Monsters, baptisms, and baptist missionaries

Hello!!!! Another week!!

So i'll quickly answer moms questions so that I don't write the rest
and then forget before I send this one off


I fly to manila either this week or next... they for some reason think
its great to keep it a secret haha and they'll just call and tell me
to get to bacolod and bring extra clothes and won't say why but like
you know its for Manila haha. But yeah, no call yet. I do go to
Bacolod this week though for sister rosario's follow up training! But
when I go to Manila it will be with the sisters in my batch and the
elders who are timed to go home with us (who are obviously not the
ones I was in the MTC with) so I'm WAY stoked to see them and spend
the day with them!!! Yeah, I'll be going to the temple when I head out
next month, sooooo super excited. My mission sisters are doing great
as far as I know, because as a mission rule we don't write or email
other missionaries in our mission. But I've seen them around at
transfers and conferences and things. Heavenly Father has been
especially great at letting me see Sister Judd. I saw her just last
time I was in Bacolod, she isn't assigned in the city anymore and I
won't be her companion while I'm here, but its okay, I know that is
what is best for us! And I'm exited too to be able to email and
actually know whats going on with her every week once I'm home. Sister
Becerra is an STL right now and doing awesome according the the other
STLs that saw her at their meeting. Sister Roos is acutally going home
sooner than the rest of our batch because she will be going to school
this fall. She leaves at the first of sept so she also won't come with
us to Manila or fly home with us :( Its wayyyy too bad because we were
MTC companions and came her together and everything. BUT at least
she'll be waiting for me when I get home haha ;) I haven't heard from
Sister Neilson in a long time but I'll see her soon when we go to
Manila!! Sister Knopf is also doing awesome, I get her emails every
week and forward her mine, I LOVE our BYU music fest connection has
lasted this long and that Heavenly Father has kept us in each others
life!! Shout out to my sistah in texas!! LOVE YOU #Lifelongfriends. I
also send me emails every week to Sister Rich, LOVE YOU TOOO
Yeah, I can't believe how many amazing friends I've made as result of
being a missionary. What a super huge blessing.


Update on Jessica Gregas because I've talked about her quite a bit I
think in my emails. A sad update :( So she really hasn't been
progressing these last weeks because she reminded her husband about
her baptism and he was like "what, no, you aren't getting baptized."
So we've been trying to work on that and this last time we had a
really bold discussion about the need for correct baptism to get back
to Heavenly Father. She herself explained all she understood about the
correct age for baptism, priesthood, the way, etc. She totally gets
it! Then we invited her again to be baptized and she said the same
thing, her husband. I still felt like something was off or missing so
I asked if it was just her husband believing that or her too (because
her husbands argument is that she was baptized already in catholic and
baptism is sacred and should only be once) and she goes "no, im with
my husband, its mine too." RIGHT after she herself testified of how
babies have no sin, priesthood authority restored to the earth, etc. I
had been praying gid the whole lesson to know what to say or do or ask
and I just kept getting the thought that she needed a break. For us to
not visit for a week or two. Even though its hard to "let her go" for
now, I know that whatever is making her not act upon what she is
saying will be worked out. It may not be in my time here, but whenever
it is I will still rejoice!

I think I've already mentioned before how the people here believe in
monsters, right? Okay so they do. Like for reals. Its.... hahahah.
Anyways, we visited one of our progressing investigators on the island
and followed up on her prayer and she goes "Yeah, I totally know that
God exists, I had a powerful experience with prayer!" So okay I'm
excited right and she goes on to share that the previous night her
baby started crying (gani, babies cry) and she was like "Oh no, its a
monster!!" Because they have this belief that there are monsters and
during the day they are in human form then at night they change into
animals and things and come and steal babies and eat them. I'm not
joking, its 2014 and they believe this. Okay, so she is freaking out
because she is sure that the monster has come to snatch her baby and
she is nervous to yell out for help and scare the baby and make it cry
more so she prays that God will send her someone to help her, a few
minutes later her neighbor comes to see whats wrong and they both
waited up until the baby stopped crying and went to bed and the
monster left, I think she said the neighbor did some spell or
something to make it leave, i don't know haha. And she goes "So after
that I really felt that God was listening to my prayers and knows me."
Hahaha I didn't know how to respond, like, its good that she prayed
when she needed help and that God did send her neighbor.. I just
didn't know how to address the whole monster thing. So I just let it
go haha. I love these people.


This last saturday and sunday was the baptism and confirmation of
Bavelyn's siblings, Kevin John  and Marialyn. It was the best!!! The
baptism went smoothly, the kids bore the cutest testimonies, and as we
were packing up things to leave Bavelyn said with a smile "Three now",
referring to the members in her family. We are working gid to get the
rest of that family into the gospel so they can get to the temple and
live happily ever after :) I love that family so much! Such a tender
mercy that Heavenly Father led us to them.

On Sunday I taught relief society, spoke in sacrament meeting, gave
the talk again in special sacrament, and taught the special sacrament
primary class. I love being in a branch haha.

On Saturday after the baptism we did a split, I went with an RM who
was visiting from one of the other branches, she is awesome and it was
a way fun split. We hadn't been planning to split so we only made one
plan so I just sent Sister Rosario to do our plans and I just
improvised. The people we went to we normally went to on other days so
they weren't expecting us, especially one family haha. We show up and
call out "Tag balay" and they open the door and are like "oh! come in!
come in!" We go in and there in the house are these baptist couple
missionaries with their bible out obviously in the middle of bible
studies. OOPS. And that darn investigator family, haha, so they are
like "come sit down! join us! We are doing bible studies" and the
baptists are getting all set to debate and the investigators are
wanting a show down and I neverrrrrrr debate. It never brings any
good, the spirit isn't there, and no one ever wins. Thank goodness my
split partner felt the same way, so we just politely excused ourselves
and left haha. I've gotten caught in some places where people want to
bible bash, its just dumb, those people are not ever looking for
answers or really want to hear what we have to say. Sure, we can read
bible verses and book of mormon verses, but like I said no one "wins".
I just leave sincere testimony and go haha :)


5 weeks.

:)

I love being a missionary and I love you all!!!!!!

Sister Manwaring

 Another baptism :)

 Our P-day activity!