Hello hello hello!
So last Monday we went to family home evening at one of our members houses, their house help is one of our recent converts. This family is super fun and their kids speak english and like with no accent because they are in an international school, so its soooo weird for me to hear kids speaking fluent english!! And the kids don't understand ilonggo so I just spoke english to them. So anyways, you know how kids have this knack of embarrassing their parents and saying the most uncomfortable things in front of other people? Yeah so there is a pause in conversation and their 6 year old takes the opportunity to say "I'm going to be circumcised!" oh his poor mother hahahaha and I was trying so hard to not laugh my head off.
We have this group of kids that we've been teaching for about a month and they come to church every single Sunday and we've finally met their families and started teaching them too. One of the kids, Jemalyn, we met her dad and talked with him, got his permission to teach her and for her to go to church, etc, then we asked to share a small message with them so he can also know what we are sharing with his daughter, he agrees. Its a great lesson with him and Jemalyn but he says that he isn't interested for himself to go to church or keep learning, he'll just listen if we come by and its fine by him that we keep teaching Jemalyn. Jemma has been asking us for 2 weeks if she can be baptized and we explained that she needed permission, but shes been to afraid to ask her dad. So at the end of the lesson we told him that Jemma has wanted for a while to be baptized and before we can even ask for permission he is like "Yeah, of course, I've been wondering why she hasn't said anything. If she is going to be joining herself with your church she should do it right and be baptized." Jemalyn was so happy she started crying, it was the coolest moment. So she gets to be baptized at the end of the month and we'll keep working to soften her fathers heart so that he will follow.
As you saw on President's facebook we had zone conference this week and it was at the mission home * hallelujah* except we were all so excited to sit in aircon all day and then the power went out for most of the day. Everyone was fanning themselves with pamphlets until President passed out pieces of cardstock paper and a few feather fans. The conference was super good, every time I feel so selfish because the topics are always exactly for me! I just take up all the revelation for the meetings haha ;)
We went to teach a recent convert who is now also less active, baptized back in october and has only been to church a handful of times since. As we're talking we find out that she still hasn't been reading the book of mormon daily and even though she says shes praying you can tell it really isn't sincere. We share our lesson, set a time for her that she will read the book of mormon each day, and then try to commit her to church on sunday, and she starts oozing tons of excuses. Sunday is the day they sleep in cause there is no school, she has to make breakfast for the family, she has clothes to wash, the kids have school projects, etc. And then starts complaining about how long the 3 hours is and can she just come to sacrament meeting. It felt like she was just punching me in the face. The whole time running through my head was the Savior and how sad He was with what she was saying. He sacrificed EVERYTHING for her. So much more than we can EVER imagine. And here she is, complaining about three hours of church- a blessing!! Oh it hurt my feelings so bad. I just prayed and prayed and prayed to know what to say and suddenly before I even realized what I was saying I asked if she believed that this was really the true church. She said grudgingly says that she isn't really sure right now. So now we can finally get somewhere. We followed up with other questions, why she was baptized, how she came to that decision, but still at the forefront of my thoughts was the Savior. I said "Notce, we are so glad that you are being honest and open with us, we can't help you unless you help us to understand. But I know that all of these doubts you have, these questions, they're important but the biggest thing for you to figure out right now is your relationship with Jesus Christ. Because I know that if you truly understood that relationship you would be reading the book of mormon every day. You would be at church every sunday. You wouldn't have doubts about His church. So before you solve anything else, you need to strengthen that relationship." Man, it was a really tough lesson for me. Not to teach, but like I said, it just hurt me so much to hear her talk like that. How terribly sad to be recently baptized in the church and let yourself get to that point.
Romeo is going to be baptized on Saturday, the elders have another old lady being baptized so we're secretly planning that their baptism will just be their first date ;) He had his interview on Sunday and we had a coordination meeting when we usually are waiting by the front door to welcome people, then after the meeting we went to the door. Everyone came in, investigators, recent converts, etc, and we were still waiting on Romeo. He is really old and can't see very well so sometimes he is late finding his way to the church, so we didn't think too much of it. But after about an hour we start to get kind of nervous, he sometimes gets sick and we were hoping he didn't just decide to stay home. We decided to go into the gospel principles class with the other investigators instead of stay waiting at the front. The whole time I'm praying that he'll just come that nothing will hold him back and we go in the class and I keep asking that he'll just come. Suddenly Sister Oquias says "Hey! Theres Romeo!" And I look up to the front and there he is just sitting at the front of the classroom. Turns out while we were in our coordination meeting he arrived at the church and just went straight back to his priesthood classroom and then continued on to gospel principles. So my prayer was answered the whole time! Haha I think theres a lesson in that ;)
Even though I've been out about a year I'm still not used to some things. Like the fact that I'm constantly on display. I stopped the other night to get something from the chungey and drew a crowd, like 7 people just standing around watching me buy mints. Kids touch me as i walk by, just reach out and stroke my arms. Everyone wants to play with my hair, touch my face, its so funny. I don't know that I'll ever get used to it haha.
So about the homecoming dates mom, thats the 25th that Im in St. George. I'm totally okay with going to bear lake but would we be able to just spend that first night at home? I for sure want you to do your race and I'd rather go with you than stay home, but basically I just want a hot shower and time with you all :) Oh and cafe rio. Those are my only requests ;)
Love you all sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Sister Manwaring <3 <3 <3
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