First email home!

June 22, 2013 Provo MTC Companion: Sister Snow Magandang Hapon po, (Good Afternoon) Dear Friends and Family!!!!!!! Wow I am sooo excited to write my first e-mail to you all!! This week has been the biggest rollercoaster of my life filled with so many different emotions. But I have reached the end of week one and am happier than ever!! So that's a good sign :) On my first day at the MTC my friends and brother were dropping me off at the curb and on the drive in I burst into tears of happiness, excitement, and fear. My windows were rolled down and all I heard was, "Sister! Welcome sister! Welcome to the MTC! Sister! Welcome!". I was completely overwhelmed with joy and happiness. I have never felt more welcomed, embraced, and loved all at once by complete strangers in my entire life. The feeling was surreal. Fast forward a couple hours and I was sitting in a classroom being talked at in Tagalog. I had no idea where I was or what was going on. Somehow I was able to eventually understand (through the Spirit!) and the learning process began. We have 15 hour days here at the MTC. I don't think I have ever learned so much in three days in my entire life. I feel like I have been here for WEEKS! We never have a moment to rest from the time that we wake up at 6 am until we go to bed at 1030. However, I somehow LOVE IT! I have found it to be such a blessing because we don't even have time to think about how emotionally, physically, and spiritually worn out we are, because it's always just one thing to the next! The language is coming along as much as it can in 4 days! It is such an amazing language full of ng and mga sounds everywhere! So my companion is Sister Snow. She is from Utah and is just the greatest. In my district all six of us Sisters are going to the Olongapo Mission, and the four Elders are going to the Quaian mission (not sure on the spelling of that). I just adore my district they are seriously amazing! It's such a blessing how well all of us get along, I feel like they are already my best friends and that we have known each other for years it's great! Us six sisters are all in one room together with three bunkbeds, two desks, and four closets, but we make it work! Thank goodness we all love eachother haha! We literally do everything together, they are so awesome! The Spirit is so incredibly strong here and the energy is just incredible. We taught three investigators on our first day as a group which was an amazing learning experience. I felt the Spirit prompting me of the things I should say to these different people while we were teaching them it was awesome. On our third day we had to teach an investigator with just our companion in COMPLETE tagalog! That was crazy. We did well considering how much of the language we know though, it was a great learning experience for sure. Just one of those things that you have to laugh off so you don't cry haha. Friday we finally got some gym time which was a dream come true! We played sand volleyball with some of the Sisters and Elders from our Zone and from the Chile Zone. We also got to meet our branch which consists of all the districts that are going to the Philippines in the MTC--and our branch President. They are all so great and have such powerful testimonies! We had a brief testimony meeting and the Spirit in the room was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Having the chills here is an everyday occurance now, I have never felt the Spirit so constant in my life. Ahh it's great! I run into someone I know everyday which is the best thing ever! So far I have seen Sister Malmrose, Sister Duke, Sister Ockey, Sister St. John, Sister Wahlen, and a couple other friends from BYU Hawaii. I am always smiling here and have honestly never been this happy before. The mission is the greatest thing ever!! I love it so much! It is definitely the hardest thing I have ever done, but I am SO happy about my decision to serve! I love you all, I will talk to you next week! Kapayapaan,(Peace!) Sister Pilkington Phrase of the Week: Ipinanumbalik na po ang simbahan ni Jesucristo ng mga Banal sa mga Huling Araw. (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been restored)