Doing It For The Sushi

Last Monday after we got off, Sister Gordyichuck took us to C.O.S.T.C.O.!!! the holy land<3

ahhh i was in heaven..bought a huge thing of cereal and chips&salsa. (yeah that's pretty much all I'm living off of hahah)

So I made a cute bracelet that has 2 beads on it that say "LY" sister cox has been trying for dayzz to figure out what it says. But I will tell you all what it stands for hahaha...

LY stands for LOSE YOURSELF #inthework

I wear it everyday to remind myself WHY I'm here and WHAT I'm doing and HOW I should be doing it.

So we finally got a lesson with a lady who we have been trying for like 2 months to try to get in and have a lesson with her, but she's always busy and not home. I did the WATER APPROACH.

k here's what went down:

we knock on the door

she answers!

she of course comes up with excuses as to why she can't meet with us

i then ask her if i can have a drink of water because I am really really thirsty

She lets us right in!! haha I drank the water slowly and we were able to talk about the book of Mormon and sing "I believe in Christ" for her.

#WaterApproach (; yeeeeeeeeahh.

Had interviews with our mission president. He said something that really stood out to me

"Don't go through your mission. Let your mission GO THROUGH you"

We had a lesson with a less active member, Sister Flowers. She is so cute and funny. She tells me 2 things. First that I wear too much mascara....(sorry my eyelashes are just long) hahaha and "You got the glow!" hahahah so funny (:

Went and sang hymns with Kelly at a retirement home. haha they loved it. it was cute because they sang along with us!

#MiracleStory

HOWARD! So we were driving from the church to go see some members for dinner(we ate Stromboli, it was pretty good!) we were going to get there like 15 mins early so I was trying to think of something productive we could do. Sister Cox suggested that we get gas...........I politely said no and tried looking for something else, like some potentials we could go see or talk to people who are outside. So I drive down this one road. Nothing. Make a turn. Nothing. (keep in mind that it's like pouring RAIN outside during this time) I say a little silent pleading prayer for someone to be put in our path to talk to. Go to a stop sign. Looked to the right.......and there is a man walking away from us on the sidewalk! We hurry and park the car and try to go talk to him, except he got away to fast, but ANOTHER man was walking toward us. So we started talking to him...got to know him, gave him a book of Mormon...IN THE RAIN!! and powerfully bore testimony on the peace that it has brought me. He said he is going to read it and we are seeing him again on Wednesday!! Wow. K..that taught me a few things. First of all the Heavenly Father totally puts people in your path IF He sees you are willing to act and talk to them. Second of all, you have to have faith! When heavenly father sees we're willing to act and have faith to do it, then miracles will come.

So me and Sister Cox are teaching ENGLISH to some Japanese/Chinese people that we met at a restaurant. And one of the person is the sushi chef.........aka FREE SUSHI for us!!!! #hollahhhhhh I'm down!! Totally doing it for the sushi (; Crazy things I get me and my comp into........lol

uhh how do i teach English??? any suggestions.....? it's happening tomorrow........this shall be fun.

Yesterday at church we sang "Be Still My Soul" and this phrase really HIT me

"In every change, He faithful will remain"

It's so comforting to know that through all the changes that happen in our lives or new/unknown situations Heavenly Father can be and will be a CONSTANT in our lives. I have definitely seen that throughout my life and especially during my mission, for me and for all the investigators and converts I have been working with.

Kelly got her temple recommend yesterday!! Soooo excited for her (:

Good week behind me, and another good week ahead of me

love you!

love sistermanson

 funny masks at a relief society party!

sister gordyichuck made these for us this morning!!

it tasted like CHEESECAKE!! <3 I was in heavenn

our lovely car in the Ghettooo.

Hangin with YANG

Sooo last Monday we had a really awesome FHE lesson with the Seidel family.

Brother and Sister Seidel are members, his dad is not.

His father, Wayne is 92 years old--the cutest old man I. Have. Ever. Seen.

We decided to talk about General Conference. And we started off by

singing the hymn: "We Thank Thee O God For a Prophet"

hahaha funniest moment of my life...K here's what went down:

Me and Sister Cox pull out our handy dandy iPads to pull up the lyrics to the hymn. Brother Seidel has it pulled up on his phone. Wayne didn't know the song so I gave him my iPad to use (mistake on my part...lol) Lesson I learned:

OLD-PEOPLE-DO-NOT-KNOW-HOW-TO-USE-TECHNOLOGY.

We started singing the song and he had no idea how to use it. He would try to scroll it down but it would do something else and before we even finished the 1st verse he yells "gosh darn it. I don't know what happened" haha so we pause and I go and fix it for him. We continue singing. This happens again. We pause. I go and fix it for him. By the end of the hymn everyone is just cracking up watching him try to work the iPad. Hahahaha good times with the old people. (:

Tuesday = highlight miracle of my whole entire mission.

We finally-after 3 weeks of trying to get in contact with her-met with BETHANN! We taught her the Plan of Salvation. She shared with us at the end that we caught her at the PERFECT time. Usually she works Tuesday nights, but her boss cancelled her that day. Like..whaaaat?! We shared with her that we specifically planned our e.n.t.i.r.e. day up near her area (because its pretty far of a drive) and we didn't want to waste miles by just going up there for her, not even knowing if we would get see her. Heavenly Father definitely wanted us to see her that day. In all my prayers I always ask Heavenly Father for us to see the people that HE would want us to see that day. It always works out. It was such a powerful lesson. The spirit was so evident, and we took the time to point that her too. We also talked about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and left one with her and she said she would read the introduction. We had a return appointment for tonight at 6, but she had to cancel because her daughter is in the hospital :( so we will see her next week sometime..

It was really cool though. She didn't seem too excited to see us when she opened the door..but at the end of the lesson when we said goodbye..her face was g.l.o.w.i.n.g. literally she looked so happy and a complete 180. She shared how great she felt after our lesson too.

Shes funny too. Said I had a baby face.................haha. and then asked how old I was. I said 20! and then asked why she said that. she said "you just seem so wise, but so young too"

Thank you bethann :)

Aka........the SPIRIT :) Her uncle (who referred her to us) lives in south Carolina and we are going to Skype him into our lessons!

I love doing the LORD'S work.

So a member of the ward took us out to eat after our lesson with them and one of our investigators. We went to Japanese restaurant. Sooo happy to eat SUSHI. I was in heaven. We met Yang there! She was our waitress and we gave her our phone number on a Mormon. org card. She is from Tibet! but grew up in India and is in America for 3 years to work. Her English is pretty good and she asked to hang out with us. Hahaha we were like sure!

Hang..........aka teach you about Jesus Christ (: So that will be exciting, since she is a Buddhist.

Church was really good. We stopped by jill (totally unplanned) and she was home and let us inside! #hollah

We taught her the restoration again and invited her to be baptized(: She said she would pray about it. Yay. She also said she feels like she's in heaven whenever we come by and talk to her.

All my future missionary friends out thereeeeee: go and google the 4th Missionary talk given by Lawrence E. Corbridge written in June 2002. It's pretty long but soooo good. Make sometime to read it as you are preparing to serve your missions! It will help tremendously. Print it out and take it with you on your mission so you can re-read it through out your mission to remind you of the missionary you want to be. #BeThe4thMissionary

anyways..happy St. Patricks day!! I'm not wearing green....haha

love sister manson :)

true missionary (: haha me and sister cox found these

 SWEET face masks at our second home........aka MICKEY D'S. 

true missionary (: haha me and sister cox found these 

SWEET face masks at our second home........aka MICKEY D'S. 

true missionary (: haha me and sister cox found these

 SWEET face masks at our second home........aka MICKEY D'S. 

us and Kelly!

taken at the purdys house (:

Easy As Possible

I miss Sister Steadman. It was sad to drop her off

But guess who my new companion is??!

SISTER COX! (we were also in the MTC together) hahahaha so crazy huh? :) tender mercy I think.

Literally though..Heavenly Father L.O.V.E.S. meeeeeeeeeee!

He has made things AS EASY AS POSSIBLE for me, in like every new or scary situation, He's always helping me out! My first transfer to a brand new area, my companion is Sister Steadman. My first time taking over an area, I get Sister Cox as my companion to help me! Instead of some brand new sister missionary I've never met before.

(Taking over the area is not even that bad!) :)

Got a letter from Elder Gibson.....ah I'm like so in love with him it's not even funny............hahaha JK(;

Lets be real: boys are pretty much nonexistent in my mind right now, but anyways his letter was sweet! Here's a quote:

"The happiest moments are when we loose ourselves in the work, it is how God and his son are so happy and glorious. They focus all their efforts in the well being of others"

aka US.

And I was reading Hymn 29 and verse 7 stuck out to me.

"The tokens in his hands I knew;

The Savior stood before mine eyes.

He spake, and my poor name he named,

"Of me thou hast not been ashamed.

These deeds shall thy memorial be;

Fear not, thou didst them unto me."

Sweet huh?(: soak that up a little bit...

oh and here's one of my favorite quotes I just found:

"Remember the Lord will have been there before you"

-President Packer

ahh Sister Steadman<3 she's so SNEAKY. gotta love her.

So we went to district meeting on my birthday. I get there and Elder Jorgensen and Elder Goates come in with a pan covered with tin foil, and he's like "I made brownies!"

I was like sweet, brownies are good(: Anyways so we have district meeting and at the very end Sister Cox announces that it's my birthday. hahah I'm like: noooo! I was so close going through without anyone realizing it lol. So everyone sings and they're like good thing we made brownies! Because we didn't even know it was your birthday.

Elder Jorgensen is like "open your brownies up!"

so I do..................and it's a CAKE! that says "Happy Birthday Sister Manson!" with cute hearts and "20" written all over it. haha I was so surprised! He then told me..(and bless her sweet little heart) that Sister Steadman gave him a cake mix and frosting when we were at transfers and told him to make it for me since she couldn't be there and wanted to make sure I had a cake on my birthday. Yeah she's my little BFF #steadmansonforeverrrrr.

And oh man I've only spent like 4 days together with Sister Cox, but we've seen SO MANY MIRACLES. it's been crazy.

K first one:

We went and saw Lori again (one of our investigators) and she answered the door looking all groggy because she had just gotten some neck injections to help with the pain that comes from her neck! We started talking and had to make it kinda short since she wasn't feeling good. We brought up the Book of Mormon and asked if she's read it at all. She said no. Then she said she was going to her parents house the next day to rest and get better. We thought: PERFECT! You can read it while you rest (; haha so we invited her to do so and she said she would. When we left you could actually tell her persona was brighter. She even commented that we always brighten and help her day when we come by......aka THE SPIRIT!

Then we got a text from her the next day saying that she read it and she actually like bore her testimony to us about the bible and the book of Mormon! it was so awesome, she's beginning to understand how the book of Mormon can really bless her life!!

2nd:

Sister Cox had a baptism on Saturday in her previous area (North Philly about an hourish away). We made ride arraignments and everything. It's like 8pm Friday night, and our ride CANCELS on us! We were like seriously? haha not cool.......we said a prayer asking for help and that someone would be able to give us ride so short notice. Right after that we called the Framptons in our ward and they were like "Sure! We would love to." It's pretty humbling how fast and promptly Heavenly Father answers our prayers.

Funny story coming home from the baptism...(I attached the picture so you can visualize it better) So we were driving on Roosevelt Boulevard. Feel free to google more pics of it, because it's pretty a i.n.t.e.n.s.e. freeway. Idk if you guys can tell from the picture but it is HUGE and has 2 three lanes of traffic going north and south, and they are all spaced really weird.

But anyways on our way home Brother Frampton is making a left turn to get onto the lanes. And he turns, he goes into the WRONG entry way!! The one with all the ONCOMING TRAFFIC coming towards us!!!!!! we were like all freaking out! hahaha but luckily there were no cars near us, so we did a quick U turn and got going the right direction.......#PhillyDrivingIsScary!!

3rd:

So Thursday we took Kelly out with us to go see some potentials. We met Sherry who told us to come back Saturday! so we were like sweeeeeet. see you then. So Saturday night rolls around and we take Kelly again with us and we knock on her door..no answer :( we were so bummed! We decided to leave a restoration pamphlet and a sticky note with a note from us on it. We stopped by a few other people but didn't have much success talking to them..We decided to try again at sherry's house some 40mins later....we get to the door and noticed that the pamphlet and note was not on her door anymore! We were like: she's totally home!! She better let us in hahaha. So we knock...she ANSWERS!! #We-In (; and taught a really spiriautal lesson about the restoration, and left her with the book of Mormon and she said she would read it. But dang Kelly's participation and comments she shared was so CRUICAL. If she wasn't there it would have been a completely different lesson. Kelly's religious background is catholic and it just so happened to be that Sherry is...currently ;).....a Catholic!! It was so awesome.

Yesterday at church a member gave a great lesson during relief society so I went up to her to give her a hug and thank her for the lesson. She looks at me and then says she wishes she can have me in an arranged marriage with her son (he's on his mission in Boise, ID right now) hahhahahahhha........very flattering. Thank you(:

ima keep my options open(; hahhahaha..........yeah.

have a good week!

I am 20 now.........gross.

love sistermanson

a old funny picture(;

me and sister cox! 

Sister Manson - She is a blessing

Tonight Sister Manson visited our home, the Seidels. My wife and I are members but my father is not. We invited her and her companion over to provide us with a Family Home Evening. I asked the Sisters to pray about what they would teach/share tonight. They totally followed the Spirit and it was so wonderful for my father (he is 92 but takes no meds and is totally alert). He really enjoyed the time talking with her during the meal and the lesson shared afterward. She is really a super Missionary who follows the Spirit and you can feel it so much.

Thank you so much for supporting and sharing your daughter with us here in PA especially in the Pottstown Ward. We also asked her to share her story as to why she decided to serve a mission (very spiritual story). She truely loves the Lord and follows the Savior. We are so blessed to have her.

Thanks again and God bless.

Barry and Lynne Seidel

6 months!

This week is going to be the craziest ever!

Here's what's on the agendaaaa:

MONDAY: start of transfer 5! marks my 6th month serving(:

WEDNESDAY: going to transfers! RIP steadmanson..Sister steadman is getting transferred :( which means........I'M taking over the area! after only being here for 6 weeks! I barely know my way around...i just bought a GPS so we're all good(; getting a new companion. ***Please pray she is nice***

THURSDAY: my birthday........turning 20!..gross

yeah pretty crazy stuff. haha, I'm just shocked I'm taking over the area! It's pretty intimidating..but i can totally do it(: It's been really cool because either during or right after I get done praying I get random thoughts flashing into my head, that give me comfort. D&C 6:36 was one of them, and I randomly found this talk on the gospel library app "Now is a time for faith, not fear" I read that, it was so good and exactly what I needed to read(: Heavenly Father definitely answers all my prayers/fasts. It's really neat to see that! He likes to remind me that I can totally do it!

K back to my.....6th MONTH MARK! ahhhh so crazy. It's flyin byy!

I decided to be cute and write myself a letter to open on my 6th month mark. (I wrote it back in October to myself to remind myself of why I'm serving and what type of missionary I wanted to be) So I get to open and read that tomorrow, and then after I read it, I'm going to write myself another one! to open on my 9th month mark(:

and you're not gonna believe what happened this week.

I'VE CHANGED SO MUCH! i didn't even realized how much I've changed.

here's what went down:

we were at district meeting and a sister missionary leans over to me and sister steadman and tells us a really inappropriate joke.

and K keep in mind old me would have laughed my little head off..

but new me...it made me so MAD. I was like are you serious right now?? why would you say that? we're missionaries! c'mon....

I kept that all to myself and just pretended to not understand the joke, and didn't even laugh at all!

I was like whoa......that's so not like me! but yeah so crazy huh? because all I did in my pre-mish life was make funny dumb inappropriate jokes. 24/7 literally, i like lived for those type of jokes.

YUP. not anymore. they're not funny.

pretty crazy right?

We've seen a lot of miracles this past week(:

we were FINALLY able to get in and see some potential investigators and teach the restoration to them!

Sister Lew a really super less active member CAME TO CHURCH!! this sunday! She brought her mom too, who is super against the church and they both came! We were so happy. We were walking down the hall, and I saw her about to go in the chapel with her walker (she broke her FEMUR!) and i legitimately raaaaan to her and gave her a hug(: because h.o.n.e.s.t.l.y. she was LAST person I thought would come to church. We invited her to come multiple times and tried to stress it again this week when we met with her and she was kind of iffy about it, but she totally came(:

and OKAY coolest thing ever. A real life spiritual discernment moment happened.

So at the beginning of this transfer we went to a sports morning at church and a random less active member showed up (sister steadman had never really met her before) and we were playing LAX together, and randomly IDK why (SPIRIT) but we asked her if she knew anyone that would want to quit smoking because we teach a really cool easy program that helps people to quit smoking. And she answers that no not really I don't know anyone. So we're like oh okay, and continued to play. Here's the COOL part

K so like a whole MONTH later we had dinner with this same less active member (last night) and towards the end she brings up that she wanted to know more about the quit smoking program because SHE HERSELF was struggling with it. like what??! so crazy. We had no idea that she was smoking. And it felt really random to ask her that question forever ago, but it was totally relevant and definitely lead by the spirit!

THE CHURCH IS TRUUUUUE.

I love moments like these that help us to see that Heavenly Father truely knows His children and will guide us to help them if we follow the promptings of the spirit.

Me and sister steadman went running everyday last week. It was h.e.a.v.e.n.l.y and MUCH needed<3

I miss running and swimming....but I will do it when i get back!

So have any of you heard of MacKenzie Tolk?? I'm obsessed with her music(: she's amazing. Go youtube some of her music. Especially

"beautiful savior" and "how can I keep from singing?"

lyrics that stood out to me from how can i keep from singing:

"I life my eyes the cloud grows thin. I see the blue above it, and day by day this pathway smooths, since first i learned to love it. The peace that Christ makes fresh my heart, a fountain ever springing. All things are mine since I am His. How can I keep from singing?"

It's so good. (:

Missions are hard...but day by day the pathway smooths since I learned to love it!! Remember that all my future missionary friends (:

I was reading in Mosiah 5 this morning. such a good chapter. It talked about taking upon ourselves the name of Christ through baptism. And i was thinking about that, and as missionaries....we LITERALLY get to take Christ's name upon ourselves. I wear HIS name on my chest everyday.

"JESUS CHRIST" right in the middle center of my name tag.

And I am so proud to do so.

love you(:

sistermanson