Sister Manwaring: Serving in North Carolina

  Just me July 24, 2022   Dear Family and Friends,   Sometimes I call myself “the invisible missionary” because I don’t have a companion or any specific assignment.  When I say I don’t have an assignment I mean that no one asks me to do anything.  I just show up at places where I think they might need a hand and I go to work. One time I showed up at a ward activity and put myself to work in the kitchen.  The ward mission leader came in and said, “Wow, you’re just hiding in plain sight!”  Yep, that’s my super power--invisibility!   I’ve been helping the sister missionaries teach ESL for a year now, and I thought my leaders knew that, but maybe they don’t, because they’ve recently asked another couple to teach the class. Last week, however, the missionaries had an emergency and didn’t show up and the newly recruited teacher wasn’t back from vacation yet.  Yeah…I’m glad I was there.   Zone conference I was feeling a...

  Women's shelter July 18, 2022  Dear family and friends,  I learned a new word this week:  Minka.  One of the speakers in the Spanish ward was a man from Ecuador.  He said the word is from the Quechua language and refers to a pre-Columbian Inca tradition of a community working together for the common good.  He spoke of neighbors helping put a new roof on a neighbor’s home and the joy it brought not just to the neighbor, but to the whole community.  He testified that Jesus Christ came to serve us and that if we follow His example, we will find joy.  I also found a new place to serve this week:  a local woman’s shelter.  I was able to help sort donated clothing.  I worked alongside two women, one who was an attorney and one who was homeless.  I love the equality that exists in service.  There is a mural on a wall at the shelter that says “Do that thing you think y...

Zebulon missionaries   July 10, 2022   Dear family and friends,   It has been one year since I was set apart to be a missionary.   I’m not gonna to lie; it’s been hard and not at all what I expected.   At District Council last week our district leader, Elder Moulton, had us read our mission call letters.   I had only read mine once before and at the time I was so focused on where I was going that I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the letter.   The mission calls of the young missionaries and mine were very similar except that while theirs said that they would be blessed for their service, mine said I and my family would be blessed! This surprised all of us and made me feel super happy and hopeful!   I had just found out that my step-mother (and other family members) have Covid L and I had been contemplating going home to take care of my family.   This caused my mind to do a complete turn-about--like Alma when he returned t...

for spacious skies  July 4, 2022   Dear Family and Friends,   The opening song in church Sunday was America the Beautiful.  The words brought tears to my eyes because I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things about America this week. These are some of my observations.   watermelon In our ESL class we talked about Independence Day traditions.   We discussed traditional foods.   One of the foods mentioned was watermelon.   So I was happy that the food I delivered to refugees this week included watermelons.    Turns out that watermelon is also a favorite in Afghanistan.   The previous week a kind donor provided food for the soul for some of our refugees: Qurans and prayer shawls.   It made me proud to be an American 😊 Frequently when I am delivering food, these refugees will invite me to come in.   I usually decline because I’m in a hurry, but this week one woman was insistent.   “Come, come, come,” she said motio...