Hermana Lennon Mangum: I've Been Spotlighted

Hey family!

Pues... Hermana Cardona and I are together again and we are having so so so so so much fun! I spent most of Monday and Tuesday stopping by peoples houses and letting Hermana Orton say goodbye.

And then on Wednesday, we packed up the car and headed out for transfers! Hermana Cardona filled me in on the drive back to Baltimore of everything that had been going on in Hagerstown. Crazy news! Axel, the kid that we met up in McDonalds and had the miracle lesson with... HE GOT BAPTIZED!!! What!? How awesome is that!?

The first thing we did as companions was head to the doctor who took a look at my jaw. He said that he just thinks that it is super swollen and put me on steroids and told me to only eat soft foods for 2 weeks. I have been trying to keep that last rule but it is super hard when people are feeding you dinners and I cant really request that they just give me yogurt. It hasn't gotten much better yet... but we will see :)

Well, this week we got in a car accident. I was driving and we were sitting at a red stoplight. We just got nailed from behind. Hermana Cardona and I just looked at each other trying to figure out what had happened. The light turned green and we pulled into the gas station across the street. The man who hit us pulled in and immediately started to apologize and told us what had happened. He had been on the phone with his wife. He has a phobia of going over train tracks. So, when he reached the train tracks he sped over them as fast as he could. He saw our car and tried to hit the brakes, but his feet are super big and he ended up hitting the gas even harder. haha! I was kinda in shock from it all and the car was ok. Our bike rack was bent and pinned against the trunk so it locked shut. We had some tamales in the trunk too! We got all of his information, the cops came and it all worked out good.

The man who hit us realized that we were missionaries for the church and felt even worse! He started to say things like "Oh no! I stopped the work of God" haha! He was such a nice guy and we gave him the address to the church in Inner Harbor. The cops were super nice too and we had a good conversation. The story gets even better though. I know that I have told you guys about the helicopters that are always flying over the city. Well, it has always been a dream of mine to get spotlighted by one of them. So, I am sitting in the gas station filling out all this insurance information and what not, when I feel this light hit me, and I hear the unmistakeable, beautiful sound of a helicopter flying in the air above me. I GOT SPOTLIGHTED Y’ALL!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I was baskin in the splendid Baltimore helicopter

light :)

This happened on Friday and my neck still hurts and my headache hasn't gone away... Hopefully I start to feel better soon!

Church was something else this week! So, it started at 9 and I was super nervous because I didn't think anybody was going to show. But, attendance at church was extra amazing!!! We had a less active family come that hasn't been in over a year. Investigators came! It was so so awesome! One of the members we work with brought a new girl with her. She has a 18 month old son, she is in her 20s. Our amazing member yanked her in for a day at church! I sat by them and translated everything for her and helped her out with her baby. It was testimony meeting and after a few testimonies were given this wonderful new investigator leans over to me and says... "I want to do my testimony". I was in shock and told her that her friend could go up there and translate it for her. But, that wasn’t going to happen because the friend said she would just start crying and so I was asked to translate it. We made our way up to the front and she bore her testimony to the La Alameda branch. I was thinking she was going to pause and give me time to translate, but she just went on and on! She went on for about 2 or 3 minutes before she took a break and let me translate. I tried to do my best! It was a BEAUTIFUL testimony and I was SO impressed!!! To be honest, I didn't even need to translate it because the words that she said weren't the important part, it was the spirit of the whole thing. The spirit spoke to her while others bore there testimonies in Spanish and her testimony and her spirit spoke to the people in our branch! It was such a good experience to be apart of! I asked her if we could teach her some more about our beliefs and she said yes! We will see how it all goes!!!

Still freezing - my hair had icicles in it! And the trees are in pain!!