This is the gospel of HAPPINESS people!!!

Another week has gone by. 

We're working with this investigator and his name is Johnny Martinez. He had a baptismal date for this week but we, unfortunately, had to push it back. We had a solid lesson with him and we were just straight up with him...we asked him if he even wanted to do BE baptized. He's still unsure and doesn't have any sort of testimony of the Book of Mormon...so we talked about the holy ghost and how he really can get an answer from God. There's a scripture in Galatians chapter 5:22-23. It talks about the fruits of the spirit, and my companion and I testified that we have felt those same fruits of the spirit when we read the Book of Mormon. I love Johnny to death, and I've only known him for about a week and a half. 

Johnny has a brother that was baptized about a three years ago. His name is Carlos, and he is one of the coolest members I have ever met. He used to drink and party all the time. Before he was baptized, the missionaries kept knocking and knocking on his door. He would ignore them...actually, he ignored them for three years until something finally clicked. He finally let the missionaries in, he stopped his drinking habits, and now he's a faithful latter-day saint who attends this tiny branch. Man, let me tell you...I have mad respect for this man. He's also the most missionary minded guy I have ever met! He knows like...everybody in this town! He's really been working hard with us to find people to teach. Carlos took us to a fiesta this week and we got a return appointment to teach this family. If every member was like Carlos we would have about 30 million members in the church! 

We had church yesterday and it looked like everyone wanted to fall asleep. This is the gospel of HAPPINESS people!!! IT'S THE TRUTH! My companion and I are going to do a lot of fasting and praying to help strengthen the branch. We've begun to do this by visiting all the less actives in our area. These less actives are the nicest people ever! they always feed us delicious tamales and carne. We were able to get one less active family to church this last Sunday! They're name is the Padilla family. We taught them about different prophets in the scriptures and then played some scripture games with the kids. It was pretty awesome. 

I love this church. Sometimes it's hard to stay strong, but if we really are strong in the gospel of Christ then NOTHING can shake our foundation. Helaman 5:12 talks about this. We actually shared that with another less active family last night. 

Well, I'm glad the birthdays went well for Dad and Erica. I'll be sending some things for y'all in the future =) There's some legit stuff in the Potato museum here in Blackfoot! 

Thank you for the prayers on my behalf. I appreciate them and I do feel them. Take care. 

Love, Elder Petitt

 

Blackfoot Nation

Blackfoot IS AWESOME.  This area is the greatest area EVURRR!  

There's literally like...nothing here hahaha. It just a bunch of open fields...it's the greatest thing ever. I think I like it so much because it kinda reminds me of the ghetto places in St.Louis. Makes me feel at home =)

There are Hispanics EVERYWHERE here. we are finding people to teach left and right. Last week we were tracting and we weren't having a ton of success...then we each said a prayer that we could find someone to invite to be baptized. We knocked on this house and this Hispanic kid came out and started talking to us. We started talking about the Book of Mormon, life itself, and where we go after this life. We invited him to be baptized on the spot if he came to know that the BoM is true. He said, "yeah! I just have to ask my mom. Are you guys going to be here next week?"

Well sorry to keep this short. But things are going great. There's lots of work to do. Our Spanish branch had 14 members there. We actually did a fast and testimony yesterday. We have 3 sets of missionaries and we all bore our testimonies. It was one of the best testimony meetings I've ever been in in. 

Well take care familia! have a fantastico weeked!

Elder Petitt

Blackfoot.....the Potato Capital of the World!

Blackfoot.....the Potato Capital of the World!  Home of the Idaho Potato  Museum and gift shop.  Sounds like a great place and a step up from his little two by two area.  This is 5.7 mile and has a population of 12,000. (By Pops Petitt)

Erm, I know the lighting is kind of wacky, but whatever. The Elder on my left finally got his visa for Argentina. He's been here for like 3 months...I was in a tri-panionship with hime for like 2 weeks with Elder Bustamante. It was sad to see him go today. He is the craziest missionary I've ever met. He reminds me of Kyle...but like...1000 times crazier hahaha.  

Gahhhh! We just had transfer calls this Wednesday...there were a lot of unexpected changes that are going to happen. Apparently I'm going to Blackfoot!! what!? No one expected that. I thought for sure I would be here for another transfer. So I'm going to be a district leader down in Blackfoot, and I'm going to train a new native missionary...annnnd we are both going to be brand new to the area. Sounds like fun!

I'm ready for the change though...I feel like I've done everything I can for the Spanish branch. I just hope I've left an impact on the leaders and the members in that branch. It's kind of a bitter sweet feeling. I'll miss a lot of the people I've grown close to...and I'll miss my new companion that I've only been with for 6 weeks. He is so awesome and we easily get along.

Last night we had a BOMB lesson. It was so good. We found this less active family called the Orozco family. We found them because we've been talking to all the different ward mission leaders in our stakes. Their record isn't even in the Spanish branch. gah! This family speaks Spanish, and they kind of struggle with English...so that's great! that's where we come in! woo! Anyways, we talked about the Atonement and talked about their experiences when they were baptized. They still have testimonies...it was incredible to hear their conversion stories...but it's also sad to see people just forget those precious experiences. Before Brother Orozco was baptized, he had dreams about how he would see buildings like the mormon church building, and even things similar to Lehi's dream. It's interesting that a lot of Latinos have dreams like that. I wish I had that ability...my dreams are always pretty crazy haha. I'm sad I don't get to continue working with them though! They are so cool. They just need a lot of fellow shipping from the branch. This week we're going to have the Branch President come out with us to meet them.

General Conference was fantastico! I agree, I was going nuts when Elder Ballard was talking about missionary work...General Conference is like the Super Bowl when you are a missionary. I loved Elder Bednar's talk as well...I think he's my favorite because he loves to rebuke and he's so bold. AWESOME! My favorite quote was "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith"- Dieter F Uchtdorf. I miss the tradition of going to Culver's after conference...but instead some members from the Spanish branch went to a Chinese buffet. It was funny to see a bunch of Mexicans eating Chinese food and sushi.

Well, I'm looking toward the future. Just like what Elder Dube said..."Faith always points toward the future!" I'm ready for the change, and I'm excited for this new assignment. I'm ready to tackle on the challenges that lay ahead. 

Have a great week familia!

Love, Elder Petitt