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
