May 18th 2015

Hey you guys!

This has been quite a week. it has gone from teaching institue on tuesday to some pastor guys trying to force the trinity on us. To some wonderful lessons with some wonderful investigators. It was a good week over all. Hard to follow a great skype call, but we gave our all :) Nothing too big and crazy though. 

Dad, I love that story of Lisa, The scriptures do relate to our day. I love taking the Donaldson method about reading the Book of Mormon, starting from the begin. In just 12 verses we can really show people how the book will relate to them. The story of a family. A man prayer to know and prays for those he cares for. He is given a book (much like we give our investigators a book) and feels the spirit. So simple and yet profound. Our Heavenly Father is testing us and yet he has made it an open book test. I just got done reading The Continuous Atonement by Brad Wilcox, it came from president Merrill's Library. It is a wonderful book. He took the "His grace is sufficient" talk and turned it into a book. I loved it. I have been able to learn so much about the Atonement on mission. To watch those investigators that we have come to love so much make choices that bring them closer to Christ and to our Father. It brings that joy. I imagine Christ feels even greater joy as we make those choices to repent and keep covenants. Even when we slip and get back up again. He is there for us. He loves us so much and wants to help us back Home. I do love this gospel. 

That must be a nice time with Emma. Hope you all had fun! And Meagan will do very well in the run. Those are some catchy slogans. 

We came accross some new people. The way we find them is in street contacting and tracting. Which does not bring much but it does bring some. Member referrals are so nice, but for one our area does not have a super lot of members. We  have 6 elders in the ward, our area is the furthest away. But we do ask from those members and they either say that the don't have any friends or they give a referral that would go to another set of missionaries, But now we are going to make a strong effort to Flood the world and our lives with the Book of Mormon. Actually now that I think of it we have been using the Book of Mormon alot in Finding. It has been fun!

I love you dad! Have a wonderful week.

Mom, It was a good week. Nathan will love Joburg if he ends up getting to go there. Very small environment. But he will enjoy where ever he goes. And there are some Weddings going on. Time is going to fast. That is pretty crazy. 

It was great to see and talk to you. I love those moments. I love seeing how you are doing and hearing what was going on. Fun times. I hope you continue to be doing well. i love you Mom!

Bryant! It was great to see you as well. Keep working hard and keep up on the journal. I can't wait to share stories! Love you Brother!

Meagan, you will make a great Class Secretary, great slogans. One step at a time. I bet you enjoyed having emma over. I bet she is a hoot :) 

My week was fun. Pizza on tuesday. Benefit of AAP. Pizza and I don't have to go into a missionary meeting. :) But slow week. We had to do a lot of finding and stuff. not too much luck. But we did find a couple of good potentials. We will see how it goes. Love you Meagan!

Heidi, Rose are red and Violets are Blue, 

Heidi is my sister and Meagan too. 

Mission is fun becuase families are special. 

Special and eternal and forever and ever. 

I hope you like this little poem of mine.

It would probably get a 12 out of 9. :)

Love you heidi, I am happy you had a great week. Keep working hard and enjoying each day. I keep meeting 11-12 year olds and I can hardly believe that my little bud is all grown up like them. :) Love you Sister!

Jera, I hope you had a great week. I sent along some pictures. I will try and get some good ones outside of the car, but I am just being careful right now. Love you Jera :)

Sorry for not much. Hope all is well on your side of the world. My side keeps on spinning. Working hard and enjoying the journey. It has been a precious gift for me. Live each day like it is the last. I don't have too many. Two years is not enough, but I will make the most! love You all very much!!

Love, Elder Pennington the Elder

 

 

May 11th 2015

Hello Everyone,

I was so very nice to see you all yesterday. I love Skype. I love you all. Great to see your smiling faces. It was a perfect way to end the week. Ultimately the week was not too bad. We found some pretty good people. Tried to follow up with some of the former investigators that were pretty promising ut had disappeared. (For example Lufefe, the homeless man that had been great. He was golden. But then Eskom... he disappeared.) But not too much luck with that. We did find some cool people though. Serge and Junior responded well to the message and wanted us to come back. We talked about the Book of Mormon with Serge. He desires to read it and come to know of the "goodness and mysteries of God" (see 1 Ne 1:1). But we gave him a Baptismal date and hope that he progresses well towards it. 

Also had a wonderful Zone Conference with Elder David Evans. Talked about sustaining the prophet, being obediant, magnifying our callings, Building the church, and so forth. Eternal perspective as well. It was a wonderful conference. 

It was a very good week. But as I said my highlight was probably being able to see you guys and to laugh and talk with you. I love you all very much. 

Oh also I came in this morning to the office and I had two packages. 1 from you. It finally got here and it gave me even more smiles. Another from Steve and Rachel. They had sent it from about december 3. it finally got here. (So if I can have a email for them or if you can pass on thanks. I would really like to express my gratitude for it.) Also Thank you for the wonderful package. I love it!

Dad, Less active work is a great way in this work. We are slowly getting things going with that. We found a great less active yesterday. Knows his stuff very well, was just out of town most Sundays. His wife is not a member, so we are excited to also teach her. But the thing we will struggle with is although they live in our boundaries, they desire to go to the Mowbray ward, where he has spent much of him time as a member. People around here sometimes have trouble changing wards. But we will work with that. i wish you the best with your work this week. 

yes, District Leader and AAP. It is not that hard. As AAPs My companion and I spend about 6 ours in the office a week. and then random other errands. This provides plenty of time for my calling as a DL and a missionary. So it is not that bad.  I enjoy the load, sometimes. 

Uganda. I have a member from Motherwell that is now up there. Nathan will probably meet him. His name is Elder Sifundiso Beja. So That is pretty exciting. It also means that he will probably go to the Joburg MTC if he gets his visa in time. That means he will be President and Sister Collins. he will love it if he gets to go there. Hope him the best. (And maybe he gets to Joburg and can't get a visa into Uganda and is then a SACTM missionary like me :) That would be fun too. Anyways tell him congrats for me. 

Thanks for everything dad. I love you!

Mom, You are the best! I hope you had a great Mothers day. It was great to see you. Sounds like a busy week. I am very grateful for the time I did have to talk to you. I hope you are well. enjoy your week coming. 

Thanks for Wesley. Tomorrow I will be getting an SD card and a flashdrive. There is a place down in another area that has a 4gb sd for about 50ish rand and and 16gb flash for about 100ish rand. I should be able to take enough pictures this year to fill that us. I am getting a small sd so that I can have safety in transfering to the flash. That way, I am ready for Africa :) But thank you for your help. I will get some pictures off now now. I got the WiFi one so I will be able to do it more often (especially since the office has WiFi :) should be good. 

I looked so much forward to seeing you on Mothers day. It is what got me through the week. Thanks for being able to talk. The family is looking good. I love you Mom! Thanks for your great example. 

Bryant. Great to see you Brother. I am happy you are well. Keep working hard. Keep loving the people you serve and you serve with. I can see the growth already. You are the man! Love you Bry!

Meagan. You look so beautiful. I love the Pictures. I was always fun seeing my date pictures. My dates always looked better than me. There was even the time I had the crazy hair for senior prom... Jera would remember that. but I Think that your pictures have surpassed any of the one that I might have. :) I am happy you enjoyed the date. You are growing up so fast. Hard to believe you are dating. Keep doing well. Enjoy the last little bit of school. Crazy to think that you will be a Junior. (right?) Enjoy every moment of it. Love you Meagan!

Heidi, you are quite the artist. And you have some funny faces :) I loved laughing with you yesterday. School is almost over. Good luck on your projects. And Who is the science person, I may know him, I have met many people here on my mission :) You are growing up so fast. You will be in 6th grade now now, right? Love you Heidi!!

Jera, It was wonderful to see and talk to you too. I hope you are keeping very well. I look forward to sending over some pictures through Wesley. There is this beautiful mountain called Table Mountain here. We have a nice veiw here and there. From the mission office we can see the side called Devils Peak. From where we get pizza we can see the table part clear as a mountain that looks like a table. And from my area, any street that we go down has a great look at Lions head. Cape Town is a good place for those pictures. Love you Jera!

It was great to see everyone. Hope you all have a great week. Love you all

Love, Elder Pennington the Elder  

May 4th 2015

Hey You Guys!!

This has been a pretty good week. Did some good work. We got some pizza for the new Elders. We had some good bold lessons. Met with Brother Burger. He has not been getting as emotional during our lessons, but has been sharing some great memories. He is a great guy. Preparing to sell his home. So we are going to go over this week to help with the Garage. He doesn't know what he is going to do with all of the camping gear. If only you all didn't live too far :) But he has come consistantly the last three weeks. Loves church. Another less active that we have been working with is Ching. He is doing great as well. Baptized young with family. But never really got a testimony of his own. He just wondered away. But he has had somethings happen in his life that brought questions. Now it takes him a while to believe anything, and was worried about his testimony of the gospel. But he has begun praying and reading the Book of Mormon. He feelings his testimony growing. Watched the Jospeh Smith Movie with him, he loved it. Now the only problem with church is his work. Doesn't work a super lot on Sundays but it does keep him from church two out of the four sundays. But he does go when he can! It has been cool. The only weird part is his family that he is living with had been members but are now Muslium. But they love when we come and meet with him. So yeah... it has been a pretty good week. 

Dad, I love that story too. It has been fun introducing the Book of Mormon to people. I have grown in my love for that Book. The sooner we can get it to people the better. 

I can believe we got some more missionaries coming out here now now. Canada. that is pretty crazy. He will love it. And Nathans will be a good one too. 

I can't wait to talk to you all either. I am pretty sure we will be able to find a way to skype. Probably with the Senior Couples. We will be looking for some way. Since I do come to the office, if anything changes i will send an emergency email. But The plan right now is probably for me about 4 which would make it about 7am for you guys. is that okay? I hope so. Again I will let you know if anything might pervent that. We will do this. Hopefully it will be on Mothers day :) But I got all my skype info and am ready to see you all.

I love that talk too. It has brought a different vibe to the mission here. We have been doing things a little more simple and it has been moving things forward a little more. It has been kinda fun to work with it. Thanks for that great story. Love you Dad! 

Mom, I am super excited to see you on mothers day. I can't wait, I don't think the week can go fast enough. Again. Everything will work out. Sorry for not being able to be exact with anything. But this has snuck up on me again. I even circled it on my calendar and I still found it on the doorstep. Time just goes too fast. I can't wait for Sunday!

That is so true. We don't like to look stupid. Crazy human nature. Dig deep and find what we really believe, who we really are. In teaching Ching, it has been cool to see that change happening. He knew all of this stuff, but know he is coming to Know for himself. Same with Brother Burger. he had lived with his wife knowing that families can be together forever, but now he is put to the test. Does he believe that? and is he willing to show his faith? But both are doing well. 

But then there is another example. Brother Germann, an investigator of ours. His young son passed away this last monday. We meet them on Saturday. Taught Germann and reminded him of the plan of salvation. About the Atonement and everything to help him grow in hope. But then Germann wife, dona. Was in the other room watching tv. Specifically TB Joshua, one of those prophet guys. She was watching him do "miracles" and stuff. I imagine it hurt her to see others get "healed" while she is without her son. But she wanted that easy way. One of those God will save everyone. Where as with Germann we were teaching how he can feel that peace and hope through Christ. Especially as we seek his hand through prayer and the like. Also as we go to enter into His House. But we are here to learn and grow. And I am here as a missionary to help people find that source of eternal Hope and Joy and Peace!

Thanks for putting in some money. I will probably get a nice simple camera. Thanks for everything. 

Brandon didn't see Elder Cathemer did he? He lives close to florence.

And I hope that everything will go well with Porter. 

I love you Mom and am happy to see you soon.

Bry, Love you too! I should get that letter off soon. Love you Elder!

Meagan, Again Happy 16th. Another year older and wiser too. Just do your best at tryouts. Dance like no one is watching. You will do fine. it has not been too bad of a week for me and sounds like you had a pretty good one yourself. I remember my 16th birthday. I think. I don't know. but I still can't believe hope grown up you are. Can't wait to see you Sunday either. Love you Sister!

Heidi, the civil war was a very interesting time. I love learning about Abraham Lincoln. he was a pretty good man. 

Water days are a blast. I bet you got pretty wet. That must be fun. We are getting ready for a wet winter here. I hear that we get lots of rain in Cape Town. Enjoy your week. Can't wait to see you.

Love You Bud!

Jera, Thanks for the pics and the funny story. I love and hate my brows :) A bitter/sweet relationship. But hey I am a Pennington :) Love you Jera, Hope you have a great week too!

Love you all a lot! can't wait to see you. About 7 Am Sunday Morning!

Love Elder Pennington