Mama Mia, May 9 2016

I'm trying to think of what happened this week and honestly not a lot is coming to mind.. Norma told us that Mitt Romney won the election and everyone is saying that the Cubs are going to win it all this year. I am slowly learning not to trust the Chicagoans... 

Three people have mistaken us for Pentecostals this week. We asked one of them why and said because they believe in women wearing modest clothing and we were like oh cool! Then he went on to say "yeah and you know just that women should look very plain and not wear makeup, or do there hair, or wear really nice clothes or things like that. They just want the women to look very plain and very homely looking" so my self esteem is doing GREAT  

Sister Smith and I really feel like the area is starting to pick up. We have some promising potentials and have been trying to come up with new ways to find people and we might start a Bible Study class because everyone in Wheaton loves the Bible and we could probably get a decent amount of people to come, we are just starting to plan some lessons and work out how we can sneak the Book of Mormon into it or something like that.

We had a cool experience this week when we were walking through the parking lot and there was this rougher looking guy sitting in his car just rocking OUT. It was awesome. We went up to him and started talking to him. I was a little nervous at first that he was going to be mad at us for interrupting him, because he was seriously hard core rocking out and getting into his music. But he wasn't mad! He immediately knew who we were and asked if we knew someone and they just happened to be in our ward. Then he says "yeah I used to meet with the missionaries all the time at her house it was awesome" and we were like WHAT so we started talking to him and trying to figure out what he has been taught gave him some pamphlets and a new Book of Mormon and he said he wants us to come over on Wednesday. It was cool. Then we tried to find him in our area book and it turns out he has literally been taught EVERYTHING. He just had disappeared off the face of the earth during the holiday season and no one has been able to contact him since. And we just saw him sitting in a parking lot!! Crazy. Hopefully he still has that testimony and we can help him progress towards baptism! 

Not much more has happened!! We had a great Mother's Day at church that made me just a tad trunky ;) but it's alright I am so grateful for you Mom and all the Mothers and Women in my life who have helped and encouraged me to grow in the gospel and develop a better relationship with my Savior. One of the talks during sacrament was about how the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world and its TRUE. where would we be without our mothers?? 

Mother Madsen 

Just thought I would add this picture to the mix! Loved talking with
you guys and seeing your cute squinty faces haha

I love Norma, May 2, 2016

These are the pictures that I am the most proud of on my mission so
far. I have wanted to take a picture of Norma since the first time I
met her one week into my mission and I am so happy that I finally did
because she is the sweetest lady!! The first one is a picture of the
new sunglasses that she bought for her birthday. She gave us is big
long story about how they are expensive and have diamonds on the sides
and then she put them on for us and said "don't I look Glamorous??"
And we were like YES LET US TAKE A PICTURE WITH YOU. It was amazing
and she loves taking pictures, I probably have 20 on my iPad The
second one is when we wanted to do a funny pose and she slowly raised
her fingers into the frame and then right before it took the picture
she said "look you can see my arthritis" I love Norma

I feel Blessed, May 2, 2016

Ok, so this week has been super rainy so there are no yard work adventures to report. BUT that does not mean it was uneventful. To kick of the week we were going to do some weeding at Norma's house. But upon arrival it started to rain and she refused to let us go outside and insisted on us sitting and talking with her for a while. We willingly obliged. THEN she ordered the three of us pasta and sandwiches and talked to us about her friends in the FBI. Service brings miracles. She is turning 89 and because of her health is too weak to go outside, but every time we go over there she starts repeatedly apologizing for not being able to find someone for us to teach even though TWICE she has called us and said that there was someone at her house delivering food who could use the gospel in their life and if we could quickly come over that would be great. Neither one has led to anything but she might be the hardest working member missionary in our ward. Jerry's house is now up for sale and he has disappeared off the face of the earth. We did have the chance to help a couple in our ward pack up and move to Montana, which was nice AND while we were cleaning out her fridge she GAVE US EVERYTHING IN HER REFRIGERATOR. It was a beautiful moment and sister smith and I no longer have to be forced into vegetarianism because of lack of cash flow. We have pounds of Italian beef and sausage, salmon, FROZEN PIZZAS, chicken and much much more. I have said it once but I will never stop saying it. Service brings miracles. On a negative note it has been about 30 degrees and rainy all week. This wouldn't be a big deal except that OUR HEATER IS BROKEN. This also wouldn't be a big deal except that it happened to break on the day we do weekly planning. Which means about 3 hours inside. Which was brutal. Sister smith and I wear all of our pairs of tights and sweats and as many socks as we can to bed every night. Sister Smith even got away with wearing sweatpants under her skirt one day while we were out tracting and you couldn't even tell. Also our shower has been broken for three days Since we had to cancel a lot of our plans this week because of weather we spent most of the time tracting. But apparently if it is lightning we aren't allowed to be outside. So sister smith and I spent a lot of time driving around looking for people on he street we could talk to out of our car window. Sometimes we go car contacting and usually the people we talk to get pretty mad. So when I realized we were going to have to go car contacting in the rain I was thinking OH GREAT. People are already in a. Bad mood when we do this, they are going to be even more mad because they are stuck talking to us in the rain. BUT everyone we talked to was nice and took our cards and some even asked us questions and were pretty interested! I don't think anything immediate is going to come from us talking to them. But it just goes to show that you shouldn't discount or assume you know anything basically, because YOU NEVER KNOW what is going to come of it. Always follow the promptings you are given. In short, if I have to freeze to get all of the blessings that I got this week THEN IT IS WORTH IT. I hope you have a great week and do something nice for your Mother ;) I'll talk to you next week ~Sister Madsen

Summa time April 25, 2016

Even though school doesn't get out here until JUNE (brutal) there is no denying that summer has hit Illinois. The heat and the bugs and motorcyclists have arrived. Along with half of Provo's populations who is here doing pest control and summer sales. Sister Smith and I were going to make sure we knew absolutely everyone in the ward this Sunday bc we think we were missing a couple people and then we show up and there are at least 20 new people in the ward. So that was a fail. Pretty much all of them are my age but none of them go to YSA because they are all married. It's like I never left Utah. We had a lot of plans for Saturday that all ended up getting canceled because so many people called us asking for service and help doing there yard work. It was awesome I love service! Although now I wonder why no one in our family ever called the missionaries over to do our yard work... Anyways, An interesting new chore that I learned about that everyone in Illinois does is "pick up sticks" and that's literally it. There are so many trees here that you have to pick up buckets and buckets of sticks before you can even attempt to mow your lawn. It's madness!! I am grateful for Utah. Don't get me wrong I love trees and have always wanted some in my yard when I have a home. But now I'm not so sure. Trees are a good thing to have, but at what cost???? Not much else has happened this week, Evelyn called again and said she is for sure going back to being Catholic this time. Jerry has cancelled on us twice but is weirdly very nice about it and always sets up another date for us to come over so it's kind of confusing. The missionaries are going to start teaching a mission prep class for the youth of the ward. It has been discovered that the reason I have been called to English speaking is because I am the only English speaker here who has the gift of tongues. There is this man we have been reading the Book of Mormon with and he is a Refugee and NO ONE ELSE KNOWS WHAT HE IS SAYING. I feel like I am secretly being a translator because every time after he talks I have to say "so what your saying/asking is ____" and then everyone else in the lesson knows what he's talking about and can answer his questions. It's actually pretty sweet I hope you all have a good week and get a lot of yard work done. And if you don't just call the missionaries because they would love to do it. This woman in the ward named Norma is 90 something years old and the cutest lady. She is always giving us stuff she orders online from the BYU bookstore and asking if we saw what was on BYUtv the other day. Anyways she called us the other day to clean her microwave and it was probably the highlight of my week Have a good one! Sister Madsen