Snow, Día de Turkey and Promotions

Hey Everyone!

This was an awesome week! We had a lot of fun! Especially because this was the last week of the transfer! And considering that we've been together for three transfers (4.5 months) we figured it was time for a change! But we didn't let that deter us from the work!

I was finally able to find the part o needed to fix my bike. It just took five different stores and several weeks. I finally just going to ACE Hardware and they hooked me up.

We had a lot of good things happen! We started this thing called "Inspired Tracting" where we pray and ask God where we need to go to find the people in need of the Gospel. We tried it twice this week and it was awesome! We found some really cool people. We found this one man named Adrian! We were knocking down in Rosemont and he was walking down the other side of the street and we decided to go talk to him. He was a little wary of us at first but it was super cold and he let us sit in his car and talk for a few minutes. He's been having a rough go of things here recently but we convinced him to listen to us and he did! He's way cool! We also are teaching that man we found in the Library last week! He is named Nahu! It's super cool too! We were knocking doors on Saturday Morning and we knocked this one door and a woman answers and we say that we are sharing a message about Jesus Christ and she let's us right in! We taught her the restoration right then and there and she had some really good questions for us but we answered them and she seemed excited to read from thr book of mormon!

We also had THANKSGIVING this week! It was super fun! We went and knocked in a apparently very white neighborhood haha but it was really fun! We also got to go to dinner with the Marquez Family (German and Lorena who are our recent converts) and with the Rodriguez Family! (Hermano is the 1st Councilor in the Bishopric) it was a super fun day filled with cold weather, a lot of food and a lot of laughter! I'm become somewhat of  a legend in the Rodriguez's eyes because they know me as the thumbs up Elder. When things get a little awkward or something I just throw up a thumbs up haha and Hermano loves it haha we literally just took a picture doing a thumbs up. It was awesome.

We went on exchanged this week too! The Zone Leaders exchanged with us and I got to go with my boy Elder English again! We were here in Arlington Heights again! And it was a shaft day haha. We had about 6 lessons planned and all of them canceled except one haha so we knocked so many doors and a lot of people were mean to us hahah and others lied to us! It was a way fun day though de todos modos. We brought Obispo with us and he brought Selvin for some of the citas and we just a blast driving around town with them.

It also snowed so hard last night. We got about 6 inches of snow overnight. It was wild. It started at about 5 o'clock last night and I was driving yesterday. After about 2 hours it was coming down. So I had Elder Fry drive because he is from Utah and he knows how to drive in the snow. But it's been coming down all morning. We went outside to go put money on the laundry card and there were trees that had fallen, snowplows on the roads and a bitter wind. Im literally shook. I have no idea what this is. Snow is wild.

We received transfer calls last night. We figured that this was the end. And it was. Elder Fry is going to Midway! That's where I started my mission on the south side! He's so lucky and really excited! But I'm staying here! I'm getting Elder Anderson! We've been friends here on the mission for a while and we are rooming together in college after the mission! And get this! We are going to be ZONE LEADERS! I'M GOIJG PLACES PEOPLE. I'M ON MY WAY UP. I'm so excited to see what happens! We are going to have a blast and we are going to get some good work done.

I just want to say, Thanks for you all reading this far! But also Tha KS for all your thoughts and prayers and notes this Thanksgiving season. I'm grateful for so many things. But to be brief, I'm thankful for my God, my Family and my Faith. My Friends, my parents and my sisters. Yall rock. Hope it was a great week for you too.

As always,

Elder Tracy

PHOTOS
Last District Photo
Elder Fry and I
Elder English and Obispo
A Dove. A living Dove.
Snow has begun.
The homies. The Padillas.

Fire and Ice

Hello hello hello everyone!

It's me Elder Tracy! So this was a super fun week! We decided to make some fun goals! We decided this week that we were literally going to talk with every single person we could about the gospel. We found a lot of success this way.

But funny story! On Tuesday morning, I was feeling still really sick and I was a little grouchy. And we live right next to the laundry room and there was this really loud annoying noise coming from it. I told Elder Fry likewise and he was like it's fine don't worry. And it kept bothering me! So I finally open the door and there was smoke billowing out of the laundry room! Elder Fry jumps up heroically and goes over to the washer because it was jumping and smoking and he opens it, and was surprised to find: couch coushins. One in each washer. So we stop the washers and are asking ourselves "what kind of idiot would put couch coushins in a washer?" So we walk over to the office and we tell them what's up, and the lady at the front desk turns around and yells "Mike, a washer is on fire" and this guy just comes like busting out the back room and is on his way. The fire department comes and everything. And after about 10 minutes the guy who'd put his coushins in the washer comes to get them calmly, gets chewed out and goes on with his life. Good day. We became heros in our own eyes.

But like I'd said, we decided to talk tk everyone we can. We literally will be walking and we see a guy all the way down the street, vamonos, we're gonna go talk to him. We actually met a nuch of cool people. We also met a lot of people who don't speak English, which is good because we speak Spanish. But it was the wrong language still. We weren't trained in Hindi. So maybe next time. We met this one really cool guy named Nahu at the library. He's like 26 or something is currently studying the Bible when he's not working! And that way cool because that's what we do too! We will be in contact with him soon!

But it's been chilly here! Like it doesn't get above like 35 usually. Cloudy. Windy. It's been awesome! We've been getting destroyed by the cold! And I, being the little Texan boy I am, am still not remotely excited for winter. It's been snowing of and on here and it's super fun I guess!

We had an activity this week! We were working with the Elders Quorom and the Family History department in the church! We had a blast! We made little stations to talk about our ancestors and activities about them it something! So Elder Fry and I decided to talk about GOLF because that was my grandpa's jam! We hit up dollar tree and goodwill and we made this awesome mini golf course in the gym for like $14 in total. We had a blast! We didn't have the turnout we had hoped, but those who showed up were the homies and it was a good time! Everyone really liked it! From math, to picaditas, to golf, to sewing everything was there!

I also made a goal to study the scriptures in almost every spare moment I have at the apartment. Wow it's made a difference in my life. I've been diving into the New Testament recently in English ans Spanish and it's been fantastic. My favorite thing I've read yet is in Revelation (Apocalipsis for you Spanish speakers out there) It's really fun to see how much the Book of Mormon and the Bible share in both doctrinal depth and personal value. God lives!

It was a good week my friends! Hope you have a great one too! Go make a difference in someone's life!

As always

Elder Tracy

PHOTOS
The Fire Dept
The Snow ft Elder Tracy
MINI GOLF FT OBISPO DE SION

Murphy's Hope

Hello to those of you faithful people who are still reading this message!

Wow this was a week for the record books let me tell you. So many things went wrong haha but it was awesome.

But to start on a postive note! We had Zone Conference! It was awesome! President Bingham started out with something that I've been thinking a lot about recently: The Prophet Joseph Smith. Wow. Just wow. Let me tell you all. Wow. If you all haven't read the new book frok the church called "Saints" you're missing out. He went in on Joseph Smith and he addressed a lot of really fascinating stories about how Joseph Smith was really prepared to be a prophet and all the other things he was able to restore and bring back to light that had been lost over the years. It's amazing. From eternal families to priesthood power, and from exaltation to the origin of man, Joseph Smith brought it all back. We also talked about how the restoration of the chruch has really only just begun. President Nelson recently said "If you think the church is fully restored, you are just seeing the beginning. You’re just seeing the beginning. Just wait until next year, and then the next. Eat your vitamins, get your rest. It’s going to be exciting!” IM EXCITED

But then things kinda took a turn.

The past week of so I've been having this terrible cough and on Wednesday night it peaked and my voice was gone. Thursday, Friday, and most of Saturday were a wash for me. I couldn't talk, I couldn't participate in lessons with out it hurting. I was struggling. As most of you know, I love to talk. And I couldn't. It was really bringing me down. To make matters worse, one of our super solid people, Carina, dropped us. She knew the book of mormon was true. She'd prayed. She knew this was the truth. But she's gone. Another person we had on date dropped off the face of the earth and we had to take him off date because he wasn't progressing or talking to us. All our lessons on Friday and Saturday fell through and we were out side both days knocking doors. Those were also the coldest days of the week. I was not having a good time.

But I was feeling down on myself at one point but I remembered a poem that my sister, Allison, gave me at the start of my mission. It tells of a missionary complaining a lot and feeling down on himself because of all the difficulties he's having. But Jesus responds to him and says "No matter what we go through, when we feel we can't take more, Just stop and think of Jesus Christ, He's been there before." I was so down on my self that I couldn't see past it! After that, I decided to turn my trail of tears and sickness and pain and sadness into a trail of hope and peace and health and happiness! And it works!

I was able to look back and see how blessed I truly was this week. We had an awesome lesson with my favorite old man Pedro, we somehow got three people to chruch and we still found three new people and one has great potential! All in all it was a grest week! It even snowed for the first time this season!  There's always hope! (HOPE OF ISRAEL RISE IN MIGHT) I'm so glad I've decided to leave all of you behind for these two years. I've grown more and more into the man God wants me to be! Let me know is you have any questions!

As always (and faithful as heck)

Elder Tracy

Ps. Yall should read "Premortality, a Glorious Reality" October 1985 General Conference By Neil A Maxwell. 🔥

PHOTOS
PEDROOOO
The Dominguez Family (the G. O. A. T.)
The snow of death

Good times are upon us

Hey Everyone!

This week was a good week! We had a good time doing the lords work!

To start, it was Halloween this week! We had district council and it was awesome! Elder Fry is an awesome district leader! I'm so proud of him. But we stsrted knocking some doors at about 3:30 because we thought that everyone would trick or treat at like 6. WRONG. VERY WRONG. We were suprized when we pulled up that there were a bunch of kids out and about! Apparently here everyone trick or treats at like 3 o clock! It was wild. We weren't able tk do MUCB knocking but we called obispo to see if we could come and talk abiut the ward with him for a second and he offered to take us to Wendy's! It was a win win win!

We are starting to work with the members a lot right now. We called one family to see if we could come by and visit them and they said yes so we go over a few days later and we are talking with them and havijg a nice dinner when all the sudden, their neighbor knocks on the door and starts to eat with us and then she started asking a bunch of questions about the church and we ended up leaving her with a Book of Mormon and she was reading ti before we had even left the house! We also have a return appointment for Tuesday!

This Sunday we had a Regional conference in the church and we heard from a lot of people including Elder Holland, and Sister Bingham of the Relief Society President! It was a really good one we heard a lot of good things from them about ministering and how we can be better! We also learned about the Gathering of Israel. And what role we all play in that! It is really eye opening! We also had a family we've been teaching come to the conference! They made a lot of friends and they really liked it so hopefully they come again!

Also the members here think that Elder Fry and I are kinda the bees knees we had so many people come up to us at church and try to get us to eat with them and visit them and it was really awesome! We are going to start some good member missionary work here it seems to be working really well! Networking works!

This was a great week! Elder Fry is awesome and we are having a blast!

As always

Elder Tracy

PHOTOS
This is all we got this week we forgot to take pictures