The Astonishing Adventures of Sister Hannah Hiatt

So I don't know if y'all have heard the news, but due to the Corona virus all the foreign missionaries were sent home, and those who were toward the end of their missions are there to stay. Others will be reassigned to other missions in their country of origin. So I'm home! I'm home to stay. It's a little sooner than I was expecting but it's pretty cool. Just wanted to let y'all know. It's been a pretty wild time but I'm healthy, safe, and happy. I'm super grateful to have been able to serve the Lord for this time. I've seen a ton of miracles and my testimony has grown immensely. I don't have a shadow of a doubt that God lives. My prayers have been answered and I know that He exists, that He lives and loves me. I know that He has a plan specifically for me designed to help me reach my divine potential. I spent a year and 4 months trying to do what He would do, and I've learned so much about the gospel. I've felt a portion of the l...

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...

So there's only 12 weeks until I go back home, and since nothing super noteworthy happened this week I thought I'd post a rerun. This is from my 12th week in the field (and first baptism) and shows a little bit of what I've learned. (sent March 12th, 2019) This week we had a baptism!!! It was my first in the mission, and it was wild (and my camera died so I don't have any pictures... maybe my companion will send me hers....). Nadir is the best friend of another person we were teaching, who introduced us. We found out that Nadir had been given a Book of Mormon from a friend, and had already read the entire "livro de almas" (Alma is the name of a prophet, which translates to "soul")." She loves the Book of Mormon and the Bible, and I'm so glad we met her. She is the sweetest woman you've ever met, and I'm so happy for her! I know this church has the fullness of the gospel and that it truly brings joy and peace for those who are willing...

So sharp observers will notice that this email was sent on Tuesday and not, in fact, on Monday. No, this is not fubecagem, I promise. It's because yesterday in our mission all of the Sisters were invited to a special conference that lasted for the whole day. There we learned about politeness and graciousness and stuff like that, and how we can be better missionaries and better people. The thing about the mission is that you have to focus completely on it if you want to have success. I think that in pretty much any other activity or occupation it's fine if you practice it a little bit each day, or pass 8 hours working. That's enough to get it done. But here on the mission, if we want to have success, we need to focus every second of every day for a year and a half. We don't watch TV, we don't use the internet (aside from emails and stuff), and each day we try to spread the gospel in everything we do. Now obviously we aren't perfect and we spend a lot of time, unf...

This week I went on splits with another dupla, and it was pretty awesome. I spent the day with Sister Coyago, who is from Ecuador (which is cool because in one half of the country water flushes clockwise and in the other it flushes counterclockwise. Sister Coyago lives slightly to the north of the equator, in the mountain-y part of the country). She's pretty cool and we met some awesome people that they'll baptize soon. This week we met a guy who has become my new favorite person. You know when you're doing mission prep and you're teaching a bad actor with a lot of deep questions that just happen to be answerable with the scriptures and a firm testimony of the gospel? Turns out people like that truly do exist and we met one of them. So we got to exercise our scripture-chase muscles, and in the end he really understood and had a profound desire to go to church. The Spirit was strong. I'm super excited for the day we show him the Book of Mormon (probably tonight). Thi...

So this week we had a few awesome adventures. The first one was on Wednesday, when we decided to head to the furthest point in our area to see if our Haitiano (who had already gone to church a few times) had returned after New Years. The problem is that he lives super far away (one street more and it would be another ward) and doesn't have a cell phone. So we were truckin´on out and when we were almost there, it started to rain. But not just normal rain. It was as if God decided to break the covenant he made with Noah and drown the whole world again. So we took out our umbrellas and started to run. We managed to find a store that was open and had a covered space in the front where we took refuge. Crossing the street to get to the store was a trip. The water was already rising and was about ankle level, but we ran and somehow made it across okay. But the second we made it to the covered space, thunder boomed and God started up the ultra-power fire hoses He's got hidden in the ...

So a little over a month ago, we were introduced to Beatriz. Her cousin (a guy in the ward) had *just* entered the MTC and she was super interested in the gospel. She wanted to learn more about the church and had a ton of questions for us. The first lesson we marked with her, her super sweet grandpa was there with us and the Spirit got really strong. We invited her to be baptized but she said that she wanted to explore a little more and pray a lot. When we returned a few days later, she explained how she had prayed and how she had felt really peaceful. She still had some questions and some doubts, but had a lot of faith that this was the right decision. She just didn't want to be baptized so soon. E assim ela começou a nos enrolar. First she wasn't feeling ready. Then she went out of town. Then she vacationed for Christmas. Then she went to spend New Years on the beach (this is Brasil, after all). All the while we're trying to save her eternal soul and she just waited a...