Week 1 in the field

I got a little note from President and Sister Anderson along with this picture today! I also finally heard from David:
I havent recieved any letters in the mail since I left the MTC, so I have no idea what problem you are talking about, but I loved the package! EVERYONE asks about the scripture case and loves looking through all the pictures. And the treats were a hit too!
I didnt get the drivers record stuff though, and the office said they have not recieved that yet either so I was wondering if you could get that send off pretty soon. Oh, and only send packages United States Priority or Express Mail, otherwise I can only get it every 6 weeks. Send all mail to the mission office with my name and they send it to me.
Well Im sure you want to know about my new companion, my trainer. Remember the trainer on Best Two Years? Think of him as I explain and I bet youl get a little laugh out of it. His name is Elder Davis and he is from Bountiful Utah. His parents let him know that they got a divorse 5 months ago, and then 3 months ago his girlfriend who was waiting for him said that she got engaged to another RM. Now his whole family has fallen into inactivety, his girlfriend dumped him, and on top of that he goes home in two transfers, both of which I will most likely be with him for. Its the perfect combination for an absolute bum of a missionary, especualy with his dad writing him about thier new boat.
But it turns out that Elder Davis is an incredible missionary. He has spent the last 6 months of his mission as an Assistant to the President and was moved to trainer/district leader upon his own request. He said that he was wanting to do some 'real' mission work for the last part and wanted to get out of the office. He even tried, and is still trying, to get an extention to his mission. He said he had a little bit of depression time, but is out here to serve a mission, so he will deal with everything else when he gets home. Yep, I got the #1 trainer out of the bunch of them.
So then our first day we opened our appartment door to see a mess of a place left by the other elders. We got double transfered into this area, Vantana Ranch, if that means anything to you. If it doesnt then it means both missionaries who had been here left, so we are basicaly starting from scratch, and the last missionaries were bums so the area was a mess. My comp asked me if I would rather unpack today or just go out and start working, so we put our bags down and walked back out to go see as many people as we could before the day ended. Much of the first week has been spend meeting old investigators and getting to know the ward, which I will have to tell you about.
The apt still isnt real clean, and im actually still not unpacked, but I spend any extra time I have trying to get that done. Missionary work has been incredible, and really really hard. We have knocked on doors for a couple hours each day, and its fun to see the different responses we get. My companion has a studder, which usualy doesnt get in the way, but when we are tracting it can get a little annoying to him so I do alot of the talking at the door when discussions actualy start. We have found one new investigator and taught a couple outside lessons which will hopefuly lead to them being investigators, but no huge inpour of people wanting to be taught yet.We spent hours and hours organizing the area book, but we were still able to meet and teach a couple amazing families.
This ward is incredible! Its got about 80% activation, and the primary is 288 kids! It seems like everyone is under 40 here, and almost all the kids are under 17, which makes for a very loud sacrament meeting, but also for realy fun dinner appointments with the members. The ward is so excited to do mission work, unlike anything I have ever seen. Eveyone asks about the people we are teaching and offers to help whenever we can use it. The ward mission leader talks to us everyday, goes to appointments, and even sets up some appointments, plus he goes by himself to make friends with as many of the inactives or investigators he can.This area has some incredible potential and I am very excited for the work ahead of us! Even with all the boring work we had to do with organization we still taught more lessons this week then the last set of missionaries ever did, so I have a good feeling the work will explode with two missionaries excited about the work.
Just a quick mini story and then I have to go. The other day we were teaching a man named John. His wife joined a couple months ago and she has been trying to get a divorse with him for the past year. Im not completely sure the reason, but she will not bend on it. So we finaly convinced him to start taking the lessons, but alot of people were worried he was just doing it to try to find out how to talk his wife out of it, and not because he is really interested in the message. Right in the middle of the first lesson I felt prompted to ask him two questions, "Why does he want these lessons" and "What does he plan to do WHEN he finds out that what we are teaching is true". It seemed to bold to ask so I put it off but then the prompting came again so I stopped where I was and asked the first question. He looked almost hurt at first and just sat there thinking and finaly said that he guesses he would like to know if this is true. So then I asked the second question and he just stared at me for a good 30 seconds, which made me feel a little uncomfortable. He finaly broke down a little and said that he wants this all to be true, and that WHEN he finds out that it is he would be a fool not to join, be baptised. YAY!! So then I thanked him, told him that if he follows through with the committments that I promised he would find out that it is true, and continued with the lesson. It was realy powerful, and the spirit filled the room from that point forward. I think he needed to hear himself say it even more then we did.
I miss you all, and still havent completely shaken the random times of homesickness but I am learning so much and feel so good about this work! I pray for all of you everymorning and night, and hope that you feel the joy of the spirit in your home everyday day!
Love your missionary,Elder Inman

No letter - but a picture is worth 1000 words

David called from the airport on his way to NM. I was out walking the dog and I missed the call. He had two seconds anyway, he just wanted me to post that there are no letters this week because he is busy during his P-day. I think his biggest worry is laundry...
Should mention that the pic is of his district in the MTC.

Week 2 at the MTC

Sorry, I meant District Leader, but now I have been called to serve as Zone Leader so I guess it doesn't matter how I miss typed the last one. And you can go ahead and just put the money into the acount since I have the card with me. There have been a lot of extra expenses I wasnt expecting, plus $70 min is needed to get on my flight to New Mexico. But I know the Lord is watching over me, as well as my family. Thank you!I am going to the temple today so I will be sure to put the Ellis' on the prayer roll :-)
And now the letter...
It has been a very intense and trying week for my companion and I. That cough I had before I left came back and attacked me pretty hard, making me very congested, putting intense pressure in my head, and causing me to cough constantly. It started on Tuesday, and on Friday I even had to have my companion retire early that night and miss the planning period, which we did the morning after. I recieved a blessing though, and almost right away began feeling better, and now it is all but gone. One more reason to be thankful for the priesthood power!Other then being sick it went great though.
We are still getting up early every morning and getting more study time in, and each week my companion has fasted with me so that we could keep the sabath day as holy as possible, which I feel has been a major blessing for both of us. As for the snoring, we have been praying that it would not keep my roomates up, and lo and behold I almost completely stop snoring each time we do. Wow, who knew the answer was that easily available.
And then last Tuesday night we were all able to listen to an incredible speaker, and General Authority, Richard G. Hinckley as well as his wife. They were amazing! He is so much like his father in that he is very humorous, and is able to get very powerful messages across with very short bursts. He said that when his father was asked how the church is able to get such esteemed members who are busy with very professionaly productive lives to give up thier lives for years at a time to serve as mission presidents his father replied simply "We ask them". So powerful, and so fun to listen to!
My companion and I had another great learning and teaching experience also while teaching in the TA, teaching appointment. We were supposed to teach the second lesson, which we taught some of, but the investigator had so many questions about baptism that we spent most of our time on that subject, and on the authority in the church. I didn't feel to good when I left because the spirit whispered to me that we overlooked something, and that we were meant to do more with him.
We went back for a second appointment and that time asked more questions about his personal life and discovered that his wife had died one year ago, and that his real concern was her being able to take part, and them ending up together since his pastor told him that they wont. My companion told a great story about a friend of his, which made our investigators eyes water, and then I bore very solemn testimony. I could not hold back the tears and then Ron, the investigator began crying as well, and said that he felt what he knew to be the spirit of God.I am so excited for this coming week!
I was a little dissapointed when I was told we were called as the Zone Leaders because I very much loved the service I was called to as the District Leader, but their are two more districts coming in this week to my Zone, and we get a chance to serve in an even greater capacity. I know that God qualifies he whom he calls, and He has already been blessing us with inspiration on how best to help, serve, inspire, uplift, and prepare those intrusted into our care. This is such an incredible work.
Well my laundry is going to be done soon so I have to wrap this up. This is probably the last time I will be writing from the MTC since we leave the day before next Pday and Im not sure how they want us to handle that, especualy with clothe washing and everything. This has been a very random letter, but there is just so much I want to so that worrying about grammer wasnt considered. Please fix it mom, lol.
A Very Joyful servant of the Lord,Elder Inman

Week 1

We are only alloted 30 mins on here a week to send emails, to family only, and some of that time was taken with the set up so this will be a pretty short email, but thats alright because I put the bulk of what I wanted to say into the latter I am sending off today, and Im sure mom will do a wonderful job of taking that and transfering some of the improtant things to her blog :-)I really really do miss all of you so much! The first night here I almost broke down thinking about all the wonderful memories I have with each of you, and that I realy wont see any of you again for at least two years. Please send me some family pictures out asap! But I prayed for strength and havent had the same trouble I had the first night so dont be worried about me, and Ill do my best not to worry about you all to much.
I have an incredible district! I am amazed at how much I am beginning to love each of the elders and sisters after such a short amount of time. Because of the preperation my parents have helped with growing up I am further along with alot of the doctrinal knowlege, and sales is already helping me with my communication, but I have noticed so many things in each of these wonderful missionaries that I am very much lacking on, which has been a surprisingly humbling experience which Im sure will continue.I have worked very hard, and prayed for long periods of time, so that I may better be able to become a missionary, as well as be a strength and a teacher to the rest of my district. Because of this I have been blessed with increased love and insight into how to help each of them as individuals and as companionships. My calling as district manager has only served to increase this desire, and has brought forth more spiritual promptings then I had originaly hoped for. It made me feel like I was doing an alright job when yesterday at dinner the sisters were saying how the elders felt like little brothers, since the sisters are a couple years older. Except for Elder Inman they all pointed out, which made me smile bigger then I meant to. I guess they feel like I am much more of an older brother, or even a father figure here because of how much I strive to take care and lead them.
And since I am talking about companions I should probably tell you about mine, Elder Anderson. He is an incredible missionary in training who is truely striving to be the best he can to allow the spirit full access to work. He has, without asking, awoken half an hour early every morning with me, which the rest of my dorm is now doing, so that we can better prepare for the day and not be rushed with prayers. He has also taken shorter meals so that we can fit more study and preperation in, and ran with me from appointment to apointment without any sign of murmuring. In fact he is very happy about how much work we are doing, even though a couple days ago he said it is wearing him completely out every day trying to keep up. I would say that helps him sleep like a baby at night, but my unusually short time it takes to fall asleep combined with my very loud snoring has hindered that a little. Good luck Harrison :-) You are just as bad as me
Well my time is running very short, and we have to go get our luandry put into the dryer so I better get going. I still have a lot to tell you, but I guess with how packed our days have been with spiritual experiences and learning there is no possible way I could tell you more then a small fraction of my experience so far. Suffice it to say that this have been on of the hardest, most tiring, and most incredible weeks of my life!
Thank you so much for the help all of you have been in preparing me for this so that I can be properly used by the lord. Thank you mom and dad for being the very best examples I could ever hope for, because everytime now I think of either one of you, and the lessons you taught, I have to turn away because of the tears that form. I wish I could give each of my family members one last hug and say I love you, but I pray that you can know that.
Love,Your very happy son, Elder Inman
PS, in the letter I am sending out today there is a short story about a lesson we taught that I think you will enjoy :-)