Nov 18, 2014

Hey! Sorry I haven't been able to give you the deets of my last few weeks.  It was crazy so I'm just going to give you the rundown of what happened. So I was companions with a temple square sister as my follow-up trainer. That  was really difficult because I barely knew what I was doing and she wasn't familiar with full-proselyting or working with wards or the area and I was just really overwhelmed. We just weren't getting along at all.  So I emailed my President telling him how I was feeling and how I was having really bad anxiety. Then he called to see what was going on so I just told him how I was feeling and my companion got upset because I didn't come to her first, which is understandable, but I didn't feel like I could. So Sister Schmitt, the mission mom, came to study with us to get a better feel of what was going on.  I explained how I was feeling and how upset I was. We had interviews with the President and he decided the work would move forward better if we split up. I'm glad it happened because it was a good learning experience, but it was really hard for those few weeks! And the Schmitt's are the best people I've ever met! They were just so loving and understanding even though this was probably the last of their concern. So now I am with Sister Hyde and we have a party! Sister Schmitt still calls and checks up and Sis. Hyde is mad that we're on the radar. It's just funny and we laugh about it now.  But we work hard and see a lot of miracles. The coolest one was we went to go find a potential investigator and the woman who answered the door had no idea who we were talking about but she is a single mother in the Navy and she is super interested in Mormonism, so the Elders are teaching her now! Miracles! I love you guys! Thanks for all the support! Keep being the best and don't die of Swine Flu, Mom. Also Dad, you are dork. JK. haha you're funny and I love you! People think it's weird that you guys are my best friends, but you are.

                                      Sis Pilkington with her new bear friend from her ward

                                                                 Sis Pilk and Sis Hyde

                                                                    Sis Pilk and Sis Hyde

                                                                        La Jolla Cove

Nov 4, 2014

Transfers were last week!  I have a new companion from Chile and Sis. Larson is going back to the Battalion Museum.  I can still see her all the time if I have an investigator to take to the Museum. We moved to another apartment with MTC Sis. Larson and Sis. Thaler, her trainer. It was the 4 of us for a week and it was a party! We decided to have the bedrooms for studying so our beds are in the living room right when you walk in the appt., orphanage style.   I am really sad trainer Sis. Larson is leaving though. Our YSA ward is either all freshmen or 30 year olds. We like to play matchmaker with the freshmen. We should probably focus more on the 30 year olds but c'est la vie. haha! But we're really good at it. There was a really cute less active girl who showed up on sunday and no one was sitting by her and so we told our friend to go sit by her and now they're going on a date!!!

My new companion has been out for 9 months and is actually a missionary from Temple Square.  The missionaries there get to go "outbound" for two transfers.  It's been a bit challenging because she isn't a proselyting missionary so even though she has been out longer, she is still kind of a greenie here.  And she doesn't want me to tell her how we have done things here.  So, it gets pretty frustrating at times.  I am worried that we will lose our investigators.  I should have 6 more weeks of training, but I won't be getting trained right now.  It doesn't help that I am getting homesick too.  I guess this week has just been hard.  Hopefully I will have more positive things to report next week.

 

A few time a week we run a booth at Mesa College.  We have to park at the mission office across the street, then walk a good ways into the center of campus because of construction.  We have to carry a table, chairs, banners and our big box of BofM's. It's a long walk with all that stuff!  We don't do it on set days but it's usually Mondays or Wednesdays. There aren't a lot of students there on Friday so we don't usually go then.

 

Our investigators are good. We had to pass off X to the Chula Vista missionaries. B and his friend dropped us :( But it's ok. It was mostly arguments anyway. They didn't want to learn.

 

T is finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. She kicked her boyfriend out. He cut up all of her clothes before he left and trashed her room. We went by the next day to drop off a bag of clothes we found in our closet from a previous sister while moving out. We had no idea that any of this had happened so it was a huge blessing to her. He wrote all over her sheets and there was a set of sheets in the bag we gave to her! She had no pajamas and there were pajamas in there too! She wanted to go to church on Sunday but had no church clothes to wear and it was all missionary clothing so that was good. So many miracles! Now that he's out she can start focusing of herself and her progression. The ward members have also been super great! We told some sisters in relief society about her and they got her a huge basket of clothes and our ward mission leader got her a HUGE box of pantry food.