March 2nd-Chicago Chronicles

Despite being a little sick on Tuesday I'm happy to say that we worked hard this week! I'm still astounded at just how much walking we do here compared to my past areas. I enjoy the little things of living in the city however, such as seeing the Chicago skyline in the distance, walking around the White Sox stadium often, and wondering just how many people live in a square mile radius here. We eat out a lot more often as well, but we try our best to avoid it. As I've mentioned before, a lot of our time is spent stopping by less active addresses and seeing if the listed members still live there or not. Sometimes it's a little monotonous knocking on doors that no one answers, but this week we had the miracle of meeting Lisa, a member who let us in! Right after ringing her doorbell and climbing up her stairs we heard her yell, "Is that Elders? It's been over seven years and I've never had Elders find me here!" After chatting for a while she said she'd be willing to come to church next Sunday! I'm so glad to have met her out here after many fruitless stop-bys. Yesterday we had Stake Conference at the Rockefeller Chapel, which really is more like a cathedral than a church building. Elder James B. Martino of the Seventy came and called a new Chicago Stake President. It was a great service! On Tuesday we will be having another mission-wide conference where Elder W. Craig Zwick of the Seventy will be coming to speak to us, and we will also be learning more about online proselyting and be receiving our new iPads. I've been fasting to have an open heart and learn a lot from this meeting, and I'm really looking forward to it! - Elder Jared Richardson