TWO GRANDPAS GONE IN TWO AND HALF WEEKS

From Denver Colorado, Elder gnehm

Yeah i'm going to be honest, that is preddy ridiculous that both of them passed away in the last 2 and a half weeks.

When I got the phone call from President Ely, i did not expect that at all. I thought for sure that he was calling about coming to one of my district meetings or something, and then when i said hello president, he just sighed and said I have more bad news for you. I was like oh my goodness are you kidding me. Then he told me and I was completely shocked. We always talked about how Grandpa Bill would probably pass away before I got home but we never really talked about Grandpa ray. It doesn't come with much of a surprise though, because he hasn't done too well for a long time. But still I didn't expect that. And i definately did not expect that they would both pass away within 2 and a half weeks of each other!!

How are you and dad doing? I am doing fine. But i was really worried about you two when i got the phone call. i was going to call president again and ask for permission to call home to see how you guys were doing. I went to a members house after it happened and he pulled out his phone and said give me your phone number because you are calling your parents right now. I didn't think you would much like it though if i called you without permission from my mission president. So i didn't. At least I get to talk to you guys in 2 more months. MOthers Day is coming up at the end of the next transfer.

That is awesome that you had a prompting though and you listened and heeded to it. That is such a cool experience to have him be able to say your name and to talk to you for a little bit and then after that he didn't say much. He definately was appreciative of your phone call and for you to be able to let him know your love for him before he passed is amazing. That is good though that most of dad's side of the family all have the knowledge of the gospel, so hopefully they all aren't having too hard of a time with this. But that is awesome that alicia and gordon have been going to church and now Cindy is going to go with grandma sometimes.That is definately a great thing. Unfortuantely it takes some people to be humbled and to find their faith through a death or through struggles but this is definately the perfect opporutnity for them to come back and to rebuld their testimonies. I was just thinking about Grandma Pauline, and how she really needs to be going to church right now. Especially if all this is true and if families really can be together forever, i'm sure that grandpa right now wants nothing more than for grandma to be going to church!

Anyways, on a more brighter subject. Those pictures of the tennis players were awesome. So you actually got to see Federer and Nadal and Blake play? They all went to this tiny california tournament? We are playing tennis today actually and I haven't played in a long time so i am pretty darn excited. I showed the pictures to some other missionaries and we all called who of those people in the pictures we are going to be today. I called the guy with the huge dreadlocks because he looks like a boss and another missionary called to be blake because well he is african american. haha. Anywhosers yeah I should probably get going. I hope that everyone in the family is doing well, I will definately continue to pray for all of them that they can be strengthened in their testimonies and open their eyes to the blessings of the gospel. Don't ask about my companion. HOpefully their will only be two more weeks. Anyways, I love you and i will send you some pictures on another email!

LOVE ELDER GNEHM

PRETTY GOOD WEEK

SUZIE Q

Yo what are you doing in Cali! I am 95 percent jealous that you are watching tennis right now. We live right next to 6 tennis courts and it has been warm lately, and there are always people playing. I want to go over there and make a deal with them. If I beat them in tennis then they have to listen to my message. I think missionary work is supposed to be like that. right? Oh well, we can't play today because its 20 degrees outside. But hopefully next week i can play with my ward mission leader. Do let me know who is at the tournament. If federer or roddick or nadal are there i am going to lose it.

As far as my companion goes, he is getting a little bit better, especially with members he is actually starting to talk now. But he is still a little bit green and getting over being extremely sheltered. I learned that he has never had salmon, pasta salad or Elk. We went to a less actives house just yesterday and he had the best habanero elk jerky, dad would have been craving that stuff. It was the best thing i've had in a while. And the coolest fam in the ward bought me some beef jerky because they know that i love it, and they also let me use their golf clubs when i went golfing last week. So here is what i am thinking. Their little daughters all have their birthday within a month of each other. So i was going to buy them like a cake or some kind of presents. Do you think that you could send me like 15 to 20 bucks so i can do that? please. I think they would really appreciate it and after all that they have done for me i think that it is the least that i can do. So please let me know.

This has been a really good week actually. The baptism did go through and it was way awesome! Brandi's parents that are non members came to the bapt and they were listening so intently to what was being said, and when me and elder shepard were teaching the restoration, they ate it up. They don't live in our ward but they live in elder aamodt's ward so i will definately tell him to go over there and set up an appointment because when I asked them what they thought about the baptism, they said they loved it and they were touched by it and their was a great feeling and peace there. BOOOYAH!! haha. It really was a good baptismal service though, her husband aaron was so nervous to do it because they are both really nervous people but when he said the prayer you could just feel the spirit so strong. One thing that we screwed up on thuogh, we forgot to tell them to bring towels, haha so we had to wait a little bit and we filled in the time by sharing a message while someone ran home and grabbed a couple of towels. woops. I wish i would have got to confirm, but aarons uncle did it.

Yesterday at church it was pretty cool, We were studying at the church and i had a feeling like I should invite an investigator to church that day. SO i just asked her (shes a 15 year old and her mom is a member but she is CRAZZZYYY and has lots of medical problems) but we asked her if she was going to church with her dad or if she could come with us and she said she would come. Which i really didn't expect because she had been to church before and she had a terrible experience because she said that all the girls were texting and she just didn't feel like it was church and everyone was disrespectful. But she said that she would come. So i set up a ride to go get her and she did come. After church i saw her and asked her how it was and she said that it was way better than the time before and she liked it a lot. So hopefully we will be able to teach her and she can progress because all of our other investigators right now are really stagnant and are not progressing at all. That is why i hope that we have encouraged te members and they give us more people to teach.

As far as the talks go and the 40 day fast that we are working on, we really have seen a lot of blessings from it already. We had The investigator at church. We had contact and shared a message with a less active that we have knocked on a hundred times and never answered before but he answered yesterday and he said that he wants to come back to church. We had our relief society president make good progress with a less active lady and she actually set up an appointment for us. WHICH IS HOW iT SHOULD BE!!!!! Things in the ward are definatley turning around and i like it. i like it a lot. So i guess my spiritual message could be on the importance of fasting and prayer. And how it truly does work through our faith. Remember to fast for a purpose and not go hungry. Someone in my last ward had a quote that said. "fasting without prayer or purpose, is like having a letter all ready to go but you don't put the stamp on it." and it is true, its like we are doing something good, but without a prayer or purpose, their is no reason for fasting, we are just going hungry.

Anyways, I hope you have a great time in Cali. I'm jealous, please do send me some pictures, send me more from home too :) Also don't forget to think about the 20 dollars, it would mean a lot to me. BY the way, next time you see a homeless guy taking a dump on the side of the road stop and ask him if he would like some help wiping, What would jesus do? haha i'm sorry, i shouldn't have said that but that is absoletely gross and hilarious. let me know what you guys do in California! I love you and hope that you have a great week! PEACE. LOVE ELDER GNEHM

A COUPLE OF PICTURES

Elder Shepherd and myself
Elder Goesch and the Powers

40 DAY FAST

HEY YO!!

Thanks for the pictures, it looks like everyone was trying to be really happy and smily, but that just seems weird because it was at a funeral, everyone should have just looked extremely sad and it would have totally fit the mood better!!! That is good that all went well with the funeral and stuff, it would have been really cool to be there and be with the fam, but thats okay it looked like everyone was doing just great.

SO yesterday was sunday as you should probably know. Elder Shepard and I and the ward mission leader (who we are related to) gave a talk in sacrament meeting. So this is elder shepards second week in the mission field, so he must have been really scared and nervous to talk to a ward that he doesn't know. But his talk was 2 maybe 3 minutes, when it was supposed to be 10 to 15. We had a youth speaker that spoke longer than he did. But that is just mostly how he is right now, when we have teaching appointments, he maybe says a sentence the whole time we are there so it is really helping me to be better at teaching people because i am talking the entire time but i also wish that he would open his mouth and contribute once in a while.

Anways, We talked on missionary work the whole sacrament meeting and I was just bold with them, telling them that members are full time finders and missionaries are full time teachers, so they need to help us and give us people to teach.. Since I have been in this ward we have not received a single referral, so i was just telling them that they need to help us out. I thought that the meeting went pretty well, I was talking about having faith and overcoming our trials, I talked for a second about how someone in my family just recently passed away and how we have the knowledge of where he is going but our friends and neighbors that are not of this faith do not, so its our duty to open our mouths and to share the gospel and the news of eternal families and things like that. I just hope that the members actually start to get excited and do it, but a lot of people came up to me and told me that i did a really good job.

Other than that this week has not been all that excited, we have had a couple of potentials cancel appointments, and have some people tell us that they don't want to talk to us anymore. But We also had some good things happen as well. We set up some appointments, and we received a new potential investigator, so next week we should have two new people to teach, because right now we have basically no one to teach. This saturday brandy is going to get baptized, and after that we really don't have too many progressing investigators. We are starting a 40 day fast in the ward, and the families in the ward will be fasting for missionary work, and specific people that we are teaching in our investigator pool. HOpefully with this 40 day fast we will get new people to teach and the members will actually start to help us out.

So I heard Deron williams got traded from the jazz, i wrote more about it to derek but i just have to let you know how gay i think it is. I don't even want to watch the jazz when i get home. That is so lame.

Well I need to get going because we are going golfing and playing 18 holes, I haven't golfed in a while so this should be interesting, hopefully all is giong well with the fam, and everything. How is tennis going, what is new and exciting lately, exciting not depressing! I wrote ty davis but he still didn't write back.

Well i gotta run, I love you and will talk to you later, have a great week.!!! LOVE ELDER GNEHM

WASN'T EXPECTING THE CALL I GOT

Hey Geyss

How is everyone doing? How is grandma doing? I hope that she still has the faith that she will be with him again. Prayer is a huge thing right now that can help Grandma and the rest of the family out right now.

How did the viewing and the funeral go?

I have to say that when Presdient Called me, I was not expecting that at all. I was expecting him to call me about the district meeting or something. But when he said your dad called me, my heart dropped, and then he told me that Grandpa passed away. I really didn't know what to think because I was out here and it almost seemed to be surreal because I couldn't really talk to any of the family or be around while it happened so it still seems weird. But as I was thinking about it, especially after hearing your email about how peacefully he passed away,, it truly was his time. The last couple of years with him not being able to move very well has been hard for him, and being able to have a ressurrected perfect body is a great gift. He is definately in a better place right now! People might not always believe that, they think that it just sounds like a nice idea to be able to be with family forever, But when we think of it, what is the point of existence if we just come to earth live and then die and then there is nothing else. I know that there is life after this and that we will stand to be judged and put in a much better place than this earth.

KEEP HELPING THE FAM!

So yeah i am a district leader and a trainer now. I am on my first exhanges today with Elder AAmodt and another elder. I had my first district meeting and I thought that it went pretty well. President Ely was playing on being there for my first district meeting but he got the wrong day so he didn't show, haha thats totally fine with me. Having a car is a lot nicer than having a bike i just decided haha. I'm probably going to get bigger but whatever, it makes missionary work go by faster and who'm i trying to impress right now anyways? My son is named Elder Shepard, he is from St george, he seems like he will be a pretty good missionary, he just needs to break out of his shy shell. In all the lessons that we have been having, i've been doing almost if not all the talking, he'll throw in his two cents but its just hard to have it all be on me. But i guess thats probaly what i was like when i first came out, i was a little scared to talk to people about the gospel because i felt like i didn't know enough. I think that it just takes some time and when he gets over it, he will do fine.

So what is going on with Derek right now? that chump needs to email me and tell me whats going on. where is the brotherly love? haha I CAN RIDE MY BIKE WITH NO HANDLEBARS NO HANDLEBARS NO HANDLEBARS. haha i'm glad thats what derek remembers me by. and hunter remembers me as slippery snake. I probably should have been less lame before my mission haha. But right now the mission is going pretty well, we have the baptism still happening on march 5th. Aaron received the priesthood last saturday and it was awesome, Brandy was so happy and excited and when he was standing in front of the ward during sacrament you could tell that he was really happy. We are finishing everything up with her program right now, i don't know who is confirming her but it would be really cool if i could.

We had zone conference yesterday and president was giving a training on getting the members involved, and he was saying that full time missionaries are here to teach not to find, its up to the members to find. So we are actually going to be speaking this sunday in sacrament about that and how we can get them more involved. President also said that if wards don't help out the missionaries by finding, then he is just going to take missionaries out of the area to leave it all up to the ward members. So i know that it is different in Utah, because their are lots of mormons, but keep looking for possible people that are ready to hear the gospel, and that you could help to share your testimonies with.

I did get your package and all the pictures thank you for sending those to me. I appreciate it. Thanks for the mangos!!! I need to be going now though, so let me know how everything goes with the funeral, know that i love you guys and i pray for you every day. Have a good week. LOVE ELDER GNEHM!

LETTER TO GRANDMA PAULINE

Grandma!

My mission President called me and gave me the news. It was really hard for me to hear, and i know that for you it is very hard as well. Something that definately helps at this hard time is to know that you will see him again. We are so lucky to know the plan of salvation and the gospel and to have that faith that he is in a better place now. I know that my parents have been trying to tell you this a lot as well as the rest of the family, but you truly need to apply for yourself right now. Heavnely Father truly loves us and he wants to give us answers to our prayers, If you pray and ask him to help comfort you and to bless you that you can know that you will see him again, i know that you can receive an answer. Grandma this may just sound like another missionary talking, but its carson..know that i love you and that i know that God love you. Its difficult but it is also a happy time to know that he will have a ressurrected and perfect body and will have immortality. I love you and if there is anything that i can do to help you please let me know, you have always been there for me. Have a good week, I love you, your grandson, ELDER GNEHM

I'M DISTRICT LEADER

Dear mummy haha

I want to start off by saying that I cant believe that I wrote you those letters haha I actually do kind of remember writing that first one, i think that was like a couple months ago now right? haha. haha don't be mad that you don't know how to talk about the jazz its ok. haha no i am just kidding you should seriously keep telling me about the jazz because derek doesn't send me the emails every week. cause he is a squeeg? haha random thing that my comp always says.

Ok so... heres the scoop of what is happening as of late.

So you are now another Grandmother because I have a son... haha if your not freaking out by now, i'll tell you that having a son is lingo for training a greenie missionary. My new companion is Elder Shepard, he is from St george Utah. Its pretty crazy, I was at the trainers meeting today, and i can remember just seven months ago when i was there and I was the baby. Time is seriously flying by right now. I still don't feel like I am old in the mission at all but whether i think it or not i still am. I am still in the east lake ward and the only thing different now is that i have a car. So now i am driving around in a car with my new greenie and it is pretty cool.

OK so if your not proud of me yet haha there is still more info. I am also a District leader. hahaha crazy right?! I also have the biggest district in the zone. I have 10 missionaries in it so yeah i feel a little bit inadequate right now but i know that i just need to keep being myself and love the people in my district. Elder Goesch is going to Brighton ward so he will be in my district still which will be really cool because he will still be in my D to go on exchanges with. Guess who else in in my district... Elder AAmodt is now in my district. haha. CRAZZZZY stuff huh?!

I Can assume right now that your bawling because you are so proud of me haha but don't worry i will be alright.

As far as the ward goes, Brandy Adams will be baptized by her husband on the 5th of March,he is going to get the priesthood this saturday so hopefully all will go well and we will be having a bapt in march. She is solid though, she got to go to relief society for the first time and she loved it.

So remember cameron burris and renee alvarez that i baptized back in arvada? They called me the other day and both of them had their first talk in church on Sunday. I guess cameron was saying that he had a ton of missionaries before me and none of them really did anything for him but then when i came along he said everything just clicked and I was the right missionary for him.

It was really awesome and it makes me feel way good to hear that. I am definately seeing the fruits of my labors right now. And i hope and pray that they will only continue and i will get to bless more and more lives.

I did get your package but i haven't opened it yet so thankyou for whatever is inside of it. I have to get out and get going with my greenie, we are going to dinner with a cool member and they are going to all be wearing green and all our food is going to be green haha I"M A DADDY!! and i gotta do something right?

ANWAYS, i love the mish still i love the Elders in this mission they are awesome, and I hope that i can be a good leader to them. I love you guys and hope that you have a great week, I will talk to you later. Pray for me as i do for you. HUnter is too awesome and I miss him too as i miss all you guys. BUT i am on the Lords errand and there is no place that i would rather be. TAKE CARE

LOVELDER GNEHM!