March 28, 2016 - Tortillas and a Testimony...

Baptism

David and Elder Loftus making tortillas

Elders with a model investigator (literally)!

Espero que tuvieron un bueno Pascua!!!!

This last week was a great week of learning, and helping people come unto Christ through his everlasting Gospel here on earth.  I've been learning and growing so much in the knowledge that Christ is our Savior, and only through his the doctrine of his Gospel, which is faith in Him, Repenting of your sins, Baptism by those who hold the Priesthood keys to authorize it, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. I know without a doubt that only by living this doctrine that he gave us can we be saved throughout all eternity with those that we love by our side.  I wish to give my personal testimony that only by living this gospel and Doctrine of Christ can we truly find happiness in this life, and even better yet, in the eternities.  This doctrine isn't just for those who haven´t been baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ, its the same for all saints of His church.  If you are not living this doctrine, I invite you to study this doctrine, to live this doctrine, and as a representative of Jesus Christ, I promise you that you will find the blessing of heaven open ever wider unto you, and you will find true happiness.  I promise you, it is possible to begin a New Life, in Jesus Christ, no matter where you are, or how far off the path you feel you are, it is possible.  I testify of these things to you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.  

So I started off this week with getting a district activity started to help us feel more united in our district!  Guess what we did? We made Tortillas and Burritos!!!!!!!  The Hermanas had a great time, and I can officially say I know how to make tortillas now, which has always eluded me.... (I also learned how to make crepes, YUM!!!) 

 

Life is a whole lot more busy now, but also a whole lot more spiritual!  We're running around, giving interviews for people who wish to be baptized, helping people to really understand what baptism is, and we're seeing a lot of fruits coming out of all of this! We had a total of 3 baptisms this past week, and well, we'll see how many this next week, but everything is going awesome! We're always finding new people, always teaching the Gospel of Repentance, and I can really see peoples lives going for the better!  

A lot of people were gone this past week in vacations, and so we're going to have a lot more lessons this week than the last one, (there's nothing better than teaching with the Spirit!)  Everything's going great with the comp, haven't had any run ins with dogs for a bit!  Love you guys a lot!

 

Elder Pettingill

March 21st, 2016 - New Companion Elder Loftus!

David and new companion, Elder Loftus

Hola mi familia y amigos!!!!  First week as a district leader has been going pretty great!!!  My comps name is Elder Loftus, we're co leaders de Districto, and we're getting started pretty well here.  Elder Loftus is a missionary from Ogden, Utah, 19 years old, and pretty awesome!  He just recently completed his training, and already a DL! Crazy awesome right?!

This last week was a big week of running around from one area to the other getting interviews done for the investigators of the Hermanas, and trying to get stuff done here in my area.  This last week was more a week of us trying to get our feet planted firmly, and now we're going to start off sprinting this week!  We have a whole lot better idea of what we need to do, and we're going to be on top of things this week!

Guess what??? For the past 3 months, me and the missionaries here in Cuauhtemoc have been helping out in the making of a stake of Zion here!!!! We've made all the requisites, and now we've got one more Sunday and a lot of people to bring into church, and then we'll be a Stake!!!!!!!  This is the last push this Sunday, but its going to be great!  (We have to have all the requisites by the end of this month or its going to be another year and half (mas o menos) till we finalize the Stake!  So we're super hyped here, and the work of God is booming here!!!!!

The baptism this last week in my area, her name is Noely Garcia! She's an awesome person, and everything went great!  Except for some reason our taxi driver who was our buddy left us in the middle of the street on our way to the baptism.....  I have no idea why, no one did anything to him, he just pulled over and didn't say anything (so we kinda got the point and got out, and no, I didn't pay him after that).... So we showed up to the baptism a little late cause we ended up having to take the bus. 

  

Have a great week my friends!!!! Love you all so much!!!!!

Elder Pettingill

March 14, 2016 - Riding in the trunk of a taxi?

Baptism of a whole family

Riding in the trunk of a TAXI??

Building a Temple at Zone training

Standard of Moroni at Zone training

Sisterly love?? :)

So much has happened in this past week!  We've had a lot of missionary training this past week, and we had 5 baptisms!!!  One family of four, and another guy who has a great spirit!!!

Learning a ton out here in the mission, and there's so little time to get hardly anything done!  But, good news!!!! I've been made DISTRICT LEADER!!!!!!!!!!!  I've got a new companion. He's on his way up from Chihuahua right now, but we're going to be co District leaders and its going to be awesome!!!!!!

Here's the baptism pic, and a pic of me riding in the trunk of a taxi!!!!

Siempre Fuerte,

Elder Pettingill

March 7, 2016 - finding the Escogidos

David, comp, and family in front of the 'Marriage house'

Couple David helped get married

Applebees after the Wedding!

Baptism of 2 boys

Another great week in Paradise!!! Figurativly speaking.

This week was another week of helping people find their salvation in Jesus the Christ! We've walked our feet off, taught with the Spirit, and baptized at the end of the week!  Two kids who really wanted to baptize, the parents want to baptize as well, we just need to take them to get married this week, and then it will be their turn this Saturday!  We're working a lot to find a lot of Escogidos or in other words Chosen.  It doesn't sound as cool in English, but what we're really trying to focus on is following the Spirit to find those people who really would listen to the message that would change their lives for eternity, and we're finding a lot.

Out of the bunch, there's this really cool couple, one of them is a gringo, and he has a Mexican wife.  (He doesn't speak English). However, they both really want to do what's right, and get closer to God, and so we've been working with them a lot this past week.  This guy is hilarious, always cracking jokes and finding the good things in life.  Apparently he thinks my comp has the face of a liar (He said jokingly).

Everything with the recent converts are going great!  Jorge and his son received the Holy Priesthood this past Sunday, and they are progressing a lot!  The other converts are steadily progressing, just need to keep on visiting them!

So, I have a challenge for all of you!!!!  What is the most important thing that we can learn here in this life?  I'm going to say, that this question cant be answered just by searching Google, and there are no Spark Notes answers for this either.  This is an answer that your going to have to diligently search for, but I promise you, its worth it.

I know this email is super short, and there are no pictures..... One of the Hermanas in my district has it, I forgot to get it back after the baptism yesterday.  But next week will be a whole lot bigger, exciting, and with a lot more pictures!

Keep having a great time, and until nos vemos next week!

Elder Pettingill

February 29, 2016 - attack of the very scary 'gooses'

Teaching a family of Menonites!

We made our own tortillas!

Baptism of Alejandra

Eiffel tower that Alejandra made

So another week has come and gone, and this week flew by yet again!!!

This week was really just another week of prepping a lot of people for baptisms again!  We had to go help the Hermanas in the district a lot to make sure that everything was going to happen according to plan, and the best part is that everything went according to plan!  There were a bunch of baptisms in the district, and there was also 1 baptism from my area!  Her name is Alejandra Orduño, and she was super excited for the baptism!  Her family came and everything, and we're hoping her family will hop into the water this next month as well! 

So bad news.....  I've been reporting to my Presidente de Misión about the progress about the Menonites, basically that I dont have much time to go over there, and that not much is really happening cause weve been pretty busy with everything happening in our área. I told him that if we could have a companionship over there, focusing on them, then we could have some really good succes.  However he said that a while back they had tried that, had even had the missionaries start to learn Lower German, and still didnt have succes. He told me better to focus on where your doing a lot of good right now.

So no more Menonites, for the time being.  I'm going to let the fields ripen a bit longer, and when the next misión president comes I'm going to go for it again!  Still going to prep for it, and the time will come!

In better news we have a lot of people interested in the Gospel, and who are wanting to get closer to God! This next month will be a good month, and I'm especially excited for Easter!!! Also, funny story of this week....

We had just eaten lunch, and were on our way to our next appointment in a bus! However we were both super exhausted and fell asleep on the bus..... We ended up waking up and saw that no one was on the bus, and that we were in a part of our área we had never been!  It was crazy being lost again, but we kinda knew where to go, so we started walking.  Yes, there was a big scary dog on that Street that almost ate us. It saw us and started coming at us,but there was nowhere to run! So we started throwing rocks at it, trying to scare it away, and right as we ran out of good rocks to throw (the dog was just getting madder and madder) the owner came outside!  She actually started laughing at us, (imagine 2 gringos throwing rocks at a dog thats trying to kill them) and sent her dog to the back, and sent us away.

In the Next Street we got to, there were two big gooses in the streets!!!!  We both have heard how gooses are crazier than dogs, and so we were pretty cautious approaching it.  My comp dared me to go touch it, and me being me of course I went to go do it!  It was lame though, the gooses ran away and went under a fence..... 

Hope you guys have a great week! 

Elder Pettingill