December 14th E-mail

Whats happenin?!?! Well i am glad to hear that little Eva is doing a lot better. Shannon sent me some pics from Maddox and the one with little Eva is so freaking cute! Well dad I'm sorry that you have to lay on your face. If i was there i would massage you back for ya :D I remember when you got your shoulder done and how much we worked on that thing to get it back into shape.. Every day i would come home from school and massage the knots out of your shoulder and you would scream like a little girl :D But we worked on that for a long time.. And this kinda reminded me of that.. But i know that you are absolutely sick of dealing with this. And trust me i have had that feeling out here. But i have also learned something about trials and about adversity that i hope sticks with me and that i don't lose it. But a word of advice that i would give you is when you finally reach that point that you feel that you cant go on anymore (or even before that point but most of us are too hard headed) But when we get to that point we need to get down on our knees (or lay on our face :D ) and give a prayer of thanks.. And tell the Lord and remind ourselves of all the many things that He has given us.. If you remember when i was with Elder Allred the first down in Clarkston i was just about ready to kill him.. Well a Zone leader of mine challenged me to pray only prayers of thanks for like 4 days.. and i thought well it can hurt anything.. And so i did it.. And i can tell you that it really opened my eyes and it eased my burdens.. Just knowing that when trials come up they are opportunities to grow and to learn and to develop Christ like attributes so that we can become more like Him and that is something that we should be thankful for! opportunities to become more like our Savior! And well dad patience and long suffering our Christlike attributes... :D but i will be praying for you! I love ya! Get Shannon to come walk on your back.. lol.. She used to walk on my back :D and my head.. lol. So you will never guess what i did this week... We were helping these members roll these huge hay bails.. they are the round bails that weigh like 700 lbs.. But we rolled them into the pen with the sheep and then into the pen with the cows.. and last time we were there, doing the same thing, We were throwing snowballs at the cows.. but this time i got a bucket of grain and went up to the steer and was leading him on to come closer to me and he came over and stuck his head in the bucket to start eating the grain and as soon as he did that i jumped on him!!! lol!!! i landed on his back and he freaked out! he bucked twice and the second time i flew off and he went running away LOL!!!! it was so freaking funny! Its too bad i didn't have my camera with me! I would have got it on video :D But if you could imagine! It was so funny.. I was laughing pretty hard.. We had a ward Christmas party this week and we went over the the Bassett's house like 2 hours before the party and we were going to have a lesson but before the lesson i asked them if they were planning on coming to the party and they said they had too much to do... so we asked them what they had to do and they said they had to finish decorating so they could get all the stuff back up in the attic and finish folding all their laundry and then make dinner and what not.. so we said well lets get started.. so we helped them decorate their tree and their home and then we helped them fold all their laundry and i taught them a new way of folding shirts.. that i will have to teach you guys when i get home :D and then we peeled a bunch of potatoes and helped them make dinner then we ate with em and left and made it to the party like right on time :D It was a wonderful party and they had a very well done program on the birth of Christ and the true meaning of Christmas... I think it was really beneficial.. But they are doing well. We did put this girl, Daija Plaisted (9 yrs old) and her sister Jada Redwine (8 yrs old) , On-date for January 9th.. Their mother is a member so only the 9 year old is considered an investigator and will be a convert not that that matters but i don't know if you knew that.. anyways they are very excited and they are learning a lot. Its fun to teach them! We are just doing what we can to keep the work moving forward. So i got a package from the ward that was really cool! That was way nice of them! lol. The young women made pillowcases for us missionaries i guess and Keila Jorgensen signed her name on mine and wrote AKA future wife.. lol... does she even have a drivers licence yet? lol! anyways it was pretty funny.. I also got a letter from the Pecks and from the Hansens.. and anyways its been nice.. I didn't expect that on my second Christmas :D Well life is pretty good! I hope everything is going well for you guys! Thanks for being such a good support to me! I love you guys so much! I am excited for next years Christmas party :D Well take care of yourselves! But jsut remember that Christmas should be great no matter what is going on in our lives because without our Savior we couldn't ever make it back to our Father in Heaven... So little things don't mean much here when we know we can get back to heaven again :D so make the best of Christmas and remember how much our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ love us! (and the Holy Ghost!) thank goodness for Him too! :D But i love you guys! Thanks for everything! Happy holidays! Talk to ya soon :D

Elder Penman