Week #77 - "You Know Who the Author Is"

Hannah and Hermana Ehlert

I did divisions in my area with a cute sister from Honduras. She is so awesome. Okay, I think I shared a little bit about my fav investigator Lorena a couple of weeks ago... but anyways remember her for a minute.

Okay, we were contacting as we were heading home on Tuesday last week and started talking to a lady named Maria. We talked with her and then sang her a song. As we were leaving, I felt impressed to ask her for a reference. (Just fyi that never happens. they all say the same things like everyone needs to hear the word of god and that they have no idea who needs a message....) so we asked her and she actually gave us one! She told us that there was a lady a few house down that liked talking about God with people.

We go to her house the next day and she says, you are the people that are visiting my daughter! And we asked her who her daughter was.... and you’ll never guess who it is!!!! IT´S LORENA. She said that they were talking the night before about us and she said that she wanted visits from us.

We ended up teaching her and she is a really cool lady. She understands a lot about God but she cannot read. We are being creative and teaching with a LOT of pictures. We are REALLY excited about this.

It really was an AMAZING experience. Ah. I was able to chat a little with President Lapierre on Saturday and I told him about this experience that happened to us. He looked at me and said: “That is an awesome story. You know who the author is.”

Really, the author was Heavenly Father. He was working through people here so that His other daughter, the mother of Lorena could hear about the gospel. He listened to us.

Hannah received the following email and picture from the wife of her mission president, Dottie Lapierre.  I thought it was sweet.......so I am including it here. 

“ Thanks, so much for the snickerdoodles, We enjoyed them for our dessert Saturday night.Thanks, too for letting me talk on and on like an old lady, ooooo wait, I almost am!    YIKES!!

Thought you might like another photo. You were pretty far away when I thought to take the picture.  It´s pixelated when enlarged but the idea is so cute. I love that Hna Ehlert has turned to talk to you, Hna Murphy. Missions, they are wonderful.

Love you to the Mission Home and back :O)  Hna Lapierre”

Isn’t that sweet, “Love you to the Mission Home and Back.”  That’s enough to melt a missionary mom’s heart!!  

Also, not to be gross..........I was given these pictures of the worm that came out of Hannah's companions arm a couple of weeks ago.  SO SO SO VERY GROSS!!

And......if you remember the "Cockroach in the bathroom story".......here is a little visual representation of that fun experience from Hannah:

Since I ended this email with two gross things, I will leave you with a beautiful picture of where Hannah is currently living to redeem myself:

Week #76 - Tears like Iguazu

Iguazu Falls.........Apparently Hannah cried tears that looked like this today!!  

I have had the chance to work as a leader for 8ish months. Every month we have a training with president LaPierre and it is such a fun time to learn and apply what we learn to our zones! 

One of the things we do EVERY leadership council is hear the testimonies of the missionaries that are leaving. We haven’t done that for the last couple of leadership trainings, so I thought I was in the clear, I thought that I did not need to share my testimony. WRONG. I had to go up. As I was waiting for my time to share my testimony, I started to cry. I just let those tears stream like Iguazu! It sure was embarrassing. Ah. 

I shared my testimony through my tears. It was one of the hardest moments of my mission! I sure love this chance to work as a missionary and help people come unto Christ! It is the best!

XOXO

Hermana Hannah

Week #75 - Diary of TWO Gringas

Okay, I am so glad that I was able to send a good long note the last week! I was able to write to you all about 3 days ago. Hermana Ehlert is doing better with her arm and all is well! 

Okay yesterday, we left normally to church. Then we went to lunch with an elderly couple from the branch and then we headed home normally..... but then something horrible happened.... I was walking into our room (in the dark) to turn the air on (because it was well above 90 degrees) and a cockroach fell on my leg! So yeah, that totally freaked me out. Then I turned and looked into our bathroom and i saw 35 cockroaches! And they were NOT tiny.

I screamed a little bit and Hermana Ehlert came and she saw what was happening. We both freaked out and decided that we needed to kill them. A little side note.... we have never had experiences with cockroaches before the mission so it is a little hard for us to kill them, BUT we came up with a very creative way to do so :) Hermana Ehlert was Raid girl, and I had the broom. I would hit them from the wall, and she would spray. THEN I would hit them again until they got on their backs, and she would spray again. Let’s just say, our house smells a lot like Raid right now...

Anyways, it was an eventful afternoon, but it’s okay because we killed all of them! Go us! :)

XOXO

Hermana Hannah

Week #74- Feliz 2016

Wow I never thought that this year would actually come! I am freaking out a little bit! This week has been one of the most interesting/ fun weeks of my entire mission. Let me tell you why,

1. Hermana Ehlert and I needed to travel this week to give some trainings to 2 big groups of missionaries and it was really awesome. (i will explain more a little bit later...) anyways, about 4 weeks ago she got a really bad but bite and it was still hurting her this week so we decided to go to the hospital. First we had to go pick up some documents at the office so as we were there something started to come out of her arm... like a creature... she started screaming and then I started screaming and then she told me to run and go get Hermana La Pierre. So I ran to get her. We all ran back and president followed as well and as we are watching A WORM flies out of the arm of Hermana Ehlert. I REPEAT A WORM. It was probably one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. After, we headed to the doctor and he said that everything was alright the only thing she needed to do was take medicine and clean it out. Yeah. It freaked us out. She is totally better now! How cool is my comp! haha

2. This week we were able to teach a really awesome family--I mean it. They are really awesome. The moms name is Lorena and her husband Cristian. They have 2 sons. One is a baby and the other is listening to us and he always has good questions for us. We have decided that something that they need to do is COME TO CHURCH! We were planning allll week on what we needed to teach them and what it was that we needed to do to get them to come to church. As we were teaching, she asked us about the church! About where the building was and at what time it started. She wants to come. She really likes the discussions and we are so happy to be able to teach her! We have a lesson with her in the morning tomorrow and we are so excited to invite her to come with us :)

3. As I was describing above, we have been having the chance to speak and train a few other groups of missionaries this past week. it has been a real delight studying and praying with Hermana Ehlert about the topics that we needed to address with them. We studied and studied AND studied this past week to figure out what we needed to talk about. One day it just hit me in my studies! The Grace of Jesus Christ. We decided that we needed to talk about that, so we did. We studied and prayed some more and we found some really amazing things. First we talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the importance of following the things that He wants us to do. He is not expecting for us to be perfect, but He wants us to try our best. After everything we can do says the scriptures, then His grace is sufficient for us. i love that. What does sufficient mean though? It means big or powerful enough. I sure do believe that. Teaching and giving my testimony to these other missionaries really made me think about the importance of His grace in my life. I do not know how to access it perfectly, but I believe with my whole heart that i can do it when I need it which is every day. So, that is one of my goals for this brand new year. Using His grace. I love & honor Him.

XOXO

Hermana Murphy

Week #73 - CHRISTMAS SKYPE

We didn't actually get an email letter from Hannah this week, since we were able to Skype with her for 45+ minutes on Christmas Day.  Here are a couple of pictures taken during our Skype session:

Family Picture:

Hannah and her cute companion, Hermana Ehlert from Canada (They are apparently also know as "Party on Wheels"--a sweet nickname for their duo given to them by President La Pierre):

Once again.........this was our VERY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS PRESENT THIS YEAR!!!

Week #72 - Bye! Bye! Ituzaingo!!

Saying byeto sister Zambrana! :) 

(From Heather:  The first email I received this morning said,

 "MOM -- BIG NEWS- NEW AREA AND MY COMP IS ONE OF MY DEAREST FRIENDS IN THE MISSION!"

 Hannah then said her new companion is one of her best friends in her mission.  It is also her FIRST American companion besides Hermana Wilson in the MTC.)

I had to say goodbye to my sweet Ituzaingo! To be honest, I was a little sad when I received the call that I was getting moved for my LAST TRANSFER. But it’s okay.

As I left the church building, I was so sad because I wanted to keep working with them on reaching their potential! I really saw so many wonderful changes in the last couple of weeks. I love with ALL of my heart Ituzaingo! 

This week I will be headed to an area that is called Corpus Cristi.  I will be serving my last transfer with Sister Ehlert. We are so excited! 

XOXO

Hannah

Week #71 - 21

Well. I feel officially OLD and legal! I cannot believe that I am 21 years old! I still remember my 20th birthday PERFECTLY in the mission. Today was a really great day though... well actually let me start with yesterday! 

We traveled Sunday night to the mission home so that we could go to Iguazú on Monday! (Everyone in my mission that goes home has the chance to go to Iguazú their last little bit of the mission.) ONE WORD: beautiful. Ah. It was one of the most incredible things I have ever done! (Someone let me use their camera but I need to send the pics over. I will figure it out...) but it was so awesome. We had to leave at 2 in the morning on Monday to get there by 8-- it was a long night in the bus but we got there and it was so great!

We finished around 1pm and we started heading back. We tried to get back in time to go to pre-leadership counsel. We went back to the mission home and changed our clothes and ran to the church to finish our leadership counsel. We were talking about lots of things. We came in right at the end so we missed a lot of what they said, but it was okay! After president said that I looked so tired it looked like a truck hit me. Ouch. That hurt more than an actual truck hitting me! haha no it was funny. We were all really tired! haha

That night we had a family home evening with the LaPierre's and then ate dinner and got ready for bed. 

The next day (today) was so fun! EVERYONE greeted me for my birthday and one elder even sang to me in Guaraní! It was so great. I couldn’t even wish for a better birthday present. I just love my mission so darn much. Thank you for all the love and support. I really cherish all the kind words and love that you all sent me! :)