April 24, 2017

Saw Sister Anderson @ new missionary training! It's funny...even though
it's been awhile since we've been companions, we are still unified
....#stripes&braids #notevenplanned

SISTER HATCH IS AMAZING! She even gifted me this shirt. What a great wonderful person she is ❤❤❤ She's always taking care of us missionaries. #tendermercy

Sister Barr from Pontiac. She's the best.

Pontiac exchanges. It felt soooo good to be back in the Peoria area. #ilovemycornpeople

April 17, 2017

Brother & Sister Griessmeyer are some of the greatest people I've met!
They're such angels and tender mercies in my life. God is so good to
place them in my path. ❤️

HAPPY EASTER 🐥

EASTERS IS SPRINGING EVERYONE TO SUMMER 

I love this scripture a lot because it reminded me that we need to let go of so much to know the Savior and come close to him. We can't just come unto Him halfway.   We must do it all the way. 

Luke 18: 16-27 

16 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

17 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

19 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.

20 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.

21 And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.

22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.

23 And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.

24 And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

25 For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

26 And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved?

27 And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.

Y'all it's like a Firecracker has ignited!  Our last district meeting & K3's misison call has made me feel like a brand new missionary again. My creative ideas and kick is back. I feel like I'm back in a HS track race (I ALWAYS had a kick @ the end. I would NEVER let someone next to me beat me! Just not who I am...a little stubborn but it's good for a person to be stubborn at times;) 

A best friend recently said, "I know you are working hard, because you are one of Rod's Girls and Rod's Girls give their all:)"

Yup I am not a quitter. I don't give up. Satan doesn't have one ounce of power over me. I've told him to go home SO many times. Still working on it though, because missions honestly are a LOT rougher than people make them out to be. I've cried so much and felt soooo down on my mission, but I've been able to do my best to work through it because of Jesus Christ and the power of his Atonement in my life. I love him and know that it's through him I can do all things. 

I really love this hymn.  It has taught me that a mission really is one of the greatest ways to get to know God and Jesus Christ.  It brings you down to your knees to fight those hard battles that you can't have help conquering anywhere else. It's reminded me that we can and will draw nearer to the Lord by not forgetting the small and simple things like personal and family scripture study and prayer. Y'all, my family wasn't always the best at it, but we did what we could. I'm not perfect either, but I do my best.  I really cannot stress enough the importance of making a time that works for you, and put it into your schedule ! JUST DO IT Y'ALL. I promise it'll make your lives happier and better. DON'T BE STUPID. DON'T let the small things slip.  

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!

E’en though it be a cross

That raiseth me.

Still all my song shall be

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!

2.

Though like the wanderer,

The sun gone down,

Darkness be over me,

My rest a stone,

Yet in my dreams I’d be

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!

3.

There let the way appear,

Steps unto heav’n;

All that thou sendest me,

In mercy giv’n;

Angels to beckon me

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!

Elder Pace recently said: "When you value someone else's salvation more than your own comfort then that's when you'll see success."  

And WOW it's so true. Crazy what happens when you do the things that make you stretch and get out of your comfort zone, then the miracles really do happen. 

And it continues ... Elder Pace, "The worst thing  you can have on your mission is fear."  3 things that smash fear in the face... 

1- perfect love 

2- faith 

3- looking unto Christ in everything 

And never fear anything " 

REALLY YA'LL, let's look unto Christ and let our worries be gone. 

Everyone keeps making "old people" jokes since I'm going home soon. "Oh so you go home soon.  Do you smell death? How far away is that plane?" 😑  It's seriously not funny haha. I'm like REALLY WILLIS YOU WANNA DIE TODAY? 

Milagros:

• Ken and Janice...Her mom passed away 2 weeks ago.  She literally said,  I've been searching for peace, but I don't know where to find it." 

I KNOW death IS hard! I've had a LOT of close loved ones pass away and it definetly pulls at your heart strings. YET,  because of Jesus Christ we can rise above and find happiness. If you're currently facing death,  please turn to the Lord and find peace through him. I know he will give it to you. Through Christ we are promised new life. 

• lady we called in area book ... Courtney.  She started talking to her kids about the missionaries coming and said, "hey  we owe a lot of thanks to the Mormon church." We were like "WHAT?"😂
• Stan the man : hah, he's our awesome African American investigator. He cracks me up. He makes me laugh every time we talk to him. His granddaughter Shanese is reading the Book of Mormon, too, and wants to learn more. She has some really deep and awesome questions. Some kids at school told her not to meet with us, and she stood up for the church and let them know she was gonna investigate for herself. OH MY GOODNESS wow! God is sooo good! 
• Nigerian little boy bore his precious testimony in sacrament meeting. It touched everyone. This precious Nigerian family just moved here straight from Nigeria. Here's my people, and I love them ❤
• Little 7 yr old girl talked about Mormons in her class.
• April, our investigator, said she dream of Christ helping her and following after her.  She's soooo sincere and so wanting to change. I love when the Lord prepares people. God is so good.  He loves all of us. 

And it was EASTER yesterday! Y'all I love this time of year, especially in Illinois cause everything is changing and looks so pretty. It's springing its way into summer. I love my sunshine. I could eat it up all day. I know even when life sucks we can find happiness in small things--like the sunshine--all because of Jesus Christ. He loves us. He wants us to be happy. I'm still searching for it sometimes, because life is down at times, but I know as we continue to search we will find it in Jesus Christ and His gospel. I've seen and felt it too much to deny it.  Come learn more about Him. It's great. It's greater than sleep or food or go carts or fishing. I promise! 

Love always, 

Hermana Allowitz 

April 10, 2017

We got to hang out with the Hermana's and Sisters and Senior Sisters. It was so fun. We dyed eggs and had a prepared brunch. Sister Hatch is literally my mom here. They're the bomb.

OH MY GOSH FINALLY I CAN TELL YOU MY COOL CONNECTION HERE ...
Some members, the Meldrum family, have a daughter who is dating my good friend, Kent, from Texas!!!! Can you believe this ??? He came to visit the family and explore Chicago. It was cool cause the members had us over for dinner. I could hardly believe it when I saw him. We've lost touch for awhile, and then boom he's dating a members daughter.
It was soooo great to see a familiar face, cause this has definetly been my HARDEST area. I'm glad God has helped me through my mission with placing these connections in my path. A few weeks ago sister Meldrum asked where I was from and it went a little like this :
Me: Texas.
Her : where in Texas ?
Me : Austin.
Her: oh do you know the Kelly's?
Me: that sounds familiar. I do know some Kelly's. What's their first names ?
Her :.... Kent ... and ...
Me: oh my goodness yes!!!! I ran track and Xc with Kent and we had a lot of the same friends we hung it with.
---
Y'all I cannot even wrap my brain around how small of a world this is. Y'all know I'm my mothers daughter 😂😂😂 One time when we were in the airport after Mom ran the Disney World marathon, Mom ran into a good friend she hasn't seen in years. I always wondered how that was possible haha. But that's always happening to me, just so much more on my mission. God really is sooooo aware of each of us. Y'all I KNOW God knows what we need and gives it to us. I know he's sooo aware of you, too, no matter what you're going through.

Sister LeDoux , she's hilarious! She reminds me of Grandma C a lot. It
was soooo funny cause she was showing us a picture of her family and
said, "here's my little chocolate factory ..." 😂😂😂😂

STAN!!!!! The man. Coolest miracle. The Zone Leaders have really been encouraging us to find new investigators, cause we've really struggled. Stan was outside working on his garage, and we invited him to a ward activity that was gonna be in a couple hours. He CAME. Y'ALL HE ACTUALLY CAME. I've never seen that happen!
He missed church cause he had to cover someone's shift ,BUT he's gonna come next week with his grand daughter and wife. Y'all ahhhhh I'm soooo pumped. God is sooo good cause this area has struggled for soooo long to find new people to teach. Especially finding humble people. Too many people here are sooooo prideful and just stuck up. So BOOM .... God blessed us with Stan, the man. He's hilarious. And sincere. Things are looking up for this area! NAPERVILLE IS ON FIRE🔥🔥🔥🔥 watch out .... here come the missionaries!

Besties. ❤

Sister Havey and I having fun....

SISTER HAVEY ❤

Joliet Zone conference !

Sister Havey & I got rain boots

Don't mess with these sisters :) The gang... I guess I was supposed to be funny in this pic...haha. Everyone was giving me a hard time. "Y'all you know me. Cmon. I tried but then I started laughing...." #fail
Love Hermana Allowitz

April 3, 2017

Hermana Alexander & I on exchanges. I seriously love her!!!! She's a kindred spirit. ❤

I am very grateful for the Hermana's cause they keep helping me practice my espanõl! Reading the Spanish Book of Mormon is my new favorite thing!

Sister Hatch is the greatest. She's so hip and sassy. I love her. She feeds my soul❤

Sister Hatch reminds me a lot of YOU mom! #tendermercy 

HOW FIRM IS YOUR FOUNDATION? ...... I LOVED LOVED LOVED general conference! Holy cow it's like a basketball game ...people try to talk to me and I'm like ..." WILLIS PLEASE just wait til  half time' Jaja, but really. Ah I just love hearing from the Prophet Thomas S. Monson and the other leaders. I KNOW they're called of God. I have a firm testimony that the things they taught and promised ARE TRUE. I KNOW President Thomas S. Monson IS our latter day prophet upon  the earth today. I love him. I sustain him. He is a man of God. I KNOW IT. 

WEEK OF MIRACLES BRINGS SISTER TO HAVE GREATER JOY 

Miracles : 

• Melissa & John 

The finding assistants taught us some tips and tricks to talk to more people and find more new investigators. One way they said is when we see people walking their dogs to walk with them.  It's been cool cause we have done this with a lot of people lately. It was funny cause my companion was "wait what?" Haha. I said "yeah it's the coolest thing. It'll be fun." We walked out of a dinner appointment last Monday (in 35-40 mins which is pretty good ..usually it's an hour). As we were walking out we saw this young couple coming  towards us walking their dog. I was smiling so big, cause I knew this meant we HAD to walk with them 😏  We walked with them for about 2 miles or so. They both claimed to be either agnostic/atheist or just not really religious.  It was such a cool experience to help them learn more about what's out there and that God really does love us and that is IS here. We talked a lot about The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. We offered them a Book of Mormon.  John said he would read it,  then put it in his library at work. We offered him another one to he could keep but he and politely declined. OH MY GOODNESS it was SO cool! It was definitely one of the most powerful experiences in my life. I am soooo happy sharing the gospel even when it's a hard day or week or months because I get to be a part in bringing Gods children back to him.  That to me is pure happiness. I am grateful for the opportunity to meet them and plant those seeds. Cause y'all know seeds are equally as important because if you don't plant the seeds then how does one expect anything to grow? Exactly!   So when you find yourself planting seeds remember it's VERY IMPORTANT. THE COOLEST PART I think though is the fact that we were originally supposed to go to dinner an hour earlier but the members needed to change the time and then we got out way early of the appointment and then BOOM ...... God placed Melissa and John in our path. WOW , this is the coolest work we could be doing!!!!!!..... I hope y'all see it too. 

• Lori -- 

So we were in a neighborhood stopping by an investigator and saw a lady outside with her family. We walked over to talk to her.  She's been Catholic her whole life and its family tradition. I felt prompted to ask her, "have you ever wondered why there are so many churches?" She said, "yeah actually I have."  I was sooooo excited cause that lead PERFECTLY into The Restoration & Jospeh Smith story.   we were able to share the 1st Vision with her, and it touched her.  She said she got chills and really felt something. She said she isn't interested right now, but I KNOW she felt something. I KNOW the Spirit touched her heart. I am grateful we were able to be there to catch her, cause she her family were just about to get in their car and drive off. Something I've learned is that "Timing is EVERYTHING" on a mission. 

• Meg -- 

So we've recently been going through our Area Book to find the Elect and we came across Meg. She's an older lady who only speaks Spanish so it was quite interesting trying to talk to her. 😂 But an even greater miracle was realizing we were gonna have the Hermana's come for exchanges.  Hermana Alexander and I got to go back and try to teach her. She's not interested, but her son was. So that's cool. The Hermana's will be in touch with him. 

• Julia called to cancel. She didn't have our number so she called the church building! Can you believe that? I've never had an investigator do that. Ha, you know they're serious when they google the church address and phone number. We met her while in a less actives neighborhood. We felt prompted to knock on her door, and she's really solid. She has a lot going on right now with family, and is a wonderful mother who wants to be the very best for her kids. Seriously she's been prepared! 

I WANNA CHALLENGE EACH OF YALL TO LOOK FOR GODS HAND IN YOUR LIFE. LOOK FOR THE MIRACLES.  LOOK FOR WAYS TO SHARE THE GOSPEL THAT AREN'T COOKIE CUTTER. THINK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX. BE BETTER. DO BETTER. THINK OF THINGS YOU'VE NEVER DONE BEFORE. GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE. 

LOVE. 

Hermana Ällowitz