dearly beloved...

Dearly beloved...

Just finished reading your emails!!! Scattered thoughts and emotions so I'll just start from last Monday and go as best as I can remember.

Monday: Had family home evening at a member's house. Their dad was shot when they were little and the mom was still 5 months pregnant, and they are so super active and such a great family. They have some cousins who aren't yet members and some less active so they joined us for the family home evening. One of the less actives came to church on sunday!! More on that later. I love starting the week with family home evenings!

Tuesday: We met with our recent converts, Jessica and Amy, they're the ones who live with the caterer who always feeds us. He was gone at work and they took of break from chopping and peeling vegetables to let us teach, then we stayed an extra 20 minutes to help them.

Wednesday: We were waiting for one of the ward missionaries to meet up to work with us and there is this bench outside the church that we wait on and there was this guy waiting too on the bench so we decided to OYM him while we waiting. Two seconds into the conversation we realize that he is extremely crazy. As in. Oh well, everyone needs a chance to hear the gospel! So I just pull out a pamphlet and ask him questions like does he know who is in the picture? does he know Jesus Christ? amo na. And he starts going off on this crazy man rant saying "YEAH YEAH JESUS HE COME DOWN OUT OF THE SKY TO ME. DOWN TO ME. I KNOW HIM. JESUS. HES JESUS. CAME DOWN TO ME." So I point to the church behind us and say "yeah, thats His house! Come visit on Sunday!" and then the ward missionary came so we gave him the pamphlet and left. He was still yelling at the picture as we walked away.

Thursday: Same theme as wednesday, some crazy drunk guy comes up and asks if I'm from Australia or America and then proceeds to describe all the men in the philiipines "You know, there are many men in the Philippines! Handsome men, rich men, short men, tall men, skinny men, schooled men, men who chop wood," we pulled out another pamphlet (life savers) and handed it to him, invited him to church, and left as he still listed off all the different men.

Friday: Spacing. Literally can't rememebr what happened.

Saturday: BAPTISM. Brother Romeo was baptized! He was supposed to have an upod, an old lady, but during her interview they found out that she had killed someone back in the 60's so now they're waiting on higher auhority for her to be baptized. But Romeo's baptism was so so great, he was so excited and there was a ton of members who came to support him and his testimony was so sweet! He has changed so much since I first met him, he's always smiling now, he never complains about feeling sick, its so great to see the effects of the gospel at work!

Sunday: Rained. SO. Hard. Meaning that attendance fell about 50 percent. I have no idea why the people here are SO adverse to rain but it might as well be raining bullets the way they act. Romeo came anyways!!! So did a bunch of our other recent converts and investigators!!! One particular surprise, you remember Edralyn? Our recent convert? So we've branched out to teach her family and her gramma came to church yesterday!!! The last lesson that we had taught her was on prayer and the importance of praying for spiritual confirmation of our teachings. People have a really hard time following through with this one, we will commit them to pray about something very simple, teach them the steps of prayer, even write in their book of mormon the question they will ask. Then we come back and the haven't prayed. It usually takes a few lessons before someone will try and pray and then maybe one or two more to recognize the answer. So thats what I was expecting with her gramma, then she showed up at church!! She told us that she had done what we asked, she prayed and asked if she should visit our church and she said she felt something touch her head and felt a voice say that she should go and observe. So she came! Simple as that! And remember I told you that the LA came as well? So we did a similar prayer lesson to her as well, and committed her to pray and ask Heavenly Father if He wanted her to go to church that Sunday. She came and then told us that she had also done what we asked, prayed, and not only asked if she should go but promised to Him that she would go, and she didn't want to break her promise to Him. Its just so so so important that we pray! That relationship with Him is what will motivate us to do right.

Mom, I already emailed you but I have to say again how proud I am of you!!!! YOU ROCK. And how awesome that you have sunny and Kris to do all of that with you!!! And of course, most important, you have dad :) You two are the coolest ever. Geez I love you guys!!!!

Thanks also for sending my package!!! I'm super excited :)

I hope you all have a fabulous week! You're always in my prayers and I love feeling yours :) love you love you love you love you!!!!!!! 

Sister Manwaring