I'm back!

so totally forgot who all wanted my emails but I trust mom will take care of whoever I miss right? ;)

Anywho where I am right now:

Tarawa (main island) Bikenibeu 1st (which we just reopened) with Elder Bettencourt (who just came back from Kiritimati)

So yeah the last week has been pretty packed.  I mean we were like all over the place not to mention trying to figure out Tarawa and reopen this place.

Basically this last week went like this...

Monday: we skyped and pday and first restaurant in however long

Tuesday: Matiare and I came here and cleaned out our house that the elders from however long before forgot to clean our house (which is like a legitish house by the way)

Wednesday: Matiare went to be district leader in Bairiki and I became comps with Elder Bettencourt  and I also split with a kiribati elder who knew our area

Thursday: We got some stuff taken care of (going to the bank etc) and then had our first real day working in the area. Also we bought little one dollar ice cream cones...so that was my first ice cream in over 5 months

Friday: Took care of some of Elder Bettencourt's stuff and then went down and worked again as much as we could.  Found 8 kids (10-14 yearls old) who were playing on a backstreet, asked them if they wanted lessons and then took them all to the local chapel for a great lesson on prayer (since they all previously did catholic prayers aka memorized)

Saturday:  Another solid day of workish, got called over by what we thought was a member but turned out to be a previous catholic missionary who wanted to get to know us cause we're white, haha tried to teach him

Sunday: church (we gave a lot of lessons) and then Bettencourt interviewed with pres and is now on his way back to Kiritimati today which is wayy awesome because he was having a really hard time and didn't know if he wanted to stay in the mission but now is back on his way and happy.  Love the guy, need a new comp now though ;)

ps forgot to bring my other sd card so there will be more pictures next week but these are all from like right before I left as you can see with the hair. The one with the family is a family we were really close to that lived in the village Eriko (Jericho like from the bible). Then the husband of a lady I baptized he was a less active back in the day now he's great (the one holding me)   

Climbing the coconut trees

Before haircut

After

Foot infection

Questions:

Did you get your haircut? yes I did...I had to after you put the skype pictures on facebook which president saw....got ratted out by my mom on the mish haha!

Why are you emailing so early? (He emailed at 1 pm on Sunday when it's normally in the evening) yeah so here in Tarawa we do email real early I guess

Are you going to Christmas Island? I don't even know if I will be going to Kiritimati now because Elder Bettencourt is retaking my spot up there...so we'll see later today what I will be doing!

Skype from Tarawa

When we first saw him and news of his transfer

Testimony in Kiribati

Daniel will now be on Christmas Island (Kirimati) with Elder Openshaw, who came the transfer after him. It has internet! Hooray! So we should be back on track for regular emails again!!

As you can see, the video quality was very poor. We finally turned it off and just talked so we could understand each other. He told us that he received our packages. They celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, and they all stay up until midnight in order to welcome in Christmas. They did the same thing for New Year's Eve. They finally got rain around Christmas, so then the island road became a river and they were riding every where in deep water. They had 5 baptisms over the last few weeks.  He and Elder Matiare were both transferred and replaced by two new Elders. Elder Matiare goes home in March, so he came in to Tarawa for the rest of his mission. He promised us pictures the next time he can email, so probably next week. We asked about his health. He does have one new problem. He said people only tell you about the rats eating the soles of your feet, but they don't warn you about the flies. Last week, he was showering with the dirty well water and he had some sores on his feet which became infected. He ended up with a fever and his right foot swelled up. He didn't tell the nurse because he figured he was going in to Tarawa soon, but by the time he got there today, the infection had eaten away the flesh on his foot in about a dime size area and the depth of your finger, so he said maybe an inch deep. (It grossed us out too). So the nurse is going to treat it but says you can't put in stitches on the foot. She will have to pack it with gauze and medicine and allow it to heal and hopefully the area will fill in with healthy flesh. On the positive side, he can feel on that foot again, which had been numb! He also told us the reason he had not been writing letters was because every week, they thought the internet was going to be fixed. So he just kept waiting to email, which never happened. We asked him what he learned most from his time with no internet and he said, "Patience!" He said they left the new Elders with lots of potentials and plenty of work to do. We asked about the pictures of the Salt Lake Temple, the First Presidency, and the CTR rings that I sent in his Christmas package, and he said the members loved them! He said everyone wanted a CTR ring and he had to be very careful about handing them out. So you can imagine I will be sending CTR rings from now on in all my packages! Oh, and when he arrived in Tarawa today, he received a stack of Christmas cards and letters! Thank you!!!

It was wonderful to hear from him. Keep an eye out for a new email next week, maybe with pictures this time!! Keeping my fingers crossed. After he hung up, he was headed out to get a haircut!

MTC pictures and fun mission call video

Nothing from Daniel in 3 weeks. Transfers are next week (December 18, I think) so we are hoping he will come in to Tarawa where there is internet and can email, send some pictures and maybe even have a Christmas Skype. In the mean time, I found these pictures last week that I hadn't seen before. When Daniel was at BYU, he lived in Building 9 at Helaman Halls and made a great group of friends. Many of them received mission calls together and some were in the MTC together. They called themselves "The Big House" and even have a motto, "Comfort and Dominance". They exchange a big group email with short snippets from their mission experiences. Anyway, I found these pictues of several of them together while in the MTC, and also this cool video one of the boys made of their mission calls. (These are the things that keep a mother patient when she doesn't receive email.) 

Letter received November 28, 2014

Kiribati: November 1st 2014 12:38 pm
American Time: October 31, 2014 5:38 pm

Hey guys,

What's up? I'm sitting here having just finished my studies and Matiare fell asleep because he and Takaio (YA prepping for his mission) stayed up until 12:30 last night talking apparently. Looks like today's going to be another hard one. It's good for me because I'm learning patience which I need haha and I'm also developing an eternal dislike for laziness, which happends to be a major characteristic of the Kiribati people cause there's just not much for them to do. It's chill though. I love Matiare. He's way great and so are this people. It would just be nice to go out and do what I came to do. Spread this stinkin gospel. I'm having a hard time keeping the thought that I'll regret my time here, and I should tell Matiare he's lazy and I'm in charge and we're going to work cause I'm tired of him. Hahaha that's not very Christlike though huh? which probably means it's the wrong thing to do ; )

Anywho, enough of that, don't want to create the impresson that I'm actually having a hard time out here huh? Cause it's really way fun and my language is coming along. Especially seeing as it's the only one I can speak haha?

Oh by the way, forgot to mention I'm writing this letter cause the internet's out and sounds like it won't be back this next Monday either. So just FYI I'm still alive although my strep throat spread all over my mouth. Didn't know it could do that haha?  But seriously I'm smiling way big right now and I hope Halloween and Beth's birthday went way well. Out here the "koro n ririki" is like a 3 to7 day nonstop sleepover party with only their closest friends, or in other words, everyone in that village attends and anyone else who wants to as well. Do you think we should start up that tradition when I get back, Mom? If you do the math, that means life out here is one constant "bootaki" (party). Guess that's what happens when your only job is fishing once a week for food and collecting "bin" (coconut) for money.

Other big events: hit 150 days out on the mish. Weird that one more month and I'm 1/4 of the way through my whole mish and I haven't even left my first area. But maybe that's just me.

I climbed my first coconut tree.  Haha sorry sorry Mom, but I was way thirsty and our "karau" (rain) was running out and I wanted a "moimoito" (immature coconut) which are way good. Well at least they are now. I used to hate them. Don't worry, it was a way small tree, so we're chill, right? If not, I'll just lie and say this never happened haha. Also my first journal got all the way filled up so on to the next, which should last a lot longer cause it's pretty sweet. Found it in the MTC.

Matiare, Takaio and I hit up the beach cause Matiare had to "beka" (poo). Turns out we found this way beautiful spot where you could see the whole coast. So we took pics. Haha pretty sweet. Oh also we saw a group of clear little fish jumping in the water so it looked like a huge sea serpent was going through. So again, pretty sweet. Taught a family how to play poker the other night with rocks for our money. I don't know if that is unmissionary-like behavior but it was way fun! I think that's enough for now. I'm going to go back to trying to leave the house now.

Last note though. If you ever meet a Bekah, know that her name means poop in Kiribati and you can tell her that! Just put that together. Love you all!

Elder/Castaway Pettingill (the younger)

This was the back page of the letter

Beru-Week 18

Hey y'all

First off.  "Mauri nte Kiritimati" is what they say sometimes and is the equivalent to Merry Christmas...Fun fact

Haha this last week was a very solid one as to work wise and we got a ton of contacts to contact. So yeah we were busy and the week went by real fast.

Oh and we built our house.  Two days of work with everyone who could make it from the branch and we built ourselves a nice little "booia" raised hut with a stick floor that is on a bedrock that get's flooded when the tide comes in, so literally on the ocean.  Unfortunately it's not quite big enough for us both to sleep on so we might extend it more who knows we'll see. It's still a dope study spot.

After it all, I was so tired I started having realistic crazy dreams this past week that'd I wake up write down and just laugh at...Maybe I've been out here a little too long?

Matiare has been hearing things that we are both getting transferred in December but they are rumors, and even worse they're Kiribati rumors which rarely hold much truth if any...so we'll see!

Anything else? Got the pictures from the primary...SO sweet. So definitely tell everyone who was involved with that a big thank you! I'm a little scatter brained today cause it's been a different one and I just want to sleep.

But I still love you all! So I guess that means you can tell your friends you have friends in places they've never heard of and it is literally true...oh and a sweet gospel convo tarter..
Baptismal pickup lines?  Is that gunna be a thing?  If so, you'd better trademark that to me.

Mangatangira man te aba ae weteiaki Kiribati (more love from the place called Gilberteese) yes Kiribati is Gilbert translated.

Love
Elder Pettingill (the younger)

P.S. NO More PAckages to MArshalls.  Just got my last package from there and they sent a note that they will not be sending anymore because it is so expensive...You did manage to slip those cinnamon rolls through though, can't wait to try them!  Haha already read the what like 5 letters you sent?  I had some comments but I already forgot them...sorry. Also, Matiare means Marshall, fun fact, aka from Marshall

Questions:

Have you had any rain this week? no rain as of yet

How do you get the water from the well that is one mile away back to your house?  We ride our bikes!

Do you fish every day? We do not fish everyday.  We have stuff to do remember? haha just every now and then on PDays

  
What is your favorite day of the week? Probably Tuesday cause we radio and we're filled with energy after the weekend, well most of the time 

What is one thing you like about Beru that is better than home? I like the fact that I am  a dang missionary!  All I have to worry about is my people and their problems and while they might be big, really big sometimes, they are still their problems.

How do you like your hut on the beach?  Have you ever felt a sea breeze on an extremely hot day?  Yes it's wayy cooler ;) 

Here is a link to a blog post with some pictures of typical Kiribati huts. 

Beru-Week 17

Yeah so I'm still here if you were all wondering...

A pretty busy week this last one:

First, we're about to get three hammocks in our house for us to chill in, in our spare time,so that's sweet. We're borrowing different members' hammocks.

Second, turns out there's a store here that has a tiny mini fridge that's powered by a solar panel and what do they keep inside it? Freaking cold soda! So we hit that up 2-3 three times this past week.  You just hold it next to your head until it's warm and then drink it. Beautiful.

Third, we got our first baptism for awhile this past week and then ate <good food> for the celebration afterwards. Apparently your first time you'll break out in red lines everywhere but they haven't come yet so I'm pretty happy about that....Also it's way good.

Fourth, We are about to build ourselves a new house!  Well a hut.  But it's gunna be on he ocean (hopefully) so we can sleep there and just feel that ocean breeze all night long...Man that is about to be so so nice.

Lastly, hasn't rained here for awhile so we finished our rain water and we can't drink out of our well cause then you get wayy sick even if you boil it and filter it...so we were just not drinking water at our house and would just hope we get something to drink in one of our lessons...until we found a well about a mile away which is way clean! So we now bike there and back with our bucket to get drinkable water! Haha I love this place!

It's ridiculous how long I've been out here (four months in Kiribati this week) and I have to tell you awhile back I was wondering if I'd ever start to really like being here rather than anywhere else.  But now, looking back, I realize that all along I have had such a great experience here, and there's so much I would like to do before returning to Tarawa.  This is a pretty swell but barbaric place, isn't it?

Love y'all,

Elder Pettingill (the younger)

Questions:  

How often do you have transfers? Transfers are when new intakes come in every 6 weeks...although they last forever (2 plus weeks) because one missionary gets on a plane and then a missionary comes back and then he goes to a new area and replaces another missionary and so forth...if there's a lot of missionaries that come, they charter a plane and get em done in a day so they'll probably do that for me around Christmas.

Did you get any packages or letters this week? No I haven't gotten any more packages or letters and I doubt I will before I get back to Tarawa.

Do you work like normal when it is raining?  Well it hasn't rained for weeks because while y'all get the cold it seems to only be getting hotter here.

Do you ever use that solar charger I sent you with?  haven't used it yet

How are you doing on first aid stuff?  plenty of first aid stuff here

What about things like shampoo, soap, and deodorant?  There's all of that stuff here :)

If people want to send you a package, what should I tell them to send you? Uhm if they really want to, I think cookies? but seriously I'm fine. haha I'm turning into an islander and I love the food here!

Have you gotten any letters in the mail from anyone other than me? nope

Do you want me to send you your fishing pole? We made fishing poles out of sticks and there is one here from an Elder here before, so I'm fine thanks!

Do you have any furniture in your house?  We have plastic chairs :) 

Do you wear your top button unbuttoned on your white shirt and your tie loose like we heard before you left? YES I DO. I'd die otherwise.

Who can we pray for? Haha pretty much everyone here, we're seeing problems everywhere we look, it seems like.

Sweet afro

A picture of Daniel with a member, showing off his afro that he is growing since he can't get haircuts on the outer islands.