500 Days of Serving : 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