out with a bang

March 24 email:
hello. how are things goin. everything is good here. got to go to the temple this morning. so that was a good time. good to hear that trent and fill did good on their talks. that would be way cool if you could send a recording of them. and that would be sweet if trent scott and tom came down. that will be fun that you guys are goin on the cruise i forgot that riley was doin that. it will be fun is the rest of the family doin anything fun. the weather has been pretty good here. yesterday got cold again but today is nice. it will be cool if i get to enjoy this weather the rest of my mission but you never know. transfers are not far off it will be interesting to see what happens. thats good to hear that dad workin with the church hopefully he gets some temples. there is a kid here who is mentally challenged but loves temples. he knows everything about every temple. people give him stone and things from temples. its pretty cool he has old nauvoo stone. and has a horn from one of the oxen and things. maybe if dad has a small piece of stone from a temple layin around he could send one down and make this kids day. but thats awesome that mandy and fill are doin good. having fun staying busy. i will be sending some more pictures home this week. thanks so much for sending the hair gel or product its the best. thats a bummer to hear that i will only get to play 2 games of softball. but oh well theres always next season right. and it will be cool to be in spain and awesome if mandy and fill came out to visit. but things are goin a lot better. its been pretty cool to see the progress happen. you just have to be patient and keep working and it will come. we have already had a few real good lessons this week and a few more to come. we are teachin a neat lady named roni. she is and old little lady who was the chief of police in california. she is so sweet though and we have taught her 2 lessons. and she has loved them and believes the book of mormon is true. so we are going to give her a date to be baptized in april maybe on my b day. that would be pretty cool. and a bunch of our other investagators are coming around so it looks like next transfer is going to be really good. if i stay we should end with a bang so... i cant remember if we have had any exciting or funny stories this week. but its good to hear from all you guys. i got a package from one of my old companions from canada. he send me a beannie and shirt from the olympics, some good canadian candy bars, a bob marley calendar and some ties so that was way cool. and then i got a real good letter from andy this week. its going to be crazy to see all of these kids again. but i love you guys so much. thank you for all the support and love your the best

love elder knaphus

found some promising people

March 17 email:
hello how is everyone doin in slc. the weather in show low is like 70 degrees today so thats awesome. and this morning we have been doin some service for my man jay lebow. he will be the sweetest convert ever. he hooked me up with a pair of pink skis and poles their 205's so those will be sweet to cruise on. he also gave me some funny russian amber pyramid so thats pretty cool i got a pic with him and the pyramid. but it seems like you guys have had a great week. seems like the party was pretty awesome. a crazy amount of people showed up. we had a dinner with this indian guy and his fiance who was a phillipina from manilla so it was fun to talk to her about everything and she says she is going to make us some phillipino food next time but she was really excited for the fight. and the next morning they invited us to their weddin so that was pretty fun. got to spend last saturday morning chillin with a bunch of indians. thats cool that you guys have seen trent quite a bit he wrote me and him and tom and scott are thinking about visiting az that would be pretty sweet. but everything down here is going better we are finally doin more teaching found a few pretty promising people so it should be good. on saturday we contacted a ref that she said she needed some service done and she asked us why are there so many church's so we taught her the 1st lesson and she was excited to read the bom and said she would be baptized is she found out it was true. then we talked to a 15 yr old he has 2 sisters that are mormon and his mom isn't she says she isnt ready but he is so we have a lesson with him tomorrow and all his friends are members so thats pretty cool. last night we had a a real good lesson with ty woolford we have worked with him since i got here hadnt taught for a few months but he is goin to try it out again and his parents are really supportive this time and had really good fellowship. we have another lesson setup with zak edwards the kid who is atheist and his niece threw up he was pretty excited to meet with us tonight so hopefully that goes good. there are a few others too so it feels good to do some more teaching and we have still been working with the recent converts their doin good monique is doin better she is back on her meds and things and she said that she has no desire to smoke anymore so thats awesome. i got to go on an x change out in st johns the other day so that was fun. had a few good lessons. saw a few people that i knew from before. got to go do some service for chad, the guy who took us bear hunting so it was cool to see him again. but other than that i cant think of a whole lot to say. i do have a request im running a little low on hair product so... oh and i received the cookies and they are incredible! i cant think of anything else that i need but i love you guys for all you do you are the best. thanks and have a great week.
love elder knaphus

cookies

March 9 email:

hello. man is that crazy or what that you guys will be kickin it with boxie tonight. you will have to give him a hug for me. but it seems like you guys have been having a good time. this week things have been crazy not much time to write but i love you guys, you are the best. im excited to get some more cookies. there is no cookie like yours. but im trying to eat somewhat healthy. i lost another 5 pounds. you guys cursed me i got sick over the weekend and had the worst diarhea and threw up and stuff. the first time ive had to stay in. it was a bummer but i lost 5 pounds haha. but thats cool that you guys are going to the sports mall. im pretty jealous of the boys going and seein boon dock saints maybe, they will have to take their guns to the showing. thats pretty crazy that shamu ate someone. things have been kind of frustrating here the last little while. but thats how it goes sometimes. we have picked up 2 new people so thats good one of them we tracted into him and his wife is a less active member and he is athiest but he was asking us questions and thought it was pretty cool that we serve missions and asked us to share our message if it was so important. so the lesson went pretty good but my companion teaches what is called the eternal principle. like 15 minutes long when its supposed to be maybe 5. then we picked up a lady named nancy her husband is a less active member and she is super nice. works with a stake president i unfortanantly wasnt able to go to the lesson cuz i was chillin on the toilet all night but we visited the day after and gave her a book of mormon and she seems to be doin good. but other than that we have just been teaching members tryin to motivate and sometimes i think its impossible last night we had dinner with the stake pres and he gave us the excuse that he doesnt ever meet new people. so it was sad to see a stake pres that doesnt understand that god can give you a missionary opportunity if you want it and pray for it but, we have been having some good lessons teaching the recent converts that we have. but we also had a sad experience with monique. showed up to teach a lesson and she her ash tray back out with smokes in it. she's struggling cuz she's gettin a new grill and before she has the surgery she has to get her blood thickness up and so they took her off her bi polar depression meds so she is strugglin but had a good lesson and she'll be alright. we dont have anyone that is that close to baptism. we have a lesson with dafne adams tonight and maybe we will be able to work out a date for her. but we also have a lesson tonight with another part member family so we might get another new investagator. so that would be nice. so slowly but surely the work is coming. the weather has been crazy one minute its raining the other snowing then raining. last night there was a blizzard we could barely drive and got like 5 inches in a half hour but now its pretty much all melted so its pretty crazy. but the story of the week that athiest guy that we tracted into. at the very end of the lesson it was pretty funny. he accepted to read and pray and was excited to find out if god was real and things. then his neice that was asleep on the couch next to him stood up looking like a zombie and stood there for a second then threw up in the middle of the room. didnt say anything, then she walked thru it and threw up again in the other room. so we had a good laugh said the closing prayer and got out of there. but other than that i dont have much else to say but i did get the pic of riley at the dance with hannah. pretty sweet. and he's rocking my amazing pants from the phillippines. lookin good. well i love you all and hope everyone has a splendid week.
love elder knaphus

got a picture with two good lookin' european chicks

March 2 email:hello everybody. how is it going. that is no good that every one has been sick. i have been lucky that i have never been too sick to work. that also is a bummer that oly choked again. good to hear though that the jazz are still tearing it up and thats pretty funny that chad is on dancin with the stars. he will probably win it. thats way crazy that trent comes home a week from today. time flies. oh to make mandy happy i sent the picuteres on monday so they should be arriving shortly. thats cool that the steak is doing the rescue and dad has a big part of it. it will be interesting to see if he can do some persuading and get em to church. who is it. its pretty crazy how many people are less active. thats funny that riley will be accompanying you to parent teacher conferences i remember those good old days. im excited to recieve some more cookies i dont think i need much else i could use another bag of mangoes. that would be awesome. but things are going rather slow around here i dont know why. its kinda weird cuz we are working just as hard if not harder and hardly anything has happened. we have had all are lessons cancell except one and everyone we stop by isnt interested all the people we talk to on the street are old and have already been saved or just want to tell us of their incredibly long boring life stories. so we are trying to be as diligent as possible trying not to doubt and staying busy, remembering the importance of everything and the good lord will eventually bless us. this morning we got a way sweet potential though. his name is Jay Labou a member called us up and has been working with him. he's going thru a divorce so we helped him move but, he wants a book of mormon and to take the lessons. he is a pretty funny dude he has long curly red hair and he wears spandex and moon boots, from the east coast. if you can imagine. he will be a way cool guy to teach. kinda crazy i believe i told you guys about john last week he lost the faith and said he didnt want to be baptized but he showed up to church and said he's back and still wants to be baptized. so he was interviewed and has to be interviewed again by the mission pres but john hasnt called us since the interview so who knows what will happen.but other than that the only teaching we have been doing is with members tryin to get them fired up and understanding the importantce of member missionary work and teaching recent converts. but i do have a pretty good story of the week. so last saturday we went to a baptism that my companion was speaking at. and we were walking out of the church and someone honked the horn i didnt see anything though so we were about to take off and a car came cruisin and parked in front of us so we couldnt leave and it was full of girls. we didnt know what was going on. so an older lady got out and 2 really attractive girls got out and the lady introduced us to the girls and proceeded to say that they were foreign exchanged students one from norway and one from switzerland and they were going around gettin pictures of everything that they wanted to remember from az. and they wanted to remember the missionaries. so we got pictures with 2 good lookin european chicks. too bad i didnt have my camera. but it was cool they said they are going to take the missionary lessons back home cuz you cant convert exchanged students. i think that is about all i have thank you guys so much for all the support and love.
love elder knaphus

Staying in ShowLow

Feb. 24 email:

well hello. how are you guys all doing this fine day. i didnt get transferred or my companion so.. but i think it should be alright its not as bad cuz i started driving the car again haha i dont have ride along going 10 under all the time. so it will be interesting to see if i spend the rest of my mission here that would be quite a long time 7 1/2 months but i think i could do it i like it up here. seems like you guys are having a good time. enjoying the olympics and things. thats cool that fill is tearing it up in ward ball hopefully they can take the chip. mom is having a good time with her scripture class and yoga. dad is staying busy with work lookin at some temples that would be pretty sweet. one of the bishops has a son who is 28 and he has mental handicaps but he is awesome and he knows everything about temples and i told them that you work on temples and he got really excited. thats fun that you are still talking to kelly she is awesome i havnt heard from her for a while you will have to tell her hi for me. thats good to hear also that you are spoiling the missionaries. its awesome one of our ward mission leaders has been down in the valley for the last 2 and half months and he takes care of us realy well and he's hilarious we are going out with him tonight to teach some lessons so it should be a good time. tahts pretty crazy that the gibson came home early and a crazy reason i heard about those missionaries dieing i think in romania thats pretty sad stuff. but thats good to hear that everything is going good with oly and utah for b ball as well. i will be home for the nba championship series so i would love it if the jazz made it. and yes that will be interesting to see if oly will choke in the playoffs as usual. who is playing good on oly and the jazz. thats funny that moses is gettin castrated on friday we saw some 2 week old puppies the other day they were pretty cute and we also saw some baby pigs the other day that was pretty funny i got a really good picture of me holding a pig. i finished another card off so i will try to get it in the mail today. but things have been going pretty good. we had a really good baptism of the half black. brittinay. hopefully she will stay active now with her parents being so bad. but i think if she stays involved witht te young women and things she will be fine. most of it is friendship. you were asking about advice for working with less actives. its all about friendship and invitations. its not scary to invite your friend to hang out. so it should be scary to invite your friend to ward party to hang out and then on the hanging out at church. you just cant be afraid of building friendships. the one of the most frustrating things about missionary work is we can only build a limited friendship. its up to the members to befriend them and help them out and continue to invite them to activities and church and things but most members dont understand thats what non members and less actives need. thats my advice. but the work has been pretty slow now but, the good thing with us staying together is that we know what it is that we need to do to improve and work on the get things rollin along with peeps to teach. i think i told you about john who wanted to be baptized the 6th of march well he called us the other day and said he lost the faith and things that he feels God isnt helping him enough we tried to talk him thru it but theres something wrong with him that we dont know i guess. but there is a realy cool member who is still going to try to contact him and get him to church. then we had a really good lesson with the adams. dafne has really been enjoying chuch the last little while and she is praying and feelin the spirit. she bought her husband and son nice sunday clothers so they dont look like punks and hicks anymore. so we gave her a baptism date this week for mar 13th. she is awesome she is cutting our hair today too, so that will be nice. then we had a good lesson last night with a part member named scott and he has been thru a lot and has met with missionaries and feels that its were he needs to be but has a smoking problem so hopefully we will be able to get him to come around. there is a few other peeps that we are working on but we are really trying to find new investagators and workin close witht the members. i do have a pretty funny story this week we ate with one of our ward mission leaders houses 2 times this week and they are older and one time we were standing up to leave and his wife farted. so that was petty hilarios then, the next night his grand kids were there and they were talking about his shower and how its really nice and has 2 shower heads and he went on to tell us how him and his wife shower together but not too often and things and i was dying i started to laugh. but it made for a good night. other than that we got another few inches of snow so that was a good time all is going good trying to stay busy and have a good time love you guys all so much thanks for all the love and support.
love elder knaphu