WEEK 32: FILIPINO DINNER & A UFC FIGHT AFTER SERVICE

Lisa asked Nathan to send a picture of his
missionary tag in a creative way, and he sent
us this picture with a California sunset.

You may have been wondering in the Crossfit pictures why the name on the back of my shirt is PATI.  It's my Samoan last name.  It means.... Well, you can look it up.  :)  My number is "23" of course. 

Our week is going well.  Last Monday, the other set of Elders that live in the same apartment got a mini missionary for a week.  Elder Smith and I met them that night and dressed up as normal people and acted like investigators.  It was so funny.  Our names were Zach and Cody.  We lived a "Suite Life!"

Anyways, we met with Pat, and she is being baptized later this month - date TBD.  Also, we were with a team up, and we were stopping by refs, and it was about 9-ish so it was time to head back.  And we were with our Elder's Quorum President.  And he goes, "Let's ding dong ditch Guillermo's house who is a cop and the 2nd counselor in Bishopric."  So I went and knocked and rang the bell and then ran to the car.  We just sat parked and watched him look around for like 15 minutes.  It was hilarious.

But, yeah things are going really well.  We have transfer calls this Saturday so Elder Smith will probably be getting the boot. 

I bought a belt that has a ton of USA flags so I'm pumped for the 4th of July.  The belt was $5 - sweet deal!  I'm in love with my Nike pants.  They are so comfy.

Love,
Elder Pennington

This Filipino member of the church treated Nathan
& his companion to a Filipino dinner.

P.1. Grill for dinner.

One happy missionary about to chow down on
some Filipino food.

Elder Smith is hungry

 

Nathan order pancit and eggroll just like his
Papa always made him.  He said it was good,
But not as good as Papa's.

 

For service hours, they helped a recent convert of
the church put up this pool in his backyard.  Then
Elder Pennington and Elder Glathar had a UFC
fight using the pool as the ring.

Writing emails on P-Day.

Writing emails on P-Day.

 

WEEK 31: CROSSFIT FUN AND ANOTHER BAPTISM

The Zone doing Crossfit.

We didn't receive a letter to share from Nathan this week because today was a special Preparation Day (P-Day).  The mission president allows the missionaries in each zone to get together periodically to do cross fit together and so that took up most of their P-Day time today. 


I think they love each other and Cross fit!

He even let them design and get their own Crossfit shirts for their Zone.  How cool is that?!  Luckily he did have time to send us some pictures and as they say, a picture says a thousand words.  It looks like a great bonding experience and a good physical activity to break up the rigor of missionary work

Crossfit Zone doing Money Team.

for a few hours.

Check out our cool shirts.

We love our Zone Crossfit shirts.

Elder Pennington & Bro. Schulmann
on his baptism day.

The other exciting news he reported to us was that he was asked to go back to his first assigned area and be the one who baptized a man that had been investigating the church. In fact, he is the first person that Nathan taught when he was fresh on off the plane from the

Bro. Schulmann and the missionaries
that taught him.

Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah.  Nathan was so excited to be able to go back and see Brother Schullman again, and it was an honor to perform his baptism.  He sent pictures also of this special experience.  Enjoy!





Always have to do a Money Team picture...



Silly silly Nathan and his fashion glasses.

Everybody sporting glasses.

A little BBall on P-Day.

Nathan was excited to find a truck with TN plates.

WEEK 30: BY SMALL AND SIMPLE THINGS

My week was pretty good.  Elder Smith and I did really great with our numbers, and one of our investigators Pat prayed in front of us for the first time this week. It was awesome!

 

We had dinner with the Sibley family, who pride themselves on making missionaries gain weight. We had tri tip steaks, chicken, and pork in one meal, and if you don’t get seconds then you don’t get dessert and the dessert is always amazing!

 

I also just found out that two of my old investigators that I was teaching in my last area  are getting baptized!  One is getting baptized this Friday and asked for me to baptize him!  Then the next baptism on June 12th and it is a nine year old named Marcos.  He is an awesome kid.

Elder Hale, one of Nathan's Zone Leaders

 

 

 

Also, we had exchanges this week with our Zone Leaders, so I got to live the car life which was a ton of fun for the day.

 

 

 

 

I street contacted into a woman who a year previous, was shot in the head twice, and she literally ran from us when we were coming so I went up to the house and caught her hahaha!  She was super funny.  There are a lot of interesting people out here.  Well that’s all for this week.

 

Love and miss you all,

Elder Pennington

Elder Pennington with his new fashion glasses.

Elder Pennington in his fashion glasses again
and planning the proposal re-enactment
of his best friend and brother Josh Kennedy.
(see last week's picture)

Elder Pennington with the Jensen's who are on
a church service mission

WEEK 29: MINI FRIDGE & ELDER CHRISTOFFERSON

SO the past two weeks have been pretty good. I'll go ahead and start with the highlights of my two weeks. First thing is, that when Elder Smith and I were doing our walking and talking or "seeking with faith" as it's now called, we went to the very edge of our area which has the steepest hills, so biking was extremely hard. But anyways, we are walking and no one is out it seems like but then it happened. We look on the sidewalk ahead of us and there it is just sitting there, a MINI FRIDGE. It was so sweet we were so excited and then we hear the garbage truck, and we’re like “Oh we gotta get it outta here!” so I pick it up… haha yes I picked it up and ran to the opposite side of the street so it was safe. Then Elder Smith goes oh shoot their garage is opening. So I pick it up and run down the sidewalk in the opposite direction until we are out of sight and sit it down. Elder Smith and I were dying laughing because it was on the side of the street, they threw it out to be taken to the dump but we just didn't want them to see we took it hahaha!!

 

After that we called up some Elders that have a car and they took it to our apartment for us. We now have two mini fridges in our apartment, it is pretty sick. Also, we had the opportunity to meet Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles.  He came and spoke to us, it was so amazing!  I received so much enlightenment from him and revelation it was outstanding. He shook all of our hands, and the whole mission met together so we got to see some other elders and sisters that we haven’t seen in a while.

 

Nathan reenacts his BFF's engagement
pictures with his companion.
Still our crazy Nathan!!!

 

 

 

Also, I would like to send a huge, tremendous shout out to my brother for life on getting engaged. Welcome to the family Evelyn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Redlands, California Temple

 

We also got to go to the temple last week, which was very inspiring and nice. Other than that I am looking forward to this next week, love and miss you all. Congrats to everyone who got their mission calls! That is the best thing you could be doing at this time!

 

Love, 

Elder Pennington

WEEK 28: TEMPLE TRIP TO REDLANDS, CALIFORNIA

There are currently 150 temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the world.  Temples are different buildings from the regular church building where members of the church worship on Sundays.  There isn't a temple in Nathan's mission, but there is one close by in Redlands, California, just north of his mission boundaries.

Every mission is different with regards to attending the temple, but Nathan's mission president allows the missionaries to go every three months.  His preparation day was moved from Monday to Wednesday this week so he and other missionaries could attend the temple.  Here is a picture of this special day:


And, one last picture from this week because there wasn't a lot of time for him to email....  Nathan sent this picture of a street sign which reads YOLO - "You Only Leave Once."

WEEK 27: MOTHER'S DAY CALL AND 6 MONTHS DOWN, 18 TO GO!

No letter from Nathan this week because we spoke with him via Skype on Mother's Day and it was so awesome to see his face, hear his voice, and be able to have live interaction with him.  Our son is a missionary!!  He loves it and we love that he is having this experience.  We have a ton of pictures to share with you this week.  Enjoy!

Inside joke for our family and favorite quote from the 2005 edition of the movie, "Herbie Fully Loaded."

"Herbie is a car."

Elder Pennington runs across some interesting stuff every day on his mission in California.  Here he got to see a movie star - Herbie!

He got a kick out of this sign.  It's a Donkey Crossing sign.  The area he is in is a large farming community and most of those employed are Hispanic so this apparently is a preferred mode of transportation.  Glad he sees things like this that entertain him and make him smile.

 6 MONTHS DOWN!

There is an unofficial tradition carried out by some missionaries in recognition of timeline milestones reached on their missions.  Nathan reached his 6 month mark and for that accomplishment, the tradition is to burn a tie.

We are still trying to figure out why he chose such a good looking tie and one of our favorites to burn.  Here, he and his companion Elder Smith are practicing their Scout fire starting skills.  It looks like they can still build a good fire.

And here he is burning his tie.  It will be November before he burns anything else and I believe then it will be a white shirt for his halfway mark.

Be careful son and don't play with fire!!!  Oops, too late.

 

SUNSET PICTURES OF MORENO VALLEY

 

In his current congregation (ward) there is a large Samoan membership. Here he is at a church activity that was a celebration "Samoan style."  We were excited that he stayed in the USA, but he is getting plenty of experience with other cultures outside of the USA.

One of the great blessings of having the age for missionaries changed is that now there are a lot more "Sister" missionaries.  Here Nathan is with those sisters serving in his Zone.  They asked the Elders for priesthood blessings that day and so they obliged.

This sister missionary (Hermana Jordan) knows Nathan's cousin Brooklyn.  Brooklyn is deaf and so here they are sending their love to her in a picture with Sign Language.  One of the great things of membership in the church is how much smaller the world seems to be at times.

Nathan's good friend from home - Annie Posey - sent him this "Money Shirt" to go along with his "Money Tie" theme that he has started.  Thanks Annie!  He sure got a kick out of this.

 



ELDER PENNINGTON'S APARTMENT

 



WEEK 26: MONEY TIES FOR THE MONEY TEAM

 Unfortunately, Nathan didn’t get much computer time this week so he just sent a bunch of pictures.  Mother’s Day is coming up as well so he’ll update us on this week then.  Emailing for a quick minute...




At Nathan’s request, Lisa and I
bought some ties with dollar bills on them.  He has given them out to some missionaries.  He has his own “stipulations” on who he will allow onto the “Money Team.”  Here, he and his companion are showing them off like only they know how to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nathan has been sharpening up on his cooking skills.  He has created some very interesting meals he tells us about.  Here is the most impressive dish I’ve heard of so far – noodles with some veggies in a sauce.  Bon apetite!