Area: Floridablanca
Companion: Sister Echon
Sister Training Leader
Monday,
March 10, 2014
Hello My Dears!
You always know
you’re heading for a good week when you get locked into your own room on the
second story of your house for 45 minutes…during a brown out (no
electricity…aka SO HOT!) Yea, it’s a true story. Somehow between me coming into
our room and Sister Echon leaving the door handle got jammed into the wall.
Resulting in throwing of knives up the side of our two story house, trying to
ply myself out of the door, hauling Sister Echon up and over the terrace into
our room and two short tiny little Filipina’s attempting to break my door down.
Turns out all we needed was a handy male (our neighbor) to take off the
doorknob and I was FREE! Ha, nightmare. But don’t worry, we were still on time
for zone meeting!
Well with the bad
always comes the good right? We experienced some small but significant miracles
this week. There is the less active that we have been looking for since I got
here to Floridablanca, so I guess that makes it two months now, and we still
had yet to find her. The area that she lives in is soo huge and unlike America
there's no pretty little street signs and house numbers so we literally just
walk around asking people hoping someone knows them. Well this week we were in
that neighborhood teaching some new investigators that we have found and after
teaching the lesson we were going to do some more finding. We weren't exactly
sure where to start so we just turned down this street. (Keep in mind its about
7:30 at night so it's dark out now.) As we were walking this little boy runs up
to us and asks if we were Mormons, I said yes then jokingly asked why are you
too? Then he goes no! But my sister and dad are! I asked if they were home and
he said yes so I said sige tarana (go ahead)! and he took us to his house.
Turns out, his sister and dad are the exact family that we have been looking
for the past two months! Sister Echon and I considered it a small miracle
:)
My second week here
in Florida I went on exchanges with a sister in GuaGua, and while there, an
investigator that we were teaching gave me the name of his daughter who lives
in Sister Echon and I's area and told us to go find her and teach her. Well
months have gone by and we still have yet to contact this lady. Wednesday
morning S. Echon asked me what the name of that referral was that I got in
GuaGua and I could not remember it for the life of me. The next morning we were
riding bikes and we got punted, the person we planned to visit wasn't home. All
of a sudden I told S. Echon that we needed to go contact that referral but
neither of us could remember her name. All of a sudden letter by letter the
name slowly appeared before my eyes as if it was written on a sign. The first
person we asked on the street just so happened to be her best friend and she
directed us right to her home. We were able to teach a beautiful lesson to her
and her mother-in-law and they have invited us to come back again soon! Another
beautiful little miracle.
S. Echon and I also
had the privilege to work with Elder and Sister White this week, it was the
first time I have worked with a senior couple on my mission and it was a BLAST!
We went and visited some less active families, I was acting as the translator,
for once I actually felt smart! Ha. But man working with them made me want to
serve another mission with my honey someday! They're so cute.
One of our less actives,
Tatay Mitra (ninja prayer man) told me and S. Echon this week that when we
teach we have this convincing power, it's almost like it's the Spirit he said!
Success, we are doing something right here! Haha
Our Assistant's to
the President called us this week saying that as a mission if we can bring 200
souls back to the Lord through baptisms and less active returns that we will
have a mission wide party!!! That means I will see my anak si (daughter) Sister
Rowley and all my batch!!! S. Echon and I were soo motivated, being that we are
competitive and love anything with a challenge. This week we had 21 new
investigators, 6 investigators attended church and 4 less actives. We are on
track for an awesome month here in Floridablanca!
As I was reviewing a
conference talk "Beware of Bondage", I started thinking of how every
little thing we do in life will ultimately affect us forever. I love when
President Monson said, "Decisions determine destiny." Those 3 words
ring so true to me. Even more so now on my mission as I am experiencing a
completely different eyeglass of life. I see so many families here where the
parents never even graduated elementary school--back when they were little it
was because they wanted to play with friends or go to the computer shop. But
you bet 30 years later now that they have a family and can barely put three
meals on the table they're wondering why they didn't see the bigger picture of
life clearer back then, or even more so, why someone didn't warn them. This
life is hard, we all know that. But if we will look at things with an eternal
perspective, and think about what things truly matter most, then we will lead a
life worth living. I challenge you to live your lives consistent to the
teachings of the gospel, you will be much happier. This gospel is the way, it
is the only way as Jesus Christ states in 2 Nephi 31:21. Have the eternal
perspective, not the here and now instant gratification.
I want to give my
condolences to the Pingry Family for the loss of their father and husband. What
a beautiful blessing that we know that families can be together forever. I love
this scripture from 2 Nephi 2 "Thou knowest the greatness of God; and he
shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain." Our trials are what make
us stronger in life, the veil is so thin, and he is now your guardian angel.
Continue in your faith, be closer to the Lord than ever before, He will lift
you and carry you through this rough time in your life. God Bless.
Love you all, have a great
week!
Sister Pilkington. xo
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