OCTOBER 2011

Chapel

Church (building where they meet)

Elder Manning playing the piano.....or is he???

10/26/2011

Good day everyone!

I hope this weeks letter finds everyone happy, healthy and in general just
well :)! My week went pretty well and another Zone Conference has come and
gone. It's crazy it was the last time I'll see Elder Warner for a little
while, well last time as a missionary. It's crazy to think that it's all
gone by this fast. He leaves next week! So that was a little bit hard to
say good-bye, but he said he'd be up in December. That will be a fun
reunion.
Anyway we were pretty busy this past week with some good lessons. We now
teach personal English as well as the group English lessons. So we'll just
send around a personal visit sheet during class and if they're interested
they sign up with their phone # and info. Then we go and visit them in their
home and have a quick little lesson afterwards. It's worked really well as
of late. So as I said a couple really good lessons out of that.
On Wednesday we met with a member then we went to a little sidewalk market
here and tried to find a guy who was selling old soviet stuff, as he knew
about the Book of Mormon and said it was a great book. Well we looked for
him for a little while then I got swooned in by one of the older guys
selling old USSR stuff and I found and bought an old USSR/Lithuania flag.
Pretty crazy! It was their flag while they were under reign. Kind of a hard
and dark time for the people, but I thought it would be an excellent peace
of history from this side of the world. It was only about 15 US$ as he said
they're rare and that the people here don't really have much interest in
that time... For a reason obviously. So I thought that was pretty neat. I
don't know what I'll do with it, but nevertheless a way sweet piece of
history eh?..
We met with a member family and they have a HUGE German Sheppard! They asked
if any of us were scared of dogs and we answered no... Then they let the dog
out into their small apartment haha needless to say it was like "a bull in a
china shop". He was a mean dog, but really wanted to play and was jumping
all over us and doing a playful gnaw. After we wrestled with it for awhile
it calmed down and a was really really well behaved dog. I think that I
wouldn't mind one in about 10 years or so :) haha. I liked it a lot.
Also on that day we had one of the English students come to the church and
give us about a 40# bag of potatoes! They were straight from her garden and
she said she appreciated our service a lot. Haha I'll send the picture of it. It was pretty funny as her trunk was full of them. Really nice lady though!
Our investigator Raimunda is doing really really well. She is keeping her
commitments and we are now helping her quite the coffee and champagne at
nights. She's a great example of changing and listening how she can apply
different principles. We hope to get her a baptismal date this week!
Members here are being awesome to meet with her.
We went to Vilnius on Sunday night to stay for the Zone Conference the next
day. It was really fun as we were with Elder Warner and Elder Hilton for the
night. They are really fun elders to be around definitely.All of Elder Warner's stuff was being sorted and he's trying to decide what to mail home
and what to throw away so he would make weight on the plane. Way weird
seeing that. Zone Conference the next day went really well and it was a
great spirit there. It was sad saying bye to Warner though... Oh well in
due time haha.

Well that was more or less the week. I love you guys! Thanks for the support
and love you show me! HAVE A GREAT WEEK! OH AND "JENN NAE" (Forrest gump
voice) HAPPY BIRTHDAY this week on Saturday!

Love you guys!
Elder Jeffrey John Manning

Hey guys! WOW it's OCTOBER again! 10/4/2011

Well where to start?.. It was a pretty challenging week to say the least, but I'm grateful for it as it lets me know how good the other weeks really are. One thing haha.... People are a dang circus when they are drunk. They can't think and it makes them hard to control themselves. Drunk Russians are no fun to run into haha... We spent half a night trying to get away from one and in the end I had to walk with him down the highway with his drunk can all over me so he wouldn't get hit by a car haha it was a rodeo night to say the least.
Anyway... Enough about that. Our investigator Raimunda continues to progress. She's way great and has a super good personality which is fun to be around in lessons. She, with her two little daughters, came to church the past two Sundays. She is doing great! She's still a little scared to except a (baptismal) date, but we'll keep working with her.
We continue to meet with a lot of members and less-active members and that is going really well. They like to meet with us here in this city more than the other cities I've served in. It's fun to be around them! One of the members here is really excited about doing missionary work with her friend and has already been giving him little lessons. It's awesome to see that kind of enthusiasm here.
Oh other exciting note of the week haha. We have fleas... We think we got it from one of the members dog. Gross, and it doesn't feel good to get bitten by them. We did get some flea spray and it's seemed to have worked so far, so our fingers are crossed!
We are ready for this week as we have a feeling it will be better then the last one ;) haha. I think the hard weeks are good for us so we can learn to love the simple little things and it is a good natural humblelizer (just made up that word).
The seasons are changing and its getting colder and darker by the day. I love the sunny days. It's been a little overcast as of late and people here are getting a little bit more grumpy. I don't blame them, it's not really too fun when the weather changes anywhere.
Hmmm I'm trying to think of what else to write. It was a pretty average week of knocking and a little contacting. IT'S NUTS to think it's already October!
So quickly just some fun stuff that I will be doing this week, ... Get to go to Klaipeda tomorrow and have a District Meeting with them, so it will be fun to be back there! Then we get to watch a rebroadcast of Conference this week at some point. I'm really excited for that definitely. It's great we have a living prophet in these days that leads this church of ours!
I love you guys! You're AWESOME to have as my family! Have a great week! AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY HENRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love you guys!
Elder Jeffrey John Manning