#59 - I love my life.

Dear Family,

A true miracle happened this week:

We have hot water in our shower.

Miracles are real. I love you.

All my love,

Sister Mann

P.S. Oh, hey! :) Other miracles happened this week too, but can I just tell you how grateful I am to have hot water in our shower?! The temperature took a dip on us these last few weeks and getting in the freezing shower has been almost unbearable. One day we plum couldn't take it anymore and we called a member near by and he fixed our shower head and now we have hot water and life is more beautiful. :) So, if you're ever sad, be thankful for hot water. :)

My heart is so thankful for SO many things! I am so grateful for Sister Melonakos! She is the best. Having a spectacular companion makes life better. We have so much fun together and I just love her. :)

This week I am so grateful for the guidance of the Holy Ghost. We have felt so guided. Something that I have been learning is that everything God does is beautiful. EVERYTHING. Even the hard things have a purpose and are a part of a wonderful plan. Everything God does is beautiful.

We have a investigator who is just golden. We have taught her ALL the lessons and she is going to church and living the commandments and everything. She just has one little problem: she does NOT want to get baptized. She still thinks it's too early and lacks the courage to be baptized. The other day we were at her house and I honestly didn't know what more to do for her. We had already taught everything and talked about baptism SO MUCH. I prayed for help and we felt prompted to kneel down with her and just pray: ask Heavenly Father what He thinks. As our investigator was praying, the Holy Ghost filled the room. After the amen, I looked over to her to see tears streaming down her face. She said, "I know now I need to be baptized." It was incredible. The power of prayer is incredible.

Another time this week we were with another sweet investigator who has been a pickle of moving out of her boyfriend's house or getting married. It has been hard because he does not want to her to leave and she doesn't have anywhere to go if she does because her mom threw her out of the house and she is too young to get married without her mother's permission. While we were talking to her, the story of Ester came to my head. We read it together and then decided that, like Ester, she needed to pray and fast for courage and speak very frankly, and honestly to her boyfriend about moving out and talk to her mom about marriage. She said she would. It was completely guided by Our Heavenly Father. He has such good ideas. :)

There is a darling family in our ward of four sisters. Two of them are married and live in their own houses and the other two younger sisters live together in another house. This family is awesome and always helps us and makes Almoço for us. Sadly, they have been having a hard time, because the youngest sister is deaf and because of this, often time feels excluded at church and has slowly been going a way from the church and becoming in-active. The 3 older sisters asked us if we could help and we said yes! We make weekly visits for the littlest sister and the older sister translates what we say in Portuguese into Sign Language. It is super awesome! The Spirit is so strong in the lessons and it has been amazing to see her progress! :)

After district meeting this week, we were waiting for the bus for what seemed FOREVER. We waited and waited and started getting very antsy because our day was packed with very important plans and people to visit. I said a prayer and still the bus did not come for a long time. After more than an hour, the rickety, smelly bus finally came down the road and we jumped on and squeezed ourselves into the crowed bus. We didn't exactly know what stop to get off so we started to ask people if they knew where Isabella road was. Nobody knew! I turned around and asked the man behind me if he knew. He pointed to his ears and signed to me that he is deaf. I smiled and gave him a thumbs up and turned around back in my seat. Then I felt a little prompting to write the name of the road down on a piece of paper and show it to him. Turns out he knew were the road was and he led us straight to it! We left him with a Book of Mormon and a message in the back and said goodbye.

The next day we were extremely surprised and super happy when he walked into church, all dressed-up, with the Book of Mormon in hand! And guess who else walked in? The littlest sister that we had been teaching who also is deaf! She started talking to him and was able to sign and explain everything for him. It was a miracle! A straight up miracle! And it was all performed through tiny things. What if we had not been teaching the littlest sister? What if the bus had come on time? What if I had ignored the prompting to ask him again? What if the littlest sister hadn't come to church? Everything God does is beautiful. :)

I love this work. I love it with my whole soul. I am so grateful to have a missionary name-badge over my heart and that I will wake up tomorrow and still be a missionary. I LOVE IT! :) 

I love you, family! Thank you for your prayers, for your love, and for everything. The other day I remembered our trip to Jackson Hole and eating square ice cream and I just missed you so much. :) You mean the world to me. I LOVE YOU!