#alwaysthere

Crazy day today. We did our finding hours in the middle of the day.

Approx 1-4. Then we had a fireside with the missionaries in our zone.

Then we had parmos which is like chicken and cheese and garlic sauce.

So ya we are fresh outta time. Oh and I bought a new suit.... it's a gooder.

So this week has been magical because of the sun!! So pretty.

And warm. People are just happier and smiley and just good. We had a little blitz with our zone leaders Elder Scheffner... who is a former Corner Canyon MTB guy. Anyways some good times. 

Zone Conference tomorrow, I'm excited!

Ok lots has been on my mind. Specifically about our Saviour Jesus Christ. #alwaysthere thinking about the times I've been the most alone and I've needed strength, Christ has always been there. He has lifted me and strengthened me. It's a great Easter season. I am so beyond excited to hear from our prophet in a week!  

Swarma which is chicken and yummy stuff

Love Elder P

Sent from the land of lads

More snow

So this year has been unreal for snow. Not quite record breaking

because England used to get tons, but for the past 5 years it rarely

snows.

All day Saturday it was freezing and icy blowing snow. We were worried

our bus might not show.... it did just 30 min late. I must say I will be

glad to be back in a 🚗 car.

Pretty slow in terms of new friends. Had a really fun FHE with some

danish students and a member. Had a really awesome discussion about

faith! I'm so grateful for my faith. It has taken me places I never

imagined I'd go!

Sunday. These same danish students came to church!! All 3 of them

which was interesting. 1 of them, Emma, really really enjoyed it.

Said that if she was going to go to any church again it'd be ours.

Elder Selk gave a good talk.  It was very personal and it helped members bond!

Chris Barber, 2nd councillor in the bishopric, gave an excellent talk.

It mostly connected with change. How the gospel is always challenging

us to do better.

After church we went hometeaching with Chris barber. The message this

month is on attending general conference. I was asked what we can do

to prepare ourselves for general conference. Well, the first

appointment I talked about having questions and being spiritually

prepared. Second appointment I talk about (THIS IS IMPORTANT)
how we can prepare ourselves by being ready for change. Every general
conference the apostles and speakers challenge us to do better. To change something.

Every year many just brush it off and don't change. We must be ready

to change. Becoming more like Jesus Christ is a process and it will

bless us.

Oh right almost forgot. Elder Selk and I are both staying in Bishop

Auckland. The only change in the district is another new missionary

going to Sister Thatcher in Darlington. Exciting times! So this

transfer is only 4 weeks for some reason. It's the same weekend as

Clair' wedding ;) How neat is that!

We have a pretty good week planned. Very busy with members in the

evening and whatnot. Exciting times.. weather gets back up to +10

later this week. Exciting times! Summer in England is so very good!

Send me your address for a cool post card form England. 😎

Elder Cale Pilling

Sent from the land of the lads

Sister Luna on the left in the yellow is going home to Mexico!

She's finished the 18 months. So her companion (next to her) is

training. That means there will be 3 missionaries in training in our

district crazy!!!  

 

Gene, it's raining

So last week I was in Keighley for the entire pday! I had so many memories flood back! Here's a pic with my former companion and Rashid! 

  
The funeral service was perfect. So in last weeks email I sent a picture of the two old guys. I mainly went down to the funeral because I created a very special relationship with jack and Karl. Well Karl passed away so I instantly knew jack would struggle. Karl baptized Jack 22 years ago. He has been there through every step of his journey in the gospel. So we arrived and I made eye contact with Jack on the stand. Ear to ear grin, it made me so happy. The service was perfect. After, I could see Jack shuffle down the aisle and throw his arms around me in tears, saying thank you! Very special.

I went around and said hello to our neighbours.  They were thrilled so say hello. Saw Leon and a guy I taught named George. Adam got off work early so we went over there at about 3 and just chilled with them! A good refresher pday!

The rest of our week has been a tad tough. Our friend David has been pretty sick so we haven't seen him in over a week. He missed church again so we had to move his baptismal date. We are really praying we can see him tomorrow. 

We had interviews and some training from President and Sister Turvey on Wednesday. Funny story time. So Sister Turvey was talking about stress and all the things that may cause physical, emotional or spiritual stress. Well on the physical category one of the missionaries said getting assigned to a biking area.... HAHA absolutely zero physical stress if I got called there. Funny funny. 

The interviews went really well. We have 2 missionaries in the district who are nearing the end of their first transfer in the field!! Time flies!  Wow I can totally remember my first interview.  So crazy!  

This up-coming week we don't have a lot of special things, just some solid missionary work! I'm excited to hit the grind! It's finally warmer and sunnier here... not today tho lol. People tend to be happier spring and summer so I'm really really looking forward to that!

Love you all!

P.S. Congrats to Chase Websti and Izzy! Happy for you two ;) 

Elder Pilling 

Snowy district picture

A fun P-day and Snow!

Some may have heard but the UK got hit with a storm they named The

Beast From The East. Well it was pretty epic for England but mild in

Canadian standards haha. About half way through our super awesome pday

on Monday it began to snow and drop in temperature. Tuesday morning we

woke up to about 4" of snow, it snowed all night and was a proper blizzard Tuesday.  Wednesday it went up to about 6" then Thursday morning we got a total of almost 8".  Buses were cancelled, cars stuck everywhere, and no one went to work. All the grocery stores sold out of bread and milk (we had some stale bread for the sacrament).   

  

Here is the story of our p-day I promised last week. Monday at 9am super nice sister and her husband picked us up to go drive around the county side. They have a nice 2017 Volvo XC70 in a nice brown colour.  It looks quite good. First stop was her happy place (pretty much in the middle of nowhere).

Then off to some waterfalls. First one called High Force... the couple are both pretty disabled so we got to do the small 10 min hike alone... epic. Made me want to go cliff jumping. Solid 35 40 ish footer.

Waterfalls and tempting cliffs...

Second stop Low Force.. Ian, her husband, came with us on this one. Ugly water. All good fun.

 

Then we went to another small waterfall with a big over hang cove like feel. This one was super cool. On the hike up we saw a cave looking thing on the other side of the creek. Yep, we crossed the creek, went in and it's like proper big. We think it's an old mineshaft. Well there was quite a lot of water so we whipped our shoes off and ventured on. A good 100 feet or more. Got very small with a very small opening to a cavern, pictures below.

Tested my timer skills on the camera at the actual cove thing!

Then we went to a farm, saw some camels, a donkey, some sheep, and an American truck! 

Also saw a lamb being birthed. Unfortunately it didn't make it and died :/ 

Overall, it was just awesome!  Our snowy week was a little different. Nobody was really out because the government told everyone to not go out unless totally necessary. We spent time with some members and taught our friends and what not. We were not being disobedient but we got to play some games... and we played a new game you will all love. It's called 5 Crowns. Very fun. I definitely recommend. I lost terribly but that's OK. 

We have a friend we are teaching named David. He's simple and just desires to be happy. He wants a relationship with God. We taught him the plan of salvation and talked a lot about Jesus Christ and his role in God's plan. I love teaching because it gives me the time to testify of the Saviour and his infinite love. I love the feeling of the Holy Ghost as it confirms the truths I know. 

God lives and he loves us. There is nothing we can do where he will give up on us. He is always there, we just need to spend some time to let him in. 

Love Yous,

Elder Pilling 

Sent from the land of lads