will be going back next week to teach the plan of salvation!

Us with the Smith family, awesome members!

We Read the Book of Mormon this week with Ción and the girls. They are doing better, thank goodness. They still need many prayers though! I got to choose the movie that the elderly watched at Lexington this week, and I chose It's a Wonderful Life. :) We took a picture with one of our favorite people, Virginia! Today Diomara finally texted us back! We will be meeting with her this week!

We have an awesome neighbor named Mary who takes care of us. She brought us cookies. They were great. One night she knocked on our door while we were planning for the next day, and asked us to come outside
with her. She got a stargazing app and wanted to show us! She is so cute. She helps us feel safe.

Our zone (well, most of it) at the fireside

On Sunday we had a musical fireside with the stake. We sang two songs- noche de luz z(silent night) with our branch choir, and Savior Redeemer of my Soul (in Spanish) with all the Spanish speaking missionaries in the stake. It was so much fun! One of our members, hmna Marin, wanted to wear a name tag so she fit in with us hermanas. So she wore my extra one all night! I hope there isn't a rule against that. :P