Hello Family!

How is everyone doing this week? Big news here is that Chicago FINALLY got snow.  yeah....it was a pretty sad day. thank goodness I have Hermana Brown here from Utah who knows how to drive in the snow.....remember last year? praying for my life everyday....well now Ive got the pro who is hopefully going to be teaching me how to drive in it so that i can be a pro too. But Illinois did pretty good holding out till the middle of January before it dumped with snow. so yeah.....they had predicted at the end of fall that it was going to be the worst winter that Illinois had ever seen in like 29 something years and now? welllllllllllll I guess it still could come to pass and just last till like June or something....maybe I wont be coming home in march due to the extreme snow storms headed this way?? :) jk

As for this week, not gonna lie, its been a hard one. WE had 15 appts cancel this week--with investigators. And Hermana Brown is still sick and it snowed. soooo its not been the easiest or most "successful" week. Our investigators didn't come to church this Sunday :( and as such they cannot be baptized in the month of January...so they are all reset for February!

Pues aun ha estado un semana un poquito dificil--we still got to see some cool miracles :)

One was that we found a new family! there are so many kids in that house I have no idea how many there are! but they all don't have any type of relationship with God or know really who he is. The mom is single and lives with her daughter and her daughters kids as well. We have an appt with them this week and we are pretty excited to go there!

Sunday we had a lesson with Medalith--her husband is less active and he only speaks English. they have an 8 month old daughter and they live with his parents. she is from Peru and learning English. But we have been going over like once a weekish. And its been a bit different going over there---one is that we were actually fed American food. we had casserole on Sunday--that was so delicious. I had almost forgotten what those were:) and second because of the language barrier. we are teaching in Spanglish and interpreting in Spanglish as well. Alex her husband wasn't there on Sunday so we got to just talk to Medalith and it was a really awesome lesson. We were going to go over the 10 commandments and check on her reading and we only had 15 minutes untill we had to leave and I kept getting this pressing feeling we needed to talk about the restoration. about Jose Smith...so we did. and then I realized that we hadn't invited anyone to be baptized yet...and as soon as I had that thought this overwhelming rush of the spirit came over me and we invited her to specifically pray and ask god if Jose Smith was a prophet and if she knew that he was if she would prepare to be baptized. and you know what she said??? YES! we found out that she has some pretty strong desires to find out if its true and know that she is willing to take the steps once she knows it is.

On Sunday we had an I'm A Mormon Fireside which was soooooo cool. Medalith came to it and basically what it was is; showing the community who we are, what we believe, why we believe it, and how the gospel shapes our lives even though there isn't a cookie cutter type of Mormon, that we are normal people just like everyone else..... we watched some videos from mormon.org and had recent converts get up and share music talents and their testimonies. It was just really really awesome. I hope they start doing these in AZ cause they are pretty sweet!

We had Zone Meeting yesterday where we were given the new standards and practices of excellence and man so many things are changing in the mission for the better. its crazy cool. I can only imagine where its gonna be in 2020 and so on and so on. What was weird about that whole thing was that it was my 2nd to last one....I have one more Zone meeting, and one more interview with President, and one more Zone Conference and then that's it.

 But the work is good. I'm hoping we get to have all those 15 appts this week and that they wont cancel. :) and be able to invite even more people to be baptized! :)

 hope you all have a great week and that you all stay nice and warm!

paz y amor,

Hermana Maughan