Elder Ryan John

The Very Last E-mail

2010-05-10T20:36:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-08T17:19:00.000-08:00

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

2010-03-02T08:43:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-22T14:51:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-16T20:18:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-08T20:43:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-25T15:18:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-19T18:27:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-04T14:20:00.000-08:00

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

December 28th E-mail

2009-12-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

Whats goin on?!? It was so nice to be able to talk to you guys! Especially with all the crazy stuff that has gone on at home.. It was nice to hear that you guys are all alive and doing well :D Well mom don't get too excited to have a day off work with dad at work.. You will be taking care of him for eternity... ;) So today after we get done with the dentist we are going to be moving.. I didn't give anyone the new address yet and so here it is: (914 N. High Desert Dr. Deer Park, WA 99006) We will be living with some old guy in the ward. His name is Bro. Larson. And he is a widower of about 8 years. But he has things up that remind him of his wife all throughout his wife and pretty much if we touch them we are dead... That about the run through that we got :D... But the good news is that he has a treadmill and so i will maybe be able to get into shape a little bit before May... :D that way i wont look too flabby on the beach in CANCUN!! woot! lol. So the Bassetts came to church again this week. And then last night we got the coolest phone call! Bro. Palmer called us and said that the Bassetts called him and asked him how they could get their own quads! woot! so i decided that its time for them to join the church :D So Bro. Palmer took them over a distribution catalog and he even said that it sounded like they were going to get them for their kids as well.. It would be so neat to see that family come into the church! That would just be amazing! They are so cool. In fact Bruce Bassett is going to help us move today :D how cool is that! They are just wonderful people. My goodness it seems like i don't have much to say due to the fact that i talked to you on Friday lol... so forgive me for that... Well its actually nice to hear about Vauna.. She is so much happier now. In fact that's not a sad thing at all. That should be a reason to rejoice! Every time someone dies i always think of the 138 section of the Doctrine and Covenants.. read it! its a good one! But i love you guys! Like i said it was great to talk to you! Take care of yourselves! love ya! Elder Penman

December 21st E-mail

2009-12-27T14:26:00.000-08:00

Whats going on?!?! Well whats new? We had a pretty good week last week. The Bassetts are doing great in fact all 4 of them came to church and this week church was really good! so we are excited for them. I was on exchanges with one of our Zone Leaders this week who actually came out with me (So he should know better) but we went to the Bassetts and had a lesson and this Elder was very argumentative and just being a complete idiot.. I kept having to cut him off and turn things around and oh my goodness you would have thought he was a greenie.. But then 2 days later i called and told them we were in the neighborhood and asked if we could swing by.. well they asked who i was with and i told them elder Prosence and they say sure you can come over.. Well when we got their they told us that the reason they asked is cause if i was with that other elder they would have told us they were busy... LOL!! they said they both didn't like him and in fact Bruce lost sleep over it.. :D so i don't think i will be taking him back there.. But just so that the elder would know i called him and told him what they said :D I hope he feels like an idiot.. But they are doing fine still they just don't like him.. :D Bruce said that he reminded him of the catholic nuns.. :D Ok so on to the important stuff.. We have a family that invited us over for breakfast but we don't know what time.. So i would guess that we would be calling home somewhere around 9-12 here which i believe is 10-1 there.. so anyways I am very excited and I cant wait to talk to ya! it seems like its been forever! :D But i guess i don't have much to say since i get to talk to you Friday! woot! but i do love ya! And i will talk to you soon! Take care! oh and mom under the tree will work great! :D oh and thanks for the address and I'm glad that you like the hats :D love ya! talk to you soon!

Elder Penman

I believe I can fly

2009-12-20T17:04:00.000-08:00

For your viewing pleasure. A few dunks.

December 14th E-mail

2009-12-15T17:29:00.000-08:00

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

December 7th E-mail

2009-12-08T18:28:00.000-08:00

Well whats happenin?!?! What in the world is going on with everyone? I like dread emailing now cause i know that every time i get on it there is going to be some other problem with my family :D That is just absolutely crazy with little Eva! Poor thing. I am glad that she is doing ok! My goodness.. Well dad i hope that all goes well with your eye surgery on Thursday... I will be praying for ya! And for Eva as well. I still cant believe it. That is just nuts. Well i got a new companion. His name is Elder Prosence. HE is from north Salt Lake and He really does only have 1 leg. He has a prosthetic leg. (I'm not sure if that's how you spell that) but he gets around pretty good. He is a trooper. He has pretty much done everything. In fact he had colleges looking at him for golf and wrestling and he actually golfed at Weber for a year before he came on the mish.. He is pretty cool. He falls down quite a bit on the ice :D He is pretty small though. He only weighs about 120 lbs. He has a very strong upper body though.. We were at some investigators house and he just out of the blue says i bet you i can go down those stairs on a hand stand.. And i was like lets see it.. And so he did it.. And has now done it 3 other times since :D lol.. Its pretty fun to watch.. I have it on video. Well the weather has been rather cold this week. And yesterday it was pretty freaking windy as well. In fact the Bassetts didn't come to church because they have a bunch of temp. storage deals out on their farm and well they were blowing around all over the place.. But they went and bought their kids church clothes and so i think they are settling in! Which is sweet! Now we need to just get them baptized! So lol kinda of a funny story.. We were over at this less-active's house, the McLeods, and they have come to church 2 out of the last 3 weeks. And so we were just visiting to actually set up another appointment with them and there was a knock on the door and i could see that it was people that were caroling.. And so me and Elder Prosence sat on the ground behind the couch so they couldn't see us and Sis. McLeod joined us and Bro. McLeod ran into the back room and their 7 year old went and answered the door LOL! and they sang 2 songs to her and gave her a Christmas present.. and well turns out they were from the ward! and it was the youth! And one of the youth leaders, Sis. Collins, pokes her head in the house and yells "AMBER are you in here?!?" and then Sis. McLeod stand up from behind the couch!!!! LOL!!! and we were laughing so hard and then one of the young men leaders came in as well and started talking to Bro. McLeod and he told him oh sorry we though you were the Baptist Carollers!!! LOL!!!! like that makes it better! And then he tells him to come up the stairs so he can show him something and well he comes up and there we are behind the couch and he was like Elders? LOL!!! We were freaking hiding from our own ward! oh man it was so funny! It still makes me laugh so hard! LOL! well i thought you would get a kick out of that... Well I got the boots that you sent me! They are awesome. I love em. They are just right too. So no worries mom i love em. Thank you so much! A great Christmas present! I'm pretty much all set for winter now.. And boy is it here :D just not much snow yet.. but it will come :D I have no doubts.. Oh and i got the chocolates too! That's what I'm talking about! woot! They are amazing as ever! I absolutely love them! Thanks. Tell everyone thanks for all the hard work and long hours! I will help next year! :D If I'm around :D Well Thanks for everything! I love ya tons! I hope you guys are doing ok now.. Please take a break from the Chaos! ok! :D Love ya! Thanks for everything! Take care of yourselves! Elder Penman

November 30th E-mail

2009-11-30T14:42:00.000-08:00

What is happening?!?! LOL! I'm glad that you got my pics! That's awesome. Lol "you shouldn't make a fat kid dance on a stripper pole!!!" :D He actually wasn't my companion. He was a kid in the ward. His name is Johnny Grow. He is freaking hilarious. I love that kid! But i forgot all about that video! LOL! So those are some pretty sweet dunks eh? I like em. I probably couldn't do them now... Tis the season (too much food)... So we had a pretty good week this week. Thanksgiving was awesome! We went to 2 families homes and really enjoyed ourselves! And well we really stuffed ourselves.. Well its good to know that my pics made it ok.. :D I would have been really sad if something happened to them.. Well we got our transfer calls last night and Elder Tueller is leaving me.. He is headed to Hayden and i am getting Elder Prosence.. I don't know much about him. He hasn't been out too long.. I think maybe only 2 transfers and the word on him that i have heard so far is that he only has 1 leg.. I know it sounds crazy but we will see.. But i am excited. This area is so freaking huge though that I'm going to miss Elder Tueller's GPS and i don't want to get one cause i think people become way too dependent on those things.. although they are nice if you took elder Tueller's away from him after him being here almost 5 months he couldn't find his way anywhere.. So i don't want to get one. But maybe my comp will have one who knows.. And if he is a rich kid ill just tell him he can get me one for Christmas :D lol. But i think i know my way around pretty good. But it will be interesting to see what happens these next 4 transfers.. Ive been trying to predict it but i dunno. My guess is that i will be with Elder Prosence for 2 transfers and then i will train again before my mortal frame is given up to its mother earth :D lol. We had 4 investigators at church this week! woot! Bruce and Laura Bassett came and this 16 year old girl named Tasyia came and then this 9 year old girl named Daija came and we are teaching her 8 year old sister named Jeda and on Wednesday we will be teaching another girl named Jeda.. so altogether we are teaching Tasyia, Daija, Jeda, and Jeda... crazy eh? So the whole district here is being changed. Every companionship is getting mixed up. So its going to be crazy. And well i don't know any of the elders coming in very well. But I'm sure it will be really cool. And at the first of the year we will be moving into an old guys house.. He is lonely.. and he has a huge house with no one in it.. :D So that will be nice. I should take pics of the place we are staying now.. You would laugh :D I cant believe chocolates took that long! I am going to have to speed up the process again.. Shannon will help next year.. no worries.. She might even be part of the family by then :D But i will help next year too. we will knock those chocolates out in no time :D And i can tell you all the crazy stories from my mission :D lol. So how is everyones BoM reading coming along?!?! are you going to finish it twice before may? :D So i look forward to getting the boots! That will be very nice. It was actually dry this week which was nice. But I'm sure it will hit us in no time.. So whats the weather been like in Utah? Anyways i will let you know when i get the boots. Well I'm glad that thanksgiving went well for you. Thanks for everything. I cant wait to get my chocolates! woot! I'm afraid I'm going to put on some weight this holiday season :D Oh and by the way thanks for the BYU update! That is awesome! I am so happy that they won! Utah fans are kinda retarded.. But i might marry one some day you never know :D But anyways i love ya! I look forward to talking to ya in a few weeks! Thanks for all that you do! I will definitely be praying for you! Thanks you for all of your prayers for me and my investigators! Don't forget that we are all called to spread the gospel.. not just the missionaries! woot! Its true! Love ya! Elder Penman

November 23rd E-mail

2009-11-23T17:37:00.000-08:00

Well whats happening?!?! My poor crippled parents.. Mom I don't know if Jen thinks your too old to have blue streaks in your hair but if she doesn't... I do.. LOL! 64 is just a little much for blue streaks :D What is with all the crazy stuff that is happening around there? You guys are laying around all day broken and then Uncle Dave decided to join the party and have his heart stop or what? geez. I hope everything will settle down a little bit.. I pray for all of you! But I heard an old saying once that pain keeps you humble and close to the veil.. so i guess my family is just pretty darn spiritual! :D lol. But please keep me updated on how everyone is doing ok? Thanks. Well I cant believe its thanksgiving already! That means that in a month i get to call home :D hehe. That will be pretty cool. This thanksgiving is going to be miserable.. We have 2 dinners planned so far and i just know myself and food.. I'm not going to be able to walk.. Its going to suck :D But I'm sure i will survive.. Well all these close losses for the niners are a good thing.. that means maybe next year they will be good. and be able to pull it out on the close games.. who know? Wishful thinking? Well missionary work is going pretty well right now! The Bassett family came to church again for the 3rd time! I really think that they enjoy it and that they are starting to settle in.. Now if we could just get them to stop being to busy so that we could go have lessons with them then i think that they would join the church! Which would just be absolutely wonderful! This family is just awesome! We also had at church another investigator and a less-active family (of 5) that hasn't been forever and a single mother that hasn't been forever (like 4 years) came for the 3rd time in a row.. So we are doing some less-active work as well that is going nicely! I love seeing people come back into the church! Its fun! We met an interesting kid yesterday though.. He and his family joined the church 4 years ago.. A year later he went on a mission to Argentina and served an honorable full-time mission and then when he came home he started researching some of the crazy anti that one of his companions was telling him about.. (that he had hear throughout the course of his mission) and shortly after that he formally left the church (had his name removed) and now he is a messianic Jew... Yep Jews that accept Jesus Christ as their savior.. So that was an interesting conversation.. Because see in order to be a true Jew it has to come through your mother.. But he was saying it came through his father and that there were signs of it being in his mother line as well.. But hrrrrrrrp. They are pretty much mainstream Christians that believe in the trinity but claim they are all Jews.. so its kinda interesting but anyways.. We had a really good week this week. So its already dropped about 6 inches of snow here.. So i am definitely going to need some boots.. They just need to be black and polishable and waterproof and well even though it sounds weird (cause i wear a 15) not freaking huge.. If you know what i mean.. A conservative boot.. Not one that shows that i am wearing these huge boots.. now of course they are going to know that anyways.. so it doesn't really matter.. so whatever will really work.. but.. lol.. I dunno. But i don't have anywhere to buy them here unless i go to Spokane and well that isn't going to happen at least this week. So if you found some that would work that would be great just go ahead and ship em.. I will check my email next Monday before i go buy anything... to see if you sent some or if i get some in the mail this week then i will know i got some :D oh and i don't want them too high either.. i think like mid-high would be perfect.. i think its 6 inch... something like that.. but anyways i hope you will be able to find something.. But thank you for doing that! I love you guys! Happy thanksgiving! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

Photos!

2009-11-20T10:56:00.000-08:00

Brian Abbott's baptism!

My Posterity!

Yoga! Woot!

LOL!

There's grandma!

The Robison's!

The Last of Post Falls

Me and the deer getting a little friendly :)

Washington Spokane Mission! With Elder Bednar!

November 16th E-mail

2009-11-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

Well hello there fam! Well dad i hope you have had your fix for eye surgeries for a while.. that would be nice! I wish there was something i could do for ya.. I will continue praying for ya! So mom i guess you just felt a little left out with dad having all these surgeries that you decided to go get stuff done to your back eh? Its like trying to keep up with the Jones' in our family now isn't it... :D Its a good thing I'm not home or else i would have to think up something to mess up real bad so that i could have the worst problems in the house.. you know how competitive i can get :D lol no but i really am praying for both of you! no more old people symptoms until your at least 50... ok?! oh and by the way mom i am fine from the car accident.. i promise. but yes it really is a miracle! pretty crazy pictures huh? So how has the weather been in Utah? we got some snow here.. and boy i tell you what this place is so beautiful! I absolutely love it! Like even at the library where i am at right now out the window is just woods.. its awesome! and there is deer all over the place.. I haven't seen any elk but the deer are everywhere.. We see them everyday. In fact the other night we were driving and one of them hit the side of our car! it was just like what happened to me when i was in Shelly's little red car down by snow college! but no worries i think the deer lived... :D So this week we went and raked leaves for our ward mission leader at his house.. well he lives up at deer lake and he owns this resort up there and it is just absolutely beautiful! I couldn't believe it. He has all the docks too that go out into the lake and i wanted to go fish off them so bad! lol.. but we had to rake leaves otherwise he probably would have let me.. He is like 80 years old and he is the nicest guy in the world! But it was pretty fun. maybe when the lake freezes over he will let us go ice fishing off of his dock.. that would be perfect. Plus they have lots of cool fish in the lake he said.. So this week overall was pretty good. It feels as if we have a lot of work that is just kinda sitting on the fence and so we have been trying our best to shake the fence and just hoping and praying that they will fall on the right side :D But we will see what happens. The Bassett family is still doing pretty good. They didn't make it to church this week. And Bruce (the dad) well he is a history guy and he just loves history but because of that he went on google and typed in "Joseph Smith" and "Brigham Young" and so on and so forth and just read everything that he could find.... so he is a little upset because of it.. But the cool thing is that it makes no difference whatsoever what happened in the lives of those men regarding the restoration of the gospel when it comes to knowing whether or not Christ's church is back on the earth.. Satan just tries to make it about the prophets or (the men) when really it is about our savior Jesus Christ and what he has done for us right here right now! along with what he did for us 2000 years ago.. but that is the comforting part.. and we kind of explained that to him.. but we will see.. so please remember the Bassett Family (Bruce, Laura, Nick, and Elizabeth) in your prayers if you will! They are such a wonderful family and they know darn near everyone in the ward and didn't even know that they went to the church.. So that is a good thing so we are just going to try to get the ward more involved with them and see if we can help them progress in gaining testimonies! But we are excited for what work the Lord has given us right now! In the district we had 2 baptisms this week.. and so that is cool.. We are just plugging along.. Oh and mom about boots we are going to try to make it down to Spokane sometime soon and see what we can do about buying some boots.. so i will let you know about that.. But if you find some polishable WARM black boots just send the pic or link to me and i will check them out and tell you what i think.. :D I know we kind of did that last year but then i didn't really need them so now that i need them well i will put a little more into it :D Well interviews are tomorrow... and so I am looking forward to that! I love President Palmer! He is a wonderful man! Such a spiritual leader... its awesome! But I'm looking forward to hopefully getting a heads up about what is going to happen this transfer even though we still have 2 weeks to go.. But my guess is for me that i will be here the rest of my mission... But we will see what happens.. I cannot believe that Saturday was my 18 month mark.. WOW! that went by fast.. But anyways I love you guys so much! Thanks for all that you do for me! Get better both of you! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

The First Snow and Car Wreck!

2009-11-15T16:29:00.001-08:00

November 9, 2009 E-mail

2009-11-09T14:41:00.000-08:00

Whats happenin?!?!?! So highland got stomped eh? that's no good. Oh well there is always next year... At least you made it to the playoffs.. So dad what is the deal with your eye? this is absolutely crazy! Let me know how it goes! You will definitely be in my prayers and thoughts! Which eye even is it? hopefully its not your shooting eye... cause we are going killing, not hunting, killing when i get home :D It just pure torture to serve in an area where everyone goes hunting and has a love for hunting and yet i cant go.. lol. but its ok. there will be plenty of elk slaughtering for me to do when i get home! Well we had an awesome week this week. I went on an exchange to Mead. And i was with Elder Johnson and his comp came up here to be with Elder Tueller for the day.. I go on about 1 exchange a week usually. But anyways i was on exchanges and a year ago when i was in River Ridge the Mead elders were in our district and so i had gone on exchanges there plenty of times before. Well we went and talked to this native American lady named penny and turns out i had taught her a year ago when i was a greenie. And here we are teaching her again and so she shows us a picture of her husbands side of the family (her husband is white) and there is a family that is in my ward right now here in Clayton.. so i was like oh hey i know them! and anyways it was pretty fun cause we taught her about how the BoM is her history and i committed her to find out where she came from.. like where Indians came from.. and so we will see what happens.. but she was telling us how her tribe doesn't have like written records of anything.. all their history gets passed down from their elders. and i was like well your history is written down right here.. and held up the BoM. lol... so i was just trying to get her out of the grove from learning about religion and about what other people believe to actually taking a personal liking to the BoM. but its just interesting how the Lord works ya know? Everything definitely happens for a reason. Elder Johnson's companion Elder Stewart is seriously just like Hammy the Squirrel off of the movie Over the Hedge.. seriously its like he is on speed all the time! he definitely wants to work hard and that's a good thing.. he is just a super spaz. Like Elder Tueller told me that they were tracting and Elder Stewart walked up to this lady and said hey how are ya? and the lady said good and he said have to ever heard of the golden plates? and she goes ya i have... does the church still have those? and he said Nope we don't know what happened to them! LOL! so he just gets so excited that he says really stupid things.. but oh well. He has only been out 2 months.. what do ya expect. At least he is talking to people.. So we had a really good turnout at church this week. A family of 4 came! Bruce and Laura and her kids Nick and Elizabeth and they are 12 and 10 years old. And the kids had friends at church that they didn't know went there and this is the parents second week in a row coming to church! I think that they are really liking it! I am hoping so anyways! But its funny cause their first to looks at the Mormon church are testimony meeting and then this week they had the primary program! so i was like hrrrrrp! I told them 3rd time would be a charm for them.. lol! But i got to teach the gospel principles class this week and it was on the Atonement! man i love teaching that class! I hope that's the calling they give me when i come home! Its a fun one to teach! Plus i wouldn't go crazy and teach a bunch of deep doctrine to peoples investigators.. anyways.. It was just fun. So i bought me another 4GB SD card for my camera this morning and so i will probably send my other one home soon.. Which will be cool cause there are a lot of videos on there that you could see. :D especially of my throwing down! woot! dunks like mad! :D Well i hope everything goes well with you guys! Take care of yourselves! I love you guys so much! Its almost thanksgiving can you believe it?!?! crazy! time is flying! but i love ya and i look forward to hearing back from ya! take care!

Elder Penman

November 2nd E-mail

2009-11-03T13:38:00.000-08:00

Whats going on?!! things are absolutely crazy here! I wasn't going to but i will go ahead and tell you. lol. So this week was an absolute miracle I was on exchanges with the Deerpark missionaries... I was with Elder Holtom who is a great missionary. We were in his area and he was driving. We were headed to a members home to tell them some good news about a place that we found for this family they knew to live in and their driveway (along with everyone else's driveway in deerpark and the surrounding areas) was like a mile long. It was a dirt road so we were driving at a pretty fast speed.. (way too fast) and we took a few corners...well we had one corner that turned to the right and not only that but it was a blind corner. It was wet and there were leaves everywhere... well we took the corner and our back tires slid and when the back left tire slid over the bank the car bottomed out and FLIPPED! Next thing i know we are hanging upside down in our seat belts! I know for a fact that we are and were watched over! We are both fine now! That car is totalled but we literally walked away. Elder Holtom had some scratches on his wrist from crawling out of the car with all the broken glass everywhere and i had a bump on my head from where the roof caved in and drilled me :D but that is it! Our backs were both a little stiff the next 2 days but seriously we are fine... its a miracle! We are seriously so thankful to be alive right now. But trust me when i say we are ok.. mom don't freak out and call the mission pres... and don't worry... :D But talk about crazy! I will send some pics... so you will see what happened but it was absolutely nuts! We are so grateful! So lesson learned! Don't drive fast on dirt roads and definitely don't take the corners! Other good news is that we had 3 investigators at church! Two of them are a new couple and it was their first time at church! and it was perfect because the wife (their names are Bruce and Laura) and Laura had her dad pass away and she didn't deal with it too well.. well one of the guys at church who just lost his wife this week got up and bore his testimony about eternal families and he was smiling and he did a very good job it was amazing! as Bro. Barns was bearing his testimony the spirit was so strong! I couldn't believe it! How could a man get up the week of his wife's death that he had been married to for 56 years and be so at ease? That is the peace that only the gospel can bring into a persons life! That is a true testimony of this gospel! Well I am running out of time! i got 1 minute left! So i will just say that i love you guys so much! I am fine! Please don't worry about me! But that was a pretty darn cool story! I will forever be known as part of the coolest car crash in the mission! woot! lol! I love you guys! take care!

Elder Penman

October 26th E-mail

2009-10-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

Whats happening?!?! So dad i guess after all these years planned surgery just gets boring? so you have decided to spice things up and just go in for unexpected surgery every now and then? geez. You gotta take it easy on yourself! But i am glad to hear that you are ok though. I will be praying for ya! So i am way excited for this area! We actually live in Deer Park but we just cover the Clayton ward. Clayton is a town just north of Deer Park. We also go up to like Loon lake and Deer Lake if you want to look it up on a map or something. Its pretty dang cool though to be out in the sticks! I would say there are more dirt roads than asphalt in our area and for sure in the neighboring Deer park area.. Its way fun. There isn't even a stop light in Deer Park. I guess they tried to put one in a few years back but everyone just kept running it so they took it out and put stop signs back in :D People are way cool up here though. Everyone loves to hunt and they are just some down to earth red necks.. I love it! So the craziest thing yesterday. Church was cancelled due to no power at the building.. I guess its something underground and they are going to have to tear up some of the parking lot to fix it.. and we were supposed to have Zone Conference there on Wednesday but i guess not... But since church was cancelled we went to the baptist church that is across the street from our house :D By the way we have a very sweet apartment! We dont live with members.. Members own our apartment and its underneath their house but its a separate apartment still.. But its nice to have our own washer and dryer and dishwasher.. Ya we are spoiled! woot! and a car! full time! lol! what a great place to die! oh but ya the baptist church was pretty dang funny! Somehow his sermon took a turn and out of no where some of the things were directed at us... lol! like for instance right before they did the sacrament He prefaced it with "If you are here and you believe the way that we do in the fact that we believe that Jesus is God and part of the Tri-une God and that His word is the bible which is the ONLY word of God and so on and so forth for like 10 minutes and then he said if you believe this then we invite you to partake of this bread and wine with us.. LOL! tell me what pastor would begin the sacrament on a regular basis like that? NOPE! it was just funny.. but we just smiled and didn't take the sacrament... oh and right before he said we do invite all to stay but if any would like to leave they may.. LOL! his sermon was on the requirements of a deacon because they were going to appoint some deacons or something but somehow took a twist to the requirements of an Elder.. and he even said we have 4 elders here from another church and in fact today we are going to take about the requirements of an Elder.. which was pointless because they don't even have elders in their church.... lol.. so it was just funny the way he directed some things towards us... but we enjoyed it.. The people were really nice and old.. there were 4 kids there.. the rest were old.. and some guy came up to us and said are you guys looking for a church body or are you just visiting? I wanted to tell him you know we were just visiting but today has helped me realize that my year and a half ministry for the LDS church has been bogus and i want to be a pastor for your church! lol.. maybe its just me but i think i could make a really good baptist preacher! like southern baptist preacher! AMEN! lol! but no it was pretty good. We are teaching a family of 4 named the Basset family. and they are awesome! We are looking forward to working with them. We have a bunch of people we are working with but i haven't had a chance to meet them all yet. My comps name is Elder Tueller. He is pretty dang cool! He is 21 like me. he has only been out a few months.. this is his 3rd transfer. But his trainer was a lazy piece of crap and yet he never slept in or anything.. even though his trainer was a horrible example he hung in there and tried to do his best.. But he told me when i got here that he wanted to learn how to plan and be effective because his TRAINER never taught him! How lame is that.. that pisses me off! as a trainer myself i think it is lame that other trainers don't try to give these missionaries the best start that they can.. but what do ya do.. But elder tueller is from San Diego Cali! but don't worry he isn't a liberal. he broke his neck in a mountain biking accident a while ago and he is lucky to be in the position he is in right now.. but he cant ride a bike anymore so we drive everywhere or walk! ITS SWEET! its the way to go I'm telling ya! :D but i am very impressed with how good of a missionary he is with the trainer that he had.. Well i love you guys! Thanks for everything that you do! Thanks for your prayers! take care of yourself!

Elder Penman

Oh and a shout out to Bro. & Sis. Erickson if they are blogging me! keep it pimpin in post falls! :D

October 19th E-mail

2009-10-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

Whats going on?!?! Arent the Frantz' just great?! I love em. So im sure she told you about the baptism but it went fantastic! Infact Brian's mom and dad (arent members) were there and also his grandmother and grandfather (arent members either) were there as well.. When his parents first got there he goes oh and mom and dad this is the missionaries.. Introduced us and then he goes oh and by the way they are great elders and so if you want to take discussions from them well these would be the ones to do it with cause they are the best! LOL! His parents just kind of smiled and let it roll off..(I dont blame them it was funny so i was kinda laughing..) And so for halftime (while they are getting dressed after the baptism) We taught the restoration.. And they loved it! We had his parents full attention as we shared that. So hopefully we planted a seed that can continue to be nourished.. So then on Saturday we got together with the whole mission in Spokane! To meet with Elder Bednar! We took a mission picture with him aswell! it was fun! I got a posterity picture with all my boys! :D Elder Bednar was great! He didnt prepare a talk or anything he came and told us that tonight might be a little different than you expected. Elder Rasband (Presidency of the seventy) and I havent prepared some long talks for you or anything but tonight will be a revelatory experience. An opportunity for you to recieve revelation and be taught by the Holy Ghost. And i must tell you that it was! It was so awesome! He is such a wonderful man! That meeting was not about him at all! He was so HUMBLE! I could not believe it! I was absolutely floored! I learned so much! I dont have time to write everything down that he said. But one thing that stuck out to me was that he said "the purpose of the gospel is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" It is so true. He said some on you will be taught by the Holy Ghost on things for the people you are working with and so on. but he said that some of you are going to be shown a few things that you could improve on which is part of the Holy Ghosts job. To let us know what we are doing wrong so that we can change it. Hence afflicting the comfortable :D But it was awesome! Another part the stuck out to me is when he talked about obedience. He said that we not only have to learn how to do the things the Lord has asked us to do (which is just what most people think about even myself) But he said that we must learn to love to do the thing that the Lord asks us to do! He said then we will be with people that love to obey as well. But if we hate to obey then we will be with people that hate to obey... (that's the shortened version anyways..) But it made me do a lot of reflecting! And I absolutely love Elder Bednar! :D And then to top the meeting off our ward mission leader Bro Robison came with us to that meeting and from that meeting we went directly to a teaching appointment where we were teaching Debbie Haynes the Jehovah Witness. I wont tell you everything that happened during the lesson due to time but during the lesson she broke down in tears and with a smile on her face lifted her head and said "does anyone else feel that?" as she was holding her chest. And we said yes and she said "I studied with the witnesses for YEARS and never have i felt anything like that!" The spirit pretty much took her breath away! IT was one of the neatest lessons that i have been in! We are teaching her again tonight! and she is awesome! So what a way to top off that spiritual meeting! I LOVE THE LORD! I absolutely love Him! He guides everything we do! And I love it! So now for the moment that you have all been waiting for.... I'M GETTING TRANSFERRED!!! I will be serving in Clayton. It is just outside of Deerpark in Washington. And its in the same Zone that i was in as a greenie! I am going to "mom" someone.. An Elder that came out with Elder Allred and his name is Elder Tueller. Elder Tueller's trainer who came out with me, Elder Yancey, Is coming to "mom" Elder Allred so we are doing a swap :D So that will be pretty dang fun! I have a car full time! So i can put on some weight during the winter! LOL! But i am excited! This could possibly be my last area!!! crazy huh! weird but here is the mailing address: # 10-A N. Reiper St. Deerpark WA 99006 so please give that to Shannon :D and tell her to send me a tape and some pictures! :D she is worried that she cant fill up a whole tape so tell her that you guys will blab on it for a while.. :D lol! but anyways i am excited! Clayton sounds like a killer place! its definitely boonies though! I'm going from having 800 miles a month here to having 1250 miles a month there.. so that lets ya know kinda what it will be like :D But hey i love you guys very much! I'm glad the surgery went well on dads eye.. i figured something would be getting loose in there with how many times i beat him up.... :D i am glad everything is ok now! lol mom i tell all my companions that i go to stake conference with that its supposed to be our day off! lol! But isn't stake conference so good?!?! I love it! Thanks for all you do! I love you guys! It gets super cold in Clayton so I might try to push it through the winter without boots but i might need some... so there is an idea for Christmas.. But we will kinda play it by ear.. I love you guys! Thanks for everything you do! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

October 12th E-mail

2009-10-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

Whats happening?!?! Well Wednesday night is the night! Brian Abbott is getting dunked! woot! I am so excited! Oh and by the way transfers are coming up next week so i will find out Saturday where,if anywhere, i am going. So i am just glad that no matter what happens I was able to get a baptism with my greenie! Which is always nice to start off with a baptism with your trainer! But Brian is solid. He is a way cool guy. And he is going to teach me how to wake board after the mish... We also started teaching the lady, Debbie Haynes, who is a less-active Jehovah Witness. And she is really searching for something! We had a very powerful lesson with her as we were able to answer a lot of her questions by reading from different passages out of the BoM. There spirit was so strong! The way we found her was through her son who joined the church about 2 and a half years ago. But she told us at the end of the lesson that she was going to cancel on us today but that she decided to go ahead and meet with us. Then she said that she is not only glad that she didn't cancel but that she is way excited to meet with us again! So that was pretty comforting! A few interesting beliefs that they have though. They believe that Jehovah is God the Father. Hence their name.. and so that has led to some very interesting studies for me! And i have found many scriptures that link the old testament(Jehovah) with the new testament(Jesus Christ) like Isaiah 43: 3,11 and Luke 2:11, Deuteronomy 32: 2-4 and 1 Corinthians 10: 1-4, Exodus 3:14 and John 8:54-58, and even John 5:22 and (BoM)Moroni 10:34. (by the way that was all off the top of my head so if they are a little off just run with it :D) (although i think those are right) but something that is my favorite is that in John 8:58 when he references "I Am" it could still be up in there air about well how do you know that he was referring to the same thing as in exodus. Well the way we know that he used the name of Jehovah by saying what is in our English versions as "I Am" is that in verse 59 of John 8 we read that they were going to stone him after he said that well the reason that they were going to stone him is found in Leviticus 24:26 where it is given in Jewish law never to utter the name of the Lord for it is deemed Blasphemies and if one is caught doing so he should be stoned to death. So therefore we know that the reference in verse 58 is refering to Jehovah otherwise they wouldn't have tried to stone him to death! In fact the Name of the Lord was only uttered once a year by the high priest as he entered into the holy of holies! Pretty dang cool eh? yep believe it or not i am learning something :D In fact i have had some absolutely amazing studies this week! Its just been awesome! I love the scriptures! They definitely are the words of God! There is so much for us to learn in there! So in a very manly sense we all just got done doing some YOGA! before we came to email! LOL! there is a lady in the ward who is a yoga instructor and well she offered us some free lessons! and we took her up on it and its freaking awesome! oh and by the way i got some videos of me doing some way sweet dunks! So I will have to put the on a C.D. and send em home for proof! lol :D ! Oh and by the way I ate a Habenero last night! woot! Those babies are pretty warm! lol! But everything is going pretty well! So i love you guys! Thanks for everything! Take care! Love ya!

Elder Penman

October 5th E-mail

2009-10-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

What is going on! That is what I'm talking about! the trio winning out this week! (especially the niners! woot!) Its fun to see (hear of) them playing good again! Its been a while! Things went pretty well this week. Elder Allred was down and out for a day but we still managed to get some work done. I hope we can stop the back a forth sickness thing.. Its no fun. But we got a new family to conference and we are so excited for them! Their names are Joe and Elaine Hartley and they are awesome! They live within their means. Elaine is able to stay home with the kids because Joe definitely believes in providing and having a good mother raise the kids. They are so ready for the gospel! We put Brian Abbott on-date for baptism. He will be baptized on the 14th of Oct. Its a Wednesday night at 7:00. We are so excited for him. We watched conference with him and afterwards he went tracting with us! I've never taken a non-member tracting with us before but it was awesome! This lady answered the door and we tried talking to her and she said that she wasn't that interested at the time and Brian just opened up to her and told her how he had been meeting with us and how good it was and how it could have a positive effect on her and her family! The spirit was so strong and he was testifying to this lady! It was a very neat experience! He is ready to go! So things are going pretty well. So at Zone Conference our assistants gave us a training on using the BoM with people as we first talk to them. So we knock on someones door and we try to, as we talk to them, see what their needs are and then turn to a scripture in the BoM that can help them with whatever it is that they might need. It has been going pretty well! Its kinda fun because you not only have to know the BoM pretty well but you have to be listening for the still small voice. It helps me to not get worked up but to be calm. Otherwise you cant hear the still small voice. So it has been really fun to do. For example this guy said that he doesn't believe that we need prophets today and so we read with him 2 Nephi 29:9 (6-9) and it was cool to just feel the spirit come in and testify to all that would allow of those truths! People really do open up a little more and the spirit truly comes when we read the BoM with others! I am excited about it and it has also allowed me to increase my knowledge and testimony of the BoM. Just some examples of questions/concerns would be Why do i need to be baptized again? Why the BoM? I'm not comfortable talking about my religion. Why Plural marriage? Why do you believe in the BoM? We are all prophets. Why do Mormons think that they are saved by works? So just some things like that. There are plenty more.. But look at those and see what scripture in the BoM you would turn to to help them overcome their concern or to answer their question... Its kinda fun :D tell me how it goes :D Conference was absolutely amazing! Elder Holland is my hero! I love that man! :D So transfers aren't for a couple weeks. We get our transfer calls on the 17th. Man i loved priesthood too! It kinda took me back though talking about father/son relationships! It made me have a trunky moment :D But a spiritual/good trunky moment lol! I was just thinking man i cant wait to go to priesthood with my dad and my brother and then go out to dinner! Its going to rock! But hey guess what! Only 1 more conference before ill be home :D wow! time is short! Its kinda wierd to think about.. Especially when all the missionaries in my district are reminding me how old i am and how short of a time i have left.. And i still have 7 months... So I'm not that old yet! lol! Ok so some members (the Searcy's) took us to a place called Wolf Lodge! I had a 24oz. Porterhouse steak! It cost $30! and it was the best freaking steak i have ever eaten in my life! It cost Bro. Searcy like $140!!! it was freaking sweet!!! You will have to look it up. Its in CDA and oh my goodness! and it comes with a huge baked potato and a salad! And of course i downed it all! :D I'm just telling ya now.. If you thought i could eat before the mish... that's nothing :D lol! but i would love to take the fam there when we come back up! anyways! Thanks for everything! Tell Grandma P. That i love her and i hope she gets better! I love you guys! Take care of yourselves! Elder Penman

September 28th E-mail

2009-09-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

Whats going on?!?! Its good to hear from you guys! I'm glad highland kicked some trash! and BYU as well. That is a tough loss for my 9ers though... Oh well at least they are playing well. How to you let an old bag of dirt beat you though... anyways.. Mom I'm very proud of you for keeping up on your reading! You are awesome! And dad way to go on conducting eh? that a boy! :D Getting into book clubs and prepping for the trek and so on and so forth my goodness when i get home i will never see you guys... :D lol! that's ok though I will probably be spending a fair amount of time with Shannon :D So we had a way cool experience this week. There is this recent convert family of about 9 months or so and apparently when they joined they were absolutely on fire. He got called to be the young men's secretary and she got a pretty cool calling as well. Well they got a little overwhelmed and stopped coming and for a while they even said that people could come by just don't bring up the gospel. Well I had met them a few times and just kind of tried to break the ice again. Well we were trying to meet with him all last week and this week but we have just had the worst timing when we go over. So Saturday we go over and sure enough they are running out the door but he says to us you know what lets set up an appointment for tomorrow at 2:00 and I have some questions for you guys... And so we set the appointment and we went and had just an awesome lesson! They had went to the bookstore and bought a book from the LDS section and it is titled "Why would anyone join the LDS church?" and it is a fabulous book. I cant remember who wrote it but its written by a guy who joined the church himself and he goes into a lot of detail about certain questions a things that people have that are sincerely investigating the church and he answers them in a way that is in great detail but is simple and easy to understand. So they just randomly picked that book and it happens to be one of the best books that they could have bought at that time. But as they read it they just had a few questions so they asked away and with the Spirit of the Lord we were able to address all of their concerns in a way that they were able to understand! In fact the wife asked us about "don't add to or take away out of revelations" and her husband said oh honey they answered that a long time ago and started to share the answer to it and she goes ya i know but i just like hearing how they explain things! :D so it was just a very positive experience and one that the ward has been waiting for for a long time. We are meeting with them again on Tuesday and they are excited to watch conference with us this weekend! and also tonight we are going to be putting Brian Abbott on-date for baptism! woot! We also had zone conference this week and found out that in October ELDER BEDNAR is coming to speak to us as a mission!!!!! INSANE! I am so freaking excited! and President Palmer said that he likes to do a Q and A. So what in the heck would you ask an Apostle of the Lord if you had the opportunity? Yep i don't have a clue either! But i am excited to sit at his feet and feel the spirit! I seriously cant wait! Its going to be a once in a lifetime deal for me! :D and conference is coming up! Man its going to be a very spiritual October this year! One i will probably never forget! (until i get Alzheimer's) But hey mom no worries I don't need anything.. I am on the down stretch and everything that i have is just going to have to make it work :D No use having more stuff to pack around.. :D But i appreciate you always asking. I mean if you feel like you just absolutely need to get me something then just take 20 bucks and go put it in the marriage fund at the bank :D (aka my bank account) But only if it will make you feel better :D lol! I love you guys! Thank you for all that you do! You are awesome! I love you guys so much! Take care!

Elder Penman

September 21st E-mail

2009-09-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

Whats happening?!?! Well this week was ok. We found an awesome new investigator. His name is Gary and he had met with missionaries in the past and at one time he even had a date to be baptized.. But then he ended up falling and breaking his ribs and messing up his shoulder and well everything got off track from there... But he has no longer slipped through the cracks! we found him and he is wanting to get his life back on track! So we will see how that goes. Other than that this week was ok. We had a really good district meeting. Elder Allred I (<-- that means the 1st) gave a really good training that was nice to see. I'm very glad that he has grown up a little bit... not much but a little bit... You know i really haven't got sick that much on my mission... I have been blessed. But yesterday I woke up at like 4 in the morning and it was on! I puked my guts out all morning until about noon and i was white as a sheet and i just layed there the rest of the day. My back was killing me and i couldn't get comfy and finally last night i took a super hot bath with some epsom salts and oh boy did it feel good! The Ashtons have a pretty big bathtub but it is upstairs.. So i got up the stairs.. I barely had enough energy to get that far.. And then after the bath it drained all the rest of the energy that i had and so when i stepped out of the bath tub i just about fell flat on my face lol! and i had to sit on the toilet just to regain enough to put my clothes on... so i was pretty dang bad but i got back downstairs and well i crashed... and i slept great.. Elder Allred took numbers for me last night and everything.. So i am glad that is over! I still feel a little weak and no i wont be playing ball today... But I feel SO much better today than i did yesterday! I have no idea what it was! but i did get a blessing from my comp and Brother Ashton and so i will be fine :D! It was nuts though.. The second time i woke up to puke at like 4:30 Elder Allred woke up too and he came and opened the bathroom door and my face in burried in the toilet and he was just standing there watching me and he goes are you alright? :D It was kinda funny.. But I'm all better now. We are still working our little butts off. I'm glad that you got to spend some time with Shannon! That sucks that the power was out though... lol! I cant believe that BYU lost too... that sucks.. That's good that Highland won though! I hope they keep it up! Take care of yourselves! Thanks for all you do and for all your prayers! I love ya! Elder Penman

September 14th E-mail

2009-09-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

What is happening?!?! Well its great to hear from both of you! I'm glad highland hung in there with the Idaho team.. They will do alright this year. So Shannon really is going with us huh?!? Is that awesome or what! I would absolutely love to room with Carl again! This time i will pack some air fresheners though :D Wow that is awesome! I'm seriously smiling pretty big right now! I hear though that those resorts are supposed to be pretty dang cool! Are they going to have golfing and what not? I am way excited to go scuba diving too! Really it just sounds nice to be able to get in the water! :D I got a pretty cool story from an exchange that we went on this week. I went to CDA to be with Elder Killpack (who i came out with) He is one of my Zone Leaders. But anyways we were driving to the church to make some copies of some paperwork to go over with his Ward mission leader and on the way i told him ya know we really ought to just hang out at the church today and let the people come to us... and we both laughed and then we pulled up at the church and there was a guy walking through the parking lot and so we drove around by him and parked and got out and started talking to him.. Well at first he told us he didn't really believe in anything and then we taught him about Jesus Christ and what he did for us and then we went right into the Plan of Salvation and what the purpose of this life is. Well anyways he told us that he would be at church on Sunday and that we could meet with him again on Monday.. So it was a very neat experience but afterwards we were walking inside and i told Elder killpack see what did i tell ya? lol... It was pretty funny. We ended up talking to 2 more people before we left the church but neither of them were interested.. :D This week went a little slow for us though.. Juanita and Kim (who were on-date) fell off the face of the earth... We cant get a hold of them to save our lives.. It was pretty funny though one night we went over to their house at like 8:30 at night so it was dark and their kitchen light was on and their basement light was on and so we knocked and they have a big window right by the door but is for the living room and their blinds were cracked a bit and i looked in there and i could tell that the t.v. was on and i kept looking in well someone came crawling out from in front of the couch to see who was at the door and then they noticed me staring at them and so they turned around and crawled back behind the couch lol! and then like 2 seconds later all the lights shut off! lol! so it was kind of funny even though it sucks that we cant get a hold of them... But what do ya do! The Lord has something awesome in store for us! And we are looking forward to whatever it might be! I love you guys! Thanks for all that you do for me! For your prayers and your support and love! Take care! And good luck in everything! Take it easy!

Elder Penman

September 9th E-mail

2009-09-09T17:52:00.000-07:00

Whats happenin?!?! well i bet you are wondering why no email until today?!? well mom i didn't forget about ya :D We changed our p-day to Wednesday because of Monday being a holiday and Tuesday was transfers. But we both stayed so we got another 6 weeks together :D. The mission had a lot of changes though we got a new ap and 5 new Zone leaders and they opened up a new zone in Wanatchee.. So that's pretty cool eh! Oh and Elder Allred the first got transferred to here in post falls and so i got both my allred boys here in my district! lol! So now i can treat him like a grand kid.. I can play with him all i want and when he gets fussy i can hand him back off to his companion lol! But ya Allred the first hasn't changed a bit.. He is still a goofball.. But that's pretty cool.. Last week was a little slow.. But no worries it will pick back up.. We have both been sick though these last few days.. Yesterday i woke up and showered and then i just went right back to bed.. Then i woke up and we went out for a few hours and then we came back and i went back to bed again.. for like 4 hours each time.. :) I pretty much slept all day.. But sister Ashton made us some soup and what not so we are taken care of... And today i am feeling much better.. Its just a cold and well the last of it is settled in my chest but my head feels a lot better.. So no worries i am fine mom :D But right now i am emailing at the family history center at the church while the other missionaries are playing ball... doh! But that's ok i will bounce back.. But really not much has happened lately. I did hear about BYU and Oklahoma! Is that insane or what! woot! Its too bad though that Skyline whooped up on Highland.. Good luck with that team from Idaho... The Ashton's were pretty excited that we were staying so that we can help them finish their cement work... :D We are building a rock wall and a few little patios... That is pretty dang fun! Everyone around here is hunting and football is starting and well i have to tell ya... last year it didn't bother me much but this year i want to go hunting! lol! But ya know this is a fun time in the mission... President Palmer is really mixing things up and making things happen.. Its pretty cool! But hey its good to hear from you guys! That's good that Eva like her aunt Shanni too! :D I love you guys! Take care of yourselves! Woot!

Elder Penman

August 31st E-mail

2009-08-31T13:38:00.000-07:00

What is going on?!?! Well it is great to hear from you guys! I love hearing about little Eva! I am glad that she has joined the butter eating club! WOOT! I think that is awesome! I absolutely love butter! lol! Well this week went by super fast. I'm sitting here trying to remember what even happened... On Tuesday we started teaching a boyfriend of a returned missionary.. His name is Brian Abbott and he is super solid.. My only fear is that he would jump into this for her.. But he showed interest in the church before he hooked up with her so that is a good sign.. But we taught him 3 times and he came to a baptism on Saturday(not our baptism) and then came to church on Sunday.. So he is dedicated. That's for sure.. The mom and daughter that we have on-date for sept 26th , Juanita and Kim Reynolds, We are also teaching Juanita's dad and she told us that if we got him to go to church that she would never miss a Sunday... lol! So we are going to hold her to that.. Heck ill even tell Lyle that so that he gets her going :D lol! But she is pretty solid.. She was passing a kidney stone so they didn't come to church this week.. *ouch* but next week hopefully they will be there... But all in all it was a pretty good week.. Elder Allred and I are just having a blast.. This week though on Saturday we get our transfer calls.. so I'm hoping that we stay together.. but we will see what happens.. Last night we were praying for our comp study and I prayed for him to have an opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting and right after i said that he slugged me in the arm.. and then we started laughing but then i finished the prayer and i was like what the heck? and then he felt bad because it was during a prayer lol! i thought it was pretty funny... and then he asks me why did you pray for that? he says your might as well pray for me to get hit by a car.. lol! I just laughed.. I was just praying for it just to be a punk really.. but i thought it was funny :D But hey way to go Highland! i hope that you kick the crap out of Skyline.. I cannot believe that someone took roidtard for a coach.. But hey its great to see the t-ville turn around... lemon heads.. how pathetic.. Me and James should take that team when i get back.. We could turn that program around.. get a little Arkansas defense going there and no worries I will run the offense :D football is just starting up here and Bishop is coaching a team and well we might happen to tract into their practices a few times i dunno :D i tell you what though when i saw the high school team here practicing i just wanted to run over there and start hitting those kids myself.. I miss it! :D So i have no choice but to play or coach for well the rest of my life... :D But hey mom i don't really need anything.. If you really want to buy me something then just put some money in my bank account for when i get home :D all my stuff is holding up pretty nicely.. so I'm not too worried.. But anyways the work is going very well I am loving it! Thank you for your prayers and I love you guys so much! Oh and by the way was that a sweet cake or what! woot! And trust me we made it by ourselves.. We frosted it together and then we took tooth picks and made the deer and then spelled out john Deere.. :D it was sweet! But i love you guys! Take care!

Elder Penman

Enjoy!

2009-08-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

August 24th E-mail

2009-08-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

Whats happening?!?! I have to tell you that it is just fun to hear from you guys! You are filled with the spirit and with joy! and i absolutely love it! Sucks to hear that Highland lost.. just don't let Hunter stomp all over you.. That is never fun..(not that Ive ever been there before) :) But hey also if you can find out let me know how taylorsville is doing.

We had an absolutely amazing week this week! It has been so much fun! Ok so on Friday we taught this guy named Lyle and he is an older guy probably in his 60's but he had expressed how when his wife died he became bitter towards God and so on but he allowed us to teach him and i know that he felt the spirit! so we got a return appt. with him and then later that night we taught a new family and the parent names are Joe & Elaine. They seemed fairly interested as well and the lesson went really well and so we will continue to teach them as well and so we were very happy because that was 3 new gators! Well then we went on exchanges and i went to CDA (Coeur d' Alene) And elder Allred took over the area for a day. While i was in CDA we found 3 new investigators and i got to interview 3 people for baptism that are all getting baptized this next Saturday! so that was just awesome! But while Elder Killpack and Elder Allred were here in Post Falls they tracted like all day long. They did end up finding one new investigator but they feel that he isn't very solid.. but anyways they kept tracting and they were getting a lot of opposition and what not. They even ran into a guy who told them that he wanted to set up a public debate with our bishop. which by the way Bishop Rouse would own him... but that's beside the point. Fact is they were just getting hammered well it was getting late and so they decided to knock on 2 more doors. Well they knocked on the first one and it was a lady whose husband in a less-active member and she sounded like she was fairly interested... So they got into the house and started answering some of their questions and what not and the lady said oh and i have a 12 year old daughter that wants to be baptized.. And so they taught her and her daughter (Juanita and Kimberly) and put them on-date for the 26th of September! And so they held out until the very last door and they found 2 new investigators that the Lord had absolutely prepared for them when they could have easily given up and went home.. And now we have 2 awesome people on-date for baptism! So this week we ended up with 6 new investigators and 2 on-dates... Is that amazing or what! I really appreciate all of your prayers!

I cant believe how much the Lord is blessing us in all of our lives! I hope that we can all remain Humble and Prayerful and look to Him for guidance in our lives! I know that He is there and that He is watching over and blessing us! I love this work! There is nothing greater than missionary work! and it always helps to have a good companion! :D I love you guys! Thanks for everything that you do for me! and for all of your prayers! Take care! love ya!

Elder Penman

August 17th E-mail

2009-08-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

Oh me goodness! Surprise Surprise! Dad is in the Bishopric! Woot! I could have called that one! In fact if i remember right i might have before i left? :D! that is so awesome! There has been so many changes since i left that its going to be interesting when i get back :D But i think its way cool! Dad that is one of the coolest callings! To get to interview people is amazing! I don't know about temple recommend interviews but baptismal interviews are just awesome! Its so filled with the spirit and the spirit makes the interview so clear. Just remember to not get in the habit of just going over the questions but feeling out the answers. I love them though! I am so excited for you dad! I guess there goes your saying of you do just enough wrong so that you can stay out of the bishopric... LOL! i tell lots of people that too! and now that you are in they are going to have a good laugh. But the cool part is that its not something to dread. You will receive more understanding than you ever have before while you serve especially along side Bishop Crockett he is awesome! But please tell me that you shaved the stash? I sure hope they asked you to shave that thing lol! oh and by the way. If i can throw in a little bit from the missionary stand point of things.. when your in P.E.C. or bishopric meeting be the one who is very missionary minded! it always helps to have the support of the bishopric when you are a missionary cause if you don't well then nothing gets done! that is so cool! DAD you are awesome! you are such an example to me! Seriously! that makes me way happy! just remember no matter how inadequate you feel at times. Whom the Lord calls he qualifies! and you are more than qualified! your awesome! woot! Mom that is awesome that you are so supportive! With football and with bishopric well you better just count on not seeing dad much but i promise you that during the time that dad serves if you just support him and learn as much as you can that you will never be happier! I PROMISE! woot! I am so excited for you guys! This is huge! I absolutely love it! you seriously don't know how happy this makes me! I have been able to see a huge change in you guys since i left! and it makes me so happy! I absolutely love you guys! Thanks for being such great examples to me! you be such great examples to my kids too! and oh boy in this world do they need it! I am very happy right now! The only thing that could make it better is if i dominate in basketball again today :D LOL! which shouldn't be too hard! I had pretty good week! The Lord is blessing us! We are on our way to seeing some great things happen in this ward! thanks for all that you do! I am very excited for you guys! I love you! I will continue to pray for both of you! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

August 10th E-mail

2009-08-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

What is happening?!?! Well it sounds like everything is going pretty well for you guys. I'm glad that girls camp was fun. It tends to have a pretty big impact on the girls.. hrrrrrrrrrrp... lol I'm j/k! :D But that is way cool. I'm glad you didn't get the job actually mom because ya know a little more money isn't that important anyways.. and it would just give you a reason to spend a little more money anyways.. :D I can tell you one thing though.. I know without a doubt why the leaders of our church have been telling us to get out of debt. Something crazy is going to happen real soon I can tell you that much. And a lot of people are going to be screwed.. Well around here a lot of people already are screwed... but anyways.. I wont get into the negative that is going on in the world. ;) But this week we were able to find 2 new investigators! Woot! Their names are Jenny Young who is a single mother of 3. And Ted Rohrenbach and he is pretty cool. He is a catholic and how we broke the ice with him was he told us that his son had passed away and we asked if he was baptized.. and he said no and well you know what catholics believe about that.. and so we told him about the spirit world and about temples and how he could be baptized for his son.. and that was way cool! But things are just picking up right now.. We had our interviews this week and they went very well. President Palmer told me that he thought i did a really good job conducting my district meeting and then later the ZLs told me that he told them the same thing.. So that was pretty neat. Its nice to have so quickly earned the trust of President Palmer. He is such a great guy.. So did you guys go talk with Sis. Palmer's parents? probably not since it was girls camp.. But you should go see them. That would be cool. So i need you guys to chew out my siblings for me! Those hosers.. And especially James.. :) No but tell them i love em that's for sure. I love you guys too. It is crazy to think that i only have 9 months left.. lol.. Wow that is just simply crazy. Lol so kind of a funny story. Last night we were over at some members house for dinner. (the Coughanours) and their little boy was saying the prayer over the food and I started rubbing Elder Allred's leg under the table and he started laughing during the prayer! lol! It was so funny. He is pretty dang cool. He is definitely my best greenie so far. We give each other a lot of crap.. and he is very teachable.. He told me last night "I don't want you to go zone leader.. I would rather be your comp for 2 transfers..." And i was like who says I'm going Zone leader? hrrrrrrrp. But we will see.. We still got 4 weeks in the transfer.. But i love you guys so much! take care of yourselves! And keep reading your scrips! and good job on re-committing yourself! Woot! Love ya!

Elder Penman

August 4th E-mail

2009-08-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

What is going on??!?! That's exciting that football is starting pretty soon! today has been so tiring! We played 3 hours of basketball and then went and played 2 hours of volleyball! It was nuts and now i can barely walk.. But would i do it again...? Probably.. :D The reason that p-day was today (Tuesday) was because we has Elder Hafen of the Quorum of the Seventy come and tour the mission and he instructed us from 9-4:30 they fed us lunch but oh man was that a long meeting! :D It was great though! He taught us a lot about the Atonement! And doctrinally how the beliefs of the atonement from the restoration are fundamentally different from mainstream Christianity... So it was pretty dang cool! He is the man! Well although it has been great to train once again, and believe me this boy is going to be a good one, The thing that trips me up still is that his name is Elder Allred! ya! crazy huh! I got another Elder Allred! What are the chances? but i tell you that this one in a polar opposite of the other one! And the best part is he is a baller.. So today during basketball we dominated :D He is from Ogden Utah and he graduated in 08 from Fremont. He is way cool and best of all he is very teachable! so we get along great! Its definitely fun to see! and the greenie fire rocks! His first day! I took him to Bishop Rouse's house for a "greenie" dinner (where everything is green). And we were getting ready to share a message with them and right as we all sat down in the living room. (wait gotta back this up first off Bishop was sick and asleep downstairs and all of his boys were gone so it was me my comp and bishops wife and her mother,who is from south Jordan, and bishops 3 daughters..) ok so we here this knock at the door and its this guy selling magazines.. and sister Rouse invited him in to hear a message.. Well he came in and we taught him the first lesson.. Long story short he was going through a pretty rough time in his life and truly wanted to change but before any of that came out i shared the first vision and he got really defensive and said like "Well how many wives did he have at that time?" and i just laughed and he came back with more and more and more and we just let him get it all out of his system.. And then it dawned on Elder Allred that Blaine was there for a reason.. And so Elder Allred told him that and Blaine started crying pretty hard.. and then Elder Allred started to cry and then all the women started crying and i was just sitting there waiting for it to end :D! But he is 27 and he is from Nevada and he was in the army and such and got into drugs and drinks and the whole bit... but we told him to get out of the bit he is doing right now cause those people just aren't a good influence on him.. and so he said that he would... but we will see! WE gave him a BoM and we swapped phone numbers! It was way cool and then he gave us all hugs when he left lol! But for a first night it was pretty dang cool! I was just blown away especially afterwards that someone tracted into us... ya i know that never happens.. lol! But it did and it was awesome! But he found 2 new gators the next morning.. it has just been a great week! Oh and mom i was talking to Sister Palmer who is our mission Pres' wife and we got to talking and she is from Taylorsville and so i was asking her where she lived and all that and then she asked me and what not but i told her i live in west Jordan now and i told her our basic address.. and she said really that's right by my parents and i said really who are they and she said oh you wouldn't know them they are old.. and i said you would be surprised cause i live in a old folks community.. and she said Jordan villas? and i said ya! and her parents live in the villas! They are on the south side of the clubhouse she said and their names are James and Audry Wood and they live in 2106! so you guys should go visit them and tell them that i am in their daughters mission! :D that would be cool! She said they don't get out much.. but she said that they would probably really enjoy that :D She is a way nice lady! But the cool thing is that i have a way now to stay in touch with the Palmer's after the mission :D! woot! I knew that the old folks home would be of use someday! :D But anyways i love you guys a ton! Take care! And good luck with everything!

Love ya!

Elder Penman

July 27 E-mail

2009-07-27T18:59:00.000-07:00

Well what is going on!?! How is the fam?! I am doing just fabulous up here! We did get our transfer calls and well.... *drumroll* I am TRAINING again!!! woot! lol I guess i didnt screw up the first 2 after all.. lol! But i am way excited! Elder Steinbeigle is headed to Spokane to the area that we refer to as "The Jungle" or "Felony Flatts" :D so he is pretty excited and he is stepping up to be senior comp as well so that will be a good thing for him.. This week kicked my butt. Physically... We helped a member of the ward dig out 2 window wells so that he could put in these bigger ones that were made of fiber glass and they look like stone... they are actually really neat! but on Friday we went and dug the holes and pulled the old ones out and it took us like 4 hours.. and then at the bottom of each one of them was a huge concrete slab that they cut the windows out of the foundation from.. they just dropped them in the bottom of the holes.. and they were a good 8 1/2 inches thick.. and so when the member got home from work friday night he rented a jack hammer and he jack hammered all of the slabs out because we had to go deeper than they would allow.. and so then saturday morning at 7 we went back to his house and first threw all the concrete onto his trailer and then we set the window wells in and lag bolted them into the foundation and then backfilled everything and went to the dump and dumped all the concrete.. and that took another 4 hours.. and so between all the digging and the hauling stuff back and forth i was pretty beat.. infact i am still pretty beat :D but we are going to go play basketball in a few minutes so that will hopefully loosen me up.. But it was really fun! I miss doing work like that.. I was so dirty i was literally covered from head to toe.. I was showering and trying to wash the clumps of dirt out of my hair and it just wasnt working... it took me a while but i got it out no worries :D mom i am very glad that you had a good birthday! Sorry i wasnt there to celebrate with you but i guess that what you have significant others for.. I mean Shannon just stepped right in and filled in for my absence.. :D Ya gotta love her.. :D But mom i love you very very much! And im glad that you made it to 64! I am proud of you! Happy birthday! Keep hanging in there ok! Take it easy on your back sheesh! But i am glad to hear that it is your back that hurts and not your knee.. Well wish me luck! and keep me in your prayers.. Im hoping that 3rd time is a charm and i can teach this one so that he wont end up so wierd.. If this one goes sour well then i will know that its just me.. lol! I love you guys so much! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

July 20th E-mail

2009-07-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

Well hello whats happening?!?! how are you guys doing?!? I completely forgot that you guys said you were going 4-wheelin but the Thurgoods are awesome and i am glad that you were able to get that box of stuff.. It is just stuff basically.. Stuff that i was sick of packing around.. One of the cool things that is in there is the knife that i made in Clarkston.. Its handle is elk antler and its got like a 6" blade on it! It is really sweet. But other than that i cant even remember what i put in there :D Just stuff i know i didn't need.. so you can open it if you want.. I don't mind but ya just keep it all in there for me when i get home.. and i will go through it. Well this week was pretty slow.. It was ok though because we worked our butts off. One of the members in the ward here always takes the missionaries to CDA at the resort to get gooeys and these gooey Sundays are freaking amazing.. They are huge though and i will send some pics home.. but they have 1/3 of a gallon of ice cream and tons of hot fudge and caramel and nuts and whip cream and mine was chuck full of Reese's peanut butter cups oh and a cherry on top :D.. I mean this thing is huge.. its a 9 dollar dessert.. Well Brother Clark took us to Red Robin first and we all got huge burgers and then we went and got this ice cream.. and I mean about half way through its really good but then the second half is just miserable and you don't even know why you are still eating it.. Other than he tells you that if you don't finish it that you have to buy it.. And so we are putting this thing away man i tell you what i was just downing this thing and me and bro. Clark finished ours and we were waiting for Elder Steinbeigle to finish his.. Well he was about 3/4 the way through and the last part is almost pure hot fudge and caramel and so its just nasty.. his was also Snickers.. But anyways he got up and went to the bathroom to try to make more room.. (poo) but then he came back and still had the rest of his to finish.. so we are like just eat it already and all he had was like 3 bites and then a whole candy bar that he took off the top to begin with.. well he finally starts eating it and he takes 2 swallows and then gets his spoon and scraped the last bit of the ice cream and we are like good job now eat the snickers bar and we are out of here.. well he sits there for like 10 seconds and then grabs his cup and barfs right in the cup! LOL! fills it back up! and we were laughing so hard! It was crazy though cause it didn't even make a noise.. it was like the most quiet puke i have ever heard and all it was was the ice cream none of his dinner came up luckily.. but then he sets the cup down and goes "DANGIT!" and we were laughing so hard! but to top it off this old lady sitting at the table next to us goes "Did he just puke at the table?" lol! to her friend.. and then we got up to leave and bro. Clark told Elder Steinbeigle to take it to the bathroom and dump it.. and he was like no I'm not touching that.. and so he left it there and the old lady goes "Is he just going to leave it there?!" LOL!!! It was so funny i laughed so hard that i was worried that i was going to puke myself :D I was great! But that was definitely one of the highlights to the week! We also got to do my favorite thing and butcher chickens!!! woot! I love it.. I am definitely wanting chickens when i get my own place! having eggs and meat all the time is awesome! woot! but i took videos of that :D I love it! anyways I love you guys a ton! I'm glad you are enjoying your summer! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

Oh and by the way i got your package! woot! Thanks mom i love ya!

July 13th E-mail

2009-07-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

Well that's really lame I just wrote you this nice long email and then hit some key on accident (which i cant even figure out which one..) and the whole thing just disappeared.. weird.. Well anyways I will go for round 2.. :D Well It sounds like you guys have been having a really good time! A very busy time in fact.. But that is really good.. I do here though that when you get OLD you always think you will have more time but really you have less?.. i dunno maybe you could tell me if that's true :D Well I am glad that you guys got to go to youth conference.. that's awesome! Well good job on getting in with the Danielsons! That is so cool! Did you get on their doorstep and say "DANIELSON! ROOK EYE!" lol! I'm just kidding but i am excited for that! Some advice that i would give you is to Pray for them! And pray for their specific needs! Especially when you are in their home and you are about to have a prayer ask them if it is ok if you say the prayer.. and then when they say ya sure then say what are some things that i could pray for for you guys? and then when they tell you some things pray for them! and pray for them sincerely and then do everything in your power to help make it happen whatever it is! And i promise you that you will see a huge change in everything! Once you hear someone prayer for your specific needs you know that that person loves you! Try it out! I promise you it will work! Its great to hear that the ward back home is doing missionary work! You should get in on that! :D Have the missionaries over and tell them you want to teach someone in our house! And hopefully they will take you up on that! :D Well this week was a big turn around for us i believe We met the new missions President (which by the way he is awesome!) and then we were able to find 2 new investigators and start a less-active guy on the stop smoking workshop with goals to take his wife to the temple! Woot! So we are excited for that! Tonight we are meeting with a new fam of 3 and tomorrow we are meeting with a new fam of 8 so i hope all goes well! Things are really looking up! President Palmer is so cool though he is just a very spiritual guy and a very humble guy! I am looking forward to working with him that's for sure! Oh dad i was going to tell you.. Everyone up here loves the movie "Forever Strong" And whenever it gets mentioned i tell them that that's where you coach football and they are like REALLY?!?! :D its pretty cool! I told them i saw the movie being filmed... But anyhow.. Things are going good here and i hope things are going great at home! There are a lot of people in our ward that are being hit with loss of job and such.. last week we nearly talked to a new family in the ward everyday who was scraping at the bottom of the barrel and in desperate need of some help.. Its a crazy time that we live in! The only thing that we can do is live the gospel 100 percent! not 99 or 98 but 100 percent! That is what will keep our heads above water! I love you guys so much! Thank you for all of your prayers! Take care!

Elder Penman

July 6th E-mail

2009-07-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well what is going on?!?! I can believe you went scuba diving that's awesome! It seems like its been so stinking long for me that i wouldn't even know how to do it anymore :D I know for a fact that i couldn't put together my dive tables anymore :D I think that's what they are lol! I dunno.. you know where you figure out how long you can dive and what not.. anyways that's way cool.. so i hope you guys had a wonderful 4th! Mine was meh ok.. The new pres came in with some greenie fire and said that it was to be a full proselyting day! Woot! and we tracted for like 3 hours and talked to seriously 3 people.. it was nuts! everyone was gone.. you would almost think it was a major holiday or something.. weird i know.. :D lol but no it was still good! Well the work is still pretty slow for us.. We are just trying to find those people that the Lord is preparing for us.. We know they are out there.. We just have to seek them out is all :D Its like a big game of hide and seek.. So its nose bleed season for me again! I have no freaking idea what the deal is but last night i woke up and well i was simply losing a lot of blood we will say :D and the morning before that.. Which made us late to p.e.c. (our Sunday meeting) and then again this morning... i have no idea what the deal is but i guess i just produce too much blood in the summer time and i got to let a little out.. :D So we went and got our hair cut today by the bishops wife and she used this thing called the flowbee and well it was like a vacuum and a clipper deal all in one but it was horrible.. and then she busted out the regular clippers to do the sides and well she didn't hold back from saying OOPS or hmmm... or ummm or laughing or anything... lol so pretty much you can put the pieces together :D she claims she has never cut hair before... well she wasn't lying.. oh well it grows back :D And to tell you the truth all the screw ups are in the back and i cant see them anyways so it don't matter :D but ya it was pretty crazy! So on Wednesday we have zone conference and we get to meet President Palmer woot! I hear he has a very unique Kiwi Drawl.. cause he is from Texas but originally from New Zealand.. :D Well everything is good for me.. I hope everything is good for you guys! Take care of yourselves! I love ya!

Elder Penman

Livin' La Vida Loca!

2009-07-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

He's so happy! And, E. Steinbeigle's muscle.

Elder Penman and Elder Steinbeigle

My rents and Elder Ryan J.

He's a tough one!

Aw. Cute Companions.

Don't worry guys, I was not behind this camera taking pictures! I was a good 15 miles away at the time. :)

Jun 29th E-mail

2009-06-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

What is going on?!?! Well i am jealous of you being in Key west thats for sure! But thats ok if i dont get a chance to go there cause Shelly and Tyler told me that they were going to be living in Utah by the time i got home... ;) So i would rather have that anyways :D (mom im just kidding they didnt really tell me that although i keep trying to talk them into it) Well this week was ok for us.. It wasnt too eventful but it was still good.. We are just in the rebuilding stage. But its all good cause we still got to earn it ya know? So no biggy.. Although last night one of our recent converts got with her neighbor who is a real idiot and he got her on this anti mormon website and she called us at 12:45 last night and i didnt even hear the phone but anyways we called her back this morning and she was balling and what not and very angry and then later on this afternoon we both talked to her and she felt a lot better after that... and of course all the anti stuff is silly... it really is but she had missed 2 weeks of church and i mean satan kicks you when your down.. and so she is better now but its so interesting to see the trials that RC's go through after they are baptized.. But she will be ok.. oh and for her neighbor well i would like to go beat the crap out of that twig boy.. but i will try to hold off on that as well.. But the church is so stinkin true! NO QUESTION! its true! move on! But ya so anyways this week. Elder Steinbeigle fell on his bike twice lol! the first time we were at this appartment complex right next to where all these kids were playing and he was just riding like .0003 mph and just went right over his handle bars.... i know its a pretty crappy description of what happened but to tell you the truth i am still trying to figure out what happened myself :D and then he gets up with the panic you know and starts going WOW DID YOU SEE THAT>?!! and of course all the kids saw it and started laughing it was great! and then we were riding next to this busy street and of course it was traffic hour and he went to turn around and went off the sidewalk into this grass and i guess he turned too sharp or hit the cement or something but face planted again and this time i watched the whole thing along with 50 cars full of people and i was laughing really hard and so were they.. lol! Its been a rough week for the little guy :D You know i have learned a lot of cool things since i have been out here.. but ultimately it has made my testimony grow of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He truly did die for all of us.. And suffer in the Garden of Gethsemane for our sins. He truly loves us perfectly and no matter what we go through in life he is there not just to hear us out but to show us what we need to do and to build us up so that one day we can stand on our own 2 feet! I am grateful for the patience that the Lord has with me! I have had the opportunity and the blessing to see this wonderful gospel change peoples lives! It is amazing! Jeremy Turrell for instance.. He, for a long time, was with the (i don't know how to spell it) Arean Nation.. and he batched dope and sold it for guns and then sold the guns to Mexican and black gangs in cali (with the knowledge that they would kill each other off) for more chemicals to batch more dope to go round and round again! and he was in it for years! He has flags from it still ones that are stained with blood and everything! trust me when i say i have learned a lot :D but even though he did all that.. 2 Saturday's ago he baptized his daughter! He holds the priesthood of God! now you tell me that something that isn't true could do that to a man...? I love this gospel! It is the only way to happiness! Live it! and don't just live it 60 or 70 or 80 percent! you HAVE to live the gospel 100 percent or you are wasting your time! Live it! Love it! and most of all share it! I love you guys! Thank you for the great example that you are to me! As i look back over my childhood and the way i was raised by my wonderful parents i wouldn't change a thing! You guys are the best! Take care of yourselves! Thank you for your prayers! I love you!

Elder Penman

June 22nd E-mail

2009-06-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

So What is going on?!?! How have you guys been? so you are about to go out and see Shel and Tyler eh? That is going to be way fun! I am jealous! :D Well mom good luck with that job that would be nice to have an extra $10,000 coming in for my college fund? LOL I'm just messing.. i heard from thorny and he said it was way good to see you guys! He is cool. I wonder if he will be married by the time i get home? hmm. mom i think I am missing out on the Stan joke cause i have no idea who the heck that is.. but it sounds like he is gay maybe? hmm. Well this week was fabulous for me! We had a baptism on Saturday which was for Koreena Elaine Grant! she is 9 years old and Saturday night she asked me to confirm her on Sunday and so i did! It was awesome! I am very glad that she asked me to do that.. The work is picking up again though.. We have one investigator in particular that i would ask you guys to pray for and her name is Tina Greensfield.. She is about 35 with 2 kids and she is single.. her kids are 15 and 13 and we are teaching the mom and the 13 year old daughter right now.. When we taught Tina the restoration and invited her to read 3 Nephi 11 she said she would and then when we went back to check up on her she said that she read the whole thing and we were like good (thinking she read the whole chapter) what did you think of the chapter? and she said no i read the whole thing... We were like the whole book? and she said ya the whole book... and we were like WHOA! It took her 2 evenings.. a total of like 8 hours.. and then she asked us for another one to give to her friend! and in the process her boyfriend moved out because they got in a fight over something (I think it was our fault.. but that's ok cause i would love to take the credit) So the Lord is preparing her and she doesn't even know it.. but we already invited her to prepare herself for baptism and she accepted! woot! and so please pray for her and her daughter Sam... well and her rebellious son who is 15 and i don't know his name.. :D but this week they are going to come to church so we are way excited! so it has been a pretty good week so far.. We played some mad basketball today and i am way sore! We had transfers and some good ballers came up here so it was pretty dang competitive... I love it! I just don't do it enough.. and i swear the mission ruins you physically.. but oh well I can still throw down so its not too bad :D Well I love you guys a ton! thanks for everything that you do for me! Its good to hear that you guys are doing good! I pray for ya! I love you! take care!

Elder Penman

Finally Some More Pictures!

2009-06-19T10:28:00.000-07:00

June 15th E-mail

2009-06-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

What is going on?!?! How is the fam doing?! Well i am doing ok.. This week was meh.. But that's ok we are hoping for great things this next week. So we got transfer calls and we are both staying in the area.. Elder Allred is coming up to Rathtrum ID and he will be in my zone now :D so that will be fun.. His comp asked me today at basketball so did you have a good time with Elder Allred? and i looked at him and thought about it and said well it was interesting.. and that's all i said lol! and he was like oh great! lol! but oh well it will be good for him! So I got to go to lunch with Jimbob and Conniebob! that was way fun! they came to post falls and picked us up and we went and had some really good lunch! but it was funny cause Sunday evening i had to call the APs (assistants to the President) about something and I was talking to Elder Spainhower and he said hey I saw your neighbor at church today.. and I said really what was his name? and he said brother.... and i said Wilcox? and he said ya that's it and i said lol that's not my neighbor that's my girlfriends dad! LOL! and he was like huh? and i said ya they are up here visiting family.. :D lol and he just kinda laughed but you could tell he was like what the freak! :D lol! but he didn't see Shannon which is a good thing or he might have lost focus for a few weeks.. :D she can do that to people ;) So today we got done playing basketball and we went over to the other elders place to shower and we had just brought our clothes with us.. and i was showering and a thought came to mind... I don't have any G's... LOL! so for like 30 minutes i had to go commando in my proselyting clothes until we could drive to our place so i could get some G's... lol it was really weird.. but anyways I love you guys a lot! I am glad you guys are doing really well! Take care of yourselves!

Elder Penman

June 8th E-mail

2009-06-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

Hey whats going on?!?! Its really good to hear from you guys! We had kind of a rough week. with a lot of opposition.. But that's ok its to be expected especially right before something great happens! But i will tell you one funny story.. As a missionary you become very bold with people and almost so much that it just catches them off guard.. anyways we were talking with this guy who was throwing out all this anti stuff that was just bogus.. and anyways he was trying to play the nice guy as well but i just wasn't buying into it.. So he says "you know i mean i really admire what you guys are doing but what if you guys are bringing all these people into something that is not true..?" and i had enough and i just told him "You know if we are bringing all these people to something that is false and you have the truth then why don't you get out and do what we do?" and then before he could say anything else I said "And I guarantee that you wouldn't last very long" and he said "Excuse me?" and i said " I said you wouldn't last very long!" and he just well blah blah blah what about this and that and just completely changed the subject lol! It was funny... I just don't know why things don't make sense to people... he started talking about how we think we will become equal to God one day blah blah blah... and so we answered his question.. 2 really cool scriptures for that is psalms 82:6 and John 10:34-35. I think those are the ones.. I don't have my scrips on me but i think those are the ones.. anyways he had nothing to say to that.. and then he said well I just cant believe that God was a man on this earth. and so i explained to him my opinion. which is that (well first i told him he was right it probably wasn't this earth :D) and then I said.. and now think about this.. If God has never experienced any of the things that i have and he is sending me down here for no other reason then to go through all this crap to try to get back to him all so that i can worship him for eternity then that would make God sound like a jerk.. and i said and why then if that was the case would i go to God for things before i would my earthly father because my earthly father has been through the things i have and according to you God has never experienced the things that i have.. (I know i was a complete jerk but i was sick of this guy and it makes sense to me) and he said well no God has seen how everything works from the beginning of the world and i said oh to when Adam went to him with a problem he was like well sorry Adam i don't know you will have to wait for a few generations before i can answer that.. and i also pointed out that we aren't the ones who gives God his knowledge.. lol I hope that some of that at least makes sense.. It sounds weird but if you try to argue their side of things then you will realize the truth.. lol God had to learn from somewhere/something.. anyways.. I hope that makes sense.. but something to ponder on anyways :D Not to sit here and tell you guys how well i have learned to bash.. cause i hate bashing! I really do but every once in a while you just get fed up with people and you have to make them realize.. or try anyways :D But anyways this week was fun! I love you guys so much! mom thanks for the cookies! they are so good! Take care of yourself! Thanks for getting Shannon's flowers! and thanks for having her over for dinner! she is so stinkin cute! I love her to death! I love you guys too tho no worries lol!

Take care!

Elder Penman

June 1st E-mail

2009-06-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

Hey whats happenin?!?! well it sounds like you guys had fun! I could use some 4-wheelin right about now :D that sounds like a great time. So meat salad and oranges huh? what a unique diet :D lol well I think the key after the diet will be #1 don't sit around and #2 don't eat more than you need.. smaller portions.. if you do that I don't think you will gain it all back. But if you guys are feeling good than that's great. I wonder what crazy thing you guys are going to do next :D I guess that must be what you do when you have no kids at home is you sit there and think of crazy things to do :D lol! I'm just kidding! Well thank you so much for getting Shannon some big beautiful flowers! She needed those! She is so sweet! I mean seriously I know of no other missionaries girlfriend that hasn't missed 1 single week of writing since they have been out! Now that's awesome! So she deserved those flowers lol! Thank you again. We just got back from golfing this morning and it was wonderful! We just played a par 3 but it was so fun to get out and whack the ball around a little bit. I loved it. It was me and Elder Steinbeigle and Jeremy Turrell (a recent convert) and then a whole bunch of old ladies everywhere else.. lol! It was funny. I thought that Jeremy was going to kill one of the old ladies.. He hit from the tee box at like 160 with I think his 8 iron or something and these old ladies were on their box but that course crams them all together and anyways He hit it and yelled 4 and it landed literally right between 2 of the ladies.. and the way they moved we thought that he hit one of them.. but he didn't which was good. He was pretty worried. But overall it was way fun! We had an ok week this week. It could have been better but what do ya do? We are hanging in there though! Thanks for everything! I love you guys! Its good to hear from you! GO MAGIC! Oh and by the way I knew Lebron would choke.. that's just what he does.. :D but anyways I love you guys! Take care!

Elder Penman

May 26th E-mail

2009-05-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

HELLO!!! Whats happening family! So you are probably wondering why I haven't written back yet but its because Memorial Day we decided to work so we could talk to more people.. and it was worth it I believe! So we took our p-day today. This week has been really good.. We found 3 more new investigators! I was watching conference today for personal study and you guys have to do something for me.. together (mom and dad) I want you to read (you could even throw James and Jen and Shel and Tyler in there too) but read Elder Bednar's talk and Elder Stevenson's talk and then set a date every week that you are going to go to the temple and go! We live 3 minutes away and there is no reason you shouldn't be going to the temple! If you already are going well then excuse my criticism (if that is how you spell it...) But seriously those talks blew me away this morning and the temple is where it is at! So those are the 2 things... I tell you what it is so crazy how fast time is flying, it seriously goes way too fast. So get this (funny story) Yesterday we are over at a recent converts house to give her baby a blessing and we are waiting for another guy from the church to get there and so I am outside playing with the kids and one of the neighbor kids was over as well and he was maybe like 5 or 6 I don't know somewhere in there and anyways he went and got this brand new skateboard that his mom just bought him and I was like hey let me see that and he handed it to me and I ollied (meaning jumped up and did a trick) on it and when I came down I broke it! and the kid was like... you just broke my skateboard... LOL! Don't worry though I felt really bad and I am going to buy him a new one today at Wal-Mart (that's where his mom got the first one...) but now its so funny! I mean I hate when I do things like that but I do them so often that now I just accept them and laugh :D lol! Oh and one more favor! Tell Shelly and James that neither of them had a good excuse not to write me! I gave them 1 more day and they still couldn't even write me... jeez.. I see what is going on here.. there is just no love.. :D lol! MOM DAD! I love you though! You are faithful and diligent in your writing! :D Tell everyone hello from me and that I love them (even if you think I don't love them) and no I'm not on drugs! Thank you for everything! Mom no rush on those cookies.. Ill just put them with my Easter package... LOL! I'm just kidding :D Well remember what it means to say that the church is true! There is a lot that happens with that sentence.. and not only do we say it but do we show it! I love you guys so much! Take care! and let me know if there is anything I can do for you!

Elder Penman

May 11th E-mail

2009-05-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

Well whats happenin?!? This will probably be fairly short because well i just talked to you... lol But it was so wonderful to talk to you! Mom i hope you had a happy Mother's Day and i hope it carries out to every day! :D Oh so Mom when you take Shannon shopping you don't need to buy her anything from me unless you want to.. I have no idea right now what I'm going to get her but I'm sure i will figure it out :D But that is a great idea i think.. she needs someone to spend a little money on her ya know? :D and well if i could i would.. Well I'm trying to think of what i didn't already tell you... We had a pretty rough week this week when it comes to numbers.. but that's ok because we got a lot of appointments set up for next week.. so hopefully we get some new investigators! woot! well I'm glad to hear that you guys are doing good! I love you guys very much! keep your reading going! woot! take care and i cant wait to hear from you! Love ya!

Elder Penman

Some Fun Pictures!

2009-05-07T10:08:00.001-07:00

May 4th E-mail

2009-05-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

Well hello there fam! I got some exciting news for ya! I'm getting transferred! To Post Falls Idaho! And I have been called upon to be the District Leader there.. now I will be serving in 1 ward again (which i am very excited for) and that ward has had 20!!!! baptisms in the last 7!! months! wow! ya tell me about it! that is a ton! But i am so excited cause i will finally get to go to Coeur d'Alene! and i am now in the Coeur d'Alene zone.. my district is pretty small it is only us and one other companionship and the the zone leaders.. but that place is just on fire! So I can not wait to get there and hit the ground running! Oh and another good thing is that we only have a car every other week... that will work out very nicely because since I have been in a car for 6 straight months everything has turned to fat :D lol But what do ya do right? Yep tomorrow I heading out to there and so today we are crazy busy cause I have to pack everything and blah blah blah I hate packing and then we have a bunch of other stuff to do and people to say goodbye to and so forth! Anyways it will all get done... I have no worries! Hey I absolutely love you guys to death! Thanks so much for all you do for me! I know you pray for me but I will just add to please continue those prayers and even increase them because I will need them with going district leader and setting the tone for those other missionaries.. I have to tell you though that I am way excited! Jeez I get to talk to you guys in less than a week! How cool is that. But since I have no idea now where we are calling or what not I have no idea what time we will be calling.. so sorry about that but I will just have to call your cell phone and we can go from there! But hey things are great here! I hope all is well there I really appreciate you guys and all that you do for me! HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to all the mothers! Especially you mom! You are the best! take care of yourselves! I love ya!

Elder Penman

April 27 E-mail

2009-04-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

Well hello there parents! Whats happenin?!?! This week was pretty fun! We had some really good experiences finding new people to teach and such! I think things are really looking good right now! Transfers are in fact coming up though this Saturday we get calls but I would be surprised if either of us moved.. Its our first transfer together and usually you train for 2... but we will see.. Our district leader, Elder Jarman, is going home a week from today so we will get a new DL which hopefully they will be cool... Its absolutely crazy though to see people go home... It always sucks.. and I'm not looking forward to those days.. But I'm glad to hear that you guys are doing well.. i talked with Bro. McKinley and he really liked you guys.. I saw the book that you got him and i thought that was an interesting choice... lol! But I'm sure its good.. I'm very glad that you guys got to go to the baptism! We will be working on his wife! no worries! :D Well we are doing really good right now! We are getting ready to go play some basketball so I'm gonna let you go but I love you guys so much! and yep mom I will be calling you on the phone in less than 2 weeks.. I will just call your cell again and we will figure it out from there.. next week I will let you know when I will call and all that jazz... But I love you guys! Take care of yourselves! Talk to ya soon!

Elder Penman

April 20th E-mail

2009-04-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

Whats happening?!?! That is so cool that you all got to go to the baptism!!!! thank you for the pictures!!! I bet it was really neat he is a very neat guy! He is going to make a very strong member of this ward and i am excited for that! I told them that after the mish they are going to have to go out to dinner with us or something when they come down to see their fam... Well this week was actually pretty slow.. I don't know why but we just had a very slow week.. We aren't getting discouraged or anything.. because weeks like that just happen every once in a while but next week should be great! I'm glad to hear that your knee is doing really good mom! I noticed that neither of you commented on your diet this week... I hope i didn't sound negative towards it last week and so you don't want to tell me about it again lol... I think its great for you guys especially since you guys have bad knees and joints and just really really OLD bones!!! lol! I just want you to be healthy and live long time! lol! I love you guys to death! The gospel is so true! and to see guys like Bro. McKinley get baptized is just simply awesome! It is going to bless their lives so much! and i have no doubts that he will one day (in the near future) baptize his wife! no doubts at all... Well I love you guys! I hope you guys had a great time at the baptism! I don't think that will ever happen again... lol! That was a pretty unique opportunity... Well I love you guys very much! Take care! Elder Penman

Easter Sunday

2009-04-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

April 13th E-mail

2009-04-14T13:36:00.000-07:00

Whats happenin?!?! Well I hope you guys are excited to go to the baptism this coming Saturday! I think I already told you but just in case its at 10:00 a.m. at the church on Bernina like right in Shannon's neighborhood! woot! Well This week was pretty fun! We had some way cool sacrament talks... I am going to love working with our new bishop in Clarkston 1st ward.. he is so missionary friendly! lol But seriously like 1st ward has been slacking and he is putting an end to it! Well we caught word that they are looking for a new place for us to live... The Purcells are way cool and I don't really want to leave. I like living with the Purcells they are just wonderful people! But everything is going well for us, we had 5 investigators in sacrament and we got 2 new investigators this week! It's a couple who are about to have a baby and their names are Justin and Samantha. They came to church so hopefully things are looking up for them.

Well This diet sounds a little shocking... 30 lbs in 3 weeks is quite the shock on the body. I hope it is healthy and that your bodies aren't going to freak out and not know what is going on. I don't know much about it but I'm glad it's working for you guys. Just please be smart about it! Anyways, I love you guys very much! Remember to invite everyone to the baptism! Take care of yourselves! I love ya!

Elder Penman

April 6th E-mail

2009-04-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

Well Hello there fam! whats happenin? Was conference sweet or what! BAM! I cant wait for the ensign to come out! so i can study those talks! Jeffrey R Holland's talk blew me out of the water! It makes so much sense that the reason Heavenly Father withdrew himself from Christ wasn't because he couldn't bear to see his son that way but was because the savior had to experience spiritual death (not being in the presence of God) and so it was a must! so that he knew what it was like to be alone! WOW! I love conference! I hope you all got a lot out of it! there is so much to learn! We had a great week! and conference Sunday we got a new investigator! it was great! we also went tracting and we started talking to this guy named Dustin and he asked me if we celebrated palm Sunday... well by the look on my face he could tell i had no idea what the heck that even was... and so he told us what it was and what not.. well i said well we have an even better Sunday then that... we have an opportunity to hear from a prophet of God.. and then he said hold up, you are talking to a Protestant here and i have been to a lot of churches who will claim to have men of God and maybe even apostles but here you are now telling me that you have a prophet.. he says you have to have some big cajones to sit here and claim that you have a prophet.. and i was like well.. we got em! and he goes well tell me about the holy ghost so i told him what he does and what his role is.. and he says so you have the bible and you have the holy ghost.. why do you need more? and i said your right... in these crazy times in the world we couldn't use any more guidance... and he goes well no im just saying.. and i just smiled and then he says well how do you know he is a prophet and i said by the power of the Holy Ghost and he says you really think that the Holy Ghost told you that he is a prophet? and I said I don't think... I KNOW that the Holy Ghost has bore witness to me that Thomas Monson is a prophet of God! and just BAM! it was great! i was shutting him down left and right lol... but we invited ourselves back and he said ok but i have a lot of questions so come ready to bring it just like I'm going to bring it... and we said no problem... lol! it was awesome! but conference always gets me fired up to go talk to people! i love it! well i love you guys a ton! so the baptism is going to be at 10:00 a.m. and the church in Shanni's neighborhood on Bernina... and it will be Saturday the 18th... so invite all! and take pictures! I love you guys! thank you for everything! take care!

Elder Penman

Taking It Easy After Conference

2009-04-06T09:28:00.000-07:00

New Elder Penman Pictures

2009-04-03T11:14:00.001-07:00

March 30th E-mail

2009-03-31T09:11:00.000-07:00

WOOOOOOOOHHOOOOOOOO!!!!! Oh boy we are back in business! you better believe it! My greenie is on fire! His name is Elder Foerster and he is a stud! he is from Provo Utah and he is 6'7"!!!! he is freaking 2 inches taller than me! he says he got looks for basketball from Utah and BYU and Utah state and Snow college.... but who knows :D we played ball this morning and he got a dunk (when i was behind him) and then he went up for another dunk and i stuffed him and I scored on him a whole bunch and then he gave me the well its early and my muscles are too stiff and blah blah blah! lol! but that's ok... there is nothing like someone who didn't play high school basketball stuffing the crap out of you! lol! but it was way fun anyways! BUT! he is a hard worker and we have had the most wonderful week ever! We found 4 new investigators and we had 6 people in sacrament! WOOT!!! We walked a kid home from LCSC (Lewis-Clark State College) and then we were like well could we come back sometime and sit down with you and he said well i live right here what about right now? and so we went in and taught him the restoration! it was so cool! and then we went to check up on a potential and it was a lady... well her husband let us right in and said well since we are alone i will tell you guys that i have been wanting to go to the Mormon church for a while... and i have 3 grandsons who i want to bring with me cause they need something in their lives... and he was a catholic too! and so we taught him the restoration mixed with the Word of Wisdom! and BAM! we are going back this week! but i tell you what! things are on the up and up! I want you guys to know that i know that this is the Lord's work! and that he runs this church! I know that he suffered for us! so that we could have a chance back to heavenly father! I know that he lives! and that he loves us so much! I know the gospel is true with all my heart! thank you for everything that you do for me! take care of yourselves! Love ya!

Elder Penman

March 24th E-mail

2009-03-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

That's right! My boy isn't staying around... he is headed to Cheney! I am training again! Fresh off the boat! woot! I am excited about this one! He is going to be an absolute stud! So I have to tell you that the Internet is going really super slow right now and I can hardly send emails... so this is the only one that I'm writing so tell everyone else please... we had an awesome week this week with the Suman's baptisms! That was one of the best baptisms I have seen! It was awesome! Way fun to be a part of! In sacrament that was the first time I have seen 3 confirmations back to back to back like that... it was pretty cool! Afterwards the stake pres got up and released the bishop and called a new bishop in the ward.. which will be a good change! I liked Bishop Tucker but I am excited to work now with Bishop Williams... and especially with a new greenie! woot! So I pick him up tomorrow! And we go nuts! We got a lot going on and its going to be way exciting! I cant wait! woohoo! I am going to progress so much more this transfer! I am really going to just buckle down and give it my all! Our district leader is training on his last transfer too and so we are going to have 2 brand new ones in our district.. it will be pretty fun! I hope they are both jocks! So we can finally do fun things on p-day! lol! So Dick McKinley is getting baptized in UTAH! On the 18th of April! In Taylorsville! I will get you the time and place and I want everyone to be a part of it! I think that's pretty unique that you guys will get to be a part of one of my convert baptisms! He said he doesn't care who I invite! So invite everyone! Eddie and Kathy! Everyone! Nick and Shannon and her fam! I am way excited! But i will give you more details on that... oh and make sure you have a camera on you! So just a heads up...! Well oh and Nick wrote me and asked me some questions but just let him know that i will answer them next week cause the Internet sucks right now... but the weather is great! It hit 65 two days in a row last week and is supposed to be great this week! woohoo! I want you to know that I am very excited and I REALLY REALLY REALLY appreciate all of your prayers and such! Everything is great! This time we are shooting for the stars! I love you guys very much! thanks for everything you do for me! Take care! Talk to ya soon!

Elder Penman

March 19th Letter!

2009-03-19T16:17:00.000-07:00

Shanni!
Well what's happenin?! I saw some cute pictures of you with Logan and he is dang cute and boy I tell you what I don't know if it's just because I haven't seen you in so long but every time I get new pictures of you I swear that you get hotter and hotter! It makes me cringe at the fact that Utah is LOADED with wife hunting RMs! But we only have 8 more months to go before we are out of the "high risk dear john" stage and we enter into the "holy crap he is coming home in less than 6 months" stage. :)
So I have great news for you! I am more than likely going to buy a brand spankin new camera! Now you might ask yourself how this is a good thing for you...Well I must tell you that if I do this, which I probably will, then I will want to take pictures of everything and guess who will get more pictures? YOU! WOOT! Good idea? Yep I thought so too! I wish I could sing you a song right now! That's just how happy I am! It wouldn't be very good and it would be made up and probably about how beautiful you are! But it would be fun! So the picture of me in the doorway with the Iron gym does make me look like a giant but I have to tell you that this basement is tiny! The door jam is at 6'4'' and I'm still only 6'5''. So don't worry I didn't grow a foot while I have been out here lol!
I just got the news that Willis died about 2 weeks ago! I heard it from Elder Clyde (who is engaged btw) But no one told me that Willis had passed! It kind of upsets me because I could have gone to his service. But anyway he is in a lot better shape right now I can tell you that! He was awesome though. I loved Willis.
Well I love you very much! I feel like we've come closer together even being apart. Thank you for always being there for me! I truly appreciate your support! I don't know what I'd do without you! I look forward to hearing from you soon! Take care!!
Elder Penman

March 16th E-mail

2009-03-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Whats happening ?!?!? How have you guys been? Well dad its too bad I'm not there to out drive you :D lol! J/k so ya that iron gym doesn't work so great in the basement of the house we live in. :D The door jams are like 6'4" so I have to duck all the time! It's just wonderful! And the ceiling fans... well they are even worse! lol! But I'm hanging in there! So Dick Mckinley (Jace Hymus' father in-law) wants to be baptized in April! AND not only that but he wants to do it in UTAH!!! So you guys and Shannon and her fam and everyone might just be able to be a part of one of my convert baptisms!!!!! Now of course I wont be there lol but that would be so freaking cool!!!!! It would be at one of the stake centers in Taylorsville! So I will let you know when! But in April! Be ready for the chance of a lifetime! :D Also! Transfer calls are this Saturday and we are having a baptism!!!! The Suman family! The dad is dunking 3 of em!!!! Woot!!! We (well I) are so stinking excited!!! Oh and I might just buy me a new camera today... I am getting sick of the battery thing on the camera and I have plenty of money... and I want a better one anyways... So I might just get me one! woot! I need to send my card home cause it is full so I will be doing that sometime. Well I love you guys very much! I hope that all is well! Take care! I will talk to you soon! WOOT for transfers! lol! It is true I am very transfer trunky! I cant wait! lol! Love ya! Take care!
Elder Penman

Has He Grown Taller!?

2009-03-11T20:13:00.000-07:00

That Iron Gym isn't going to work very well by the looks of this...

March 9th E-mail

2009-03-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

Back to work for 3 days and already faking sick???? lol! jk! I completely understand. So how is your knee mom? I hope it is doing better! Just keep on pushing through it! We woke up to a wonderful snow storm today! It was awesome then I started pelting Elder Allred with snowballs and now he is all bent out of shape... lol poor California boy. But hey it's ok :D Well the Sumans are doing great and they are on their way! Their date is still the 21st so we are pretty dang excited! It's so fun to teach them! The one boy who is a member (Toni) is 10 years old and he asks hilarious questions all the time.. it's so funny! I don't even remember an example but they are just really long and drawn out and sophisticated... it's funny. One of the boys that is getting baptized is Logan and he is 10 and I introduced a scripture and said now keep that in mind as we read this scripture and he goes OH ill keep it in mind for sure! It's just way fun! and Jordan the 12 year old he prayed "and bless us that next time we can have an awesome lesson like today's lesson... even though I already know that it will be." lol! I will get pictures with them! I'm probably going to buy another card for my camera cause the one I have is full... so I need to send
it home.. so I will send it soon. Well I went on an exchange with the Zl's and I went up to Pullman
for a day.. and it's so stinkin fun up there! WSU is a fun place to be! Especially on a Friday night LOL!! Thats all I will say about that lol! But it was good to get away for a day! Well other than that this week was pretty good! We did a LOT of tracting... but we have no choice! Our work is dwindling in unbelief! But thank you so much for everything! Thank grandma and grandma & grandpa and Janet & Dave and everyone! I will write them eventually but for now tell them thanks! I have the best family in the world! :) Well I love you guys! Take care! Send me pics! Elder Penman

More Boxing and One Tired Companion

2009-03-04T09:48:00.000-08:00

March 2nd E-mail

2009-03-04T09:40:00.000-08:00

whats happenin?!?! Well I am pretty warn out cause we just got done playing some ball at WSU!!!! woot!!! That place is so stinkin cool! I will send a pic of it home sometime... (and by home I mean to Shannon :D)We put a part-member family on-date for baptism this week! Their name is the Suman's and the dad is a member but the wife and 2 sons are getting baptized! So on the 21st of March we are having 3 baptisms!!!! woot! So pray for them! Please :D other than that i cant think of anything that has been real exciting... I have been pretty much super pissed off all week! my comp is about to catch one in the dome! I tell you what! but I wont get into that :D I could use some prayers and DON'T pray for me to have patience I don't need any more opportunities! I get plenty! Thank you tho :D Well I love you guys so much!Thank you for the awesome shoes! They work great and they are so cool lookin! dang! I like em! Well I got to go buy some beer and give it to homeless people.... but take care! Love ya!

Elder Penman

New Pictures!

2009-02-19T16:58:00.001-08:00

Elder P. and Elder A. on Valentines Day
Elder P. and Elder Jarman fighting!

February 16th E-mail

2009-02-17T20:29:00.000-08:00

how are my favorite parents in the whole wide world?!?! well that's fabulous! I'm doing pretty good myself! my comp is "sick" but hrrrrp he will do fine! this week i went on an exchange with the DL (the one i knocked out...:D ) and well we had a long chat about what we could do for our companions. anyways we came up with some good game plans and so we will see how they work out! today we went boxing again and oh man its such a dang good workout! and yes dad i do have an itch for boxing now! lol doesn't mean i will become one but i will knock you out! OHHH!!! lol not that i couldn't before i left... but now even more so lol! but its nice to work off some anger and some back fat... :D we are teaching that 16 year old kid Seth and he is doing much better! his grades are up and his mom is happy so now we just have to teach him and keep him on the straight and narrow! and he can be baptized anytime now! so that's cool! we are also teaching a guy named Praveen! he is Hindu! but not for long! he has come to church like 5 or 6 times and he likes the "karma" there... and so we have been taking baby steps with him! teaching him about the nature of God and the godhead and their roles and so forth! but its cool! its a lot of fun! but other than that things have been going just fine... thanks so much for the cookie! wow! it lasted like 5 minutes lol! i seriously thought about eating my comps real fast and then eating mine so that he didn't even know you sent him one lol! but i didn't! i gave it to him! oh tell bro McDougal hello and that Clarkston is in the Lewiston Stake and there is only 1 stake here in the valley but tell him we are working on it :D! Moscow and Pullman and everything used to be in the Lewy stake but now they have their own stake... so that's cool.. well i love you guys! oh and mom about motherhood and so forth.. well one day when i am a mother i might have some advice for you but until then i think you know that subject a little better than i do :D! and plus you make a pretty dang good one! :D happy valentines day a little late! and i love you guys a ton! take care! talk to ya soon!
Elder Penman
p.s. If you didn't already get me something for my b-day i need some new basketball shoes.. i want them black with say a little bit of red on em! and make em spiffy! lol! thanks! love ya!

February 9th E-mail

2009-02-09T18:44:00.000-08:00

Whats happenin?!?! wow this week was fun! But I'm afraid my letter wont be too long cause i am starting to get a head ache :D for an awesome reason though! this morning!!!! we went boxing! ok i will tell you a little bit about this family their last name is grow and the dad was a boxer and the son that just got back from a mission was a boxer as well...(like 2nd in the nation at one point) and bro. grow's dad was a world class boxer (Jim Grow) he fought in the garden a few times.. and bro. Grows brother (Mike Grow) was a pro and 2nd in the world at one point... and when i told them i lived across the street from Gene Fulmer they about crapped themselves and then when i told them that i didn't even know who he was at first they couldn't even believe it lol.... but ok they have access to a private gym and the son took us over there and had us do a little work out..(by little i mean i am freaking exhausted!) but anyways afterwards he let us spar for a couple 2 min rounds... and I will send you a picture but me and my district leader went at it twice (he is like 5' 10" 165 and he was a QB) but anyways i just got done with a round with a heavyweight Elder Lamb and i kicked his trash cause he is super slow and then elder Jarman (District Leader) and his comp went at it and i knocked his comp down in the first punch and so they had me step in with him and i was super tired but we were pretty even and he caught me with some good ones... and then he fought Lamb and kicked his trash and then the final round was me and Jarman and i will send you a picture of what happened but i caught him with the sweetest right hand and he landed flat on his back! it was sweet! then he jumped up and had no clue where he was for a min lol!!! it was so dang fun tho! and such a good workout! but no worries no one got hurt we had head gear and 16oz gloves and mouth pieces and all that jazz! but we hardly get a workout like that so it was fun! but with lack of water and not used to getting hit in the head i have a slight headache but it is so stinking worth it! it was fun but i will send some pictures! and well of course you guessed it Elder Milktoast didn't step into the ring all he did is take pictures! but that's ok! well the work is going good too! but its nice to get a few frustrations out as well lol! but we got 3 more new gators this week and one is a Hindu guy who has come to church 4 times before we had a lesson with him! how sad is that on our part! durrrrr... anyways! lol i love you guys and i hope you have fun in St. George. mom tell vaughna that i love her and that if she needs anything she better be on the phone and calling one of you! give her a hug for me too! tell her the "her tall friend hasn't forgotten her!" but hey i love you guys! take care! i look forward to getting the package you sent me! mom i seriously have no clue what i want for my b-day! whatever you get me just don't spend a lot of money! in fact you could take whatever you were going to spend and put in in the bank to gain interest for when i get back! lol! i dunno i just don't need much while i am out here ya know... and ya some jerseys would be sweet when i got back but i don't need to pack them around while i am here... i dunno that's the best part about a mish is i don't have to worry about myself :D so sorry i am no help at all! BUT! i do love ya! :D so take care! have fun! and mom don't forget your scriptures! don't forget to have family prayer! and go to church dang it!!!! lol!! i love you guys! Elder Penman

February 2nd E-mail

2009-02-02T21:22:00.000-08:00

hey its good to hear from you guys!! well things are going pretty well here! they are getting a lot better! that's for sure! We had a pretty good week and most of all the best part during the week was that Elder Allred wasn't all that bad.. I had to tell him to shut his pie hole a few times but hey things are getting better! I think after Elder Allred talked to president and after his bishop called him and he got whatever was holding him back off his shoulders he is ready to move on and now we just have to deal with a little stubbornness and he is still in 8th grade... but that's ok... I am learning to be patient that's for sure.. but i love the work! I absolutely do! i hear that the Superbowl was pretty dang good that's cool! its too bad that the cardinals didn't pull it out though.. that would have been awesome i think for them to win! but oh well the steelers are a good team... I am however upset that i didn't get to see any of the game lol! but oh well we went and taught a guy and put him on-date for the 28th so that was better than the Superbowl anyways! lol! well I love you guys a ton! its good to hear that you are both doing ok! keep hanging in there! keep reading your scriptures! anywho i love you and i will talk to you next week! take care!

Elder Penman

January 26th E-mail

2009-01-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

Hey whats happenin?!?! well we had an ok week! yesterday was pretty exciting but the rest of the week was meh.. So yesterday I spoke in sacrament in first ward.. and it was pimpin! i took like 20 mins and it was a piece of cake :D didn't even prep that much lol! I love it! anyways then Pres Baker (a counselor in the mission presidency) came down for a fireside for second ward.. and so all the members are now pumped for missionary work! and! in first ward a kid brought his friend to church and his friend (who is a sophomore) wants to be baptized! so we are going to start teaching him this week! we put him on date and then after church we contacted this guy name Dan Madden who lives in second ward! and he is so dang golden! We were telling him about the BoM and said Christ came here to teach these people and he said do you think that that was what he was talking about when he said there were other people somewhere else....? and i said you mean other sheep that i have which are not of this fold?(John 10:16) and he was like ya! and i said turn to 3 Nephi 15:21 and he did and was like wow! and to start off the lesson he was like you know i have been to many different Christian denominations and i think they all have bits of the truth but i don't think they have the whole thing... and we were like wuhhhh.... I said well Dan I believe you are going to like what we have to say.. and he said well I'm all ears.. lol! it was so sweet! so we are going to teach him again on Saturday and put him on date as well! AWESOME! work is going well! thanks for getting me Jace Hymus' number! i called him and he is going to work the other side for me! I think his Father In-law got Antied... but we will see.. anyways today we butchered chickens!!!!!!! It was so freaking fun! first you go in and catch the little buggers then you bring them out and chop their heads off and drain the blood out by holding them upside down and then you pull them apart and its so easy! its way fun too!! I have pictures :D and i will send them to shanni soon! she probably wont like them very much lol but i do! it was fun! plus the guy gave us some eggs and when he is done prepping the meat we get some of that too! and they are 2 year old chickens that were corn fed with no hormones or anything! i cant wait to eat it!!!!!!!!!!! wow! but it was so fun! and OF COURSE freaking milk toast wouldn't come out of the house even... so he sat in and wrote letters while everyone else in the district participated in the decapitating of chickens :D !!! woohoo!!! it was awesome! but hey i love you guys so much! take care! mom don't over do it! and hang in there! alright well i love you guys! take care!

Elder Penman

January 19th E-mail

2009-01-19T20:56:00.000-08:00

Well hello! how are you doing?!?! mom I'm not the one that you have to tell "I better marry Shannon" you better tell her that lol! well hang in there with the knee! that's funny what your doctor said but i can imagine that it is true! what he doesn't know is that that "punch in the face" would really turn into a "golden toe dropkick in the stones" :D but hang in there it will all work out! its good to hear that people are taking care of you! dad sorry you aren't feeling well.. geez you are both down... imagine that lol... sorry both of ya! but hey just hang in there! everything will work out smooth! well i have some good news! We had a baptism last night!!! it was amazing! Al Cormack got baptized! it was one of the coolest! His wonderful wife Sue Cormack got up and bore her testimony and she said that when they got married she accepted that as a blessing from heavenly father that she would have a good companion for the rest of this life.. and now that he has made this decision it opens up a whole new world of opportunity for them! there was an amazing sense of Joy in that room last night and the spirit was so strong! but that puts the count of couples i will get to see sealed in the temple while i am here at 2! woohoo!!! I am so excited! this is just wonderful! I love my mission! I wouldn't trade it for anything! well things are getting super busy... so much that (its a good thing) i don't think about anything else... I am just
constantly on the go and my brain has never been filled with so much information at once... (ya dad it is a good thing i came on m y mission with a "brand new" brain :D ) but ya things are
getting crazy busy! and time just flies! wow.. but hey next time you send me something send me
some more little tapes so i can start "keeping my journal" lol cause now my excuse isn't i am too lazy it is that i don't have enough time... which is true.. but hey i hope all is well! let me know how grandma Penman is doing! tell everyone hi for me! speaking of grandma Penman I called Pres
Clark to see how she was doing and i said hey President how are ya i was just calling cause my grandma had surgery and i wanted to know how she is doing... and he said you are spooky you know that? and i was like huh? and he said i was listening to the voicemail from your dad and as soon as it got over you called on the other line... then he told me how things went and what not.. but i thought it was pretty funny... But anyways! i love you guys! take care of yourselves! keep up the reading! I love you!
Elder Penman

January 16th Letter

2009-01-16T15:21:00.001-08:00

Hey there! How are you? Well things are going pretty good here I do want you to know that I was dreaming of you on New Years Eve cause I went to bed at like 10:00 Lol. Yep it is a small world ...Elder Mulvayne(I don't have a clue how to spell his name either :))went to the singles ward in my first area and he was dating Wendy...remember Wendy? Anyway he is pretty cool.

Well things around here have been just crazy! Training is very tiring! I have no idea how it all gets done but it does somehow! Its like I am doing the same work but there is a lot more and I am twice as tired. It is wierd but I love it! It makes time just fly by. In fact I didn't hardly realize that a week had gone by and that I hadn't written you yet :) Don't worry I didn't forget you!! But our schedule has been nuts. Yesterday (Tuesday) we were in Spokane from 9:00-2:00 for a newbie pow-wow or in other words a new missionary training. That involved 5 hours of driving-two and a half each way. So we got back and ran to our members who were feeing us and ate then ran to a lesson(we didn't really run, we actually drove) and then went straight to another lesson and so things have just been nuts. Its great I have no complaints.:)

So we were in the meeting and Pres was talking about how when we talk to people we do what he calls "ask the inspired question." Anyway he share this one story about these 2 missionaries who were tracting and this lady comes to the door and she is holding a baby. The one elder talks to her about the restoration and she says she wasn't interested. Well before she shuts the door the other elder asks ma'am do you know where your baby came from? That got her thinking and they set up an appt. and went back and taught them. Well I was sitting there and I am like wait a second...that was ME! Lol that was me and Elder Everett talking to Tessa! Pres. said he didn't know how it all turned out but the elder that is in my old area said to him that that was me and he was shocked that he forgot who told him that! :) So I finished the rest of the story for him...it was pretty cool to have one of your spiritual experiences used for a training by president! But anywho we also had interviews last week and I absolutely love pres. He is so cool I am going to be sad when he goes home in July.

I am very sorry for no pictures! I will send some soon! I wanted to take some before we went to Walmart and my batteries were dead and we weren't home so I couldn't charge some. Sorry! I still love you very much if that helps any! Good luck with school! I hope all is well for you! Hang in there! Can you believe its been 1/3 of my mission today? Wow that is crazy. Well I love you and can't wait to hear from you! Take care!

Love, Elder Ryan John Penman

January 12th E-mail

2009-01-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

well hello! mom i am glad to hear that you are doing well with recovery! Pres Clark was so nice he called me to tell me that dad had called and that everything went really well.. dad please call and let me (pres Clark) know how grandma does... i told him about the surgery and what not.. I will be praying for her and you as well mother! :D i am glad to hear that you have been reading your scriptures everyday! i will be out 8 months this week and so you only have 4 months left (in a sense) to be done with the BoM once... remember 2 times before i get back lol! but if you have been reading everyday then you should be pretty far along.. :D I know it has helped you as well mom! it helps me! if i didn't start my day off with 5 or so prayers before i walk out the door and a good 2 hours of study then i would have killed Elder Milk toast by now.. that's for sure.. but the Lord blesses me with patience and sharpness... (sharpness for the humbling of my companion on occasion...) so we had interviews this week and they went really well Pres asked me how Elder Allred was doing and then he said and give me details... so i did i told him that i had to "humble" him a few times and he laughed and said well how did you humble him and i told him how i did and it was very loving and straight to the point with no argument (pretty much my way or go back to Cali) :D and pres said he was proud of me and the way i handle things and that he feels in our stake we have very strong "senior" companions :D and that we will get the job done.. and he feels that my group i came out with is the backbone of the mission for the new president (coming in in like July) so that was cool to hear that he trusts me a lot and that he feels i am doing a good job... but this week my comp was acting about 5 years old and just being a real pain and so ( by the way he is terrible at arguing... i could argue with I'm about something i have no idea about and shut him doing hard core) I decided to play his little game and show him what its like to be around an idiot all day long... so everything he said i would dispute and he was getting really annoyed cause he couldn't do anything and i kept telling him he needed to grow up and that we could play this game all day... anyways (and this will give you an idea of just how he really is) i said well elder on a serious note i want to ask you a question... and he says no i don't answer questions on a serious note from Satan.. LOL!!! and i said so you are saying that i am Satan? and he looks at me and i said that wouldn't make any sense cause Satan cant tempt little kids... and he got pissed and wouldn't talk to me and i said see elder that isn't going to work with me i will win every time.... anyways (i know that doesn't sound very good but it was needed i couldn't hold back any longer...) but then that night i had to break him down and he kept interrupting me and i finally got up to him and said don't say a word and then he just sat there and listened...but trust me no matter how mean i sound.. he needed it and I'm going to go ahead and say that pres Clark approved it.. cause when i started telling him what was going on the only thing he said back to me was yep 19 of them came out and its interesting to see the variety of that big of a bunch. But anyways we didn't have a baptism it has been getting moving around 50 different times... but beside the point Al Cormack is doing great and we had an awesome lesson with him last night to where at first he didn't want to commit very strongly to the WoW but then we promised him specific blessings and offered a priesthood blessing to start things off... (he is a retired doctor who drinks coffee to help him get moving in the morning cause he has fibromyalga) that was probably horrible spelling but you get the idea.. but it was neat he is done with coffee. now we just have to teach him tithing and he is on his way... and this week the Mckinleys came to church for the first time.. its pretty cool deal they are an older couple (late 60's) and they have a daughter that is a member and their son-in-law is the girls basketball coach at Taylorsville.. i cant remember his name right now but i know him.. anyways its a small world... but hopefully they will be on-date this week.. they were planning on staying for the first 2 hours and then they enjoyed themselves and so they stayed for the third hour as well... i am excited about them he read the whole BoM in like 2 months... its pretty cool... he still says that "its hard to put down" talking about the BoM he cant stop reading it :D but anyways things are going very well right now! we had a very full week.. the best week that i have had since i have been here and so i thank you for all of your prayers! oh and by the way i didn't have to turn the shower on for Elder Allred all week! he is getting stronger!!! lol! well hang in there guys! don't let anything get you down! Heavenly Father loves you! and he wants the best for ya! thanks for all that you do for me! and i look forward to hearing from ya soon! love ya!
Elder Penman

January 5th E-mail!

2009-01-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

well hows it going?!?! i hope all is well! well i guess tomorrow is the big day huh?! mom is going to get a little terminator in her lol! pretty soon we will just have to settle for some metal rents :D well mom don't be nervous everything is going to run smooth! i have faith! especially since you have been reading your scrips! :D it does wonders! well i got me a boy now! Elder Allred from
Cloverdale California... he is about 6'3 and about 250 and guess what his hobby is?!?! reading... hrrrp but oh well.. he is the youngest of 3 boys and he is very spoiled.. he cant turn on the shower because i "turn the nobs too tight" he had no idea how to do laundry and today i had to inform him that 32 degrees is the temperature for freezing.... so yep i have to turn the shower on for him... but i tell you what i tighten them harder and harder ever time now... he will be able to turn the shower on by the time he is done with me... lol! ya but he has been very spoiled his whole life... he doesn't have a drivers license because he doesn't like to drive but he sure likes to complain about my driving lol! and no it hasn't gotten any better :D but we had some problems for the first few days with my boy being way too freaking prideful.. I'm talking way way way prideful.. and so in a very loving way i had to put him in his place and humble him a very little lot a bit... and since then things have just been great.. he is still a spaz and has really no common sense but i can handle that! :D lol! but it is hard to do missionary work when you aren't humble and you aren't teachable you know? but i wont give you any details but i have to say that humbling him was the best thing i could have done.. and it was a little bit fun too :D ... but anyways we are having a baptism of FRIDAY!!! woot woot! BIG AL CORMACK!!! taking the plunge!! that's what I'm talking about! he is going to make such a great member and you know he and looking forward to being sealed to his wife! (very active member) before baptism! and guess what! i will still be here when they are sealed!!! woohoo!!! that's 2 weddings on my list!! :D the Saterens and the Cormacks! exciting stuff! i tell ya! the mission is great! I absolutely love it!
and i want you to know that this church is so true! and it is given to us to bring us joy and that is what it truly does! I love you guys! dad! you are keeping the stash? just let it go too... i mean come on dad i remember the pictures with you and a stash... lol!! but whatever you do don't smash Reid in the grill lol! and mom i love you! i will be praying f or you! but dont worry! everything will be fine! dad i have to call pres tomorrow to let him know how my greenie is doing and i will ask him about if i can get a hold of you to see how mom is doing... just go ahead and email me back and tell me what time mom is going in when you find out and how long you think she will be and then i will see if someone at the office will either call you or what i dunno but we will figure something out.. and im sure you could call the office and they will get me the message either way but just email me back and i will figure something out... LOVE YA!! good luck mom!! and hey there is nothing like learning the scriptures on drugs lol!!! take care!

Elder Penman

Pictures!

2008-12-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

December 29th E-mail

2008-12-30T14:58:00.000-08:00

Well good news! I'm PREGNANT!!! With a baby boy!! lol! Yep I'm going to be training! I am so excited! Its going to be sweet! It was very fun to talk to you! You all sounded good and it was good to hear your voices! We got taken care of this week! The members were so good to us! it was fun but I have like a pile of candy! Seriously its insane! Its way too much! So I hope my greenie likes candy :D Well not too much happened the rest of this week. We did get one new investigator... but to tell ya the truth I can't even remember what we did cause I am just too excited to get my greenie lol! Oh after I talked to you guys we went and had a snowball fight at some members house and then we went sledding in our suits lol! I'm glad that you guys has Shannon over for a little bit though! She is so awesome! Well mom are ya getting nervous?! Just remember that everything will be fine and pretty soon it wont hurt anymore! woohoo!! Anyways I have to go to Spokane tomorrow morning to pick him up and I have no idea who it is yet.. but it will be fun! So anyways I will let you know how it all goes! Take care! Keep up the good work! Keep reading your scrips! Love ya! Oh and dad... don't wuss out on the hair now :D! lol! Take care!
Elder Penman

December 12th Letter

2008-12-14T18:06:00.000-08:00

Hey whats happening!? So you are very welcome! But ya whats the deal with your mailman? You should punch him in the dome for me! I was getting a little worried there! I thought you were testing me or paying me back for making you wait LOL. But hey its good to hear your excitement and that you liked your Christmas present! I was hoping that you would!

I'm glad you didn't have time to go help with chocolates! You are way too busy for that and I hope that you aren't too stressed out! If so just know that it will be okay and that I love ya! And even though you are way busy don't forget the lord in your life. Still take a few minutes and read your scrips and say your prayers! I promise that things will go smoother.

Okay so I did know a few of your seven facts, I knew about the corndog/pickles and that you are a "homebody" and I definitely knew about the pajama pants! Lol you wore those all the time! But I did not know the other ones! That was pretty fun, lets see if I can come up with seven myself...

1. I generally have to have the volume of things on either a 5 or 0. I can't stand it when its on something in between! ( I hope that makes sense)
2. I was supposed to be a twin. They suspected the other one to be a girl! So I will have another sibling in heaven? :) I hope so!
3. I like to have a towel over my shoulder when I'm cooking. :)
4. I absolutely love walking outside on a brisk morning! I like cold weather.
5. I am the only missionary out here that is "practically sealed." LOL
6. That one really long blonde hair that I had on my belly is now gone! I have no idea what happened!
7. I really really really like butter. :)

Lol well those are kinda hrrrp and you probably knew most of them but I dunno you just know me too well! Thank you for the pictures I will send some soon! So don't get too impatient. :) So Elder Burrell wrote Cami :) Tell her that she has to send him a picture and if Ashley writes him she has to send him a picture too!

Happy holidays! Remember I love you! I look forward to hearing from you again! I hope all of your finals went well! Keep reading your scriptures! Tell everyone hi for me! Tell your mom that I look forward to eating her pies for years to come!

Love,
Elder Ryan John Penman

December 8th E-mail

2008-12-08T18:35:00.000-08:00

Jeez what took you so long with chocolates?!?! we were in and out in no time! see that tells you only one thing... you guys are getting OLD!!!! lol! ha ha! it will be so worth it! think mom only 1 more dipping session without me! lol! I'm glad you got through it and you are sending me some!I cant wait! I don't care if they are all mixed together by the time they get to me I will just eat the one big chocolate!! It was good to see a pic of (mom,grandma,Janet,Shannon) Shannon sent it to me and I looked at it and showed my comp and I said "I used to bug the crap out of all 4 of them!" lol!!! It made me want to tickle all of ya lol! OK so something happens every week at church! I swear it is so interesting! OK so last week, in priesthood, they were talking about a guy who showed up at the ward party the day after thanksgiving and he came in with 2 families and so both families thought that he was with the other one.. so anyways the kids are all playing in an area of the cultural hall and the adults are talking and what not with each other in another part.. well anyways this guy was in there with the kids... (and btw we have 4 cops in 2nd ward) well anyways one of the cops goes over and starts interrogating him you know asking him who are you with? Where are you from? etc. etc. and anyways he finds out that the guy is living in his car and has slept in the parking lot of the church a few times. Well this week that guy shows up for church and stays during the first whole block and then is waiting to meet with the bishop and it was right after we got out of PEC with 2nd ward and our bishop said if anyone sees this man I need to know right away ASAP.. and we walk out of that meeting and the guy is standing right there... (oh I forgot to mention that at the party the guy somehow had a list of all the bishops names and phone numbers) and anyways it was really wierd but this guy went in and met with 1st ward bishop because 2nd ward was about to start. Well right during the meeting one of the cops got up and was bearing his testimony and the 3 others just out of instinct I guess got up and walked out of the room and so I don't know what the heck was going on but I later found out that they escorted the guy off the property and told him if he goes on any church property he will be arrested and found out the he has a warrant in 2 states and is a sex offender. So that was interesting! Now another story on the side is that there was this guy that got baptized a little while ago and his name is Vance. I didn't find out about Vance until he showed up at church on Sunday.. Vance got baptized and called himself on a mission for 5 years.. and just up and left his family and kids. OK well come to find out he didn't make it 5 years cause well he was back at church Sunday he just got back from his trip... well he went to 18 different states and went to as much church history stuff as he could in the US. He also along the way lived in a ton of different homeless shelters but he did have his jeep... He gets back and says you know there are just too many conflicts going on at home and Sunday told us he is moving to salt lake and breaking up with his wife. (Well there is conflict because you abandoned your family and called yourself on a mission!) Now his idea of missionary work is picketing. He has signs and a saying that goes "1 2 3 one true church" LOL! So he is picketing FOR the church! lol!!! He went to do that all over the country! now he is preparing to go to Israel and wont even shake anyones hand at church because they don't shake hands in Israel LOL!!! So this guy is insane! And he doesn't understand why there are problems at home! Well what is going to happen with him is if he leaves his family again he is going to get ex-ed.... you just cant do that! Well anyways so there is his background and remember this was his first Sunday back... well right when all the cops got up and left the room Vance stood up to go up there to bear his testimony (and Vance was sitting in the very back row with us) The bishop popped right up and pointed at him and pointed out in the hall and went out of the room too to meet with Vance! So we are going what the heck is going on?!?! Everyone just up and left lol!! It was interesting... and so anyways Vance came and sat back down (obviously didn't get to bear his testimony) and the meeting just kept on going lol! The meeting didn't stop or anything but it was just funny. But ya so I'm looking forward to a normal week! lol! I hope you guys are doing well!! I love you all!! Take care! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! oh and btw I did get the under armor and it rocks!! Love ya! Take care! Dad that blows you have to shave your goat! I would be pissed! Take care!
Elder Penman