Slovakia and Taiwan - August 11, 201

Hola a todos :)

A lot of good things have happened this week. We have had a week filled with meetings and teaching people from all over the world! Super cool!

It started on Tuesday when we went to go and visit a menos-activo en nuestro grupo de Espanol. She lives in the basement of another members home. It was POURING outside and when we got to the door there was a young man standing under the porch. He was a sales guy and was waiting for the rain to let up. But it didn't!! We started talking to him and he wanted us to give him our "sales pitch" or in our terms “our door approach”. It was really funny :) The member inside saw all of us waiting under the porch for the rain to stop and so she invited us in. We started teaching Andre (the young salesman.) He is from Slovakia! He had perfect English, just a heavy accent. He is 19 years old. He had a ton of questions. And we loved answering them. Mostly his questions were: where we came from, what is our purpose, what happens after death, how do we have faith, etc? I had my Plan de Salvacion rompe cabeza conmigo. How perfect! So i whipped the puzzle out and we taught him the Plan of Salvation. He was a stubborn one though! Man! He fought everything the best he could. It was getting really frustrating. But it actually just ended up strengthening my testimony. EVERY time I teach the Plan of Salvation, I become so filled with the spirit. I gain a greater understanding. I feel God's love for me. I become less and less afraid of death. There is nothing to be afraid of. This life is not the end! It broke my heart that Andre believes when we die we are just in the ground and nothing happens. There is nothing more to life. If that was the case, what is our purpose on the earth? Why are we here? What a depressing way of thinking! Oh how grateful I am for the knowledge of the Gospel! How grateful I am to know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who does have a plan for us! 

We also visited the cutest Taiwanese couple in our ward this week! Alan and Enya :) Enya invited us over for lunch at her house with a non-member friend of hers. We went over and her guest was the cutest little Taiwanese girl! Her name is Patty (these are obviously their chosen american names). We had an awesome lesson with her and enjoyed a very very delish Chinese meal. Patty said she was interested in learning more! So yesterday at church Enya asked if we could come over later that night to teach Patty again! We were so excited! So we went over and Patty's boyfriend, Daniel (also Taiwanese) was there. He is in town visiting. We had such an amazing lesson with them! Lennon you will understand this... It felt like a lesson from The District! haha! But really! Everything just went so perfectly! Enya and Alan were awesome! They bore testimony and were strong witnesses! THAT is why member referrals and member being present at discussions are soooooooooooooo important!!! We taught them about faith. Neither Patty nor Daniel know if they believe in God yet. They asked us if we have ever lost faith before and how we got it back. What a profound question for people with broken english with essentially no religious backgrounds. It was awesome! The spirit was really strong! We stopped in the middle of the lesson and asked Daniel to say a prayer and ask God if He was real and if He loved him. Daniel had never prayed before! And he agreed and did it! And did it in the most beautiful broken English! Oh, it was sooooooo cool! After he said that he felt peace and very relaxed :) We explained that that is how Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost talk to us. It was really really neat! At the end of the lesson, Patty said the closing prayer! She, too, had never prayed and it was beautiful! Such a beautiful prayer! I wanted to cry! This is what missionary work is all about! We will be meeting with her again this week and helping her move into her new apartment. She wants my help with some interior design! Yay! :) 

We had 2 great lessons with Elsa this week. She was supposed to get baptized this Saturday. She felt ready, but her family wasn't going to be able to come... and Hna. Stratford and I felt like we needed to wait so her family could be there. What a great missionary opportunity for them! She is now getting baptized on August 30th :) I can't wait! We have another baptism coming up next week on the 23rd. Our amazing Miguel :) Good things are happening with the Spanish group! 

We had a great zone meeting this week. We talked all about happiness and how we can help ourselves become happier and more positive missionaries and how we can help others feel this way too. There were some great quotes that were shared that I want to share with you guys!

"Challenges can feed us. Struggles can deplete us." PERSPECTIVE!

"Sometimes Christ will calm the sea and sometimes He will calm the sailor."

"Concentrate on the basics of the gospel! It is the basics that bring us simple and complete joy."

I had fun seeing Sister Cardon too :)

I know these things are true! I am trying to apply them better in my life right now. I hope you all know how much I love you! How grateful I am for your sweet and supportive words of encouragement. It helps me soooooo much! I will be keeping all of you in my prayers this week! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!! 

Con Amor, 

Hermana Mangum Sr.

WE HAVE 30+ MOSQUITOS IN OUR HOUSE EVERY NIGHT WHEN WE GET HOME!! HERE IS A PIC TO SHOW YOU AND A SELFIE TO SHOW HOW WE FEEL ABOUT IT.

A Baptism! - August 4th, 2014

Hey hey hey :)

It has been a long week and honestly quite hard. I know it was hard because Satan was working overtime on us because of John's baptism. It got really difficult! All of our lessons and appointments (including our dinner appointments) were falling through! Everyone was canceling or wasn't home... It was really hard for Hna. Stratford and me. But we endured to the end! Ha! And after John was baptized, things got a lot better :)

Before I tell you about the baptism, let me tell you about a couple of other things that happened this week :)

First, we have had some CRAZY rainstorms!!!! Like insane! The rain was coming down so fast and so hard! Driving in it was scary! I was praying the whole time. The streets were so flooded... Colorado has a terrible drainage system! 

Second, we went and contacted a lady in our Stake from Peru to get her to come to our Spanish group. We stopped by her house and she had just made some authentic Peruvian food and gave us some to take with us :) We decided, on our way home, to stop by Sister Rust's and share the food with her. When she opened the door we showed her the food and she freaked out! she said that she was starving but couldn't leave the house to go and get any food because of a spider bite she had on her face. She was saying "you are my angels! Thank you for listening to the Holy Ghost!" We went into her kitchen and ate the delicious food! oh man! So good! It was rice and chicken cooked in pesto and YUMMY! It was great to be an answer to her prayers :) Thank you to our Peruvian sister!

On Tuesday, Richard Cornwall come to our lesson with John. It was awesome! Richard is the man in our ward who lost his sight and received lacerations all over his face and body from a chemistry explosion. He is doing so much better now! Still a lot to recover from, but his sight is coming back :) Miracles! So he came and we talked about Enduring to the End. It was so great! Richard had so many wonderful things to say. He has had a really hard life! But is the perfect example of staying in the boat when the waves are crashing! Seriously, the gospel is the ONLY way to over come hardships!!! Something I loved that he said was how "enduring" sounds really hard and how he likes to say "Enjoying to the End" instead. Because there is something to be learned in everything we go through in this life and we can look for the good and try and ENJOY. We can also learn to just enjoy life even when it is good. It reminded me of Elder Uchdorft's talk this last conference about being grateful in every circumstance. It is sooooooooo true! Something I am still learning. But the lesson was great :)

NOW ON TO THE REALLY GOOD STUFF!!! John's Baptism! Ah! John Charles Bowman was baptized! I feel so honored and blessed and grateful to have been able to teach him and get to know him and become such great friends with him! It was a long road to get him here, but he did it and I am so proud of him! And I know that Heavenly Father is too! His baptism was on Saturday, August 2nd at 4:00 :) The program was wonderful. John looked soooooooooo amazing in white! His grandparents gave the talks and did such a good job! I love them! I call them grandma and grandpa :) haha!! When John got in the font (which we made sure was very warm ;) haha!) he looked so great! My heart was so filled with love for him and joy and happiness! When he got out and changed, he came and sat down next to me and I asked him how he felt and he said "I feel too clean" haha!! He was confirmed right after. We got permission to do that instead of during sacrament meeting. We had a family dinner with him and his grandparents and sister and aunt and uncle and parents. It was awesome :) AND HERMANA SMITH GOT TO COME!!

 

Then on Sunday he was sustained a member and ordained to the Priesthood :) Oh man! It was awesome! Christine was sooooo happy! She leaned over and said to us, "I finally have a Priesthood holder in my home." That was so exciting to hear! Her husband is not a member. I am so so so happy they have the priesthood in their home now too ;) 

So despite the hard times this week, John's baptism made it so worth it!!! I love that boy! And I know that it is THESE moments that truly testify of the truthfulness of the gospel and makes me so overjoyed and grateful to be a missionary!!! 

I love you all so very much!!!! 

Love,

Hermana Mangum :)

Cow Tongue Tacos, Yes, I Said Cow Tongue Tacos - July 28, 2104

Hey guys -

Another great week here in Fort Collins! I love it here! 

So... I had tacos de lengua (cow tongue tacos) on Wednesday... Oh boy! Elsa made them for us. I heard they can be good, depending on who cooks them and Elsa is a great cook! So I was thinking they were going to be good... but... I didn't like them! They were hard to chew and the whole time I just kept thinking I have a cow's tongue in my mouth! I could still see some of the taste-buds on them.... yikes! But it is part of the mission experience to try new foods, right?

Speaking of Elsa, we had several great lessons with her this week! The best news, though, is that she has committed to being baptized on August 16th!!!!!! Wahoo :) And some missionaries in our zone had a baptism on Saturday, so we invited Elsa to come with us. It was all in English but she still came. It was awesome! People were so nice to her! No one else could speak spanish there, but they still came up and introduced themselves and thanked her for coming. It was awesome and she felt so loved! It was so cool!!! 

So great news about John! He is being baptized this week! On Saturday!! Yay! Please keep him in your prayers! But let me actually back up further... So Hermana Stratford's year mark is in a couple of weeks, so we called President and got permission to go to the temple! Wahoo!! So we are actually going on her birthday, August 19th, and Christine Bowman (John’s Mom) is going to take us! We are so excited! So then, a couple of days ago Hna. Stratford and I were reading in Preach My Gospel, Chapter 3 Lesson 5, and I got this thought! We should go early to the temple  on the 19th for Hna. Stratfords year mark, and do baptisms for the dead with John who will already be a member by then because he will have been baptized! I was really excited about this! I told Hna. Stratford and she liked it too :) So we went over and told John. He is a stubborn kid and super sarcastic, haha,  but when I told him we wanted him to come to the temple with us, he got this smile on his face and this light in his eyes! I am so excited! I think it got him more excited about being baptized! Also, tomorrow we have a great lesson planned! We have asked Richard Cornwall (who was the man who had the chemistry explosion accident a couple of months ago) to come with us and testify how the Gospel has blessed his life! I am so excited! It is going to be great :) Then John will be baptized on Saturday!!! It is going to be the best week!!!!! 

Things are going so well right now! I love it here and I love the people I am teaching! I love Hermana Stratford! I love this Gospel! I love being a missionary! Lennon! You are leaving in a few hours to Baltimore! Oh boy! I am soooooooooooooooooo excited for you! You will absolutely LOVE it! I keep bragging about you to everyone :) When I say there is no greater joy than sharing the Gospel with others, I MEAN IT! There truly isn't! I can't wait for you to experience it! I know the church is true because of the great and overwhelming feeling of love and peace and happiness I feel as I share my testimony with others! I love you all so very very much! I am praying for you! Please pray for my investigators and less-actives (especially the spanish group) that they will feel Heavenly Father's love and guidance. 

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

Hannah :)

P.S. I found out this week that one of our less-actives, Enrique, has Leukemia... will you please keep him in your prayers too!!! 

ROASTING STARBURSTS WITH JOHN  and Anthony :)

We moved again - YEP, 3 times in 6 weeks :) - July 21, 2014

Hola familia :)

Ok, so for starters let me tell you about transfers... I am staying in Fort Collins with Hermana Stratford!!! I am really excited!! This is the first time I will have served for longer than 2 transfers in 1 area!! Yay!!! I can tell this transfer is going to be one filled with miracles!! I can't wait :)

So, we moved again this week! That's right... 3 times in 6 weeks!  I will send a pic of us with Sister Freytag. We will miss living with her. Now we are moving to next door to Fairbanks. All these good members taking care of us!! I think this is going to be a more permanent place though, and for that I am grateful! I still haven't unpacked because we weren't sure what would happen with transfers and just in case I did get transferred, I didn't want to have to pack again. But now that we know we are officially staying for another 6 weeks, I am going to get all settled in today! Yippee :) 

Pues... Friday was an amazing day!! Filled with miracles :) Started off by taking my GPS into Best Buy because it totally broke. It was stalling and giving me problems and then last week it just completely stopped turning on! :( So, they can't fix them, but i was able to return it and get a new one and luckily, Heavenly Father was looking out for me because the GPS was on sale for $109! so i was able to get the same GPS with the protection plan for only $3 more than what Dad originally paid for it! So it only cost me 3 bucks for a new GPS :) Whew!!

Then we were trying to find this restaurant that one of our investigators works at. We were having problems finding it and happened by a Walgreens and Hna Stratford needed to pick up a prescription. So we ran in (totally not on the plan) and the pharmacist who helped us is a less active member who said she might be interested in meeting with us! We gave her our phone number :) Total divine intervention! 

Then, luckily, we found the restaurant, but the line was huge! The man next to us in line immediately started talking to us! He recognized our tags and he took the lessons 20 years ago in Brazil, when he was a teenager! He speaks perfect English and Spanish and Portuguese! His name is Viney! He was soooooooooooo cool!! He kept complimenting us up and down for being on missions and how impressive he thinks the church is and the morals and standards we have. He LOVES Mit Romney!! Haha! It was fun to talk to him about Mit. He even got to meet him during the elections. So after we ordered, he asked if he could sit with us so we could teach him about what we believe. We obviously said YES! OF COURSE!! We were so excited!!! We ate our delicious food (made by our investigator Rosie) and taught him! He had lots of questions about what we believe happens after death and even before this life and so we taught him about the Plan of Salvation and we explained the Book of Mormon and he was super intrigued. He loved and agreed with everything! It was such a cool experience! I hope we can start teaching him soon!! 

Thursday was Raul's birthday! We went over that night and brought him candy and soda :) Ha! He was so excited to see us! He had to spend the day at the dentist... who told him he needed to stop eating candy and soda... oops!!! Haha! So we hung out with him a little and taught him how to tie ties! It was lots of fun :) I love Raul! He is such a good kid!

On Wednesday we met with Miguel, (Hermana Smith and I met with him a couple times and ended up dropping him because he wasn't progressing) but we started teaching him again and we had an amazing lesson. We set him with a baptismal date for August 23rd :) He picked the date himself and promised to be prepared and ready by then. He said he is in it for real this time! Yay!!!

On Saturday we had a Spanish Relief Society activity at the park :) It was a picnic and volleyball. It was fun! Kinda awkward at first... but once more people came, it was great! Elsa came with Rosie and her daughter Mariana!! It was perfect! Every one was so nice to them and it was amazing! 

Sunday was just fabulous!!! Miguel came with Maria :) Anthony came again and so did Joaquin! But the best was... ELSA CAME!!!!!! And she brought Mariana :) Oh mi corazon estaba llena! muy muy llena!! She walked in with one of the families from the group that live right by them. Elsa looked beautiful! She was in a purple dress and looked scared, but happy to be there. She and Mariana sat next to us and it was great! We then went to Gospel Principles, which was fantastic as usual! Yamel is such a good teacher! The class was full and Elsa loved it! Then at the end of Relief Society, they asked Elsa if she had an questions or wanted to share anything about what she likes or dislikes and she said all the questions she had were answered in the Relief Society lesson! (which was all about baptism... how perfect!) The women were so kind to her and it felt like a family! That is what I just love about the Spanish culture! You’re family there! It is very different from the English ward! Elsa said that she was so happy she came. She wants to come and knows she needs to, but she has a very hard time actually leaving her house. She has been really sick the last few years with kidney problems and so she got really accustomed to staying at home and it is now hard for her to leave. But she was so glad she did! The sisters told her about Priesthood blessings and she said she wanted to get one. So after church we grabbed 2 men in our ward that speak Spanish and they gave her a blessing :) It was perfect! She was crying and the spirit was so strong! Elsa is truly golden! I love her so much!! She feels it and knows it is true! It will only be a matter of time before we have a baptism :) 

So as you can tell, it has been an amazing week!!! I am so grateful I get to stay here for another 6 weeks!! I loved what you said, Lennon, about how you feel so much love for your "fake" investigators at the MTC! Because I will promise you, that feeling will be times-ed by 10 once you teach "real" investigators and less-actives! The joy you feel and love you feel for those you teach is unlike any type of love I have felt before and that is because we get to feel how Heavenly Father loves them!!! I think that is so cool! What a great blessing! After church yesterday I was so overwhelmed with happiness and I told Hermana Stratford how grateful I am to be a missionary!! I would never have had the blessing to feel this way or met these people without serving the Lord! I love you guys so much and I miss you a lot! But I am really happy to be here :) 

I hope everyone has a fantastic week!!! You are in my prayers :)

XOXO

Hermana Hannita Mangum

OTHER ACTIVITIES OF THE WEEK INCLUDED:

Us and the Elders with christine's lemon poppy stickers on our foreheads :) Both the Elders are being transferred :( we are so sad! 

I ripped my shirt... :( so Christine let me wear her duck dynasty shirt! haha!! she's my adopted mother in fort collins!)

Hermana Stratford and me with Shanelle this morning. They are moving to Pueblo today... :( 

Cold stone is celebrating SHARK WEEK! and since I am not  home to watch it,

 Christine bought me the cold stone special :) haha!! I was thinking of you Lennon!! 

17 Visitors at Church on Sunday!!! - July 14, 2014

Hey-ho everybody :)

Where to even begin... So much has happened! 

So, on Wednesday we were over at Elsa's having a lesson when we were just getting ready to leave and she mentioned that she was going over to her daughters to eat menudo.  Hna. Stratford immediately let her know that I had never had menudo before... UGH!! Do you all know what menudo is??? It is the lining of cow stomach!!! Sick Nasty!!! Haha! So Elsa insisted that I should go to her daughters house and try it... I was so nervous!!! I don't want cow stomach inside of my stomach!! haha! But we walked over and I did it! I ate the menudo... I guess it really depends on how it is cooked and who cooks it... it wasn't terrible... not my favorite and I would never ever voluntarily eat it! The texture was weeiiirrd! But it was better than I was expecting :) Hna. Stratford has had some pretty terrible menudo before, but this was tasty according to her!

I was attacked by a dog this week too! But not in a ferocious kind of way... We went to contact a less active spanish member and their dog was outside and it kept wrapping itself around my leg and “you know what-ing” me! Over and over! It didn't matter how many times I would push him off or try and shake him off of my leg, that dog was wrapped tightly around me and would not let go! The less active wasn't home but her non-member live-in boyfriend was there and was dying of laughter!!! It was so funny!! He couldn't even talk. He was actually crying bc he was laughing so hard! It was pretty hilarious! But I was completely violated. Haha!! 

We were tracting in a trailer park this week and knocked on a door. Some lady yelled from inside, "Who is it" we respond awkwardly... "Missionaries"... She yelled, "Come in!" We looked at each other wondering if we should or not and she yelled it again... so we opened the door and she freaked out! Haha!! She obviously did not hear us right! haha! It was really funny! She wasn't mad, just shocked! #missionaryworkisawkward!

We were tracting in this same park and this guy answered and he immediately told us he believes what the native Americans believe, when they say that Christ came to the Americas and visited the people here. And we were like, DUH! That is what we believe!! Haha! So we told him we have an ancient record that is from the Native Americans and it talks about when Christ came! He seemed pretty shocked and then not sure how to get us off his porch. haha! But we finally convinced him to take the Book of Mormon and to read 3 Nephi 11 :) He said he would! It was pretty cool!

Also, I got a terrible migraine on Tuesday night. We ended up coming home early... It came out of no where... ugh! So our District Leader, Elder Olson, came to give me a blessing. So sweet! I love him! He is a great missionary! I mentioned that my year mark was the next day so as he was leaving our house ,he chucked a $20 bill at my face and told us to go out to lunch. I tried to give it back but he would not take it. So SWEET!!!! So we went to Noodles and Co :) As you know, one of my personal favs :) Haha! We also hit up the Waffle truck this week - life has been goooooooood :)

Ok, now onto the good stuff!!!! 

We had an amazing lesson with John Bowman on Tuesday! Oh!! Fantastic! We have been trying really hard to help him recognize answers from Heavenly Father. He was waiting for some Aw-ha moment to know the church was true and for a very specific answer! So our last few lessons we have been really trying to help him open his eyes and to READ from the BOM because that is where God talks to us. So, as we were talking to him, he all nonchalantly tells us that he was reading in Helaman 6:3 and he got his answer that this is God's church! This is what the scripture says...

"Nevertheless, the people of the church did have great joy because of the conversion of the Lamanites, yea, because of the church of God, which had been established among them. And they did fellowship one with another, and did rejoice one with another, and did have great joy."

He did it! He finally got his answer :) So we committed him to baptism for July 19th. But Christine made us move it back to Aug 2nd because her family will be in town. But it doesn't matter! He is really going to do it! We also had a member of our ward, Bro. Williams, who is the 1st counselor in the Bishopric come and share his conversion story. IT was awesome! John ate it up!! He said EVERYTHING John needed to hear! And at the very end, he told John, "Once you know, don't wait". And John just had told us he knew! Amazing!!! So August 2nd baby! Please keep him in your prayers :) 

Another wonderful miracle... We had Elsa and her daughter Rosie come to the church on Saturday for a tour. IT was amazing!!! The spirit was strong! We were able to show them around the building and explain what we do during the 3 hours and where it happens. We ended in the chapel. The spirit was tangible; it was so strong! We taught lesson 3 (the gospel of Jesus Christ) while in there and explained the sacrament and it was awesome! Elsa told us when she goes to new places she is not familiar with, she gets scared and nervous, but she was overwhelmed with peace and happiness there!!! :) Ah!!! It was amazing! One of my favorite lessons probably overall from my mission. Top 5 for sure! 

Then at church!!! Oh!! This was by far the most successful Sunday I have had! Our Spanish group, which usually is about 5 or 6 people had 17!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had 9 less actives that we teach who came church!!!!!!!! and 2 Investigators AND Mike (niki and mike) and Scott (bowman) came to church too :) It was awesome!!!! Mi corazon fue muy llena!!!!! :) I was flying on cloud 9 all day yesterday!! Carlos came! Anthony came! Some other less-actives that I haven't mentioned to you before, Maria, Joaquin, our investigator Miguel, and we got a new investigator yesterday who came with a member, her name is Carmen :)

MILAGROS!!!!!!!! Heavenly Father is looking over the Spanish group in Fort Collins :) 

So, needless to say, it was a great week!!! Transfers are this Saturday!! I really do think I am going to stay with Hna Stratford again and I really hope so!! So please pray that that is what happens! I am not ready to leave!!! 

I love you all so so much!!! :) Thanks for everything! I wouldn't be here without you :) Lennon, I am so happy to hear you are doing good! Your letters give me strength! and build my testimony of this great work!! Our family is so blessed to have 2 of us out at the same time serving the Lord and inviting others to come unto Christ!!! The church is TRUE!! And I can't wait for you to go to Baltimore and help the people there :) 

Les Extrano muchisimo :)

-Hermana Hannah

Pics with Niki and Mike 

Feliz Cuatro de Julio :) - July 7, 2014

HI GUYS!!! HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT FOURTH OF JULY!!

STARS (OR POLKA DOTS) AND STRIPES (OR CHECKS) FOREVER!!! WE LOVE US SOME RED, WHITE AND BLUE!!! AND HAD FUN CELEBRATING WITH JOHN AND HIS FAMILY :)

For starters, let me apologize for not writing an email last week! Email time was hectic! So I am going to try and give a brief summary of the last 2 weeks. I had Hermana Stratford send you her email last week,so hopefully you already know most of what happened :)

The 2 biggest highlights last week :) 

We have been working with one of our fabulous less-actives in the ward. We found him the first week Hermana Stratford came to Fort Collins. He has been living in FoCo for a little over 3 years and has not been to church at all. He and his wife separated and that is why he moved here from Missouri. We are the first missionaries to have visited him in the 3 years he has been here! We have invited him to come to church but he didn't feel ready and said that his church clothes were still packed up and he needed to get them out and get them dry cleaned. But we continued to visit him and it took 2 full weeks but we told him it didn't matter and that we were going to go to his house Sunday morning and get him a ride to church and iron his clothes for him etc etc. Well, we showed up and he was all ready :) Beaming and glowing!!!!!!! Mi corazon estaba llena :) I was sooooooooooo happy!!! He hasn't been to church in over 3 years and he came last week!! He was so happy to be there! And it showed in his countenance  It is moments like this that make everything worth it! And that make me absolutely LOVE being a missionary!! He is an answer to pray for our Spanish group!! :) While at church he signed up to feed us and so this last Friday he took us out to eat and we had a great time! I love him! 

The same Sunday morning we went to get him for church, we went to another less-actives house to get him to come as well. He wouldn’t budge :( He said he had to move bricks from his garage to his backyard and that was why... so we offered to quick do it for him but he said no. So he promised (and shook on it) to come to church this week. We went back during the week to share a message and make sure he was still coming to church and he said, "I promise! I am a man of my word, I will be there." Well, he never showed up yesterday... that was disappointing... We are trying to figure out a new game plan for him because he is such a good man and I want him to feel the peace of the gospel again... 

Last week we were early to a dinner appointment, so Hna. Stratford and I decided to go walk around the trailer park and find some new investigators! There was this crazy hailstorm the night before that really destroyed some of the trailers. Breaking windows, sidings, roofs, etc. We saw this lady outside and I felt like we should go and talk to her. So we walked over and she didn't speak any english, but not a problem because Heavenly Father has blessed us with the gift of tongues and so we spoke to her in Spanish and we offered to help her. She told us we could come back the following day to help her. So we did! She said she was shocked that we came! She fed us a yummy authentic mexican almuerzo and we set up a return appointment to teach her about the church. We have gone back several times now and she is great!!! I love her!! Elsa is amazing and finds everything we teach to be really interesting. She is patient with our Spanish and we try to help her with her English. Her husband, Jesus, sat in on a lesson and really liked it.They ate it up. Elsa had so many questions answered! Rosa, their daughter, came in after we had already explained pretty much everything, but I had bought this puzzle at the MTC that explains the Plan of Salvation. So when Rosa came in, Elsa immediatily told her to sit down and listen. Elsa grabbed the puzzle and taught Rosa the Plan of Salvation herself!!! It was really cool!!!! And to see she understood everything we said and to see how exctied she was made me feel so happy ! IT was an amazing feeling and it strengthened my testimony of the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel even more!!! 

This week we also went on exchanges with our sister training leaders. They were good :) We also had a cool experience after one of our lunches this week. We were walking back to our car when this guy on his longboard stopped us and said, "youre mormon missionaries right? I have some questions for you." So we talked to him and he had dated a mormon girl before and had met with the missionaries and was trying to remember what they told him about the Plan of Salvation and more specifically the Kingdoms. So we taught him on the sidewalk right off of Old Town and gave him our number and we are going to meet with him again this week! 

I feel so honored and blessed to be involved in this work! To be seeing miracles and to be building relationships with the amazing people here! I love everyone! I love the peace and joy and blessings the Gospel brings to people! I know miracles are all around us and we can see more as we share the Gospel with those we love!! I encourage all of you to read Power Of Everyday Missionaries by Clayton Christensen! It is amazing!!! And it will give you the added strength you need to OPEN YOUR MOUTHS :) Also, Elder Ballard invited everyone, especially parents of missionaries, to read Preach My Gospel and share what they learn with their kids! I encourage and invite you to accept his invitation! 

I LOVE YOU ALL!! I hope you all had a good 4th :) I did! Also, my year mark is on Wednesday! How crazy is that!! It has flown by!! 

XOXO

Hermana Mangum SR. ;)

Words from Hermana Stratford - June 30, 2014

HELLO THERE - THIS IS HANNAH'S MOM :) SHE WAS OVERWHELMED WITH EMAILS THIS WEEK AND ONLY HAD TIME TO READ (THANKS FOR ALL THE LOVE SHE IS BEING SHOWN!) SO SHE SEND US THE EMAIL HER COMPANION SENT HOME. WHEW!! I NEEDED INFORMATION. IT WAS NICE TO HEAR ABOUT THEIR WEEK FROM HERMANA STRATFORD AND GET TO KNOW HER BETTER. ENJOY :)

This week was so amazing! so many miracles happened.. I dont even know where to begin... lets start at the beginning:)

SO last Monday we were at Walmart after emailing and we ran into ROSA! the same one that I wrote about last week!! It was so cool! Totally a sign. We havent been able to teach her yet though... which is a bummer. we go to her house and she is never there. she has a little two pound guard dog that is literally a spawn of Satan. I wish I could send you the video of this dog. IT IS SO CREEPY! It's alright though, we just take it as another sign that satan doesnt want us to talk to her. (EVIL DOG NAMED PEQUENO - haha)

On Wednesday, we had dinner with a less-active member of our group but we got to her house a little bit early so we decided to go contacting in her little trailer park. WELL, going back a little bit, the night before there was a HUGE hail storm. literally golf- tennis ball size hail was falling from the sky, and it seemed to only hit this little part of town as we were driving though, it looked like a tornado had reeked havoc. There were holes in everyones houses! HOLES!!!! WHAT? windows were broken, leaves were EVERYWHERE. Every thing was just destroyed. SO before this dinner we started walking to find someone to talk to and there was a lady that was raking her leaves by her self in her front yard. It was a HUGE project for one person to handle, so we decided to talk to her and we asked her if we could come back and help her with her leaves. She was SO nice! and she was probably surprised that two dressy ladies were coming to ask to help clean her yard. Well we went back the next day (we recruited the Elders - who dont speak spanish at all, so it was really fun translating for them everything that happened) and bagged and raked leaves for her (all the while talking about her life and our lives and what we do as missionaries and, of course, the gospel:)) Afterward, she said to us, "ahora, vamos a comer!" which means, "And now, were going to eat!”, so we did! she made us all delicious REAL mexican food. It was so good! I could honestly live off of beans and rice and tortillas for the rest of my life if I had to, they are so good! we talked more and at the end, we asked her if we could teach her the lessons... this is what she said,"I knew you were teachers about God, I want to understand why you leave your family for so long, there has to be a good reason.." 

SO! we went back and taught her!!! AND mid lesson her husband came out of the house and joined in and they both are SO GOLDEN! They planned on coming to church but then she texted us and apologized and said that she had to watch her grand kids but that she was so sorry and that she was looking forward to our cita next wednesday! that never happens, usually people just dont show, but she was legitimately sad that she couldn't come. ahhh what a miracle. her name is Elsa and his is Jesus, Pray for them OKAY!!!

Miracle #2:

We have been working with a man that is less active but hasnt come to church for YEARS. He cant read or write so he has a hard time with church because he is afraid that some one will call on him to read. Well, we go over to his house weekly and read to him the Book of Mormon. This week we read Alma 32. ALLLL about faith. At the end of our lesson, like we do every time, we invited him to come to church. He gave some silly excuse about how he doesnt have the clothes and they are in his granddaughters closet and she gets mad when he goes in there.... WHATEVER! so I basically called him out and asked him what the real reason is. He sat there for a second and then said, "okay I guess it will only take a few days to get them out..." We told him that we would come over sunday morning to wake him up and make sure he was coming. WELL we did that, and his daughter answered the door and told us that he was going to be a minute. We waited and waited and waited and finally, He came out, ALL DECKED OUT in his church clothes and said, "alright, lets go." AHHHHHHHHHHHH I about died. It was the coolest moment. he loved every second of church. He just sat there and soaked it up! ahh The church is true y'all.

There was another less active member that we tried to do the same thing with but he just called me a, AND I quote, "meanie weenie" and then didnt come... BUT he shook on next sunday, so Ill let you know how that one goes. I would just like to say that I am just firm, and he didnt like what I was saying because he knew I was right! 

Something I have learned:

I got a package from one of my favorite members in Boulder, and inside there was an article about sister missionary success. I gotta say, it changed the way I will look at being a missionary. There was a story about a sister in Japan that didnt know the language and had to contact people the first day she got there.. well obviously she was struggling and so she said a prayer for help, then she just looked for people that stood out to her to talk to. she talked to 4 people and ALL four wanted to learn more about the gospel. As I was reading her story I realized something. As a missionary for the Lord, I am entitled to revelation. I am out here, on my own, doing HIS work. He has got to help me becasue otherwise, NOTHING is going to get accomplished. As his servant, I am entitled to that help, as long as I am worthy to receive it. It has been awesome because I have been able to ask and receive the help that I need. I talk CONSTANTLY to my Father in Heaven and tell him what I need. I cant even begin to tell you all the times I get exactly the help that I need. I am his servant and I am entitled to His help... Let me go a little further. We are ALL his children. As members of His church, we are ALL entitled to His help. If we are worthy to receive it, HE WILL HELP US!

AHHH I love the gospel, I love being a missionary. THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!

Have a great week!

Love, Hna Stratford

Pics of the beautiful Enriquez family