LONG week!

Area:  San Marcelino

Companion:  Sister Rowley

                                                                        November 25, 2013

LONNNNG WEEK THIS WEEK. & sorry this letter is going to be SHORT! 

Elders: WE NOW HAVE 4 ELDERS IN SAN MARCELINO. This could most likely be the best thing of my entire life. San Marcelino has such a lack of Priesthood, we NEEDED Elders. I found out from Sister & Elder Gorringe that there were 15 Elders coming from Tacloban to our mission, the next second I was on the phone with President telling him they needed to come here. He said that they weren't in the plans to come here to San Marcelino, but if I found them a house we could get them. You can probably guess what happened next. By the end of that night I had them a fine lookin house. Boo yeah baby, we got us some Elders, and they are AMAZING! They are going to help our areas soo much :)

Tacloban missionaries: One of the new Elders, Elder Panginiban told us a small but miraculous story that he experienced while in Tacloban. His area was farther from the eye than a lot of the other areas, but his area was still affected. He said that they got the text that they shouldn't go out because of the storm. So he and his companion, Elder Mata (also assigned here in San Mar) knelt down and said a prayer, and then they went to sleep and slept through the entire storm. The next day they woke up and saw all of these roofs blown off of houses, and lots of debris all over the place. Something extremely interesting that occurred however was this: Their apartment is completely surrounded by trees, he said when they walked outside that day, every. single. tree. had fallen OUTWARDS, instead of inwards. Every single tree, outwards, that doesn't even make sense how the wind could do that. Had the trees fallen inwards, they would've been seriously hurt or even killed. That is not a coincidence. The Lord really does protect his missionaries. The Spirit in the room after he bore his testimony of the importance of being obedient so that the Lord can protect you was unreal. Everyone had chills. I know my Heavenly Father is aware of me specifically, and each and every single one of you. May we all be exactly obedient to the commandments that the Lord has given us so that we too may recieve this small, but relevant miracles.

Courage: The proudest moment of my week was that I ate BALUT!  (A balut is a developing duck embryo that is boiled alive and eaten in the shell. It is commonly sold as streetfood in the Philippines.)  At night time the vendors that sell balut walk or bike around the neighborhoods selling balut, they yell "baluuuuut" and people will run out at by it, don't ask me why because it is not appetizing whatsoever. However, people keep asking me if I have tried it yet, and I haven't! & they always tell me I'm not a Filipina until I try it. So one day Sister Rowley and I made a deal that the next time we heard someone yell baluuut, we would try it. Well it just so happens we had a delicious dinner appointment with the Wright family on Thursday with the Elders. We were all walking back to the main highway to catch the bus when we heard "baluuuut". Sister Rowley & I turned to eachother, she looked like she wanted to cry & I looked like a little child on Christmas morning. I immediately flag the man down and they gave us seven eggs of nice warm juicy balut. What better opportunity to try it for my first time than with an audience of brand new elders. All I can say is that it was classic, all the Elders had their cameras out videoing & taking pictures of us. Needless to say, I ate the thing like a champ, no not really I suffered my way through it, & Sister Rowley called it quits! She drank the juice and tapped out. Nonetheless, I have officially become a true Filipina. That's right baby.

Miracles Ulit: Sundays are hands down the most stressful day of the week. We missionaries stand outside the church waiting for our investigators to come to church. It is the most stressful thing of my entire life, Sundays show how successful your week really was. Being that the Elders were new to the area this week we were really busy splitting our areas, showing them around the areas, introducing them to all of our investigators and less actives, etc. So our work was pretty slow this week. However, we hit an all time high for the most investigators we have ever had at church. EIGHT. Best part about it, SEVEN of them were all from one family, the Sevillaga family. They are rockstars & I love them. Wilma is still being strong, she is incredible, she has become a rock for the Sevillaga family. Every morning before church she goes and herds them up and brings them to church with her. They will all be baptized by the end of December. I could just cry of happiness. The amount of change that I have seen in them is INCREDIBLE. Marjane is doing awesome as well. She gave the elders 5 referrals and worked as a branch missionary to go visit all of them, one referral being her 21 year old brother who is going to be baptized December 28.  More to follow next week :)

This week has been incredibly exciting & stressful all at the same time. But nonetheless, I LOVE MY MISSION & THE PEOPLE HERE. Have an amazing week all of you & please, STAY SAFE! The church is true.

Sister Pilkington

xoxo