Another great week has passed in Toulon (Jacob)

Well, I have decided to stop keeping track of weeks because I think that is what make everything go so fast! Instead I am going to count every second of the day, because it seems like when you are always watching the time it goes by so much slower. SO in order to actually get my full two years worth of REAL missionary work, that is what I am going to do. I am seriously scared that this amazing period of my life is going to slip out of my fingers and I am going to look back and cry a little.

I am literally full right now, but definitely not from food (which I haven't eaten in about 6 hours) but from the spirit. Right now is the time to say "HOLY COW, that was a good conference." I don't think I have ever taken in so much from conference in my life. Every talk I heard (which was all of them) had an application to either me, the work, or my investigators. I feel really bad because I think that Lord told every singe person to write their talk at me and the only thing anyone else got is the Sisters from the Relief Society session. I could probably spend a while on the subject. 

I love the Gospel and am so grateful for the spirit. I have really felt the prinicple that Nephi taught "car lorsqu'un homme parle par le pouvoir du Saint-Esprit, le pouvoir du Saint-Esprit porte ses paroles dans le coeur des enfants des hommes." (For when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost, the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth the words unto the hearts of the children of men 2 Neph 33:1). The spirit testified to me over and over and over the truth of this amazing work! (Even when I got to listen to the Saturday afternoon session in French because we had 4 investigators at the church with us). I love the times when you feel it is so true, because then, when the next day hits and everything falls through, you don't have to doubt your faith, you just doubt your doubt and move on because of your faith. I am also grateful for technology that makes it possible to go back and read all the talks that were given (which, as was stated, were prayed about, fasted about, and even had sleepless nights spent over them in order to bring us what the Lord wants to know [that kind of made me feel bad for past conferences when I didn't listen very well]).

This has been a really amazing week.  We have been blessed so many times by the Lord, it is unreal. One night, after already finding lots of successes with the people that we were talking to, we walked home with about 10 minutes left and decided to stay outside even though we could have justified that the Lord had already blessed us all he needed to for the day and that we had calls to do.  So anyway about 5 minutes before 9, a man walks by with his dog and because Elder Frandsen was doing a call I quickly said "Bonsoir!" (Good evening) So we ended up teaching until about 9:15, set up an RDV for the next day and ended our night!! The Lord blesses those who endure!! The best part was that when we showed up for the RDV (across the street because it turns out it is our neighbor!) he had already read from the introduction through Joseph Smith's testimony! He was well prepared to answer every question we had!  

I know the Lord lives and that He is directing His church right now.  

I love you all!!  

Elder Pettingill

 The pics are of the cleaning check we had!

We got a star for being so clean!

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