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.  

Week Numero Deux ; ) My French is totally coming... (Katie MTC)

Hi familia!

^^^That was a joke. We do absolutely NOTHING in French. It's all in English. We learn all of our lessons in English and teach all of our lessons in English and it means my French is totally NOT coming. But that's okay. It's all about trusting the Lord, right?? I could list close to a hundred scriptures that have comforted me over last week and a half, but that would take too long. For now, I'll just leave you with Jacob 3:1-2 to look up ;)

Thanks for the packages by the way! My companions basically think my family is nuts, but that's ok! They like it too because it means they get to share with me!! :) So sorry I didn't write yesterday, all of the computers in the whole campus were down except for 1M and only a few of those and we have to be dressed like missionaries to go into that building. So now I'm taking my time today! But sorry if my email is a little shorter than normal because of it. Though probably not.

So about Mom's questions:

1. How are your shoes?   My shoes are so comfortable!! Well, for the first 2 or 3 days they were awful. Because I hadn't broken them in yet, my feet were DYING and I had a blister on the back of my heel that popped and may or may not be infected...but that's irrelevant to missionary work. I have no time to do anything, let alone take care of a dying foot. But that's ok, now that they're broken in I absolutely love them! I might be sending one of the cheap pairs I brought just for lack of space. I am determined to keep my bags well under 50 pounds each :)

2. Did you go to a devotional Tuesday night?  Yes! We had a fireside about dresscode and they actually told us some stuff that I'm pretty sure wasn't on the website...but basically skirts are not allowed to be touching the floor or dragging because that would be considered faddish and impractical. Also, we're not supposed to have skirts with an uneven hem, so I took my teal flowy skirt to the alterations place they have and the cute ladies who volunteer there totally hemmed it for me. So I'm happy :)

3. Do you have everything you need?  Yep! I have way more stuff then I would ever need! Hahaha but thanks :) You family people (see how I didn't say guys??? ;) ) are the best!

4. What do you think of the MTC food?  The food is pretty good TASTING. But disgusting in pretty much every other way. I'm secretly super glad I don't have to stay for more than 12 days because otherwise you wouldn't even recognize me when I got back...

5. What do you do for P.E.?  We played volleyball TWICE with our zone and once with just the Elders in our district which was super super fun. (Dad, you can rest assured, I'm just as terrible at it as I was when I left :) ) We also do yoga sometimes! 

6. Are there only the three of you in your room?  There are 5 of us in our room, which is pretty crowded but we make it work. The two other sisters are hispanic and moved in because they were previously in a room with 6. Yeah not much better, but it's fine! The other sisters aren't in our branch or anything, but they're going to Santa Rosa, California!! :)

7. Have you see Amy McGreevy or anyone else you know?  I've seen Amy like 5 times!!!! She's adorable, of course. We haven't been able to take any pictures together though because were only allowed to take cameras into certain buildings and never on Sunday. I also saw a couple of sisters that I knew from byui, which was fun!

8. Are you doing any French study at all?  Nope. We do absolutely nothing in French. Talk about stressful, ya know? Sometimes I use additional study time for some French study, but we always have so much to do it's hard to fit it in!

9. Are you sleeping okay?  Sleep is fine. It takes me like 15 minutes to fall asleep because my brain is just going and going and going....I can totally empathize with you now, Mom. But once I get to sleep, I'm out like a light and then I wake up either at 6:15 or 6:30 depending on the day. But I'm not tooooooo tired, which is good I guess! ;)

10. Have you seen Spencer Hodson?  Nope. No Spencer Hodson. We don't ever ever see the people behind the kitchen.

11. How do you say Sister Pape's name? Why did she live in France?  Sister Pape (pronounced payp) lived in France because her dad works for a surgical company that moves him around a lot. It's funny because I'm the most non-traveled person in our entire zone. Sister Orton lived in Japan, a lot of our missionaries are from foreign countries, but even Elder Davis (who's from Idaho) went on a European tour last summer...and Elder Bailey lived in the Philippines and still does actually. Crazy.

My Distict

My District at the map

Anyways, that's great to hear about the family!! Dad, I'm totally praying for you like every night. I hate when I get a letter (not that this happens often...) telling me my dad is injured (Rich got hurt at the ward campout playing football)...geez...but I'm glad everyone else had fun!! And good job to the little kids at their games and such. I guess that's today, huh? All the days blend together for me...it literally feels like I've been here for months. So weird. 

I want to tell you a little bit about my progressing investigators!  Katia is from Ukraine and just recently moved to the US. She is probably the sweetest person ever. I wish every single investigator that I will have would have the faith and the desire that she has. She's amazing. AND she's getting baptized on the 28th of September!!!! Our other investigator is Jerry. He's from Taiwan (and actually still lives there...haha) and so basically didn't believe in God at all before we met with him. We committed him to baptism, and he already has so much faith. He and Katia are getting baptized on the same day! Hurray! Too bad they're in two different countries...hahaha :)

I GOT MY TRAVEL PLANS!!!! I'll send some pictures later, but basically my roommates leave at 4:30 in the morning on Monday (Sis. Pape's flight leaves at 10:40am!!) and I don't leave till 11:30 (5:10pm flight), so I'm a solo sister until I leave! So weird! So I should call sometime between 11:30 in the morning and 5pm. :) I've met a bunch of the other missionaries going to Paris! There are 19, and 2 of them are sisters. Haha :) But they all seem pretty awesome, so I think I'll be okay.

I basically feel the spirit 24/7 right now. It's amazing and it makes me want to never ever do anything that would make that stop. I LOVE learning how to teach by the spirit, and it feels like everytime we teach (about 2-3 times a day) we get better and the stronger the promptings are. It takes so much faith and trust and it's HARD. But I love every second :)

Also, you're probably never going to believe this, but I'm totally excited to talk to random people on the street about the gospel! We had this in-field orientation thing that lasted all day on Thursday (which Elders Morrey--is that even his name?? can't remember--and Christianson were both there and taught us! Cool right. Yeah, so cool) and we learned about finding people at one part and I feel like it's waaaaaay easier than I've been thinking. I'm so excited to finally get out there!!! And teach people!!! Although in French....ah....

Last Sunday we watched "Character of Christ" by Elder Bednar and yep. Totally amazing. I LOVED it, and it was almost an hour and half long!! I cried (no surprise there, am I right?). Actually, the Elders in my district kind of know me for my crying now...Elder Bailey makes fun of me for it all the time (well not really, but you know). And Elder Aloria (he's from the Philippines), COOLEST PERSON EVER. He knows so much about the scriptures and is so sweet and hilarious!!! I love him. I want us to be friends forever. I'm pretty sure everyone says this, but my district is the best district in the entire world. I absolutely love them, and they can all be totally spiritual but totally fun when it's appropriate. Actually, Elder Davis is like a piano prodigy, and we're doing a musical number in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday. Me, Sister Orton, Elder Bailey, and Elder Aloria are singing "Ye Elders of Israel." I'm so excited (Sister Pape isn't singing because she claims to be tone-deaf...). And we're taking a matching picture, so you'll get that next week :)

 Elder Aloria being his hilarious self after we got back from teaching

We're cute because we match!

This is our language board. 23...I think...different languages. Try to see if you can figure out what they all are!

I can't find any pictures that Jacob was talking about!!!!! I don't know if they're just in the French building which I haven't had time to go to...and the girl that Jacob and his companion were friends with just left on her mission I guess (the cleaning girl). So I didn't get to meet her. Believe me, I've asked like everyone and NO ONE knows what I'm talking about. Ah well. Well, times about up, so I'll send a few pics really fast and I love you all!!! Look out for some letters, too :)

Love you all!! Je vous aime!! 

Soeur Pettingill

 

Spiderman

and they're making fun of me

  

A beautiful picture we found of Christ teaching the people : )

                                                

Going into Week 6!!! (Jacob-Toulon)

Dear Family!

It sounds like life back at home is really just exploding and things are starting to get going again so that is exciting!!

This week has been so crazy but awesome! Our two solid investigators left on vacation so we really focused on finding and working with less actives! So we have been working with these inactives who are so awesome and I can see that they have the desire to come back. The only problem is that they don't apply... I have really learned this week that if we want to always be faithful in the Gospel it takes application of the principles we learn and diligent use of the Atonement in our lives. So there is my two cents on that subject..

As far as what I actually did during the week... I went to FRERE SASSIS again!! On Monday we went over because there were some inactives there for a soiree familiale (family home evening). So we gave the spiritual thought and then again almost died after eating. You know that you are going to die when you are already stuffed from probably 8 different main dishes and then they bring out 5 various types of cake for dessert and there only 6 or 7 people... Well after finishing about half of our plates of dessert we left so we could be back on time. Very satisfying. After that we taught lots and lots of less active lecons and had the funny question of "Are the Catholic church and Mormon church compatible?" (meaning can you attend both) asked by a new member who had just been baptized a year ago... Well we have been working with him and hopefully we can help him understand the concept of authority :)

On Wednesday we did an in-apartment exchange and I went with Elder Karras who is so awesome! He is a red head with a desire to "blow this place up" (with the gospel of course!) We had a couple cool miracles including running into a man who had been baptized in Aix-en-Provence and moved here and was in-active but trying to find where our church was!! (If only these people just used Mormon.org... :)) So that was cool and then we hopped on the public bâteau (boat) and went across the bay to La Seyne to do some street boarding with our super cool geneology street board! So that was cool and we ended up contacting 175 people throughout the day so that was cool!!!

Toulon Public Boat

Here you can see the bay they crossed. Wow! All in a day of work as a missionary...

I guess the other cool miracle that happened this week is that we got let in to an apartment while porting (tracting)!! So awesome! We left them with a LdM (French abbreviation for Book of Mormon) and got to share our little spiritual thoughts. So I feel very blessed.

Yesterday was Stake conference and we drove with the Tanguy family for the long 30 minute drive to the rented out building that looked like a movie theater. So that was awesome and all in French! Except for when the Area Seventy spoke that was in English. :) It was very hard though because he would say something and then the translator would say it and then he would say it and then it would be translated. So you can imagine that it took a little while for that talk. But I loved it all and even got a lot out of the talks in English! Another cool thing is that I got to see my missionary friends from the MTC!! A lot of them are not in my Zone but are in my Stake so that cool!

As far as my French is coming.. I feel like I have seen the Lord bless me sooooooo much with the Gift of Tongues. I feel like I can understand and say more and more everyday!  Je veux vraiment ameliorer mon accent parce que hier a la conference de peu il y avais un missionnaire qui a parle. Apres la reunion Soeur Tanguy a dit qu'elle ne pouvait rien comprendre parce que son accent. (I really want to improve my accent because yesterday at the Stake Conference there was a missionary who spoke.  After the meeting, Sister Tanguy said she couldn't understand anything he said because of his accent.)

Donc, je sais que le Seigneur a son main dans cet oeuvre! Je sais que il y a beaucoup de gens qui son pret pour l'evangile et nous devons juste ouvrir nos bouches quand l'occasion viens. (I know that the Lord has His hand in this work! I know that there are many people who are ready for the Gospel and we just need to open our mouths when the opportunity comes.)

Je vous aime tous!! (I love you all)

Au revoir!! (Goodbye)

Elder Pettingill

P.S. Sorry my letter is not as long a Soeur Pettingill's ;)

Katie's first letter!!!

Salut ma famille!

Okay. So...remember when Jacob said that here in the MTC days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days?? I never really got that until around...the end of my first day. Honestly, we do SO MUCH in a day that each day feels like it's been a week. But it goes by sooooo fast!! Already day 3? Like what?

I don't even really know where to start. There is so much I wish I could tell you...how about we'll start with P-days. Well, my P-days are Fridays...obviously...which is nice because I have had absolutely no time whatsoever to write any kind of a letter. The MTC President told us to take 5 minutes that first day to write your family, but I didn't even have 5 minutes. It was so busy!! The first day just flew by! I got there with Aunt Nancy, and right away, this cute little redhead was waiting for us. She was my host person and is going to the Philippines on her mission. I have only seen her in passing since, but she totally helped me figure everything out. She took my luggage and I went and got my books...they were in this yellow bag. It had a French PMG, French dictionnaire, French grammar book, something else French, le Sainte Bible, the Triple Combination (which is so pretty...I love it!!) in French, and some other stuff that I can't think of. The one thing it didn't have was the little orange missionaire book that I bought (remember, Mom??) so if you could send that to me that would be GREAT! I don't want to have to buy a new one.

Okay, so my district. My companions are Sister Pape and Sister Orton and there are 5 Elders and just us Sisters (actually, originally it was just me and Sister Pape, but Sister Orton transferred to the fast track missionaries--us--and so now there are three!). Sister Pape is absolutely ADORABLE and I love her! She is super excited to be here and is totally good with being exactly obedient and we are already like besties. We have a lot in common (like random quirky stuff that I won't tell you ;) ) and so it's fun talking. She's going to the Lyon mission (so Jacob, you'll have to look out for her!) and lived in Paris for 4 years! Her French is about the same as mine though, so I don't feel intimidated or anything :) She went to an American school and just took French in High School same as me. She's just great! Sister Orton is also amazing! I don't know her as well yet because this is our first day with her, but I can already tell that she's ready and willing to serve the Lord. She went to BYU for 3 years before this, so she's a little older than Sister Pape and me, but she's super sweet and I love her already! She's going to the Japan Tokyo Mission and lived in Japan for 6 years!! She went to a Japanese school though, so she's completely fluent. Also in my district is Elder Davis, Elder Bailey, Elder Alloria, Elder Monsia, and Elder Vang (also, they said there was another Elder, but he's quarantined because he's sick I guess....???). Elder Davis is going to the Lyon mission and his French is definitely better than mine. But not amazing! So it's all good. Elder Bailey is going to the Paris mission!!!!! His French is about the same. Elder Alloria is from the Philippines and is in this district for English. He's going to...I think...the California Santa Rosa mission. Elder Monsia is from Ivory Coast but he's most recently from New York. He is going to DC french speaking and he's already completely fluent. Elder Vang is awesome! He's Hmong, but has lived in California. He's going to a mission in Wisconsin Hmong speaking!!! He said one of our prayers in Hmong, and it is a very strange language. But super cool sounding! So yeah, basically my district is awesome.

My companions at the map!  It goes Sister Orton, me, Sister Pape from left to right 

My teachers are AWESOME.  We have like a billion teachers it feels like...but Brother Smith is incredible! He went to the Netherlands on his mission (my mission stole Belgium from his mission...hehe). Sister Palmer...absolutely amazing. She went to Ukraine on her mission and was in the MTC for 12 weeks...she didn't become fluent in Russian until she had been out a full year because the language is so hard...she just got back in February! And then Brother Alexander isn't our actual teacher, but he served in Lyon and because there are so many French-speaking missionaries in our district, he's just helping out.

Yeah so the MTC is nothing like what I was expecting...although I guess I wasn't really expecting anything in particular...it just is really cool. We do NOTHING in French. Everything is in English. You know how Jacob said that he had to teach a lesson on day 3? Yeah no. Well, we did, but it was yesterday and it was in English. Wait I take that back. We were supposed to, but first our teachers did a demonstration with a fake investigator (who was me). So how it works is at one point each of us have to make our own investigator. We base them off of someone we know, and then add our personality and voila! We have a fake investigator! We use their name and everything. So they couldn't find the other teacher who was supposed to do it, so Sister Palmer asked me if I would. The lesson was only supposed to be 15 minutes, but it ended up taking the whole rest of the 45 minutes because it was, and I'm not exaggerating, AMAZING. The spirit was so so so strong and by the end I was bawling (you know me) and when they asked if I would follow the example of Christ and be baptized I couldn't even talk...and sister Pape was bawling (Yep! We're one and the same!) and everything went so crazy great. I wish I could tell you about all of the spiritual experiences I've had so far, but that would definitely take too long...haha.

So one thing they really try to emphasize (when I say they I mean President Marion, my Branch President) is not using slang. So we're never supposed to say, "hey guys!" or "dude" or anything casual like that. So my companions and I have been trying really hard and it's is SO HARD. I didn't realize how much slang I use until I tried to stop...but we're getting there! So no worries ;)

Today we got to go to the temple this morning. So great. Like so so so great. The Provo Temple is HUGE compared to the Sacramento Temple...so I was lost. As you can imagine. But it was amazing, and I loved and it was today that I realized that I'm going to miss the temple so much while I'm gone...Sister Orton is lucky because she has the Tokyo Temple in her mission, so she gets to go like every 2 weeks.

So here at the MTC, in order to be one of the "cool" kids--sorry not kids, Elders and Sisters--you need to have a, uh, we call it a spiderman, but I'm not sure what it's called. We have these cards you swipe to get in the buildings, and a spiderman is the thing that hooks to your skirt/pants/whatever that you hook your card and room key on and it pulls out so swiping is easier!! So yeah Sister Pape and I have been raving about them for the past 3 days. But we just got ours today, so now we're cool too. Hah! :)

Is it weird that I've been telling my companions that a way to remember how to pronounce my last name is to think of petting a fish? I just realized...that's probably weird. But it helps them remember! Sister Orton even just asked me how to spell it because she knew how to pronounce it, just not how to spell it. I'm not sure why I told you that...but basically all I want you to know is that even though I am absolutely LOVING it here, I am so excited to finally get to the country. I'm still kind of stressed about the French, but President Marion and others have really emphasized that the only reason we're here for 2 weeks is to learn the language of the spirit. If they brought us here to learn French, then they wouldn't bring us. They would send us Rosetta Stone and then tell us to come back when our French is perfect. But that's not the point. The point is to learn to recognize, to feel, and to teach with the Spirit of the Lord. And even though I'm scared, I'm happy. I'm here in the MTC (happiest place on earth, President Nally said. Disneyland is only the second happiest place on earth). I'm serving a mission. As soon as I put on my name tag I was like, yeah! I'm a real missionary now! And now I have 2 name tags!!! Life is great.

So, Mom, you don't need to worry about me. You might need to ask me some questions, though, because I have no idea what else to write...if I wrote about everything I would be sending you a novel. Not that this isn't a novel...anyways, so write me! Send me my jeans when you get them! And if you really want to send me oreos, I love oreos so that's up to you because I have a policy never to say no to oreos. Drugs yes, but never oreos. However, my schedule is pretty good. We eat breakfast at 8:15, lunch at 1:20, and dinner at 6ish depending on the day. Much better than Jacob's was. I'm never even hungry before bed :)

Well...I don't have much time left, so I love you!

Je vous aime! (I love you!)

Bises (kisses), Sister Pettingill

Picture from my flight. Super beautiful.

Semaine 5! (Toulon)

Family!

I don't think I can stress enough how fast time seems to be flying here in France! It might just be that I am still 10 hours ahead of America but I don't know. They say that days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days on the mission. I felt that very much in the MTC but I don't know. Here it feels more like days feel like hours and weeks feel like minutes. 

Well I am really sorry but I didn't have time last week to send off any letters or the pictures so those will be heading off today! Last Monday was just a little hectic :) But now I am back on the ball and hopefully everyone that sent me something will get something back! Thanks for Katie's address because now I can send her letter to the MTC and it will be waiting there for her :) Tell her to go see Sister Coleman and Frere Starita in Building 8! It is a possibility she may not be with all the other French missionaries because all the two weekers were in a different residence and building for classes! But who knows :) Also as far as the Temple film, they mentioned it in the MTC and it has become the talk of the mission and there are a good amount of missionaries who are ready to go see it! I guess I would have been able to see it in the MTC if the Provo temple wasn't being worked on while I was there!

Also, apparently Cannes, one of the other villes (city/town) in our district, has a member that was baptized like 40 years ago by a Pettingill!!! The family name is Monier so if you get the chance maybe figure out who in our family secretly served in this mission like 40 years ago :) I did two exchanges last week which was new for me! They are super fun and it is awesome to be able to both learn from other missionaries and go to new villles! They also made me more grateful for my trainer! The first exchange I mentioned last week was with Elder Martinez and it was in Cannes. That was an interesting experience because we really had to think for ourselves. A lot of the little things that Elder Frandsen does for me, I had do now do with Elder Martinez. So it was a great learning experience and made both of us think really hard. We had come up with our own ideas for what to do with our time and make goals that we wanted to accomplish and now there were two imperfect french speakers who couldn't just turn to their left or right for someone to catch them as they started drowning. The second exchange our DL came to Toulon and we did the exchange. Again I learned a lot because he basically let me lead because it is my area and now I had to make all the decisions

I am glad to hear that the scouts are still going on campouts! There isn't much scouting out here because of the lack of boys that age.. It is amazing how many things we are blessed with in the US because of the great church membership! I tried another cheese this week and it is called roquefort... Nasty. Basically it is just cheese and mold. It wasn't too bad on bread but there is this nasty sock aftertaste... Yeah it isn't something I would just eat for fun... (well maybe I would, but if I could choose a cheese out of all the flavors... it wouldn't be roquefort...)

I have started to make calls this week which has been good and. It gets hard sometimes when people talk quietly or quickly but then I just pass it on to Elder Frandsen and we're all good. Also engages (a french term he used in one letter that I didn't recognize) are investigators with a baptismal date...

Another cool thing that happened is that there is this American who is here in Toulon with a Mexican restaurant, who the missionaries have been giving service to for a while now, and one of his friends back home saw a picture of us with him and messaged him telling him that she wanted to sponsor a meal every month for us at his restaurant through paypal! So awesome! So we ate for free last Samedi (Saturday)! He is a really nice guy and we want to somehow get him to take the lessons. He just loves us and has tons of LDS friends and knows all about us and had friends throughout his life who were LDS!

Also I just want to give my thoughts on French members of the church... They are literally amazing. I have seen several members that work with us pretty often give, give, give, give, to us and others, and they get like nothing in return. What I mean is they have almost nothing temporally and just continue to be beat down by temptations and trials like no other. The active members here are a true example to me of being truly converted to the gospel. It is like in Alma 20 something where it talks about the Anti-Nephi Lehis and how they would die before they go to battle and break the covenants they have made. These people have so much faith, and so many hardships. 

It is true that that kind of faith does not just come and it can take years sometimes to be like these people. Just this week Elder Sanchez (in our apartement) got in contact with one of the people he had baptized here in Toulon but had gone to the Army. This man is now inactive and says that we are just too strict. It is so sad to think that this man, who probably bore strong testimony just a couple months ago, now doesn't want to "fall into our trap again". It really just emphasizes to me the importance of being humble and using the Atonement. We have one of the most awesome gifts and privileges as members of the church to literally be lifted to a level we could never be through the Atonement and I think we lose sight of that sometimes. 

Well I love you all and hope everything is going well!!

Elder Pettingill