Hiii

Dearest Family,
     So we went and were following up on some former investigators and
the wife of one wasn't there but the husband was, and he is like this
34732943 year old man with 2 teeth, anyway, so we were just leaving a
book of mormon with them and going when all these little kids come and
gather around and the old guy is like wait! And tells all the kids to
come over and he grabs a chair and tells me to sit down, so I sit,
then he tells all the kids to listen because the American is going to
sing for them. Um.... What??  No no no, brother, the American is not
going to sing. So now I'm sitting on a plastic chair in the middle of
the street surrounded by children and one man with two teeth and they
want me to sing. So I motion to sister Cinco and we sing "The wise man
built his house upon a rock" with the hand signals and told the kids
to follow, the old guy LOVED it and was yelling at all the kids to
follow and do the hand motions.
We were visiting with a less active who got offended because someone
made a comment about her calling as choir director and now she is
going to give up the celestial kingdom, anyway, while we're teaching
her daughter comes in COVERED in blood. She wrecked their scooter
cause she got chased by dogs (THE DOGS HERE LITERALY ARE THE WORST)
and she had road rash everywhere and was just bleeding so much and I
was like "Oh no, here comes the barfing and fainting" cause, you know
me and blood, so I just prayed that I wouldn't faint and tried to
think of anything but all her blood and somehow I made it out of there
alive and conscious with my lunch in my stomach. But it was a really
close call.
Being white here is not helpful to the work of salvation. NO ONE CAN
FOCUS. I will totally pour out my soul to these people, trying so so
hard to know their needs and listen to the Spirit, and I finish and
they say "You know, you should go on foreign eye!" (google it)
cmooooooooon I just told you that you and your dead wife can be
together again!! The worst this week was in one lesson with a mom and
her pregnant daughter and the mom whispers to the daughter "Stare at
her honey, just stare at her. It'll make your baby white." Okay, no it
won't. And its really uncomfortable when you look at me like that.


While walking down the street a bug flew DIRECTLY INTO MY MOUTH. Like,
a big one. It hit my tooth and was fluttering around my lips and I was
spewing and spitting to get it out and it goes out and then flies
away. YUCK. I could still feel like wings on my lips for like 20
minutes.

So... I think that Punked is doing a Philippines edition because
basically ALL of our investigators dropped or rejected us this week.
I'm not even exaggerating. And that DOESN'T HAPPEN in the Philippines.
 Every time sister Cinco and I just stared at each other, not knowing
whether to laugh or cry because it was so weird it was like a joke.
That's the thing of people here, they ALL want to listen to the
message because its about God, right? They don't always have any
intention to keep any commitments or change religions, but they will
ALWAYS listen. Yeah, its like someone went and spread a rumor around
Sipalay that the missionaries are from the devil, no one will listen.
So I've come up with a few reasons for why this is happening.
1.      Voldemort has come and is turning everyone against us and some
coming day I will have to fight him #Avada Kedavara
2.      They read about opposition in all things and think they have to be
the evil opposition
3.      Heavenly father has a lot that he wants us to learn and sees a lot
of room and opportunity for growth


Yeah, its most likely number 1. No, I really am learning soooooo much.
Normally you can't see your personal progression day to day, like
watching grass grow, but every day that we get home this past week
I've been shocked at how much I have learned, visible growth. And just
because we've been having a strange week doesn't mean that we've given
up, we've been working hard and smarter and even fasted. I tried to
fast just myself earlier in the week and it happened to be the hottest
day of the week and we were walking to our farthest area and I was
literally going to fall over I was so hot and dizzy and I had to tell
sister cinco that I was trying to fast but was going to die and needed
water haha #the natural man is weak. So on Saturday I asked her to
fast with me so that I wasn't alone and wouldn't die and she did and
it was great. Fasting here is realllllyyyyyy different because you
don't just sleep and listen to music and read and hang out with
family, you walk in the hot sun for 8 hours and talk all day and your
voice changes and gets super raspy and when you try to sing to your
investigators you fail and just have to give up. BUT the blessings are
a lot stronger.  Fasting is ridiculous, it totally opens the window to
divine assistance and an outpouring of the Spirit. You just feel so
calm and peaceful and go-with-the-flow and know that you don't have to
freak or stress because Heavenly Father is bound to help us when we
keep His commandments and give our best effort, such as fasting in the
Philippines. Yeah, it might not mean that all those people who
rejected us are suddenly going to realize what they did and come
running back begging to be baptized, but it does mean that Heavenly
father will bless us exactly how and when He knows is best for us and
these people. SO  GRATEFUL this church is run by our living Savior and
not just on the wisdom of men.

Nate! Can I just give you a shout out to say HOW COOL YOU ARE. I loved
hearing about your scout camp, you are so so great Natey! Keep it up!!

Mom, I'm pretty sure its Wednesday that I'll be home. Yeah, I'm open
to salt lake airport, more of a crowd to welcome me home ;) hahaha
jokes. But the office staff said that I'll be home on the 24th so....
That.

Yes, I'll be going to Bacolod next Monday!! We have our MLC AND a
mission presidents training AND our zone training. So a long days with
lots of meetings but I love love love our conferences and meetings so
I'm stoked. Also, we'll have a general authority at our MLC so double
excited.

I think one more package would be just right ;) hahaha you guys are
seriously the best and deserve a massive award for all of your
packages. I should be fine now on Zip Fizz haha and journals. But if
you could include some henna hair masks that would be wonderful. I
can't think of anything else at the moment but I'll let you know in
the coming weeks.

I love you all to the moon and back a million billion times! Your
emails are one of the favorite parts of my week!!!!

Sister Manwaring

hiking in this cave!

me and sis. cinco

happy easter!

 Hello!!!!  Happy Easter!!! Big big big easter hug from me!

This week was suuuuuper full, learned so much. This area is teaching me so much!

I got my package!!! Oh my gosh I was sooooo happy. Mom, those skirts are so comfy!! I was had just run out of zip fizz that day so timing was perfect for the 2 huge bags! Sassy sours!! Every time I eat them I remember when me and mom went to Arizona for Mark and Peggy’s wedding and on the drive we just ate sassy sours the whole time (mom, do you remember how at that time I was in a crocheting phase and at the hotel room I lost my needle and we made a joke that the maid had taken it cause it was shiny? Hahahah I loved that trip.) And yes, the journal is the one I have right now but I LOVE that journal so its great and its totally like a series or something. AND THE LETTERS. You guys are too much. I’ve read like each like 15 times hahahaha. YOU ARE ALL THE BEST EVER.

Our branch had a branch family home evening this week and they played this game called “baboy-bahay-bagio” and its hard to explain but those are moves you do with your group or team and its super funny because with anyone else it would probably be boring but every time a move is called out they would FREAK and everyone would start screaming and freaking out and falling on the ground hahahahahahaha it was sooooooo funny. And afterwards for the loser they make you do a talent, its like their “punishment” for losing hahahaha and the only talent anyone ever does is sing a hymn and for some reason it made me remember when me and Sera did the “my little buttercup” dance from 3 amigos for the young womens talent show hahahahahahaha and no one got what we were doing and no one would yell "dear" and "sweet" when they were supposed to. 

Its hotter than hades in this computer shop and  there is one electric fan here and when we came in I tried to turn it on but I couldn’t get it to work so I just started emailing anyways, fanning myself with a restoration pamphlet, then 2 seconds ago this emo kid comes in, turns on the fan behind me simple as anything, I turn around and he’s just staring at me like “You’re welcome” but sassy hahahahahahahahaha I wish I wasn’t the only one laughing at this.

We have quite a few investigators that are… missing a few nuts and bolts haha. So one of them, we’re teaching about prophets and we ask “Have you heard of a prophet before?” and she goes “Yeah! I know what that is!” So we’re like sweet and start going into the lesson but I feel like we need to quickly clarify before going on so I ask her to explain her idea and she goes “Yeah, prophets are animals!” -__-  So I try to help her out and I’m like “Oh you mean about animal sacrifices? Like in the bible?” and shes like “No, like a prophet is an animal!” CMON PEOPLE.

Cam, guess who my branch president looks like? Okay remember when we were driving to Canada and all of a sudden going through Mississippi or something there was this tornado so we had to find someone to stay with for shelter cause we only had a tent and we found the number of a bishop and he told us that his counselor would let us stay at their house so we go there and the counselor is so not happy about it and it was him and his wife and 40 year old daughter living there? Yeah, my branch president looks like him. And then remember how they just stuck us in a room and then during the night the siren was going off and you were just sleeping and I was like “Okay, should we be like sheltering ourselves in the tub right now or something?” And they just slept too so I just layed there trying to ignore the tornado siren. And then in the morning they made this hugggge breakfast and then were like mad that we ate it too… hahahahaha good times. And I think of it every time we see my branch president.

Mom, nothing in my day is different as an STL, we are just supposed to be an example to the sisters especially in our area and work, if they have questions they can ask us, we remind them to be modest and so forth, and occasionally we do exchanges to their areas. We haven't gone yet because the zone got a ton of new missionaries who don't know they're areas enough to exchange yet. The biggest differences are the meetings and trainings that I give, not the daily work. 

Sera, I have been missing you so much this week too!!!! My brain has been killing me with throw backs hahahaha I’ll just remember something and then start laughing and I’ve already learned my lesson trying to share those things with companions because even the American ones don’t get it and the Natives realllllly don’t hahahaha. It just makes me feel like when we had to control ourselves so much around people and not laugh at everything or they would get annoyed and not want to be with us hahahahaha. #sorrylozerz   ;D So literally what I do is just like include it in a little prayer and laugh with Him about it hahahahaha. Which sometimes is just sadder than laughing on my own hahahahaha.

So here in Sipalay we have a branch and then two groups out in the mountains and on Sunday the two groups were organized into branches so President Lopez came to oversee the organization and speak to everyone so we also had interviews with him. He just asked me if the boys here were giving me trouble and counseled me of how to tell them to back off hahaha “If they tell you that you are pretty you just say ‘No! You cannot say those things to me!’” hahaha thanks, President! I actually love President Lopez so much. Also!! I’ve been trying my whole mission to figure out who the heck he looks like and I FINALLY got it, he looks like Don Knotts from that Mr Limpit movie where he turns into a fish!! He looks like the fish!! I was so proud of myself.

Our investigators are soooo teaching me patience. They understand everything, can repeat the lessons perfectly to us, but WON’T GO TO CHURCH. So yesterday we followed up with them and asked why and they just gave us lame excuses- “It was hot”, “I had to wash my clothes”, “I had to find wood so I could cook rice” (I didn’t make those up, those are their real excuses). I was sitting there with one of them, just thinking so hard of what to do, and then I had this idea and it was kinda harsh but I just went with it, it was something like this…

Me: Sister, why does God give us commandments?

Her: Because he loves us and wants us to be safe

Me: Exactly. What happens when we don’t follow the commandments that he gives us?

Her: Well, we need to repent

Me: What does it mean to repent?

Her: You ask for forgiveness and don’t do it again.

Me: So what you’re saying is that if we don’t keep the commandments that God gives us to keep us safe, we have to repent, meaning we ask him to forgive us and don’t do it again, right?

Her: Yeah

Me: Okay, lets read really quick in mosiah (read Sabbath day). So sister, what is this commandment?

Her: We need to keep the Sabbath day holy

Me: How?

Her:… we go to church.

Me: Yeah. So sister, did you go to church earlier?

Her: … no

Me: Yeah. You didn’t. So did you keep God’s commandment? Or break it?

Her:… I broke it.

Me: Yeah. So what did you say we do when we break the commandments?
Her:… repent.

Me: Yep. So what are you going to do today and next Sunday?

Her: … I’m going to repent… and go to church.

It sounds different typed out but it was intense when we taught cause they’re using to missionaries being like “aw darn, you didn’t go to church, okay so we’re talking about this today”. Its not even as bad as an example President told us to use hahaha “Where is Jesus on Sunday? Yeah, he’s at his church. So if its Sunday and you are at home instead of at church, is Jesus with you? Yeah he’s not, he’s at church. So if you are at your house on Sunday and Jesus isn’t there, you’re in hell.”  You have to just be straight up with these people cause they just don’t understand, they think prophets are animals hahahahaha. 

Well, I love you all soooooooooo much and mom I know you think that I write my emails good but every week is so frustrating because I can never get anything out like I want to and explain it right and I always forget everything. I love reading your emails every week and I hope you all have a fantastic mr fox week and I love love love love love you and if I didn't mention it before I love you. LOVE YOU. Okay I'm done, talk to you next week!!!

LOVE Sister Manwaring 

hello my fantastic family!

Thanks for your emails!!!! MY FAMILY IS BETTER THAN YOURS. 

Okay, its like impossible to write a coherent email every week but bear with me yet again and lets travel through the last 6 days. 

I think I mentioned Jean anne last time? She is a recent convert who was baptized a few weeks before I transferred here. She is super sweet and their family life is super tough. Her mom is basically a teen mom, dad is.... less than kind. She has two younger siblings, one who is preparing to be baptized also next month. So we went by them one night this week to find just the kids at home with their gramma. First thing they do is tell us that they're really scared. Turns out their mom and dad had an argument which resulted in some not nice things and both parents left in anger, leaving the kids to the gramma. We decided to change our lesson plan and teach them about prayer. We taught how whenever this happens all they have to do is pray and Heavenly Father can send angels to watch over them. We taught Jean Anne about her gift of the Holy Ghost and how it can erase all those yucky feelings and hurts. We sang them a hymn also before we left. 

     When we went back the next day to check up on them we found Jane Anne sick with a fever from her bug bites. The kids here can't take the itching from their bug bites so they scratch them and they turn into open sores and flies are always in them and dogs are licking them.... so kids get sick all the time. So we go and shes so sick and her mom is just kind of ignoring it. So we go to the chungey and get some ice and ibuprofen and go back and make a cold compress for her from my hankie and give her some rolls we got earlier so she didn't have to take the medicine on an empty stomach, then we took another cold rag and patted down her heated arms and legs. After awkwardly standing over our shoulders her mom finally took the rag from Sister Cinco and began patting her down herself. Its so sad because her mom is just so not prepared for kids yet. She doesn't know how to deal with her husband and she treats her kids more little annoying little sisters rather than her children. She is also preparing for baptism but isn't progressing yet as much as her kids. They attended conference though on sunday morning!! Except they don't understand english so they didn't learn much from the talks, but they really liked the choir haha.

We met a ton of less actives this week. The just call out to us that they're members. Its so frustrating meeting with less actives. They're baptized into the church, qualifying themselves. Then they get offended, lazy, change religions, so forth. It always reminds me of when Elder Holland visited our stake and gave the talk about when a great storm comes the LAST thing you do is jump ship! Gani! It also makes me really grateful for the organization of the church set up with home and visiting teachers. As missionaries we can visit them every single day, teach all the lessons, resolve concerns, help them feel the spirit and regain testimonies, but without continued support from members its basically all for nothing. I wish I had been better at my own visiting teaching in college! I don't think I went even once. So sad!! And I'm so grateful for our home and visiting teachers! Like Clayne and Brother Timo, even if me and Sera were bratty sometimes (every time) when they would come it was so great of them to come and share their lessons. Tell them thanks for me! We can use more people doing their home and visiting teaching. (I also just finished reading Daughters in His Kingdom so I'm super pumped on relief society and visiting teaching haha ;) )

CONFERENCE. Does it get any better than this? I thought of some things while I was watching it and wanted to share them. 

-First, I am so sorry for all the stupid mean things I said to you all! Especially for all the "I hate you"'s. I am sooooooo embarrassed hahahahaha but I promise I never meant ANY of them and I love you all and I love you forever and you're all the best :) <3 <3 

-You are all so lucky that you get to go to the temple! I miss the temple SO MUCH. Can you please all go at least once a week? We are so lucky that a temple is so accessible. Go for me while I can't go haha :)

-So! What are you all learning in Preach My Gospel? :)

-I thought it would be so fun in your FHE's if you did a 5 minute share every week on a relative, living or dead, to get in the spirit of family history work. Just like a spiritual thought, someone is assigned to do a little share to help everyone get to know our relatives better. If they're dead they can look at our family history for a fun story or things about them. If they're alive they could facebook them and ask them questions or to share a story or something. I don't know, maybe thats super missionary, but I thought it could be fun :) If you hate it I will only cry a little. 

-It would be great to make a goal of simplifying! I loved what they said about how natural disasters can wipe out our stuff in a matter of minutes. The natural man has a tendency to be a pack rat, so go through all your stuff and get rid of whatever you don't need or don't use, don't let it clutter up the house or your room. Think "Bonnie Romkey" haha ;) And yes, this one is probably super missionary considering I am living about of the contents of two suitcases haha but the spirit will be more present in a home that isn't cluttered with things that don't matter :) Its also great to get in this habit so that as we come into this time of prosperity we won't waste it on things that don't matter and it will encourage us to live within our means and spend our money, time, and effort on the things that will last longer than a few months or years. 

Like I said, I LOVED the emails this week!!! NATE. YOU ARE MY HERO. I am so so so so so sos os os os os os sos ososossososossosoososossssssssssssssssssssooooooooooo PROUD. You are awesome, buddy!!!!! 

Okay, africa?? that sounds so cool!!!! Just don't get eaten on your safari before I get a chance to get home haha ;) 

Dad, I'm definitely with mom, I would MUCH rather go to conference than run St. George, as you can tell from my conference sermon haha ;) 

Mom, I'll print those questions and do my best on them!! Thank you thank you! 

Well, time is up and I have to hurry to the market before the food gets gross in the heat of the sun and all the good vegetables are gone!! LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL 

Sister Manwaring 

-

yep i live here

for realzies

but no need to be jealous cause... 

bam this is why;) haha

yep there it is again

hahah nice photo bomb kid! (one of our investigators

HEAVEN

OH MY GOODNESS MY LIFE IS A DREAM. 

Okay, so first, yes I'm in SIPALAY. You will see the pictures. I'm just serving in an exalted part of the earth, no big deal. I saw this area in pictures clear back in October when the STL's from this area were hosted in our apartment. If you look at a map of Bacolod its the farthest away you can possibly get from the city. It took 7 hours on a ceres bus to get here. We got in at night tuesday so I didn't get to really see where I was until wednesday morning. I live about 3 blocks from the beach. Sipalay doesn't have any big stores, I sent a picture of my new grocery store, its basically a gas station that exploded hahaha, but there is also a market place for fruits and veggies so I'll live! There is a little ukay ukay that we'll drop by later today and thats it also for clothing. But all the basic needs are here anyways, picture printing shop, computer shop, food. My apartment is GREEN. VERY GREEN. And constantly sandy but I love it. We have this shakey little bunkbed that we sleep in and one of the members made it i guess and they didn't sand it or anything so I risk splinters every night hahaha and they can't give us normal beds cause whoever made it assembled it inside the room so it would have to be destroyed to get it out.. and no one has time for that. But I sleep well every night so it doesn't make a difference in the end! Our area is big but good, we have an ISLAND as one of our areas. We have special permission from president to take a oar boat to it. Its called Nauhang and its my favorite part of the day because I literally just ride in a boat out in the ocean to an island to teach the gospel. The language out here is pretty different too strangely enough!! You would think that in the city they would speak more tagalog but they do way out here! And the accent is really different too. Kind of like learning american english and then trying to undertand someone from england. Plus they just randomly switch to tagalog. So I'm not used to having to ask "what did they say?" anymore, but I'm expanding my language skills so its great!

My companion is Sister Cinco from Manila, meaning more tagalog! haha thank goodness for the gift of tongues ;) We are batch going home! I lived with her back in the 6th ward apartment but there were 3 other americans in the apartment so i never really got to know her very well. Shes a great companion! Its been tough this last transfer in this area but shes excited to get to work! 

So rewinding to last tuesday, my very first missionary leadership conference, or MLC. Its basically like The Finer Things Club haha #TheOffice its for zone leaders and sister training leaders and its held at the mission home. All the zls and stls from the whole mission come for it, they hold it the first of every month. We receive training from the AP's and President and his wife and then go back to our areas and give trainings on what we learned in our zone meetings the next day. My whole batch of sisters are STL right now so I got to see them all!! The training was awesome, totally spiritually fed, then we got my luggage and went to the ceres terminal where we took a 7 hour non-air con bus ride out to Sipalay. Thats where I also got to prepare my training for the next morning haha since we would have no time once we finally got home that night. 

The next morning we went to zone meeting and I have the coolest zone!! One of the elders from my batch that no one has seen since we got here is here! He was so glad to see a batchmate haha! Sister Polatis is also here, I love her!! She went to College at Dixie so we know lots of the same people. Elder Doanne, the old AP, is also in that zone, so talk about nerve wracking having to give my training to him! I guess thats what it feels like to some degree having to give a talk in General Conference and having the Prophet sitting right behind you haha. It was a great meeting though, and I think I did okay in my training. I'm glad to have a chance at it again next month though cause now I know what to improve! Next MLC will also be the next time 'I'm back in Bacolod. I stocked up on granola before I came here though so I'm good till then ;) 

The work in this area is... different than Bata haha. It was super progressive a few months ago and has recently died down a little. We had a baptism yesterday but no more lined up for this whole month :( We have good plans though and next month should be a turn around! Our companionship is supposed to have some of the highest key indicators for the whole zone and is meant to be a model area, so we have a lot of work ahead of us! But I'm excited!! I've just been so so happy since I got here, I LOVE these people, I know they can change and progress!! Poor sister cinco, she's had a tough transfer with not much success, so the first few days were a little negative as far as the work goes. Haha I feel bad cause I'm just so happy so theres been a few awkward moments of the mix of my happy with her discouragement haha. But we're seeing changes in the people, finding new people, just giving this area a fresh start and shes much more positive now :) Haha I feel like the guy from Monty Python, "I'm not dead yet!" ;) 

We were able to watch the General Womens Broadcast... SO SO SO SO AWESOME AM I RIGHT??? I LOVE being a member of the Relief Society!!!! How awesome!!!! I totally echo Sera, I'm so glad we have such righteous people who are  truly the Lord's mouth piece!!! Wow. Made me SO excited for conference. I CANT WAIT. 

I mentioned that we did have one baptism yesterday, Sister Mercy. She lives on Nauhang, the island, and I met her 4 days before her baptism haha but I'm super glad that I got to be here to support her in her great decision and to be here to strengthen her choice!! 

Hahaha, Sera, remember that song "Emily my friend"? Yeah, so random, we're having personal study and sister cinco starts singing it. I was thrown back right to you me and aspen in nancy's car like 10 years ago hahahaha. 

Its coming up on Easter, right? Okay so there are these... "interesting" people here who like to commemorate easter by crucifying themselves. No, you read that right. They literally walk through the streets with crosses and then get nailed to them. I haven't seen it yet, it mostly happens in Manila, but the members said they've seen it here too. The people who do it live way in the mountains and will sometimes come down to proper where we are and do it.... I'M SO TERRIFIED OF THEM IF THEY COME. Ew ew ew ew ew ew. 

We were singing a hymn to this 80 + women the other day and the whole time we are singing she is just leaning over the side of her chair drooling onto the ground. Like a faucette. 

Basically, my life is a dream. Yeah, of course theres hard things! Theres always hard moments, disappointments, discouragement, negativity, etc. But there is just so much good that it totally doesn't matter!! Watch me jinx myself and see my email next week, "Get me outta here!! Its terrible!" Hahahaha jokes. I just love everything and everyone :) :)

Thank you so so so much for your emails!!! Such a highlight of my week!! I'm gonna try to write back to them and answer your questions so I'll just wrap this up. I LOVE YOU ALL AND WANT YOU TO HAVE THE BEST WEEK EVER AND YOURE ALL SO LUCKY THAT YOU GOT TO SEE CONFERENCE AHHHH AND I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU. 

Sister  Manwaring <3

Stl's from my batch

Me and sis. roos! matching of course;)

This is my grocery store hahaha

like i literally live here, its not pinterest or anything

AMAZING

Nbd just riding around in these boats

Sis. cinco! (my new comp)

So gorgeous!