Week 52

Ya know,

It's been a minute, but thats alright.  Not a whole lot going on, as is anticipated.  We're in contact with some friends again, made some calls and set up some appointments, we met with a former friend who dropped us when I got into the area, but decided they wanted to start meeting again, we read the book of Mormon with them and they want to get back on track to be baptized, good for them!  We've been playing lots of baseball, maybe I mentioned that, we found some equipment in a church (that isn't being used) and we go out to the park most days to take turns batting and running bases.  Another elder in the apartment had his spikeball set, from home, shipped out so we've been playing some of that too.  It's really hot outside, over 100 degrees for a few days at a time haha but it's fun.  I got a good tan going.  I sweat a lot.  I feel good.  I met the President this past week, we had an in-person interview, he's a sweet man.  His wife is fun.  It might be weird to be thrown into this sort of situation but I'm sure they'll be fine.  We spent some time making a music video, I'm playing guitar in it, very softly, I was mostly jus tagging along so I could say I put something on Facebook.  We watched a devotional, Elder Clayton and his wife spoke.  His wife said something really interesting, she said that people are motivated by 6 things, on a spectrum, it looks like this:

Force, Fear, Punishment/Reward, Duty, Faith, Charity.  

To do all things out of charity is the goal, but it is also perfection.  That is what Christ did.  For one reason or another, we waver in the reasons we serve God.  I like this list, I think anyone can evaluate themselves upon this standard and ask "why do I do this?  Why do I read scriptures?  Pray?  Minister?  Go to the temple?  On a mission?"  You'll notice once you get to the "reward" part of the spectrum, things are positive, you do things for a positive reason.  All of which are noble, and it's best to be on that side.  Sometimes we are afraid, sometimes we don't want to be punished, but hopefully, we all take steps to do things simply because we want to be charitable.  Just because it helps other people.  I'm not there, but I'm happy.  I want to be there.  Life is weird.

Keep me in your prayers, I appreciate the sentiment.  Pray for the world.  Summer is gonna close soon, hard to believe I'm coming up on August again.  I hope you all have time to love.  Enjoy the pictures.

Ka-chow

Elder Gneiting

Week 51

Good Monday,

We sent off Elder Grant last Tuesday, but not before he said goodbye to some of our friends in Selma.  We spent last Monday afternoon at the home of a pastor in town, we had taught him on and off, he has his reservations but we consider him a good friend.  Tuesday we packed up and drove to Fresno.  We waited in our car for our turn to switch around missionaries, and when we got into the church parking lot, I saw Elder Greene!  I talked to him for a few minutes, he was getting sent south of me, to a town called Exeter.  I also saw a buddy from high school, Elder Day, who's been reassigned to our mission, what a stud!  My new companion is Elder Bramall, he's from Bountiful, and he's a great guy.  It's nice to have some change here in Selma and he's definitely helped me raise our standard of conduct.  We've been calling people as usual, we've got a lesson set up for every day next week, and I'm feeling motivated.  I had exchanges with our new district leader this week, a reassignee who lives in West Jordan, who was previously laboring in Peru.  It was a good exchange, had some good talk and played some ball.  We play basketball about every day, outside of our regular exercise, which has been nice when our schedules have been so open.  We had another service project at a church food bank again, it's good to help people and talk about the gospel.  I had a conversation with this guy who had "found his ministry" and felt inspired to share his thoughts with me about visions and other things.  Great guy!  Elder Bramall and I expect to teach some new people this week in addition to our scheduled appointments, so I'm excited. Things are good.  Keep up the good work out there.

Elder Gneiting

Week 50

Welcome back to Sunny Selma News,

As some of you might have noticed, I took a brief, unannounced hiatus last week to go on vacation.  I hope you weren't disappointed.  It's been a blast of a week and I've been enjoying the adventures each day brings.  Well, that's what I might be saying if I wasn't stuck inside.  We have a new car, back to a Malibu, I call him Dark and Handsome.  Last Monday we went to Sequoia National Park, which was cool, and saw some big trees.  It was good to go for a drive again, it took us a few hours and was worth the better part of our preparation day.  Oh, we also have a new President, he's pretty cool, we haven't heard from him much.  Some Sisters borrowed a guitar from one of their members and I have been playing it some, it only took one day to remember some good tunes, and then to learn some Hymns of course.  Elder Grant and I made a video for Facebook again, this time he testified about the scriptures in front of a park, we'll see if it goes anywhere.   It was Independence day this weekend, I'm sure the personal artillery rounds across the neighborhood were a pleasant reminder.  We drove out to a church in another small town nearby to have some hot dogs with our fellow missionaries, and we played some basketball, but we weren't allowed to drive back because of rules or something, so we biked the 10 miles back to our apartment before sundown.  What a ride!  (Worth it!)  We visited some other friends of ours earlier in the day, we had pizza with a member and played foosball with a new friend of the Spanish Elders.  It was a good time and a good weekend.  Transfers are tomorrow, I will be staying in Selma.  Elder Grant and I are swapping companions with some Elders in Atwater, which is also small and can smell pretty bad depending on the season, so good luck to Elder Grant, it's been a fun ride.  Pray that the world gets healed soon, I don't know how much longer our AC is going to last.  Write me something uplifting you saw this week, I could use it.

That's All Folks!

Elder Gneiting

Pictures of the good-times

Week 49

Good morning,

This week has been exciting, kinda.  Stuff is moving along as usual.  We're coming up on our last week with the current mission president.  It'll be cool to see what the new guy does, change is fun.  President Mackay has been awesome, I think he deserves a break.  3 years is a long time.  This week Elder Grant and I tried calling the Africans he met on Facebook, it didn't really work but we still talked to them about the gospel over messenger.  We had an in person zone conference thing, we met at a stake center and had interviews with the president and had a training from the zone leaders, it was awesome to see other people again and to feel the Spirit in a group setting, they also got us lunch and that was bomb, some fresh tacos from a nearby taco truck.  Some Elders found a guy who lives in our area so we joined them in a video call to introduce ourselves so we can begin teaching him, he's a cool guy, he's a competitive Spike Ball player and he knows Jon Schmidt's son, so it'll be cool to get to know this guy and hopefully bring him closer to Christ.  Elder Grant and I were able to meet with our ward mission leader for the first time since I've been here, and he's excited about some of the goals we made and plans for him to bring to ward council, we also had a service project towards the end of the week, we cleared an orchard of dead leaves and miscellaneous sprouts and put them in a compost pile.  We've had a Tacoma all week which has been fun, it's one of the nicest vehicles in the mission, we aren't really supposed to be cruising with it, but I find every other reason to use it. Happy Father's day to all, but especially my Dad. He's so cool. Such a good guy. A real friend. Miss you man, you stay healthy out there. Pray for me y'all it's getting hot out here.

Love,

Elder Gneiting

Week 48

Dang son

This week sorta flew by, don't have too much to report on, a few of our friends said they wanted to stop meeting haha but that's fine.  Elder Grant met a bunch of people from Africa and the Phillipines on Facebook, he wants to start teaching them so we'll see how that goes.  We had a mission tour this week from Elder Klebingat, he talked with a few missions over video call here in the North America West Area, he was pretty firey as I'm sure some of you may remember from his conference talk in 2014, he's kind of a stud as well.  He explained that if there's anything wrong in your life you just need to try harder, and he talked about that for 4 hours.  Very cool!  I'm sure somebody on this side of the planet needed to hear that.  He talked about goals and memorization, that's something our President has really wanted us to focus on while we're quarantined.  Last Monday we went to the flea market, I got some sick leather shoes, straight out of Mexico, we got ice cream at a nearby creamery too, that was fun.  That might be all that happened.  Oh, and Elder Grant got hit by a car yesterday, he totally slammed into the hood and rolled off onto the road.  We were riding our bikes on the sidewalk, and a car was turning right, we were coming on his right side, he didn't see companion and I guess my comp thought he was gonna move or stop or something, anyway that didn't happen and Elder Grant just went *WHUMP* on the front corner of this guys car.  They were both pretty shaken up, my comp was fine, the other guy was kinda shocked, Elder Grant tried to give him a book of Mormon but that seemed to scare him off, so we finished the ride home and Elder Grant laid down for a minute.  That was crazy.  Sorry y'all, that's as exciting as it gets in this part of California, I hope you're staying safe out there.  Congratulations to my older brother, he's engaged!  Nice job man!  I still have over a year before I'm back, but if you want to wait that long, I'm not gonna stop you.  I hope y'all are finding something to do while the weather is nice, hopefully life where you're at is a little more normal than before.

Tune in next time, 

Elder Gneiting