WEEK 61: BAPTISMS ON NEW YEAR'S DAY

Skyelar, Elder Dunn, Isaac, Stefanie and
Elder Pennington - Baptism Day

This past week was awesome!  We were able to start out the new year with the baptism of Stefanie and Skyelar!  It was amazing to see them enter into the waters of baptism!  I had the awesome opportunity to baptize Skyelar, and it was awesome!  They are a super cool family, and I am so thankful for the opportunity I have had to be a part of their conversion process!

Elder Dunn, Stefanie, Skyelar, and Elder Pennington

Elder Dunn and Stefanie

Skyelar and Elder Pennington

Stefanie and Skyelar

This past week was also a super fun zone activity at the church on New Year’s eve!  We had a game night, and had card games, board games, ping pong, basketball, and mini basketball with two door hoops!  It was a ton of fun, and a great way to ring in the new year, and what better way to start it then on a Sunday!  We had an awesome church service, and an amazing dinner with the Soto family.  Love you all, and I hope everyone has a great start to the new year!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

EP

Elder Pennington made breakfast on missionary exchanges

Breakfast on exchanges

Golfball & Tee Snow Globe

Apparently he really likes this snow globe

Elder Pennington recognized a rug that looks like the one from home.

Little does he know that we have renovated and this rug is gone!

Lotsa cool socks from his Aunt Angie

WEEK 60: LAST CHRISTMAS ON THE MISSION WAS WHITE

Reppin' the 901 - nice Christmas gift

This Christmas was white… there was snow! On the mountains of Big Bear, Anza, and Idyllwild!!!

In Menifee though it was white with two Baptisms!!!  Trent is a 16 year old that was able to be baptized, and Travis is a 15 year old that got baptized on Christmas Eve!!! 

Trent's baptism

Trent's family at his baptism

Elder Pennington did the baptizing

Travis' baptism

Travis' family at his baptism

They were both amazing services, and it was awesome!

Oh yeah I got to skype the fam so that was kosher.

Skype with the family

Then we got to go caroling to members in the area with half the zone, and we were able to go to a woman in the hospital and carol to her!  It was awesome to spend our Christmas day going and visiting others!

 

Christmas gifts from the ward - they love their Elders.

This week was awesome, and it is super weird to think that next email will be in 2017!!!!! So I have decided I'm not gonna email anyone until next year ;)

 

This ward member made Elder Pennington his very own
leather scripture case with his initials branded on it.
A great mission keepsake

Love you all hope you had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, ya filthy animals!

 

Last Christmas on the Mission

Love,

EP

Christmas box from Mom - she's very creative!

Mom sent him these ornaments to give out to
his investigators, members or other missionaries.

WEEK 59: KRISPY KREME & CHINESE ELDERS

Our Ward Mission Leader (WML)

So I know the mainstream thing to do for weekly emails is to tell you about what happened last week, but I am very excited for this week so I'll let everyone know about that first.  We are having half of the mission get together this Wednesday for a Christmas devotional and slideshow of the past year.  That is going to be a ton of fun.

WML - "thug life"

Also we have four baptisms on Friday.  Two at 10am and two at 4pm.  Hopefully everything goes well with those so keep those people in your prayers. Then we get to have a zone activity on Christmas Eve, and then Christmas!  So it will be an awesome week, but also this past week was pretty good.

Elder Kligge - go greenie!

We went on exchanges with Elders Langley and Kligge.  Kligge has been out a whopping week and a half so I made him breakfast on exchanges haha.

Everything is going well, the area is doing good, and I am super excited for the rest of this week.  Hope everything is awesome back home and hope everyone has a Merry Christmas! 

Love,

EP

Krispy Kreme 

Krispy Kreme - sugar rush

The Chinese-speaking Elders

Elder Pennington has always loved the Asian culture

Hanging with the Chinese Elders

Elder Pennington can get anyone to do anything!!

WEEK 58: A COWBOY CHRISTMAS

The Elders with Santa at the Ward Christmas Party

We didn't receive a letter from Elder Pennington, but we did receive quite a few pictures that do tell a story for the week.  The ward had their Christmas Party which was a lot of fun. 

One of their investogators

Their investigator and his father

Clowning at the Christmas Party

Hope we aren't having too much fun

All aboard!  Choo! Choo!

I hope she gave Elder Pennington a run for his money.

Apparently, he and his companion went to someone's house who was a cowboy and they let them hang out with the horses and ride the tractors.  These pictures will be used later for their Christmas card they sent to us.

Enjoy the pictures!

Look Ma!  I'm a cowboy

Driving tractors

A side view of Mater... like ta-mater, without the "ta"


And a few pictures of our Chevy Malibu:

WEEK 57: LIGHT THE WORLD & SERVE AS CHRIST DID

Elder Pennington is loving his mission in Riverside, California.

Pennington and Dunn - two ZL's just chillin'

Transfer calls were this past Saturday, and Elder Dunn and I escaped from being transferred so we will both be here for at least six more weeks!  We are happy we get to stay another, but sad that they are breaking the four man up :(  They are moving Elder Langley and his new companion to a different apartment complex :( :(  Sad day, but it is okay now I get my own bathroom...darn.

One of their investigators gave them a Christmas tree

Anyways, the work is going great.  We are working with four families right now, and it is awesome being able to meet with them.  I am super excited for this Christmas season, and the next six weeks to continue to work with Elder Dunn and our investigators.  If you haven't already, go to YouTube #lighttheworld or go to:

                                       Light the World

and watch some super awesome videos about serving like Christ served.  Love ya’ll.

Have a great week!

EP

Elder Pennington made a filipino lunch

One of Elder Pennington's favorite things to do on his
mission is to provide service to the community

MLC day of service

Great job cleaning up Elders & Sisters

And yet another selfie

WEEK 56: LAST THANKSGIVING IN THE MISSION

Last Thanksgiving in the Mission Field.

This week was really good.  It was crazy to think that this was my last Thanksgiving in California :/  We had the turkey bowl that morning so we played football with a couple of wards, and it was a ton of fun! We had dinner at the Martindale’s house, and it was sooo good!  Afterwards we played pool, corn hole, and just hung out. That night we played glow in the dark trashball which was a ton of fun!!!!

Young men who go live with the missionaries for a couple
of weeks to get a taste of mission life are called mini
missionaries.  Here is Geronimo, but he is anything but MINI.

It has been a really good week.  We also had a member from Lake Elsinore spend the week with us because he wanted to see what the mission life was like, so that was pretty fun!  We had Crossfit today and got to play basketball so that was a ton of fun.  Other than that things are going well. The people we are teaching are doing great.  We had 5 at church so that was awesome.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Love you all!!!

EP

The Soto Family is awesome!

The whole Nielson Family - also awesome!

Rainy days means trachting

Good-bye Elder Sy