MTC Week 3--Love those packages and letters!

Hey Dad!

First off, packages and letters are probably a few things that can make you excited in about a second. When I got those packages they were awesome and I was just super excited all day to open them. Thanks so much all the food and the missionary from Spain keeps telling me to let him know when I break out the peanut M&Ms :) Also thanks for the shoulder bag it was awesome to get it! It is a little big so I have been debating if I want to keep it. (It's the same dimensions as my small suitcase :) ) Haha but thank so much for thinking about me and what I need! As far as garments go there is a distribution center here on campus and I already went and got a few extra pairs. Also the dropbox doesn't work here at the MTC so I wasn't able to look at the picture that got sent and that is why I have been sending the pictures through email. As far as letters and packages, keep sending them and I will keep loving them! If you do happen to send another package, could you look for a couple more of my ties that I didn't bring and send those? Ties are like gold here and make each day interesting until you have worn it what feels like 20 times in two days. ;)

I'm glad to hear that Daniel got up (Rich told Jacob about a lake trip and Daniel's first time wakeboarding) because I was not able to get up at all when we went with Alex Hamilton. That sounds like a lot of fun! Good luck with scout camp and I hope it goes well with all those kids!!!

That is awesome that Adam is now a deacon and tell him I'm so sorry for not wishing him happy birthday! I was actually thinking all last weekend about it being his birthday, but when I got onto the email I guess I just started to panic and forget. So yeah tell him Happy late birthday! Also tell Anna that it was awesome to hear from her and that a post card is on the way!

I am so glad everything is going well and that you seem to be surviving with out me. I am loving the MTC and I can definitely see the spirit working and my testimony growing. My French is coming and so is Elder Nelson's. He is such an example to me and got called as the new district leader for the last three weeks. He is amazing and works so hard to learn the language. We have had two new lessons with Jean our "investigator"/teacher and he is just amazing! He has done everything we have asked him to do and he "came" to church with us this weekend! Our last lesson was on the Book of Mormon and I could see how the Lord softened his heart about the Book of Mormon and made him ready to read and pray. Our other investigator is also going well and hopefully she keeps the commitments we gave her (She didn't keep it last time which was really disappointing, so we read it with her so she could understand why it is so important!)

I do have a couple words of humble pie that I have received over the last few weeks and the amazing testimony I have gained of planning. It is so crazy how planning can be so great in two ways. First, if you aren't productive even when your schedule is planned out. Also it is amazing how when you plan focused on your investigator or whatever that could be when applying it not to missionary work that you can receive revelation in ways that you may not even know is revelation to study or do things that God knows will help them.

Today Ben left but I got to see him for almost an hour. First we went and did laundry together and breakfast and it was awesome to finally see him for real. I asked him about his brother and he said he loved seeing him for 15 minutes. Apparently they were together and at 14 minutes Spencer looked at his watch and said see ya because it is so important to be obedient all the time and exactly. That has been such a focus for Elder Nelson and I because I know know that this is not my time and the Lord needs me to be ready for the field so he can direct me to the people he has been preparing for me. Yesterday I was able to see a devotional by Elder Bednar given at Christmas at the MTC called Characters of Christ that was amazing! It was so great and made me think of Christ in such a different light and how he set the example in so many ways. If you have the chance I would recommend looking it up and if you can find it can you send me a copy? It is literally one of the best talks I have seen. So inspiring!!!!

Also have you heard anything about the new missionary dress code? If you haven't go to LDS.org and then missionaries and dress code... There are some big changes that are really going to change the typical look of the missionary.

I have so much I want to say but I can't because of time so I will probably just send a letter :)

Avec amour (With love)!!

Elder Pettingill

Elder Nelson, Jacob's awesome companion

Jacob says about the next photos: What can I say? the sisters love us. Also our district. And Ben last night 

A group of Tahitian Elders speaking french and tahitian left this week and it was sad because they were super cool!

Elder Toga is a tongan/samoan from Australia going to Tahiti!! He is super awesome and just gave me a tie! His companion (with the blond hair) is super awesome too and they were in the MTC for 10 or 12 week

They have a pull up bar for us to use so I was just getting some stress out which you can clearly see on my face......

The city is putting a huge water pipe in right outside the MTC! Also the group photo is our whole Zone!

MTC Week 2

Hello Family!!!!

It was so awesome hearing from you and it is awesome to hear all the fun adventures you're having without me!! I can understand how Joshua is feeling about the ties except my feelings are more about wearing the same ties over and over ;) I bet if Joshua keeps building up his stash he will get there :) I'm sorry about the weather because it has been super nice here and we even got some rain the other day! It was so awesome how you enjoy some of those little things like rain when you haven't had it for a while! As far as the 4th of July.. It was soooo amazing!!! We had a special devotional at night and sung patriot hymns for a while! It was so energizing and motivating to be able to sing those hymns and it definitely brought the spirit into the room!! We heard some speakers and then got to watch 17 miracles!! It was so awesome and it didn't end until 10:15!!!! After the movie, we got to watch the Stadium of Fire outside the MTC until 10:45!! It was awesome and they didn't even give us a curfew so our district was up until 11:30 or so! The only problem was that we then still got to wake up at 6:30.... Haha so that, along with San Fransisco really has helped me sleep to the fullest!! As far as Katie goes!! Don't buy a bag here! They only have a couple even though they have moved toward shoulder bags for every mission!! A lot of the Soeurs in my district just carry around a purse or a couple have purchased bags elsewhere. One of the teachers said that you can find one in France easily for super cheap and although it is sometimes hard to not be able to just have everything right now it is really not too bad. But yeah we have an orange book with all the french gospel phrases that you would ever need and a yellow french english dictionary and I also bought a 333 verbs book from the store because they don't give it to you. If anything just learn to testify and pray in French and start working on that and you will be fine! And maybe some Church vocab like Sauveur or temoignage :). I'm sure her french is probably better than mine still, especially since you've got the accent down. Thanks you so much Adam for your fast and I think it is working! I am definitely learning faster than I ever could by myself.

To answer Mom's other questions, I have seen Ben more and more each day it is awesome. I have been wanting to just go play sports or something to really be able to see him and talk but it hasn't happened yet and I just feel blessed to see him as often as I do. He leaves next Monday which is so crazy! I feel like time goes by sooooooo fast, but yet so slow at the same time. Also, yes the Provo temple is closed and, no, we do not get to go at all which is disappointing. The nice thing is that we have 3 extra hours every P-day to prepare and what not so I guess that is the bright side. And last, the food is very good!! It is obviously not as good as Mom's cooking but I feel like for a cafeteria it is very good! We have the earliest shift so we eat at 6:30, 11:00, and 4:00 so we are always starving at night by the time we go to bed! 

Also have you heard anything about using Ipads and other technology in the mission field? well it is going to happen within the next year or so which is cool. And my companion and I got called to be Sacrament Coordinators, which I forgot to mention last week, and we blessed the sacrament which is hard because sometimes if you pronounce something even close to wrong it could be another word like mort and amour which are actually really close to each other but one means death and the other means love....

The MTC is absolutely amazing and it is so true that the spirit is so strong here. My testimony has grown so much in just the last two weeks as I have consistently studied and prayed, even in French. We had Fast Sunday yesterday and the testimonies were all in French. It is amazing to see how the spirit is the same no matter the language!! Sundays are amazing and really boost you spiritually!! We got to watch the Joseph Smith movie yesterday and it was just so awesome and made me soo excited to be in the field!! We had a devotional as well and just was so amazing!! During the devotional they showed a video and there were a couple with Borris, Tucker family right?, in it!!! It was awesome to see my companions face when I leaned over and said "I'm related to him!" It was awesome! As far as French is coming is that it is coming. I have started to have problems spelling English words and have spelled Spirit, Esprit more times than I can count!!! We just got done teaching our first investigator and it went ok! After we were done teaching my teacher basically said that this one wasn't meant to go perfectly, especially since they hadn't taught us any real teaching techniques... Haha yeah her name was Solange and she didn't want to get baptized..... but it was still an amazing experience!!! The real shocker was that ( and I don't mind sharing this because Katie will probably be speaking English in the MTC so this won't be as exciting for her) Solange was actually our second teacher!!!! We seriously were so excited when we found out and it was so awesome to know that we didn't ruin her eternal salvation ;) She was such a good actor and is an even better teacher :) When we finally met her she refused to speak English in front of us and it was so frustrating because we just wanted her to speak in english!!! She finally did and it was awesome.

Alors... je vous aime!!!

A la prochaine!!

Elder Pettingill

A Sister writes about Elder Pettingill in her letter home

One of the Soeurs from the group that went to San Francisco wrote about Jacob in her letter to her family.  We came across the dad and mom on Facebook and they told us about the letter. Here is what Soeur Everett wrote:

"Ok so let me talk about my trip to San Francisco! On Monday I had to get up at 2 am and meet my temporary French district! [Photo Above] I thought there was no way in the world that any district could be better than mine, and then I realized that some can be just as good! This district is INCREDIBLE. They're all going to my same mission except for one Elder, so it was great to be able to meet them all and get close to them! On the way to the airport I sat by Sister Bragg (Sister Hodges I think this is the sister you were telling me to look out for?). She is the sweetest girl EVER!!! I'm so glad that I had such a fun district to be with all day because we were travelling a ton and it would have been miserable without them. When we finally got into the city we decided to stop for breakfast since none of us had eaten all day. We went to this little bakery on the corner (don't remember what it was called) but we thought we were so adorable for going to a French bakery when we're going to France... And me and Elder Pettingill both got the "Paris" breakfast sandwich. Hilarious, I know. But this part of the day was probably the highlight because the food was soooo good!! After eating breakfast we all headed over to the French Consulate. As we waited in line to get our visas, Elder Pettingill set the example and started handing out pass-along cards!! We were all just staring in awe as he connected with every single person he talked to. So he handed me a pass along card and told me to give it to the lady helping me with my visa. I was actually a little surprised when she took it! But it also seemed like she got pass-along cards all the time from French missionaries coming through. But hey, as a district we passed out 7 pass-along cards and 1 Book of Mormon while we were on our trip! I'd say that's pretty good! We were all so tired and delirious by the time we got back to the MTC campus that the rest of that day is still a complete blur. The Elders made sure to remind us that staying awake for 18 hours straight is the equivalent of being drunk. Drunk missionaries--super ironic."

Also, Katie's leaving date has changed. Katie has been moved into the advanced French language group, which means she will now leave September 4 and head to France only two weeks later.  She will not speak any French in the MTC but will train in an English-speaking district.  Katie is feeling scared yet trusting.

A letter written on the airplane

Hello Family!

Katie! Sorry I am not sending you a personal note but I am tired of writing my address to so many people. I am having so much fun and the MTC is so awesome! You can feel the spirit so strong here it is amazing. You are right when you said I am learning so much.  French is coming! I can greet people, pray and testify in French already. I have already given two lessons in completely French. The 1st one did not go very well and we did not stick to our notes very well.  The 2nd one on the other hand went 100 times better! I know the gift of tongues is real and it is cool to be able to hold a simple conversation with someone. On my 1st day I got to the MTC I checked in and went straight to the room to learn French. Then we had some orientation and heard several speakers. Basically this first weekend has been very hectic and overwhelming because you are just thrown into the work.  But now it is Monday and things have gotten a lot better! Sunday was yesterday and it was so awesome! The spirit is just everywhere.  Today is my P-Day but I am going to San Francisco so I do not get a P-Day but I may be able to email tomorrow.  I saw Ben and it was cool but I have not seen him since and I have been looking out for him.  The Evans were awesome and we ate at Cafe Rio which was delicious. It is very social but we try to keep it more focused. I have 4 sisters in my district and 4 elders including myself.  Oh I am actually writing this on the plane fyi and I am in a 1st class seat with a window! So awesome.  I took some pics with the clouds. : )  I think that post cards would be awesome and would be cool! Let's do it! (Katie suggested in a letter that they send postcards of their areas back and forth.)

Je sais que L'Evangile de Jesus-Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours est vrai et que le Livre de Mormon est la parole de dieu! (I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.)

I am praying only in French and am getting better every day.

A la prochaine! (Until next time) Elder Pettingill

Mom!

You will probably read what I gave Katie so I will spare you the details again. : )  Ca va bien! Je suis content que c'est bien en Folsom! J'apprendre beaucoup en le tempe que je suis ici. : ) (It's going well!  I am happy that things are good in Folsom!  I am learning a lot in the time that I am here.)

Je t'aime! (I love you!)

A la prochaine!  Elder Pettingill

MTC 1st Week! (And first P-Day!)

Bonjour mon famille!! 

It is true and it is amazing how the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days! Today is my P-day because yesterday I went to San Francisco to the French Consolate.  It was super fun but also super tiring! I did not sleep much on the plane, but instead wrote some letters which should arrive this week. :)  The MTC is amazing and the spirit here is so awesome! I love my companion Elder Nelson; it is amazing to see how it seems how he was picked just for me! He is going to Paris so it is going to be a sad departure in a few weeks! Yesterday I went to San Fransisco with the other district which was fun but it was sad not being around him because he is just so awesome. He is an 18 year old and smiles literally all the time (Josh will probably quote Studio C for that one.)

I am glad you guys are doing some hard physical things because I am doing about the opposite. It is amazing how exhausting learning and studying can be when you do it for 10 to 12 hours straight. We have already taught two lessons which also are exhausting because you use all your mental strength in order to listen, translate, think in english, translate, and then actually say what you want to say. But the awesome thing is the gift of tongues. I have already felt its power while teaching and while learning. Sometimes I think that French is so hard and it would be so much easier to be able to just teach in English, because I have so much I want to say but I can't because of the language barrier! When I was in San Fransisco as a group we handed out 7 pass along cards and a Book of Mormon (I passed out two of the cards and the Book of Mormon!). It made me feel so fulfilled and ready to do the work but I can't until I learn the language.

As far as the language is going, it is going very well and I know so much more than I knew last week. Everyone in our zone thinks I know know a ton which is not true (although I think that Mom's lessons in French did pay off because everyone says I have a really good accent. So thanks to Mom for that.) I think the thing that has really been helping me is PVL. Parle Votre Langue or Speak Your Language. It has really pushed me to figure out how to say stuff in French rather than just do it in English which is really easy to.

As far as my first week. My teacher's name is Frere Starita. He served in Africa! He hasn't taught us much yet and mostly just got us trained about being at the MTC. We finally had our first real French lesson last Saturday from a substitute named Frere Sybrowskyand he served in Quebec, Canada. He was soooo awesome and super inspiring. He told us some super awesome stories about the le dons du langue (Gift of Tongues) and I learned a lot! My branch is awesome and all the Elders and Soeurs are awesome! We do this thing where everyone gets to prepare a 3 to 5 minute talk in French for Sundays on a topic that they give us from Preach my Gospel and then they randomly choose people to speak and announce it during sacrament meeting. Usually the new Elder and Soeurs don't speak but Soeur Arts spoke (she is awesome! she is from Holland and took like 6 years of French. I don't know why she isn't already in the field. Also her companion is from England and My companion and I always speak in an English accent with her because she has the coolest accent!). But I won't get to speak this week because it is Fast Sunday!! So excited!

Keep reading the scriptures and stay strong!

Avec l'amour,

Elder Jacob Pettingill

First letter!!!

First letter from Jacob today was a short questionnaire I gave him to answer.  Jacob told me he would wait for us to write first.  So I gave him some questions to answer that I knew we would want to know. I had heard he would get time to write briefly the first night he was there. I will put my questions and comments in regular type and Jacob's answers in italics.

Questions I am dying to know the answers to:

1.  What did you think of flying on an airplane (this was Jacob's first time flying since he was very young)?  I had a lot of fun on the flight! It was a nice warm up flight and I enjoyed most of it. One of the seats next to me was empty so I got lots of leg room.

2.  Have you met Soeur Bennion? (sister of a good friend) Yes! She is in my district! We have 4 elders and 5 sisters in the district.

3.  Did you see Ben? (best friend who is also in the MTC right now) Yes! I saw him walking with his district. Super exciting! We do not have the same P-day.  Mine is on Monday.

4. Who is your companion and where is he from? My companion is Elder Nelson and he is from Gilbert, Arizona. He is 18! He is going to the Paris Mission and I love him already!

5.  Have you seen anyone else you know?  I have only seen Dylan.  Oh and Matthew Milletts who I met at college.

6.  What do you think of the MTC so far???  The MTC is awesome!  I love it already and love French so much! It is awesome to have so many excited people around! The Spirit is so strong and the people are so nice!

7.  What is the name of your district?  How many people are in it?  I have no idea and 9.  But I met a girl missionary name Soeur Everett that is leaving in two weeks and she got here today.  

We love you!!! Thank you for being so wonderful and for serving a mission.  We are so very proud of you!!!

Love, Mom

P.S.  I am loving it here and will probably fly to San Fran next Tuesday or so.

Less than 24 hours!!

It's almost time.  The bags are nearly packed, the errands are almost all done, the last pair of suit pants are back from the cleaners (who misplaced them), and Jacob is READY.  We are feeling a little sad to say goodbye for now, but also so excited for and proud of Jacob as he chooses to set aside his own life and serve the Lord for two years.  I (Khristine) am especially excited to hear about his adventures in the south of France, which is where I also served a full-time mission, entering the MTC 23 years ago almost to the day. 

I plan to post portions, if not all, of Jacob's letters here when we receive them, plus any pictures he sends.  I will put the link to this blog on his facebook page when I post a letter, for those who are interested.  You can also receive email updates by the link on the right. I don't know how that works but I guess we'll figure it out.  I will try to keep this updated for all of us who love Jacob (Elder Pettingill in just a few hours!)  

Thank you for your support and prayers!  A bientôt! (French for see you or bye for now)