All her wild' dreams came true!

I'M STILL WITH SISTER BECERRA!!!! We got the call after shopping last Monday. All day at Robinsons the missionaries were just zombies and checking their phones every two seconds and asking all the other missionaries if they'd gotten a call yet. So we bought a bottle of martinellis that we found in the imported goods section to use either in parting or celebration. We then got home and were putting the groceries away when the phone goes off and we just stop still and stare at each other (I might've silently mouthed "I love you") and then we answered the phone... and they told us we were STAYING TOGETHER!!! I could barely hang up the phone before we started jumping and screaming. We whipped out the martinellis and had a right little celebration shindig (pictures will follow). So basically all my wildest dreams have come true (side note, I tried to say that to sister becerra when we were freaking out but I was too worked up and said "all my 'wild' dreams have come true" hahahaha awkwardddd). So thank you for all your prayers! They worked ;D

So! Considering that we've basically been given a new lease on life we have been working our butts off this week. When we counted up our numbers last night we had taught over 50 lessons. My mouth is actually sore at the end of the day from so much talking haha! We've been meeting lots of new people and I'm excited to begin sharing the gospel with them! Just last night we met a man named Abrar from Pakistan. We stopped to make change at his chungey and he was having a hard time understanding what I said and then asked if we would just speak english (that's a first haha) and we find out that he is from Pakistan and came here to study Christianity and other religions (perfect!) and he requested that if we have time we help him know more about Mormonism. So now we have TWO english teaching appointments (but the other is Brother Derek and he's a recent convert so its just discussions mainly, not actual teaching), and he's actually interested in religion! We're so glad we met him.

We had a few disappointments with our investigator, Mitchit. She is supposed to be baptized this Wednesday but it had to be postponed a little while. Some qualifications were confused and she'll need an interview from President before we give the okay, but she should be baptized now on the 9th of November. I wish so bad she could be baptized this week, she attended a baptism last month and saw how they are asked to give a testimony after the baptism and she told us that she's been practicing what she'll say and even practiced while she was doing her wash, so adorable!!   
  It also means that we won't have any baptisms for the month of October :/ The biggest problem here is getting people to come to church and if they don't attend church they can't be baptized. They all, for the most part, have catholic backgrounds, meaning they have a basic religious knowledge, but they also have set habits.. like only going to church on birthdays and holidays. So we'll have great investigators that we're teaching all week and then no one will show up to church on Sunday. Even when we go to get them, they'll just hide or say they're sick. We even fasted with one of our investigators this last week so that she wouldn't have anything come up to hold her back from coming to church but yet again a no-show. It's okay though, it gives us a chance to build our faith, better discern and resolve their concerns and needs, recognize that everything happens in the Lord's plan and time, and motivate us to give more and do better!!

A little boy got hit by a trike.(Disclaimer- he's fine). The one we were riding in. We were pulling up in front of our investigators house she was outside with a bunch of her friends and their kids and one of the little kids someone fell into the trike, he almost got pulled under but just ended up hitting his head instead. All the moms got so mad at the trike driver (even though it wasn't really his fault). So we just got out of the trike all awkward and were like "ummm sorry" hahaha. He was fine, his mom got some ice from the chungey and his goose egg went down pretty quick.

An example of Filipino straight-up-ness. We had dinner at a members house and afterwards the Sister goes up to Sister Becerra, puts her hands on her stomach, and says "awww look at your little baby!" and then all the members laughed and laughed and called us both fat and laughed some more.

I think I already mentioned Dingding, she is a crazy lady that is kind of an investigator but not really because she just picks her nose and is nutso, and this week she has just been popping up everywhere. If we're in that area she'll just come out from behind bushes, houses, trikes, and just stand and stare at us. It scares me so bad every time haha we jump and we're like "Oh! Wow, hi dingding, didn't see you there!" *nervous laughter* and she just says nothing and we just walk away and then an hour later she pops up again. Terrifying.

We had a volleyball clinic at the church for the youth to try and meet their non-member friends. It would've been a great idea except they planned in on the same night that they had a huge stake activity.. so no one showed. Well, no one from the ward, we had about 15 little kids from the purok next to the church come haha :) So we just taught them some basic skills, played with them for about an hour, shared a small message, and invited them all to church on Sunday (pictures to follow). They all loved to spike and this one little girl kept getting nailed by the ball hahaha she got spiked in the head like 5 times. Didn't care at all! Just laughed and kept playing!

Since I didn't get transferred (yay!!) I get to play violin with the ward choir this sunday at a special stake activity! And I have the violin for the whoooooole week! Last night Sister Becerra asked that I play her to sleep so she layed there requested songs and I played for like 30 minutes hahaha. We also thought there was an intruder in our house last night and sister becerra flipped over onto my bed in 2 seconds flat and we were sooo scared haha so we got up and grabbed something to defend ourselves (hangers) and went out to see if there was someone there. Turns out it was just the neighbors in the house connected to ours. But be warned anyone who tries to break in! We have hangers and we're not afraid to use them! (Annie: not quite as good as your pan weapon haha #tangledrespect)

Hannah!!! Happy birthday!!! How on earth are you FOURTEEN?? You're lying. Not real. Stop it. No more. I had this terrible dream that I came home and you were all grown up, like a 30 year old woman grown up, and I was like "Hey! No! I wasn't gone for that long!" and you were like "Sorry, that's what happens." and then you were teasing me like "Who is the big sister now??" hahahahaha. It was sooo weird. I would send you something but the mail here is a nightmare (sera: I still have your birthday present hahahhahaha) so instead you can just go to my room and pick something ;D hahah jokes. Well, I guess you could haha. Don't really remember what's in there. Anyways!! You're the behhhst and I luuuvvv you and I hope you had the best birthday of all the birthdays!!!! <3 <3

Dad. Oh my gosh. Are you serious about the trip thing???? Youarethebestdadinthewholewideworldandiloveyousomuchandyouareevenbetterthantheofficeandharrypotterandrunningputtogetherandiloveyouiloveyouiloveyou
That would be AMAZING. I'll have to think though and pick somewhere really really good!! Ah!!! If the place I choose turns into some huge war ground while I'm gone, so help me hahaha ;) I'll think about it this week and send some suggestions next week!!!! Oh my gosh. SO GREAT. Dying.

Glad to hear you all are doing great!!! I love to hear all your emails so keep them coming!!! Hope you all have a super fantastic week and Halloween (its halloween this week right?) and I love you and miss you and send you my hugs and kisses!!!!!!

Love, Sister Manwaring <3
P.S heres some pics!

Post earthquake, success update, happiness equate...unedited version :)

TRANSFERS THIS WEEK. We find out sometime today what will happen to us. I want soooooooooo bad to stay with Sister Becerra!!! Honestly, this last transfer has been THE BEST. It's almost been like being companions with Sera, I kid you not. I 100 billion percent trust in whatever happens.... but please send some special prayers my way! :)

Last Monday we went and had dinner with a member in the ward, Marty, and lo and behold we find out that she is Lexi Jocelyns aunt. :O and she was even in Hurricane last feb. she went to coral cliffs cinema and even ate bumbleberry pie. I was dying, she has literally been 5 minutes from our house not to mention she is related to lexi, such a small world!!

PLEASE don't be scared by those pictures that president is putting online. AND DON'T SHARE THEM ANYWHERE. I promise I don't look that bad, those camera people just hide out like paparazzi and get you when you're least expecting it.

As for the earthquake, for us it was just way funny. We were doing our studies and I started to feel motion sick and it felt like our desks were moving so I look up from studying thinking that sister Becerra was just shaking the desk or something and she did the same and then we were like "Oh my gosh!! Earthquake!" And ran downstairs and outside and were just standing there while everything was swaying and moving and our neighbor was outside just chilling by his rolling trike and laughing at us. We basically just reacted like the old man from freaky friday. "Grampa can you pass the milk? Grampa passs theee milkkkk! *shakes table* "Earthquake? Earthquake!!!". No one here was hurt thank goodness and it was the highlight of everyones day, we were in lessons later and we would just finish sharing the first vision or something and they would follow up with "so did you feel that earthquake earlier?" *facepalm*

Sammy and Mary Glor were baptized last friday!!! You remember Mary Glor? I'm pretty sure I mentioned her in earlier emails, her and her husband were baptized!! I wanted so bad to attend but its too far from our area. Either way, I'm just so so so happy for them!!

One of the ward members has a violin, as you saw from the video they sent, and even though its 3/4 size and makes me miss my own violin, it was so much fun to play it!! For like 2 seconds I couldn't remember any songs, then it all started coming back and it was soo great to play again! They asked me to play with their ward choir performing in stake conference this sunday so I got to take the violin home and I just played it all during lunch. But, with transfers I don't know if I'll still be here on Sunday :( Either way, so glad I got to play again!!

The rescue is still really huge here, out of the 36 thousand members in bacolod city alone 26 thousand are less active in the church. We had such a cool experience with one of the less actives that Sister Becerra and I have really been focusing on visiting this last week, Leah. She's been inactive for about a year but is super great, reads the scriptures every day, gives us referrals, comes to work with us, but just doesn't come to church. So we made a plan to visit her daily and not teach a lesson, just leave a prayer, small verse, or a hymn with her and go. About 5 days in as we're leaving she looks up with tears in her eyes and thanks us for being her angels and then calls out "I love you!' as we walked away, then the next day she told us how she was praying to know what to do about church and she had a voice in her head say "GO", so she told us that is exactly what she was going to do and committed herself to church on sunday. Sunday rolls around and there she is with the biggest smile on her face :) As good as it feels to see investigators progressing and attending church, it feels so great to see someone who has strayed come back into the fold.

Speaking of church attendance, Mitchet, Mario, and Dina were all at church on Sunday!! Mitchit is super golden and is getting baptized on the 31st of this month. Mario is a longtime investigator that after a few DTR lessons has decided to really commit to baptism. And Dina is a woman that we found a while back when we heard from Mario's family that her baby had died. In this mission one of the best feelings ever is seeing investigators at church. People will let you in to teach, they'll accept baptism dates, accept commitments, they just don't do so well at following through. So when you see someone doing what they've said they'll do, that really is the best feeling ever.

Sister Becerra and I had sooooo much fun this week. She has the same kind of humor as me and Sera. Like, the "where the wild things are" movie night where me and sera were going to have a heart attack from laughter and everyone was like "shut up or leave!" kind of humor. I can't even explain how because it'll just sound dumb, but we are totes going to be bffz 4evs.

Sister Becerra has a problem smacking me when mosquitos are on me. We'll be walking, in a lesson, whatever, and if theres a mosquito she'll just hit me hahahaha. We were going back one day to contact some houses where we had left pamphlets and while we're waiting for one of them to come to the door a mosquito lands right on my chest and WHACK she just kills it and just then the person comes to the door and there is just squished bloody mosquito smeared on my chest.No, they didn't want to hear our message hahaha.  (maybe edit out the next part before posting on the blog haha) When we walked away we were laughing so hard I almost peed my skirt. Then later i did. Because I do that because I'm still 3 years old and Sister Becerra is too funny for my own good. We were talking and she goes "I don't want to Nephi" just like laman from the book of mormon videos always says in that nasaly voice and it was sooooooo funny and I already had a near exploding bladder and it started to come a little then just came a lot. Like, down my leg. So I took the walk of shame over to a boomba (pump), ran it over my legs, went into the lesson, then had to make a special trip to go home and change myself. If you read this story while looking at those horrid pictures president posted you may question whether or not I will be able to get married after this mission...

Every day in studies you read from the white handbook in companionship study and we always read it in british accents. Except, it usually goes back and forth between british and australian cause we're not that good.

When we're going to bed at night we'll lay there just talking like Sera and I would always do and then it would be past bedtime so we'd have to stop and I still lay there for another 6 minutes with all these things I want to say popping in my head and I just have to hold them all in and then we'll wake up in the morning and be like "oh my gosh, i have so much to tell you!" hahaha

Our house makes so much noise and the fans are always blowing doors shut and stuff and it scares us so bad so we blame it all on a ghost named Joanne. We'll be studying and the door will slam and we'll be like "dang it joanne!" 

Well, I think that's about it for this week! As always, I LOVE the work, the people, my companion, the area, the food, the jeepneys, even the pouring rain and sweat! I love you all and I love this gospel :) Have a great great great week!!!!! \

Love you more than being pretty and non-sweaty and skinny ;)

Sister Manwaring <3

General conference, and Locked out once again!

Hey everyone!! Man, crazy amazing week!!! Wasn't general conference the best EVER??? I died. But! I'll start at the first and get to that at the end.

Last Monday Sister Becerra and I have so much fun at Robinsons, eating delicious food and drooling in the Nike store. I held off getting more clothes because I was anticipating the package but I'll probably pick up a skirt or two today. It's really fun to see all the other missionaries out doing all our errends, and Sister Becerra's best friend from home is here in the mission with her, they were even MTC companions, so we eat with her whenever we can. When we got home, put away all our groceries, did our laundry, all that jazz, we went out to work! And walked right out into the mother of all typhoons. As in, heaviest rain everrrrrrr. Its like a flash flood but in the air. We were SOAKED within 12 seconds, even with umbrellas, and had to run for cover under a little shed. The road had turned into a rushing river, at least as deep as the river our back, and we were just stranded. Finally, we decided that we couldn't just sit there forever, we were already soaked, we might at well wade through to our appointments! So we head out, water rushing up to our knees, every inch of us wet. We started yelling out commentary in australian accents, like "Now will you get a look at this storm? A real true philippians storm this is!" "You have to see it to believe it folks!". Everyone was looking at us like we were nuts and when we got to our appointments they were like ":O Oh my gosh!!! What are you two doing! It's RAINING!" But it was awesome because I think our dedication softened their hearts a little bit haha. "We just walked a mile in a river of mud and trash for you! You can definitely come to church!" hahahah :) Love them.

We met a woman named Mabeth, one of our newest investigators. She lives in the squatters area across from us and has always been super sweet to us when we see her, so a few weeks ago we had some left over cake from a teaching appointment that we did not want to eat so we took it over to her kids, and a pamphlet with Mabeth, they were so happy! They call us "Tita" which is aunt haha :) A few days later we went back and followed up and had a great lesson with her. Last year she went to work in Hong Kong as a house help and had a terrible experience, the boss was horrid and didn't feed her. Like, at all. She worked there for 4 months and she said "I was so hungry. I was so weak. I prayed every day that I wouldn't die so that I could get home somehow to my kids". She eventually found a missionary organization that helped her to get home and since then she's been here with her 3 kids and husband. We had the chance to meet her husband in our next visit and they are such a good couple. It's not common to see husbands and wives who act like they love each other, and they are so kind and loving and respectful to each other, Sister Becerra and I were so shocked haha. Heavenly Father has totally been preparing them to become an eternal family. I hope Sister Becerra and I get to be the ones to see them through! Side note, as we were walking out to the jeeps this morning she walked with us on her way to get her kid from school, she insisted on carrying my laundry, and then told us that the day we gave her kids cake was actually the birthday of her youngest and she just kept saying thank you over and over.

I got new shoes! Yes, my last ones were done for haha. And I had to wear them like that for a few days until P day came around haha. So my new shoes are great, just simple rubber again, but since they're new I got a nasty little blister. First one in my whole mission so thats a plus! The only problem is band-aids don't stick here because everything is sweaty and wet. So the first day I put on an ankle wrap just to keep the band-aid on... but that just kind of made it rub worse. So I took all the wrappings and everything off, grabbed a leaf off a tree, and slid it in the back of my shoe. Worked like a charm! Thank you mother nature haha ;)

My package came!!!!! ohmygoodnessiloveyouallsomuchandiwassohappyandiloveitsomuchandyouareallthebestandimsoluckyandohmygosh

Literally, so awesome. I died. ALL my favorite shirts, MOM. You even sent the anthro shirt!! (Which I got a compliment on from the coolest elder in the mission, btdubbs ;) ) I had a fun little fashion show with Sister Becerra. And the bare minerals lip stuff!!! So awesome!!! Did you know that main ingredient, jackfruit, that is here in my mission? We have a jackfruit tree in my front yard! It's amazzzzzzing. And the lotions smell so good and the other lip stuff is fantastic and I at the smarties during conference and was in heaven and yay for more zip fizz!! (the water here does not taste that good so it's nice to mix it up!) and Clay!! Your notes and letters and drawings made me soooooo happy!! (I wrote all you kids letters that I'm sending today! So look out for those in the mail!) and even a costco card to top it all off!!! I was on cloud nine. You guys are THE BEST. <3 <3 <3

And I got katie's wedding invitation!!! Congrats kate!! I wish I could've been there but I dedicated a whole minute of silence for penny candies, salt and vinegar chips, monopoly, and that time we smashed the tail pipe shut on your dads truck and joey tattled on us :) You two are the cutest couple ever and I'm so so happy for you!!! Thanks for sending me the pictures dad, it was the next best thing to seeing it for myself :)

While we were leaving a prayer at a house last week we met this little boy, Malik. He's 9 years old and has like 4 jobs, he had the cutest smile ever, like heart melting, and we found out where his house was (he was just at that one working) and said we'd come back to him and his family. The next few days we went back and found him and his brother, Patrick, at home. They told us that their dad died a few years back so their mom works almost 15 hour days with no day off. The only time they are all home together is at lunch. We haven't had a chance yet to catch them all together and we can't start teaching them until the mom is present because they are just children. But honestly, they are the most adorable little almost-orphan boys ever and I was sooooo bad to be able to share the gospel with them!!! Praying that we'll be able to meet their mom soon!!

Not all of our investigators are lovable though hahaha. There is this one lady, Dinding, she's like 65 years old and is legit crazy. She always wants us to come and talk to her when we pass her house on our way to other appointments so we usually stop for a few minutes to share a prayer, a principle from a lesson. One time she just made fun of Sister Becerra the whole time and was laughing like a witch at nothing, another time we came and she was like "oh no no no no no no no, not now, I'm sooooo busy!!!!" And she was literally sweeping rocks into a broken piece of a dust pan. Then the last time we asked if we could leave a prayer and she says yes then 10 seconds into Sister Becerra praying she just starts up her own prayer and starts picking her nose and eating it. Then wanted to shake our hands when we left. This is why we carry hand sanitizer AT ALL TIMES.

CONFERENCE. OH MY GOODNESS. I can't even express the smallest bit of how awesome it was. When Elder Uchtdorf mentioned how members will watch 10 hours of conference I was just wishing that we could watch 100 hours!!  We are so so so so lucky to have these amazing men and women. I can't talk about everything I want to with conference because I would be here for hours but I'm so glad that I come from such an amazing family and that I get to come home when my time here is done and start my own family. All I've ever wanted is to be a wife and a mother and I'm not embarrassed of that at all, so it was so great to hear all the counsel from conference and feel even that much more secure in my views. Like honestly, I can't imagine anything that would bring more happiness!! And I know that because of you two mom and dad :) Thanks for giving me a perfect example of how to have a happy family :) 

   There is also so many warnings from our leaders that we need to be aware of. I loved the talk about "looking up", we're planning on sharing it in a family home evening lesson this week! Man, I can't even get my thoughts together about how awesome it was. I can't wait for the Liahona to come out so I can read and re-read all the talks! The entire conference I just had this overwhelming feeling of God's love and peace. We are so lucky that we get to have such a personal relationship with Him. I get so excited to read all your emails and be able to email you on mondays and we should be that excited to talk with our Heavenly Father every day and come to know him through scripture study and prayer :) Ah! Just so so so great. Basta.

I actually shaved my legs for conference too, just goes to show what a special occasion it is for me ;) Hahaha mom you would be so proud, I can probably count on one hand the times I've shaved my legs here. No joke. Oh the joys of being a Sister Missionary in the Philippians ;)

Surprise, surprise. I locked us out. AGAIN. This is the first time here but the third time in my mission. Kaluoy for my companions haha! We tried to break in (cause I'm totally an expert by now ((Cheetah girls, you know what I'm talking about)), but our house is actually safe so darn haha. There was a bamboo ladder on the side of the house so we set it up against the roof and climbed up to try and get in through the boarded up aircon hole, but no go, there was all this wire and junk on it. So we finally called the owner who luckily had a spare key and sat on the roof watching the sunset until he came. We just talked about our plans and dreams for when we come home, perfect scenarios and all that. It was so fun. Then we got back in, got our stuff, and went out to work :)

One more investigator story. So this girl, Cristy, we were complimenting her on her reading skills (cause she's actually way fast and understands everything) and she was like "Yeah, I loved school! I wanted to go to college but it was too far away!" she then told us how she grew up in the bukid (mountains) and how the rain would get so bad there that they would literally SWIM to school. SWIM. And she was so proud to tell us that she was never absent once. Now we can use this against her to get her to church, "Cristy, you SWAM to school and never missed, you can definitely get to church!" mwa ha ha ;)

Well I want to send some pictures so I'll end this here. Iloveyouandimissyouandyouarethebestfamilyeverandicantwaittogethomeandcuddlewithyouallforamillionyearsbutilovemymission
soi'lljuststayhereforforeverbutiloveyouallsososososomuch!!!

Have a great week!!!!

All my love, Sister Manwaring :)

WE CAN DO HARD THINGS

I am so insanely proud of you all!!! I was tearing up big time when reading dad's email. Honestly, YOU ALL are the inspiration to me... "You are the wind beneath my wingssssss" hahahaha okay sorry but really, I have the coolest family in the entire world.

Thanks for not spoiling conference for me!!! Although I will probably hear all about it later when we see other missionaries out doing errends. Whatevs!! I'm on pins and needles and cannot wait!!!! I had a dream last night that they announced that since there were so many missionaries they would be cutting the time down by 6 months to accommodate the influx... meaning I would've been coming home in SIXTH MONTHS. In my dream I was such a mix of emotions and mostly woke up with the desire to make every day count, whether I went home in 12 days or 12 months. My dream-mind is probably wayy overshooting the news but I'm so excited anyways!!

So on to this weeks updating!! We're gonna try daily updates and see if that helps make things quicker and includes more information.

MONDAY: Feeling super grateful for Dad putting money on my card, bought a much needed skirt and shirt. (Keep an eye on the account this week cause I need to get some more durable shoes, as you will see in my pictures my last ones are thrashed). The other sisters have voted me captain of the crazy hair club -__-  There was once a time in my life when strangers would come up to me just to compliment me on my hair... and now it has come to this. Oh well! There are far more important things than having non-homeless-person-looking hair! The STL's stayed with us because they have a training in the morning in the city and they came out and worked with us, making it so we could split up and get more work done. I went out with Sister Mciver from New Zealand, she is hilarious and has a really fun teaching style. She also takes the time and silence to try and concern and address the needs of the investigator, something I need to do better haha. As you all know, I have a hard time not talking 100 words a minute for hours in a row, so it was good for me to have a reminder that I don't have to talk everyone's head off ;) One of the women we left a prayer with forgot my name while she was praying so she just called me "Sister Gwapa" hahaha. Sister Becerra and I bought baby food at the store. And it was delicious. Got us lots of weird looks though hahah.

TUESDAY: I didn't end up writing in my journal on tuesday because Sister Becerra was trimming up my hair to fix some of the uneven parts so I had no time to write. But on the bright side my hair looks a tiny bit nicer! Yay.

WEDNESDAY: Zone training! Learned so much, took down like 3 pages of notes and have a lot of stuff to apply to the work! Sister Becerra and I did a lot of prayer meetings today, still one of my favorite finding activities! We ended the night at Derek's having planned to review the restoration with him but ended up only covering prophets because it was such a great discussion. He honestly is so awesome, he is EXACTLY what every recent convert should be. He has such a desire to learn all he can about the gospel and feels such an urgency to share it with everyone! AND he's doing a TON of family history to take to the temple. That's one thing that would be so rewarding as a recent convert that we don't experience so much as life--long members of the church, being able to find so many ancestors and take their names to the temple! But there are still those people out there and I can't wait to get home and do better about being involved in family history work :) They invited one of their friends to take the discussions with us, erlinda, and she is adorable and it was the coolest thing to hear Derek bearing testimony to her of what we taught. The only way to do this work is through the members. They add SO MUCH. Just think back to the converts in our ward? Britt, Cody, and Tessa all had great fellowshippers and support from the ward.

THURSDAY: Sister Becerra had her follow-up training with her whole batch, so I got to see Sister Peacock and some of my other friends! The training was really great as well, President cares about us so much and really wants to push us to be our best! We came home after the training and went out with an RM in our ward, she is so sweet and was so great with the investigators! Offering for them to come hang out at her house, inviting them to relief society activities, things we aren't in a position to do as missionaries! And as always, many strange-only-in-the-philippines things happened. A boy ran by holding a dead cat by the tail. Very rowdy children in lessons, one who slapped my stomach during the prayer and another who whipped Sister Becerra while she was teaching the after-life. More cock-fights. More getting called "Gwapa, Cana, Tita (aunt), beeyewtiful," etc.

FRIDAY: I must've been super tired because all I wrote was "this church is true, i love being a missionary" in very sloppy handwriting hahaha.

SATURDAY: Went down the mission office to get fingerprinted, soooo many missionaries there! I got to see everyone from my whole batch!! Sister Roos and I got to talk a lot and we all took pictures together. So much fun to see them all!! We all look so much worse and so much better at the same time haha :) My favorite miracle of the week happened today. A few days ago when we were teaching an investigator her friend joined in and listened from the side, so we got her information and invited the two of them to a baptism the next day. They both showed up  (which was amazing in itself because the first investigator hasn't ever come to church before, so that was great progress) and they both had a really great experience. After the baptism, we went back to their houses to teach them and follow-up on their thoughts of the baptism. We hardly sit down to teach and the new investigator, Mitchet, asks us to be baptized. She goes on to tell us that when we taught her the first time she went home to talk to her husband about it and he told her that he is actually a member that was baptized back in Cebu and encouraged her to take the discussions and go to church, saying that he wanted their family in the church. So she was the one who brought our other investigator to the baptism and knew before she even went that she wanted to be baptized. We were on cloud nine, could barely believe what she was telling us! When we went home we were super stoked but also worried that she might be all talk, knowing that church the next day would be the true test. She not only came to church, she came an hour early, bringing her two children. I thought I was gonna die when I walked up and saw her sitting outside the church, all set and excited. She literally just dropped into our laps. Such a testimony that Heavenly Father is totally preparing people for our message. Can't wait to continue to see her progress!!

SUNDAY: Basically Mitchet coming to church was the highlight of the day. But that night we went to a member's house for dinner and to follow-up about a referral. They are a really fun family and wanted to hear all about our first impression of things here in the philippines and we could be open with them saying things like "Yeah, I look at my friends in other missions and they're going to baseball games and I'm just here stepping in poop." hahahaha. But this is THE BEST mission ever. I know that every missionary is biased to their missions but... this one is the best ;) The pianist didn't show up at church so they asked me to play... haha I haven't sat down to a piano in more than six months. So that was interesting hahaha, hope everyone liked top-hand only! It reminded me of cam in his mission playing that awesome duet with trevor, if only I had your skills cam! But! One of the members here has a VIOLIN. It's a 3/4 but I'd take anything at this point!!! I miss playing soooo muchhhh. So we're trying to make a plan to go to their house and teach... and so I can play her violin hahahah :) On the way home from the member's house Sister Becerra tried to tell the trike driver "to the left" which is "wala", but "wala" also means "nothing" depending on how you pronounce it, so she ended up yelling over the traffic "NOTHING BROTHER" hahahahahahah I could not stop laughing and he was sooo confused hahahahahaha. Oh Hiligaynon.

Well!! I love you all so so so so much!!! You're amazing, keep doing amazing things and being even more amazing. Nate, you're my hero. Hannah, you're my hero. Sera, you are way too beautiful. Stop it. Also, so proud that you wore my dress! *teary eyes*. Clayton, can't wait to get a picture of your halloween costume! Cam, I love ya! WRITE ME. That goes for you as well Alyne! Dad, I can never say enough about you. Future husband! Be taking notes! You've got a high standard to hit! Mom, If I could become half the woman that you are I would be happy forever :) Can't wait for next week to be on the same page for conference!!! Yeeee!! Also, when you send that study journal, could you please include some more zip fizz?? I'm down to my last bottle because i've been rationing it out haha and I would love love love some more! Also, if it isn't too much trouble I would LOVE some printed out pictures!! Of you guys, old ones of us, whatever!! I'll be happy with any :) Love you all so so so so so so sooooooooooooooooooo much!!!!  Talk to you next week!! :)

Love, Sister Manwaring <3

Elder Neil L. Anderson visting the mission!!! (in november)

Thanks for your letters, even if you are super busy I'm so glad you always take the time to write me :) Sounds like you still had a great race mom! I'm so proud of you! And clayton, quilting is definitely a talent. Go for it buddy!

Really great week this week! Sister Becerra and I are just the bestest of friends. We are honestly twins and have so much fun. We even ended up matching on Sunday for church, both of us went and got ready and then came out and were wearing red and gray and had our hair in a side fishtail braid. Reminded me of when Sera and I would match alllll theeee timeeeee.

So the upper floor of our apartment had no power this week and thats where our beds and study desks are so we had to take our mattresses down to the kitchen and have sleepovers for like four nights because there is no way we could survive without fans at night haha.

We also had exchanges this week, I was so sad to leave Sister Becerra! But the exchange was good, I always learn so much! I went with the Sister Training Leader, Sister Libria, to her area to work and ended up running into my Bishop from Sum-ag's brother at one of our teaching appointments. It was fun to have that little connection from my last area! Sister Libria is on her 2nd to last transfer so I learned a lot from her, and one of the things she taught that we're implementing here in the mission is "Finding Through Prayer". Basically, it's the funnest thing ever. You just go up to someone at their house or wherever, introduce yourselves, and ask if you can offer them a prayer. At home this probably wouldn't work because people would just be weirded out and be like "Um, you want to pray for me? Yeah I'm good." haha but the people here get so flattered and love it, we ask them what they would like us to include in the prayer, any special needs or anything, and then we offer a prayer for total strangers. It brings the spirit super well and is one of my favorite acts of small and quick service. After we pray we leave them with a pamphlet and a small message concerning one or two principles, then we try and make a return appointment and ask them to offer a prayer before we leave. If people are shy about praying we just guilt them into it by being like "Oh but brother, what if we get hit by a car?" or "We're girls, we need extra protection." hahah and then they usually give a really nice sweet prayer for us. It only takes like 8 minutes so we do them all the time. It's also a really good way to get into the houses of some of the more well off people which is what they've been encouraging us to do to help build up the church here. Plus, they usually have air-con so score! haha ;)

Oh yeah! Big news! Elder Neil L. Anderson is coming to our mission!!!!!! He comes in the first of November and I'm sooooooooo excited!!!!!!!! Also, GENERAL CONFERENCE SOON. AHHHHHHHHHH. But sad thing, since the days are off here, we watch a re-broadcast the week later :/ So in next weeks email don't spoil anything for me! Cause I won't know about it for another week! But yeah, I'm so so so so so so excited!!!!!!

When we were teaching a lesson the other day we hear what sounds like a very weird baby cry and the person that we're teaching was like "Oh, that's the neighbor, their baby" and was saying things like "New to the world!" and stuff and it turns out that the lady next to us just had her baby while we were teaching. She wasn't even,. like, yelling or anything! And then the baby was crying and everyone was gathered outside her hut handing in ice and stuff. At first I was shocked but then I was like "well, that's basically what I plan on doing, minus the hut" haha. Also, the hospitals here are TERRIFYING. We had to go to one the other day for Sis. Becerra to get a perscription refill and it was like a hospital from a scary movie, the beds were from like the 50's and I know there was a chainsaw murderer behind every door. So obviously, no one would want to have a baby there. But it was still weird to know that a lady 10 ft. from you was birthing while you were teaching haha.

One of our LA's lost 3 of her teeth the other day. How? She was pumping water from the boomba (pump) and the handle came up and smacked her in the face. And knocked out 3 of her teeth. So now she just has no more teeth.

There is a witch who lives here. Did I already tell you guys this? People here believe in witches and witchcraft and everything. Like, for reals. And we were teaching this old man outside his house and I look over his shoulder and a little ways away is this lady, this huge fat lady, totally NAKED, except for some rags that she had tied toga-style to her torso and a nephite headband wrapped around her dreads, just pacing back and forth and chanting. And I was like "Who the heck is that??" and the guy was like "Oh, don't call attention, that's the witch." I wish I could've taken a picture soooo bad hahaha. Or a video! But anyways, I have now seen a real life witch.

As a mission we've been studying Elder Bednar's talk about the strengthening and enabling power of the atonement (I may have mentioned it last week?) and it's sooooo good. I studied it back in school so I was already familiar with it and I also studied the topic back at the first of my mission, but its been sooooo cool to study it in preparation for all the stuff coming up in the mission. Sister Becerra and I basically talk about it every single companionship study and highlight some other aspect of it or something every time and how it relates to us exactly in our circumstances that day. If you haven't read it, go find it and read it for family home evening or something, it's so so good!

Well, that's all I've got for this week!! I love this mission, even if its crazy haha, and I love these people, I love my companion, I love learning and growing every day, I love my Savior, I love you all, and I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY :)

Have an awesome week!!!!

-Sister Manwaring 

Weird days in the Philippines!

Hello all my favorite people!!!! Love you love you love you!!!

This week has been great! So many funny things, lots of hard work, and just general mission awesomeness.

Earlier in the week we had our Zone Conference, which was awesome! I saw all of my companions, Sister Roos, Sister Bendoy, Sister Peacock, and naturally my current and favorite companion, Sister Becerra :) And yes, I was sitting with 3 of them in the picture!! Funny how that worked out haha. The conference itself was more a preparation for our Mission Tour coming up next month. Elder Neilson from the philippines area presidency is coming to speak to us, so we just had trainings and talks about how to prepare for it. We watched a talk from Elder Holland and Elder Eyering about Christ, called Remember Him or something, it's on LDS.org so you guys can watch it, but it was amazing. One of those talks that makes you feel terrible about yourself but also makes you want to be the best person in the whole world haha.

I can't believe that GENERAL CONFERENCE is NEXT WEEK. So excited so excited so excited so excited so excited. And I can't believe it's been A YEAR since the announcement and the St. George marathon. I would've never guessed a year ago when I was running the marathon that I would be running in my subdivision in the philippines right now. It seems like so long ago and also like it was yesterday!! I also can't believe that it's been 6 months since I was in the MTC watching April's conference. DANG. But yes, so so so so so so so stoked!!!

One of our proselyting days this week was just the funniest and weirdest day ever. During a lesson on the word of wisdom, Sister Becerra mixed up the word "tsa-a" (tea) with the word "Tae"... meaning that she told our investigator to avoid cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, illegal drugs, and poop. I thought I was going to explode I was trying so hard not to bust up hahahaha. Then later, we're teaching in another lesson and the lady's kid was being a little rowdy but he's like 4 years old so whatever, and she gets up and goes over and pinches his penis. And we just sat there like "... wait what?..." So confused and creeped out and he's just crying cause OW and it was so hard to just continue with the lesson like nothing had happened. And that's not even the first time I've seen that happen, it's just a normal punishment here. Also a way to make children sterile I guess haha. And then we're leaving that area and a few kids were walking past us and one is holding a chicken and he just pokes me with the chicken as we walk past. Then that night we finished the weirdness with a 90 year old investigator and she comes out and grabs her chest and says "Pasensya sisters kay NO BRA" and is just holding her saggy old lady boobs. There's life in the philippines for ya!!

Now moving into more spiritual things! Sister Becerra and I have the funnest companionship studies because we both have a problem staying on subject and she'll share something about prayer and I'll chime in with an experience and 30 minutes later we're talking about how the "seer stones" are just glasses and how that's also an analogy for the prophets and how we are all like people with bad vision and a prophet is someone with glasses who can see everything clearly for us hahaha. Basically we're geniuses. Joke. hahaha. But I really do LOVE my studies. Before my mission I was the biggest dummy about reading my scriptures. My "daily scripture study" was laying in bed at night, spending 30 minutes checking facebook, pinterest, blogs, instagram, and twitter, and then pulling up my scriptures app and reading a random verse and going to sleep. Wooooowwwwww I was so dumb haha. I hope that I never for the rest of my life fall out of a habit of daily scripture STUDY. I could've avoided so many stupid mistakes and been so much happier if I had just taken advantage of how awesome the scriptures are.

Sister Becerra and I are still working really hard to building up this area and our work is starting to pay off. We've been consistently adding new investigators and reaching out to members that don't commonly get missionary visits to strengthen them and find through them. The members here are SO NICE but they've gotten stuck a little bit in just helping the missionaries by feeding them, which is super generous, but there is so much more in the work for them than just making us fat haha :)

Sister Peacock and her companion came and stayed in our apartment before the Zone Conference because their area is far and it was so great to hear how everything was going back in Sum-ag! even though I'd only been gone a week haha :) One of my first investigators, Winnie, was baptized yesterday!!! And even though I wasn't able to be there and see it, I still count him as one of my baptisms :) He had such a struggle with the word of wisdom and had been an eternal investigator through about 11 sets of missionaries, and I'm so lucky that I got to see him at the time of his progression and change and acceptance of the gospel :)

I'm so glad to hear you're all doing so great!!! I pray for you every day and I love you all so much!!! Way excited to get my package, you guys are the best!!! And thanks for also getting my card set, I can't even believe how lucky I am to have you all as my family :) Mom, I'll definitely be talking to you on friday (which is my 6 month mark. O.o. Dang.) and I hope you all have the best week ever!!!!! Love you love you love you love you love you love you!!!!!!!!

-Sister Manwaring