WEEK 20: WILL HE SAY GOODBYE TO JURUPA?

Better week this week.  We did really good in every area except for getting our investigators to church. They were either sick, had family in town, or out of town so that was a bummer, but oh well nothing you can do about it. This week is a 7 week transfer so this upcoming week will be the last one, and we will receive transfer calls this Saturday.

Everything is going well, and we meet more and more new ward members every week that are just so sweet to us.  No pictures this week.  I am sorry.  I usually do not bring my camera a lot, and I will just have other “misioneros” send them to me but they didn't send them to me yet so I will get those out as soon as I can.  Hope everyone has an amazing week and you stay classy Memphis.

Elder Pennington

(Elder Pennington didn't have any pictures to send, but a church member had him over to eat and made him a special treat - Puppy Chow!!!  They didn't even know this was his favorite treat.  Then they snapped some pictures and texted them to us.  As well as a video!  Enjoy!!)
 



That's a big bowl of puppy chow!

 



Carrying left overs home on their heads...
Why is Nathan's bag so much bigger?!

 

WEEK 19: SERVICE - TEACHING ENGLISH TO THE CHINESE



Elder Dyer - a Chinese speaking Elder.

So this week was a little bit better for Elder Olsen and myself.  It rained a couple of times this week, and luckily I got my rain pants and my Columbia rain jacket.  This El Niño comes and goes like every few weeks, and the reason why they took our car away is because of the rain.  There has only been like 4 days since they have, but it is all good.  I don't mind biking.  It could be much worst.




Twinkies - matching suits and ties.

Thank you all for all the packages and letters that I kept getting this past week.  It means a lot to me that everyone has me in mind.  I hope all is well with everyone and I am trying to get thank you letters around to everyone, but if I don't get to it right away, I’m sorry!  My addiction to mango juice is going against an addiction that I now have for strawberry banana juice from Kern’s Nectar.  It is SO good.  But other than that, it was a pretty boring week – OH! except I went on exchanges this week with Elder Dyer into Chinese land.  We taught an English class to Chinese people that are trying to learn English and these people are hilarious.  Elder Dyer is a super cool guy and I learned a lot from him.  I think that is pretty much it....We dropped a few people that we were teaching and got dropped by one other person, so we are in a building progress right now.  I love you all and have a great week!

Elder Pennington

How do you like my crazy trick?

P-Day at the tennis court with the zone.

Just a little warm up jump!













Having fun with da boys

Yeah, that's right! We bad!

WEEK 18: THE UPS AND DOWNS OF A MISSION

This week was the worst week of the mission.  Were there still good things that happened and blessings?  Yes of course!  Was I still happy?  Yes of course!   Did we hit “Standard of Excellence”?  No! Haha!!  It was rough with us trying to get in with our people.  Everyone seemed like life was kicking their butts and didn’t have time for us, but I guess you have to have those kind of weeks to appreciate the good ones.

I forgot to send a special thank you for all my birthday wishes everyone sent me.  Thank you all so much! I'll try to get a thank you out there specifically to everyone, but if I don't get around to it, it's because life is getting hectic so that can be either good or bad, but thank you all for taking time out of your day to wish me a happy birthday and check up on how I am doing.  It is greatly appreciated.

One of the tender mercy blessings in my life this week is that I have found a lover.  Her name is Kern's Nectar Mango Juice.  This stuff is so addicting and amazingly good.  I think I went through three cartons in just one week. Other than that I’m looking forward to taking on this next week.  Hope all is well!

Love,
Elder Pennington

WEEK 17: LASSO COURT OR LASSO CULT?

Elder Pennington loves to bike! He found a
pest control business bearing his last name.  Thumbs up!

So this week was pretty good.  Elder Olsen and myself hit Standard of Excellence again.  I think we are working super hard, and we are being blessed by our diligence. (Insert by Dad: I asked Nathan what exactly was the "Standard of Excellence".  He explained it is a goal that they strive for weekly which includes talking to 65 new people every week, begin teaching 3 new individuals/families each week, have 2 of those being taught attend church on Sunday, as well as 2 or 3 other things.  It's not an easy goal to attain each week, but he and his companion did so 3 weeks in a row which means they have been working very hard and been diligent.)

Quite a surprise for Elder Pennington !

Have I said lately how much I love being on bike?  I am going on my third time for having a flat so that is just great. The dirt roads out here are terrible and are not the best for biking but I guess I can't complain. Luckily Elder Olsen has a hand pump and I have a presta valve tube and so it needs a special pump but thank goodness he had one.  So 400,000 pumps later my tube was full enough for us to bike home!  Also, we talked to a guy that was high because everyone has a medical card out here and he randomly pulls up his shirt and has the goonies tatted on his chest so that is something that I wasn’t expecting hahaha!!

In the area where he works, domesticated animals include
cows and chickens, not cats and dogs.

So this past week I asked a guy how to get to a street named Lasso Court,  and he said, “I can tell you how to get to heaven, you go to Calvary and keep going straight.”   He then went on to say that the cult I'm in or whatever is gonna mess me up so I told him, “Thank you so much for your thoughts.  They will be noted, but for now I'm gonna put a pin in it and I'll get back to that later.  In the mean time, I need to know where Lasso Court is.”  He then said, “Do you mean Lasso cult?” I then told him that the definition of a cult is a small group or organization and that our religion is frankly quite large so it would be quite presumptuous to call our faith a cult.  Then, I extended my hand and held it there for about 5 minutes so that was pretty interesting, but he wouldn't shake my hand :) so I gave him a smile told him to have a blessed day and then continued down to turn right on Calvary and keep going straight :)

Elder Pennington

Anyone who knows Nathan knows of his love
of ice cream.  Luckily there's no shortage in CALI!

On preparation day, played a little putt putt golf with the District

Elder Dyer - they were Bros in the Pre-Earth Life!

Elder Dyer - he is one of the Chinese-speaking Elders.

Oh, so the sister missionaries played too!

Loving sunny southern California!

 

WEEK 16: BUSY TEACHING ALOT OF PEOPLE NOW!

So this week has been pretty good.  Elder Olsen and I hit Standard again, so we are off for a perfect transfer so far.  We have a pretty deep teaching pool of about 17 or 18 but only half are really progressing, so we need to get that moving along. We are doing good though, just need to continue to be diligent.

Everything is going well, my comp works hard so that's awesome.  We do really well at teaching with each other, and he is a genius!  He was valedictorian for his school!

Anyways, we have several investigators who we have been working on for a while to come to church.  They were finally able to come to church this past Sunday.  We had ward conference.  It was awesome. One main problem that we have out here is people working on Sundays.  Almost 3/4 of our investigators all have jobs where they are either iffy about Sundays, or they can barely get off work so that has been troublesome.

I have been addicted to Elder Holland talks lately so I think the bishop at home needs to assign some talks off of Holland’s because they are just straight money team.  He hits it hard every time.  “Safety For The Soul” and “We Are All Enlisted” are just amazing.  I can't wait till conference!!!  Well I hope everyone has a good rest of their week!

Love,

Elder Pennington

WEEK 15: MY NEW COMPANION IS ELDER OLSEN




My new companion, Elder Olsen from Idaho. Money Team!!

It was the first week of the new transfer and Elder Olsen and I worked are butts off to hit standard.  I think I’m doing a good job at remembering where everything is at since we are still on bike, but it's good.

I have come to really enjoy sleep on my mission haha!  Coming in from being out all day and laying down is just the best feeling.  Elder Olsen is a pretty cool guy.  He is from Idaho, of course.  You can't have one companion not be from either Utah or Idaho, that's just unheard of lol..  Anyways we have picked up a ton of new people that we are teaching.  It has just been rough because everyone in this area works all the time and are hard to find time to teach them at home, but the people are great.

Street tacos are so good. I have also come to learn that our neighbors have parties for like everything, and they all play like every single instrument. Last party there was a guy with a tuba and my whole wall next to my bed because I am closest to them was just vibrating with the beat of the music haha!  It was just great, but I ended up falling asleep so it is all good.  Getting up at 6:30 is getting pretty easy to get use too.  It just stinks that we don’t have a car because we would usually go to the gym every morning.

The ward members in this area are awesome and really do help with missionary work most the time haha.  I have never realized how important it was to get the ward involved and have that fellowship. This el Nino hasn't come yet, instead we have been cruising in the 90's and high 80's so it has been pretty hot.  Can't wait for the summer time heat (sarcasm).  Other than that, I am doing good.

Lumpia and pancit...  Mmmmm!

I had filipino food for the first time in three weeks.  I am so glad I had it.  I was having withdrawals!  It is girl scout cookie season out here, and now that I don't have a mom that tells me to stop eating I have a new mom that we live with and her granddaughter is a girl scout so I have probably been through four boxes of thin mints :) Good thing we are on bike haha!  We are super busy, and it is really good, but can be tiring.  I love being out here, and I love being able to help people make a difference in life.

Okay so time for the funny experience I had this week.  Elder Olsen is from a small town in Idaho where there are more cows than people, well anyways we were in the park and there was a guy that was just on cloud 9.  Elder Olsen has never talked to someone who was high so as missionaries, we walk and talk to everyone so we get to talking to this guy and he is hilarious.  He randomly asks if I love the Goonies, and I was like, “The movie? of course!”  Then he lifts up his shirt and has every person in the Goonies tatted on his chest hahaha!!!  Hope everyone is doing well.

Love,

Elder Pennington

Meditation is so relaxing

Front cover of my mission planner.

Back cover of my mission planner.

Trying on Elder Zeng's trendy jackets.

Being my goofy self.

 

WEEK 14: SAYING GOOD-BYE TO MY TRAINER

This week was pretty good, Elder Heelis and I picked up like 10 new people to teach and half of them are pretty solid.  The other half will just need constant nurturing. 

Bitter sweet week as I had to say goodbye to my mission Daddy, Elder Heelis and meet my step-daddy Elder Olsen.  I havent met him yet, but I'm looking forward to working with him for these next six weeks. 

The computer I am on is super dumb so I can't get any pics on my camera to work, but I have some pretty good ones on there.  I'll get them sent next week. 

I hope all is well in the 901, and I hope everyone is doing great.  Your love and prayers are really appreciated.  Thank you for the continual support.  This is a weird p-day because of transfers so I don't have time to write a lot.  Shout out to JD!  I bet he is stoked that the Broncos won! (My mom told me they won) 

Love,

Elder Pennington

Our fun little zone of missionaries.

Having fun with our zone.

After our zone meeting.