Floridablanca!

Area:  Floridablanca

Companion:  Sister Echon

STL

                                                      Monday, January 20, 2014

Hello family and friends,

I am sad to say that the day finally came where I had to pack up my bags and leave San Marcelino. I'm pretty sure that is the saddest I have been in forever. I never realized how much I had grown to love those people. Especially the Sevillaga Family. They have become my best friends, my family. I left a part of my heart with them and cannot wait to go back to visit after my mission. As I said my last good-byes, they were crying, and then John-Mark Sevillaga (my first baptism,17) ran to me, gave me his bracelet, and said when I'm sad to just look at it and think of their family. I haven't taken it off since!(even when sister querido said it made me look like a hippeee! haha love her)

Floridablanca: So Florida reminds me of like a downtown Walnut Creek-third world country style of course. It is WAY City compared to San Mar. I had my first bit of culture shock when I saw a stop light! I forgot those even existed. The area here is also WAY richer than San mar. Which is nice because it's cleaner, but hard also because the people are less humble. My house here is absolutely beautiful, our landlord is actually from San Diego. I almost cried when I saw that they had THREE CARS! That is soo not normal here. Anyways, our house is a two story, the kitchen and study is downstairs, then we have one CR and two bedrooms for us four sisters upstairs. It is so clean and I can actually walk around with shoes off if I wanted to! WE have an LBC AND a Pure Gold here which is like any missionaries dream. Pure Gold has American Food & LBC is a fast package center. So because it's wealthy here, that also means our pamasahe (fare) is way expensive. In San Mar to get around in a trike it was 10 pesos each, 15 max. Yea here, its 25! Goodbye mulaaa. The worst part about it, our area is split up wayyy bad, so we HAVE to trike because our closest area is like a 15 minute trike drive. So, Sister Rowley will get a kick out of this one. I've been telling everyone how much I miss the cold, well yeah karma! Because it is FREEEEZING HERE! I haven't been this cold in over a year! Day and night it is soo windy and I just come home and bundle up in the warmest clothes I have which obviously isn't much! The Philippines continues to surprise me. To my luck I scored an awesome fever, cold, and all that fun stuff. Welcome to Floridablanca sistah pilks.

Sister Echon: I finally landed myself a Filipina companion, hopefully that means my tagalog will get way better! She doesn't really understand english so we speak tagalog all the time. I thought that I was a pretty sassy/bold person, but Sister Echon has got me beat! She is super outgoing, and I don't know if my mission has just mellowed me out or what but I just chill in the backlight. She is a convert, from Mindenau, recently 2 of her siblings have been baptized and her parents have started going to church which is a miracle in her eyes. We come from very different backgrounds and have very different teaching styles, but it's only been a few days so i'm sure we will figure things out. She has only been here a month, she was emergency transferred here, and our area book has NOTHING in it, so we are pretty much white washing the area. 

Guagua Zone: My first District Leader, Elder Christiansen (my tatay) is now my Zone Leader! My District leader now is Elder Baisac from Cebu. We have lots of sisters in our zone, I being the only American, HA! All poly's and filipina's and then me :) So Sister Leakehe and I are the two sister training leaders in our zone and we recently split up the sisters between us two. We go to zone meetings in Lubau and District Meetings in Guagua, both of which are a 40 minute drive. Gua gua is the biggest city in my area, similar to Olongapo. All of the areas in my zone are pretty city for me though.

My Branch: My first night here we had dinner at one of the District President's houses, he is my favorite for 2 reasons. 1. we ate dinner but I didn't eat any rice (diet) he of course asked why and I said i'm trying to get skinny, he looks under the table and goes, "You already are!" WIN. Filipinos are pretty blunt about things like that so I'll take it! haha 2. He has the sickest red hawaiian floral shorts that he wore at dinner, waist high of course, with long white tube socks and slippers to match. SICK.  Our branch attendance never goes under 100, this week it was 132. We have branch council every week (AMAZING!) and we have a branch missionary leader! WIN! The members are super involved in the work and we have all sorts of people from Elders Quorum and Relief Society signed up to work with us this week. I had another culture shock at church when the Martin Family did a musical number. Not only was it way organized, but they were all matching. Pink and black outfits with polka dots, cutest ever. Then, to see ALL the boys in our branch wearing white collared shirts, WHOA! I felt like I was back in a ward again. Then, there was an American guy! 29 years old from Phoenix, AZ! He was there with his fiance, filipina, and they actually live in our area. His fiance isn't a member so we are going to start teaching her! There's also a member, brother Ticsay. In his family it's him, his wife, their son Gelo (pronounced jell-o) haha and their adopted son Jenver who is actually our baptism this Saturday. Anyways, brother is just the funniest man ever. He was wearing this long sleeved Safeway shirt and it was baby pink. I asked him if he knew what Safeway was (which I already knew he didn't). So he obviously says no. Then I ask where he got it. And in this little girl voice he goes, I bought it. It's my favorite color. It's baby pink. I'm old, so that's why I like baby pink, because it makes me look like a baby!. haha I love this place!

Crazies: Sister Echon and I have to take a jeepney to Resettlement, our farthest area. SO we got in the jeepney and we were the only two sitting in it at the time (once it fills up we leave), all of a sudden it starts moving and I'm like oh that's weird, they're not waiting for it to fill up before we leave, then I look up, theres no driver! We were rolling down the hill with no driver! We didn't get very far before someone noticed, and some men ran in front of the jeep and stopped it. 10 second heart attack. But don't worry, that's not the end of my crazy story. The jeepney eventually filled up and we get going. Were about halfway there when I look up as I hear a deafening scream. This trike had been going super fast down the highway, didn't see this girl crossing the street and literally ran her over. I saw the trike hit her feet first, pinning her and she then flew up in the air and landed head first onto her back. Our driver pulled over and sprinted to the girl, they got her out from under the trike and rushed her to the hospital. so sad.

I was having a hard time the other day I said a really heart-felt prayer and decided to read a few scriptures to get my spirits up. I flipped open my Book of Mormon and it opened to Alma 38: 3-5

3 "I say unto you, my (daughter), that I have had great joy in thee already, because of thy faithfulness and thy diligence, and thy patience and thy long suffering among the people of (Floridablanca)"

4 "For I know that thou wast in bonds; yeah, and I also know that thou wast stoned for the word’s sake; and thou didst bare all these things with patience because the Lord was with thee; and now thou knowest that the Lord did deliver thee."

5"And now my (daughter, Chelsea), I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day."

These verses reminded me of a quote that my dad sent me by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, "Don't give up. Don't you quit. There is help and happiness up ahead. Trust in God and good things to come." I know that I'll have my rough patches on my mission. Life in general isn't always sunshine and rainbows. But I also know that I have a loving Brother and Savior, Jesus Christ, who will hold my hand every step of the way. The church is true, and I am so grateful to be a missionary.

Have a great week!

Mahal kita,

Sister Pilkington :)