April 5th E-mail

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

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

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

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

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

Elder Penman

March 29th E-mail

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

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

March 22nd E-mail

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

Elder Penman

March 15th E-mail

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

Elder Penman

March 8th E-mail

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

Elder Penman

March 1st E-mail

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

Elder Penman

February 21st E-mail

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

Elder Penman