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