Well hello again to my wonder family and friends,

Well life is great and the work here is great, EVERYTHING is great.

So here in Novosibirsk there is alot of less/inactive members and we have been spending alot of time visiting and teaching them and we are seeing our effort with them payoff. The last couple sundays we have had alot come back to church! They are needing to be reminded of the importance of the church and reminded of the reasons why they joined the church. The amount of people at sacrament meeting in increasing very week lately and hopefully more and more will continue coming.

Then our invstigators are doing great to. One 19 year old girl named Marina started reading the book of mormon this last week and she also prayed for the first time like EVER in our meeting with her. We are seeing a great change of heart with her and she is progressing great. I think she will soon have a baptismal date set. Also we are teaching a man named nickoli, he is a husband to a lady from our branch. We ask him to read the BOM last week, which he did, but he was confused by alot of thing. We told his wife to read with him and help him understand it, and she hasnt done it much but we taught him yesterday and they said they would read together and also pray together. The wife very much wants him to accept the gospel, which he has accepted what we have taught him and he is progressing. Its wonderful to see the gospel bring a fam together. Many of our other investigators we havent been able to meet with lately, either they are sick or working or something, so that has been a roadblock.

So also great news, we have a meeting with Danna's sister Victoria tomorrow. She is 21 and Danna has realy wanted her to come to church activities but Victoria is scared what their mom will do if she finds out. I have only meet her once, so we are excited to meet with her tomorrow and teach her.

So yes it is very cold here, the last few days have been very cold. The coat and boats i have are really warm though and so i dont get to cold when i go outside. If we are outside for a long time it is usually only my toes that get cold.

So tranfers are next week!! I cant believe it. Time is flying by. We find out friday night where we will be next transfer. I have been here is Novo for 3 transfer, so i could very likely be transfered somewhere else, but where the Lord needs me I will go. If i do get transfered it will be hard to leave Novo, I love it here and the people here are great.

So i finally got the chistmas package from the Ward. It took over a month to get here! haha crazy. I loved it though. A lot of people had put letters in it. Tell the ward thank you sooooo much for that. Reading what everone wrote was a great blessing. Everyones love, support, and advice is helping me be a better missionary. I love the Newdale Ward.

Mom I cant believe you graduate soon!! Thats so awesome, you are amazing and the best mom ever (yes everyone it is true). So Mom for the college class you are helping teach, some good questions that an investigator might ask the missionaries could be: Why do I need to be apart of an organized church, why do i have to go to church when i can worship how i want at home, How can you believe Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus, he could have just been a crazy man gone mad (someone asked me that this last week), I have already been baptized in a different church, I believe god is a energy and not a real person. Anyway those sould help.

Well i love you all so much,
Sister Gneiting

Well you havent heard from me for awhile, because i think my last two email didnt get to you. So sorry about that. I am alive and well though. So i think in those emails i wrote about christmas and new years, so you havent heard about my holidays here in russia. Well everything was great. Both christmas and new years we spent at presidents house. We spent those two days just relaxing and playing games, watching some movies, and eating ofcourse. Also on new years eve we had to be home at 4 pm for the night. New years is a huge holiday here in Russia and very much celebrated and people can get very crazy and drunk, so we stay inside away from the partying. New years eve for all the missionaries in the mission is deep cleaning day, so when we got home at 4 we cleaned. So while everyone else was out partying and celebrating new years, we were cleaning! haha Missionary Life is GREAT!!!!!!

So in the last email, which i dont think you got, I told you about this lady in our branch that died last week. She wasnt married and lived with her parents.we would go and see her every week. It was a surprise that she died, everyone was shocked. Her mom is a member and also in our branch but no one else in her fam is. We went to their house the day after she died and the mom was said of course, but her knowledge of the gospel helped her alot. But her dad, who is not a member, was taking it very bad. He was drinking out his sorrows and pains. When we were at their house I felt so bad for him. I felt like we need to teach him and get him baptized and get this family sealed. He would just pace the house mumbling thing (of course drunk) and it was really sad. At the funeral he was just sitting next to her casket crying and crying and not really looking at anything else. Elder Miller (he and his wife are here on a mission) spoke about the Plan of Salvation, and during his talk the dad looked away from the casket and just starred and Elder Miller. I thought again,we need to teach him. I prayed that we would be able to help him and teach him. Well prayers are answered and heaven father loves all his children and........this last sunday the mom told us that the dad wants to start coming to church with her and that he wants to be taught about the church!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so excited, i couldnt stop smiling. I just kept thinking, THIS FAMILY AND BE TOGETHER FOREVER!! So we taught him a couple days ago about the restoration and the lesson was great. He said he would start reading the book of mormon and come to church and his was very happy and of course his wife is happy. I am very excited about teaching him. The Lord works in mysterious ways but he will provide a way for all the children of god to hear the about the gospel.

We have 3 other investigators who are progressing and getting closer to being baptized. They accept what we teach and understand. Hopefully soon we will have some baptismal dates.

So today we are going to the Ice City!!!! I guess its like a city carved out of ice, so that will be cool. I will send pictures.

So this week is Zone conference! I am way excited. Zone conference is always amazing and i learn so much from president trejo and his wife and the other leaders of the mission. I always feel a bust of energy after zone conference.

I havent gotten the packages but it is just probably taking forever. Thats ok though, it will be a surprise when i get them

Mom you said in you email that we are the same temperature right now and that it is really cold for you!!! Haha i was think that it feels really warm, i wasnt even wearing my gloves today!!! haha it has been so cold here lately. like -30 F so -5 F is great!!! HAHA I LOVE SIBERIA!!!!!!!! Oh and dad guess what, the tip of my nose did get frostbite, haha it was probably like 1st degree (idont know if that applies to frostbite) but yeah something happened to the tip, but it is better now.

So the pic Danna put on facebook, well i am not sure what pics they are. She had my camera for awhile, so maybe she put some one from my camera. Thats probably what they were. Oh I love that girl, she is amazing. I hope you can meet her someday. She is really wanting her sister to come to church things so right now we are working on that. Her sister is scared what their mom might do, but Danna is a great example and very strong is the gospel and has a great testimony. She is such a pioneer for her family.

Well things are great and i love Russia and I love being a missionary. The gospel is true and Jesus Christ is our savior and this is his true chruch. I love you all so so so so much!!!! Have a great week!!!

Love ya all

Sister Gneiting

Merry Christmas to everyone all the way from Russia!!!!!!!

Being away from home and a missionary makes me realize what christmas is about. Its not about the girft we recieve, but about celebrating the birth and life of our Savior Jesus Christ, and what makes christmas even better is we can celebrate this wonderful holiday with our families! I am so glad i will be able to talk to you on the phone, because you mean everything to me. I thank you for being the best family i could ever have, God placed us together in a family for a reason and I'm thankful he has given us a way to be together forever, yup you guys are stuck with me forever :) I love you sooo much!!
I want everyone reading this to know how much I love you and am thankful for you! I also want you to know how much the Savior loves you. Stay faithful to the Lord and as you do so he will take care of you and lead you to happiness. Only with the Lord at our side do we receive eternal joy and happiness. Jesus Christ came into this world selflessly and gave us the most important gift we could ever receive, he gave us the atonement. Please take time to remember the Lord Jesus Christ and all that he has done for us. Dont become distracted by the worldly meaning of christmas.
So Finland was great! We flew from Novosibirsk to Moscow then to Helsinki. We had a 4 hour layover in Moscow and then when we went to board our flight to Finland we were told that we were trying to get on the wrong flight and that our real plane didnt leave for 4 more hours. so we had a 8 hour layover in moscow, which we were all a little sad about because if we would have known we would be there that long we would have been able to go see the Red Square. So then we got to Finland and went to the temple because we stayed at the temple hotel. While in Helsinki we went to through a session at the temple and then went to this place called the fortress, which we dont really know what it was because we went at night and there was no one there to tell us anything or give us a tour. Well it was like an old war fort or castle or something. it was really old and cool. Maybe you can look it up on the internet and then tell me what it was haha - the Fortress in Helsinki. So the temple was beautiful, it is a small temple. It is actually the exact design of the Newport beach temple, well the outside isnt really but the inside was. So i sort of felt like i was in cali!
So I am getting the feel of the Siberian winters. Today -35 C today which is -31 F. YES THATS RIGHT -31 F cold cold cold but its ok because i get to wear fur to stay warm! haha
So I loved the pictures you sent me of Trent, he is soooooo cute! Does he wiggle around alot because in some of the pictures you sent he was blurry in them but everyone else wasnt blurry haha i thought that was funny. Also i like the picture by the tv you have up of me in that fur hat haha old ladies wear those here but i want to buy one but everyone says they will make fun of me, but i am ok with them making fun of me.

Well I love you all and I hope that you have a very Merry Christmas and a great 2010!!