Time to finish strong (Jacob-Brive)

Well another week gone by so fast. I have decided to stop talking about it because it is going to go by fast either way so might as well make the best of it while I still am under my year mark. This week was beautifully crazy. We had up and down weather that came from nowhere and was up and down throughout the day like last week. We had a competition this week in our Zone that went along with the olympics and had to do with contacting and teaching. So the whole zone pushed extra hard this week to contact strollers and also to have FHE's with members and non-members. The results were that every stroller in Brive now knows who we are. The winners also happened to be Brive taking Gold and Silver and the the Bordeaux Zone leaders coming in from behind with the Bronze. It was very fun and pushed Brive to work really hard throughout the week. Both companionships now have new amis with a date. That story was super cool!

So we were having our English class and it was great but then we got finished so we decided to go see one of the members the lives close to us. They were there so we taught them just before having to come home. So we walked home and we passed a bar that is on the way. After walking a while past, a man jumped out and yelled after us asking us to come back for 10 minutes. We were a little nervous because it was a bar but went anyway. So it ended up being this awesome guy that we had met a long time ago and he wanted to know why we hadn't called! So we got his number again and then after having fixed a rdv went home. Then we got to teach him later and invited him to be baptized if he found out it was true and he said YES! So awesome!

Another cool experience was that we made a trip up to Uzerche, a ville that is pretty far up in our sector, but we have a couple there that really wants to do missionary work and is building their house.

member's house

Uzerche, France

So we went up and helped him do some service at his house that they are building and then ate lunch and after lunch we shared a spiritual thought.  At the end, he had a thought about someone that he had met a while ago and said that we were going to meet them. It was a weird thought because we were going to finish up a little more of the house and there was finally some good sun at the moment but we left that, changed and headed over to see this person. Well this man owns a washer place and he wasn't there when we got there so the members called him and he said he would be on his way over. So we decided that while we waited we could do contacting in this little village we were in. So we started walking and met this man that, in the end, took a Book of Mormon and said he would read it. That was so cool! But then we got to meet the actual man we came to see and it turns out that he has read the Book of Mormon several times in both French and in Polynesian and has been to Salt Lake City and been in the temple. The first thing he did when he got here was to search for the LDS church and he is going to come to the ward repas  (meal) the 30 of March! So awesome!! It was a testimony for me that as we follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost we will be blessed, It just takes us showing our faith to follow these thoughts no matter how hard it is sometimes.

Yesterday at church was great there were a total of 5 non-members!! So awesome! I love the Gospel!!! It is so crazy to be a missionary! I have no idea how to describe it.

We had another experience where we were porting (tracting) and this lady answered and so basically like 20 years ago the missionaries hung out with her family and taught her English! (They never taught about the Gospel so that makes me wonder but whatever.) So she said she would love us to come do the same with her kid. So we did and brought a member and had a great little English class with her son. But then at the end we asked if we could leave them with a prayer and she said she didn't really want to do the religieuse (religious) thing.. But then her son was like YES let's say a prayer!!! He even said that he would do it! So that was awesome and then after the mom started telling us all about her religious background and how she struggled to believe in God but that she still hung up prayers sometimes!! We're going back Wednesday!!

With lots of Love,

Elder Pettingill

trading ties