The Astonishing Adventures of Sister Hannah Hiatt

From the editor: Due to the corona virus, Hannah's computer time today was short. Restricted from using an internet cafe as she usually does, she and other missionaries were at the church building, and she was using a member's computer. Because of the limited time, she didn't write a group email today. She did chat for a little while with me, and here are some of the things she mentioned: She is getting transferred. So far, all of her areas have been in a fairly straight line heading towards Sao Paulo. Her new area continues in that line, but she will still be in the suburbs, rather than in the city, which is something she is happy about. Her new companion is an American (something she says *never* happens) who has been out 7-8 months. She has been eating a lot of pizza lately, including pizza with white chocolate in the crust and an incredibly thick one - like the crust was three inches tall and they had to eat it with fork and knife. She wished she had a scale to we...

So this week was pretty packed. On Tuesday we had a surprise Conference where we learned how to not get the corona virus (and my beloved companion was randomly selected to teach the whole mission how to wash their hands). On Wednesday I went on splits with Sister Keliane (a.k.a. the missionary formerly known as "Cavalcante") and then we had a family night that evening. On Thursday we had interviews with our Mission President, and while one person talked with the President, the Assistants gave a training about how to find the necessity of the person through inspired questions and then teach according to their needs. It was really inspiring. On Friday we had our baptismal interviews which took about the whole afternoon, but miraculously both passed. And then on Saturday Maria Luiza was baptized and on Sunday it was Deivisson's turn. Even with all the craziness, everything went right and it was a really special moment. So this transfer has been kind of weird and so...

(I thought I sent this last week but I guess it didn't go through, so please enjoy) Contacting a man who we thought was smoking: "Hey, could we share a message about Jesus Christ with you?" "Could you come back later? I'm drugging myself right now." A sticker on a door: BOLO DE NEVE CHURCH: Ser Cristão é muito loco! (THE SNOWBALL CHURCH: To be Christian is crazy!) Also we went to a fireside Sunday night about Religious Freedom where they invited representatives from different religions. It was really neat because here in Brasil there's a lot of diversity. There were Adventistas do Sétimo Dia, Assembleianos, a guy who practices Candomblé (google translate says "witchcraft") and a guy who I think was Muslim. He was cool because he and his two adorable "filhinhos" (smol bb sons) sang for us and it was neat because they sang in Arabic. All the missionaries in our zone sang, too, and it turned out really sweet. We sang "I'm Tryin...

So this week is Carnaval! Here it's a huge party where everyone gets drunk and blasts music in the streets. It's pretty fun. In Rio there's parades and dancers and "blocos" but here in the good ol' São Bernardo do Campo, it's been pretty tranquil. Even so we've been directed to stay off the streets at night and it's been kinda weird working. But that's left lots of time to eat healthy! Check out these beauties: And I forgot to take a picture of the pizza we got... So yeah, it's been a pretty good week. Also we got a reference from the Visitor's Center next to the temple. Lucília requested a Book of Mormon and had a very spiritual lesson with the Sisters there, and yesterday she went to church and liked it a lot. On Saturday we met her and her two adorable doggos (she has an adorable little pomeranian and an adorable little dog that I don't know the race and they kept bringing a ball to us in the middle of the lesson and we...

(Note from the editor: Last week I wrote a blog with a madlib style template for missionaries , and I shared it with Hannah. She decided to use it, hence all the underlining in this letter.)  Dear family and friends, Hello, this is your favorite missionary in    Brasil São Paulo Sul  . I'm currently serving in    Assunção, Rudge Ramos   with my companion, Sister   Gonçalves  . She is  from   Recife  and we get along   pretty well  . We struggle with   communicating sometimes, especially when we get stressed   but we are   really trying   to do better. Something I really like about her is that she _ is always looking for ways to serve people. One time she offered to help this little old lady carry her groceries home. The lady showed us a shortcut to her house that involved climbing up a huge staircase thing (that I think was actually a drainag...

So this week we decided to fast to have a baptism next week. We have been meeting a lot of neat people this week, but a lot of them weren't able to go to church or are having other difficulties, so we decided to put our faith in God and fast to find someone. Sunday morning we went to bring people to church and the family that we were most sure would go ended up sleeping in and the other people we invited bailed at the last minute. So we were walking to church and my companion had the thought to pass by the house of a guy we had met recently and hadn't really taught yet. We didn't have a ton of time but we decided to go, and it turned out that he was awake and willing to go to church. While he got ready we prayed and gave thanks for the miracle. He turned out to be the only person who went that day. We got to church and it was awesome, like it always is. The guy we brought, Junior, made friends with all the YSAs and our Ward Mission Leader (quem é muito mole e não ajuda muit...