The Very Last E-mail

Whats up. Ok so i was thinking Redeemer of Israel, I know that my redeemer lives, and for the sacrament hymn I Believe in Christ. Just some good hymns about the savior. I am definitely excited to get up there and talk in sacrament though. I have been planning out my talk in my head for the last 3 weeks :D I probably wont even take anything up there with me.. Who knows. Well... See ya in a week... :D It was great to talk to you yesterday. I'm just not sure what else to say today.. lol. Love ya! Take care!

Elder Penman

April 3rd E-mail

Well this week was awesome. One awesome experience that we had was on Sunday in testimony meeting. It was a 2 hour long testimony meeting because it was the last Sunday before the students all leave. We had 4 of our investigators there and only 1 of them isn't on-date for baptism and he is the one that is leaving. His name is Ben Paholke. Ben got up during testimony meeting and he talked about how this group of latter-day saints that he has met while he has been coming to the institute are the finest group of people he has ever met in his life and how he isn't a member of the church yet but that he is doing everything that he can to come to the same conclusion as the rest of us! It was awesome he talked about the power of prayer and how he received answers to his prayers and he credits it to the opportunity that he has had at the institute.. It was awesome. Well about 30 minutes later in the meeting he got up again! And he said this is my last time up here i promise. But i did want to let you guys know that i always thought of Jesus Christ as just a figure in my life but today as i have sat here and listened to the testimonies of all of you i now know that Jesus Christ is my Lord and my Savior! It was awesome! He has really grown so much! I wish he wasn't leaving! I will have to pretty much just take it upon myself to stay in touch with him when i go home.. So that we don't lose him and so that he doesn't forget those awesome experiences that he has had while he has been here.

Well i love you guys! Thanks for everything! Talk to ya on Sunday! woot! oh and by the way I think i will be calling somewhere between 3:30 and 4:30 here which is 4:30-5:30 there... So hopefully dad can hurry it up at church. I don't know what time you guys are getting out of church i sure hope that church isn't 1-4 but if it is.. its still true :D Well I love you guys! Take care. Talk to you soon.

Elder Penman

April 26th E-mail

Whats Happenin!

Last night, in an effort to get root beer floats and to see one of our investigators at "ward prayer", we decided to go to the institute and as soon as we walked in one of the girls that we have been teaching (she has actually been taught by missionaries since 2006) ran up to us and told us that she needed to talk to us... So we went into a room and she told us that she broke up with her boyfriend and that it was no fun but that she is ready to get baptized and she was wondering if she could do it on the 15th of may!!! We were shocked to say the least. But it was amazing! We now have 3 people on-date for May before i come home.. Its pretty cool to see the miracles that are happening.. By the way Shannon's dad is more than willing to come to the airport. Especially if he is taking the day off :D... I don't really know yet when i will be calling home.. Ill let you know next week though.. so mom i don't think i will get sick of you after 3 days of being back... I mean i have been gone for a couple years.. lol.

Well I love you guys! Take care. Thanks for everything that you do. Tell little Eva I said happy birthday! ;) talk to you soon.

Elder Penman

April 19th E-mail

Whats happenin?!?! So you reserved the clubhouse? for Monday? that's cool. Whoever wants to come can come. But at the airport i just want family and future family (Shannon and her mom) :D But whatever the plan is it will work. lol.. I guess i wont really care at that point. Its kind of weird to be planning it all out. This week was my last Zone Conference. I cant believe that one is my last one... I love having Zone Conference. But oh well. It was just interesting giving my final testimony. It was cool there because there were 3 of my boys there. Elder Allred II, Elder Foerster, and Elder Brady. So it was pretty cool to get to see them. Its weird to think that in just a few weeks this life i have been living for 2 years is going to come to an end.. It still doesn't seem very real. Even though i got my flight plans in the mail this week too... :D So mom the chances of an entire mission all getting together at once is very very slim.. The only reason that we got to do that was because Elder Bednar wanted to meet with all of us.. And so we took advantage of the opportunity while we had it.. To take a picture in front of the temple as well was pretty rare... But its really cool. So guess who came to our stake conference this week as we got a new stake President? Elder Bednar! It was so freaking awesome! I cant believe what an amazing man he is! But it was really cool. Well Ken is doing awesome. He came to both the Saturday night and Sunday morning sessions of Stake Conference. And he is way solid! We also put another kid on-date for the 15th of may!
(my last proselyting day) Mike Miklose is his name. So go ahead and pray that he gets the courage to talk to his dad about him wanting to be baptized... His dad kind of belittles him and his dad is a Buddhist that grew up in SLC. So you could imagine his reaction when mike told him that he was meeting with us.. He simply laughed at him.. But ya everything is really good. WE are seeing many miracles! I Love you guys so much! Take care! Ill talk to ya soon! woot! ;) Elder Penman

April 12th E-mail

Whats up family! How the heck are ya?!?! Well it sounds as if you are doing pretty good. Oh and mom i just thought that 6 weeks wasn't too long to go without shoes.. But don't worry my feet are holding up to it fine. No I'm just kidding. You will never guess how i got the shoes that i am wearing. So I went to a Zone Leader meeting. And there was an elder there that is 6'10" and he wears a size 17 and he came up to me and asked me what size my feet were.. I told him 15 and asked why and he said that his parents had sent him a brand new pair of eccos and that he wore them the last 2 days but they cramped his feet cause they were just a little bit too small.. He told me if they fit me i could have them.. So i tried them on and they fit like a glove! So he gave em to me! Brand new pair of eccos.! So i am walking in style now.. They probably cost his parents close to 200 bucks.. but they are way nice.. You will see them soon enough :D I cant believe you called to find out when my flight comes in. lol! You might be one of the trunkiest moms in the group of missionaries i go home with.. lol.. But ya i am completely fine with just going and getting something to eat.. The only thing i had in mind was to make sure i get released that night.. If not soon after i get home.. lol.. That probably sounds bad. In fact my last few emails full of jokes and pranks probably sound bad too.. But i do want you to know that i am still working hard. We just like to have fun. anyways I was just surprised that no one said much about some well thought out and very well executed pranks.. So i thought that maybe they weren't as appreciated as i thought they would be lol.. But oh well. We found some really cool people this week. We started teaching this one guy named Ken. He met with missionaries in the past. like 4-5 months ago. But just needed some time to think. Well he watched general conference and then told some of his friends that are members of the church that he was really thinking about baptism... So we went over and taught him and he came to church this week! So we are pretty excited about him. Well love ya! Take care of yourselves! hope you have a great week.

Elder Penman

April 5th E-mail

Whats happenin! LOL That must have been a pretty good guilt trip talk i gave for both of you to tell me that you didn't gamble! lol! I am however glad that you had a good time! Happy late Anniversary. So feel free to open the suit case. The code is 530 for the lock. Oh and if you get in the very front of the bag there is a picture that is in a folder looking thing and its a big picture of the whole mission when Elder Bednar came. If you want you can get that out and buy a frame for it and frame it for me and put it up on my wall :D That would be awesome. But you will notice that i sent both 2 pairs of boots home and also both of my shoes that i bought before i came out home. There are those black slacks that i sent home that are pretty worn out. I'm keeping those as a souvenir. So you can go ahead and open the stuff. just don't throw anything away... in fact it would be better if you took the shoes out.. They are probably smashed in there. Funny thing is that since i sent that stuff home. (winter stuff) It has snowed twice lol! don't worry though. Some member are going to let me borrow a jacket for this week and then the weather is supposed to get better..

We got our transfer calls. We are staying together. James probably already told you that lol. That was so crazy. But oh well. Cool thing is that Elder Brady is coming to Pullman to be with Elder Pulver. So he will be in my district when i die! woot! That will be cool. He is way excited. I'm freaking excited too though. Its going to be awesome.

So...April Fool's was awesome. The first prank we pulled was on Elder Pulver and Elder Lay, two missionaries in our district. Elder Lay called us the night before the 1st while E. Pulver was in the shower and told us to call at 7 in the morning while he was in the shower to tell E. Pulver that Bro. Hansen, the high counselor, called because apparently Elder Lay has been talking on the phone with Bishop's daughter. Now, Elder Pulver doesn't trust Elder Lay because Lay had a cell phone a few months ago and was texting his dad and all this stuff but got caught and threw it away. President Palmer told him to keep a close eye on him. Well, taking this joke to the next step, we got up at 6:30 and put on all of our missionary clothes and drove over there. We walk in and sit Elder Pulver down and tell him the whole deal and then proceed to tell him that Lay is getting emergency transferred that morning. Elder Lay gets out of the shower, not expecting us to be there, and plays along with it and we just tell him to start packing because he is getting emergency transferred. Elder Pulver looked so distraught and didn't even know what to do. We told them that we were going to go get some breakfast and that we would be back in a few minutes. We came back and Elder Lay, still going along with the joke, had packed a suitcase and a half! We asked Elder Pulver if Elder Lay had said anything and he was like, "He hasn't said a word!" We brought them together and said, "While we were at breakfast President Palmer called and wanted to tell you April Fool's!" Elder Pulver jumps out of his seat yelling, "You guys are so gay!" It was awesome. He got pranked so good. We all hugged and made up and then left.

The NEXT joke was on this girl Kynsey. She is a freshman here and comes to a few of our teaching appointments throughout the week. We like to joke with her because she takes it well and we are just really good at pulling pranks. We had talked to her about 4 nights in a row when we were securing appointments and the such and had actually seen her at one of our dinner appointments that week so we had seen her a lot more than usual. I called Elder Townsend and told him to call her and pretend to be an office missionary who had been checking the phone records and saw that we had been in contact with her and was wondering why. He basically said that President Palmer was on his way down to interview me and Elder Penman and that I would be getting emergency transferred. He then went on about the rules of conduct between missionaries and members of the opposite sex. When he called us after he said that she didn't even know what to say and just said a lot of OK's and alright's. He told her that President Palmer would be calling her in a little bit. THEN we got ANOTHER missionary to call and pretend to be President Palmer and he talked to her about what happened. Eventually Elder Penman called her, acting very depressed, and she was like "What is going on?!" He told her that he didn't really know, apologized a bunch of times, and said that I would be getting transferred. You could tell that she had bit pretty hard and was probably about to cry. Eventually, after a few minutes of discomfort, we told her that President Palmer wanted to tell her April Fool's. She was like, "I knew it! Where are you guys?! I'm going to kill you! I was just talking to my mom and cried on the phone a little bit and she told me that sometimes things just happen and that I need to go with it!" It was SO funny. She called her mom back and her mom said "Good job boys!" She thought it was hilarious. Anyway, best April Fool's ever. We rule. No one can get us now. Thats what they get for Elder Mclean and I growing up with dads that were natural pranksters! lol.

Well I love you guys so much! Thanks for everything! I look forward to talking to you soon! :D Take care of yourselves! Love ya!

Elder Penman

March 29th E-mail

Whats going on?!?! That is absolutely crazy about Brady! I hope he is OK... A broken back?!?! my goodness. Let me know what is going on with that... Well i guess i never really thought about you paying the last payment of my mission this month.. I guess it is time though.. :D that's pretty weird to think about. I mean its almost April.. That's nuts. But this week was awesome. The students were back. They were happy. The weather wasn't bad.. And we were able to find 7 new investigators. Which is crazy when you think about the fact that we only teach singles... So it was an awesome week. There are a lot of miracles that are going on right now in the mission. In fact the mission is doing really well. Its definitely fun to be a part of. Transfers are coming up next week. I know that I'm not leaving.. But hopefully Elder McLean doesn't leave. He is way cool and we are working really hard together. Oh i was going to tell ya. So there are some students here that are going down to conference... and I'm going to give them a bunch of my stuff to bring home.. So since you guys will be out of town i guess i will give them James' number or Shannon's number or something so that they can get my stuff to someone :D who knows. Ill figure it out. ;) But hey mom just remember gambling during conference weekend probably isn't the best thing to do. Even if you justify that 20 bucks in the machine is the same as going to a movie.. Its not just entertainment its feeding the fire of the devil.. Alma 41:10 Wickedness never was happiness. now I know you never said you were going to gamble.. Just when you said that it would be like you honeymoon.. That's the first thing I thought of.. lol. Oh and the pennies are just pennies sure but Flaxen cords are pretty small as well... I love ya! :D

Sorry i don't really know what to say.. At this point it seems like i have said the same things for ever.. lol.. In fact I'm kind of getting sick of writing letters and the whole email deal.. I just want to talk to ya! lol. But soon enough i guess. :D Well hey i love you guys. Have a great anniversary! In fact a fun fact for ya... The 27th of March was mine and Shannon's 6th "anniversary"... lol. 6 years! I can't believe that! But hey take care of yourselves! Love ya! Elder Penman

March 22nd E-mail

Hey whats up? Well its good to hear from ya. Mom I'm glad you made it through the Big Easy. That's awesome that you got to see some of the players. Its too bad that BYU lost. I can just see you and your friend walking into the conference an hour late lol! So did you talk to your friend about the church? I sure hope so. I hope you gave them all BoM's ;). So this week was crazy. There was absolutely nothing going on here in Pullman. It was spring break and there wasn't a soul here.. lol. The only people that were here were Grad students that were depressed from sitting in there apartments all day and all night doing research for their thesis.. LOL! It was crazy. But we are glad to see that the students are now back. And so we have some more people to talk to again.. The thing is that my last week in the mission is going to be like that too, maybe not as bad, because school gets out like a week before i come home.. lol.. This is such an interesting area.. I love it though. So the more i get to know my companion, Elder Mclean, the more i laugh about how similar we are and how similar our parents are! So his dad is very practical and he said that his dad would always tell him that he is hard on vehicles! lol.. Then we talked about how he would wrestle with his dad all the time and his mom would stand back and get mad and say "Cant i ever have anything nice?" LOL! no joke! He also said that when he would be driving with his mom that anytime anything happened she would take the big GASP and grab hold of like the door and the arm rest.. LOL!! there is so much stuff. But its nice to know that my parents are just crazy. But that there are other crazy people out there like them :D... its just funny because he is from Virginia.. and beside the fact the i played sports and he was way into music and a band we did a lot of the same things.. its cool. I hope that we stay together another transfer.. I really don't want 5 companions my last 5 transfers.. And right now I'm 4 for 4. But ya nothing really happened this week too exciting.. So thanks for the emails. I love ya! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

March 15th E-mail

Whats happenin?!?! That's too bad that Sis. Palmer's dad passed away. That's neat that you got to meet her though. She is such a nice lady. I hope that she is doing ok. She knew that her parents both weren't in very good health. But its never fun to see a loved one pass. Well mom i hope you have fun in the Big Easy. Don't do anything that i wouldn't do, without me.. :D lol. Well this week was pretty good i guess. It was so busy that it doesn't even really seem like it was 7 days.. lol.. We had Zone Leader Council on Tuesday from 9-2 and then went on exchanges after that until Wednesday at like 4 and then Wednesday night we exchanged with the elders in colfax until Thursday night and then Friday we had interviews but now that I'm a Zone Leader hrrrrrp ;) we do all the trainings for interviews so we started at 8 in the morning and ended at 6 and gave the same training 4 times :D so that was fun. And president Palmer had me drive his car while he made phone calls. So i got to drive the Pres' car! woot! Its nice too. Its a Camry. And its pretty fast.. I told him before hand (well after i already was on the road) that i was from Salt Lake and that it was very apparent in my driving :D and then when we were leaving one of the stake centers i pulled up and this stop sign and then had to give it a little juice to get in front of this car and he said "That was a little aggressive elder.." and i said "Well I'm just trying to get you home president." And he said well try to get me home in one piece! lol! I thought wow that sounds like something my dad would say! I thought that was pretty funny. But it was nice to get to ride with him and talk to him about the mission and the direction that its going! Its pretty awesome what is happening right now! I mean just the first 2 months of the year Jan and Feb we had 88 and 83 baptisms when last year during those months combined we had 75 so that's 171 baptisms compared to 75 in the first two months of the year.. That's quite an increase. Its just awesome because president has taken this mission that was so prepared by Pres. Clark and done some wonderful things. Granted none of it would happen if the missionaries weren't obedient and weren't willing to change. But It used to be that 20 % of the missionaries did all the baptizing.. ZL's and DL's... But now everyone baptizes.. Its nice to see. But then again as the mission lifts to a higher plane of work and spirituality Satan steps up his game too and we have seen some crappy things going on in the lives of some of our missionaries.. But the work goes on. Its spring break here in Pullman. So pretty much none of the students are here.. lol.. We were keeping track yesterday and we knocked 36 doors and only 6 people answered.. lol.. so it makes finding new people a little harder.. But no worries we will make it happen. Well i hope you guys are doing well. That's crazy to think that Cam is such an old man.. wow.. 35.. He is pretty much half way to the grave.. ;) Well i love you guys. Thanks for everything. Keep on keepin on! take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

March 8th E-mail

Whats happenin?!?! wow a DVR huh? I'm not going to know what to do with a DVR and a queen size bed! lol... This week was awesome.. So on Saturday we had a baptism for Travis Lopes. He is 23 years old and he has such a strong testimony. Its amazing to see him grow in the gospel. It was really nice too because his parents are seventh day Adventist and they came and his brother and his wife came and they are of the same faith and in fact he is even working on becoming a pastor. So it was nice to have them there because the spirit was so strong. And then his parents even came to the confirmation and we had a testimony meeting and really i was pretty hesitant well because we all know how testimony meetings can be... hrrrrrp. But it was awesome. Its nice to have a ward that is full of freshly returned RM's lol... In fact i was looking for it and no one even testified of Joseph Smith... The whole meeting was about Jesus Christ (as it should be) it was awesome! Oh and at the baptism We were at the church and Travis' sister in-law asked me to see a picture of Joseph Smith cause she had never seen one.. Well i seriously took her around the whole church and could not find one.. I just looked at her and was like i don't know what the deal is they are all of Jesus Christ... lol.. I have been waiting to say that to someone forever.. It was nice lol. But i think it really had an impact on his parents and i dunno i think something good could come of it.. But we will see. So we are having a really awesome time up here.. Time is just flying by which is crazy but Elder Mclean and i teach so well together.. Its nice. We play like good cop bad cop :D I chastise them and he makes them feel loved :D lol.. no I'm kidding but really this has been some of the funnest time on the mission right now.. Its crazy though because we have so much more that we have to do as far as reporting numbers to well it seems like freaking everyone. And also we have more meetings that we go to. Like tomorrow we are headed to Spokane to go to ZLC (Zone Leader Counsel) and its pretty much like another zone conference.. ZC goes from 9-3 and ZLC goes from 9-2 lol.. So it will be pretty long and then we are going on exchanges with the assistants to the pres.. So that will be fun. One of them is Elder Killpack who was my ZL while i was in post falls. and he also came out with me.. He is pretty good at golf.. so he might come with us one of these days.. I seriously cant believe that its march already.. So we had Zone Conference this week and it was pretty cool. Last year i guess we baptized like 675 people as a mission and in SC president told us that he feels that this year we can reach 1000! and seriously i believe that we can! The mission has never done some of the things that it is doing now! When i got in the mission it was about 20% of the missionaries that had 80% of the baptisms.. And now seriously everyone is baptizing.. Its so awesome to see! This mission has grown so much! Its interesting to see how well president Clark prepared this mission so that when President Palmer came in he could take it and lift it up a big notch! and he has! In fact he said in the last ZLC (i wasn't there but elder Mclean told me) that he has to be careful what he asks us to do because he knows that we will do it! And so he has to make sure that it is what the Lord wants! And you know what that is a huge change from when i first got in the mission and there were elders that hung out all day and went out to proselyte after their dinner... So its just a really fun time to see the mission grow tremendously.. But hey things are going very well right now.. Thanks for all of your prayers.. I love you guys! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

March 1st E-mail

Whats happening?!?! Its great to hear from you guys. lol Mom you crack me up.. I can hardly tell that you are excited to see me in May... :D So Bishop wants me to speak right after i get home huh? That's pretty cool. He probably figures he better get me in before i lose the spirit... lol. I absolutely love it here in Pullman. You wouldn't even believe how crazy it is though... The perks are that i am teaching people my own age who i can actually relate to and who might even value my opinion... Rather than people who are way older than me and i cant really relate to them at all.. So that's really nice. One of the other nice things is that you never run out of people to talk to... I mean this school is huge! and so there are always people on campus and what not.. So we teach most of our lessons at the institute building which is pretty much on campus and so if an appointment falls through we just walk outside and start talking to people.. The institute is actually right on what they call "Greek Row" and it is completely surrounded be sororities. I kid you not. Its crazy. So there are always trashy girls walking around the institute... Lol. Its kind of crazy. In fact like Saturdays are our worst days by far.. Because everyone is drunk or baked... (baked=smoked way too much pot). Its definitely a change from Deer Park. Or anywhere else that i have served for that matter. Speaking of which you will never guess who is getting baptized this Saturday!!!! Sharon McKinley!!!! Remember her? I hope so. When her husband got baptized in Utah you all went to it.... And he is going to the temple soon and i talked to him and he is thinking about making it towards the end of May cause he is going to go down to Utah and that way i could be a part of it! So that would be awesome! I got to visit them and the Cormacks and hopefully next time i go down to Lewiston for a district meeting I will be able to visit some more people! Its kind of nice to be able to visit old areas! :D I like it. So we have a kid that is on-date for this Saturday. His name is Travis Lopes and he is awesome! He is probably the most solid kid that i have seen get baptized. His dad came down and gave him all this anti stuff and was really just trying to get him to not go through with this.. Well His dad told him "You know i just want you to know that there are 2 forces at work here and Satan is trying to drag you down." And Travis said "Well dad that's exactly what i feel like you are doing to me right now!" Lol! "Not that I'm calling you Satan but i feel like you are trying to stop me from doing something right..." So it was just amazing to see how he held up to all of it! He is absolutely a stud! He is going to take off in the gospel! In fact he already has.. :D So we are excited for his baptism this week. We have a kid on-date for the 27th and then we also put a girl on-date this week for the 3rd of April.. So things are going really well right now. I am absolutely loving it here. I got your package that you sent to me! And i love those cookies! It was a really good choice! So thank you for that! My comp had an exchange planned for tomorrow before i even got into the area... And So i will be spending my birthday down in Kamiah.... hrrrrrp And guess what this kid that is our ward mission leader in one of our wards his name is Lance Udy and he is way cool. But his birthday is on the 2nd and he is turning 22 as well! and he brought a girl to church Sunday from his work and her birthday is the 2nd and she is turning 21! So its pretty crazy! So we were all going to get together and do something cool that night but nope im going to be hrrrrrrrp down in Kamiah... with all the crazys... It really is crazy there... But Elder Foerster is down there and Elder Allred the first is in my district so i got 2 of my boys in the zone with me! its really cool. In fact Its amazing to see how Elder Allred the first has changed.. I mean he is still a little wiener but he has grown up a lot! Its cool to see. I haven't seen foerster but hearing stories about him he still thinks that he is the greatest thing to hit the mission.... Hrrrpp. Guess i will have to stuff him a few more times to humble him a little more.. lol. Well I love you guys. I cant believe its my birthday already! Its crazy how fast time is going.. So mom no worries i will be there in no time ;) just take a few deep breaths.. :D But i am loving it here and working my butt off.. So thanks for keeping me in your prayers! I love you guys! Hope all is well. Take care of yourselves! Love ya!

Elder Penman

February 21st E-mail

Whats happening?!?!? Well you are never going to guess what is happening here.... So we got our transfer calls last night and they start out by telling me that Elder Stapley who is in the district is getting so and so and he is also going to be the District Leader.. And so I'm thinking sweet! and then they tell me that Elder Brady is getting so and so and I'm like what? I'm leaving? and then they say and you are going to be Jr Companion (and before they said anything else i was like SWEET! Jr. Comp! no cares in the world just sit back and teach!) to Elder Mclain as a Zone Leader.... WHAT?!?! ya and I'm in Pullman! WSU! college town! woot! one of the biggest party schools in the nation! WOOT! lol... it was crazy because when i talked to Pres. in interviews we talked about the 13 elders that are in leadership in the group i came out with and how he was going to start weeding them out of leadership so that the mission doesn't change big time all at once.. and how he didn't particularly want elders dying as zone leaders and what not.. Well then he turns around and freaking calls me to be a zone leader! lol... but i am way excited. My comp is a freaking stud. He was my Zone Leader when i first got to Clayton ward.. We get along great. And they have 3 baptism scheduled for march so far and so the work is going really well there...! its awesome! But what a curve ball! wow! I guess that just lets you know who really runs the mission.. Not Pres. Palmer :D (The Lord... for those of you who might not catch on...) ;) but ya so Clarkston is in that zone too.. So i will be able to go back to my old area and see a few people that might be going to the temple soon!!!!! i am so excited! Seriously its going to be awesome! so here is my new address : 1560 Northeast Merman Dr. Apt #228 Pullman WA 99163 So if you could pass that on asap to the beautiful young lady i would appreciate it! :D Oh and so i will be coming home on the 17th of May... I have no idea what time.. I would imagine sometime in the morning.. But it will be that Monday.. So we can probably go grab some lunch :D or what not.. But when i get all the paper work of my flight i will definitely let you know.. I cant believe that its almost march.. what the freak! Its going by crazy fast. And the weather is great here too.. It has been sunny and mid 40's all week long. Its so nice! Not a sign of snow anywhere :D I probably just ruined that for us but that's ok! So hopefully so of the students in the singles wards that i cover will be headed to Utah for spring break and can take a whole lot of my crap home for me! That would be so nice! But we will see what happens! Well its good to hear that you guys are doing great! Next thing you know i will be there with ya! lol... I am just excited now to have a new assignment where i can just go and give it everything that i have before i come home! Its going to be awesome! Thanks for everything! Oh and by the way we put Will on-date last night for the 27th of March! So he is going to get baptized! I just wont be here to see it :D But hey i love you guys so much! Thanks for everything! mom just surprise me with the cookie.. :D Love ya! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

February 16th E-mail

Well Hello! how have you guys been?!?! I am absolutely loving life! This last week was probably one of the most memorable weeks of my mission. The entire Bassett family was baptized! Bruce and Laura were baptized by a member of the ward (Bro. Palmer Sr.) and the Nick was baptized by Bro. Palmer Jr. and then Elizabeth asked me if I would baptize her! So there were 7 people that got wet that day! It was awesome! She is the only person that i have personally baptized.. I kind of has a goal not to baptize anyone personally on my mission just because I think its better for the person getting baptized to make that connection with someone who will be there after we leave as missionaries but the ward is fellow shipping them so well its awesome to see. I don't feel like they will be left behind by any means. But it was nice to be a part of the baptism and also be able to confirm Elizabeth as well. After their confirmations in sacrament Bruce got the Priesthood and was ordained to the office of a priest and then he turned around and ordained his son! Nick! To the office of a deacon! This family is just taking off in the gospel! It is so fun to watch. They weren't nervous at all or at least they didn't show it because both days at their baptism and at their confirmation they were smiling the entire time! The Lord has truly blessed us! And He continues to bless us! I have seen a complete change in this whole family and I know with all my heart that it came from our loving Heavenly Father and because of our Savior Jesus Christ! The turning point that i saw with this family was when they opened the BoM and began reading it... Until then they were very dormant in their progression.. But afterwards they just took off and they continue to do so! It has been amazing and I'm very grateful that i am able to be a part of this process with the Bassett family. We definitely have to have them come visit us when they are down that way in June... (early June). I want you guys to meet them. They are awesome! I am glad to hear that dad's eye is doing better. And that they are making progress with it! Hopefully it will be all cleared up by the time i get home! at least by that time... So the blessings continue to roll on. The bishop talked to us Sunday and he has had a kid that is 15 named Will who has been living with his family for a while and Will told him that he wanted to learn about the church and so Sunday night we went and taught Will. He seems sincere and willing to learn and pray.. So hopefully he will gain a testimony and we can get him baptized here shortly! That would be pretty dang cool.. So pray for Will. And i will keep you updated on that as well. But hey I love you guys very much! I hope all is well with you! Thanks for all of your prayers and support! Take care of yourselves! Love ya!

Elder Penman

February 8th E-mail

Whats happening?!?! This has been the most exciting time of my mission! The Lord is blessing us so much! And not just Elder Brady and I. He is blessing this whole district. As a district (4 companionships) we have 14 people on-date for baptism. And 8 baptisms coming up this Saturday! Its really just amazing to see all the miracles that take place every day! That Bassetts are so excited to get baptized on Saturday! The whole ward is practically going to be there! We went over to their house on Saturday to have a lesson and some dinner. We did both and then Bruce had to go because he had plans with some of his old friends.. Anyways we stayed and talked with Laura. Laura never had any background when we began teaching her as far as religion and God are concerned.. She recognized that the principles that are taught withing the church are true and that they would benefit her and her family by living them.. But i just never got the feeling that she had a testimony yet.. Well she kind of opened up to us on Saturday and we talked about all sorts of stuff. We talked about repentance and forgiveness and the commandments and the progression of evil and i mean you name it and we talked about it.. We weren't bs-ing by any means we were having a great discussion. But she was crying a little bit. And we started talking about the term in the scriptures "To have a clear conscience before God" and what that meant and well why we even have a conscience and what it truly is (the light of Christ) and it finally clicked with her... A light bulb came on. And not only that she felt the spirit! She felt it. All she said was that is the best argument that i have had so far concerning whether or not there is a God.. And i smiled and said that i felt it too! and she just smiled back. It only took us 4 hours to get to that point in our discussion on Saturday with her.. But we got there. And she felt the spirit. And she has the beginnings of a testimony! She believes! She has already given a BoM to her friend at work. Bruce tried to give one to his best friend but got turned down... lol. But they are just on fire! I told them that they have to come to Utah this year! They said they will bring rockband so we can all play it! lol.. That would be so awesome! So hopefully they will come! Keep praying for them. This week is going to be the interesting one.. We are preparing for the worst.. We are preparing to have just about everything go wrong right before the baptism.. so please pray for otherwise :D We are just having a blast right now! Its wonderful to see these people who are truly Honest in heart! come into the gospel! Its pretty neat. Things are so good right now that we have this lady named Cindy who is watching these kids in our ward whose parents are on vacation and Cindy isn't a member. But this morning she gave us haircuts cooked us breakfast and she is also doing our laundry for us! woot! its really going to be a good week! lol. We just need to find her a husband and she would join the church :D and Thursday she is having us over for lasagna! lol... She is 37 years old.. never been married.. very devout christian woman.. By the book let me tell ya. She is practically Mormon just need a little bit of water.. But things are just really good right now and its fun. This is joy.. This is the best! Mom thanks for the cookies! You rock! I cant wait until they get here.. Thanks for everything! I was hoping to hear how dad was doing.. Please let me know. Hopefully he isn't having to lay on his face anymore.. Well i love you guys! Take care!

Elder Penman

February 1st E-mail

Well how the heck are ya?!?! I'm so glad to hear that the surgery went well! I hope that is the last of them! geez. Thanks for the address mom. That is exactly what i needed. :D So mom feel free to send cookies.. You can just put "Love Baby" on my comps... trust me it will fit perfect :D Its an inside joke between me and him but it will be freaking funny.. and then the guy that we live with his name is Dan or Bro. Larson.. you pick.. I forgot all about those cookies.. I'm excited for them now! :D lol... Well things are going very well right now! The baptism went awesome! It was actually probably my least stressful baptism ever.. It was nice.. This ward is just awesome. They pull together and get stuff done.. Its nice.. We didn't have to worry about hardly anything and most of the time we are running back and forth to tie up lose ends and its just nuts.. But this one was really nice.. Elder Brady was way excited too with it being his first baptism! So the Bassetts are doing absolutely wonderful! I wish we could find 100 more of those families before i leave :D They are just amazing! We were having a combined Relief society/priesthood 5th Sunday meeting and it was all about this challenge that the bishopric issued to everyone to read the BoM in the months of Jan and Feb... Well anyways they opened it up to whoever would like to bare their testimony about how this challenge has effected them.. Well a few people got up and it was really good and then Bruce Bassett stood up! And went up front and talked about how 45 years ago he lived in Utah and back then you couldn't turn a corner without seeing the BoM and he said he was very good at never opening it :D he said that we had come by and gave him another BoM and that it sat on his night stand just like the others had in the past.. He said it wasn't until the Bishopric issued the challenge that he actually picked it up and decided to read it.. He then bore very strong testimony about the truthfulness of the book and how his investigative period is over.. He is getting baptized! IT WAS AWESOME! I could not believe it! He said he has been looking for this for a long time! And he should have read the book 50 years ago! It was awesome! Afterwards i kid you not when church got over everyone went up to them and invited them to dinner! It was great! lol... They had to turn a few people down because someone already invited them over that night lol! It was absolutely amazing! We had an old lady call us this morning at about 9 just to tell us how awesome she thought Bruce's testimony was lol! What a week! Right now in our district wonderful things are happening! We have 4 companionships in the district and right now we have a total of 12 people on-date for baptism! It is just amazing! The Lord is truly blessing us! Thank you so much for your prayers! Thanks for all the love and support that you show me! I love you guys so much! Thanks again for everything that you do! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

January 25 E-mail

Whats happening?!?! My goodness another eye surgery eh? i do like the massage table purchase though.. That might come in handy! That sucks though.. Hang in there dad. After much tribulation comes the blessings! :D Isn't it nice to have the priesthood available though? It is a wonderful thing! Mom i would love for you to buy me a plane ticket so i can go spend a week with my fam and my future wife in Cancun! lol... That seems like a pretty good birthday present to me :D So we had some really awesome things happen this week! So Saturday night we were on the phone with Laura Bassett to see if we could come over and have a lesson.. And we were chatting a little bit and in the background we heard Bruce out of nowhere say "Hey ask them when we can get baptized so we can get this over with" LOL.. so she took him as serious cause she figured that isn't a subject that you don't take seriously.. And so she said Bruce wants to know.. and then asked us.. well we said how about tomorrow! lol... But then we said well what about the 13th of February? and she said well that sounds pretty good but we will have to think about it and get back to you on that.. Elder Brady's eyes were huge it was awesome lol.. So then we told them we would come over Sunday instead cause they were having movie night.. cause the kids were at their dads.. So after church we find out that Bruce announced in High Priest group that his family was getting baptized on the 13th! So come to find out Laura was ll freaked out and Bruce is way excited.. so we went over to their house and made them lunch :D We made french toast.. And then on of Bruce's friend came over and they went out into the field to shoot their pistols.. And so we sat down with Laura and read over alma 32 and talked her through her concerns and now she is way excited to get baptized too! And its freaking awesome! A whole family! I cant tell you what though! They are going to need our prayers more now than they ever did! We haven't had a chance to talk to the kids yet but I'm sure they will be way excited.. We also are having a baptism this week for the 2 little girls.. they are very excited and their mom, due to the fact that she is a little bit of a drama queen, was wanting to postpone the baptism for even longer.. she postponed it last year and then she postponed it for the 9th of this month.. and she wanted to postpone it again for dumb reasons.. And we were able to go over to their house last night and talk to her and we just told her that really these girls are so excited to get baptized that they would be so devastated if they had to wait even longer.. plus i don't want to have to be the one to tell them why when there is no reason why.. So she came around and said ok then lets just do it on Saturday! sweet! so its on like donkey kong! And we are excited.. These girls have been wanting to get baptized forever! So things are just going very well right now! So mom i got what we call my "trunky papers" just all the stuff i need to plan for basically.. Well i need to know the name and address of my stake pres.. because it has changed obviously but that is pretty much all i need to know so that i can turn in the paper that i need to.. so if you could get me that info for next Monday i would appreciate it! so mom other websites you can try for the books would be half.com samweller.com abebooks.com .... i don't know what they will have but at least you can check it out.. Well rents.. I love ya! take care of yourselves! Good luck with surgery! I will be praying for ya dad! I love you guys! take care!
Elder Penman

January 19th E-mail

Whats happenin?!?! lol.. I knew that the books would not be cheap.. I will talk to some people and see if i can get you some better deals.. I dunno though.. This birthday is already eaten up and for a wedding present i want a California king bed! after this mission dang it i am going to sleep comfortable the rest of my life! lol.. so apparently i got some competition huh? lol.. hrrrrrrp.. I'm not too worried about it... So my new comp is freaking cool. His name is Elder Brady and he is from Pleasant Grove... he is a football player.. In fact he has a scholarship to snow college for when he gets back to play corner.. But he is cool. He turned 19 yesterday.. So he has been on his mission, Including the MTC, for a month before he turned 19.. But he is a hard worker and very teachable.. This transfer will be nice.. lol mom you are so funny.. You would have my room all ready to go lol.. I think that's awesome.. Its crazy to think that its not that far away... but hrrrp. I try not to think about it too much.. So we went to teach the Bassetts and we had dinner with them and Laura left after dinner to go to some relief society activity (sweet!) and so we talked to Bruce for a while and we were talking about the previous Sunday and the talks in sacrament meeting and there was a guy that spoke and told his conversion story and it took him 10 years of investigation to become converted to the gospel and so he was commenting on that guys talk and he said see I'm one up on that guy it took him ten years and it hasn't taken me near that long.. I said whoa whoa whoa are you telling me that you are converted? and he said well ya I'm pretty much ready to get baptized.. !!! i was like what the heck.. and then he said how he wants Laura to be able to truly believe these things and what not and it was awesome.. All along i thought that Laura was farther ahead than Bruce and that could still be the case but sooner or later they are going to be on-date :D pretty exciting for them! So keep them in your prayers still! They are such a wonderful family! In fact i told Bruce that he should come down to Utah with his fam in early June before he has to start hay season.. and he said ya i wouldn't miss that wedding for nothing! lol... I said well that's a little quick... and he said no way better sooner than later! lol So i thought that was funny. But they are so awesome! But things are really great for me.. So again mom just hold off on the books for now.. We will figure something out.. Plus Shannon will come around to wanting the books :D She doesn't know what she is missing! But no worries ill talk to her about it :D lol.. Well i love you guys! Thanks for everything! i am definitely set for now.. don't need anything and i definitely don't need more crap to bring home :D I love ya! take care of yourselves!
Elder Penman

January 11th E-mail

Woot! Its transfer time! and guess what? I'm getting another greenie! lol... My comp is headed out after just 6 weeks.. Which really is ok with me.. I am ready for a change :D But yep Tuesday i go down to Spokane to pick him up.. i have no idea who he is.. but i will let you know all about him next week.. So mom the Journal of Discourses is quite a big series of books.. I'm not sure how much they are going to cost but you might have to spread it out a little.. who knows.. I haven't looked at the price.. But i would rather you just get them and keep them at home.. I'm not really allowed to read them out here.. But if they are expensive just tell everyone who was planning on getting me something to just give you some cash.. :D But that would be awesome to get those books.. And heck you could even read them before i get home :D So the Bassetts are doing great.. We had a pretty good lesson with them and we talked to them a lot about baptism. They have taken the challenge that our bishopric has extended to everyone in the ward to read the BoM in the months on Jan and Feb. So they are right on track with that. Its actually really nice to have investigators reading 9 pages of the BoM a day... They basically said that they would like to get through the BoM but that baptism was the route that they were leaning towards.. So it was nice. I feel that as we continue to teach them that they will come even closer. Its fun to watch them grow in the gospel! But i think that i will die off here so its ok if i have to wait until march to baptize them.. :D They are a wonderful family though! So i dont know if i have told you but this ward is plagued! Saturday we went to a funeral for a 4 month old in the ward.. This family has experienced so much! They have a 4 year old daughter that fought with cancer for the first few years of her life.. and they didn't think she was going to make it and then this little one struggled with just about everything! It was crazy but that is the 3rd funeral in this ward since i have been here and i have only been here 3 months!!! Is that crazy or what! And I hate to say it but we have a few on-deck.. 2 of them and they both have cancer that cant be treated and the one was given 1-30 days to live 3 weeks ago and the other was given 3-6months to live 3 months ago.. so... I don't know what it is but i think its the water.. ;) But its such a strong ward.. They are great! I would not mind staying here until the end.. Well things are pretty good! I am way excited to train again! good ole #4... I hope this is how many kids i will have of my own :D Well mom that's way cool that you got a raise! After all that hard work of mastering solitaire i think you deserved it! That's a tough game! ;) lol. I'm glad to hear that you guys are doing ok! Keep on keepin on! I love ya! Take care of yourselves! Elder Penman

January 4th E-mail

Whats going on?!?! how have you guys been? Can you believe that its 2010?!!! I think its just crazy... Times really does just fly by.. My New Years was pretty fun.. We didn't stay up until midnight.. There was no way in heck that i was going to stay up.. Due to the fact that it doesn't matter how late you stay up you still get up at 6:30.. But we did get to watch a movie and so we watched "Up". I thought it was a cute little movie.. So the guy that we moved in with has a treadmill.. And so i have been on what i call the "Cancun" diet.. which consists of running 2 miles a day.. :D I decided that its time to get rid of my "Dormant muscle" :D Bu i love it. It makes it so much easier to get up in the mornings and i just feel better throughout the day.. I think i am going to switch to running for 3 or 4 miles every other day.. and that way i will have times to do pushups and what not on the off days.. But anyways its been a good move so far.. He is a 75 year old man that is very particular about everything even the glasses that we use to drink from... :D But what else do you expect right? lol.. He is way cool though and he has lots of books that interest me... such as Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith... And teachings of all the other prophets.. I know that i never did like to read but there is something about learning the gospel that really sparks my attention.. So i will be making a list of books that i want as gifts for the next 15 years... :D there is just one thing that i don't understand about a lot of members of the church.. And that is the fact that when they go to buy church books they buy the ones that are sooooo good by author "who the heck knows(with no authority or apostleship whatsoever)" and they read books that talk about certain subjects but don't really give you the run down on them and well they end up wasting a lot of time reading pointless material rather than learning the gospel... Make sense? and so my collection of books isn't going to be pointless :D that's what I'm getting at.. There are too many doctrines and even very simple principles that i have learned out here that if someone was to come and teach over the pulpit back home it would throw everyone for a loop :D. I think we don't spend enough time learning the gospel from our Prophets and Apostles! so that will conclude my preaching for the day :D lol... But its true if all the members of the church took time to learn the gospel back and front as far as what has been given to us at this time then we would be a whole lot stronger! Cause guess what? The "deep" doctrine that everyone refers to... really isn't that deep... Its simple.. They just don't want to take the time to understand what it means... But anyways the first volume of books that i want are the complete set of "The Journal of Discourses"!!! so for my birthday in march.. and for any other reason you feel you should buy me something.. That's what i want :D Starting with volume 1... :D Who would have thought that one day Goob would want books? ya i know.. Better capitalize on the opportunity! :D lol... Well I don't know why i went off on the tangent.. But This week was pretty good... I think the Bassetts are really ready to join the church.. They are going to buy quads now for the whole family... ya you don't just go out and buy 4 quads if your not going to join the church.. So we are planning on putting them on-date this week! Ill let you know how it goes! Pray for them! I know you are already! And i appreciate it! woot! Well anyways happy new year! I love you guys! I'm planning on the year being a really good year! a very good year! So lets all come together and make it happen! Lets have one year without Chaos in the Penman family! woot! lol.. I know its not going to happen but it doesn't hurt to try! lol. I love you guys! Take care!

Elder Penman