Can't Stop Smilinnng

Uhh.

Survived my first car accident this morning

(More on that later though)

just so ya know

..the family of possums survived..

(:

K so we spent 2 HOURS in Micky D's waiting for our car to be inspected for it's yearly insurance stuff. I saw this girl who looked really familar who we saw at Clusters (feeding the homeless) she was sitting in mcdonalds! I really wanted to go and talk to her, but I didn't get the chance to..

super bummed.

Rebecca and Stan officially

QUIT SMOKING!

In order to support them me and sister cox gave up

cannnndy.

We've been 6 days strong! haha

It's rough..

we gave away allllll our candy to rebecca and stan so they could eat it

instead of smoking lol.

Told everyone we'd be

JONSEN!!

(which means going through withdrawls hahah)

So we were planning to eat dinner at 6

but didn't till 8pm that night!

The place we wanted to eat at was closed...

So we were walking back to our car when we see this old lady

waiting for the bus

We go and talk to her(:

She was crazy..

After that we again started walking back to our car

When we see this guy and girl so we go and

talk to them

Super cool.

Both live in center city Philly

aka

"The Hood"

(his exact words)

They both said Pottstown is alot

CALMER

than philly

which made me laugh because Pottstown scares me!

haha

It's growing on me though

After that it started to

POUUUUR rain so we ran back to our car

and then i saw a girl walking into a house

Guess who it was??

THE SAME GIRL THAT WAS AT MCDONALDS!

So i shout to sister cox to turn around

as we are frantically running in the rain

that we need to talk to her.

Hahaha so we go and knock on the door and

we got the opportunity to share the gospel and give them a

book of mormon! Super cool

I'm still obsessed with

#FamHist

The more i do it the more people i find!

It's amazing the spirit you feel when you do family history!

Anyone who reads this better log into familysearch.org

right now

and start doing it!

it's so easy and fun(: haha

We had a fun time singing hymns at a retirement center

It's cute because the old people sing with us

love it.

So i have a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by

June 4th!

Which is my 9 month mark

so crazy to even say that...

**fun fact**

did you know that if you read 5 pages of the Book of Mormon erryday

you would be able to finish it 3 times by the end of the

year?

Ever heard of the saying..

"Flirt to Convert"

?

Wellllllllllllll

Me and Sister Cox were made aware that it was

National Free Pretzel Day

(April 26)

So we excitedly went to philly pretzel factory to get ourselves

our FREE pretzels

We get in and there's a lot of people

We start talking and sharing how we're missionaries and stuff we do.

It was pretty crowded so we got our pretzels and spliiiit.

Hopped over next door and ate our pretzels

About 30 mins later...

One of the workers comes in and walks over to us

and says while handing me a note

"I'm sorry..i'm really bad at this..."

and just walks away

Me and Sister cox just stare at each other

not knowing what to say

I quickly read the note...

Here's what it said

(i took a pic of it too and it's now taped into my journal)

#memories

"Extremely Beautiful Girl,

I'm sorry if this may be too forward

but i hope maybe we could get to

know one another.

Text me at....My name is Gary"

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA

I wish this would happen to me when i wasn't a missionary..

jeez.

I didn't want to be mean so we texted him.

but

DON'T WORRY parents..

I quickly and straight forward told him that

we don't date as missionaries

and I would be more than happy to help him get to know

JESUS CHRIST

instead of me

hahahah.

Turns out he had met with the missionaries once before!

(years ago)

We're giving him a Book of Mormon this week.

Rebecca our investigator who quit smoking said this to us

"Ever since I stopped smoking..

I CAN'T STOP SMILING"

#meltedmyheart

I've met with and taught a lot of different people on my mission so far

and rebecca and stan are so special to me!

So happy for them and excited for their baptism

next sunday!!

May 4th

I've seen like 3 street cleaners in the past week

which makes me really happy because it makes me think

and remember Brenna!

Because she loved them haha

We ate dinner at rebecca and stan's house last night

Ate it on the couch while we watched general conference together!

I felt right at home

haha forgot how much i missed chilling on the couch eating and watching a movie at home...good times

#ilovemesomecouuuuch

Have a good week(:

Love you all!

sistermanson

about the car accident...

a school bus was on the other side and so the car in front of me braked really fast so i had to too and i swerved and hit the back of his car

>don't worry though<

he was super nice and his car wasn't even damaged

our car just has a few scrapes

There was no possum family..

I just like to blame it on them hahaha

but if there was a possum family i would

have saved them.

(:

(:

(:

creepy note this guy gave me.......hahaha

nice note someone left us......

we're always leaving our keys in the lock 

outside our door..i forget hahaha

(:

(:

(:

rebecca and her kids! (: 

sister hall! a cute old lady we read scriptures with (:

sang hymns at a retirement center!

Because of Him

Me and Sister Cox had a cool experience while we were out running one morning(:

I was running and she was walking behind me. I passed this alley way and saw a lady walking out of the door. sister cox was a little ways behind me so i was like man i hope she talks to her!! I looked behind me and they are BOTH walking together talking(: #perfect

They talked for a while and then i turned around and started to walk with them too. We walked with her for like 10 minutes just talking about what we do and then exchanged #'s! It was so awesome. Missionary work at 6:30 in the morning (:

So i watched the coolest video ever. Called "Because of Him" and if you haven't seen it yet, Youtube it RIGHT NOW. The first time i watched it i got chillz and felt so much love. It made me tear up. It's a super powerful video and I've watched it like 20+ times haha. I've been showing it to errybody like crazy and it's really cool to watch them watch it and see what they think and feel about it.

So Kelly has been really into doing Family History and so has this cute old lady we visit, Sister Driscoll and they both have really inspired me to start working on mine! I've never been into doing it. (Kelly went to the temple for the first time to do baptisms!!!) She brought with her like 40+ NAMES from her family and did their baptisms. So awesome. I found a couple people from my family and she took their names with her to the temple to do their baptisms! Then I found 12 more people who all haven't been baptized yet! So either they'll have to wait until i get home to do, or I can give them to my family for them to do! But dang..can't really express it, but I love doing family history work now. I don't get to spend alot of time doing it...but when i get home the only things I'll be doing are running and swimming, catching up on my PRETTY LITTLE LIARS <3 and doing my family history. hahaha

We work in the ghetto city..POTTSTOWN<3 and people always stare at us and whistle/holler at us sometimes......it's like they've never seen 2 white-blonde-haired-blue-eyed-girls wearing skirts before.......hahah. we just walk fast, and keep our car doors locked. Good times(:

Don't worry, we are safe!

Okay..and it's a little overwhelming and sad right now...It seems like everyone right now is struggling .B.I.G. time

smoking, not feeling loved, anxiety, feeling alone, marriage probs, financial probs..

alot of people just cry right in front of us and i try to bear my testimony to help them but it's sad to see people like that..I know heavenly father loves all his sons and daughters, but man some people have it really rough. I am just so grateful to have the gospel in my life. It stinks though because I can't really help any of them! that's really frustrating...but I get to teach them the gospel and that's what will really help them the most so i guess that's good.

but yeah the past couple days everyone we've seen has just been hammered with crazy stuff. And like the crazy thing is that they are all trying so hard to be good but satan is fighting the heck out of them....ihatesatan. -_-

2 of our investigators have their baptism date for May 4! They are so awesome, but the only thing holding them back is that they smoke. We're working really hard with them to help them to stop..but they are really struggling with alot of different things. And it's so sad, keep them in your prayers that they can have strength to stop smoking.

Funny story for ya:

Went visiting teaching with a older lady in our ward. She picks up around 2:15 I SPECIFICALLY ask if i should bring my GPS so we don't get lost, but she insisted she didn't need it so i was like....alright. #Mistake. The sisters we were visiting teaching live really far so we got there at like 3. Talk give a good spiritual lesson, goodbyes and leave. We were talking and before i know it....we were lost!! we ended up in Phoenixville!...Not even in our area boundaries......so we're like ahhhh crap. Don't have my GPS, and i have no idea where we are...luckily we called kelly and told her where we were and she gave us directions to get home haha. We got home at like 5:25!! super frustrating........but good laughs haha.

We had a cool opportunity to have a mini missionary with us! she spent like 2 days with us to get a missionary experience. She was 16! I was so impressed by her. I don't think when I was 16 I could have gone out with the missionaries like she did and bear my testimony to strangers. She's from center city PHILLY! haha she was so funny and cute. Teaching me and Sister Cox all the "Philly Slaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang"

Here's some of the cool ones I learned:

Bean: 100%/real "Want me to keep it bean? I like you!

***Poppin':good/crazy "That party was poppin' (my personal favroite one...i use this phrase whenever i get the chance to)

Got me chopped: twisted "She though she could play me...got me chopped!"
Check: die "my about to check"

Mugga: money$$ "he got muggggga!"

Irk: annoy "you're irkin me..."

In a box: kill someone/dead "Imma put him in a box if he comes home late again"

In my bag: to get extremely angry "Leave me alone. I'm in my bag right now!"

Joe; overly excited "Yo...calm down you being extra Joe"

Jawn: person, place or thing "See that jawn over there? Pickup that jawn for me. Where is my jawn at?" (errybody and their mom uses this one......)

I love you! hope you had a good easter weekend.

Start thinking of some of the things that are possible #becauseofHim and make a list and add to it whenever you find/think of knew ones.

It's been really neat to think about because I've never really thought of that before. I knew about Christ and what he did for all of us, but thinking like this helps me realize that the Atonement and everything Christ did for us is SO MUCH MORE than what I thought it was.

#becauseofHim I understand the depth of my purpose.

#becauseofHim despair becomes hope.

#becauseofHim we can start again and again and again.

#becauseofHim and through Him, I can always have comfort and peace in my life

#becauseofHim all of our losses will be made up. Everything will be made right in the end.

#becauseofHim there will be a resurrection for us all and we can live with Him for all eternity

#becauseofHim all is well

#becauseofHim we all live and our possibilities are endless

#becauseofHim we never have to feel or be alone

#becauseofHim the grave has no victory

#becauseofHim death has no sting

sistermanson

(Us and Sister Driscoll!!) 

Check Yo-self

This week was so much

>better<

#sograteful

We got a referral on Monday and decided to stop by. Here's what went down:

We knock on the door.

Someone opens the door.

"Hi is Harry there?"

They close the door.

Uhhhhh.

They open the door again.

"Um..hello is Harry home?"

Closes the door again.

Uhh!?

Opens the door again and a shirtless h.e.a.v.y man comes out and says "I am Harry"

hahahhaha

#hellllllllllllllllloharry.

We talked for a couple seconds then he goes back inside to put a hoodie on because it's pretty cold outside.........#thankyou

(:

We were at our second home aka micky D's using their free wifi like usual, and we were sitting next to 2 older guys and one of them started swearing. I was about to ask him to stop when we looks over at me and sister cox and starts asking us about our iPads we were using. Then we started talking and told them about what we do and they said they would be interested to learn more about Christ!! I mean..they did causally happen to mention that one of them had just gotten out of jail the previous day.......

whatevz

#everyonedeservestohearaboutthegospel

>>we're excited to teach them<<

Sister Cox was super sick.....she threw up like 5 times so we didn't go out at all on wednesday...i was so bored!! I studied, vacuumed, painted my nails, put dishes away, ate candy, texted kelly, cleaned and reorganized my desk, wrote a letter...and by the time i finished all of that it was only 11am! hahaha

I'll probably freak out with having so much free time when i get home from my mission...

My heaven .aka. AVEN JONES sent me the cutest package ever. Inside was a giraffe mug, M&Ms, and cute notes/letters from her and her mom.

I cut out things she wrote on the package and taped them to my wall next to my desk(:

ahhh my bro turned 18 last week!

.weird.

I read such sick chapter in the book of mormon the other day.

>Alma 15<

Verse 17 really stuck out to me. It was talking about a "great check" and how people began to check themselves. realized their pride and humbled themselves.

We should check ourselves too!

.daily.

Reflect on ourselves often and ask if this is where we want to be right now.

if not, make goals and plans to change.

if so, continue doing what you need to do!

We went to a less actives house and she was telling us about mozz sticks and lettuce and how good it was, soooo me and sister cox took it upon ourselves to see if she was right. haha we went and got mozz sticks with lettuce!

The guy comes out and was really nice and asked me what i like to do for fun...

PREACH about my man JC<3

missionary work, yeah!

He said he wanted to learn more about Christ because he doesn't know alot about Him.

Well sir, we can help you with that.

Me and sister cox are NOT getting transferred!

yay

But BOTH the elders in our ward are!

Which means..........

we're taking over their area too!

We're going to be so busy

It's going to be awesome!!

hahahaha so we declared it APRIL FOOLS MONTH between us and Kelly

(:

she pranked us so h.a.r.d.

Came home to our apartment and we see this gigantic

pyramid

of like 300+ plastic cups

in front our door!!!

Best part that we quickly realized was that random ones were filled with

water

It took us a good 25 minutes to clean up/take down and

multiple water spillages

on the carpet occurred.

#weregettingherbackBIGtime

We met Stan and Rebecca who moved here from norristown.

helped them unpack on saturday.

One of the elders in our ward had actually previously taught them when he was in that area!

so cool

They both have been through

a.l.o.t

so it's been amazing to hear and see where they are today.

Their baptism date is

May 4th :)

They are amazing and totally prepared to get baptized.

"The gospel of Jesus Christ makes bad men good and good men better"

I love you(:

have a good week!!

sistermanson

count how many moose you see in this picture.

rockin it with kelllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly (:

avens wall <3 

and being happy next to a brick wall haha

                                                                                                                                             

Through His Eyes

K I'm gonna be completely honest..this week was so

r...o...u...g...h....

April fools day was fun because pranking is like my middle name(:

Pranked Kelly and told her BOTH me and sister cox were getting transferred. She believed us for about a couple mins but she's too smart and saw right though us haha. Then I pranked sister cox super good that night. We went on exchanges with our sister training leaders, I went to Doylestown, PA with sister shaia and sister cox stayed in our area with sister earl. The first thing I ask sister shaia when we get in the car is if she did any good pranks to her companion. Haha she said no. So we brainstormed and planned a sweet prank. We called sister earl and cox that night and said in a very serious/frantic voice that our apartment had gotten broken into, and that we needed to come back to Pottstown to spend the night their with them.

Hahahaha THEY BOUGHT IT. #blesstheirhearts. They were so concerned about us. Kept it going for like a good 5 minutes and then we busted up laughing and told them we were just joking :) hehe. I love pranking...#AprilFoolsMONTH

Sister shaia looks exactly like my little sister Delaney! So that was cool/kinda weird spending the day with her. They did something really cool for me and sister cox. When we got all back together they made us close our eyes and imagine our Savior Jesus Christ standing in front of us and looking at the prints of His hands. Talk about a #SpiritualDrooooop. The spirit in that room was so powerful/overwhelming. I could really picture it, and it felt very real. It made me cry!

I felt SO much love from my Heavenly Father right then and knew just how proud He was of me.

But yeah this week was pretty rough. It's so easy to get discouraged and frustrated..blahhhh. It's been really hard trying to find people to teach. Me and sister cox have seen SO MANY miracles together but it seems like nothing ever comes from them, which can be very discouraging, because we work so hard and it feels like we don't see a lot of success.

And idk if it's because I haven't seen the sun in like 10+days or what (it's been raining/cloudy for DAYZzzz) -_- but I just got super discouraged really easily this week. Some weeks are definitely better than others.

BUT..I know that's what satan wants. He wants us to be discouraged and to feel like we can't do it. So I just keep reminding myself of that and to keep pushing forward with faith. And to keep my knees down and my chin up!

#praypraypraypraypraypraypray

General conference was so good. Like exactly what I needed after this week. Me and sister cox decided we would fast during the Sunday sessions. And literally every.single.talk. in the morning session answered all my questions and concerns. #spirit

Looking back..yeah this week was pretty rough haha..but I'm still so grateful and glad to be here in the east coast representing my Savior Jesus Christ!

Kelly called me a .n.e.r.d. because I finished quoting a scripture that was being said during conference. Which I found to be HILARIOUS, because before my mission I knew nothing about the scriptures lol. Now I guess I know he scriptures a little better :)

Oh and go ARIZONA<3 my homeeeee. 2 shoutout during general conference about the Gilbert temple. I was so happy to hear apostles talking about that.

I wanted to share some of the talks really stuck out to me. Uctdorf!!

His talk on gratitude. So brilliant, and inspired. I needed that. It's hard to be grateful when things are not going your way..I know I was not grateful for this past week...BUT..he pointed out we don't need to be grateful for things, just to be grateful IN those circumstances. Literally I have soooo many blessings, but they are hard to see when I focus on how crappy things seem #ChangeYourAttitudeSisterManson Look beyond the present day challenges and be grateful with your soul..not your eyes.

I reread one of my fav talks by elder holland called "the first and treated commandment" based off of john 21.

It talks about how just after Christ had been crucified, his apostles went back to doing what they were used to do-fishing. The resurrected Christ appears to them and gives them a super good talk helping them see what they're supposed to be doing. Christ asks Peter 3 times of he loves Him. Peter says yes!..You know I love you. Christ then says "then feed my sheep" and from elder Hollands talk, he expands on this putting it into his own words: "Peter if you love me..why are you here! Back to fishing when I called you to be an apostle? If I wanted to get fish peter, I could get fish. What I need peter(sistermanson/your name) are disciples. And I need them forever. Feed my sheep, save my lambs, preach my gospel, and defend my faith. This is not a feeble message, it's not a fleeting task, not hapless, or hopeless..it's the work of God" teach and testify, labor and serve loyally. "The crowing characteristic of love is always loyalty" are we going to remain loyal to and stand by our faith? Or will we just stand by the wayside with the world? Mosiah 9:18 "...go forth in His might" :)

Elder Perry said something that stuck out to me too, something along the lines of "we all have our unique pre-mortal story" I guess until now I have never really given much thought about the person I was when I was with Heavenly Father before coming here to earth. It's really cool to think about because the more I do, the more I feel my true potential of who Heavenly Father wants and knows I can become. And it's the same for all of us. Sometimes it's hard to see when the world today tries so hard to make us seem worthless or lousy. But the more I immerse myself in the scriptures and in prayer, the closer I get to seeing myself through His eyes. Aka, my true potential as a daughter of god. It's pretty cool and I hope anyone who reads this thinks about their potential.

We had a cool lesson with Lori. Shared my testimony about Joseph smith and the Book of Mormon . She said looking at sister cox "wow, look at her, she is beaming"

People can tell and feel the Holy Ghost through us as we share our testimonies.

I did the "I'm Freezing Cold" approach.

Hahaha here's what went down:

Knocked on loris door.

She answers and says she's in a lot of pain (aka don't come inside)

We started stalking about general conference, meanwhile....I'm freezing!! I purposefully did not put my coat on because I thought she would notice how cold I was and let us come inside(;

It's like 40degrees and I'm in a short sleeve t-shirt. -_- I'm chattering my little teeth and she finally looks at me and notices just how cold I am and tells us to come inside.

Hahahaha #We-In!!! Another successful door approach (:

Do everything you can do to just get IN the door. Because when you do, the spirit can just take over the lesson, but they will not have that opportunity if you do not get a chance to get inside the door.

Btw read a super cool chapter in alma. Go read it!! Alma 5

Have a good week! Transfer calls are Friday.....gross. Not really sure what will happen, but I'll tell you next week!

Love you(:

Sistermanson

P.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BROS frank, miah and spencer (: you guys are so old....

ahhh -_- crazy. And my mom told me frank is working on turning his MISSION papers in next week!! Ahhh so proud. (:

Kelly, After her first session of general conference! #sohappy

Potential & Juicy Fruit

Don't have a lot of time today...but I'll share some cool things that
happened this week,

We stopped by a lady we teach and just as pull in to park she was
walking out to her car to leave. So we were like aw man....But then we
decided to go stop by another lady we teach who lives close by. We get
to the door and her roommate answers(Denise) She lets us in and goes
to get her. Denise comes back downstairs and says that she didn't want
to talk to us then. So again we were like dang it.. We would always
ask denise if she wanted to stay and listen while we talked to her
roommate but she always turned us down.
But this time we felt like asking Denise again if she would be
interested in listening to us. She said yes!! And the whole time we
were talking she kept saying like she felt something was missing in
her life, and felt like there was something more. She shared that she
actually felt like coming down to listen to us when we would go over
but never did. The spirit was so strong..We told her about Joseph
smith and the Book of Mormon. She definitely felt the spirit, and we
invited her to come to church Sunday and to be baptized. She said yes
without hesitation. It is just so cool how Heavenly Father works to
lead us to people who are prepared to hear and accept the restored
gospel. Because we didn't even plan to stop by that house, but the way
things worked out, we ended up there!

Fast Sundays are always the best. We taught Kelly about the plan of
salvation. And it was so cool because we all were able to feel the
love Heavenly Father had for us.

We meet with a 70 year old blind women. We came to see her and she is
standing by a table in her house wearing a shirt and a white
diaper/underwear of some sort...hahahaha and chewing this HUGE wad of
yellow gum #juicyfruit
Good times being a missionary(;

The woman's broadcast was really good, I hope everyone was able to
watch it. I just felt like I need to hear some of the stuff they
talked about. Particularly about potential. I feel like I have so much
potential as a missionary and daughter of god. Sometimes that is hard
to see though, so it's good to be reminded that Heavenly Father sees
our oh-so great and eternal potential.

Another cool story
We drove all the way out to the BOONIES (aka super far away) to go see
a former investigator who used to meet with missionaries. We get there
and it's like 5:45pm. And Kelly calls us, and asks if we're still
coming to dinner. Haha we were like yeah at 6:30 right? She's like
uhhhhh guys no it's supposed to be at 5:30. Me and sister cox were
like ohhhhhhhh craaap. -_-
So we don't even get out of the car to knock on the door, and we hurry
and drive to go eat dinner. Hahaha. Which btw was so yummy-thanks
Kelly! (;
We went again a couple days later to that same house, and we met this
girl names Jessie! She is so cool, she's 17 and wants to study
ministering. What 17 year old wants to do that?? None of them..except
Jessie. Haha we met her and I shared with her my Mormon.org profile.
She really liked it and I'm excited to start teaching her about the
Book of Mormon and how much peace that can be in her life. Can you
say: #futuremissionary? YES.
But it didn't click to me until putting these two stories together
that maybe if we would have knocked the first time, we would not have
met Jessie. Maybe someone else would have knocked in the door and
would have told us they were not interested. Then we would have never
met Jessie!
Heavenly Father knows what he's doing (: #trustinhistiming !!!

Have a good week. Y'all better watch GENERAL CONFERENCE.
It's like Christmas for us missionaries (;

Yay

Love you! Sistermanson

i love wyatt hoffman (; 

 and we buy cats!! lolz

we volunteer at a thrift store, 

and we found this GIGANTIC size 50 pants.

 i literally was able to fit in ONE pant leg! (:

and our fun district (: haha