Week 68 - 5/12/2014

Hello family! I just skyped (google chat to be politically correct) you! whoo! So fun. This week was a blast. Looking back, there was nothing in particular that was super great but I guess the most significant thing is that we made it great! So to start, last week after emailing, we had a zone activity at the beach! It was like the prettiest beach ever! If I ever come back ever again, that's where I'm headed. And we played volleyball, football, took jumping pictures, you know, the normal stuff. And that night we had an FHE (family home evening) at a member's house and the elders brought their investigators and we just had a blast. They get really into their FHE games... don't worry I'm writing them all done to play when we get home. My favorite thing about their games is the penalty if you lose, you have to do a talent! So Sister Brown and I got 3 strikes each so we did slide (the hand game that kids do) and they LOVED it! I've never thought to do that as a talent before, but it was perfect. We were told transfer announcements would be late this week but we were shocked when Sister Vea got the call Tuesday to transfer and train! It was pretty sad, especially at this point at my mission because I never know if I'll see these people ever again! And then we found out me and Sister Brown are staying!!! So fun. So before Sister Vea left, I got a recording of them singing some Tongan hymns, so beautiful! Basically my life goal to memorize those. Then we found out on Thursday Sister Pettijohn is new companions with Sister Clarin! (in our apartment) I lived with her in Balaquid! (my last area) So fun. 

And this will be a shock to all familiar to missionary work, probably the highlight of my week was weekly planning! We do it every week so it really shouldn't be too exciting but because Sister Brown and I stayed together, we sat down and made some pretty awesome transfer goals. Some fun, some necessary, it's been so great. 

1. Find a professional family that will be a blessing to our branch

2. Find a place to hard bind our PMG- it's basically a necessity as a missionary in the Philippines

3. English fast- that's right, she joined. I'm so excited! It's been going pretty well! Not quite 100% yet, but working on it

4. Exercise daily

5. Find more service opportunities

6. Read from PMG daily in comp. study- sometimes we run out of time...

7. Find best halo-halo in Catbalogan

8. Learn and cook more variety of meals- I want to be a master at pinoy food

9. Clean daily- that will be easier now that we have the rat problem fixed :)

10. This is my favorite and been the most fun thus far--> do something fun every day and take a picture. Basically it's our goal to remember to take pictures of the little fun things we do like spaghetti Sundays, dying in front of the fans for planning every night, splurging on Hershey’s candy bars to celebrate our 2nd transfer together-- that's right, they're expensive and fancy!, having the other sister's buy us Jollibee (the only fast food here) because we haven't gone outside all day cause I've been sick. So that explains those pictures this week...Take joy in the little things. So get ready for a more day-to-day look into the life of a bunch of goofy sister missionaries :)

Hope you all have a great week! I love you!

Sister Pike

Week 59 - 3/10/2014

Well, nothing super exciting- we had a zone activity and went to the zoo again this time as the whole zone then we hiked a mountain! This morning we missed the bus so we just fit four of us on the back of a motorcycle and drove the hour. As I was driving past the prettiest view in the whole world, I remember how incredibly rare that is and I need to just enjoy it all while I can! Even in other areas in the mission and other missions in the Philippines, no one rides motorcycles because they don't need to! But here it's basically mandatory. It's so nindot! And our activity was pretty fun, mostly to get to know all the missionaries that we don't see very often. We just found out our zone leader is opening the area opening up this week so we'll be getting a new one! That will be interesting. And on Sunday morning right before church they called and said they would be moving us into our apartment right after church- no notice at all! And then they checked our apartment and there was no key so they couldn't get in and turns out they still need to fix it so the goal is Thursday! It's so soon! The workers needed to work in our apartment AGAIN so we stayed in the other sister's apartment for the 3rd time! It's becoming a once a week thing, but it's been really fun getting to know everyone. And it's nice we're to the point in Balaquid (our other area) that we have progressing investigators and they're like our "go to" every night because it's so hard to find at night right when it gets dark at 6 cause I feel like it's like 11pm because of how empty and dark it is! 

Also, I got an email from Dumaguete (sister weber) saying Efren got baptized!!! He was the crazy prepared one that wanted to go on a mission after the first lesson, I'm so excited to keep in touch with him and see the great things he does. 

Hopefully next week I'll be reporting on Naval!

Love, Sister Pike