Snail Mail letters written February 15 and February 22/29 from Nonouti

15 February 2016

I'm currently wearing a pink cloth wrapped around me. Also there may or may not be flowers on it. A lot of flowers. Prep yourselves America.

We had a pretty productive preparation party today. Highlights of the day: patched our thatch ceiling. Cleaned, fought coconuts and won. OH and we built a BAO BAO (a counter hut thing that is used for dishes).

By the way, it turns out they have a few solar powered freezers here at the main stores and so they make little square plastics called ICE (but are basically weird shaped otter pops) and sell them 20 cents a piece. So for $2, we brought home 10 of them and put them in cups of water. Then we used that ice cold water to make ice cold water chocolate milk! It was pretty good.

 Oh yeah, internet hasn't been working for the past couple of weeks. Typical. Any outer island I go to has internet when I get there and then it breaks and doesn't work again until I leave. Sorry guys. S'not my fault. (This has happened on all three of his outer islands!!)

Also, remember the bao bao we built? 100% natural, almost. 1) old coconut husks pulled apart, twisted back together, rolled/twisted again  =  rope 2) rope + sticks + coconut leaves  + 3) more coconut leaves weaved together (thatch) + rope + sticks + coconut leaves + more thatch = 4) our new bao bao : )

Elder Larsen had his first baptism this past Saturday, woohoo! 

Have a GREAT WEEK. Read Acts 4:12 so good, Joshua 24:15, Alma 37: 33, 35  The Lord loves us!

Love, Elder Pettingill

22 February + 29th of Feb, 2016

So this morning we woke up and checked email and it TOTALLY WORKED! Just long enough for me to type out my email and then it quit on us. So I am just going write out what I said...

It read:

Hey so it looks like email is working again. #miracle (I hope you see the irony of this)

Past few weeks have been legit. Elder Larsen and I are both healthy which is sweet. Church was great yesterday and saw a couple of miracles that have been awesome!

One was this Melchizedek Priesthood holder who had a problem over the past couple of years with drinking alcohol decided on his own to quit. He had a knarly Lorenzo Snow beard (to give you all an idea of what it looked like) and then cut it and shaved almost all of it off, only leaving some sweet side lambchop sideburns, as a symbol of his commitment. His name is Tokarerei, and he is a changed man. It's sweet.

Also, one of my recent converts from Beru is here! Her name is Teruku. Her and her husband were one of my favorite families on Beru. Elder Klatt wouldn't know them but he would know her younger brother Taakaio (Bioia + Teanako are the parents' names). Taakaio was a YSA and now he's an Elder here in Kiribati serving in Abaiang. Anywho seeing Teruku and Koraweite was the greatest...SO cool. They haven't missed a beat and were at church on Sunday.

Elder Larsen had his first baptism in the mission a few weeks ago and we were both so stoked! The kid's name is TeBaa and his grandfather is a member and used to go to school in Tonga at the Liahona School. He's doing great. Plus I got Mom's name tag picture at the baptism spot that she requested.

Nonouti is long but we're figuring things out and being blessed for working hard! I love being a missionary and I love you all! Can't wait to see you all in May!

Love, Elder Pettingill