Easter, Conference, and Gators?

 Ok y'all I hope y'all are doing so well! It's been kinds crazy here this past week. I'll try and hit all the best points.

First off we have still been teaching our wonderful friend S. It can be hard because she just got a new job and has been struggling on making it to church. But she was going to be moving this last week but then she didn't have to! So she's still here and we don't have to pass her off!

Secondly we are teaching a ton but something our mission has put in place is 20 contacts everyday. And this has been helping us find even more people to teach. It's honestly so hard to remember everyone and everything we are doing. It's awesome though because this past week while doing cold calls we found someone who speaks French for Elder M! And then right afterwards we found someone who speaks português for me! It was such a cool miracle that we were able to do that since usually any other language we get is Spanish here which I take because I can speak it decently well now. So awesome to feel God's love tho.

Thirdly our mission President has finally put an official end to outside time during the day which means Elder M and I can't box during the day anymore. But don't fear we do it every Friday for Morning exercises.

Fourthly General Conference! I just wish I could express to you how awesome that was! Also not to mention the fact it was my first time in the mission! It was amazing and I took sooo many notes. There are too many amazing talks I just want to share them all. Something I love about General Conference is that it always feels like they plan their talks together but they don't! This Conference I felt there were 2 main themes. They either spoke about having more faith in Christ and that he is able to take away or understand our pain, or it was about having stronger love for others and being Christ's hand here on the Earth. A quote I love right from the beginning is from Elder Uchtdorf. "Because of Jesus Christ, our mistakes don't define us but can refine us." How awesome is that! I am so grateful that by turning to God he can take my flaws and mistakes and turn them into a beautiful work of art.

Fifthly for Easter a member had us and the other Elders for dinner and they made so much food for us! They also got us Easter snacks and party bags so that was super fun. We watched The Other Side of Heaven while we were there as well which is always fun although I may have found an anatomy and physiology textbook that I started reading for most of it.

Sixthly I got to see Sam Alkema! He was in town visiting Disney World and it was amazing that I happened to be in a close enough area that he could come visit. Definitely super dope and I appreciate the food he got us. Quesadilla burgers slap! 

Lastly I wrestled a gator today! OK not actually but I really wanted to and if the mother gator we found was a little nicer and little smaller I totally would've wrestled it. Instead we just antagonize an 8ft mother gator right by her babies. Not the smartest idea but it was a lot of fun. We went to the Church Ranch for pday today which was super fun. Such a blast and I've never seen so many Gators. We saw probably around 30 today! They were spread across the ranch and unfortunately for a large portion of the time we weren't in the position to try and wrestle a gator. Doesn't mean we didn't try when we could tho. 

I love you all and I hope you know how much Christ loves and knows you. You are the child of the Literal most powerful being in the Universe. Trust in him, trust that he knows what he's doing with you. When a master painter is creating art, you can't always understand what the end result will be. It can just look like blobs of color and random lines. But the master painter sees the end from the beginning. He knows exactly what he's doing even when it looks like the opposite. Well God is the best painter and we are his greatest creations, trust what he's doing with your life!

-Elder Pettingill

-my amazing district! 

-crazy ton of birds that are close to being endangered

-the amazing member that we had Easter with!

-Sam!! 

-us on the tourbus at the Ranch