Well this week was awesome. Crazy. And awesome :)

I officially took out my visa papers this week- imma Chicago missionary for life!!! Man, I love it here so much. So yeah, good stuff. I feel at peace with it. Which is awesome!

I also got called to be a sister training leader which I'm really excited about, and very humbled by the opportunity.

On top of that, I'm going to be a SISTER training leader (not HERMANA training leader)... I will be switching languages AGAIN to English. Which I'm actually ok with because I'm going to a YSA ward where apparently a lot of people speak Spanish, so it's all good :) 

Well this week was awesome. Crazy. And awesome :) 

Tuesday, we taught Beatriz, our awesome investigator, with the Enache family. It was so awesome! Hermana Enache did a stellar job answering Beatriz's questions and explaining the Book of Mormon. Her daughter, Jessy, bore a simple short and sweet testimony on prayer- I felt the spirit the strongest then, and it was so awesome :)

The next day, we came back to Beatriz's house with the Enaches to help her clean. The Enaches did a boss job on her front room, and Hermana Kohlhase and I cleNed her little dog Benji, and the bathroom. Ha it was so awesome. I'm so proud of hermana Kohlhase and her stellar dog-cleaning skills. :) then Beatriz gave us tacos with hot sauce to try helping hermana Kohlhase with her Spanish hahaha Beatriz is the best. 

And we are sooooo grateful for the Enache family and their incredible willingness to help us with missionary work, by being SO ready to help us and SO eager to love and serve our investigators. Members are amazing!

A member named Hna Gloria let us come over to teach us how to make Mole! :D basically family, I'll just say it's "chocolate chile chicken". Yes, I WILL be making it for you when I get home- it's a "fancy" dish that they serve on special occasions and is awesome :) just takes a little getting used to ;) I'm so grateful for her love and excitement to serve and help us 

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On Friday, the district of English missionaries in the English ward in our area invited us to go to the nearby train station at the brown line and do mass-contacting with them. Ha I'd never done it before and we had some time, so we went :) it was one of the highlights of my mission, I'd say...

One of the sisters is a convert from Poland. She said that there, the missionaries would go to a busy place with a white board and every few minutes, put a new question on the white board (does god answer prayers? Do we have a prophet today? Etc)... She said it was really successful there, and "if it's successful in Poland, it'll be successful here!" 

So a member in their ward gave the English missionaries a white board to do this! They invited us to come too :) it was AWESOME!!

We (4 sets of missionaries: two sisters, two elders) set it up outside the train station, at this busy intersection during rush-hour.

I'm so proud of hermana kohlhase- she contacted people all by herself in Spanish :) and it was nice because I could just let her go off on her own and contact people myself. Sometimes the English missionaries would bring us over to random Spanish-speakers they were trying to contact.

Elder Pavlovsky (visa waiter) was trying to contact someone he was walking with. Right as they walked in front of me, the lady said that she only spoke Spanish. So elder Pavlovsky stopped, and I stepped right in and went on walking with her, "perfecto! Tenemos un mensaje por su familia..." 

Hope that made sense because that was a total awesome fist-bump moment for us later :) 

I met some of the most disgusting men I have ever met in my life. But it was all good. I'm grateful for the spirit that helps me in those situations :) 

I met some of the most poor and pitiful people I've ever met in my life. But I had nothing to give them. The only thing I had to give them was the gospel of Jesus Christ, and while it's not physical, it is the most valuable and precious thing you can give to anyone in this life. Kind of made me think of when Peter and John healed the lame man on the temple steps.

Some people straight up HATE their Savior, Jesus Christ. Others love him and "praise his name every mornin!". Others avoid eye contact and try to shrug us off. Others don't know what the heck they believe, they just stick with the "traditions of their fathers". Others were hurting and looking to be healed. Others genuinely wanted to know about their savior. 

It was really awesome.

It was also really cool and helpful to see the other missionaries contacting. The elders were awesome at it! I was so impressed. Ha so I liked taking tips from watching them :) 

My favorite thing to do was walk along the sidewalk until the light turned red and stopped the cars. Then I would walk into the street (mom don't freak out :)) and give people cards in their cars. 

And it was actually super convenient because it was a really nice day and lots of people had their windows rolled down :) 

Like a boss... I love being crazy wild peculiar missionary girl :) I just wreak righteous havoc on the world.

Basically, it was a blast. I've prayed for every single person I met that day- good or bad. It was the most awesome experience :) 

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We were able to do some service for hermana pasha this week! She has a huge cabinet-thing of cool souvenirs and glasses and stuff, and we went through and dusted that for her it was so fun, I'm so glad she let us help and serve her!

The biggest testimony-thing I learned this week was: The Lord has a good sense of humor. It just makes me laugh sometimes, and he always finds a way to keep us on our toes!

Here's another spiritual thing I LOVE from the GC talk, Let your Faith Show:

"If one tries to segment his or her life into such separate compartments, one will never rise to the full stature of one’s personal integrity--never to become all that his or her true self could be." 

....all through my life, I kept my spiritual stuff out of my normal life with friends and school and stuff. I kept my standards, but I would shy away from the religious stuff- I was afraid of stepping on people's toes. Over the past couple years, I have really been able to gain a testimony of this principle that we shouldn't compartmentalize our life in that way, because we will never become all that our true self could be. 

I don't know, I just LOVED that quote. Kind of explained my life and I really connected with it :)

Well, that's it for me 

The Book of Mormon is just the best... Read it. I love it. "Oh, what can I say more?"

I'm grateful for the peace and excitement for what I have ahead of me.

Love 

Hermana (para siempre) Hayley Walton