Penrod, Isaac

Even though the work is rather slow here I try to do my best to not let that affect my attitude about things and how I write this email. Sorry for how grumpy I may have sounded in the last one. I'm trying my best to realize that not every area is going to be as good as others and that I should not give up on things just because it seems pointless. I'm going to admit I have been rather lazy and less optimistic about the work in this area. It's been hard. We hardly had any progressing friends, everyone we visited either moved, was never interested in the first place or really wanted to distance themselves from the church. It didn't help when one of our top friends who was quite ready for baptism passed away last week. Although I had never got to meet her personally; I couldn't help but feel bad that we never kept in contact enough and even blamed myself for it. It's been hard and I gave in. I let all these things hurt for only the worse and gave up. Something I le...

Hi Elder Penrod, How was your week? Did you get to see new places and talk to new people? How is your studying going? Have you been enjoying reading the New Testament? I really enjoy the lessons in the New Testament. I enjoy the many insights that are found in the parables taught by Jesus. I love that he took everyday life and was able to find similes in the context of the gospel. And that we are able to still relate to the stories he shared. Today we sang the Wiseman and the Foolish Man. If I remember correctly, that one was one of your favorites growing up. It was always fun to sing about the rains tumbling down on the houses and the house on the rock stood still. It is really easy to be overcome by the storms of life when you are shaky in your foundation, but how much easier trials are when you tum to your Savior to guide you and strengthen you through those hard times. This week has been relatively quiet. Dad was able to get Curtis out to help on the addition for a couple hours yes...

Hi Elder Penrod, I have been thinking about you. I am sorry it has been a rough area to get going. Sometimes those first few rolls of a boulder take a lot of time and effort and strength, but once you get things rolling, they become unstoppable. It may not happen while you are there, but you can make a difference in the lives around you. It sounds like you have some ideas on what you can do to grow personally during this time, and I am sure that will help you in the  long run. I was also thinking about the person that said they can't do "organized religion" right now. I can see why that frustrated your companion. It is said by many and it doesn't make a lot of sense. The church helps us to anchor ourselves to the gospel through lessons, callings, and connections to one another in our ward and it can have a profound effect on those that surround us. We become instruments in His hands. How can this happen in chaos or when we make no commitment to Him? Ultimately, it com...

Soono transfers happened last week and I got moved to the Poulsbo ist ward as my mission assignment!! And that's pretty much all I can say. Poulsbo is a slow area right now, pretty much all the progressing friends that the missionaries had either don't speak english, are in rehab for a few months, or dropped us. The work is pretty slow here, but while we were looking for members that had moved, in an area book, we found a lot of inactive members that had never even been visited by the missionaries before. So that's what our goal has been this transfer to visit all those members. And so far one door has been opened to us, so that was good. We visited a drunk lady and that was interesting. She had a lot of repetitive prayers with us for the whole visit and was very very drunk. She said loved the Mormons though. We later got a voicemail saying that she's not interested in joining our church and that she was an atheist, so that was kind of funny. We had a temple trip last f...

Hi Elder Penrod, How is mission life treating you? Are you still enjoying the area? What new things have you learned about Poulsbo? What new things have you learned about your companion? Did you eat your birthday cake? Artichokes? Not much has happened with us. Curtis is wrestling his final tournament JV State today. Then he will have a 2 week break before spring wrestling starts. I'm excited to watch him. I will write you again and let you know how he did. Cameron finished his chess club. They didn't have a tournament this year but they had a celebration party with Mountain Dew, freeze dried skittles, and chess shaped cookies. He is also getting a bit of a mustache so I need to get him a razor Bethany is doing really well in math. Her teacher says she is really quiet but once she gets the concept she is good. She is also playing with her microphone on your computer. There is an app called podcastle. It allows you to create tracks and recordings. It also has sounds already load...

Hi Elder Penrod, I hope that you are doing well and have been able to settle into your new place with your new air fryer.  How is the new companionship? What have you learned about your companion? Does he have any unique talents and perspectives? What things have you learned so far about your area? This week seems like it went by way too fast. It was just the normal routine with work, school, and after school activities. The temperatures were in the 0 to -2 with a high of 19 and 20 this last week so going outside was not so fun. I kept Colt in on those days (it's recommended not to walk your dog below 20 degrees because they can get frostbite on their paws in extreme cold so we didn't have our usual walks and he was getting a little stir crazy, haha. The YM/YW still planned to go sledding on the coldest day of the week so we bundled up Cameron and Beth the best we could and Curtis went to drop them off but I had the time all wrong and we were a half hour late. So they came home...

As you can tell by the title I am not dead, I'm just unwise and busy. These last few weeks have actually and then not so crazy and then crazy again. We had a baptism recently with our friend Anaka and it was really cool to help set that up. The thing is we were hit hard with the plague and we couldn't do much. Luckily the ward is the best and helped us out a lot. I have noticed that this week will be my last week of training so what I wanted to talk about this week in my email is 12 things I've leamed the first 12 Weeks of my mission "I don't think we're in Utah anymore - Things are different even if you're just a few states away from home, the culture, the wealth, the policies, the food (kind of), and the people are all different than they are back at home. This can either be an awesome experience or a bad one depending on how you take it. Some people like different cultures, but hate different food and some people love different people, but hate living wi...