Dear Family,

Wow it sounds like you really are staying busy even with 3 kids gone! I can't wait to hear where Daniel is going on his mission! Tell him to wait until Monday so I can be on the LIVE email. But seriously that is so exciting that it is on it's way!! Thanks so much for the talk insert! I downloaded it onto my USB drive so that I can listen to it later. I love talks so much!!

This week was so awesome!!! The weather here has literally been so crazy that i am not sure what season I am in. It has been going from SUPER sunny, windy RAINIER than imaginable, then back to super sunny. And it did that cycle about 5 times this week... so today it is back to the super rainy part of the cycle but yesterday was so nice! We had an awesome Sunday! I loved the topic of Sunday school which was on Noah's ark and the personal applications that are in that story. Basically it comes down to the fact that we first need to prepare now. Then we prepare by following the direction of the prophets. We made a huge lists of things we do in the church to help us and I loved it because it basically came back down to Preach my Gospel. Preach my Gospel is literally the "recipe" that we have from the Lord to become DISCIPLES of CHRIST (I loved a point made that disciple has the same root as discipline). 

Saturday night we had a huge music night at the church that was for members and investigators to be able to mix and meet a little bit! It was so awesome and after lots of planning and a little incident of a lost phone (yes it's still a problem ;) ) we had a SUPER nice night put on by the members. We 4 elders put on a nice ending number of "Les Anges dans Nos Compagnes" (Angels We Have Heard on High) accompanied by Elder Tihopu on the guitar (Elder Adamson bought a 25 dollar guitar because he wanted to learn so we took advantage of that.) It was great! It was funny because after a couple members said "Wow that was a great activity! We should do this again because I was talking to a couple of members and we have tons of friends that are very musical... I guess we didn't emphasize enough the fact that members should INVITE friends to ACTIVITIES! I guess we will just do another and we will be more clear :). But in any case we had 4 of our amis and the members were soo nice by talking to them and making them feel welcome!

Elder Adamson, MC
This week I had a huge super intense study on the Atonement! I basically tried to study it from the point of view of how the Atonement can become the source of all our energy. This life is so hard and we are so imperfect that I really wanted to apply all the energy that is available when the ATONEMENT becomes our driving force. It was amazing how as I studied the scriptures and tried super hard to "always remember HIM" during the day I felt a huge increase of LOVE, a desire to repent, a realization that literally every time we are tired, it is a feeling that Christ suffered for and felt so he can push us, and a greater capacity to work. Something that really hit this week as I was studying in the scripture was that Christ died for us, SO THAT we would have the capacity to do the same in our own way. He expects of every one of us as his disciples (disciplined) to live at a higher level than the world and he died so we could do that. I am so Grateful for him and the love he showed for us in this huge sacrifice FOR us. 

Thanks so much for everything and Happy Valentines Day?

With lots of LOVE and a couple small bisous (kisses),

Elder Pettingill

Elder Pettingill and Elder Adamson

Tulle, a town they visited this week