Ran allim!
This week was sort of a roller coaster of shenanigans. First off, p-day was nice because it was just sort of a break and a chance to get to know all of the other elders and sisters in my zone. They're all so great and dedicated to serving gad and bringing people into Christ.
The rest of the week went up and down. It's kind of difficult because a lot of the people we teach are chuukese and so my trainer can talk to them fine and dandy, and I just sort of sit there and wait until he interrupts and it's my turn to speak. I'm grateful that he can speak to them and that we're getting baptisms set up, I just wish I could take a more active part in the whole process. I just try to focus on loving the people like crazy, even if I can't speak the language. I try to serve or smile or laugh with them, and even just playing with the kids and teaching them out of the gospel art book. There's this one family called the Stanleys. I love them so much. The parents only speak chuukese, but when they found I didn't know how to speak yet they wrote up they're own translation guide for beginning phrases from chuukese to English. They're awesome. A lot of the times when my companion is teaching the Mom and Dad, I'll take the little kids aside and teach them out of the gospel art book. We've gone over most of the stories of Jesus and Joseph Smith. I just love them. They're getting baptized on the 12th and I couldn't be happier for them.
It's kind of weird. When I was back in Mesa, I never cared for sharing the gospel. It had sort of become just a culture thing. Sort of like I was LDS by culture, but the belief and solid conviction of its truthfulness never was totally there. These days I just find myself praying that the people we teach will realize how beautiful this gospel is. I wish I was a better teacher so that we could let everyone understand the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray that God will let me be his instrument to bring his children back to him.
Guam is beautiful. I'm already falling in love with this place. The people are so friendly and just love because that's the way they are. The sights here are insane and I can't wait to get a camera so I can send you all pictures! We have 8 baptisms lined up for December so please pray for them too! I don't know if they will al work out p, but they're goin strong so far!
Also, Happy Birthday Pirate! I love you dude and I hope your b-day rocked! From what Mom and Dad told me, it was a blast for you. Soon I'll send you a picture of a pirate cove that they have here.
I love you all sooooo much. Sorry the letter was a little haphazard, but I just started writing and then it all came out.
Be strong, keep the faith and know that a missionary in Guam prayers for you all.

Love,
Elder Devon L. Gneiting

Hey fam!

My mind is kind of in a whir cause the week has been really crazy, but I'll try to go day by day and let you all get a feel of what it's like over here in God's country.

Sunday:

Sundays are one of my favorite days. We get to go to two church services and both wards are just awesome! The first ward we go to is the Talisay ward. The kids there are sooo fun/funny/great. After church we spend some time with them and get to know more about them/play they're little games. One of the focuses I have is befriending the rising generation so that when it comes time to serve missions they will want to, and not just flake out. In the whole stake of Guam there are 212 or so mission age members. Only eight are actually out serving right now. That's why I want to get them out there when they get older, and hopefully when it comes time they remember the elders they grew up with and want to be like them. That's the hope at least. I think they will because they're all just so fantastic in both spiritual matters and in loving everybody.

The second ward we go to isn't even a ward. It's called the Merizo group. Before you can get a branch, it has to start out as a group. We're reaaaaaally pushing to make it a branch in December, we just need one more aaronic priesthood holder. I love going to this church the best because they're my people. They're the people that Elder Holmes and I are baptizing and teaching and I'm already getting a glimpse of how easy it is to love people if you put your whole heart into the work.

Alright, I'm not gonna go day by day anymore, I'm just gonna hit the highlights for the rest of the week.

We met up with a new investigator named Keisha and her family. The best way to describe her is as follows: typical funny black lady. For the first part of our lessons, before we actually start the teaching, we just have these funny wit battles, and they usually end with one of us giving up and then settling down enough to pray. She's awesome, and her whole philosophy on religion is that she wants to find out for herself, that we can't "logic" her into believing, which was fine by us! It led in perfectly to praying to know if it was true and we explained to her that that's the way Joseph Smith restored the gospel; he found out for himself, and didn't just go blindly by what others said.

The Stanleys are getting really close to baptism, they're just always gone! It's hard to teach them lessons when they're not there, ya feel me? We check every day to see if they're there or not and then we teach them as much as we can, within reason, because they're doing all the stuff that they need to do to be baptized, they just don't know the fullness of the gospel yet.

The last thing that's coming up is our group's Christmas party. We're having it on the nineteenth, which just so happens to be the day that the Stanleys are planned to get baptized. What a concidence! :) The main goal for the Christmas party is to just keeping the unity of the group alive, and bringing the investigators/ new converts closer together. That's the biggest struggle here, getting the new converts to stay because they know the truth, they just get besieged by outside pressures, and then they cave in.

That pretty much sums up the week. Things are going better now, and I really appreciate the prayers! God really does listen when we speak to him.

Love you all!

Love,

Elder Devon L. Gneiting

Hello peeps!

IT SNOOOOOWED!! Like a legitimate snow, like not just a little puff of ice coming down, but a bonafide snow storm, to Arizona standards. We even got enough to throw snowballs and I NAILED my companion... and then he got me back so everything was all good in the hood. The coolest part of the whole deal, is that it didn't just snow once, but three times. Twas a beautiful sight to behold, at least for me. The weather dropped significantly, so every morning we can see our breath rise out in front of us in little wispy clouds of smoke. My district and I have been doing a sort of ritual/ tradition of every morning when we get out of the apartment someone hollers out: "Hey Sanka, watch smokin?" "I ain't smokin mon, I'm breathin!" It's exciting and makes the mornings a little more enjoyable. We've been bustin out Christmas songs too, because almost my entire district is going to places where they never get snow and this is the only time in the next two years where we're gonna be cold.  The song that has really been touching me the most is "O Holy Night". Just reading the words breaks my heart and fills me with so much love for the savior. I just want to be an instrument, a perfect instrument, in his hands.

Alright, now that all the formalities are over, it's time to get down to the nitty gritty stuff. Saturday was garbage. I had to delete multiple words to describe Saturday while writing this because they would not be appropriate in a letter by a missionary. But seriously it was bad. My companion and I were super confident going into this lesson with an investigator (actually, just a sister in our zone) and I guess Heavenly Father wanted us humbled. Boy, did it work. We fumbled over our words, the investigator obviously had no idea what we were talking about, and the whole thing was just a fiasco. I'd been feeling the spirit so strongly the entire time being here, but during that visit it was practically devoid. The only time that the spirit was there was when we bore our testimonies at the very end. It was awful. Afterwards, I honestly debated for a minute or so I there was any real point in me being here in the first place and my companion was feeling pretty similar. We asked our zone leaders to give us a blessing afterwards and instead they just talked with us, which turned out to be exactly what we needed. They told us that the same thing was what they went through the Saturday before. One of them said he was so flamingly mad that he practically growled at one of the Sister missionaries who tried to get past him the hall! It was nice to know that we weren't the only ones God needed to humble, and them telling their story was so stinkin funny, it was almost impossible to stay upset.

Sunday was like a breath of fresh air. It felt so nice to not go to class and just de-tox for an entire day. Even though I knew I had really botched it with the lesson, I felt peaceful all day and I knew that God still loved me, I just needed to stop being so self-absorbed with my success and turn it over to him. That night we went to choir and let me tell you something about my district: they're all ragingly tone deaf. It's a good thing we don't have any sisters in our district, cause if we did they'd probably lose they're hearing. It's pretty bad. So choir was exciting. They all sing with gusto, which is very spriritual, it's just never in the right key. :P After choir we watched a former devotional from David A. Bednar entitiled "The Character of Christ". It is life-changing. I'm sort of running out of time, so I'll just sum it up in a sentence. Forget yourself, turn outward and give all glory to God.

Now, time to talk about our investigator. We go to a building on campus called the TRC (training resource center). We've taught our investigator three times already and I've never felt so sure that this is where I need to be. Her name is Lisa and she is just the little old granny who is more or less an angel. She has such a desire to know the truth and all, and she is humble as all get-out. She felt like, at first, that she wasn't good enough to have God listen to her, but the Holy Ghost has really been doing work on her. My companion and I are pretty sure she is an actual investigator (they have some members and some investigators working in the TRC). I asked her to be baptized yesterday because the Holy Ghost was practically shouting at me to ask her, and she said she doesn't feel like she know enough yet, but she'll pray about it. I REALLY hope she does, cause she is seriously an ANGEL!

Love you all so much and I love prayers and emails! God has been very good to my companion and I, and I couldn't be happier to be where I am!

Love,
Elder Gneiting

Attention friends of Devon!  Since I am really bad at forwarding emails, I set up this blog so whoever wants to can read all about his adventures in the Micronesia Guam mission.  It should be updated weekly.  Enjoy!

Gaylene(Devon's Mom)