Hermana Knowles: Illinois Chicago Mission: La Vida en Chicago

Hola familia y amigos!

So it's starting to get cold here and so far so good! I'm going to get some more warm clothes today. Apparently there are a lot of cool places to go thrift shopping in Chicago! So that'll be fun. I had a pretty good week! We've definitely been working hard.

I had my very first zone meeting on Wednesday and I really enjoyed it! President Woodbury focused a lot on prayer and how we can make it more meaningful. I really love how prayer is explained in the Bible Dictionary. I love how it says, "As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part." God is our Father and He wants each of His children to pour out their hearts to Him in prayer each day! He cares about all the little things we care about and loves us so much. Another one of my favorite parts from the Bible Dictionary is this, "The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings." Prayer is an act of faith and as we strive to listen to the Spirit as we pray we can receive greater understanding and strengthen our relationship with our Father in Heaven. I really like how President worded it, "God answers acts of faith with revelation."

This week a couple of our investigators told us about recent struggles they've been going through. It was really hard hearing the things they're going through, and I even cried with one of our investigators as she was explaining things, but I was comforted in knowing that the message we share with them can help them overcome their challenges and strengthen their faith. One of our investigators is trying to overcome her addiction to smoking and she said we've been helping her a lot. To start she gave each of us one of her cigarettes and we wrote the date on them so we could look back at the day she acted to make a change. We bore our testimonies mainly on the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ.

We got a new investigator this week! Our first lesson with her went really well and we're excited to keep working with her!

Church was pretty fun yesterday. Sacrament meeting was really nice. An Hermana that just got home from her mission in Uruguay spoke and it was awesome! Afterwards I spent the rest of church with the primary kids to play piano for them. That was so fun! The primary program isn't until the end of November so they most certainly like getting ahead of the game! I feel like I've gotten much better at piano on my mission. It's the best! I'm still teaching the younger kids on Saturday mornings and I get to play for sacrament meeting sometimes too.

Hermana Stout, my companion from the CCM, wasn't feeling super well the other day so to help her and her companion with their appointments we went on splits. So Hermana Michael went to their appointments with Hermana Trujillo and Hermana Stout and I got to be companions again for a little while! That brought back some fun memories from Mexico. It was nice hanging out with her again.

Well all is well here in the beautiful land of Chicago! Oh! We went out with two other companionships of hermanas for pday to get some clothes and while we were on a bus this guy asked, "well what do we have here a gaggle of scholars?" We asked him what a gaggle was and he said "I don't know I think geese are a gaggle." We proceeded by saying, "Well you've got yourself a gaggle of mormon missionaries!" Then he said, "Well this is my stop!" Yeah Chicago is most certainly a beautiful place.

I love you all! Keep smiling my beautiful friends and family!

Hermana Knowles :)