Words from Sister Elese Hauser in Illinois

"I can't believe I survived this week! It's been the longest, hardest,
most tiring but also the best week of my mission! So much has happened
this week there's no way I could include all of the details but I will
try to fill you all in as much as possible. So I'm now serving in
Elgin Illinois which is like night and day compared to Pekin. First of
all there's no horrible smell of rotting corn permeating the air or
old men riding their tricycles through McDonalds. Although Elgin has
some poor and scary areas, it's just an adventure! I didn't know it
was possible to fall asleep with your eyes open in a lesson because
you are so utterly tired, but I think I've mastered that technique!
Which is not good, but I've been so tired. Here is why:
So last Tuesday morning Sister Clayton and I woke up at 3:50 am. We
drove to the Peoria stake center and met up with all the other
missionaries before making the trek up to Naperville. Upon arrival I
met my new companion Sister Bird and attended to my new duties as a
Sister Trainer leader. I realized that there are many logistics that
go on behind the scenes of transfers. We had a council with President
Fenn to discuss the companionships, helped the new arriving
missionaries, and we had to sit on the stand. Now that was weird!! Our
mission got 22 new missionaries and only 4 of those were sisters so it
appears that peak of sisters has leveled off. The rest of the day we
made phone calls, gave rides to missionaries who didn't have a car
yet, and finally are lunch at Portillo's at like 4:00. That night
we're invited to go to the departing missionaries fireside and eat
dinner with them. So we went to the mission home and ate dinner with
the missionaries that would leave the next day and listened to their
testimonies. Of course our mission president talked about the doctrine
of marriage and that was super awkward.... But it made me so grateful
that I still have 4 months to be a missionary! Well that ended around
10:30 and then we had an hour drive to Elgin so we didn't get home
until almost midnight and I still had to unload my luggage and find
all my stuff. It was close to 1:00 by the time I fell asleep so I had
been up for almost 24 hours!!!! And of course we are up at 6:30 am the
next day. Man, I'm getting exhausted just writing about all of this
again! And so began my time in Elgin!
Wednesday we were busy with District Meeting, lessons, dinner
appointments, and planning. Luckily I had a little bit of time to
unpack but then the next day I went on my first exchanges so I had to
pack an over night bag of stuff. So I barely had time to get to know
the area and our investigators on Wednesday before on Thursday I went
to the small town of Sycamore IL for 24 hours. So on exchanges we help
the sisters set goals and remind them of the mission vision while
making sure they're being obedient as well. But we have no problems
with obedience in this mission so it's fun! So as you can probably
imagine I was pretty nervous to go on my first exchange and be on the
other end of it. But since this is my life and I'm a Hauser, nothing
ever goes as planned or as it's supposed to. So here we are in
Sycamore getting ready to go out and work for the day and we could not
find the car keys!! After a thorough search and a call to Sister Bird
and the other Sycamore sister who were serving in Elgin for the day we
concluded that the Sycamore sister who was serving in Elgin for the
day had the keys with her in her purse, which was in Elgin. And we
were in Sycamore. So we had a car, but no car keys for the day! Great.
Just great. But if anything as a missionary you learn to roll with
the punches. So I was thinking we would walk to our appointments or
call a member but then I looked over and saw these 2 lovely bikes
against the wall. This day just kept getting better and better! Up
until this point on my mission I had successfully avoided riding bikes
in a skirt. I wasn't so successful this day. I was wearing one of my
pencil skirts that day but had to change into a skirt I had worn the
day before that made my outfit clash so bad that Grandma would have
been disappointed I had been such a disgrace to the clothes she'd
bought me. So here I am on a bike, in a skirt, outfit clashing, bike
helmet fastened tightly, riding down the road trying with all my might
to keep my skirt down. To add to the experience it was a rather windy
day. What a welcome to the Windy City:) I felt bad for the oncoming
traffic because sometimes my skirt just wouldn't stay down, but you
don't need to know the details of that..... The one good thing about
this was I'm in better shape than I thought I was! But my body still
wasn't used to that type of exercise and add on top of that the lack
of sleep from the days before, and I was slowly becoming a dried
flower.
On Friday we exchanged back and I slowly began to feel like I was
finally home, in an area where I belonged. But we will be doing 2-3
exchanges a week and Sister Bird and I will be taking turns who stays
and who goes so it'll pretty much be like this the rest of my mission.
And now to tell you all about the crazy awesome miracles we saw this
week! We are teaching a young Mom named Mercedes and she came to
church yesterday. We are also teaching a man named Roy was also there.
We also had this interesting fellow come in from off the streets and
afterwards we were asking if he had any questions and he said that he
had counted the bricks behind the pulpit and there were 38 bricks
which is symbolic of Romans 38, or something like that I don't
remember the exact reference, and then he continued to tell me how
page numbers of the hymns we sung were relative to verses in the Bible
that meant we were doomed.... I just nodded my head and said "Did you
have any questions about the sacrament?" Welcome to Elgin:)
And on Saturday we met someone who told us we were deceived, helped
someone move, invited someone to be baptized, and helped a lady carry
in her groceries. Just a typical day in the mission field:) Well this
lady we helped carry in her groceries lives in the same apartment
complex as us and was struggling to get some bags in the door when we
pulled up so we jumped out and helped her. She immediately saw our
badges and said that she would love to meet with us sometime because
she needs to draw closer to Jesus Christ. I immediately thought "We
just need to go carry in everyone's groceries!" It turns out she's
from Cameroon and she speaks French and a little bit of English. But
she got to the states and not too long after her husband died! So
she's really been struggling. We are so excited to teach her! And that
day it was so cool looking at the events that had happened that day
that led us to meeting her at this exact time we need to. The Lord is
in the details of our lives Brothers and Sisters!
We also had this family drop out of the sky into our teaching laps.
They had been taught by elders in Idaho and had even been interviewed
for baptism and then moved here before they could be baptized! So we
hope to work with them.
And we met this lady named Glenneisha who has the craziest son I've
ever met! Up until this point on my mission i haven't had a kid throw
shoes at me, hit me with a pillow during the prayer, throw his ring
pop at me, try to strangle my companion, and ask for a shoulder ride
all while teaching the restoration, but I can sure cross that one off
my bucket list. Some peoples children.
We taught many more people and experienced many more miracles, but you
get the idea, The Lord is truly hastening His work! So my companion is
Sister Bird and she is a gem! She's from Kaysville Utah and we get
along so well! Elgin has a small town feel to it but is still part of
the city. Grandma, guess what?! The Fox River flows right through the
middle of Elgin as well as Oswego! So every time we drive over it I
think of you.
Well we have a busy week ahead of us filled with trainings, exchanges,
missionary work, and miracles! I love you all so much. Thank you for
your support and prayers. May God bless you this week and always."