The Hermana Brown Driving in the Snow Academy

HELLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOO out there!!!!!!!

Well another week is already gone! and january is basically over. cant cant cant believe it. we are already halfway through this transfer.

Time is an unfair thing ive realized.
oh well. part of life. right?
Weve seen some pretty cool things happen this week. 

Actually a not so cool thing that happened this week first. It snowed. Again. 2wice this week. bleh. I hate hate hate hate snow. The goodnews is that this year I have Hermana Brown who lived in Utah, and she knows how to drive in the snow! so I dont have to start saying the Lords prayer everytime I get in the car this year. just kidding -but it was snowing so bad on Friday that ok this is what happened.......ready?

So Friday we had an appt at 3:30, one at 4:00, one at 5, one at 6 and then one at 7:30. good day right? yes. until it started snowing. So we left for our 3:30 at 2:30 so we could make it without any problems. usually it only takes about 20 minutes to get to them if that--depending on traffic. wellllllllll traffic is soooo bad and the snow is just coming down that it was 4:00 and we hadn't even made it half way there. the snow kept freezing on our windshield wipers and that was so bad that the driver side wiper actually broke. so we had to call and cancel those 2 appts and then the 5oclock called and cancelled on us due to the amount of snow. and so then we pulled into the nearest parking lot -Target. due to the fact that Hermana Brown can't see while she is driving....called the car guy and he told us we needed to go to jiffy lube and buy our windshield wipers there. Jiffy lube was 3.7 miles away from where we were....So on we went to make it to jiffy lube before it closed. thinking it would only take us about 10-15 minutes to get there....wrong. to drive 3.7 miles it took 45 minutes! finally make it there and we had to cancel our 6 o clock cause there was no way we would make it back in time. one of those appts was supposed to be our dinner appt so we were starving! thank goodness to our delight I realized how much God really does love us, because across the street from the jiffy lube was a restaurant. and you know what one?!! CARRABAS! so we pull into the very empty but open Carrabas and oh man. it was delish. soooo yummy :) and I thought of my mom and dad going there for their Friday night date :) so thanks for that! but then we did end up making it for our 7:30.

and that lesson was awesome!

It was with Irma and Monico. and we taught the 10 commandments and the Sabbath day. and Irma is still trying super hard to get her Sundays off and she is even at the point of thinking of finding a new job. so we are hoping and praying :)

 After that Hermana Brown decided to become the teacher while I became the student as we boogied it over to the church parking lot--I mean The Hermana Brown Driving in the Snow Academy. and I learned how to drive in the snow. wooooopie. hopefully I won't have to do it now :) cause its scarrrry.

On Saturday we had this super cool miracle happen. All of our appts cancelled. and I was seriously at a complete loss of what to do. I was praying and praying and praying to receive revelation or on where we needed to go and I was coming up blank. And then I thought- well maybe we need to ask someone else for inspiration. So we called up the Bishop and his wife answered. She asked us if we had eaten yet. told her no. she invited us to come over. so we did. we went over and had a good little discussion with bishop and his wife about the work and all the miracles we've seen and stuff and then we asked them if they knew of anyone that could use a visit from the missionaries :) less actives, part members. friends, whoever. Bishop sits and thinks about it for a bit and then he says--"well there are my neighbors over here! they were actually being taught by the missionaries like a year ago. Maybe their hearts will be open to it now". So we leave their home with a kneeling prayer where bishop pleads for us to be able to find those families ready for the gospel and that this family we are about to see will let us in and want to hear more. So we go over there and sure enough--they let us in. Family of 5 all over the age of 20. and we had an awesome discussion/lesson about church and who and what we do as missionaries. and they invited us over this Friday. so we shall see!

Yeppers, so we are ready for more miracles to happen this week! :) expect them and they happen! :) :)

hope you all have a great week! and if you find yourself with nothing to do--write me a letter!! I would love one! :p

Love you all so much!

paz y amor,
Hermana Maughan

Elizabeth's Baptism

 Well it has been another great week! But today I don’t have much time to e-mail so I will be fast!

                First thing is that Elizabeth was baptized this Saturday and then confirmed on Sunday, she asked me to baptize her and then a member that was teaching with us confirm her. The funny thing was that after the baptism to my surprise I didn’t get wet past the knees…. So I was able to dry off really fast…. She was just a little smaller than me, and as I was looking at the pics they make me look really big haha I don’t think I should gain anymore weight haha but that’s a little hard being in Pembroke. Which brings me to my next point, I'm staying here for at least another 6 weeks but Elder Yankton is leaving and tomorrow I will have a new comp! I have no idea who it will be but I think the Lumbees will miss there big Native American missionary. I'm really loving it in this ward and I think they love me too haha I am so glad I can stay for another 6 weeks.

                Along with the baptism a really great thing was the fact that we had a lesson with a less active member and didn’t even have to ask if she knew anyone that we could teach, but just told us that her sister just moved with her and is the only member in her family that isn’t a member, so we got out there Saturday morning and knocked on their door and instantly they let us in and broke the ice, they talked about how they wanted to start coming to church and it was a really good visit but they had to be going so we set a return appointment and invited them to church.

              After that we drove to the less active member’s home and told her all about it and she said that the husband had read the entire book of Mormon and kept it on his ipad! Then the next day at church they all came! There are a lot of good thing that will be coming soon!

                Well I got to go and I love you all! Be safe and strong!

ELDER MAUGHAN

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

Lumbee Bowls

        It is yet again another great week! the Lord is really blessing us here. This week Elizabeth is being Baptized and it has really been great teaching her. Her Mother is from Nigeria and speaks with a very heavy accent, she has as been less active for a long time but has become very strong through the teaching of her daughter. Elizabeth is really excited for it and she really understands the importance of what she is doing. I must say I'm really excited too!

 Another really cool thing this week was that we were at a members house where we were suppose to teach an investigator that never showed up... so we asked this member if there was any one that he knew that needed to be taught in his home and he gets up and walks into another room and comes out with one of his mother's home nurses. He invites her right there in front of us if she would like to be taught. We set up another time to go teacher her but she got really sick so we couldn't meet with her until Sunday. Her name is Tina. When we first got there she really didn't know why we were there other then she wanted to understand more about Jesus Christ. It was really great to see the change that had come over her, from the opening prayer to the closing. She hasn't been involved with any church for a long time but she does have a testimony of prayer, besides that she really didn't know to much so we started from the beginning. The best part about the lesson was when we started teaching about the Book of Mormon she came out with a really deep question about her own life as pertaining to if she should marry a man she was dating or not, and then that is where the spirit really came in strong as we testified about how if she were to read and pray about the Book of Mormon that her question would be answered. She is really excited and wants her Boyfriend to learn now too! This was all a big miracle. 

A really fun thing we did yesterday was to make clay bowls with the Lumbees! yep so I'm almost full Lumbee now haha... but to tell the truth my bowls were not that good. It was the first time that I have ever done pottery on a wheel. It was a really good bowl to start with, but in the end after just a "few" mistakes i don't think it will hold more than salad dressing or something haha. This project was for a thing called empty bowls where we make the bowls and then they sell them to others and give all the money to the poor in the area. Very cool,  I had a lot of fun. It's so much fun being with the Lumbees!

Oh ya so today the weather is in the high 60s....... its one of the craziest winters I have ever been in..... I really have no idea what its going to be like in the summer......... all is well and it has just been a lot of fun! I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week!

LOVE ELDER MAUGHAN

White Christmas

hey family! :)

Happy new year!! :)

It was so awesome to get to talk to you on Sunday :) weee everyone sounds so much different on the phone then I remember. Mike you sound all grown up. its gonna be weird to you when I get home seeings how your way taller than me now.

Thank you so much to all and everyone that sent me Christmas cards and gifts! they were awesome. p.s. mom I'm wearing the sweater I love it.

 This Christmas was a good one especially because instead of having a white Christmas outside looks wise. We got to have one inside and soul salvation wise:) Luis got baptized and it was seriously an amazing baptism. The smoothest I have ever had. The font was filled with warm water. the copy machine worked. the programs were all done correctly, the people participating in the program showed up on time and even Luis did too! We even started the baptism pretty much on time. 10 minutes late which is saying something. the only thing that went wrong---Luis and Elder Allen (who was baptizing him) both forgot their towels and change of undies. But nonetheless the spirit was there and it was pretty sweet. Sunday he was confirmed and that was an amazing blessing he received. its so cool to be able to see the change in people take place. Luis is now preparing to serve a mission and is really excited about it :) his blessing even talked about that and yeah Luis is one special kid.

 For Christmas eve we got to spend the night with the Mather's a family in the English ward. it was nice to have an English Christmas :) we read the Christmas story and opened up presents. and then on Sunday we went to church and it ended up being an hour and a half with a meeting after. but then we went to the bishops house and had a cool little family home evening. we played taboo and talked about all of our conversion stories. after that we went and visited with Kiki and her husband Shane and then headed over to the Sarmientos and had Christmas dinner and a lesson about the B of M with their brother Roberto.

This week was a busy one. we were able to teach 28 lessons this week. pretty crazy-the highest amount Ive ever been able to do in a week maybe one day i can make it to 30! :)

WE had an awesome miracle happen on Monday :) God led us to 4 new investigators. Our first appt after district meeting was with this family that we felt the impression to knock their door the week earlier and they opened the door and told us they were busy and asked us if we could come by next week. so we did. they let us in and its this cute little family of 3 who have been searching for the truth and didn't even really recognize it. They had a lot of questions and told us a ton about all of their religious views which line up with a lot of our beliefs. They really do believe in the importance of hard work and families, and have already invited us over for next week and told us they want to feed us! but it was a really cool lesson and I look forward to teaching them some more. :)

Then later that day we had lesson with Miguel who is a recent convert and we were planning to talk about the Christlike attributes with him and we went in and all of his roommates were there which is kind of unusual unless they are just about to leave so we invited them to come and listen and they said sure. One of them was a woman named Alejandra and she is large with child and we taught the plan of salvation and oh man. I have never had the spirit so strong in a lesson before. it was tangible with how strong it was. we talked about the importance of being baptized and having the gift of the Holy Ghost and how they right now can feel the spirit in moments but that if they want that feeling with them always then they need to be baptized and receive the companionship of the Holy Ghost and towards the end of the lesson, Alejandra told us--I don't know much about the bible or anything but I love this plan. I felt really peaceful and relaxed--its like what you were explaining how I felt it but now its not there. So we invited her to be baptized so she could have that companionship and she said yes! we have a return appt with her next Monday and she's pretty excited to come to church!

Oh and we find out about transfers on Saturday if there are any. I don't know whats gonna happen but I could see president leaving us together for another transfer but no one ever knows! So next time I email it could be in a different place!

But yeah that's whats up here! Sure miss you guys! love you tons and wanna know something bien loco? 13 weeks and I'm home. crazy right?

I hope you all have a good week!

paz y amor, Hermana Maughan

Feliz Navidad!

AHHHH!!!! Christmas time already!!! I cant believe it!! :)

Feliz Navidad! I really really can't believe that it is here already. that I get to talk to my family and that its gonna be the last time till I go home. Idk it all feels super surreal to me. But nonetheless I am super excited to talk to my precious family.

And oh boy do I have some cool miracles to share this week. How these keep happening to me mind boggles me. But I have been able to be the witness of so many miracles during my mission and especially now here in Aurora.

Well the following miracle I am going to share is a very special.... But a couple of weeks ago I was praying and asking God where we needed to go that day to find someone who was prepared and waiting for us to talk to them. As I prayed I had the feeling that we needed to go to these certain apartments and we didn't need to knock any doors just walk around the parking lot. So I obeyed. we went and just started walking around the parking lot of these apt buildings when this lady walks out and she is SUPER prego. Like Ready to pop she is so big with child. So she starts talking to us telling us that this will be her first child and that she left her abusive boyfriend and is now living with her brother. she invited us to come over and talk to her more. so we had one appointment with her and it was a really awesome appt. and we set up a return day for us to come back and we went back and she wasn't there and didn't answer the phone and we were pretty sad. but nonetheless something felt different about her..her name is Maria and so we kept trying and trying to go back and see if she was home. well two weeks later Hermana Brown was on exchanges with Hermana Alvarez and they found her! Turns out the reason she wasn't home was because she was in the hospital having her sweet little girl. They set up an appt to come back and see her on Sunday and SOOOOOO on Sunday Hermana Brown and I went over to her house and taught her the plan of salvation. the spirit was there bearing testimony that the things we were teaching were true and we invited Maria to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized and she accepted! She is now on date to be baptized for the 21st of January! :) So ultimately it comes down to one cool thing....We received a member referral-from GOD! the best member ever! :) We are teaching her again tomorrow!

So this week our bishop and his family are out of town-in Utah seeing the lights at the temple etc... and Bishops Mom is staying at the house watching the house while they are gone. and Bishops Mom is about 80 plus years old and so the bishop just asked if we wouldn't mind stopping by their house in the morning and in the night to make sure that his mom is doing OK and if she needs anything. so we had been going over there and just talking with her and sharing all the cool miracles that we have been seeing in our days and Sunday night we went over and were telling her about what happened with Maria and how we received this cool referral from God and after we finished the story she asks us "well would like another referral?" and we are like "of course Hermana!" She proceeds to tell us of how her granddaughter Rosa just came to the house this week to spend time with her and how they were talking and that Rosa had had all the charlas before and been to church a couple of times but that she said that now she wants to be baptized and talk to us...So we went back Monday morning before district meeting and got to meet Rosa. Talked about the Book of Mormon and invited her to be baptized and she accepted! and told us that she wants to be baptized as soon as she possibly can and so we have her on date to be baptized December 31st :) All that happened Monday morning before 10am :) really was quite awesome!

Earlier in the week I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Hermana Hawes in Cicero and we had a really great day. We were going to an appt that ended up not being home and there was a lady across the street on her porch trying to hang up Christmas lights and so we ran over across the street and helped her put up her lights. Her name is Lily and she just started talking to us and telling us all her stories. how she is happily married to a man who doesn't smoke, drink or do drugs and that they have been married for 10 years, about how she wants to be closer to God and has been looking for a church and just through talking to her on the porch we ended up giving her a soft baptismal invitation and she accepted it and said that she would love to be baptized. then the next appt we had was with a family that Hermana Hawes and Alvarez had found the day before and we went back and had one of the most powerful lessons on the restoration invited Esmerelda and her two sons to be baptized on the 14th of January and they all accepted it and then with a little bit of a encouragement Esmerelda said the closing prayer and the spirit was soooo strong in the room. Its so interesting to me how I feel like the best prayers are given by people who have never prayed before So innocent and pure with real desire to know if God is really listening. So leaving Cicero there was 7 people with a date to be baptized! :)

My eye is back to normal and doing great! my companion doesn't have bronchitis anymore and we are hittin the pavement. :)  and biggest miracles of all: NO SNOW! :) wee!!! it can stay away as loooooooooooooooooong as it wants. I'm not missing it one stinkin bit. It snowed on Monday but it was only a little and its already gone. :) although the wind does make it feel like there should be snow with how windy and rainy its been. but still no snow! and that makes me happy! :)

Yeah  so its been a pretty miracle filled week!

Nana I got your package :) thank you so much. Ive been eating the stolen every morning with hot chocolate and it sure makes me miss you :) hope you all got my stuff or will be getting it soon! :) Sure love you all and hope you have a super merry Christmas :)

Con mucha paz y amor,

Hermana Maughan! :)

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! It is coming!!! Really fast! I'm so happy! The only thing that makes it feel not like Christmas is the fact that its only 61 degrees outside to day and we have not had rain for some time….. maybe its because I'm way south but it doesn’t look like its going to be a white Christmas for me this year but that’s OK because I'm still biking more than driving.

            This last week was good, we had our Christmas program on Saturday and it was really good but that was not because I was in it haha, we had 4 investigators there and it was a really good time this ward knows how to cook haha I may just have a heart attack jk. So it was a great night but then at church yesterday none of our investigators came L and we have to call them to find out why today. Besides that it was really good the last two young men gave there farewell talks so there was a lot of people that came and the Christmas spirit was there.

            Then last night we went Christmas Caroling which was different from back home for two reasons:

1)      There was almost no one there 6 sisters, Elder Yankton our ride (a brother) and me

2)      Because the ward is so spread out we went out for two hours and sung to 5 people for about 3 mins each, as the rest of the time was driving…..   

But it really helped it feel like Christmas!
We had a few lessons this week but the one that is progressing the most is Elizabeth the 10 year old, we were able to teach about the restoration and she was right in there learning and growing. This upcoming week are going to teach her about Christ birth and Christmas, we still have to think of a fun way to do it.

            O ya we had our Christmas zone conference and it was really good, I bet in that video I look like a big goof haha. It was really good and you know who is in my district now? Elder Moore….. do you remember him…. He was in the desert wells ward when we moved in, anyways its funny because he came out with Elder Town so I could have trained him haha, he was at the conference and we talked a lot. And Elder Koplen (the first elder I trained) and he is training now so I now have a “grandson”….. man I'm old haha that was what went through my head haha

            Well I got to go I’ll talk to you soon!!! I love you!!!!!!!!

YOUR ALL DA BEST!!!!!

ELDER MAUGHAN MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!