mis-sion-ary (noun): someone who leaves their family for a short time so that others may live with their families for Eternity.

Monday, October 25, 2010

HALLOWEEN

HEY YO! Those halloween pictures were awesome! Hunters iron man costume is so legit. Did Jess dye her hair or is that part of the costume. If its just a wig you should tell her that she should dye her hair black haha it looks good. That is cool that you guys had a trunk or treat. We have a halloween party here on the 30th, it was going to be a trunk or treat but there is a crazy lady in our ward that said kids shouldn't be outside on halloween?!? so we are having just a dinner thing inside the church. Well i dont know if i told you but Renee's baptism was supposed to be on the 30th but she changed the date because she has to work that day so the new date is on November 12th. She wants me to baptize and confirm her. So that is going to be a new exciting thing. haha. I keep making hints how Elder Blomdal or the bishop or someone else can do one of them but she keeps saying she wants me to do both so oh well thats cool :-) But we do have another baptism the 30th that is still going to happen. His name is Dominique and he is 16. He has been going to church with his mom and step dad for the last 3 years and has just now decided to get baptized. He reminds me a lot of me because he is rebellious and he listens to "loud" music. haha. He showed me a song from a band that i used to listen to and i was like holy cow i cant believe i used to listen to this garbage. So yeah at least we still have a baptism that day.
But yeah we are just chuggin along on bike. That is pretty awesome that tyler was an assistant to the president. Oh by the way they never wrote me back either so i should be getting on them. But yeah i can only imagine the responsibilities he had. I dont want to be a zone leader haha. I would do it for sure because that is what the lord wants me to do but that is a lot of responsibility. That is pretty weird that you werent feeling good. because yesterday I threw up in the morning and we stayed at home all day. It was the most boring day of my life. I felt like I was useless. I felt terrible that i didn't go to church but i tried to get up and everytime i would get up my stomache would churn like crazy. I slept all day. I didn't get out of bed and stay out until 7:00 p.m. Yeah it was not a good day at all. But i am definately feeling better today. I'm sorry that everyone back at home is sick too. Hopefully you all get feeling better!
I am not sure what i want to tell the youth. I think the biggest thing that you can tell them is to go to church and go to your meetings because you want to. and if they dont want to and are going because they are forced, then to change their hearts fast because i know that going to things just because someone else wants you to can stink. and you wont learn much like that at all. Its like mission prep, at first i would only go because you guys wanted me to but then i got it through my thick skull that i was going to go on a mission and that i needed to go for me. And when i went like that i definately learned and got a lot more out of it!
So yeah. You can tell them that. I hope you guys have a great week and a Wonderful Halloween! i will send you some pictures of me and my new comp. love you!

Monday, October 18, 2010

WHY DO PEOPLE GET OFFENDED?

Whats crackalackin? hope you guys had a good week. Yeah so I had a crazy last couple weeks huh? This week has been really good. Some GREAT NEWS!! We moved out of the Allens house and into a family called the Browns. The browns are awesome, they are 50 and they are big into sports and stuff. The only downside is that they are completely on one side of the ward so we have a long ways to go to see people. But it is all good, more excersize and we are definately not living with that family anymore. There was just so much going on there, they were just not nice people. They absolutely couldn't stand my last companion, and the main reason was because he cooked bacon every morning! yeah they were a little different. Anyways also my new companion and I are getting along way good. I dont know if I told you but he is from san fran. He reminds me a lot of the Elder in the MTC that I was way good friends with. Because they are both from Cali, and all those people are the same. haha. SO yeah hes been out a transfer longer than me so we are both pretty dang new but we are doing well. He is definately my most normal companion so far and we get along really well. We have Renee set for baptism on the 30th of October now. Also we are teaching a family called the fletchers. They are way good, 3 years ago they had missionaries over there and they were way close to baptism and then a dumb missionary told them that they would never be able to see their dead son again. Which obviously they took offense to and so me and elder HOrner finally went back and started teaching them and now they are pretty close again. Ok. and remember when i told you that the Bishop in our ward was saying some dumb things? So we finally went back there after 2 months. And they said they were progressing a ton and they put there foot down and said they were going to church every week. Then the Bishop said some things so now they say they are back at the beginning. So I hate when people get offended! can i say that? because if they know that it truly is true then the people that say dumb things wont make them think differently of the church. Because people in our church judge a lot, and it is just up to you to not get offended and know that it is still true. ya know what I mean? guhh.
You can tell the youth to seriously go to mission prep and to take it seriously and go because that is what you will be doing for the next to years and not just for your parents. You can use that story about Camerons baptism and his kids. Just tell them to get prepared and to keep themselves worthy or make themselves worthy to serve a full time mission. So hope you have a good week and i love you and pray for you. LOVE ELDER GNEHM!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

ANSWERED PRAYER

Familia!! So a lot happened over the past couple days. So our investigator Renee Alvarez came to church and Elder Horner my companion told her that he was getting transfered(yes he left, i'll tell you more later) and she started crying and walked out of church and said she would call back later. So it was like 930 at night and I was saying my prayers and I said please bless that Renee will call us back and the second i did it, the phone rang and I heard my companion say oh its renee. So holy crap, that was cool haha so my comp was talking to her and she says she wants to move the baptism back a little bit, so it wont be this weekend it will be in a few weeks probably because she wants to fly her friend here to see it. So all is well there. And I will give my spiritual thought now, its a story:
K so Elder Horner and I were going to go to the temple with a bunch of polynesian elders because he wanted to see some leave before they left to go home. So we were going to go on a tuesday and an Elder that went was saying ya it is going to be so good, we will go to the temple and we will play tackle rugby all day, its gonna be like two P days. When he said that I had the worst feeling, I am like ya know this isn't right, and luckily my comp felt the same way. So we were going to just go to the temple and come back right after, but it turned out that we couldn't go anyways because we didn't have a temple pass like we thought we had. So we didn't go and we later found out that all the missionaries that went to the temple went and played rugby all day and some Zone Leaders were driving by and they saw them playing and told President Ely. This is the second time that some of these elders have been caught for diong this. Initially President told the Elders pack your bags you are going home. But they talked it out and let them stay but they are going to be Junior companions for the rest of their missions. SOme elders are going home tomorrow and in 6 weeks and to finish off your missions like that is just stupidity. And if I would have gone to be a junior the whole mission and to not have that trust I would have felt so terrible. So I am way glad that me and my companion folowed the spirit and we didnt go because that would affected my entire mission. SO the lesson is learn to recognize the promptings of the spirit and when you get the feelings or impressions act on it.
So ya thats a crazy story eh? yeah anyways, So right now we have a family that we are teaching that is pretty good, they talked to missionaries 3 years ago and were way close to baptism but some dumb missionaries told them that they are going to hell for having tattooos and stuff so eventually they got over it and hopefully they are way close to getting baptized. Elder Horner left like I said and he went up to Loveland, I liked having him around, he was a way good Elder, we had differences but overall we had fun and did the work. He said i'm one of his best companions he has had. i am with Elder Blomdal (Bloom daul) he is from california, pretty close to vallejo so i will talk to tyler and ask him if he knew the people there. He is a way cool kid, I actually knew him before because he was in the 4th ward so we get along way good already and its going to be good. He has been out for only one transfer longer than me so we are both fresh but we will do our best and we will continue to do the work here. Yeah it is getting cold here, That is a way cool thing about the temple, it really does make you think that you are being prepared for all the work during the second coming. That is awesome that you are doing that! Anways yep I am doing good and I hope you are doing good too! love you and have a great week!
The first picture is the baptism that we had with Cameron Burris. He is the one next to my companion the one next to me is the one that baptized him. The other picture is My first district but its pretty much all the same people anyways....
This week is going a lot better. Me and my comp still have occassional conflicts but nothing like they were before. Transfers are on the 11th so who knows, he thinks that he is going to be a district leader and if that is so he will get called on wedensday to be asked but if not i think we will both stay. Which would be ok, but I don't know i had a dream i was going to laramie last night. haha so hopefully that is just a dream. Conference was awesome. Did you enjoy it. The priesthood session was my favorite like it always is. But my favorite talk was by Elder Uchtdorf which talked about focusing on the essentials and not worrying about the big things. When people get to know the basics about the gospel the big questions about plural marriage and blacks having the priesthood and questions of that sort don't really matter. Which is my spiritual message for the week. SO i think with like Alisha and Gordon where they have these crazy questions. If they know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet, then everything else falls into place. I love you. . LOVE ELDER GNEHM
Cameron Burris Baptism

Friday, October 1, 2010

COLORADO HALLOWEEN

appy halloween!! for halloween we had to be inside so we were just hanging out at a members house all night. They only had 4 trick or treaters come over the entire night. And the members that we live with said that they had no one come to their house. It is crazy there is like no one that goes trick or treating here. And everyone decks out their house to look all scary but no one is outside. People here are lame. We have been doing a program called Sweep for sheep where we have all the Elders go to one ward for 2 hours and they split up so 1 missionary will go with 1 member and they will visit a couple of less actives homes and tract the houses to the left and the right of it. And it is funny because the members that I go with are like I dont think i could have done my mission in the United States, everyone we talk to are just jerks. haha. Some people just can't handle it but luckily it doesn't make me mad when people yell at me. My last comp would get mad though!! But yeah I always thought it would be easier to be in the United States but some people say they were glad they went foreign.
Anyways, Dominiques baptism was way good. He has been going to church for like 3 years now so EVERYONE in the ward already knows him. You should have seen it, when they confirmed him in church on Sunday, almost every priesthood holder in the chapel got up and went in the circle haha I couldn't even reach his head because i was so squished, i was just resting it on someones arm. Also he recieved the aaronic priesthood on sunday and so did Cameron Burris. They are both studs.
Those pictures are sweet, I wanted to carve a pumpkin. We went and visited one of our investigators that is a whole family and they were carving pumpkins and they kept telling me to carve it but i didn't even know if we could so i was like nahh i'm good.
Love you and have a great week!