Catching up!

This is a pic of the Spanish missionaries. As you can see I am ready to feast on my prey. 

Holy cow! This week has actually been full of ups and downs. Sheesh. One of the most annoying things on the mission is dealing with apostate missionaries. There's been a lot of fishy stuff going around in our zone, and this week we found 2 companionships being way apostate...sleeping in, being lazy, abusing internet privileges, and who knows what else. Urgh. so annoying. Also last week we found 3 new investigators but they totally stopped taking the lessons. One investigator kept hiding from us, another just didn't want to be mormon...and yah, the other one just dropped off the face of the planet. We've been cursed at a lot this week lol. We would just say hi and offer to help out people...but then they would curse us out, tell us our values are stupid and what not. People just don't like us I guess haha. 

Buuuuuut there's good news!! We had an incredible fireside my companion and I put together! gahhhh it was great! It was just the thing the branch needed. More people came to the fireside than people came to church! We asked this way legit member to use his huge backyard for this fireside. Everyone brought their lawn chairs and we had some sisters from the branch help baby sit the little kids. This was a special fireside JUST for the members! Annnnd it was about missionary work! We talked about how easy it is just to invite people to church or talk about the gospel. I spoke and we had some other speakers. It was way interactive, and we did little practices with everyone. Everyone was laughing and having a blast. Thennnn we had some Smore's afterwards! We're only going to see success in the Branch unless the members get involved and excited about sharing the gospel. So I think this really helped change the attitude of the members. It's a team effort!

DEOR JORGENSEN:  I really appreciate the letters you send me, and that I always read them!! Thank you!!!! 

Love you guys! 

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JULY 15:  This week was probably one of the best weeks I've had since being on the mission. Our new visa waiter is crazy awesome. He's such an inspiration to me and my companion and he's only 18. He's on fire and we are all on fire. Haha, my companion and i were praying and hoping we weren't going to get an apostate companion, but luckily we got one that wants to do work.

SO this week we finally did it. We declared war on satan. In some previous emails i mentioned that our mission is striving to get 20 lessons a week for all the companions. Elder Bustamante and I were tired of ALMOST reaching the goal of 20...so this week we did everything within our power to get 20 lessons...annnnd guess how many we got? 27! woo! man, i'm so stoked!!! gahhhh! We saw miracles left and right...it was a great week =) We literally just talked to EVERYBODY.

We did some more pumping up in the branch this week. Man, so many members in the branch just aren't excited about the gospel, or the fact that we have a walking Moses on the earth today...so we've been visiting all the members and showing parts of the work of salvation broadcast. We like to show the clip from President Monson. IF y'all haven't watched it, then ya need to! That's proving to be super effective and now we have some members preparing families for us to teach.

This is Juan Carlos, an investigator. He ain't got time for that.

A message from the Blakeslees!

The Blakeslee Family sent us this photo and video with the following message! It made me cry!

Elders Family,
I must say, these two Elders have to be some of our families favorites!!! 
All of our 5 children love your missionaries. We have a 15 year old son and they are great with him. They came to my sons baptism last month and he thought it was the coolest. 
Thanks for having such great worthy missionaries. They are impacting our lives in a very great way. 
Please enjoy their message as we did tonight.  


Tony & Sunnie Blakeslee 

July 4th P-day

Thanks for the video. I'm not able to watch right now because the library here doesn't have head phones today =( But if it's the talk by Jeffrey R. Holland then yes I've read it. That's an awesome talk. I feel like I've been crawling, scraping, scratching, and climbing just to get a little success. I haven't had a baptism yet and I've been on my mission for almost 5 months. But that doesn't get me down. My companion and I are just working our butts off. We've been on fire since the broadcast. 

We're not going to see a TON of baptism UNLESS the members get involved in missionary work and want to serve others. We've been visiting less actives, active members, recent converts, everybody! We are helping members go to the temple, and we're extending invitations to fellowship other members. We've been visiting the leaders of the Branch just to pump them up for missionary work! I'm reminded of the scripture in Ether 12:12...If there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them..." I mean...let's think about it...If the Lord can create planets...then I'm pretty sure He can help us out with missionary work. We've been seeing a lot of good thing happen, slowly but surely! We really do see miracles on a day to day basis. 

 This week we were able to go see the fireworks for July 4th. It was pretty much an all day Preparation day for the missionaries. So we had a nice little BBQ with some members, went to a Chukars baseball game, watched the fireworks next to the Idaho Falls temple. Super awesome. Man, I LOVE July 4th. It's one of my favorite holidays. Thinking about July 4th just makes me want to punch some Nazis. Amurica! 

My companion was cracking me up at the baseball game. He's never been to one before. I had to teach him about all the rules and stuff. After the first inning he was like "sooo...this is it? this game is terrible! why do they even practice if they can't hit the ball?" hahaha yerp. I don't know how people watch that game either, but it was still fun. After the game the manager of the stadium took some pictures for us in the baseball field. Buuut...too bad the Chukars lost 11 to 2 hahaha. They were pretty terrible...but we had some good times. You wouldn't believe how many looks and stares we got from people at the game. It seems like every member in Idaho is a Mission President. They all ask "Is this a P-Day Elders???" Why yes...yes it is...you guys are so smart haha. Here's a pic with Mr. Chukar himself! woo!

MIssionary Work and the Atonement

Excerpts from Elder Holland's talk, which can be found here:  
https://www.lds.org/ensign/2001/03/missionary-work-and-the-atonement?lang=eng


Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. 

We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font? 

 You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy.

 We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary. 

 Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price. For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul. 

 If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way. 

The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly than it will carry the investigators. When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions. The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary. The only way to eternity is through Him—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Awesome training session!

Wasn't that broadcast AMAZING!!? Gahhhh, the church is true people! And if
you have any doubts just read the Book of Mormon! That should be our
favorite book. It was awesome to hear from the Apostles and the prophet
himself. There's a reason why a ton of the talks in general conference were
about missionary work! It's time for the members and the missionaries to
unite!! It really is time for the members AND the missionaries to step up
and work in unity. man. I just love what good Pres Monson said. We gotta
have faith before the miracles come.

That's the vision my companion and I have for the Branch. It's soooo so
awesome to have a companion that wants to work so hard...man, and we are
seeing miracles. This week we taught this awesome guy named Eddie...he's the
son of Juan Carlos..if you guys remember who that is. Eddie was asking us a
ton of questions...then finally I asked what he expected to get out of our
visits. He then explained that he's been looking for peace in his
life...because he doesn't have any. He later found out that he was
baptized!! But he got really emotional with us...he got baptized but he
drifted off. We explained to him about the power of the Atonement and shared
Ether 12:27...that's the scripture that got me out on the mission. It was so
awesome, and the spirit was so strong. But Eddie can really be an example to
his dad, Juan Carlos, and the rest of his family. He's going to be central
and getting the whole family to church. 

Yesterday we had an awesome fireside at the temple visitor center. I live
like 15min away from the Idaho Falls temple. It is sooooo beautiful there.
But my companion and I were given a week to prepare for the fireside. We
chose to do a theme about Faith and Works (John 7:17). We had one of our
recent converts in the Branch bear her testimony about faith. MAN. She set
the tone for the whole meeting. She has a powerful testimony and she doesn't
doubt. We invited some sisters to sing I Need Thee Every Hour. I don't know
what it is, but hyms sung in Spanish are so beautiful, especially by the
sisters. Then one of the high councilors gave a talk which was the icing on
the cake. Super good way to end the week. 

Well, slowly our vision for the branch is coming to be a reality. We need to
strengthen the Branch and get them pumped up about the gospel and missionary
work before we see more baptisms. There is so much potential in this little
Branch though. We are going to visit the Branch President tonight and talk
about what needs to happen to get the work moving forward. Our Branch
President has a drumset...so we are gonna jam out too =D

Well I'm super happy to hear that Nathan is heading out to the MTC. I'm
super proud of him! And thanks for that quote...that's a super good one. 
And here's two good quotes from the the prophet - "You don't
get strong by doing weak things" annnnd "It is not enough to want to make
the effort and to say we'll make the effort. We must actually make the
effort. It's in the diong, not just the thinking that we accomplish our
goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them
fulfilled." 

Talk to y'all next week!  

Boy Scout Encampment

YO what is Petitt Family!? So this week there was this huge Boy Scouts of America encampment in Idaho. It was a huge event with over 1000 scouts attending! It was awesome...it made me want to be a youth again...they had BMX, giant water slides over the Idaho hills, shoot range. And it was a week long encampment for the Boy Scouts. SOoooo they were all trying to pass off a new award called the Thomas S Monson award...one of the requirement is to talk to the full time missionaries! that's me! Throughout the the GIGANTIC camp site they had these little visitor center tents that the boy scouts could come talk to us. We were there pretty much the whole day talking with all different kinds of youth and even scout leaders trying to get their Thomas S Monson award. I had a blast. We helped a lot of the youth and encouraged them to go on missions. The missionaries got to bear their testimonies and help the youth alllll day =D it was a blast! And I even got my Thomas S Monson award =D Heeeeere's some pics!