:) :) :)

Will someone please tell me where the last transfer went? Grabi ba. I
think you all must have been have extra special prayers for me because
this week was BOMB.  So so so so awesome. Nami GID haha ;)

We had one of the best lessons introducing the Book of Mormon that
I’ve had my whole mission. It was to our new investigator, Jessica.
She is super humble and willing to learn, she accepts all kinds of
missionaries to her home but is actually using this to her benefit to
see the difference between what we are teaching her. We start the
lesson and begin explaining about the Book of Mormon and she is just
getting progressively more and more excited. We ask her to read the
part explaining about Jesus Christ coming to the America’s after His
resurrection and she could barely read it her voice was shaking and
she was breathing like she was running she was so excited! She read it
out loud and then again quickly to herself and her immediate reaction
was “Sisters, can I please borrow this book??” and when we told her
that it was hers she just about died. She was like “Oh sisters, I’m
going to read this whole thing! Its really about Christ? He really
visited them? There’s more prophets?” OH it was the BEST.

We also have two investigators, Serigo and Arjie, two teenage boys.
Serigo is a referral from our branch president and Arjie is his
friend. We’ve been teaching them for a little over a week. THEIR
LESSONS ARE SO FUN. And their progression has “hastening the work of
salvation” stamped on it. Last week they couldn’t pray and last night
Arjie gave one of the sincerest and most heartfelt prayers I’ve ever
heard. We introduced the book of mormon and they’ve been reading like
crazy. They came to church yesterday and LOVED it. Their reaction to
the mini church tour before classes was “Wow, its just like a house!”
and the other replied “Well yeah, it’s the house of God!”.  They
brought their books of mormon, so excited to learn. We went to them
after church to follow up and teach and they were like “Dang, I wish
that I had brought a notebook to write down what we learned, we
learned so much, I want to keep reading and studying it!” and we had
planned to teach about the fall of Adam and Eve and ended up talking
about everything from aaronic and melchizidek priesthood, to why we
pray to Heavenly Father in the name of Christ, to sacrament, to
baptism… soooo much fun. It was literally like a dream, it was a
miracle right before our eyes. Oh, I just kept thinking that I want to
just be a missionary FOREVER.

The whole time I’ve been in Sipalay our church attendance has
struggled between 1 and 2 investigators at church, a huge difference
from the 13 or so that would attend in Bata, which can be frustrating
because no matter how many great lessons we have or how many new
investigators we find if they don’t come to church they can’t be
baptized. That all changed yesterday, we had SIX at church. That
hasn’t happened in Sipalay in a long time!! Not since Christmas!! We
have been trying SO HARD all week to really really focus on getting
people to church. But what was so obvious in the attendance yesterday
is that it wasn’t us at all. The Lord is calling out His elect and its
HIM doing this work. Just like a sculptor, right? Michaelangelo is the
one who made the statue, using a chisel and a brush. No one would
credit it to his tools. Its all the work of The Master. ITS SO MUCH
FUN BEING A BRUSH OR A CHISEL. I just sat in our gospel essentials
class smiling sooooo big.

Oh yeah, there was an earthquake this week! We were in a nipa (palm)
hut during it and at first I thought some drunk guy was shaking the
hut and then it got huge and I looked outside and everything was
shaking not just the hut and everyone was just calm and acting like
nothing was going on and I was like “Um, should we get outside or
something??” and then a minute or so later it stops. Its kind of scary
because we’re on the beach so…. Tidal wave, right? And Sipalay is an
extension of the island with dirt just put here so deep underneath its
just sea gihapon so if there was a big earthquake… we would just sink
into the sea. But it was just  a tiny earthquake and apparently a few
years back they were having earthquakes consistently for THREE WEEKS
STAIGHT and everyone had to evacuate to the mountains. The earthquake
was actually pretty fun and we didn’t sink into the sea or have a
tidal wave so all is well.

It was SO SO SO VERY HOT this week. We were standing on the side of
the road around noon which is the very hottest part of the day and I
was just Regan-Lichfeild-Silent-Screaming because it was SO HOT I WAS
GOING TO DIE. Sister Cinco thought that was pretty funny haha.

Since its summer and Sipalay has a lot of resorts and nice beaches
there is a lot of foreigners here. They come in off the bus and I get
so shy and nervous of them! I can’t face white people anymore! It’s a
total Filipino thing, people tell us stories all the time of how they
avoided missionaries for years just because they were white so they
were scared and would just hide instead of talk to them. Well dang it,
its rubbed off on me. I’m so shy of them haha. Yucky.

If you’re putting together a package could you do a deseret book run
and send some more stickers and maybe some cheap CTR rings and any
pictures, like the small ones of the prophets or things like that, and
if they have any of those cool things like the hold to the rod
keychains or whatever that are cheap, just some stuff I can leave with
recent converts. And you don’t have to send or spend a ton, just if
theres anything that’s cool and cheap, that would be awesome.

Its so weird seeing changes in yourself haha, for instance I can’t
even bring myself anymore to ask for my burdens to be removed, I began
to the other day in prayer and then just started laughing because I
couldn’t bring myself to do it! I have too much of a testimony that
trials and burdens are so important and I couldn’t let my own limited
understanding request anything other than what Heavenly Father had in
mind for me. How awesome it is to know Heavenly Father, to have a
relationship with Him, and to be able to trust Him so much! We are so
blessed!!

About school, so I’m totally okay if that’s the requirements for a
transfer student… but is it possible to just apply fresh? Without
getting all those other credits and then transferring? I don’t mind at
all if I it means I can’t keep the credits I got at BYUI. I’ll just
start fresh again. If we can just check that option first, me applying
as if I had no college yet, and if we can’t then I guess I’ll pray
about BYUI and see if that’s where God needs me to be for a while
longer. Its so weird because I really see myself being in Provo but
I’m not averse to going back to Idaho… and I’m not super excited about
going to another school in provo in the meantime, I’m really a byu
girl, but I also kind of feel like provo is where I should be? Haha im
confusing, I know, but if we can just check that first then I’ll go
ahead and try and make some finals plans and decisions.

Lana!!!!! CONGRATS!!!! You are going to do AWESOME and LOVE IT. Ah,
I’m so so so sad I don’t get to see you!!! Three years is so long!!!
Its okay, I’ll just come visit you in your mission? ;) haha just
kidding, I’ll just have to live anyways. SO HAPPY FOR YOU.

Well, its been a fantastic week and I love all the things in the whole
entire world and I'm so grateful for your prayers and love and for the
gospel and the atonement and being a child of God and for the
scriptures and church and blessings and trials and ALL THE THINGS.

LOVE- Sister Manwaring

One of the best weeks on my mission!

Wow. As I'm writing this I still feel so full of the spirit/love/energy/serenity. All the good feelings. 

Guys, this week has been a series of miracles. Remember last week? When all of our investigators were dropping us and no matter how hard we tried we couldn't succeed in any of our efforts and I was freaking for our conference and asked you all to pray? The past few days have been the complete opposite. Quite possibly the best days so far of my mission. 

Okay, let me try to start this. 

So the conference, right? Utterly amazing. My mission president is the absolute best. He is a man of the Lord. He loves us so much, knows our potential, and is giving everything he has to help us to reach it. Its a hard path that he's been leading us on (like, as in realllllly hard) but at the conference with Elder Arden the curtains were thrown back and we got a glimpse of what President has been seeing the whole time. I hate to say it but I think that this is one of those weeks that will be better expressed when I get home. (Or next week on skype). I'll try and express at least a few,thoughts. 

Mom, thanks for choosing us. Do you realize what an effect that has had on me? Yes, you chose us over a career or personal interests to be a full time mother, but I'm talking about the little things. The times when the ladies in our neighborhood would invite you to lunch and I would hear you on the phone say "Thank you, but I'd rather stay home with my kids." When the other moms would say how excited they are for summer to be over so their kids will be back in school and they'll finally have a clean house to themselves and you would reply "I would miss my kids so much if they were at school all day" and then later tell us that you were secretly glad too that their kids would be back in school because it meant that you would have more time with us. Do you know how that made me feel? That you would rather spend time with me than do anything else? Do you know how awesome that makes me feel? Thanks for choosing us. 

One of our stellar zone leaders gave a training on better receiving the spirit, it was awesome and doesn't apply to missionaries only. He compared it to us being a tube for the spirit to flow through unhindered, which allows us to live our lives with a companionship of the spirit similar to our Prophet, President Monson. Oftentimes we allow this tube to be clogged which blocks the flow. It can be blocked by disobedience, music, unkind thoughts towards our companions and others, thoughts of home, negativity, etc. Most of the time we don't realize that we are blocking our tubes. Its a really simple principle but was really profound for me. I've kept in the back of my mind since then and have been shocked by how much blocking I was unknowingly allowing in my tube! It isn't the big things that hold us back from our potential, its the little ones. Thats what makes the difference in our conversion. 

Ah! I'm not even scratching the surface! Cge lang, skype na lang. 

Okay lets just get to the best part, you want to know what that conference did to the work? Saturday and Sunday were ridiculous. With a conscious effort to do much better, increased faith in the Lord, and the power of YOUR FAST (THANK YOU. I LITERALLY CRIED WHEN I READ THAT YOU FASTED. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT DID FOR US) we went about the same work that we have done every day but everything was different. From our tricycle driver telling us that he was a member and wanted to come back to church so that he could prepare for a mission but has been too shy, a woman whose daughter was in the hospital and when we began to share our message just about fainted because we pulled out our pamphlet which had miraculously been placed by someone on her kitchen table and she had been wanting to find the people who knew more about that message, a referral from our branch president that led us to a family with 8 kids who all accepted a baptism date... along with about 3 of their friends, working out a member split (which i've only been able to do 2 other times my whole mission) and finding a part member family who wants to come back to church but has also been too shy and has a daughter who hasn't been baptized yet, our investigator Aiza having a conversion experience and getting so excited for her baptism only to have her parents who live 4 hours away so no.. and then to find out that they will be visiting on thursday and her aunt is going to speak to them and will be able to get her permission... okay I literally cannot list them all. It has been one after another after another after another. Saturday and Sunday we walked around working with our jaws to the floor. 

Many missionaries will speak of times of planting and times of harvesting in the mission. Hastening the work of the Lord means harvesting what you plant. I know that this is the Lord's work. You have no idea what is going on in this mission but I would NEVER want to be called to another mission. Why on earth did I ever want to go to France?? Or Switzerland? Trust in the Lord. We cannot even being to imagine what He has in store for those who follow Him. It must be His plan that I will skype next week because I am having the hardest time getting any of this across. 

OH. HOW COULD I FORGET. Mom, last week after email and grocery shopping and all that I finally got home and was able to read Romans 8:16-18... bawled my eyes out. For the entire week before that email it has been in me and Sister Cinco's daily conversation about our divine potential and how literally amazing that is, and JUST THAT MORNING in our companionship study the whole thing was about how we are children of God. Do we get what that means?? We are literally His children!! And then, in that week, when I was having so many inexplicable trials, you send me that scripture. Its my favorite scripture now. Most of these experiences I'm trying to share are dead in this email compared to the spirit I felt when I experienced them. Thats what has made them so amazing. I hope that whoever reads this email can just have that same spirit so you can see what I'm trying to see. 

I love you all beyond words. I'm so so so so so so so excited to skype you :) I will call Monday the 12th (here) sometime around 10:30 I have no idea what my skype info is so can you please send me an email with cams info so that I can just log into his? Or moms or someones, just so I can log in and talk. 

Thank you so much for your fast. Isn't our Heavenly Father the best?? You guys can fast thousands of miles away and I can feel it like a physical hug and see it manifest throughout my day. Have the best week ever!!!!!!!! 

ALL MY LOVE- Sister Manwaring 

P.S. Dad, I'm going to conference :)