Hermana Hannah Mangum: Little Service Here, Little Service There

Hi Guys :)

We are still riding high from our meetings with Elder Cook last week!

And it has been another good week here :) Started off with exchanges... and actually, honestly, those were not that great. Hna. Stratford and I just wanted to stay together! We have been with each other 24/7 for 4 months now and we still are not sick of each other! I think that is pretty awesome! Haha!! The exchange was so awkward...no one spoke ... awka-awkward! BUT the Sisters live with Ferdy Brown's parents! So it was cool that I got to spend the night there! (even though they were in Utah visiting family... haha)

We had a lesson with E. this week about the Plan of Salvation again. Brother Walton came with us :) I love that man! He is wonderful!!! It was a good lesson but we are at a loss of what we need to do. She is so wonderful but not really progressing, and a lot it is because of her babysitting job. She doesn't come to church she isn't reading the BOM, she cancels quite a bit... but expresses that she wants to keep learning and she knows it is true. We have been praying about it all week and I think we have decided we need to let her go.. :( no quiero!!! But I think it really is what we have to do... We can check back up on her in a month or 2… ahhh, don't know what to do.

So I have told you how we volunteer at Catholic Charities every week and we make lunch and feed the homeless :) It is awesome! We have become really close to a couple that volunteers there named Dick and Jane. Yep, those are really their names!!! haha! Dick is not religious at all and I think is even agnostic. Jane doesn't go to church but believes in God and everything. We want to teach them sooooooooooooo bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She mentioned that they are remodeling their kitchen right now and so I mentioned that I am a designer :) She was so excited and asked us to come over to their home and help pick out paint colors etc. :) So we did! It was awesome!!! Dick was so cute and had "Today's hits" playlist on Pandora playing when we got there. It was so cute! They are older, like late 50's or 60's, so they totally would not have been listening to that music on their own. Adorable :) I am hoping we can start teaching them!! We don't want it to seem like our friendship has any strings attached but I want to teach them! They would be perfect members!!!!!!!!!!

This week we also cleaned John's bedroom for some service! He has some slobbiness issues! We filled up 2 black trash bags full of garbage and a donation bag too! It was crazy! But I had fun making it look perfect! I took before and after pics that I will send to you!

We also have been in a pranking war with our Elders :) haha!! So fun and we got them good this week!! We covered their bedroom and bathroom in dixie cups with an inch of water in them!! hahaha!! every single surface covered!! John helped us :) (The elders live in the Bowman's basement).

The highlight of the week, though, was that we decided to do a pretty big act of service for A. He hasn't come to church for the last 2 months now because he took ALL of his church clothes to the dry cleaners. He hasn't had money to get them out and he refuses to come to church in jeans and a t-shirt. He told us his dry cleaning is $80!!!!! And he does not have the money. His family is struggling a lot right now with just getting food. So his clothes have been sitting there for 2 months. We talked to the Elders and we all decided we would each pitch in $20 and go pick up his clothes for him! We went to his house after and decided we didn't want him to know it was us (even though he could easily figure it out) we didn't want to embarrass him and so we doorbell ditched them on his front porch :) I was on cloud 9 after!! It felt so good! Service truly brings real and genuine happiness! :) He didn't come to church yesterday... but I have hope he will be there next week!!! :)

Hey, I am sending pics of our service from last week too. The library computer would not work but all is well today.

This week we taught the Plan of Salvation a lot!!!! I attached a picture of a drawing of the Plan of Salvation that we use to teach people. I love it!! It is totally a corny missionary object lesson but it is true! The Plan of Salvation is a plan of LOVE! I am so grateful to our Father in Heaven and the immense amount of LOVE He has for each of us. He gave us this beautiful plan! I know it is true!!!