El plan de salvación

Add  I drew our district (hint, I'm in central )

This morning we received news that our investigator Edgar passed away at around 1 am. We all knew he was suffering quite a bit, And was in and out of the hospital all month. I'm happy that he is now home with his Heavenly Father and not suffering anymore. I sure will miss him though. He was talking about being baptized this April. He loved church so much, and gave up coffee and alcohol. I'm going to miss how smart he is and all his crazy stories of all the different countries he's lived in. The plan of salvation is real. I know I will see my dear friend again someday. I know that we met him for a reason. I saw the gospel change him little by little, a light was growing in his eyes. And now he can continue learning and growing on the other side of the veil. The Lord's plan is flawless. 

I'm having trouble remembering what we did this week, it all went by pretty fast. We went on 3 exchanges: 1 normal exchange with the hermanas in Addison (they came to our area), and 2 of the specialized training exchanges with the hermanas in Arlington heights and Rockford. For the specialized training exchanges we went to their areas and worked together there. All three were awesome! Rockford is probably furthest away from the mission home that I've been! It's a little over an hour drive from Bloomingdale. Hmna Díaz-Bonilla taught me how to use cruise control. :)

We also taught lots of people and taught English class and pretty much ran the whole week.

In honor of Edgar, we got his favorite Salvadoranian food: pupusas

Alma 40:23 The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame.

Love,

Hermana Hokanson 

Arlington Heights Hermanas

I forgot to mention that I hit my one year mark this wek! I'm one

year old! We ate cookies to celebrate.

Ok, have a good week!
Hermana Hokanson

It snowed today

🌪

Hola!

It's tornado season again!! Tuesday night we had to stay inside because of the tornado warning, so we finally cleaned our vacuum. Thanks, tornado. We jinxed ourselves when we said a couple weeks ago that it was springtime, it's not springtime. It's cold again. It snowed. But that's ok, we have a car. :)

It's been a good week! And by good, I mean extremely busy and a bit stressful but full of good things. Edgar came to the baptism that was held on Saturday for an 8 yr old in our branch, and he loved it! We also helped him pack up all his things so that people can change his carpet for a wood floor. This amazing Salvadorian man of 83 yrs has lived in 69 different countries, and has souvenirs from each one! So there was a lot of packing.

We also did trainings at new missionary training and zone training, which were really fun! We made everyone do a bunch of crazy stuff to teach about studies, like "head shoulders knees and toes" in Spanish, and trying to play a sport in suits and skirts. It was funny. :) but we also taught stuff, and that was important.

We went on exchanges with the Elgin hermanas, which was a blast! These hermanas are so hard working and great missionaries. We visited a lot of people! Hmna Cleveland and I made a sign that said "honk if you love Jesus, stop if you want a picture of Him!" And held it by the road. Lots of people honked, and one guy topped! His name is James, and someday he will get baptized. He had a lot of questions about the church. 

my cute companion being sang to for her birthday!

We had the relief society activity this week where we learned how to make yummy food and a member brought a non member friend, who loved it! We hope we can start working with her. We taught Blanca, who is doing great. We plan to bring the relief society president Hmna Montesinos with us to help her make some friends in the branch.

We also taught Pablo and Felix again, they are doing amazing! They really are so prepared. They were sad they couldn't make it to the baptism, they work a lot. (That seems to be a pretty common problem, people working so much.) but we taught them Sunday and they accepted the restoration wholeheartedly! They really want to know the scriptures better, so we plan to make a focus on that next week.

I'm feeling pretty good. Tired, busy, crazy, happy. I've felt such a strong love for these people this week. I love my branch so much. They are amazing!

Til next week,
Hermana Hokanson

This cool cat is named Nikolas

Faith and Miracles

Hola todo!

This past month there has been a big focus on finding new investigators. It's always a struggle talking to random people, when you know they either think you are a Jehovah's Witness or selling them a timeshare. But we do it, and we're often rejected, and we make new friends, and we see miracles.

This week we had a couple wonderful miracles! The first- Edgar is feeling better! After a few weeks of being in and out of the hospital, he is home and happy again. The first thing he says when we call him is "when are you visiting me?!" And before we could start teaching him Saturday, he informed us that he already called Hmna Casado to drive him to church. :) yes, Edgar is doing great.

Do you remember Andres? The recent convert in Aurora, that got baptized in September? Well, he has a cousin named Felix. She and her husband Pablo live here in our area! They went to visit Andres a while ago and saw the hermanas there visiting, and caught interest. The hermanas in Aurora gave us their info. We've been trying to contact him for nearly a month, and this Sunday we received a call from Pablo- they wanted us to visit that night! We went and they are so prepared! Pablo said he saw the change in Andres and wants to be a part of it. He also said he only visits Andres once every 3 months, and it just happened to be the night the hermanas visited him. Miracles are real! We will be teaching them again next Sunday!

We also taught lots of cool people, had our zone conference where we gave a training on finding, had a big long Missionary leadership council which was awesome, and a million other things! We went in exchanges with the Rockford hermanas, but forgot to take pictures. It was wonderful though! I was with hmna Lewis, who only has a few months in the mission but is already so great!

A cool change: we will now be going on an extra exchange with each of the hermanas, where we go to their area and help them find new investigators. Which means we will have 4 solid days that no one will be working in our area! But that's ok, I'm super excited. Double the exchanges, double the miracles. 

Here's a cool quote to think about:

"Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is not something ethereal, floating loosely in the air. Faith does not fall upon us by chance or stay with us by birthright. It is, as the scriptures say, “substance …, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith emits a spiritual light, and that light is discernible. Faith in Jesus Christ is a gift from heaven that comes as we choose to believe and as we seek it and hold on to it. Your faith is either growing stronger or becoming weaker. Faith is a principle of power, important not only in this life but also in our progression beyond the veil. By the grace of Christ, we will one day be saved through faith on His name. The future of your faith is not by chance, but by choice."

Elder Neil L. Anderson October 2015

Con amor,

Hermana Hokanson 

Is it February?

We were matching!

Matching hair too!

She is so short...

 It's been in the 70s this week, and sometimes we forget it's February as we run to our next lesson without tights or jackets! It has been so beautiful! And the best part: there are people outside to talk to!

Exchanges

Me killing the cockroach

This has been a really good week. I'm finally feeling better and we've been working super hard. We had our first exchange together with the hermanas from Arlington heights! I got to be with the amazing hermana Morrell! We had a great time running around and teaching a bunch. That night as we were doing face masks we found a cockroach in our cupboard! I got to be the superhero and get it (all of my companions hate bugs). So we got pictures with it, and throw it out our sliding glass window.

 Hmna Morrell

Edgar was in the hospital this week with heart problems, so lots of prayers for him would be appreciated! He seems to be doing alright right now, but we haven't seen him since he got home.

Exchanges!

We are working really hard to get in with this part member family, the Casados. The mom is super active, but her two daughters are not and one of them has a non member husband. They are amazing though, and we are setting up a noche de hogar with them for this Sunday. The branch council has also been helping out a lot lately with reaching out to less active members and visiting them personally.

Speaking of less active members, we were teaching an active member family about the area plan that the church gave us, and I was mentioning that we need to rescue our less active members, but I accidentally said "resurrect" instead of "rescue" (they are super similar in Spanish) and the whole family couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes! I was pretty confused until I figured out what I had said. It was a pretty funny moment, and this family is so patient with my Spanish. :) I love it.

We finally taught Rosi! She is an investigator who is married to a less active, and she is wonderful. We weren't able to teach her for very long but we hope to see her again soon. 

In the end, I am so happy. Serving as a missionary has given me more joy than I have felt before. I know this is where the Lord wants me to be, because He rewards me for every hard day and every challenge He gives me. I am so eternally blessed to have this opportunity to serve. 

Alma 26:16 Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.

Con amor,

Hermana Hokanson

The cockroach in a cup!

PS I forgot to mention we also ran the camera and sound board for stake conference!

We died our hair, thanks hmna Vargas!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Schaumburg Spanish zone at Chicago Temple

I'm sending this on a Tuesday because we got to go to the temple!!! It really is such a blessing we get to go, and I regret not going every week when I could! If you live near a temple, go to the temple!

Choose the right!

This has been a crazy week! Being an hermana training leader is really fun, but it's also lots of meetings and planning and calling and emailing. We don't have much time to write today so sorry this will be short. We had our branch Valentine's Day party and it was a huge success! We had 2 investigators there- Edgar and Clarita- and lots of less active members! And a few of them even came to church the next day! Branch activities are the best.

Hmna Díaz-Bonilla is such a fun companion! She is a great missionary and this will be her last transfer, so I sadly only get her for the next few weeks. I plan to learn as much Spanish from her as I can in this little time!

We taught Edgar the word of wisdom and a bunch of other stuff. He actually was super open to living the word of wisdom, and said it won't be hard to give up alcohol and coffee! He hasn't been coming to church though, so we'll see what happens.
We taught a new investigator Named Alicia from Bolivia. She has a ton of potential! But she lives one street outside of our area, so we will be passing her off to the other hermanas.

We did a lot of member work this week, and helped out with the young women's. Speaking of young women's, we got in contact with Jocelyn again! She says she's coming to mutual tomorrow!

Pretty much all of our other investigators are sick, it's that time of year. But we had a very productive, busy, crazy week. :) I love these people, I love Spanish, I love being a missionary.

Have a good week!

Con amor,

Hermana Hokanson

Argentinian deserts from some members!

Guess who got the white one and who got the brown one?:)

La manera de Dios

Our Heavenly Father is really smart. He knows all the things. He knows who we are, who we want to be, and who we can be. He knows how we feel, He knows who is prepared and who is not, He knows when we've been pushed to our limits and need His help. He created all the worlds and everything on them, every star in the sky and every planet. And yet, He knows your favorite color. He smiles when you are happy. And He loves you very much. So, even though I don't completely understand the way of God, I am excited to be His missionary and share His gospel. We received transfer calls this weekend: I will be staying in Bloomingdale! I will be receiving a new companion Sister Diaz-Bonilla and we will be hermana/Sister training leaders! To be completely honest, I'm scared to death! But sis Diaz-Bonilla is super nice so I'm sure it will all work out. We are technically a "zebra" companionship (one English and one Spanish) but sis Diaz-Bonilla speaks fluent Spanish, thank goodness! I'm excited to learn from her and get to work with the other hermanas and sisters here.

No one came to English class... :(

This week was actually a bit rough. Hmna Ward and I have been pretty sick all week, but not quite sick enough to stay home, so we took a lot of DayQuil and smiled a lot to cover up the fact that we were barely staying awake. :) Spanish is super hard when you can't really hear yourself or think clearly, haha. But because we kept working, we saw some cool miracles! Probably the best was that we taught Edgar twice, and then an awesome member drove him to a baptism on Saturday up in Shaumburg, and Edgar loved it! He speaks quite a bit of English so we didn't need to translate for him.
He is progressing really well, and loves church. He didn't come this week because he had plans with family, and he was sad to miss fast and testimony meeting. We gladly informed him that it happens once a month so he'll have many opportunities to go. :)

We taught Blanca again, she is doing alright. She can't come to church because her sons play soccer Sunday mornings, so we aren't sure what to do for that. But she loves studying with us so we hope she will find a way to come! We also finally contacted a reassignment from the English elders named Sharon! She is super cool. She wanted sisters to teach her, and were the closest sisters, so even though she speaks English we get to visit her! She was busy so we didn't stay long, but
we have a return appointment for next week.

Relief Society Activity

We had a baby shower for an inactive member in our area named Jovita. She was so surprised and so happy! We also had our investigators Gabriela and Miguel there, who were invited by a member. Clarita and Omar came to church, and then we ate with them after church, and read in the Book of Mormon with them! Step by step they are coming closer, and we can see their faith growing! 

Our amazing district (plus hmna Avila)

A miracle: we went to visit Jocelyn (Jocelyn went to mutual this week, I forgot to mention that) but Jocelyn wasn't home. But her dad's old girlfriend Idaña was there! She is an inactive member we've been trying to contact, but she keeps moving. We had Hmna Montesinos with us, and talked to her for a while about her life and church. It went really well!

So that's my week! Love you all!
Hermana Hokanson
1319 Butterfield rd ste 522
Downers Grove IL 60515-5515

Life is too short

Amigos y familia,

This week was busy! Not a ton of teaching but we had some good experiences! We had the worldwide missionary roadcast, where they changed a lot of the ways we keep records and make goals. That was a bit hard for me to get used to, after 10.5 months of the same goal-making, but it's been good! We've started teaching the leaders in our church the basic 5 lessons that we teach investigators, to help everyone strengthen their testimonies and have confidence in the missionary's teaching. So far, so good.

We had our noche de karaoke, which wasn't a huge turn out but it was still very fun! There were 2 non members there, and one of them was our investigator Gabriela! We found out a few days later that after we had left that night, she was still there talking to some members, and ended up getting a priesthood blessing from presidente Ruge. Our members are awesome!

We finally had an appointment with Santiago's wife Virginia! Santiago was a long lost inactive member, and his wife is not a member. We stopped by and talked to her about God, prayer, church, and lots of other stuff. This is huge progress- usually she shuts the door as soon as possible. :) but now she likes us!

We have officially stopped teaching Ción and the girls. This took us quite a while to accept, but now that it's done we feel peace about it all. The girls are still reading their Books of Mormon every day, and marking it on their Book of Mormon calendars. we plan to stop by whenever the spirit directs and we made sure they knew they were always invited to church and activities. God has a plan for them, and even if we don't know it yet, we do know it's better than our plan. This family will always have my heart though, and I am so excited for the day they will accept the gospel into their lives again!

We have a new investigator named Blanca! She is so cool. We taught her and her son the plan of salvation and have a return appointment this coming week. Her son German knows so much for an 11 yr old! He just finished his first communion in the Catholic Church and he has a surprisingly deep understanding of life. Lots of hope for this family!

On Sunday we had quite a bit happen- I gave a talk in sacrament meeting about fasting, to start out a month long fast we will be doing during February. Every member family will take turns fasting that they can find a family to refer to the missionaries, so we can start teaching them. We are excited to see the miracles!

We also finally taught Jocelyn, the inactive youth that has a non member dad that only kind of likes the missionaries. He said we could go over while he was a work. That was a super good decision, because we brought Hmna Frias who is in the young women's presidency, and really were able to help Jocelyn feel loved and listened to. She remembers a lot from her baptism but not much doctrine, so we plan to start teaching her regularly. And she said she would come to church!

We then had a noche de hogar with Clarita and Omar at the home of the family Montesinos. We talked about Christ and read in the Book of Mormon, and the spirit was super strong. It was definitely a success!

That's about it for the week, don't forget how much God loves you!

Love,
Hermana Hokanson

Tengo veinte años

We got stake and shake to celebrate my birthday. On Friday, so early,
but that's ok!👍

Family and friends,

A lot of interesting things this week! The first is that I turned 20 on Sunday, and that was weird. I still feel like a teenager! That will probably never wear off. But I had a wonderful birthday, we ate with hmna Smith (from Guatemala) and she invited her sister and mom over, and we had my favorite meal and dessert: tacos de carne asada and chocolate tres leches cake! She didn't even know those were my favorites, so that was a tender mercy. We also had our branch conference at church, and I got to translate for a member of the stake relief society presidency that doesn't speak Spanish. The hardest part
was saying the translation in English grammar after hearing it in Spanish. :) but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be! Also it's been super warm this week, and we've barely even needed coats. 

We had new missionary training, which sometimes I feel is more for the trainers than the new missionaries, because I loved it! I learned so much. We also went on exchanges with the hermana training leaders Hmnas Craner and Gowens. All 4 of us served in Wheaton, and it was so fun! I was with hmna Craner and we were running the whole time, and taught two lessons in English which was actually kind of difficult for me.

We had another awesome lesson with Ivan, this time about the plan of salvation and how baptism ties in. He has a lot of desires to change, but has a few doubts and worries to work through before he'll commit to a baptismal date. He also didn't come to church, which is really hindering his progression. But we have high hopes for him, and the spirit to guide us, and awesome members to help him. 

We went by to teach Ción and the girls with Hmno Carroll (member), but Ción was sick. We ended up teaching Monica and the girls! it went well, but we feel like the family just isn't ready. We are praying to know the next step we should take. This family means the world to me, and I will be devastated if we end up dropping them. But something I've learned a lot here is that the Lord's timing not only is better than ours, but also is for the best interest of everyone involved. I know there is a reason we found this beautiful family, and that the Lord is preparing them in a His own way. Before we left Hmno Carroll
gave Ción a blessing of health.

We taught our new investigator Maria again, the lesson went well. Her husband Aldolfo is very strong in his beliefs of worshiping the Virgin Mary, so that sometimes makes it difficult to keep the spirit. But they have a lot of potential and desire to learn!

Edgar! Edgar is doing so well! We had a great plan of salvation lesson with him, where he pretty much said everything we are teaching him makes sense. We had Hmna Casado with us, an awesome member from the Dominican Republic. She bore her testimony and ended up driving him to church that Sunday. I love members! At church Edgar connected with a bunch of members, participated in the classes, and said he wants to come back next week!

Norma and Karina are doing well, we had an awesome lesson with them and Hmna Montesinos and her daughter Mariana. We felt inspired last minute to change our lesson to family history, and it tied really well into baptism and eternal families. Step by step this family is coming back!

We received a call a while ago from a member named David (I don't remember if I've told you all about this yet so sorry if this is a repeat). He was adopted into an LDS family. He just recently reconnected with his birth mom after over 30 yrs apart. Her name is Olga, and she has been inactive for longer than I've been alive. When she met her long lost son and saw the success and happiness he had in his gospel-centered family, she wanted to come back to the church! So we got a call from David, we got Olga's info, and have been trying to contact her for weeks. We finally got a lesson with her! She is so amazing and has a light in her eyes. She asked for a Book of Mormon, a bible, and all the info for the church. She was out of town this weekend so she couldn't come to church, but she is trying to change her work schedule so she can come this following week. We are going to be visiting her regularly and teaching her the basic lessons again. I love people like this, that are so prepared and so ready!

Also Clarita came to church again! Best birthday present ever! Ok well, that's pretty much it for this week. The church is so true and the work will never stop moving forward.

All my love,
Hermana Hokanson