Perseverar hasta el fin

“If there is any one thing that you and I need, … [it is] the kind of faith that moves us to get on our knees and plead with the Lord for guidance, and then, having a measure of divine confidence, get on our feet and go to work to help bring the desired results to pass.”
President Gordon B Hinckley

What a surreal experience, sending my last weekly email. There is no way to explain the experience of 1.5 years in the Lord's service through an email.

Being creative so we could do Spanish study in the car .

This week has been chuck full of miracles and emotions. We received our brand new missionary Hmna Lyons (she is amazing and super hard working and super funny) and with new missionaries come miracles! We
had 4 people at church this week, one of them being Maria's husband who has never been open to our message before. But he came- half because Maria made him and half because I told him it's my last week
so he has to come. :) we also found 3 new investigators: Ruth the sister of Anayeli, Vividiana the wife of a potential investigator, and Andres Irving's cousin. The coolest story is probably Vividiana: We received a call a couple days ago from someone who was super difficult to understand on the phone but said we had left a note on her door, and she wanted us to visit her. That doesn't happen very often so we were super excited, but we could not figure out her name or address. We asked her to text it to us and set an appointment for next week. Well, we never received a text. Then we went to visit a potential investigator named Miguel, and a woman answered the door, and let us right in, and of course it was the lady on the phone! It was a complete miracle because she told us she can't read or write so she wouldn't have been able to text us her address, and we never would have found where she lived. Now we are teaching Vividiana, a wonderful woman from Mexico that was so excited when we told her that she can listen to the Book of Mormon on her phone. :) the coolest part about all this, is I was cleaning up our area book and I was about to delete Miguel, but the spirit said no. Thanks Spirit!

I drew Ricardo so Hmna Lyons
 could practice teaching him. :)

I don't really know what to say at this point, it's been a good 1.5 years and it will tear my heart in half to leave these people. But I'm excited for the next adventure that the Lord has planned for me. The gospel is still true, if I'm a missionary or not. Jesus is the Christ and the Savior of the world. I am weak, but with Him I am strong.

Nos veremos aún más allá.
Con amor,

Hermana Hokanson

P.s. All you missionaries need to send me your weekly emails:
hokansonaly@gmail.com

Some members gave us weird things to bring home so we took a picture (a root beer that looks like beer, a giant cucumber, and a cup of hotdogs.)

Zone  Pic

Awesome members

Farewell party with Irving and Maria

Many Goodbyes

Also, Hmna Lyons is a butterfly whisperer

 (and eater)

Disciples of Christ

All faiths night at the Kane county cougars baseball game!!

Well, I don't have a ton of time today! We will be picking up our new missionary in a bit and running over to Geneva where we (with a bunch of other missionaries) will be singing the national anthem at the Cain county cougars baseball game, and president Griffin is throwing the first pitch, and then we get to stay for the game! That will be super weird to do such a normal person thing, but we're excited!

Victor from English class (from Ecuador)

This has been a great week! Hmna Eatough is awesome, she is learning about the area really quickly and I feel good about leaving it in her hands. We found some new investigators this week, one of which is Fátima who we were teaching a few months ago. She's from Argentina and she's super nice. We also met a girl named Jocelyn who is around our age and is super prepared! Her grandparents are Mormon (small world!) and she is looking to come closer to God. She seemed to love everything we shared with her and we'll be meeting with her again on Friday. Anayeli is still doing great, she came to church and we had a great lesson with her with the Cuatzo family, they helped her a lot. She still plans to be baptized in September. Ricardo is struggling with coffee but is doing great with everything else, he even brought food for our ward Linger-Longer activity yesterday!

A cool building we found

We were talking to some members about people playing/ watching sports on Sunday, and one member gave us this wise council:

"I don't want my kids to be professional soccer players, I want them to be professional disciples of Christ."

I love this! We can all look at our lives- what we are doing and how we are spending our time- and put it through this filter. Is it going to make me a professional disciple of Christ or not? There are so many good things in this world to do, but are we doing the best things? The ones that will truly lead us where we want to be in the end? I know that as we put the Lord first in all that we do, we will create a personal relationship with our savior Jesus Christ and find true happiness and success in this life and the life to come. 

Next week will be the last time you hear from me as a full time missionary. But I will never stop being a disciple of Christ- that is lifelong journey. The things I have learned and experienced on my mission have changed my perspective, strengthened my testimony, and given me hope for the future. 

Con mucho amor, 

Hermana Hokanson 

Hermana Lyons

A cool park we went to in Naperville

Hmna Sierra is so adorable! (From Cuba )

End of transfer miracles

Maricela at the picnic! 

Zone Pic

Transfers:

My companion is getting sent home for disobedience (KIDDING, she is the most obedient missionary I've ever met). But she is leaving me and finishing her mission! I'll miss her! 

I will be staying here for the next few weeks! I will be receiving hmna Eatough, who is one of my besties from Bloomingdale! Then, next week we will be receiving a brand new missionary! I'm so excited- I secretly wanted to train one more time but I didn't think I'd be able to! I'll only be training her for a week though.

Farewell party for hmna Wixom

Miracles:

Anayeli: remember Anayeli from a few months ago? We stopped teaching her because we lost contact with her, but last week she called us asking us to visit her! We did, and now she is on date for Sept 2! In our lesson we asked her what she feels like her next step is, and she said it's about time she gets baptized! We've taught her again since then and have a lesson for tonight. 

Church: we had a gazillion people at church this week! Anayeli and her sisters Ruth and Gabriela, Angel (María's grandson), Ricardo, and Elena brought her grandkids! Woo! We challenged Ricardo to wear a white shirt and tie, and he wore a grey shirt and tie. Close enough! He also arrived super early. Baby steps! 

Other stuff: 

The storm: we were teaching Ricardo at the church building yesterday, and heard this huge storm outside. By the time we needed to leave, it was raining so bad we could barely see! This is apparently normal for July. We all sprinted to our cars (we got completely soaked in 3.5 seconds) and slowly puttered home. Once we got there we found out the power was out in our entire apartment complex! So we fumbled through the dark for a bit. The power came back on around 1 am last night, thank goodness! But getting ready for bed was quite the adventure. 

Ricardo being himself.

They drove their car right up to the door so they didn't have to run in the rain. :) 

Us trying to get ready for bed in the dark.

Service: we served people this week! Yard work and packing up a house. 

Hmna Cuevas

Pioneer Day: we had a Pioneer Day picnic! Ricardo came and brought his sister Maria and her kids, and Maricela came with two of her daughters! Big success. 

French: we taught a lesson to someone in French using google translate and French scriptures on our tablets. Yay for technology! 

Aurora: we went on exchanges in Aurora and I taught Andres and Abraham and Hmna Cuevas! Sadly we have been informed that the area will be closing down for the transfer, which makes me super sad. But God is in charge and He knows what Aurora needs! God's way is always the best way. 

Well, here's a ton of pictures. 

Hermana Hokanson 

Andres

Why no one thinks I'm hispanic.

Andres bought me these...

Hmna Krebs, my Star Valley buddy!