It was a good one (Jacob-Brive la Gaillarde)

Well this week was really a quick one. We had lots and lots of stuff to do and to prepare and so basically now I am back at P-day and it is already Week 4 of the transfer.

So a quick run-down of the week:

Monday- We had a nice sunny day, played sports and enjoyed life and then took videos and at the end taught Alain at his house quickly and then after went to a less-actives house and ate really yummy tacos.

Tuesday- fasted for a miracle to happen and it did. We worked all day long without much success and did lots and lots of contacting and then at the end of the day we taught this coordonee (referral) from mormon.org and he turned out to be sooo awesome! He is really smart and is looking to see if God exhists for him. It was a planned miracle but it counted for us. His name is Thierry! He doesn't smoke or drink and already planned to come to church for the next three Sundays (including General Conference) and he does his scripture reading!

Wednesday- Exchange DAY! Elder Sanchez came to Brive and we hit the streets! He was in my apartement in Toulon my first transfer before the sisters so we had a good time! We learned a lesson! The Lord wants us to show our faith by continuing to work in between miracles. If the Lord gave us miracle every second, would we need to show our faith?

Elder Sanchez and Elder Pettingill after a hard day's work

Thursday-DISTRICT MEETING! It was my first one and I found out that it isn't actually that hard. The assistants send me a sheet of notes of things they want us to talk abuot about and then basically I just am there to reglate (direct) the conversation. (It is nice because missionaries always have something to say and so basically the hard thing is to keep the conversation where you want it.) Then we did lots of role plays and talked about using the new questionnaire we have. It is so awesome because this district is so easy and is full of love!! After that I went on an exchange with Elder McBeth in Perigueux. We had an awesome experience where we were able to give service to the non-member husband of an active member and we SPARKED him so hard!!! 

Friday- Well I made a little mistake with the train times so that we could rejoin with our real cities and basically Elder Martinez and Elder Loera ended up taking a 2 hour bus to Perigueux and then Elder Martinez and I took it back... That was tough because we lost a lot of time traveling but it helped me learn and so now I can work on focusing on the details and becoming MR. SUPERORGANIZED. But in the end we made it to Brive and later that night taught English class with the other Elders and it was great!!! We had a new guy come early so we could talk about the G ospel. He is so cool. He is gay, but he is super believing (Catholic) and wants to follow God. He even said that if he keeps following maybe he will start liking women! The funniest thing ever was that when we talked about the Book of Mormon he was super skeptical and so I challenged him to find out for himself if it was true. So he said for the next two years he is going to study the Book of Mormon so indepth and at the end he will tell us all the things that are wrong.. I said ok but can we at least discuss it along the way? and he said yeah that would be cool! So basically I think he is cool because he is the first person that said "I don't believe that true" and is also willing to actually read it and study it.

Saturday- We went and did service for the family Hubert and in the end Elder Martinez found a couple baby moles that were hiding under some wood. And then without telling us he hid it in his pants and BROUGHT IT HOME WITH HIM!!! We all walked in and then he pulled it out and put it on his desk! And then we all started freaking out... So in the end we put on the side of a trail..

Elder Martinez with his mole

Sunday - Such a great day! Thierry (from Tuesday) came to all three hours of church and loved it! Also Alain came! Olivia had lots to do so she couldn't come. It was a great Priesthood meeting and we talked about service. We ended the night by hopping on a train and going to Perigueux to sleep over night for Zone conference.

Monday - Elder Loera (who is dying this transfer) really wants to get fit so he and I went running at 5h30 in the morning and then got on a train at 7h00 and thenZONE CONFERENCE! It was so awesome and I learned so much! We had Elder and Sister Lund of the Seventy come, and they gave us some awesome advice and counsel!

And now this morning!

I love you alll sooo much!!!!

Elder Pettingill

Multi-tasking