Hermana Hannah Mangum: Hey - I am really in Broomfield :)

Hola!!! Oh my gosh! Thank you for all your emails! It is my favorite part of the whole week!! Ah! I have so much to tell you! Where to begin??

Ok, first of all, when I first emailed you, I thought I was serving in Boulder... turns out I am serving about 20 minutes from Boulder in a town called Broomfield. (So we are in the Boulder zone and stake). It is a pretty small area we are serving in. We are only serving in one ward: the Broomfield 3rd ward. And we are LITERALLY on the edge of the mission boundraries! Literally across the street is the Denver North Mission! It is crazy! And I LOVE the area! And everyone is sooooooo stinking nice!! Like I love them so much :) The members here are amazing! I can tell I am going to FOREVER have a relationship with the beautiful people here! I was bummed to be serving in an english area at first, but not anymore! It is making it so much easier to communicate! I am not saying I don't want to serve in a Spanish area, CAUSE I DO, but this was a great place for me to start and to get comfortable! We don't have any investigators right now... :( We are working on it, but as of now we have been going around and getting to know the ward members and it has seriously been so great! We eat dinner with members EVERY night! And they feed us well!! Haha!

So, yes! I met a family who's son lived in the basement apartment of Kevin and Mary's house! SO crazy! Their names are the Demetter's! They are some of the nicest people I have every met! They recognized my last name and asked if I was related, and sure enough I was! So they called their son after we met and told him to call Kevin and Mary and to have them call you and let you know! I also have another crazy connection... I am currently living with a family who's name is Allred. And guess what... the Dad is Brother Allred’s brother! What?!? So it is Sterling, Parker, and Madison’s family! SO crazy!!! Sister Allred is super nice and speaks Spanish. We are only living with them for a couple more weeks. There is another family that wanted us to live with them, but their son is currently at home and leaves to BYU in the next week or so. When he leaves, then we can move in. Their name is the Engstrum family. They are so stinking cute! I am so excited to live with them!!

So, there was a big ward party on Saturday! It was a Luau! We helped set it up. It was in the church parking lot. And when the party started, there was a HUGE double rainbow! It was sooooo pretty!!!! Ah! I loved it! It was perfect for a Luau themed party! So... for the party, the missionaries were asked to sing... and you know that is not something I like to do at all in front of people! Especially in front of 200 people!! Ah! So I was really out of my comfort zone, but you know what, it was great! A sister in the ward, Sister Kaiser, called us on Friday and asked if we could sing with the Elders in our ward. So we went to her house to practice a couple of times. Her son, who is the same age as Max. sang with us and played the Ukelele. I had never heard the song before. It is really cool! You need to look it up on YouTube! It is called, "How Can I Be, Uke". There are 3 guys singing it. THey sound way better then we did! Haha! But it was great! The party was so fun! There was a polynesian family who did all the performing. The hauka, fire dance, you name it! It was great! And they even roasted pigs! Sorry Lennon, haha! It was pretty crazy looking!

Then Sunday! Sunday was probably my favorite day in the field! We went to ward council at 7:30, sacrament at 9, and then we had to stay after for another missionary collaboration meeting with the Ward Missionary Leader and a few other people. And we were there until 1:30. SO from 7:30-1:30! And that whole time with NO food! We didn't have time to eat... but it was great! I enjoyed all the meetings so much. And even relief society! I wasn't sure I would every enjoy relief society, turns out I do! Haha!

Here is a funny story... so yesterday we were visiting with this older lady. We went over to visit with her and share a message. WE started with a prayer, and when Sister Jarvis (my companion, who i absolutely LOVE) said Amen, the lady kept her head down and her arms folded..I guess she is deaf or very hard-of-hearing. It was seriously about 2 minutes after we said Amen and she was still down!! We didn't know what to do! So we tried asking her questions and talking to her but she never responded. Eventually she put her head up and we just carried on like nothing happened. Oh my! SO FUNNY!!! She is a sweet (very deaf) lady :)

There is one guy in the ward who grew up in Alpine and went to American Fork High School. HE gives me grief for going to Timpview, and calls me Timpview now, haha! And I call him Caveman. It is pretty funny! I am just loving the connections I am making with people! Well I think that is it... I am sure there is more that I will think of later.

I know this is exactly where I am supposed to be!!!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO DANG MUCH!

Con Amor,

Hannah Banana :)