Maiana Week 1

Yeah I'm in Maiana but it has good email. at least this week it does , sorry I kinda spent all my time writing letters so I guess you'll all have to take those instead of a long email this week...next week?

Maiana is awesome. Elder Nauer is from Samoa and I love him. Way cool to Elder Beacham (his trainer). He's doing great.  Church was crazy on Sunday but we got through. We did it in 7 different villages...

Love you all glad to know you're all doing great!

Elder Pettingill

Questions:

How was Tarawa? Did you get to see President Weir? Tarawa was sweet. We had a zone conf before I left and I got an interview with him.

Did you get your package yet? Did you get some letters? no package yet. Tons of letters!

How long did it take for a plane to get you to Tarawa from Fiji? 1 week to get to tarawa.

Did you just hang out in the hotel the whole time? What did you do while you were there? We worked with Fiji elders .

I investigated and found this picture of Elder Nauer (pronounced now-er),on the right, and his MTC companion. He was in the MTC in April and May, and then arrived in Kiribati in May. Elder Beacham, his trainer, was in the MTC with Daniel.

Waiting in Fiji

Haha that's a way legit way to ask a girl out by Josh!  I heard from an elder here in Fiji the same thing about his running times so props to him for being a stud. (Josh's coach told him he could get a running scholarship). Adam's still doing flips huh? That kid, animal.  Good to know Beth's on her way to being the next volleyball star so that's cool.  And Jeffrey? of course he's dominating. I'm excited to see how good he gets.  Anna is 8? Like what?  so stoked that's she getting baptized that'll be awesome.

So this past week?  Yeah we made it out of Christmas, barely...enough to see president and sister weir get off the plane as we waited to get on. So I got a wave in to them before we took off for Fiji. We stayed in a hotel Wednesday night. A hot shower. I about died I stayed in there so long. like wow. But anywho then my work permit was kinda expired and this whole situation about how we couldn't go to Tarawa to renew it but we couldn't renew it anywhere else but in Tarawa so we ended up missing our flight....but it was cool cause the airport elders came and turns out their zone conference was starting so we went and got my 2nd zone conference but in a different mission.

It was legit, had ice cream and everything. Next flight was supposed to be today but it got delayed because of weather in Tarawa so we're going to pday w/Fiji elders and then stay in a hotel tonight and wait to see when we can leave haha...

We got some time out here in the hills/farmland of Fiji. Way cool too because one of the elders we've been staying with is elder Moore (same intake as me aka same zone in the MTC) and so I've been spliting with him all week. Way cool. Also saw Elders Malalu and Delfin from my MTC group and some elders from the last time we came through.

It's been a crazy week obviously and we've been so tired but looks like we're going to have to just stay in the hotel after this until we can get a flight in to Tarawa...

Love you all stay sweet

Elder Pettingill

Christmas Week 26 I'm back!

Hey everyone I am back!

Hahah so y'all heard about transfers huh? Well I found out on Wednesday
when I got back from Fanning that we were supposed to be leaving THAT
day and would've been coming into Tarawa with the new intake...let's
just say that didn't work out so we are scheduled to leave this
Wednesday. I will be heading out to Maiana and work with elder Neuer?
Replacing Elder Beacham. I'm pretty stoked.  Not sure how the internet
is nowadays out there but if there isn't anything I'll send letters
everyweek so no worries ;)

Fanning: easily the greenest island I have seen here in Kiribati. It
took us about 26 hours to get there with good weather but no wind.
Elder Buhler and I were both fine the whole way there although we got
a little queasy every now and then and I was having a bad case of the
bekanakos (you all can guess what that means ;)   We got guided into
the wharf by dolphins so that just about blew our minds. I'll back
up pics and videos on my flash and send home a couple, my full SD and 1
half full one so you can all see.  There were bananas all over the
island with papaya and all kinds of good stuff. We ate well, Kiribati
style.

We worked way hard out there but we were both new to the island so a
lot of finding and turns out there is tons of work and the place is
ready for elders. I think we had something like 29 new investigators
in the 7 days we worked there; all families.  It was crazy.

The ride back was rougher seas with dried coconut smell (getting sent
back to make oil) on the ship that was pretty horrible. We made good
time though (27 hours?) And I won a bet with the senior couple that
got me an AW rootbeer when we got back. I didn't get seasick but I can't
say the same for the rest of the crew.

Saying bye to Banana this past week. Doing as much work as we can and
getting reay to go haha

Love y'all
Elder Pettingill

PS Maryclaire* is one of mine and Stone's recent converts and is way
awesome! I'm glad that she made it on your friend list cause we had
lunch with her and her family and then took pics and were feeling bad
cause I didn't email and then wouldn't be able to so...voila? Bam.
I'm going to give her a ton more pics of us and her/diff stuff so
maybe she'll send more!

Love you!

*Maryclaire is the woman who added me as a friend on Facebook  a few weeks ago and then shared pictures of Daniel and Elder Whitehead eating lunch with her. 

Christmas Weeks 24 & 25 No emails lately

We have not received an email from Daniel in 3 weeks. However, we did receive two pictures from a kind, local woman who added me on Facebook. She told us that Elder Pettingill and Elder Buhler were getting on the boat to go to Fanning Island the next day. Daniel and his companion, Elder Whitehead, were eating lunch at her house as she messaged with me. I found a few more pictures on her Facebook page. What a tender mercy, especially since we would go at least two more weeks with no email when she contacted me. Here are the pictures she sent and also some that we found:

Also, in my sleuthing ways, I found this entry in the online log for the sailing vessel Kwai. They left today and will arrive back to Christmas Island about noon tomorrow, if all goes well. Then maybe we will hear from Daniel again before he is transferred. Elder Whitehead's mother told us that Elder Whitehead is going to train a new missionary and Elder Pettingill is being transferred. Here is the log entry from a member of the crew of the Kwai about their time on Fanning Island the last couple of days:

Ben's Blog September 8, 2015

6 hours ago by April Fountain

Fanning island

I see the blueness of the lagoon reflected in the clouds as we depart from Fanning island. The weather has been very nice while we were working cargo here. Every part of the operation went so smoothly, it's hard to remember better times. After the arduous work in Washington we actually could do with a break like this.

It started off when we came into the lagoon yesterday at the peak of dead tide so mooring only took us three minutes (I counted). With all hands on deck we had the cargo gear set up in ten more minutes (I might be exaggerating now). Within the hour all the passengers and their luggage were put on shore and the crew and local stevedores started to work copra, filling the space that was still available in the hold after we loaded copra in Washington. By nightfall we called it a day and closed the hold. The captain asked me to bring out some beers to reward the men for their never ending dedication to the work.

At night I decided to go ashore and share a bowl of kava in Tyrone's Bar. I have visited quite some kava bars before but i never experienced something like this. The dusky bar was comfortably lit (without the obligatory flashing Christmas decorations) and the only sound you'd hear was the sound of pool balls clashing into each other. As kava has a numbing effect on the human spirit there were no lively conversations going on. So what was so shocking? The music. It was missing. You could hear a pin drop. "The stereo broke down", the owner explained. Typical example of island logic. But the problem was solved in the same matter-of-fact-like fashion: one of the guests brought out a ukulele and a choir raised its voices. Tyrone told me later that this was the last evening with kava available on the island. With no more kava or even beer I wonder what he is gonna sell in the bar. I'm sure our friend will come up with something. The matter of the broken stereo was solved because I sold him the stereo from our galley.

The next morning we set up the boom tent for the passengers and before noon the mooring line was slipped. Our destination is Christmas Island where we hope to arrive just after noon tomorrow.

Bengineer

Here is the link, in case you are interested in reading more log entries.