¡Adios A La Valle!

Hello!

Well, I am being transferred from the Valley to Encinitas! From what I've heard, it's basically the complete opposite of the Valley. It's in the top left of the mission, as opposed to the bottom right, for starters. Both of my companions and one of the sisters have all served there before! So they told me quite a bit about it yesterday, and showed me a lot of pictures haha. It's super green, super beautiful, super nice weather. Sister Montgomery told me it's my reward for sticking it out in the valley during the hottest part of the year! It's right on the beach! I'm going to be in a trio again, with Elder Cook and Elder E. Jones. I'm excited! Apparently there isn't nearly as much Spanish there, so that's too bad.

This last week in the valley has been great though. I'm going to miss all the awesome people here. The members, the missionaries, and the people we taught. 

We had dinner at the Ibarra family's house yesterday, they're super awesome, they had us over for dinner and gave us haircuts so many times. They are "that" member family that just takes care of the missionaries and keeps the branch going haha.

I had my last English class with the people here yesterday! Afterwards, I took a picture with Hermano Grijalva, one of the coolest guys on the planet. He's so enthuastic about missionary work, he himself is a convert, so he knows how important it is. He gave me a hug, shook my hand and thanked me for my work, then he and his wife started crying, which made me cry too! The mission life is crazy, you get super close with random people who don't even speak the same language, form bonds with them, and then a few months later, you're gone! 

Anyways, I'm super grateful for all the things I've learned here in the valley and for all the miracles and blessings I've seen here. Yo he escuchado que voy a amor Encinitas!! Este es la obra del Señor!

Elder Pettit

P.s. I typed most of this email out this morning whole driving to San Diego, but I didn't finish it. We haven't been able to have wifi all day because the sim card we were given today isn't working. Sorry for the late email! It's been a crazy day, we got settled in to the apartment here in Encinitas, played ball with some other elders, went shopping, and man, it's actually kinda cold here! 70 degrees with a breeze! Lol! More info to come next week!

Cockroaches In the Baptismal Font!

¿Qué tal?

This has been a pretty solid week! I got to go on exchanges with Elder Poulsen, one of the Zone Leaders here in the valley, he's a stud missionary. I got to learn how he street contacts people, and how he does door approaches. I have been getting a lot better at those since I've been applying what he taught me. 

We taught a woman from Slovakia over Facebook messenger this week! We originally would video chat with her once or twice a week so she can practice English (English is her third language, after her native tongue Slovak, and her second language Spanish), but then one day she asked us to talk to her as if she were someone we were teaching the gospel to! So yeah, we taught her and got her a Book of Mormon, and we are in contact with some missionaries over in her country that are going to help us teach her! She always says she feels some kind of different feeling, an emotional feeling, when she talks with us. That's the Holy Ghost!!! 

We are teaching a lady named Korina (who we found on Facebook because of that dumb basketball video we made a while back!) and she is getting pretty close to wanting to be baptized! So we're all super excited for her.

We had exchanges with the Elders in Brawley, and one thing we did up there was to kill the many cockroaches In the baptismal font! The picture I've included was taken after most of the roaches were gone.

We had Stake Conference on Saturday and Sunday. President Giminez and another General Authority 70, Elder Revillo, came and spoke. It was really cool. 

President Giminez spoke about having Trust in Christ, and becoming "child-like". He explained that becoming "like a child" has nothing to do with behavior. It's about trust. He asked us to remember when we were children. We all had so much trust in our parents and we trusted that they knew where they were going. So we held their hand, and just walked with them. We had no doubts, worries, or fears about anything! This is the same thing with following Christ. Heavenly Father and Christ are both just holding their arm out for us, all we need to do is hold it, and walk with them!

Elder Revillo also gave a great talk, and one quote in particular stood out: "In the Gospel, there's no such thing as 'blind obedience', only 'faithful obedience'." 

It's true, because faith is blind, right? Faith is believing without seeing!

I'm pretty sure I'll be transferred out of the Valley next Tuesday, since there are 37 new missionaries coming in. There's even a possibility that I train a new missionary, since I am technically just now finishing my training. Next time you hear from me, I could be living somewhere actually in San Diego! 

Nos vemos!

Elder Pettit

Thrift Shops And Mud Caves

Another week gone by!

This will be a pretty short email since today's been pretty busy. Things are going well, we've had some awesome lessons and interactions with people this week, whether they came by knocking on someone's door, meeting someone new at our English classes, or by getting to know the members better. We've also had some interesting conversations with people at Bucklin Park (one guy has told us on 3 or 4 occasions that Christ told him in a vision that China is going to invade and take over America, and that we need to stop following false prophets). 

We went to a thriftshop last p-day, which is where I got the Darth Vader costume (no mask which was unfortunate). 

There's a nice picture of missionary parking in the church parking lot. 

Today for P-Day, we woke up at 5:30 to drive to the Mud Caves out in the middle of nowhere! We squeezed, climbed up, climbed down, and crawled through some super narrow places underground. It was pretty fun! I was leading, so I was worried I'd take a wrong turn and lead the whole zone to die lol! But we made it out alright, we got pretty dirty, as you can see in the pictures. 

The mission has been great so far, I'm learning so much about the gospel, myself, other people, Spanish, and many other things. 

Espero que tenga un buen semana!

Elder Pettit

"D***, That Motherf***er's Getting Up Again!"

This week flew by!

Here's the context for the clickbait subjectline: We went to Chula Vista (near San Diego) for Zone Conference on Thursday, and afterwards, we got Chick-Fil-A. We all sat down near a big black dude, who started saying "Elders, elders, elders!" in a way that made me think, oh boy, here we go. We thought we was going to start Bible bashing us, but he was actually just a super chill guy! We chatted for a couple minutes before he got up to go. He said he always messes with the elders when he sees them, then he told us to keep spreading the word, and keep fighting the good fight. 

I told him, "Yep, we need to, cause the Devil's working hard out here!"

He replied with , "Man, he's everywhere!! But you keep going, don't let no one stop you! You need to keep going everday, and every morning you gotta make the devil say, 'D***, That Motherf***er's getting up AGAYUNN!'" 

It was so funny! Definitely some wise words that we should all live by. I always love it when people who are definitely not members of the church give us encouragement like that. Just today, while shopping at Walmart, a French woman came up and talked to us. We chatted for a bit, and she asked our names. When I said my name was Elder Pettit, she got excited, said "Petite", then started speaking a bunch of French! She told us multiple times, "I Love Jesus!" Then blew us kisses lol! So funny. She pulled out her wallet and tried handing us multiple twenty dollar bills. I told her what would make us even more happy would be if we could visit her and share a message with her! She didn't want to, but it was worth a try!

After zone conference, we showed President Giminez our Valley Boys hand sign, and he said "Elders, I believe this is how secret combinations start!" It was pretty funny. 

I played the piano again in sacrament meeting this week. It went a lot better than last Sunday! 

We had some awesome lessons this week too. It's so cool to see others feel the Spirit during lessons! It's the best part for sure.

Carry on!

Elder Pettit 

P.s. I sent a few border pics I forgot from last week. Also, We took the pic with the "Whitney Way" sign for Sister Bryant, since that's her first name haha