Happy fathers day!!!!!!! and advice for incoming sisters:)

WELL HI THERE!!!!!!! 

Yet another week has come and gone. I have no idea how to deal with time here, every single day seems soooooooo long but then all of a sudden we're home for the night and then I wake up in the morning and I'm like "whaatttt I have this entire long day ahead of me!!" and then all of a sudden it's P day again!!!! I'm pretty sure a mission is 2 days and 26 billion years all at the same time. If that makes sense haha. 

Before I forget, and cause it's father's day, Dad I'll answer your questions from last week first!

Okay as far as tracting goes, we don't do any of that. Instead, we are putting a big focus on finding through members and other people so that the ward becomes involved and the chance for staying active in the church after baptism is increased. Plus, you don't knock on doors here cause there aren't any doors hahah you just walk up to the home and say "Tag balay!" and then wait and they come outside or if they want you to go away they just say "wa'ay tawo!" which means "without people, or no people" hahahaha even though there is OBVIOUSLY people hahaha. But that doesn't happen super often. 

The main part of our investigators come from referrals, street contacting, and the former/ potential investigator charts in the area book. For instance right now, we have 2 investigators that are member referrals, one that is a former investigator, and a few that were street contacts that we are teaching now. 

The people here are really generous and nice and usually if you're at their house for longer than 5 minutes they give you food or something, usually crackers and soda or fruit or baked goods. We've had a few dinner appointments and we go to the bishops for dinner every other tuesday night. (quick sidebar- you have got to make this dessert!! It's so simple and sooo yummy. You take a few avocados, like 3 or 4, and mush them up, then add about half a can of sweetened condensed milk, and freeze it, and then you have this delicious avocado ice cream stuff! sooo good.)

And as far as packages go, if you guys don't mind it might be good to send like a test package just to see how easy it is to get stuff here that way I can know if I can ask for stuff from home, or find a substitute here, or make do without it. I'll write some suggestions at the end of the email in case you end up sending one! But you guys don't have to do that at all, honestly you've already given so much to me and the fact that you're sooo generously making it possible for me to be here is by far enough for me :)

Okay! This week! Good week, even though a lot of people weren't home or busy, we still had some really awesome lessons and were able to meet people we otherwise wouldn't have! Our next baptism is Mieca on July 6th and she'll be my first "real" baptism!!!! So excited for her, she's awesome!! And the way things are going right now, we should have weekly baptisms all throughout July. The Lord really is placing prepared people in our path!! 

On Wednesday we went to the mission home for our 6 week specialized training with my entire batch, so I got to see Sister Roos and everyone that I haven't been able to see since we got here!! It was so so so so so awesome!!! I missed them sooooo much. And as of this wednesday, we won't be the youngest missionaries in the mission! Yay! The meeting itself was really really good, President Lopez said that in July we have a batch of 24 missionaries coming in and 20 of them are sisters!!!!! Whaaattt??? And so because of that, he's asked my batch to step up these next few weeks and prepare to train them. :O 

   Sooooo crazy!! But I'm actually really excited, even though I'm just a baby in the mission still, I really want to train!! It helps me so much to be able to take the focus off myself and help someone else, and even though it would be nice to have more in field experience first, I know the Lord qualifies those He calls and if He needs me to train then he'll make sure I'm ready :) 

Abbey Hafen wrote and asked me advice for what to bring since she's coming into the MTC soon so I wrote down some things I wish I had known before coming that I've learned since being here, and if this goes on the blog then maybe it can help other Sisters coming to the Philippines as well! 

-Handkerchiefs. All you do is sweat all day hahaha and it's so much nicer to have something so keep your face somewhat dry. Also bring 5-6 so you don't have to use the same gross one every day until laundry on P day

-Extra garments still in the package. You'll want them after a few months and it's nice to have them here instead of having to ask home. And I've found that the silk and cotton type are most comfortable in this climate. 

-Any beauty products that aren't generic but remember that 1. it'll most likely sweat off your face anyways and 2. don't believe the myths I heard before going, yes you can get toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, all that stuff here. Even feminine products. So don't do what I did and load up on things you can just buy here haha

-Pinterest workouts and a jumprope. Keep you from going crazy during morning exercise! 

-Pictures of your family AND your hometown. People always ask to see both

-SHOES: Crocs for proselyting, nicer shoes for church and meetings, flip flops for around your apartment. 

That's all I've got right now, but if anyone has any specific questions just let me know and I'll do my best to answer them next week!!

Now for a small fathers day tribute!!! While I was thinking about what to write, all the came to mind was the many many many many awesome memories we have together dad. Like when we went to the Mall of America and when we went to gap and I liked that one shirt so you bought it in 4 colors and asked the sales lady all about how to wash it to make sure that it wouldn't shrink or something so that nothing would happen to it- and all of our daddy daughter trips and dates- watching the office and star trek on saturday mornings while stuffing our faces with ice cream- that time you thought that tom tuttle was kidnapping us and turned into the dad from Taken to save us- How much you love mom and how incredibly selfless you are. You give everything you possibly can to make sure that we have everything we could ever want or need. Now that i'm reading back on this I feel so dumb cause this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what I'm trying to say or how awesome you are, but just know that I love you so so so so much Dad, and my future husband better be studying up on how to be exactly like you. I can never ever thank you enough for everything you've given and sacrificed for me. You're my protector, my hero, and my best friend :) I love you so much. I hope you have an amazing Father's Day :) 

To the rest of the family, thank you so so so much for your letters!!!! I love hearing from you and even though I don't have time to write you all individually know that I miss your guts and love you all to pieces!!!!!!! Keep writing me, I LOVE your emails!! 

Mom I'm SO excited for your colorado run!!!!!! I know you're going to do amazing, it looks like such a crazy awesome course and I know you're going to do so so so good. Please have more conversations with me during the race hahaha, I'll be thinking of you the whole time!!!!! Thank you so much for your selfless dedication to our family, we're all who we are today because of you and dad :) 

CAM. I want to hear about this amazing week you've had! write me!!! And I know you've all been busy but please please please send me mission stories!!!!!!

I love you all so so so so much!!!!!! Have an awesome week!!!!!!!!!!  

LOVE FOR INFINITY AND BEYOND- Sister Manwaring :)

PS. the most hilarious thing ever happened at church yesterday- in primary the teacher was teaching about the crucifixion and said "Even Heavenly Father cried when Jesus was crucified" she then asked the class why they thought He was crying and a little boy answered "Probably cause he was scared they were gonna crucify him next!" hhahahahahahahahaha soooooo classic, I almost died laughing hahaa.  also some more pictures!!

time goes by fast in the Philippines! changing locations, and transfers.

I love you I love you I love you!!! I can't say it enough!!!! 

Okay, here's my week!!

This week almost went by fast!!! I know. Impossible, right? Every day seems like a million years but I feel like I just emailed home. And we have 10 days left in my first transfer!! Whaaaattt?? So yes. Very glad that time is starting to become somewhat normal! 

So funniest thing ever, when I saw sister nielson last week she told me how she got an email from one of her missionary friends asking if she had met his friend, Sister Manwaring yet.... um yeah she knows Dakota Atwood!! And before I left for the MTC he totally told me about her and how she was coming to my mission and I totally forgot about it and he told her the same thing and she forgot too! But we were just destined to be friends anyways haha! So crazy, I totally remember talking about her with him, and I had no idea it was her! 

I went on a rice fast this week because we literally eat it every single meal and I'm selfish and prideful and do not want to get fat. Please send me some pinterest workouts!!! I'm tired of just doing pushups and situps haha. Just send me a few like 15 minute work outs, thank you thank you thank you thank you! :)

We have this new investigator and she is AWESOME. She is basically already a member, she consistently comes to church and has lots of friends in Young Womens and our teaching visits are basically just reviews because she learns and researches on her own inbetween visits, she's basically memorized mormon.org by now hahaha, she's so so great! She'll be an awesome addition to the church!! So blessed to have the opportunity to teach her. 

Okay so as far as language goes, every day is an improvement for sure, in both speaking and understanding, but sometimes I feel like Beethoven when he goes deaf and still writes that symphony and when they perform it he doesn't know if anyone likes it because he can't hear the applause, because when I teach and share I sometimes don't understand what they say so I have no idea if it's helping them and I don't know what their experiences have been and all the things that you want to know about them I don't cause I don't understand everything yet. But the spirit helps me and my understanding grows every day! I'll get there! Hopefully sooner than later :)

We had companion exchanges this week! Ahh! Sister Bendoy went with the sister training leader to her area and her companion came with me to ours and I had to lead the area!! So I was with Sister Ulusasa, from samoa, from wednesday afternoon to thursday afternoon and I had to take us to all our appointments and make us meals and get us on all the right jeepneys and everything! But I've been trying really hard to get to know the area so I didn't get us lost once!! yayayay! and  I cooked like, good, real meals, not just pb and J hahaha so yay also. Sister Ulusasa is way nice and it was cool to see things from a different missionaries perspective! Sometimes I forget that I'll eventually have to move areas and switch companions, and even though it's great here it'll be cool to experience other perspectives and people and everything! But I really do love it here in Sum-ag, the area is great and the members always find time to come teach with us and I have lots of friends in the ward and I know the people we teach and so I'll be sad when it's time to leave, but Heavenly Father will always put me right where he needs me and right who he needs me to be with!!

We're moving apartments at the end of this transfer!! I don't know where yet, here in Sum-ag of course, and another thing I learned from the exchange is that it is not common to have a non-flushing toilet and bucket shower for sisters here! Sister Ulusasa has been to 7 other areas since her comp is the sister training leader and she said ours is the first she's been to with that! And the couple missionaries that will be helping us move seemed to think that our next place will have a shower and flushing toilet!!! Even though I've gotten totally used to that just being the way it is, it's nice to think it might not always be like that!

Funny moment of the week: While we were teaching a lesson, our investigators neighbors were watching A Walk To Remember and it was at the part where she's singing "Only Hope" and it was sooooo distracting hahaha because all I could think of was the time that Katie and I made up a dance to that song when we were like 10 and another time when I was like 12 and I watched that movie alone in our basement one night and totally sobbed my eyes out hahahah and all this while trying to focus on the lesson. One of the things here is that houses aren't private from sound, so you can hear what everyone around you is doing at any given moment, so sometimes it's hard in lessons but you just learn to tune it out! 

We got the Liahona this week!!!! and the conference talks!!! yayayayayayayay!!!!! I've been reading them like their the final Harry Potter book hahaha, every spare second I have!! Why didn't I take advantage of them before?? I seriously am in love with them. They handed them out at our zone training meeting and they went faster than crack in a brothel hahahahaha. (Sorry, not a missionary appropriate analagy probably haha). If you haven't read them yet, GO READ THEM. So awesome. We are so lucky to have such amazing and inspired and loving men leading our church!!! 

We had a baptism on Saturday! Maricel, she's the sweetest girl ever. I don't count her as mine since I got here halfway through her lessons but it was so great!! 

Mom dad and cam!! write me your mission stories please!!! I always think about you all and how things might've been for you and what experiences you had that would be similar to what I'm doing and I want to know them so bad!! Please go look back on your journals or something and send me just an entry every week or something!! I'll totally treasure it!! and it doesn't have to be one from your mission, it could be even like grandpa jenkins or a friend or anything! I just crave to hear about other mission experiences :) so please and thank you, that would be amazzzing!!

You are all doing so so so awesome!!!!  SERA. HOLY CONGRATS!!!!!!! And mom, I'm so excited for you to do the colorado race, you're gonna kill it!!!!! I miss running with you SO MUCH. LIKE SO SO SO MUCH. Let's do a million ultras together when I get home. And boys, I'm so glad you're having such a fun summer!! Hannah, you're probs so totes busy with all your boyfriends cause you're such a babe and they can't resist you!!! Like literally I'm not kidding, Sera and I have talked and agreed that you are the prettiest sister. No joke. (Sera, yur stel mai luv, ey luv yew jest haow yew awr, ugli en everyfing ;D ) And DAD. OH MY GOSH. How on earth did I get so lucky to get such an amazing dad and best friend????? I miss you SO MUCH. I miss working with you and going to cafe rio everymonday and sneaking away from work to see movies and you're always SO CARING and SO GENEROUS. You always put yourself first and are the most selfless person, along with mom, that I've ever known. I love you both more than I can ever express. And cam and alyne!!!!!! HOLY COW YOU ARE SO SUCCESSFUL AND AWESOME. It's cause I'm just such an awesome missionary, rightttttt??? ;D hahaha but really, you're awesome, keep being the most awesome couple ever!!!!! 

I love you allllllll soooooooo muchhhhhh!!!!!!!!! Have an amazing week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BIG HUGS AND KISSES!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Sister Manwaring :) :) :)

Flower pot cooking, floods, massive pig, sharing the love

I just love you guys so much, I swear every single second my love for you just grows and grows until i'm going to explode. When I get home we are all going to get into mom and dads bed and stay there for 4 months. kay? kay. 

So! This week! It actually went by somewhat fast? I know, I'm just as surprised as you are. hahaha I should clarify, by somewhat fast I mean it didn't feel like 7463 years like every other week hahaha :) Just like a normal week! So yay! Right now I can't help but wanted time to go fast but I know that if I give myself just a few short months I'll be wanting it to slow down. We always want the opposite of what we have right now haha :)

Anddddddd nowwwwww what happened to Sister Manwaring this week!

Tuesday: So we ran out of gas for our stove and we couldn't cook our rice or anything.. or so I thought! I'm getting my stuff ready to go and buy gas and Sister Bendoy goes outside and comes back with this like flowerpot thing? And it's full of coals and theres like a space on the bottom to start a little fire and she just starts cooking with it right there in the corner of our kitchen hahah I had no idea how to help so i just fanned the smoke out the door and she went all Mr. Edwards (little house on the prairie of course) on me and cooked an entire meal of rice, fish, and noodles on a flower pot. I know it was just magic and I just didn't see her wand.

    So after we have our lunch ready, (btw it's raining insanely hard this whole time) we're sitting down to eat and I notice that my feet are wet..? And I hear something that sounds like it's raining in our apartment so we get up and go into the kitchen and we have our own niagra falls gushing out of the corner of the kitchen, flooding everywherrrreeee. So we hurry and get everything off the floor and then all we could do was wait for it to stop raining hahaha. After the rain stopped, we literally just had to sweep the water out the front door hahahaha. Our floors were very clean after haha! 

     After we finally got everything set to go out, we went and visited with all the lovely people here. That evening we were visiting a LA and there was this incredible golden-pink sunset and we were overlooking these rice fields and across the way someone was doing karaoke (everyone here LOVES karaoke haha it's so funny) and they were singing "what a wonderful world" and it was totes magical and awesome and stuff haha :)

Wednesday: So last week while we were waiting for a jeepney we started talking with this old woman (like 374 years old) who was at this little fruit stand by the road and we gave her a pamphlet and she agreed to have us come back to teach her, so on Wednesday we go to teach her and find out she just lives in the fruit stand on the road, and it's not like a little country road, it's the main city road, and there wasn't room for all of us to go inside so we just sat on the table outside the stand right on the road and taught her the first lesson. I don't think I ever couldn't imagined sharing the first vision while sitting on a table right next to a highway with a lady as old as abraham hahaha really hard to have the spirit! It still went well, she's continuing it progress and hopefully we'll see her at church this sunday!

Thursday: One of the members here, an adorable 13 year old girl, asked if I see everything in green because that's the color of my eyes. hahahahahahaha. So I asked her if she sees everything in brown hahaha. Everyone here goes nuts cause my eyes are green and my hair is light, and they always come grab my nose cause it's pointy hahaha. I don't think I'll ever get used to it! Then later that night we were going to a dinner appt and it was dark and we were going through an unfamiliar area so I just had my head down watching my footing and following sister bendoy and then I look up and see this MASSIVE PIG. It was literally as big as a horse. And I screamed hahaha. It was big you guys! So huge. 

Friday: My language is slowly but surely improving every day but I still have trouble with people understanding me completely hahaha, for instance I said to someone "Will you continue to repent through prayer?" And she begins to pray right then hahahaha and we just had to hurry and fold our arms haha, but thank goodness she didn't start repenting right then in front of us hahaha, and when she finished Sister Bendoy had to just repeat what I had asked haha. I've been leading everything as part of my training, planning, when we are out I take us to everyone, I lead lessons, so hard! hahaha but it's so good too, I already feel comfortable with mostly everything and I have an exchange on wednesday so we'll see how much I really know without Sister Bendoy! ahh! 

    Friday night we went to the home of a former investigator and the mom came out to talk with us and her oldest daughter came out as well, who is deaf. So I tried to sign to her what I remember from the deaf ward hahah and all I could rememeber was my name and "you'tre beautiful" so I said that and she just starts going off in sign language and I was like .... oh crap hahaha. That was all I could understand or say so I just had to keep smiling and nodding hahah. Oh that I had payed more attention in deaf ward primary! haha. 

Saturday: we had a baptism today!! yay!!! Christian Lopez. I'm not counting him as my first though cause he was already basically finished with the discussions when I got here. Still way exciting though! He was baptized along with another little girl in the ward and the font had a leak and had like 2 feet of water in it and was slowly leaking more and more and by the time that it was her turn she had to be baptized SEVEN TIMES because some part of her wasn't covered completely by the water hahaha it was so funny. She must've had a ton of sins to wash away ;D And we have another baptism this saturday! maricel! yayay. I'm also not counting her haha but still excited! 

Sunday: So it's fast sunday right? And fasting without water is way different in a place like the philippines hahahaha I had sweated out my water supply within an hour hahaha but fasting is awesome and worth it of course so that didn't matter, but then after church when we got home and broke the fast I ate and drank soooooo much and I know I was going to die. I had to go lay down and try to not explode hahahaha I even went into the bathroom and tried to throw up some of it (TMI hahaha sorry) but yeah basically I have the self control of a 2 year old. 

     After my stomach stopped trying to kill me we went out and found another former investigator, a 23 year old couple with an adorable little 2 year old, and holy. golden. lesson. In the opening prayer the mom thanked Heavenly Father for sending their family the missionaries again and prayed that now would be the time for her family to enter His church. I was just sitting there trying not to smile so big hahaha. So we teach them and they understand everything way good and we ended up committing them both to baptism. It was so so so awesome!! I hope so bad they continue to progress and just get baptized and go to church every week and read their scriptures and go to the temple and be sealed forever and be happy foreverrrrrrr!!!!!! So excited for them :)))

When we got home sister bendoy and I celebrated with oreos and peanut butter and then she made kettle corn and we were just like Charles and Caroline Ingalls hahahaha with our firecooked popcorn. Don't ask me why I have so many LIttle house on the prarie quotes hahaha I just do. 

Okay so I'm over time cause I had to send those pictures and they took forever to load hahaa but to quickly respond to your emails, MOM. HOLY CRAP HOW ARE YOU SO AWESOME????!??!? You're amazing I hope you know that. I prayed for you the whole time you were running and thought about you the entire day!!! I totally felt your conversation with me hahaha :) Tender mercy. And I just started crying when I read that in your email hahahaa I know these people in this internet cafe think I'm loony cause I just come in here every monday and bawl and laugh hahaha. So thank you for that, I totally felt it :) and dad!!!! If I can marry someone HALF as amazing as you I will be the luckiest person in the world. Kids!! You're all doing great and I love you so much!!!! keep writing me and trying to dear elder me!!! I'll write you each an email next week, so so so sorry I don't have time this week!!! And to all my friends, you guys are the best!!!! I print out your emails and keep them at home to read whenever I need a pick-me-up :) I love you all!!!!! I'm so lucky to have you all :) :) I hope this week is awesome for you, I pray for you every single second of the day and I love you all more than I could possibly ever say!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   plus some pictures!!:)

-Sister Manwaring :) <3 <3