Hola Familia y todos!!!
Can you believe it - I AM GOING TO THE GREELEY SPANISH BRANCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not going far at all! But I am finally in a spanish area!! YAY! So after 5 months on the mission, I am going to try and speak the language I learned for a few weeks back in July - haha! I am so excited!! But, Ally got transferred... so we will not be in the same branch or living together... but she is still in the zone! Thank goodness! She is out in the boonies.. So i probably won't see her very often :( My companion is Hermana Soto. She is from Mexico :)
Ok, I was going to email you the rest of my week. But we have to actually run. But we still have more email time. Sister smith just got kicked off her computer... it is weird and said she could log back on in an hour. So I will finish my email in an hour and send pics and talk to you soon!!
I am back - Ok, so yes, I am going to the Greeley Spanish Branch with Hermana Soto. Pretty excited about the spanish branch!!! :)
Also this week... We did have the Christmas Devotional! They just didn't do a good job at announcing it so I didn't know about it. Ha! It was on Thursday! I think the best part about this day though, was getting the 35 letters from you guys and from the preschoolers! That was the cutest thing ever! When everyone saw my big stack they were jealous. Ha! I absolutely loved looking through all the letters! So cute!! The devotional was great! It was 3 zones, so about 70 of us total. And guess what happened again... I got called to bear my testimony in front of everyone AGAIN!!! I was like, this has got to be a joke. I just did that 5 days ago in front of the whole mission! But sure enough, I went up and did it again. It was great! It was less scary since it was 70 people rather than 220... I have no problem with bearing my testimony in front of investigators and on a small scale but this is my peers. And I want to say something that would make a difference. I really don’t do well in front of big crowds. Maybe I will be the end of my mission - haha! Then we watched 17 Miracles which I have never seen. It was super good!!!! I cried. Great reminder about the sacrifices made by the pioneers so that we could live the lives we have today. President also announced that we are going to be allowed to watch movies on Christmas Day! Wahoo! Pretty excited about that :)
After the Christmas Devotional we went to visit Mary in the Hospital. She was not doing good at all. Poor thing was in so much pain, you could just tell. She was having a really hard time breathing. We had been going to visit throughout the week too. The first time we went, Sister Smith grabbed her hand and said "Hi Mary" and her eyes opened right up and she said Hi and then went back to sleep. Before Mary went to the hospital, Sam, Naomi and Richard, always had us go and share a message in the bedroom with Mary even though she was always sleeping. One day after we said a prayer, Mary said "Amen" at the end. And that was the only thing she had said all day. She knows exactly who we are. It is pretty cool.
Well, on Thursday after we left, she passed away about an hour and half later. The family is hanging in there. Richard is absolutely breaking my heart. A few days ago, when we were visiting, he walked in and it was the first time he had been there all day, and Mary's arms were bloated and he was freaking out and crying and just kept repeating, "Grandma, it's Grandpa. Grandma, it's Grandpa" and just cried and cried. It broke my heart! We were all crying. But we keep going back to visit them and they seem to being hanging in there. The funeral is on Wednesday and we will be going to that.
Friday and Saturday Sister Smith and I were sick... Not fun! We stayed home and slept. I am feeling much better today. We found out about transfers on saturday night. Sister Smith is going to Fort Collins and will be in the same ward as Cory Turners Parents! Sister Hoer is staying in the ward and is training a new missionary and Sister Jarvis is coming to Greeley! We will be in the same zone and see each other all the time! I am really excited about that! :)
On Sunday the Bishop asked me and Sister Smith to bear our testimonies during sacrament. So we did. Yep, that is the 3rd time in a matter of a week and a half I have had to bear my testimony in front of a lot of people... I am a pro now ;) haha! I think the Lord is really trying to send me a message - stop being afraid of big crowds Hermana Mangum. And it really is a blessing to be able to share it with people because the Gospel is true and that is why I am out here on my mission. To let people know of it's truth. After church we went and said good bye to people and took pics with them! I will send some right now!!
Also, we met with an inactive guy this week, Cody, and he came to church this week! It was really awesome!!
Ok, sorry, I know this was kind of a lame email... But I have great pics to make up for it!!! :) I am sending some of our baptisms last week and of my goodbyes this week with one of the Shipp family who I just love. Also I put some in there of our mission conference. It was so awesome.
Love you all!!
Me :)
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