The Lord blesses us when we do hard things (Jacob-Toulon)

Well I don't remember last week so I guess I can just leave it at that. Missionary work just flies by. Things are just really picking up which is crazy because I thought it was already going fast! 

Some of the highlights of this week were:

1) We had a lesson with Rodolf (an ami (investigator) who we started to teach from the other equip of elders) where we basically taught him everything that he was doing wrong and was a sensitive lesson. It was an awesome experience as I saw him (and his female companion who is a convert) show a lot of faith and willingness to work toward his baptism. 

2) Zone Training in Nice!! That was awesome and helped me to refocus on the things that are important. We learned that goals are the key to life. When we set righteous goals, take them to the Lord, and then do everything in our power to accomplish these goals, we will succeed. I learned that there is a reason why the Lord gives us so many meetings in the church. To help keep us in check. I feel like every time that I come away from a zone conference or district meeting I gain this sense of renewal. I get a new perspective and can really see what things need to change in order to improve. I think that the important thing, so that we do not keep having to be checked every time, is application. When we hear the words of our leaders or others, we apply it to ourselves right then so we can continue to have that renewed energy every day.

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Nice waterfront

3) We had several miracles at church yesterday. We had an inactive family come back to church!!! So awesome! They just all came and it was so great! The dad is so nice and we saw him a couple weeks ago! Also Rodolf came to church and it was so great! He is a taxi driver and so he has weird hours of work. Plus yesterday was the busiest day of the year for his line of work because all the boats came into harbor and there were tons of people! So basically he told us he wouldn't be able to come to church. But apparently after our lesson on Tuesday he asked his companion to iron a shirt for him because he needed to be at church! He showed up for all three hours even after working until 5:30 in the morning!!! Talk about faith.

It looks like Dad is having some late nights and early mornings so you can relate to Rodolf in doing what needs to be done even when you have absolutely no strength, energy, or even sometimes desire to do it.  I know the Lord blesses us as we are righteous and do these hard things.

As far as other random things to add: 

My mission credit card got ruined by whoknowswhat and so I had to order another one today. It will take a little bit of time so we will be living off of Elder Frandsen's money for the first half of the month. :) 

To answer mom's question about how we get around. Basically we buy a monthly bus pas for here (Toulon has like 100 buses!!) and then use the buses to get everywhere. Other than that we walk. I have never realized how dumb it is to use the car to get places when you have two feet that work just as great! (unless it's more than a 30 minute walk ;)) There are elders in St. Raphael that have bikes so if I ever serve there I will have a bike which would be cool. We use the train to get anywhere that is far off so anytime we go to another ville for zone conference or district meetings.

Missionaries in Toulon don't have to worry about the gas prices!

French train

Also yesterday we had a break the fast with the ward! Oh man it was so good!! There is literally always so much food to eat and I have a problem with stuffing myself before the desserts. Then they bring out an equal amount of desserts as there were normal dishesl. But so far I haven't gained very much weight (but it is true that we only have a scale in kilos which are bigger that pounds so every kilo is like 3 pounds.) Well, I'll just have to start running in the morning.

I love you all and hope everything is going well!

Elder Pettingill

Getting settled in (Katie-Mulhouse)

Ma famille incroyable (My incredible family)!

Wow thanks for your email Dad! That sounds like quite the week...and very busy.   

So our amis are doing awesome! I wish I could tell you every single detail about every single one of them, but alas, there is not enough time. :'( BUT! I do get to tell you about a couple of them. Evelin is an Amie Ancienne, which means she was once an ami (the word for friend in French, which is what they call their investigators) but the missionaries stopped teaching her for some reason. We're still not sure why. In my letter to you, Mom, I tell you the story about how we found her again. But for now, we taught her a first lesson on Saturday! She and her family are AMAZING. She has so much faith already. She's Brazilian, and so her French is pretty hard for me to understand, but everything she says has so much faith and beauty to it. We sang "How Great Thou Art" with her, and in the middle of the song she started to cry. It was a song that her grandmother used to sing with her when she was little, and I know she felt the spirit. It was such a neat experience. We're seeing her again this week :)

Séviley is another one...actually I take that back. She is not our official amie yet parce que (because) she is actually Muslim. And we have to get permission from President to teach Muslims, but she's super awesome! We brought a member with us (Sr. Blazevic and her two CRAAAZY boys ;) ) and they hit it off and we invited her to come to church, but she was going out of town. But we're going to invite her to officially take the lessons soon! :))))

Mirjana (I think I've told you about her) told us the last time we stopped by that she feels it. She's ready to be baptized. OH MY GOODNESS. The only thing is she won't be baptized because her husband is refusing to see us at all. We"ve got to work on him...I love her so much though. It's amazing how close to the Spirit she is already.

Ok, so now for our miracle family. We met Elodie and Giovanni while walking through this strip of magasins (stores). It was originally just Elodie and her little girl Julia, and she wasn't interested at all. But we asked her about her petite fille (little girl) and we were talking and then her copain (boyfriend) (they're not married) came up and he was super interested (he's Italian haha) and super nice and so we set up a rendez-vous (teaching appointment) with them! The first lesson was on Sunday and it was so beautiful. We taught them how to pray and Giovanni was able to do it a voix haute (out loud) for the first time ever. It was one of the most beautiful prayers I've ever heard. We gave them a LdM and invited them to pray about it and they both said they would! I seriously almost started crying. The Spirit was SO strong. And they said that we could absolutely come back and teach them more about the LdM! So we are. On Thursday. I'm so happy and excited about them! They are so cute and young. What a miracle. :)

Okay, so changing topics a little bit, I want to talk food. I LOVE FRANCE. The food is amazing. Like seriously, Sr. Hafen's aunt sent her some PB (like 8€ for a tiny jar here) and we go and buy a baguette for like 80 centimes and have pb&j sandwiches on a BAGUETTE (Dad, you know me and pb&j. Imagine the best raspberry jam and peanut butter on a baguette. So good). We've also had like 3 repas (meals) with members this week. One of my favorites (let's face it, they're all my favorites) was with Patriarch Mortz and his wife. We had three different kinds of salad first (a cucumber one, a guacamole type one, and a carrot one) and then we had stuffed zucchini and stuffed tomato. And then we had bread and three different kinds of cheese. And then we had magnum bars (ice cream) for desert. I was so full and it was so yummy...it's super hard to keep it to an hour and a half though. The French take a long time to eat...hahaha. Okay, one more thing about food. I love being able to walk like 2 seconds to the closest of a hundred thousand boulangeries and buying a fresh croissant au beurre for 85 centimes. Best thing of my life. :)

 Eating some Mulhousienne ice cream!

We made a quiche.  We made it for lunch Sunday.  It was SO. GOOD.

So, what is Mulhouse like you ask? It is INCROYABLE. My ward is absolutely amazing. The members are so strong and love teaching with us! And it's pretty good. And they are all so patient with my awful French. I am so lucky to be in such a fantastic place as my bleuville (first city). Our DMP (dirigeant mission paroisse) (ward mission leader) is so great. He has so many ideas and loves working with us. And I love the Elders here! They're Elder Johnson (dirigeant de district) (district leader) and Elder Allen. They work super hard and speak with the Spirit.

So, I'm not sure if Beth has gotten my postcard yet, but it says "L'Alsace" on it because of Mulhouse's diverse culture! There are people from everywhere here. And Alsace has had a huge influence on Mulhouse. On the houses, the food, the culture, it's all very interesting. In one of my pictures that I sent, we are sitting on this weird chair thing. Yeah, so Mulhouse is known for two things. Its weird art sculptures everywhere and its sausage. They literally sell sausage on the side of the streets. It's so silly :)

You might be glad to know that the french is coming. Slowly but surely, I'm learning more and more every day. And it helps to have such a wonderful formatrice (trainer)! She's the best! She is such an amazing missionary and a great example for me (also, I was wrong, there are only 7 kids in her family hahaha). And she turns 20 next Monday! Ah!!! On Sunday I could understand about half of what was going on. The hard thing is that now my brain can kind of understand French, which means there is no tuning out. Which also means it tries to translate ALL French that it hears. That = headache. We went to Conseil de Paroisse (Ward Council) on Friday, and afterwards (like 3 straight hours of French) my head hurt so bad. Same thing with Sunday. But it's coming :)

Mosiah 18. READ IT. It is such a fabulous chapter. It wasn't until I left on my mission that I found out how much I truly love the Book of Mormon. And this story...about Alma teaching the people. And in verse 11 they clap their hands because they love the gospel so much. And la conférence général is coming up!! So invite your friends. Because Dieu a appelé un prophète dans nos jour, et il va nous parler ce weekend (God has called a prophet in our day, and he is going to speak to us this weekend).

I love you all! Je vous aime! Keep sending me pictures, I love pictures!  

Bises!

Sœur Pettingill

 We found some AWESOME horses on the way to a rendez-vous! Aren't they adorable?

Semaine 7 (Jacob Toulon)

Hello family!

That is super awesome that Katie is up by Germany because it means that we can only get closer from here! Also that is funny because when I read Lauren Hafen (Katie's companion) I thought to myself "Didn't we go to EFY with her or something like that?" :) 

So that is cool that there is a connection there. I honestly have no idea how Soeur Pettingill is feeling right now but if it was anything like me then she will probably say something like,"Wow I'm in France, but it doesn't seem very different..." I think that my appreciation for the fact that I get to serve in one of the most beautiful countries in the world was lacking when I got into the country and that I thought the plane ride here was more cool. ;)  Well I have definitely come a long way in the last while.

As far as Toulon goes, it is so nice. The weather is starting to cool down a little but it stays nice and warm here and I imagine that it is similar to California. It is super nice because here it will be hot but then there will be this nice breeze that cools things off. I feel grateful to be here and apparently it is already getting pretty cold in places like Dijon and up north. President said that this is the part of the year where you see a split in the weather and that when there are Zone conferences that half the missionaries come in scarves and coats and the other come in flip flops and Hawaiian shirts. (Not quite word for word.. :)) The weather is probably the same as that "being at the game" weather that you got down in Folsom.

I am glad that things seem to be going well. It also sounds like everyone had fun at scout camp and Court of Honor and that Adam is following my path! Just tell him to start a new trail when it comes to Eagle so he keeps the momentum going and gets it done a little earlier than weeks before 18! I am also glad you are starting to make up for your lack of Eagle with other prestigious ranks! ;)

Well this week has really been a powerful one to start off the transfer. I feel like we have really grown as a companionship over the last week and are starting to see more success because of it. Our week started off a little rough and so we had to do a little evaluation because we were really just not feeling the excitement that this amazing work should bring. We decided to make some goals and work on those and just work as hard as we could. So we went from there and the week just seemed to turn around! On Friday the real morale boost came with the "Bleus conference" (where all the missionaries who came in with me go back and we talk about what we learned in our first transfer). That was super awesome and it was great to see all my fellow missionaries after what seems like ages (that went by sooo quickly) and hear from President. That was awesome and we spent Thursday night with the Marseille Elders and then Friday morning got into Lyon for the conference. President Roney talked about goals and faith. It was super great because he really just emphasized how we can do great things when we set righteous goals.

One of the funny things that happened this week include falling into a sewer. What happened was that we were walking back from a teaching appointment on Saturday and I stepped onto one of the really heavy metal circle plates that cover the sewage holes and then it slipped to the side and all of a sudden my entire right leg was in the hole (thank goodness it wasn't filled or anything). It happened so fast I didn't even know what happened and so Elder Frandsen pulled the metal plate out of the way, I hopped out and we continued on our way. France is SOO dangerous! You have to watch out or else you could end up in a hole.

It was an awesome week and ended with a less-active couple that we visited last Saturday coming to church! They came for all three hours and every hour seemed like it was meant for them! It is awesome! We also had Andre and Marie (their two investigators) there so that was great too!

One thing I regret before my mission is that I didn't take scripture study as seriously as I could. It really is soo awesome if you study the scriptures. I have felt so much the feeling of feasting on the words of Christ every morning and I feel like I could study the scriptures a jamais (forever). Well I am really grateful for the scriptures and love personal study every morning!!

Love you all!

Elder Pettingill 

Here are some random pictures he sent last week.

Dinner with Roquefort cheese 

 Dinner with the American Mexican restaurant owner

Dinner with la famille Sassi

 Dessert

 Elder Pettingill and Elder Frandsen

 Patisserie

First email from France (Katie Mulhouse)

Hello family!

Okay, before I say anything, I just have to say, I'm typing on a French keyboard, but it's changed to English, so no accents. Don't judge.

Oh my goodness HI!!!!! Wow. This is so weird. I'm in France...and it is so so so beautiful here! I guess I should start from the beginning. On my last day in the MTC (I had to report at 11:30 so I got to go to my first class for most of it) we were doing a finding activity with the other district and my district and Brother Smith and their teacher, but I had to go, and so I got up. Gathered my stuff together. Tried hard not to cry (for some reason I felt SO sad that I was leaving all of these wonderful people...) and went around the room shaking everyone's hand. I was the only Sister, except for Sister Siilata who was my temporary companion from the other district. Then I said goodbye to Brother Smith, and Sister Siilata and I went and got my stuff and went to the travel office.

My district. I love them so much.

 From there it was like everything was in slow motion, but at the same time at the speed of light. A blur. A slow blur, if that makes any sense. The flight was a little over 9 hours, and I took the melatonin right after getting off of the phone with you and was OUT in a half hour. Didn't even feel the plane lift off (tender mercy). I slept for like 3 hours, but couldn't go back to sleep after that. AND THEN I GOT TO FRANCE.

I met President and Soeur Poznanski, and they are incroyable (incredible). With such adorable French accents they asked how we were and explained some things and gave us pain au chocolats (chocolate croissants). YUMMY. Then we went to St. Merri's (which is the main church--and the second most expensive building owned by the church--in Paris where we hold conferences and mutations (transfers) and stuff) and got to see Notre Dame.

At Notre Dame. The Elder next to to me is Elder Kahne

After that, we went to a place called Consecration Hill where we pledged to be missionaries and set goals for our mission. It was SUCH neat experience! Also, I met an Elder who's name is Elder Kahne (pronounced "can") from Toulouse who is going to the California Sacramento Mission!!!!! So watch out for him! He is waiting for his visa, so he's in the Paris Mission temporarily. Anyways, at Consecration Hill, we can see all of Paris (only half of the Tour Eiffel though...haven't even seen that yet...) and the Elders who were taking us everywhere explained that we relate it to Lehi's dream in 1 Nephi 8. There's a large city set apart, and in front of it is the Seine river, one of the dirtiest rivers in Europe. Our job is to hold fast to the iron rod, and to help as many people as possible catch on from that city. To help them find their way. I loved that and it made me so excited and enthusiastic that I'm finally a missionary!!

THEN I met Sr. Hafen! She is awesome. She is so spiritual and so fun and absolutely adorable. She's 5'8", so we're basically the same height (nice and tall!) and we like a lot of the same things (like food, we both really love food). And yes I remembered her name, but could not figure out where it was from until she remembered that we went to EFY together in Provo! Also, she's the oldest of 8 children. And no, I did not make that up. The youngest is a girl and she's 8 years old. She has 6 sisters and only 1 brother! Crazy right?? Ah I love her so much already. And she's doing such a fabulous job as a trainer. She helps me with things when I need it, but she also pushes me so that I have to step out of my comfort zone and learn. One of her favorite quotes (and now mine as well) is "There is no learning in comfort and there is no comfort in learning." SO GOOD. Also, she's from American Fork, Utah (I don't know if you knew this or not, but I was actually born there) and the Pattersons are in her ward! You know, Caleb Patterson? Yeah! Her mom emailed her saying that Caleb said he knew me and my younger brother was one of his best friends! Cool right? Basically, this companionship is inspired.

Us eating none other than...duh duh duh...actually guess. It's a disney movie set in Paris. (hint hint it has a rat that can cook in it.)

Ah, Mulhouse.  It's pronounced "mew-looz" and oh my goodness I'm in love with it already. It was like a 3 hour train ride here, and it's one of the bigger cities actually. There are two equipes (companionships) here. There is an Elder equipe and us, and the area covers the small villes around Mulhouse as well. The first day, Mercredi (Wednesday), we got here at like 7:00ish, and then dropped my stuff off, stopped at a little patisserie shop and I chose to try a pain au raisin, just for you, Mom. LOVED IT.

Pain au raisin

So good....and then we rushed over to Mirjana's house (one of our amis) who is actually German. Oh! One thing about Mulhouse is it has about a billion different nationalities. Everyone speaks at least 3 or 4 languages, and sometimes they speak English! Mirjana speaks better English than French, so we taught her in English which was nice because I don't speak French. ;) But yeah, the missionaries here give out LdMs (French acronym for Book of Mormon) in all different languages. She has a German one. But she is so sweet! She has two little boys, Leon and Tommy and when we went that night she told us she was pregnant with another baby! Malheureusement (unfortunately), she told us on Saturday when we went that she has miscarried. It was SO sad. And her little boy Leon (probably 9 or so?) just got beat up really badly at school and so a member from the ward came over and gave him a blessing. And her husband doesn't want to listen to anything we have to say (on Saturday when we came over he was hungover...). She's had a tough week, so keep her in your prayers.

J'aime etre une missionaire.(I love being a missionary.) SO MUCH. That was one of the first phrases I wanted to know how to say and so I asked Sr. Hafen and she told me! And I say it all the time. Because it's so true. I already know that this is going to be hard, not because we aren't going to see baptisms or because the Spirit won't be there, but because people are hard to teach. Especially for me right now. I love to talk (I don't know if you knew that) and I can't very much in lessons. I can testify, and I am learning, but it's hard. I had my first church service in French yesterday and I could hardly understand anything...I can understand American French, but some of their accents are so French! And they speak so fast! But Sr.(abbreviation for Soeur which means Sister) Hafen told me that by my 5th Sunday, I should be able to understand almost everything. So I guess we'll see! I absolutely know that I am meant to be here. The food is amazing. The people are amazing. The country is amazing. But that's not why I'm here. I'm here because I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. We've gone porting a couple of times, and sometimes that's how we start. Bonjour Monsieur/Madame, je m'appelle Soeur Pettingill et moi et ma collegue venons des Etats-Unis parce que nous savons que Jesus-Christ est notre Sauveur. Et je sais qu'il est mort pour nous. Avez-vous quelques croyances? (Hello Sir/Madam, my name is Sister Pettingill and me and my colleague come from the United States because we know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. And I know that he died for us.  Do you have any beliefs?)  And most of the time, they say they're Muslim, or Catholic, or Protestant, or some other religion, or yes but non pratiquant (non-practicing) but GUESS WHAT. I've seen miracles already. People have let us in. I've seen the desire to know Christ and to have une relation personelle avec Dieu (a personal relationship with God). And I love it. J'aime etre une missionaire.

Je vous aime!! I'm sorry I don't have time to answer all of your questions! I'm so glad the family is doing great, and I'll make sure to keep you in my prayers! Good luck with the soccer games and watch out for some postcards! You are the best family in the whole entire world. I love you.

Bisous (those French cheek kisses they give),

Soeur Pettingill

P.S. If you have time, look up the talk "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox. It was in the Liahona once, and I loved it. Also, Moroni 10:32. Mon objectif (my goal) :)

(Here is a link to the talk by Brad Wilcox.)

A letter from a mission couple in Katie's Zone (Mulhouse)

Dear Pettingill Family,

We are Elder and Sister Chaston (Monroe Utah) and we have been serving in the France Paris Mission since April 9, 2013.  We had the pleasure of meeting with Sister Pettingill and wanted to take the opportunity to let you know how much we enjoy her. 

We wanted to just drop you a little note to let you know that she is doing great. She is serving in the same Zone area.   We have been assigned to inspect the missionary apartments also and so we will periodically get to visit her area in Mulhouse while she serves in this Zone.  She and Sister Hafen seem to be a doing great together.

She arrived in France and received her new companion and today was her first opportunity to buy a baggette and some cheese which is a real treat!  I have attached a picture.

The missionaries write their emails on Monday so she said to tell you that you should hear from her next week.

Thank you for sharing your daughter with us.  I know that it must be difficult for you to have her so far away but I assure you that she is in the Lord's hands.

Best wishes to you  as you support her!  Your lives are blessed for it.

Sincerely,

Elder and Sister Chaston

She is there!

To the Family of Sister Pettingill

Sister Poznanski and I were delighted to welcome your daughter, Sister Katherine Patricia Pettingill , into the France Paris Mission on 17 Sep 2013. She and her MTC companions were enthusiastic and all arrived in good health.  She spent her first day eating some good food, visiting with me, contacting non-members in the heart of Paris, and sharing testimonies.  We enjoyed her spirit.

The next morning, after a mission orientation, Sister Pettingill left for her first assignment to work in the Mulhouse S Area with Sister Hafen, who will be her trainer.  Their apartment address is:

Résidence Franklin Bat. C 35, rue Engel Dollfus

Mulhouse, 68200
FRANCE

Any packages or letters you would like to send will reach your missionary at this address.

We feel very privileged to work with your her.  We also realize the responsibility we share with you to help her continue to grow spiritually as she faithfully performs her duties.  May the Lord inspire us all to sustain her in this challenging and exciting assignment.  We hope you will join Sister Poznanski and me in praying each day for your daughter , her companion, investigators, and all of us serving in the France Paris Mission.

A positive, supportive letter from home every week does wonders to sustain a missionary’s morale.  Proverbs 25:25 states:  As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. 

Sincerely,

Franck Poznanski

President, France Paris Mission

 Outside the airport, receiving instruction

 Livre de Mormon in hand, heading off try to share the Gospel on the way to the mission home

At the mission home with the Poznanski's daughter

 22 new missionaries! 

2nd day, ready to get a trainer and head to her new area

meeting her new companion, Soeur Hafen

Week 1! Again! (Jacob-Toulon)

Well we're at the start of a new transfer which is sooo AWESOME! I can tell that it is going to be a really miraculeuse mutation (miraculous transfer) and I know I am going to learn so much from my new companion Elder..... Haha I'll tell you later.

To start off I will tell you about what happened to some of the Elders I served with. First. Elder Sanchez. He was in the apartement and is from New Jersey and transferred to Annmasse (or something.) He will be "polishing" Elder Erramousspe (whoever is your second companion polishes you after your trainer gets all the rough edges I guess..), who is the same "age" (how long we have been out) as me. Elder Karras also got transferred to Toulouse and is "polishing" Elder Martinez! (who was in my district at the MTC).  Elder Frandsen is going to be staying here in Toulon in the 4 man apartment and will be polishing his "first-born" (THAT'S ME!!). And I am going to stop using all this faddish language so I can receive more blessings :) So yeah we are now the only equipe (team) of Elders in Toulon in apparently one of the nicest apartments in the mission. We also received an equipe of sisters yesterdays and spent the whole day yesterday moving them into their new apartement, with the office elders who came down to buy all the new furniture from IKEA :) Our day yesterday was soooo busy but I was soooo happy doing all that hard work!

I am really excited to still be with Elder Frandsen and in Toulon. We are going to have a lot of success this transfer, I just know it. Not to mention we are now going to start teaching a lot of the old equipes' investigators including a man who has already said he will doing anything he can to be baptized. The Lord is really blessing us already and we have already made many many appointements for this week! Yesterday we had a Family Home Evening at Frere Sassi's house with Andre and Marie and it was so good because the members were able to give amazing testimonies. Also a small little miracle that literally just happened was that hier (yesterday), Frere Sassi's mom was there and is not a member but has children that are all over. (For example Frere Sassi is LDS and his brother is a Jehovah's Witness.) So she was telling us all last night that she doesn't want to join any but that she is believing in God. So just like 5 minutes ago, Frere Sassi called Elder Frandsen and asked if we could come over today and give a lecon to his mom because she said that she felt really happy yesterday and wanted us to come back!!! So awesome! She is really old and Frere Sassi said that she probably won't be able to read the Book of Mormon and that she could probably pass away anytime. So I guess our job is to prepare here for the missionaries on the other side!!! So awesome!

I have been thinking a lot about the commitments that we have been giving our investigators and how when they keep them, I feel sooooo happy and could just jump around for a while, and when they don't keep them I feel so sad because I know that we give them these things to make them happy. It has really made me think about how it is the same for Heavenly Father. He has given us these things (the scriptures, prayer, the Ten Commandments, the other commandments, For the Strength of Youth, etc...) to make us happy. He really only cares about us being happy and I think these are the things that he has figured are what will bring us the most joy in this life. And then I thought about how when we do these things, He probably is so happy and when we don't He is probably sooooo sad. It just gave me some perspective on life and how right now I am doing all these things but what happens after the mission when I am not completely focused on the work. Will I read my scriptures every day and actually learn something like I am expecting my investigators?

This week has been amazing with loads more miracles than I can't probably share right now so I guess I will leave them for after the mission :) We did have a district meeting in St. Raphael this week and it was so awesome! Our district leader, Elder Dean, and I get along really well and he actually lived in Fairfield! St. Raphael is no longer in our district so we won't be going there any more. This Friday will be Bleu Conference (conference for new missionaries which they call blues or 'bleu' in French) and I get to go because it you go your 1st and 2nd transfer. So that will be cool and I will probably meet Sœur Pettingill's companion so I can get the update on her :)

Well I love you all and hope everything is going well there in the good old U.S. (Funny because one of the members wore a USA neck thing yesterday at Frere Sassi's). I am so so grateful for all the letters that I have received and hopefully I can start tackling some of those next week. (We didn't get to do much yesterday because we were helping move the Sœurs in.)

I am also so grateful for Christ's sacrifice both in the Gardin and on the Cross. It is really such an amazing message we are sharing that people can come and feel His love and feel the peace of repentance. That is really what drives me to open my mouth when it doesn't like opening and walking when all I really want to do is eat another croissant.

I love you all!

Elder Pettingill

(I left in the funky spelling errors to show that he is mixing his English and French a lot!  Like apartement-apartment, Jardin-Garden.)

Below are some pictures he sent this week.  He gave no commentary but I assume they are the view of his apartment and some interesting things. Also, they took a ride and then hike up the mountains to see the views of Toulon.  The blonde is his companion, Elder Frandsen.