500 Days of Serving : blissful as ever!

Family!!!!!!!! Geez I love you guys.

Amazing week, as always. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY ITS RIDICULOUS. Okay, we are in a horribly loud computer shop right now, all the students are here playing their games of the devil (I have increased my hatred for computer games in a way I never thought possible) so sorry if my email is scattered! I tried to write down some notes from my journal, so we'll see how that goes! (ps sorry if I repeat anything from last week, I have dory brain every time I email, I swear!)

Edralin. She is one of my favorite investigators ever. Sister Oquias and Sister smoot found her mom the week before I got here and we've been teaching her, her mom, and her two little sisters. Edralin is 11 years old and SO SMART. We taught about the restoration and when we reviewed at the end of the lesson she remembered EVERYTHING. That is not common here. We taught about the Book of Mormon the next time and when we came back she had read like 6 chapters and had put all these little papers to mark the different books, like alma, etc. We taught plan of salvation and asked if she knew what Christ did while he was on earth and she told us about "Talita kumi" (Sorry about spelling, ilonggo brain) like, what 11 year old knows about that?? And she understood super quickly about Adam and Eve being good not evil, so many times we teach about the fall and read the scriptures and explain clearly and then ask "So was this a good thing or bad?" and they mostly answer "Bad! They sinned! They ate the apple!" -__- But she was like "It was good! They needed to have kids and we needed to know right from wrong so we could do good and get back to Jesus!" Man. She is GOLDEN. She is going to be baptized a week from this Saturday and we are still working on her mom. A lot of parents here are totally cool with their kids being baptized but aren't really interested for themselves. Its something we're working on! Plan of salvation usually gets them, cause gani, no one wants to go to the Celestial Kingdom alone!

Yep. Sister Judd is in my district. WHAT THE WEIRDNESS. It is soooooo weird to go from college with her to being in the Philippines reporting the status of our investigators. Oh, while speaking hiligaynon. Its just so weird to have someone here who knows you from home!!! Like, to go from group dates at the sand dunes to riding jeepneys together to district meeting. CRAZY. And okay, God has just been putting this plan together for forever way back since fall 2012. AH. SO BLESSED.

I went on exchanges this week with our Sister Training Leader, Sister Ulusasa. It was such a funny exchange because the two of us have already exchanged before, back when I was in my first transfer in Sum-ag! When there was less sisters in the mission the STLs weren't companions, so her trainer was an STL and went on an exchange with my trainer and we were both put together while our comps were together, me 3 weeks in and her 9 weeks in. So then, after doing an exchange this week when she is actually an STL and I'm not only 3 weeks was SO funny. We just reminisced on that first exchange, neither of us could speak or understand the language, we had no idea how to teach or do anything. It was just such a testimony of our progression!!

Valentines. That was weird. Everyone actually was gone on dates? Hahahah I don't know what they were doing, walking around the sugar cane fields? Going on long drives in the jeeps? Hahaha ambot lang. Anyways, the ward had a couples dance so we spent most of the day visiting less actives and inviting them... there was actually a ton who went! And then they all came to church on sunday, like 5 less active families! I guess all you need is love ;) #badjoke

Our Bishop here is SO awesome. He was less active for like 20 years then came back and is now the Bishop. He is SUPER humble and diligent. Sometimes its hard to work with leaders who are set in their own ways and their own ideas for the work, but our Bishop is super open to suggestions and just wants to do a really good job. We went by his house and shared a message from Preach my Gospel (this is something we're doing to help the leaders be more familiar with PMG, we study it every day as missionaries of course and it helps them so much to know what we're trying to achieve and apply from it!) and they also have a VIOLIN. SO I GOT TO PLAY. YES. It was wonderful.

Our investigators are so kind, they always give us food, and this week it was a ton of fruit! I ate a bunch of fresh coconut (thought of you every time mom) and tried something new, star fruit! SO GOOD. As in namit gid kaayo. Hahahaa except its also really sticky? Its has like tasty glue in it haha. So I mistakenly ate it while we were out working and then couldn't get it off, I had to rub hand sanitizer all over my face. Yuck.

There is a woman the in the ward here who looks exactly like the lady on SNL who does the skit for "Surprise party" and the doll hands one. Complete with bowl cut. They are seriously twins. I'll try and sneak a picture this week.

One of the little kids here did a "make-over" on me while we were teaching. Sidenote- kids here are always all over me. Playing with my hair, touching my arms and face, etc. So this kids mom was finally paying attention to our message and I didn't want to distract her at all by moving her kid so I just let her keep doing her thing, I got out of the lesson with like 45 bobby pins in my hair and drool and snot. It was lovely.

Well, Thats all I have time for this week! I love you all sooooooooooooo much I can't even take it. Sobra gid. Pinaka daku. I LOVE getting all your emails, friends and family, and I hope your week is absolutely fantastic!

All my love, Sister Manwaring xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

PS Gramma Jenkins, I got your letter! Yes, I could read it. You are the best! And the kids LOVE the stickers! I made sure to tell them where they came from :) Love you!!! :)

Sister Judd and I!