Hi guys - I literally have so much to tell you and a million pictures to send, so get ready…. A lot has happened in the last 2 weeks :)
The absolute high light of the week was being able to go to the temple! What a beautiful and holy place!! I am so grateful to have it in my life. And I am even more grateful I got to share a temple day with you Lennon :) How special!! The peace I felt there was overwhelming! I did NOT want to leave!! I am grateful for the chance to have gone with Ally and with Sister Penn and Sister Thornton! When we walked into the waiting room before going into our session, the Elders that got et'ed from Fort Morgan were both there!!! What are the odds!? How crazy is that? So we talked to them a little after and took pics with them. Then we went to Deseret Book and I bought a scripture case for my spanish scriptures which I desperately needed, a CTR ring :) a cute necklace and a necklace for Roxie and Patty! It was great! Sister Penn and Thornton took us to lunch at a Thai restaurant in Denver. Sis. Penn's daughters and little baby grandson met us there :) It was a great trip and wonderful day!! We also saw the Denver Broncos stadium :)
I want to tell you about all of the great blessings Ally and I have received! Oh my! We have just had GIFTS showered upon us lately - like real presents from people! We went and had a lesson with Patty and Roxie and they whipped out these super nice, dry fit nike hoodies that say Fort Morgan on them! (the tag was still on and it was $65!) my goodness!! Soooo nice!! And so sweet that they want to give us something, we were so thankful. Then we were doing service at Caring Ministries and one of the volunteers there left and went to the gas station and bought us each an ice cream bar! Then, Hilda told us she is making us custom-crochet mexican necklaces! And to top it off, we were visiting with Kylie and Troy on Saturday night and Troy was telling us how much he likes us and appreciates us for teaching him and Kylie and for pushing them to be married and baptized. And then he went and took down a Utah Jazz flag/banner they had hanging up in their house (the very first time I went to their house, almost 3 months ago, I made a comment that I was a Jazz fan too) and gave it to me. He said since he didn't know when we would be transferred, he wanted to give it to me. OH MY GOODNESS!!! It was the sweetest thing ever! The amount of blessings and sweet heartfelt gifts we have received from the members of this ward, our investigators and those we have built friendships with, have been so sweet and humbling :)
We have been working a lot with Jo Ellen, our investigator. She has had a really hard life and has made some choices in her life that have not been the best. But she has really been turning her life around this last year. She is now a little over a year sober! So that is great! She really loves to talk! We always have great lessons with her. At the end of our lesson 2 weeks ago, we invited her to be baptized on May 10th, and she said YES!!! We are sooo happy! :) Now we need to teach her the stop smoking program. We are pros at teaching that program! haha! We taught it to Troy this last week too!
Kylie and Troy's wedding is on for April 26th! They went and bought their marriage license and gave it to us to hold on to. ha! Great idea! We have it in our bedroom and have been working with the ward in getting the wedding/baptism/reception all together! It is coming up! A little less than 2 weeks away :)
We have a new investigator, Bobby. He is really cool! He is friends with a man in our ward and is going through a divorce and is ready to learn more about the gospel. He is really cool. He is super smart and I have a lot of hope for him :)
We also have a potential investigator, Mohamed, he's from Sudan and we met him while teaching ESL at Cargill. I am pretty sure I have told you about him... Anyway, we have been in contact with him and will hopefully be meeting with him this week! We ordered a Arabic Book of Mormon to give to him. It looks really cool!! We had to get special permission to get a copy in Arabic. I didn't realize it was such a big deal. ha!
We had some really great lessons with Roxie these last couple weeks as well!! She is just amazing!! I love her so much!! We re-taught her the stop smoking program and she has cut back from a pack a day to 3 cigarettes!! That is huge!! The goal of course is for her to quit completely, but she is making huge improvements and I am so happy for her :) We made her some "healthy snacks" and brought them to her house last week. We made ants on a log. Haha! Cheesy I know, but it was fun :) There is just something about Roxie, I love love love love her and her family! Here is a picture of her with her declaration of independence as well :)
General Conference was amazing!!! I hope you all got a chance to watch it since you were on vacation! We had 3 investigators that came which was great :) My favorite talks were Elder Eyring, Uchtdorf, and Bednar! Such inspired words and men! If you didn't get a chance to listen to their talks, you need to!
We have had 2 weeks of visiting the most wonderful members of our ward as well. 2 of these cute girls got baptized on Saturday. The one in the pink dress, and the one with the white headband. The other little girl is one of our favorites in the ward!!
Here are some pics of people in our ward that we love :) Hilda and us making tortas with Sister Penn, Grandma Nichols, Sister Marting and the Cuylers who are both in their nineties :) #weloveoldpeople
Check out these ginormous tomatoes and sweet Sister Korby and her amazing German food and left overs!!
We also went to Greeley for zone meetings and Sister Hoer let me ride her new bike! So awesome, I loved it.
We also met the saddest lady last Thursday. She is friends with our investigator Jo, and she literally has no money. NONE! It broke our hearts!! She asked if we could help strip some trailers that she owns so she could sell the parts for money. Our hearts were just completely broken. We said yes, and so this morning we went and helped. OH MY!!! The trailer part was evacuated a year ago because of water contamination and then people have just ransacked the trailers and destroyed them. It was disgusting and depressing!! We picked up garbage and ripped out walls. So sad! People have it hard :(
I hope you are all doing great!! I love reading your emails and looking at all of the pictures you send me :) It makes my week that much better! And good news!! We get to skype again in less than a month for Mother’s Day!! Yippee!!
Well, have a wonderful Easter Sunday and remember the meaning of it. Christ's atonement and sacrifice is such an amazing blessing we have in our lives! The more I have been out on my mission, the more I learn and feel of our Savior's love for each of us! It is real! What a blessing it is to us!
Love you!!!!!
Hermana Hannah Mangum :)
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