Sister Chelsea Pilkington

Sister Chelsea Pilkington
Sister Chelsea Pilkington

Monday, June 16, 2014

Lots of laughs, smiles and tears this week!

Companion:  Sister Rossberg
Area:  Mandama
Sister Training Leader

                                                                                                            Monday, June 16, 2014

Hello friends and fam.

First off, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO MY AMAZING DADDY. Second, CONGRATULATIONS to my best friend in the entire world, Heath for your mission call to Russia, so so proud of you! Third, Happy Birthday to my beautiful mother and to auntie shauna! And Congrats to JJ this week for his marriage! 

This week has been a great one. Full of fun adventures, lots of sunny days with rainy nights, fighting off a cold, and lots of finding. Sister Rossberg and I are sad because the transfer flew by way too fast. We find out who gets transferred Tuesday night, Sister Rossberg has been in the area for quite some time now so we are anticipating that she will be transferred. If not, we will be together for another 8 weeks, which happens to be her last transfer of the mission! Crazy! 

We had a huge mission party last Monday which was awesome, so good to see all my friends and just throw a football around, play some games, and take a little breather. We made a trip to the mall as well where I had a quesadilla for the first time in what feels like forever! (we are getting mexican food again for lunch today, we heard it's like taco bell, yet i'm soo excited haha!) The mission party was very fun, we also had a devotional, at the end we all sang "God Be With You Till We Meet Again", we stood and sang as an entire mission, I felt like I was at the MTC again, the Spirit was so strong. Tears were shed, we are really going to miss the Querido's. They will always have a special place in our heart.

Yes, I hit my one year this Thursday..crazy, I still feel like one of the new sisters in the mission, and now..i'm one of the veterans. Weird. As for exciting things for the week, the Llego's are still doing awesome. They had a little bit of a breakdown week last week. Their two little kids will not let their parents leave them at school, so mommy and daddy have enrolled in school too! They get to sit there and watch their kids at school all day (not fun), and then brother works night shift, aka he has had no sleep the past week. That being said, we were only able to teach them once last week because they were so exhausted or "haggard" as they would say. However, they all came to church yesterday, INCLUDING BROTHER! It was a special day. 

We have found some new families this week, the Manuel family--there are five of them. Jeraldine and Marlon 31 & 29, they have 3 kids, 2 boys and 1 girl ages (12, 10, 4). They are going to come to family home evening later tonight, and are really excited. We look forward to teaching them this week and hopefully they will join us at church on Sunday. We also found the Santos family which are an older family. Nanay and Tatay are in their low 60's, then all of their children live with them, including their wives and children. We have been teaching whoever is home, they are super curious and even said they want to come to church next Sunday! 

We have also been working with the Trajano family. Brother is in his 30's, his wife is working in Davao right now, and his two sons, Awi (18) and Likha (11). The wife and two sons are members, the wife's family is ALL members all the way down the line to her great grandparents. However, she was not baptized when she was a child, she was baptized with her kids two years ago, her parents referred her family to the missionaries. Brother however was not baptized because he was working abroad at the time. We were able to find him though and are now teaching him, he has a baptismal goal date for July. Things should go well, he is looking for a job right now though which might take him to Manila, hopefully not, we are praying he gets a job here locally. Awi just left to go back to Manila for school, however we had him work with us and his spirit is incredible. We are really encouraging him to go on a mission, we got his email so we can check in on him while he's away at school and make sure he's active. He's like our little brother. We love their sweet family. Brother needs to just come to church a few more times and get rid of coffee and cigarettes and he will be ready to go.

This week has been awesome, lots has happened, lots of laughs, smiles, tears, all of the above. But the work still proceeds to go on here in Mandama, Bataan. Have a great week!

Love, Sister Pilkington

P.S.  The DAVID FAMILY GOT BAPTIZED!!!! (they were in Floridablanca)


P.P.S.  Sister Rossberg and I had to laugh when we were at stake conference Saturday evening, the speaker was saying how we need to be more reverent in our meetings and was saying things we should and shouldn't do he goes "we really should not be texting during meetings, it's distracting" and S. Rossberg was texting right as he says it, so we just giggle and she was guilty.  Then I'm starving because it was like 7 and we still hadn't eaten so he then continues on to say "and we shouldn't be eating during meetings either" right as I was putting a cracker in my mouth. Naughty sister missionaries, everyone sitting behind us was just cracking up. Bad example but too funny, haha.

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