March 6, 2017

Part of our authentic Indian meal ...

Step 13 gone wrong? Jaja just kidding 😬

Sister Havey !!!!!

Sister Campbell! Can you believe I trained her and she's been out for almost a year? Crazy !

Exchanges with the Pontiac sisters !!!!

Our new investigator, Indu!

Frankfort exchange take 2

Serious as Chicago !

¿Really Sister Ällowitz ?.... this wasn't even on purpose.

High school reunion !

Cool clouds !!!!! FAT TUESDAY CELEBRATION 🎉

No snow?...well here come the Toronados .... ILLINOIS IN WHIRLWIND OF TROUBLE 

PAUL BLART EATS GOAT 

SISTERs... participate in Fat Tuesday 

Okay is it really March already??? This is SO unreal!   Time flies when you're having a great time! I officially hit my 15 month mark today!!!!!!! And it's the BEST 15 months. FOR I LOVE this gospel with ALL my heart!!!! 

So I'm Polish blooded and we have this thing called PACZKI TRADITION. For hundreds of years in my beloved land of Poland, my people have been celebrating the arrival of Lent by making PACZKI ( punch-key). They're DELICIOUS filled Jelly donuts from heaven!!!! "It's tradition" for "FAT TUESDAY" (Ostaki) .... aka the  day before Ash Wednesday, the 40 day fast. It's one of my favorite traditions, and I'm proud to have Polish blood! I love that as we learn more about our family history these holidays and events become special to us. 

We had some legit tornado warnings. The sky's even looked pretty crazy. Lots of rain and hail. And crazy things going. We are still alive! Some areas in our mission got hit pretty bad though. 

These investigators of ours, Indu & Srvanon, invited us over for an authentic Indian meal. I ate GOAT for the first time in my life. I milked a goat once, but never ate one until yesterday. It actually was a lot better than I thought. And I can officially say I DO NOT like tofu !!!! 🤢🤢🤢🤢 ESPECIALLY spicy tofu 😰😂😂😂  They kept asking if we wanted more of everything. I couldn't take any more. Then she took my plate and loaded more tofu and goat..... so kids listen up .... if you're preparing to go on a mission ..... learn to eat lots of different foods even if you don't want to cause it'll really prepare  you for a mission! 

Sis. Nogueira is helping me learn to really pray in Spanish and not just Spanglish but for now that's kinda what it is. Jaja. I've noticed when I pray in Spanish, it helps me make sure my prayer life isn't rote everytime. Because I really have to pay attention to the spirit and what words I'm gonna say. I REALLY have to search for them. 

It's cool to hear her always pray in Spanish too.  I don't understand everything she says, but I'm learning to recognize more things and the spirit has touched my heart so much more. It's really interesting what happens when you don't understand the words yet the spirit is understood in ANY language. Learning languages is so cool! 

What y'all been doing around 9-10pm ? 😂You know you're a missionary/ Hermana when it's night time and for your free time  you sing every hymn in Spanish. I feel like the world is getting crazier everyday and even though there's lots of good people in the world, there's still a lot who are making poor choices.  But here we are 

jamming out to Spanish hymns 😂😂😂😂 #missionaryjamsesh 

Sis. Nogueira & I laugh SO much. It's pretty funny. We get each other's wave lengths and pretty much read each other's minds. It's so crazy. We really are like twins. It was extra funny, cause we got asked last minute (5 min before class) to teach Gospel Principles a couple weeks ago and a member in ward afterwards said, "Sisters, you're like twins! One of you says something and teaches, then without even having to look at each other the other person talks and testifies. Wow. I'm just amazed! Y'all are amazing teachers. I'm so blown away!" 

It's the best when you and your companion can teach in unity. This really is a companionship from the heavens. I'm so grateful for my companion. She's awesome! It's so nice when members tell you you're doing great too because you really know you're following the spirit and doing what God asks you to do. Seriously, the gospel is my FAVORITE & I wanna share it with EVERYONE!!!!! ☺️

Sheila, my recent convert from Bourbonnais, recently told her boss, "I recently was baptized and now I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So I won't be working on Sundays  anymore." ¿WOW RIGHT?????  It's soooo cool to see the Lord work within  her and help her out. She's continuing to change and has come so close to Jesus Christ  every day. She's more bold, and I love it! She's such an inspiration. Heavenly Father has soooo much in store for her. I can feel it. It's sooooo cool, cause she's working on introducing the gospel to her daughter. Her daughter has noticed a HUGE difference in Sheila and said it must be this gospel and the Book of Mormon. 

Brethren and Sisters, I KNOW this gospel and the Book of Mormon DO bring soooo much happiness and light into our lives. I've seen it with Sheila. I've seen it with many people throughout my mission, and most importantly, I've seen it within MYSELF. I know we are our first converts.  And we must come to know of the truthfulness of the gospel for ourselves. I had a STRONG testimony before my mission, but throughout this adventure my testimony has become STRONGER than EVER before! I wouldn't want my life any other way but with the gospel. I love it so much. I love being apart of this great work. I love helping people change and come closer to Christ. I love that I've learned so much. And changed for the better so much. I just love it all. 

Miracles:

• We recently have this new investigator named  Kendrick. The finding assistants found him at a local fast food place, and Kendrick is wanting to change his life. He's so cool. So the finding assistants gave us his referral. That same day we felt we needed to go see him a little after 5:30pm. We get there and knock on the door but no answer. We wait...knock again...no answer... rang the door bell...nothin! But we didn't feel we could just go back into the car and drive off.  We felt we really needed to go find out WHY we felt we needed to be there. We see a house a couple doors down, we thought we should knock on. An older lady answered (it took her awhile to get to the door)  and yelled "I'M EATING DINNER. GO AWAY!"  I tried to at least hand her a card & get a return appointment, but she just straight up slammed the door. Her dinner must've been really good.  You know what's even better than dinner???.... THE RESTORED GOSPEL TRUTHS!!!!!  It was way cool though, cause right as we turn around Kendrick pulls up in his car jamming to his rap music. We walk over and wave and he rolls down his window. He was so surprised to see us. He said, "I saw missionaries earlier. And now you're here talking to me. I'm tripping  This must be God telling me I need to find Jesus again and come back to church, cause I've been feeling like I need to.   Wow this is so crazy! I'll be axin' more questions next time y'all be coming .   He's seriously so cool. And hilarious. We were able to teach him about the Book of Mormon and a little bit of background on it. We had another lesson to teach him this last Friday but he didn't answer so we will keep trying. So keep praying we get to teach him and his family! 

In the mission, we've been trying to get out of being rote and stop using the same old approaches to people. We've been working on using F. O. R. M. it stands for ....Family. Occupation. Recreation. Motivation.  It's been cool to see as we use this to talk to people, we have a LOT more meaningful gospel convos with them.  They become more interested because you do teach THE PERSON & not just rote, boring saleslike lessons. People really see the light of Christ within you.  They want it. They feel they need it. They yearn for it. 

So here's some miracles we saw this week as we put this into pracitce : 

Milagros¡ Semanales!!!!!!¡

Frankfort exchange : 

So we had our first specialized training exchange and went to Frankfort. This is the exchange we go to their area and simply help them find. And we saw a LOT of miracles! Frankfort has been struggling for the LONGEST time to find new investigators. We helped them find 4 NEW INVESTIGATORS.... FOUR!!! And even some potentials. It was sooo cool! 

• Peter... We got talking & he was interested for a little bit, but then said they already had a church.  We were able to keep the convo going by relating it to things he mentioned were important to him. When he was giving us his info to check back, I noticed his last name was Polish.  I asked, "is your last name Polish?" And I was RIGHT!!!! I asked more about  Poland from his family's history, and his parents are straight outta Poland. Isn't that so cool? He's a first generation. I think that's awesome! He was more interested in learning more about his family  history. Talked to him about the churches super cool familysearch.org 
• Ironman ... We were walking up to this guys house and the garage was open. There were ironman running bibs, a huge ironman frame so I was THINKING "BINGO. I got  this" !!!! He quickly noticed who we were and said his friend was a member and even served a mission, but he wasn't interested. He was about to slam the door, then I pointed out I saw his ironman stuff. His attitude changed. I told him how impressive that was. I asked him some tips for someone who wants to do one. He was a lot nicer and a lot more willing to listen when we showed him that we are real people. He kindly took a pass along card when we offered service too. It was cool to see his heart soften. Again like I've said soooo many times.... service does soften hearts. 

• One of the sisters set a goal to talk to 30 people and didn't think she could accomplish it and she and I ended up talking to 43 people in just ONE day!!!! 

It makes me wonder how many people I've come in contact with and talked to on my entire mission. It helped me see that we CAN accomplish ANY goal we set for ourselves, if it's sincere and we have the intent to  have the faith to ACT on it. It also taught me that just because someone doesn't accept our invitation to learn more, or come to church right away, or even if they are rude and cuss you out or flip you off or slam the door in your face, it doesn't mean our efforts are wasted. It simply means we brought those people just a little bit closer to Jesus Christ. It means we left them just a little bit better than we found them. I know even the simplest things can change people's lives and bring them closer to Jesus Christ because I've witnessed it EVERY SINGLE DAY. 

¡Tenga una BUENA semana!

Love, 

Siòstra Ällowitz