Sister Rossberg and I are companions!!

Area:  Mandama

Companion:  Sister Rossberg

Sister Training Leader

                                                                                    Monday, May 26, 2014

Family & Friends,

Yes the rumor is right, Sister Rossberg and I are COMPANIONS. Neither of us believed it when our zone leaders called us letting us know. It actually made me laugh because jokingly Sister Rossberg and I would tell President to make us companions, and what do ya know, his last transfer in the mission we became comps. He's the best. :) Sister Rossberg grew up in Colorado but is from Utah. She is planning on going to BYU Provo this fall. She is the second youngest of 5 kids, 21 years old (turns 22 July 24) and is just the best, love her! 

I have been transferred to the little town of Mandama. Things have done a complete 180. I didn't realize how rich the city Floridablanca was until I got transferred here. I feel like i'm in the middle of a hick town in the middle of nowhere. There isn't even ONE grocery store here, HAHA. Yeah not funny. I thought San Marcelino was small, this place beat it. I'm pretty sure I've got the whole place memorized after being here for five days. Should make the transition pretty easy. Our area is a poorer area, lots of poverty. The people are also not as excited to see foreigners as they were in my last two areas which is a weird change for me. We have a ton of bukid in our area, lots of nature, which I LOVE. The area is also so small that we just walk every where, the most we pay for a tricycle anywhere is 20 pesos. Whereas in Floridablanca we pay up to 100 pesos, so I am LOVING how cheap it is here. My housemates are SISTER ECHON (my old companion in Floridablanca) and Sister Makihele (She was in my zone in gua gua). Our house is SUPER small, but extremely cute and super easy to clean! I love the sisters and look forward to working with them all. We also have 4 other sisters out in Abucay that we are looking forward to having exchanges with this coming Tuesday. It is a Ward here which I am LOVING. There are a TON of return missionaries in our ward. We had a ward council meeting yesterday and I suggested we could do a ward FHE and a ward break the fast in July. The ward is having some problems, so I think these activities could help for some bonding. 

I'm super excited to help S. Rossberg get this place shaped up and get the baptisms going! S. Rossberg has been in the area for 3 transfers now, this is her 4th transfer. It can get really repetitive serving in a small area for such a long time, so it is nice to get some fresh blood in here as we go tracting down the streets she has walked down a million times. This week we have been filtering through our contacts seeing who is actually prepared and who is not. Well it was very clear who was ready or not when we showed up to their door for the second visit and they either let us right in or made up excuses for why they were busy. We had some fun experiences tracting, we went door to door contacting which I've never done before. The first door we knocked on the lady came to the door, S. Rossberg was halfway through saying "Hi, we're missionaries from the church of..." and she just goes "OH NO!" and ran away. Haha I love people. 

There is one family in particular that S. Rossberg and her companion before me found last week the Liego Family (Fritz[dad], Tet [mom], Ila [10 yr old daughter], French Vincent [5] Princess [3]). They had been taught 3 times by the time I showed up. This week we gave them a hard commitment to baptism in which the whole family said yes. The two parents and their oldest daughter will be baptized this June 21. The father has work on Sundays and also smokes and drinks, all of which are a bit of an issue when trying to get someone baptized. However this week some miracles happened. He went from smoking 10 cigarettes a day to 5 in just 3 days. He also requested to have all Sundays off which his boss granted no questions asked. We had an incredibly spiritual lesson with them last night in which he said as the head of the household he is extremely excited to be baptized. He said he doesn't want to be baptized until all of his smoking and drinking problems are gone. He did say however that his desire is so strong that he will no doubt be prepared by June 21. He said he isn't just doing this for himself, but for his family as well, and that he cannot wait to come to church this Sunday. His wife and kids came to church yesterday, his wife even cried during church because she felt the spirit so strong. Brother Fritz said as soon as he got home from work Sunday evening, Tet ran outside and started telling him all about church before he could even get off his motorcycle. He said she explained all 3 hours in full, he felt as if he had been there as well. They are the sweetest family ever, and on top of it they always send us home with a huge bag of fresh mangoes each time we teach them. I love them so much already and am so excited to continue to help them progress. PLEASE pray for them, they need our prayers!! 

So one funny story to close it up. There is this lady that has a crush on Sister Rossberg and whenever she sees us she will come walk with us and try to go to all of our appointments with us. She is really nice but just super creepy. Anyways, we saw her yesterday when we were approaching the cross walk and we tried avoiding her. She looked like she was going to cross the street so we just waited until she crossed and then we would go. Well she was unfortunately doing the same thing, waiting for us to cross so she could go with us. Well some cars started coming so we decided to run across dodging the cars and trying to lose her. Well somehow she caught up to us (running) and we were like oh no dang it. All of a sudden this HUGE PARADE comes out of nowhere (miracle), so we are running through the parade trying to dodge her and then ran to go hide in a members house. Well I was a little too excited and wasn't paying attention to where I was going. Right in front of this members house there is this little canal full of trash, mud, moss, and pee. There is one little slab of cement to cross in order to get to this members house. Well the cement block was not stable AT ALL, and I ended up slipping, trying to grab sister Nora (ward missionary working with us) as I fell down. Well that failed and I fell into the canal, scraping up my leg super bad. I didn't realize how bad until I looked down and saw blood everywhere and a goose egg forming. The good news, we were able to ditch the creepy girl following us haha. 

Well have a great week. Love you all bunches and look forward to talking to you next week! 

Sister Pilkington. xo