Missionary Monday: Elder Pettingill Serving In the Mexico Chihuahua Mission

Here is a recent blog post from Elder Pettingill:

Hey guys!!!! Ready for the first week of miracles???? Technically the first 4 days in Mexcio????  By the way sorry about grammar and spelling in English, the keyboards here are sticky and weird..... haha ok, so I got here and we took a giant taxi to mission headquarters where we dropped off our stuff then went to a big buffet restaurant!  Met the Mission President!  He's a great nice small Mexican man!  Haha - we stayed at mission headquarters that night and the next day got our new companions!  I got a native speaker... who is also fluent in English!!!!!  He's been a lot of help, and one of the best missionaries out here in the field, even though he just barely finished training!  He´s a district leader and a trainer right out of being trained, so this is as much of a challenge for him as it is for me!

We are in serving  Chigabata Paran!  Its a crazy area, very beautiful, very poor.  The people here are so amazing and humble!  We have a ton of investigators, and getting more every day!  I'm learning more and more every day and seeing the gospel help people in their lives so much!  Its been weird seeing everything in Spanish for a change, but its awesome!  For the past while, I haven't been able to understand anything because they speak so fast and all the words are jumbled together......   but it's getting better!

Friday night we were talking to an investigator, and she and her boyfriend wanted to get baptized.... but she had to get married first to him, and needed a signature from her mom who she hadn't talked to in a while. We tried to convince her to go and talk to her but she wouldn't, so we went talked to the mom ourselves (she is this sweet old lady who wants to make us hamburgers soon and take some more lessons)!  Anyway, she said she'd be willing to if A. came and told her why she wanted to get baptized.  So we walked back, told A., and she and her boyfriend walked with us to her mom who then signed it and talked with her.  She seemed really surprised about some of the things she said.

Anyway the next day we ran into even more roadblocks like not being able to find A.'s birth certificate (the mom had it under a huge pile of papers) and then we couldn't find her boyfriend who thought the baptism wasn't going to happen...... but in the end, I had the wonderful opportunity to baptize both of them!  The Spirit was incredibly strong, more so than usual, and that night the language finally clicked for me.  When we were teaching a family after the baptism, I realized that I could understand most of what they were saying, except for random words here and there. I could finally tell their words apart, and it wasn't just a weird jumble to me!Every day is full of these wonderful moments, and I will tell you guys more next week! Just know that I'm walking like 10 to 13 miles a day, I have gotten some pretty big blisters, almost have a hole in my shoe, and I'm absolutely loving it here!!!!!!!!  Haha even the spicy food, even though its killing me!  Oh! you guys will be proud, I actually am eating lettuce and tomatoes, rabbit food.......  Haha but its all going great! 

Elder Pettingill is serving from the Saddle Ranch Ward. You can visit his blog by clicking HERE.

Missionary Monday: Sister Christensen Serving In Lisbon, Portugal

Here is a recent letter from Sister Christensen:

Olá todos,

This week we had transfers, and I.... am staying in Évora for 6 more weeks and finishing up the training with Sister Brothersen! I am soo excited! I will have officially served the maximum that is allowed in an area in our mission (4 transfers, almost 6 months of my mission). WOOHOO! 

This week I got sick for the first time in my mission. However, we saw a huge miracle because of it. Tuesday I really just wanted to get out and work, but was bed-ridden with the flu. That night at about 6:30 I was feeling a little bit better and so we left and got to work. We left praying, "please, help us find a family tonight." So, we knocked a lot of doors and really no one listened. With 20 more minutes, we knocked on the door of a family. They were SUPER receptive and literally the mom said, " I just would like to know which church is true. There are so many churches." I love it when they say this! 

Long-story-short this family is super special. They all went to church yesterday, are reading the Book of Mormon, and we have a Family Night with them tonight in a member´s home (with our convert, Sandro as well). The really cool part of this experience - when we got home that night I immediately felt sick again. I was up all night sick and slept the next day. Miracles happen (I was able to stay healthy for the day)! I felt incredible when we were knocking doors! 

Anyway, Jessica from our family will be baptized this weekend along with another 10-year-old who´s family we are teaching. He´s already been to church a lot and loves it, so his mom gave him permission to be baptized. I love this work. It is seriously so special and great to see the differences in the lives of people.

Loved this quote of the week: "The way you feel in the temple is a pattern for how you want to feel in your life." - Elder Andersen, Maio 2014. 

I know this work is real. I know we can always do this work every day of our lives, whether we have a nametag or not! I am so grateful for the gospel and how happiness in this life is truly dependent on our personal obedience to the commandments. 

Love you all and have the BEST week of your entire lives! :)

Sister Christensen

 

Sister Christensen is serving from the Saddle Ranch Ward. You can visit her blog by clicking HERE.

Girls Camp Pictures: Part Three- Saddle Ranch Ward

Today we present girls camp pictures from the Saddle Ranch Ward! For more girls camp pictures,you can click HERE and HERE.

As always, if you would like to have any of these pictures removed for any reason, please e-mail us at HighlandsRanchMormons@gmail.com and we will remove them.

Also, if you have any more pictures or experiences from girls camp to share, please e-mail us and we will get them posted!

 The Bishops from our stake bravely arriving for Bishop's Night: