Inspired By A Better Cause

Hello everyone, 

This was a pretty good week. We taught some fire lessons! One day, we taught our friend Jose outside as we sat on plywood furniture, and then we went and taught our man Humberto on his door step. So we ended up spending a full 2 hours straight teaching outside during the hottest part of the day. Needless to say, my companions and I all got pretty sweaty. I'll send some pictures from that haha.

I played the piano in sacrament meeting this week, and wow, it's a completely different ball game to play in front of a congregation (albeit small) of people singing along to the song you're playing! Never before have my hands been so shaky while playing the piano. It's alright though, I can literally only get better from here on out! Us missionaries basically ran the show that Sunday for sacrament meeting. Elder Smith gave the opening prayer, I played piano, Elder Bullock blessed the sacrament, Hermana Montgomery and Hermana Bryant gave talks, ALL of us sang "Llamados a Servir" (Called to Serve) as a musical number (which we were asked to do right before sacrament meeting), and then I gave the closing prayer. Pretty wild day! 

Twice a week, the whole mission hops on a zoom call for morning devotional. My companions and I got asked to do a musical number to start the devotional. We decided to sing the Hymn "We Are All Enlisted"! We did it in the style that the band The Lower Lights did it. It's such a bop, everyone should go listen to their version of it. Picture that, with no instruments and less talent, and you'll get the picture haha. 

Today for P-Day, we went to the border wall at Calexico again and played more basketball. 

Here's an awesome verse from the Book of Mormon, in Alma 43:45. This is the beginning of the "War Chapters" in the Book of Mormon. There are two groups of people living in the Ancient America's at this point. The Nephites - a righteous and religious people - and the Lamanites - a wicked and bloodthirsty people. The Lamanites come to war against the Nephites. The verse below details some of the motivations of the Nephites, the reasons they fought.

"45 Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church."

I love this verse, it's so patriotic! America has always been "the promised land", the land of religious freedom, and the home of the brave. The principles of the constitution and the principles of the gospel are really one and the same! The freedom to choose, family, and God. 

Elder Pettit

Feeding Thy Horses

Hello!!

The weeks go by faster and faster every time! We taught some great lessons this week, but there were also some really slow days with not much success in finding/teaching people.

I gave my first Sacrament meeting talk in Spanish on Sunday! That was pretty fun. Also, I will be the pianist for our little branch now! My trainer who got transfered was the previous pianist, and nobody else can play! So I've been trying to find time here and there to practice haha. 

My Spanish is coming along little by little. Sometimes I get impatient and frustrated that I don't understand everything right NOW, because I feel so limited in speech and in comprehending what others are saying. It's pretty humbling to be put in a position where you really have to work hard to just communicate with people. Overall though, I'm super grateful to be able to learn Spanish out here on the mission. 

Spiritual thought for the week, from Alma 18: In this chapter, a man named Ammon offers himself to be a servant to King Lamoni. He and the other servants are sent out to stop the Lamanites from scattering the king's flocks of sheep. The Lamanites do scatter the flocks, which scares the servants, leading them to think that their king will slay them. Ammon is glad when he sees the other servants frightened, because he sees this as an opportunity to show the power of God through himself! Ammon gathers fights the enemy Lamanites, and literally chops off the arms of all those who came against him. So epic. The arms were brought back to the king as evidence of what happened. This leads into verses 8 and 9:

8 And it came to pass that king Lamoni inquired of his servants, saying: Where is this man that has such great power?

9 And they said unto him: Behold, he is feeding thy horses.

How cool is that? Ammon could have bathed in the glory of the awesome thing he just did, but instead, he continues his work. He continues carrying on doing the things he had been commanded of by the king. He didn't ask for a great celebration, or seek praise, he just went out and fed the king's horses. There's a great lesson in humility, responsibility and discipline, among other things. So even when we single-handedly win the battle in a heroic fashion, don't forget to feed the horses.

Have a great week!

Elder Pettit

Transfer Week! :( + :)

Hola!

This last week has been pretty wild! My trainer, Elder Montague, got transferred to Chula Vista today which was very unexpected and pretty sad. We found out Sunday night when Elder Montague got a call from President, asking him to be a zone leader of the biggest zone in the mission (40 missionaries, compared to 14 in my zone). We thought for sure he would stay and finish my training, and that Bullock would get six-week-shafted instead haha. I think I understand now what it's like to be a NBA or NFL player when one of your teammates gets traded haha! It felt like our star player just got traded! Both of the sisters we share the branch with, Sister Tello and Sister Simon, got transferred as well. So that means two other sisters are coming into a "whitewashed" area, and will have to learn quick on their own. One of the new sisters is just starting her mission, and I know the other sister already. 

Last night, we had our English class, and it was the last time that my trainer and the sisters would be there. After the class, we announced that they would be leaving. We brought a cake to help soften the blow, because everyone in the class really likes us missionaries (most of them are non-members too). There's a ten year old kid in the class named Dario, and he said in Spanish, "Get rid of that cake, we don't want it, we want you guys to stay!" That made the departing missionaries get pretty emotional, along with the fact that none of the people would leave until they hugged/shook hands with and took a picture with us. Most of the non-member Mexicans from English class were crying too, it was pretty wild. That, and some other things, have shown me that the Lord really does work through imperfect people. There's a member family in our branch that the Sisters would spend a lot of time with, and when the sisters went to say bye, one of the daughters in that family gave the sisters a handwritten letter. In it, she said how the sisters changed her life forever and have shown her the love God has for her. It was very profound to me, because I was able to see how the Sisters were able to seriously leave a mark on this family. Sometimes the Sisters would do things that would make us scratch our heads, but despite the weaknesses that they and everyone has, they are still able to be that vessel for God's love to people. That was a really powerful experience. 

Well, my new companion has been out for 20 months, and he's been speaking Spanish since he was 6! So I'll learn a ton from him, his name is Elder G. Smith. It's sad to see Elder Montague go, we all had a lot of fun together, and I learned a ton from him. My brother Oakley told me in the MTC to pray for a good trainer, and I did. And I got one! He's a stud.

Pues, I'll send some pictures. There might be a lot this week haha, I apologize in advance!

Elder Pettit

Prez In The Valley + Salvation Mountain!

Buenooo

On Friday, President and Sister Giminez and the AP's (assistant to the president) came down to the valley for a whole day. We had a nice zone council with them all. One thing I really liked that both President and Sister Giminez said was a quote from an apostle, something like "Even the weakest of ink is more powerful than the strongest memory." We should keep a record of our lives, especially our spiritual experiences. In times filled with doubt and uncertainty in our lives, we can look back at powerful things that have happened to us as a reminder. A reminder of why you chose to do what it is you're doing, or why you believe what you believe. 

We also had exchanges with the AP's that day, so I went with Elder Day, and my companions went with the other AP, Elder Lindsey. We were going to go visit inactive members who haven't been to church in years. But, Elder Day doesn't speak Spanish. That meant that I had to carry all the conversations with native Spanish speakers, while with the AP! Most of the people we tried visiting and talking to weren't really interested. Elder Day told me he was really impressed with me which was cool. He told me, "If I was on exchanges with an AP in my first transfer who didn't speak the language, and I was told I had to carry everything, I would have been terrified! But you're doing really well!"

We had a couple of awesome lessons this week, we've definitely been having more success with finding more people to teach.

The Hermanas that we share a branch with are teaching someone who wants to be baptized (either this week or the next), and my companions want me to do it! That will be an awesome experience for sure.

One day this week, we rolled up to the church to find a homeless person with a pink 

Speaking of homeless people, today for P-Day we drove up to Slab City, this wild place about 45 minutes north of El Centro. A bunch of homeless people congregated there and made a bunch of strange art out there. Pretty cool! But some of it just felt cursed haha. We all took a ton of pictures of everything!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Elder Pettit

The Rebound!!

After a couple of tough weeks where people have avoided us like we are the Black Plague, we finally had some awesome success with lessons this week! The coolest experience we had was with a member and her in-active sister. We had met with Hermana Felix once before, but she wanted us to come back to teach her sister Maria. When we got there, Maria didn't seem that interested to hear what we had to say. But as the lesson went on, and as we asked her to remember spiritual experiences from her past, she started to seem much more interested. 

We basically just taught her about repentance, the covenants she made at baptism, and explained how important those are. She was baptized 15 years ago and hasn't really been active since, so we hit her with some awesome scriptures to remind her why the gospel is important. She seemed to just need a little kick of motivation to get going again. It was definitely the strongest lesson we've been a part of so far! It was also the first lesson that I felt I understood just about everything that was said. Usually in Spanish, I understand a good majority of what's being said, but still miss out on big concepts or ideas that are being talked about. But this time, I was totally in tune with the whole thing, it was so awesome. The Gift of Tongues is real! I also felt more comfortable speaking than I ever have, I felt like I could say anything I needed to in that meeting. It was super cool.

We had an older-ish couple invite my companions and I and the zone leaders over for dinner and a lesson, so that was pretty fun as well. That day was very overcast, it looked like it would rain, so it was only 90 degrees. 90 degrees has never felt so cool before haha! 

We also one day helped these two teenage girls jump their car, and we started talking. One of them said she has some questions about the Book of Mormon and our church, so they are inviting us to their Christ Community Church for a Bible study this Friday with their youth pastor. Should be interesting haha, I don't think they'll bash us, but we are prepared to convert their whole congregation ;)

The next couple of days are supposed to be super super hot, I think tomorrow is breaking 120. Hopefully we do not die haha. Also President Giminez is coming to the valley on Friday to do missionary work with our zone all day, so we will probably teach a lesson with him present. Some poor investigator is just going to get blown away by the Spirit when they get taught by us and one of the Lord's Seventy's!! That'll be awesome.

Elder Pettit