HAPPY EASTER!!! :) what a wonderful week it has been :)

hola hola hola!

HAPPY EASTER!!! :) what a wonderful week it has been :)

 

OK so I don't think there is anything more horrible and yet more hilarious at the same time than riding a bike in a skirt in the city in the pouring I mean POURING rain. we seriously look like homeless girls that stole bikes riding everywhere. every ounce of decency is gone when the weather is like that. so much for looking pretty :p but its been interesting and yet so funny. just seriously like so drenched. Ive started singing in the rain at the top of my lungs on the bike and it makes hna curtis laugh and then me laugh and were just a bunch of homely, soaking, laughing, sister missionaries on bikes. every day this week its been raining. like awful weather. cold and rainy and very windy and cold and cold and cold. :) love the weather in Chicago!....not.

so I think I'm just gonna cut right to core of everything I want to talk about and tell about all the miracles that I have seen this week. cause they have been AWESOME!!!

so Sunday first of all we have this investigator his name is Marcelino and his wife was shot at in front of his house about a year ago and he was on his way back from visiting family in Mexico. He got on the plane to come back to Chicago and when he was on the plane his seat happened to be in between two missionaries who were on their way home from their missions--which were spanish speaking missions as well btw. and so they started talking and the missionaries told him about the plan of salvation and got his contact information and here we are teaching him. like so awesome. he just wants to be a good father for his son and wants the best for his newly married daughter. and we've been teaching him for a while and he just has not kept the commitment to come to church. week after week no marcelino at church. SO we had an awesome lesson on friday with him and it was just interesting how their conversation just led right to the importance of going to church. we talked about it and asked why was he waiting. why was he waiting to have those blessing in his life and he didn't know. so you know what he did on sunday? CAME TO CHURCH! so awesome. and its just so cool to see how the lord works that whenever I have had an investigator come to church the talks have been something exactly to the needs of our investigator. just seriously like god is speaking directly to them. and with no exception for marcelino. all about family. such an awesome awesome day. :)

Then there is this man by the name of Marcos. his family has been super inactive for years years years. and just recently parts of their family have been coming to church. one sat we went over to the house like 2 weeks ago and visited with han diaz (the mother/grandmother/great grandmother) and she fed us dinner and I got to meet Marcos. well we got along great and just were having a great time at dinner and shared stuff about the gospel and he said that in 2 sundays he was gonna come to church cause he didn't work and that if we would go he would go. well psh. we go every week so of course well go. but he speaks better english than spanish so we get home from spanish church and get a phone call from him telling us that hes headin to church :) so we hopped on our bics and off we went to church again with awesome marcos. he hasnt been to church in over 15 years. and he came! It was sOOO cool. his life is gonna change. hes gone through some stuff and now hes ready for this :) love this gospel.

then Sunday night we had intercambios...i cant think of the word in english....its where you trade companions in another area for like 24hrs...exchanges??? idk sorry! but um so we had those with the hermans that are in skoki. so traded that night. i went up to skoki with hna reyes and holy cow! SUPER DAY! we woke up and I had a really good personal study. right now I have the goal to finsih the book of alma before hermana curtis goes home and not to mention that I'm reading the libro de mormon...not the book of mormon...aka the Spanish one.so its been really amazing to see how the lord has helped me understand more and more of this language. and I'm in Alma 30ish right now and its just about some awesome missionaries and missionary work and ya. just pumping cool chapters. anyways so our first lesson we had that day was with a very handicapped lady named ana and we went over and sang some church songs with her and shared with her a message of Christ and Easter and then as we were leaving su vecino her neighbor from the basement apt came up and was in the kitchen as we were leaving and started talking to us. said that he had a BOM and was asking us questions. we told him if he wanted to learn more than we would be more than happy to explain and help him come closer to Christ. he said yes so we sat down with him and had a first lesson-got him to commit to reading and ya he loved it. then we had our next apt that called and cancelled so we had 3 hours to tract instead of 2...and i failed to mention that we woke up that morning with snow on the ground. weeeeeeee. so tracting in cold for 3 hours weeeeeeeee. but we were walking down this street and hna reyes said that there was someone that she wrote the address down in her planner that was an old investigator who the missionaries had seen only 3 times and she had no idea who it was. so we stopped by the apt cause we happened to be on the exact same street anyways as that address. so we rang the bell. someone answered and she came to the door. we asked if we could come in for a bit and she said yes. we walk in and there on her coffee table is a libro de mormon. sitting there open and the pages looking very very worn. like the book has been read and reread and read again. we look at each other and ask her have you been reading this book? and she said "yes. every day. depending on how i feel one or two verses or sometimes chapters. I love this book." she went on for a bit saying how much she loved this book and all the reasons why. shes apparently been going through some crazy times of trying to find a new apt losing her job and being very very sick and has been suffering from pretty serious stress. and she bore the most beautiful testimony on the book of Mormon. told us that every time she picks it up and reads it she feels this peace rush over her that even though all these crazy things are happening in her life she feels like for some reason she can do all them. she told us she doesn't have a bible and that she found that book in her stuff and just started reading it.it was seriously so amazing. we taught her about authority and Joseph smith and committed her to be baptized right then and there and she said yes without a second thought. like of course i want to be baptized by someone holding that authority. shes coming to church on Sunday and ahhh! it was such an awesome lesson! Seriously like an ensign moment we had right there :)

then we continued on tracting, hna reyes had written some other addresses in her planner that she just found in the area book that morning so we went to them and ended up not being the same people that were there before but we had some very cool discussions with people in those apts who were looking for a church to go to and then as we were leaving to our last apt before I headed back to the city we started talking to this taxi man turns out he speaks Spanish (no surpise right) and that his sobrina is a member of the church and that he wants to learn more. idk its just so amazing how every person has some connection with the gospel and with members. and we wouldn't find any of that out if we didn't open our mouths! :) so ya then we headed back here to the city.

and Irma didn't come to church on Sunday which means we had to push her baptism date back so its been moved to next Tuesday. the last day before hna curtis leaves. but it needed to happen. god has such a great plan and we just gotta trust in it. so her bap date has been moved and its just given her so much more drive to do the things she needs to be baptized. it was her 19th birthday on the 19th and we had a good celebration with her and also taught her the plan of salvation which was one of the best POS lessons Ive ever had. she just got it and started asking some very very good questions:) I love her so much! 

but that's the just of what happened this week! :) its been a very good week. I love you all and today hittin up the city for some wardrobe changing of lil miss hermana curtis as this is her last pday here in the city! :) so excited!

I love you all and hope you have great week and a happy Easter!

paz y amor, Hermana Maughan