9/17/14-New Assignment AND Companion

Suzie, I love you! :D I'm so excited for you to be in San Diego and enjoy the Spirit that you will feel throughout the next 17.5 months. It'll go by fast, so make the most of it!!

We got calls early last week due to a conference President had to be at. He called Elder Swanson and me on Wednesday. He asked me if I would train!! Of course I accepted it. I'm staying in the same area with the car on the reservation. Then he asked if Elder Swanson would train a missionary into Spanish work. He has been out for a while but is switching to Spanish. THEN he asked us if we would still be Zone Leaders..... So now we are split up but still the ZLs for this zone.

My companion is super cool. His name is Elder Matthew Sorensen from South Jordan, UT. We get along great and it will stay that way. He has awesome desires to serve and do the best he can. We are just going to follow the spirit in everything we do and we know we'll be blessed from Heavenly Father.

The two baptisms we were planning on won't happen this week either, but Y will be baptized on the 27th. She has told us already that she is ready, she just wants her family to accept it more than they do right now. O is close as well. He told several members, during church last Sunday, that he was going to be baptized soon. He also has two young kids who we are trying to teach as well. More on that to come.

Something that has been impressed on my mind strongly this past week are family home evenings. For those who don't know, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Monday nights have been set aside for family time. During this time, we are encouraged to set goals together, learn about certain principles and guidelines that will bless our family, and really just be with one another. Even if your kids are grown and out of the house. Our church leaders have counseled us on the importance of doing them regularly, and I have seen lots of blessings go to families who do it. I want everyone to have the same blessing! :D

Wish me luck on this training thing so I don't ruin the rest of Elder Sorensen's mission! ;D

Elder Pilkington

PS It's been raining and flooding here a lot! It's fun to drive in though ;)

PSS Elder Nelson is coming this Saturday to address us and the Mesa mission!!

Happy Birthday, Thomas!

I'm finally am setting apart some time to fill people in on my life. These things are going to be super out of order probably, but I'll at least give you some decent detail.

First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUZIE!!! :D:D:D I love you.

OK, let's move on.

A few weeks ago, one of the elders that was living with us got a call from our president, explaining to him that his step father had passed away. His mom can't take care of herself too well, so he finished early and went home to be with her. That left his companion to be with us. It has been a great few weeks with him, other than not being able to get to his area a lot. Our area has been so busy lately!! (More on that in a few minutes). Anyway, the elder that has been with us got a call on Friday, and was switched to another area, leaving me and my companion with the whole ward by ourselves. We've gone from 6 missionaries to 2 in a matter of 3 months. That has really piled on the work!!

Other than our own area, we have been doing A LOT of zone activities. Temple trip, zone conference, exchanges with other missionaries, Mission Leadership Councils, Zone Training Meetings, etc. Not to mention the countless doctor appointments, chiropractic appointments, and LDS family service appointments that we give rides to. It seems like we barely have time in our area some days.

Let me give some more detail on some of these activities:

Temple Trip- We are able to go to the temple once every other transfer, or every 3 months. We had the chance to go a few weeks ago with our zone. I can't even begin to describe the answers and the feelings that I received from the Spirit while we were there. If you are member and haven't been to the temple for a while, I highly encourage you to take the opportunity and GO!! IF you aren't a member, find the closest temple with a visitor's center, and learn more!

Zone Conference- We have the privilege to meet with our president once every 3 months to have a small conference. This one was incredible! We talked about several different ideas or principles, but one of the most powerful was the discussion about Peter. In the Bible, we learn that Peter has ups and downs during the period of time before the Resurrection. He shows his faith by getting out his boat, but then quickly loses that faith and begins to sink. We see this same concept when he promises to the Savior that he would NEVER deny him. Shortly thereafter, we learn that he denies Jesus three times. We talked about how this often happens to us as members and missionaries as well. We often tell ourselves what we believe and make promises to ourselves to become better. We set goals to do so, but sadly, we often forget our own knowledge and understanding. We continued to study about Peter after the Resurrection of Christ. He becomes a completely different man. He goes through the 'Refiner's Fire' so to say. We are now focusing on making ourselves better through his example.

Dang, that was a long one...

MLC- We usually have one MLC at the beginning of each month, but this month we were lucky to have two! The first one was great. We had a few trainings given, and had some discussion of different matters in the mission. That one was good, but the one with Elder Lawerence E. Corbridge was a little better. ;) He is a member of the seventy that came and spoke to the 30 ZLs and STLs in our mission. (Zone Leader and Sister Training Leader). It was such a spiritual, enlightening meeting. I always love hearing from General Authorities, whether in person or not.

SO much more to talk about!!! I'll keep it short..ish.

A couple weeks ago, one of the elders in our zone got hit by a car and got some gross looking road rash to the face. He's doing OK now, don't worry. The funny part, is that after he got hit, his companion wasn't paying attention and smashed into the side of the car. Karma I guess.

We have 2 baptismal dates for the 13th! One of them is an 18 yr old girl and the other is 40ish yr old guy. They were both referrals from one member family, and now they both have dates. I'll keep you updated on them.

We have been implementing several new finding ideas in our ward. One of them is a sports night, (which I bought a new bball for), and another is an English class, which nobody comes to.

We've had some cool services recently that have involved mowing lawns, cleaning up wood piles full of lizards and scorpions, and cleaning churches. Gotta love the service!

We have pizza a lot at the church. We call it capizza. (capilla+pizza=capizza) Capilla means church in spanish. So like church pizza, churizza, but it flows better in spanish.

I got a jar of syrup for my birthday from the Stake President and his wife! :) It's good stuff!!

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I hit my year mark on Thursday, and that's pretty cool too.

I'll probably get better at blog emails. This one was scattered. Apologies.

I love you all, thanks for the support. You make a bigger difference than you realize, just from your prayers and thoughts.

Elder Pilkington

Pictures!! August 2014

 Doing Service with a Machete!

 

 Good 'ole Thumbs Up

 

 Elder Clements and Elder Pilk

 

 Being Zone Leader and the hospital responsibilities that go along with it

 

" Haboob"  Major dust storm!

 

 Elder Pilk and Elder Swanson-current companion!

 

 Proud to say that Thomas is officially pepper-spray certified against dogs

 

Baptism for Manuel

 

Elder Clements and Elder Pilk

July 28, 2014 (Elder Swanson)

We had a baptism on Saturday, which was great! The investigator, Manuel, was so prepared. He had investigated about a year ago, and had loved everything he heard. He wanted so badly to be able to move forward and be baptized, but he wasn't able to keep commitments at all. He was married to an Indian Woman who was physically and mentally ill. She was actually raised in the church, but had been less active for most of her life. He was her primary caregiver, and it was such a time consuming job for him, he wasn't able to make time for God. Unfortunately, about 3 weeks ago, she passed away from a heart attack. As sad as it was, he realized that he could now accomplish his goals in the church. A week after her death, my companion and I decided to pass by and check on them, (not knowing that she had died). He quickly progressed and was able to be baptized. His testimony of the baptismal covenant is the strongest I have ever heard of from recent converts or strong members of the church.

Our area continues to progress! We have seen so many miracles with various aspects of the work. Members are starting to understand the importance of helping in this amazing work, and have given us so much support. Several great studies that I've had in the last few weeks relate to this idea exactly!

The first study I did, was about plans. Just plans in general. As I continued through the study, I thought about plans that are in action today. The biggest plan we have, is God's plan. I studied how God has such a successful plan, and what we should be doing as a ward, to copy Heavenly Father's plan for us and create a successful mission plan. I hope we are able to implement that with our ward soon! I know that as we mimic the way the Lord has done things, we will be successful as He has been.

The other study I did, was with Fellow shipping/ Home & Visiting Teaching. I had never really thought of it as being something super important. Growing up in Utah, there weren't a ton around me  that weren't members of the church, and those members were almost all active! At least the ones my Dad and I were assigned to. As I have experienced new things on my mission, I have come to understand the great need for these small visits. I quickly realized how many opportunities I missed to share the gospel. Even my neighbor across the street wasn't a member, and I rarely talked to him. The times I did were about the weather.

How often do we miss opportunities to share the gospel with others? How many times have we neglected our duties as home and visiting teachers? How much do we truly think about our baptismal covenant of helping others in every circumstance?

Why not invite someone to the next church activity or family home evening? Why not suggest their name to the missionaries?

Let's work together to help everyone have the happiness that we do!

Elder Pilkington

July 14, 2014...a little late!

IPADS!! We found out that ipads have been approved for our mission, and we'll get them in the next 2 months or so. The only thing, is that we have to pay for them, but I'm fine with that! No more paper records!!

We have assisted 2 funerals this week. One of them was for the young girl that died last Sunday, and the other was for the wife of one of our investigators. This particular investigator has been taught for quite a while and therefore knows quite a bit, but unfortunately had never been able to go to church because he was always caring for his mentally and physically ill wife. After she died of a heart attack a few weeks ago, he met with us and basically told us he would conform to the will of the Lord. At the funeral, he introduced us as his 'teachers' to the Pastor who was conducting the service. He has a lot of respect for the church and is completely willing to do whatever is asked of him. He accepted a baptismal date for July 26! As we talked about tithing during church yesterday, he leaned over to my companion and asked what the quickest way to pay tithing was. We're very excited to see his progression this week and up to the point of baptism.

We had a neat experience yesterday with another one of our investigators. She has been taking lessons FOREVER because of marriage problems, but we solved that all yesterday! As my companion Elder Swanson was teaching a different lesson across the balcony, I was sitting with Emma and talking about her future. We decided that it's time to set some goals and work towards them. I invited her to think about and set her own goals for marriage and baptism, and set did without hesitation! She chose August 9 to be married, and chose August 16 to be baptized. We are also working with her boyfriend, trying to strengthen him again as an investigator.

We had a really neat experience with Nikki, a girl we decided to talk to one night. We were on our way to an appointment, and saw Nikki folding some clothes outside. I kind of got the impression to start a bigger conversation with her than just , "Hey!". I walked over and my companion followed and we began to get to know her. She has been going through lots of struggles recently, and hasn't known where to turn for help. She has some friends and family tell her to ask the 'mormons' for help because 'they help everyone'. She didn't feel comfortable seeking us out, so she prayed for us instead. And we showed up! We got her set up with the English Sister Missionaries, and she seems to be doing a little bit better. It just shows us that the Lord truly does put us in certain places at certain times, even if our intended plans don't work out.

Have a good week!

Elder Pilkington

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

June 16, 2014 (Elder Clements)

What a week!

 

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the amount of lessons that we had been getting in the past, but we had a lot of service, and great lesson with less actives. We have now helped 2 families get back to church, and are working hard with others.

We have been meeting a lot as missionaries of the branch, and had a meeting to review the 3 areas in the branch. After fasting and praying and meeting with our Mission President, we have decided to shut an area down. That means two of the missionaries here right now will leave. The boundaries of the branch will be re-adjusted into just 2 areas. What we have been told so far, is that most likely, I will stay and train somebody, and they will bring in two different missionaries to white wash the Sisters area and the area that's being shut down. We'll see what happens with that.

 

Bigger news! We had been told all week that there were big things going on at church, but we all kind of thought the Branch Presidency was getting switched. To our surprise, President and Sister Sweeney were there, the Stake Presidency was there, and Elder Wright, Area Seventy was there as well. They announced that after having talked to the First Presidency of the Church and reviewing everything, the Mesa Grande Branch is now qualified to be a ward!!! We now have 2 Spanish wards in the Mission!! It was great to hear the story of how the Branch was started not too long ago. What progress!! Along with that, the Sisters had a baptism on Saturday and the new member was confirmed yesterday. We just continue to build up the Lord's Kindgdom wherever we go! The life of being a missionary is stressful at times, but what blessings and miracles come from it!

 

Short email this week, but great changes are being made. I'm excited to see how we continue progressing!!

 

DC 26:1

 

Elder Pilkington