Hermana Hannah Mangum: We moved again - YEP, 3 times in 6 weeks :)

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!