July 7, 2014 ZONE LEADER (Elder Swanson)

The last couple of weeks have been insane!! SOOO busy.

We had transfers two weeks ago, and President Sweeney called me to be a Zone Leader in Mesa. As Zone Leader, I have been busy with so many missionaries. The first week, a sister went home. We had to emergency transfer another sister over to replace her. In another companionship, a sister went back to her old area for stress related reasons, so we had to figure out the situation with her companion. Another companionship was having problems arguing, and one of them eventually got emergency transferred as well for un-related issues. SO many changes happened that we were apart of. Plus, we spent several hours in the middle of the night in the ER with a companionship due to an asthma attack.

I didn't think this calling would be so chaotic, but I was mistaken!

We have been involved in various other appointments and meetings with missionaries every day. It's great to serve others, but it has been a little difficult to balance it with our area and investigators.

Our mission started using pepper-spray for the sisters recently. We had an accident with one of our sisters getting attacked by dogs, and because of that, started doing trainings to be 'certified' to use it. I am proud to announce, that I am now pepper spray certified.... Wahoo.

We woke up one morning to the sound of a waterfall in our kitchen. We realized we had a leak from the ceiling. That went on for a couple days unfortunately, but has now been taken care of. Who would've thought I could live in AZ AND a rainforest at the same time? Now we know.

We had a super cool experience in the middle of a haboob this week. We were instructed to pull over immediately and turn the car off, so we sat inside the hot, humid, stinky car for about 45 minutes. Pictures will be coming.

The WORST part of my week was a tragedy in the ward. Yesterday after church, a single father, recent convert and his 4 young kids were going home from church. As they walked into their apartment parking lot, his youngest daughter Jackie, (2 yrs old), was hit and killed by a large SUV, who took off after hitting her. We were called and notified, as well as the other members, who all went to help. What an upsetting time for this family! Please keep them in your prayers and thoughts. The dad, Genaro, is having a really hard time as you can imagine.

Elder Pilkington