Be Still

This week was the best week! I have so much to talk about...

First off we taught 34 lessons this week! out of our goal of 40. We were close haha.

We started last week counting Jeeps, we're up to 158. Gotta keep ourselves entertained in the car...haha.

My companions and I always eat random berries we find on bushes as we walk around different neighborhoods..we haven't died/got poisoned yet so that's good! (;

I'm freezing my butt off over here!! Yesterday it decided to jump down to the 20's! haha not cool New Jersey...not cool. I'm wearing so many layers. It's going against my Arizona nature/way of living. I'm sure it's like still 70 degrees in AZ! </3 #SendMeSomeWarmth

We're having Thanksgiving over at the Sikahema's house this week. I'm so stoked because they make so much good food!!

Last week we had Zone Conference ( a big meeting with a bunch of missionaries) Elder White was talking about being still. and we all took 10-15 seconds to be completely still/quiet. I don't think I've ever felt the spirit so strongly before. Ever since then I try to make it apart of my day to just be still for 10 seconds and try to feel the Spirit. As missionaries we pretty much have the Spirit with us constantly. But when you have something all the time, you tend to get used to it and not recognize it as much. So sometimes I don't really realize that I'm feeling the Spirit. So it's important to pause and to recognize and feel the Spirit.

"Think of the good that comes from broken things: soil is broken to plant wheat. Wheat is broken to make bread. Bread is broken to become the emblems of the sacrament. When on who is repentant partakes of the sacrament with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, he or she becomes whole"

Sweet quote^

It just SHOCKS me how underdeveloped I was in the gospel/everything that's important before my mission..I cared less about the BOM and didn't even realize how important the role Jesus Christ is in everything. Literally IDK how I went through the last 19 years of my life....but i know it now. I feel like such a different person..

Before my mission I couldn't understand the BOM but now, the BOM makes PERFECT sense to me. I love reading/studying it, and I can actually understand and pull things out from it that I've never been able to see before. I've been studying the Atonement a lot recently, and that topic just blows my mind because it's so deep on so many different levels.

It makes me so sad to see most of these people out here....it seems like everyone we meet with is going through something really hard in their lives right now...marriage problems, going through a divorce, a difficult pregnancy/miscarriages, financial problems, unhappiness, drug issues...etc. It hurts me so bad to hear about all of it, and I just want to take it all away from them and to help all these people out but I can't do anything for them. All I can do is help them feel the comforting feelings from the holy ghost and help them come unto Jesus Christ, because only He can help them.

Literally I'm so grateful to be here...can't even really describe it or put it into words..

Love,
Girl sibling+Grownup Boy+Brightest thing in the sky....(Sister Manson) hahaha ahh I crack myself up...

Next Sunday is DECEMBER??? whaaaat? yay. #2014 (;

have a good thanksgiving!! (:

ugh was hunger games good?? :(

me and sister menlove having fun in the car...haha

haha we wore all black Friday because one of the members
 in our ward was turning 50 and didn't want to
 celebrate his bday. so we mourned for him haha (; 

Surrounded by treeeeeees

All I've been thinking about this week has been all the people and missionaries in the Philippines!! So sad, so many people died..keep them all in your prayers!

This week seemed like it flew by..

This week we're going for 40 lessons! (Usually we teach like 20 a week, so that's doubling it!) We're going to be busy busy busy..but we can do it(:

I gave a talk yesterday on Elder Dube's General Conference talk called "Look Ahead and Believe"

I shared scriptures in Matt 4 and Luke 9. Both showing what people did when Christ asked them to follow Him. Some people told him to wait, others dropped everything they had to put him first. Which made me think about the things I've done in my life and the times where I have either gave up everything or decided to put something else first instead of Christ...but it's important to not beat yourself up about things like that and to not live in the past and to look ahead!

I was sitting on the stand before I gave my talk and just looking around at all the people. They all felt so familiar to me. Everyone here feels familiar and that I've known them forever, even though it's only been like 2 months. Especially all our investigators and less active members we meet with every week. It's crazy how much love that's developed for all the ward members, my companions, our investigators, random people we meet... I'm going to be so sad to leave this area! I finally feel like I know where everything is in my area. We cover like 11 towns and I was so lost my first 6 weeks, haha but I know how to get to places now.

I'm so weird..I make dumb missionary and scripture jokes all the time now, hahaha I think they're hilarious...

Go watch Hunger Games for me!!

And I miss seeing the mountains! We're surrounded by 80 ft tall trees! I can barely see farther than like half a mile in any direction..someone email me a picture of my AZ mountains! I miss them..so many trees here..

#AwkwardElderStory....

An Elder in our District complimented me on my boots I was wearing and told me how attractive they are...and then went on to say how in the missionary handbook that the sister's shoes need to be attractive and that mine were, and told me good job for following the white handbook! I just sat there and was like "....uh thank you?"

hahahaha oh Elders...they kill me. So awkward and weird! It's pretty sad and embarrassing.. #PoorElders

Good times being a sister missionary..

love sister manson

parrot hat haha

read Songs of Solomon 2:12 (;

TURTLE!

tree!

having too much fun with my companions... (;

Haagen Daz yummy icecream 

Ice cream...#2 weakness

my #1 weakness is PIZZA

#1 weakness..

we found this sweet pizza place! #PastaPizza <3

my favorite superhero! 

A Wise Man Builds His House Upon a Rock

I'm really beginning to understand why missionaries say they don't want to go home when their missions are ending! I've only been out like for 2 months but it's so fun and I love it! haha I really don't want to go back home to the world...I like not knowing what's going on in the world and just focusing on preaching the gospel and serving the Lord..

My companion Sister Menlove said something really inspiring to me the other day. She's going to write herself a letter to open up after she gets home from her mission! She's a genius and I'm so happy we're companions (: I decided to do that too! Except write one to open up every 6 months so I can keep reminding myself of the missionary I want to be and what I expect of myself:

6 month mark.

1 year mark.

Last day of my mission.

And a month after I get home.

I raked leaves for the first time in my LIFE last week....we don't have trees in Arizona....but it was fun, I like doing service and helping out everyone I can. Mosiah 2:17

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I'm doing right now in my life. I'm serving a mission...I'm a missionary! If I didn't make the choice to serve a mission, I wouldn't have met all these people that I love and care for so much! I've only been on my mission for 2 months...I can't even imagine getting to the end of my mission and seeing all the people I've met and loved. It's such an overwhelming feeling of happiness that I can't even contain!

We went to Philly yesterday. Ran up the Rocky steps....with a SKIRT on!! #GoSisterMissionaries

Saw the "love" statue and saw the Philadelphia Temple site!! It's being built (: It'll be finished around the middle/end of 2016.

We went and talked to the guy in the visitor trailer that's right next to the temple site and he shared something pretty powerful that I would like to share. He gave us each a piece of granite and then shared this story:

The Philadelphia temple's parking is all underground, so they had to dig 30 feet down to allow for that. About half way down they ran into solid layers of granite. So they had to chip the granite it out for the rest of their way down. So literally the new Philadelphia temple is being built on a rock!! He says the granite goes down for hundreds of more feet, and that the granite only is in the spot of where the soon to be Temple is being built. How amazing is that? He then related the little piece of granite he gave each of us to remind us to build our lives on the rock of Christ. Matthew 7:24-27

It's important to remember to be constantly checking who and what our foundation is because if it's not our rock, our Savior Jesus Christ, then we will fall.

We had a miracle happen to us Saturday!

Okay so we had an appointment at the library but it was in like 30 minutes and we were trying to figure out what we could do before then. We were stopping by some less-actives in that area and we had one more that we were going to do but it was out of the way so we weren't going to go. But we were like we're here we might as well go. So we did. We get to the house and a girl walks out and we're like "Oh hey!" haha we started talking and it turns out she was looking for Mormon missionaries so she told us how happy she was to see us! Her co-worker tells her all the time about Mormons and so she wanted to learn more! Haha well we can help you with that! So we went inside and taught her MOR (first lesson, the message of the restoration of the gospel) And she started to cry! We gave her a Book of Mormon to read and we asked her what her thoughts were, and she's like "Well the first thing I'm doing when you guys leave is going out and getting me this book" we all laughed!! haha and told her to keep the one we handed her. So first off we weren't even going to go over there but we decided to just go do it. Second off...she doesn't even live there!! She is house-sitting for the family we were going to stop by and was only going to be there for 2 more days!! Like seriously? We were totally meant to find her that day. We usually don't go in that part of our area because it's far away and we have limited miles on our car, but we went Saturday And we have a long list of names to go stop by and literally NO ONE answered the door or was home...we were in that area just for her. I know it.

Keep all the people and the missionaries who are serving in Philippines in your prayers!

love sister manson

moosey moose

my companion is ironing me!! hahaha

body of christ.

Merry Christmas!!!

what happened this week..haha

We had a lovely surprise when we arrived to transfer meeting last Tuesday..a new sister!!! haha so we're still a trio(: her name is Sister Maughan (pronounced like a Jamaican saying man..maun!) Now we're:
M&M&M
M cubed
Triple M threat.

3M's

We watched the broadcast "100 years of Scouting"

it was really good! I was so pumped afterwards..I want to be a boy scout now! hahaha it was inspiring and made me want to work harder. So the scouts have a Scout law, but I decided to make it applicable to missionaries.

A Missionary is:

Trustworthy-John 17:4

Helpful-John 5:8

Loyal-Luke 4:8

Friendly-John 15:14

Courteous-Matt 7:12

Kind-Mark-10:14,16

Obedient-John 6:38

Cheerful-John 16:33

Thrifty-Luke 18:22

Brave-Matt 26:29

Clean-D&C 38:42

Reverent-Matt 6:9

Our bishop wants up to earn the Thomas S. Monson Award, and with that we have to read some talks and complete stuff for genealogy and family life merit badges. In one of the talks, it lists the scout law and gave all the scriptures with them! I really liked that so I decided to make it apply to my life and what I'm doing right now. They're all good qualities to have and to work towards having!

I was reading 2 Nephi 2 and couldn't believe how plainly it explains the Plan of Salvation! I've read 1st and 2nd Nephi a billion times in my life and never knew it talked about the Plan of Salvation. Scriptures seem to mean a lot more to me now that I'm serving a mission. I understand them so much better and actually enjoy reading from them and studying them everyday! I see the importance of reading scriptures and how they can really bless our lives!

Okay...confession time...I got a C in my Book of Mormon class last semester......not the proudest moment of life..haha I got a better grade in CHEMISTRY than my BOM class...so yeah I'm stupid or anything I just never really understood/enjoyed the BOM that well until being a missionary and learning from it.

I've always wondered why Heavenly Father would have the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden and then tell Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit. It never made sense to me. But we were reading this chapter with one of our investigators and we got to verse 16:

"The Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself(agency) Wherefore man could not act for himself save it should that he was enticed
by one or the other"

The word enticed struck me really hard. If the tree of good and evil wasn't there, then Adam and Eve wouldn't have even been able to choose for themselves whether or not to partake of it. Duh..agency! Our ability to choose for ourselves. Agency is so important in Heavenly Father's plan for all of us. He wants us to be happy and return to live with Him again. But he's not going to force us. So we see that the tree needed to be there so Adam and Eve could use their agency. That may sound like a dumb realization to most people..but I never understood that, and now I do! But it just shows me how we can get our prayers/questions answered from and by reading out of the scriptures!

We had District Meeting Thursday and afterwards Sister Singleton's new companion Sister Wright (freshly out of the MTC) came up to me and said:

Sister Wright: "I don't want to be a creep but....do you have a blog?"

Me: "haha no that's no creepy, and yes i have one!"

Sister Wright: "I was reading it before I left on my mission!"

haha I thought that was so cool! she took the time to read it haha i have no idea how she found it because I don't even know her...but yeah go missionary blogs! lolz

On Halloween we had to be in by 6! So we just ate candy allllll night and planned for the week and listened to church music. haha #GoMissionLife

Most everyone thinks we're J-DUBZ!! (Jehovah's Witnesses) the j-dubz church building is actually like 2 houses away from our church building! After we tell the people we're not j-dubz they're always more friendly and open towards us haha.

Sooo Heavenly Father knows how much I've been missing my iPhone, he made it possible for me to get one! #MerryChristmasSisterManson

Our Mission President announced that in December the mission is getting each companionship an iPhone(: and every missionary an iPad!!!
Hallelu! Heavenly Father loves me!! That'll be so nice! During lessons we can just whip out our iPads and show a sweet Mormon Message!

Speaking of Christmas...we already started listening to Christmas music(:

So Sunday we got an extra hour of sleep because of the Daylight Savings Time thing. I was so excited to sleep for a whole extra hour(: haha it was so nice. But that day started off bad..we got a really mean text from an old lady about how disappointed she is in us, and that she never wants us to come over again...made me feel REAL good...then everyone we were scheduled to meet with fell threw! They were all not home and wouldn't answer our calls! That was frustrating. But the day got better towards the end so that was nice. It was fast Sunday yesterday. Literally all i ate yesterday after I broke my fast was:

a piece of cornbread

2 muffins

3 cookies

and some candy...

i felt so sick! I really wanted to make myself throw up...but that's a eating disorder sooooo I just sucked up the crappy feeling and just didn't eat anything else that day. So that was fun.. and it was freezing yesterday!! 40 degrees!!!! Layering time!

one of our members of our ward gave us each a dolphin! haha not sure what we'll do with these....but it was really sweet and nice of her(:  

a crazy decorated halloween house!

pumpkin! :)

haha standing on a pumpkin

pretty leaves

creepy scary baby....