Power

I was on an exchange in Panorama with Elder Willden and we stopped by a family that we were teaching before I left. We stopped in and had a great lesson and then he asked if we had time to take a spin in his toy... Of course!!! It was so much fun, and I have never sat in a more powerful feeling car. There was a lot of rubber left on the road after we were done, and I want one so badly now :-)

1st- Ericks Baptism!! It was beautiful :-)

2nd- Solo pic looking over my stewardship

3rd- Comp Unity

Hey,

This past week I was blessed to meet and receive training from one of the most powerful people I have ever met in my life. Elder Per G. Malm of the seventy came and spent the day with us! There were two missionaries called up during our conference to give talks on becoming a disciple of Christ, an assignment not given ahead of time but instead on the spot. Can you imagine giving a talk in front of more than half the mission, our mission president and his wife, three stake presidents, and a General Authority with his spouse? Well, now I can. I was the second of two called up and there are few times in my life I can remember my heart beating at a more rapid pace, and I am surprised the sound of my heart didn't travel over the microphone. I am so thankful that I was able to speak though! That is now a memory that I will be able to cherish all my life. Here are a select few things I learned from the training:

- Within this church each member is on common ground with regards to receiving salvation. None of the prophets, past or present, have more opportunity to get into heaven then anyone else.

- Power and purity come from our body yielding to the spirit, and corruption is a result of our spirit yielding to our body. As a side note he taught us that if we over eat we are less able to receive spiritual food, so he asked us to not eat to much at lunch since we had more training afterwards. This is one of the reasons fasting is such a powerful tool.

- Our missions will effect many more people then we can imagine.

- A story was told of a missionary being set apart to go on his mission with his family present. Afterwards the stake president turned to the missionary's younger brother, just a couple years away from serving his own mission, and asked what he thought about what just took place. The younger brother lifted his arm and pointing at his brother simply said "I want to be like him". This hit me in a very powerful way as I wondered if I have been the type of missionary Harrison and Tawny, both not far from serving their own missions, can point at and say they want to be like me. Tears came to my eyes as I realized how much I love my siblings and want to be an example for them.

- As missionaries we are really serving a mission within a mission if we are serving valiantly. The mission I am serving in New Mexico is making it possible for me to serve an equally important mission at home, presently and in the future.

- "And again, I say unto you that the enemy in the secret chambers seeketh your lives."- D&C 38:28... Our enemy is seeking to destroy our lives in the secret chambers of our homes, apartments, and anywhere else we feel no one is watching us. If there are things we do not feel comfortable with those we love seeing us do then we should not do them 'in secret' either. We need to search our hearts and find what we need to do, or not do, to unsure our enemy can not destroy us.

- As soon as we find someone who is willing to listen to us we are at war with Satan.

- Being a missionary is partly to help others change and come closer to Christ, but also to help me change.

- When we do something we know is wrong we are saying "Thank thee God for telling me what is wrong, but I will disregard you and openly rebel and sin". When the Holy Ghost prompts us to make a change he will also give us the strength we need to make that change.

- We need to be and look happy! We have the Gospel of Jesus Christ so why would any of us look like 'pickle suckers'???

I wish I could go on for a few more pages of what I learned but I just don't have enough time to do that right now. Out of all I learned at training what may be the most impactful is HOW he trained and taught. He is so close to the spirit that it seemed he knew all of our thoughts and feelings, and he paid attention to that while teaching us. There were so many times he would stop and say that there was someone who needed to stand and bare their testimony on what he had just taught, and then when that missionary bore their testimony it was powerful every time. There were times a missionary would raise their hand to go up front and bear their testimony after Elder Malm said someone needed to and he would say "no, you are not the one I am referring to", and then the right missionary would walk to the front. He called a sister to the front of everyone and said "I sense you are a shy person" to which she agreed (Remember, this is in front of all of us). Then he told her, "you are called on a mission to talk to people, so please bear your testimony of why that is important". She bore a wonderful testimony and then he told her that she must now become a talkative missionary and then let her sit back down. He did the same to a missionary who tends to be a little unhappy and helped him to commit to becoming the most positive missionary in the mission. I need to be that powerful at discerning and serving others!

Well, this has become a very long letter and I have not even been able to tell you anything else that happened this past week. There was so much more, but Ill have to end here...

I love you!

Elder David Inman

Awesomeness

Hey everyone,

Awesomeness is the perfect word to describe this past week! The work is going amazing right now and I feel so blessed to be a part of the miracles that are happening here. Before coming to Rivers Edge I had spent three months collecting key indicators from the zone and seeing this area consistently perform at the lowest level. The missionaries serving here had grown depressed over the lack of success and had, for the most part, given up hope of ever seeing it flourish. That is why I was so surprised that when I got the call to transfer into Rivers Edge I felt excitement and hope. Over the past 20 months of my mission I had been prepared to come here with a good attitude as I had the opportunity to see so many other wards pick up and become very success areas in the mission. However, the success we are enjoying is beyond what I had expected this early into the work, which is of course due to the Lord and this amazing ward. Our first week here we taught a total of three lessons (an improvement from zero the week before we came), and then the week after we taught nine. We were very excited about teaching nine lessons because our initial goal was to have an average of ten lessons per week in the first month, which was a high goal considering an average that high has not happened in any of the records we have of this area over the past couple of years. We were sure we could still accomplish our goal since we were starting only one under, and our ward leaders were enthusiastic about the progress. This last week we taught a total of fifteen lessons and had five new investigators, which is good for just about any area in the mission!!! With the Lord our stretching goal has become a small stepping stone in what He has planned for Rivers Edge.

The ward is recognizing our hard work and helping us in anyway they can. Last week we had members out working with us on four different occasions, sometimes for many hours at a time. One of my main focuses when it comes to working with the ward is in taking the priest age young men out to work with us. When Elder Cook came to our mission he taught that one of our responsibilities as full time missionaries is to help the upcoming missionaries prepare, which I had not been aware of prior to his visit. In this ward the young men come out working with us every week helping in about every aspect of the work. They teach, go tracting, give and visit referrals, eat at members homes, and attend baptisms with us so that they get a good feel for what their own missions will be like. In 2 weeks we will be attending Young Men's and putting on a MTC for a night to help further their readiness by showing how to use Preach My Gospel, answering questions, and role playing with them as investigators. I am so thankful for the time I was able to spend with missionaries in my own ward before coming on my mission so I hope to do the same for these great young men.

Yesterday after church, which gets out at 4pm, we took a young man out to spend the rest of the night working with us. Our first appointment fell through so we ended up showing up to dinner 20 minutes early. Since we had extra time we decided to start at the end of their block and knock our way to their door, something we do often when we are early to appointments. We went from being 20 minutes early to showing up 10 minutes late because of a great man that we met knocking. He was wearing a Vietnam hat and his cars had Marine stickers on it so right away I thought of Roy in Belen, who has become one of the most important people I know outside my family. This man walked out of his door and very kindly told us that he had lost his belief in God many years ago and had no use of what we were teaching. I asked him what had caused him to lose his faith and his reply was a very difficult one to listen to without tears rolling down my cheeks. He told me that if there was a God then what took place at Vietnam would never have happened. He told us of the memories that will never stop haunting him, and that have caused him to go through therapy for the past 40 years with little progress. Dreams that make him wake up and keep him from lying in bed for fear of what might enter into his mind so instead he leaves his wife in bed and wanders around his home in an effort to distract from his own thoughts. He has had to watch young children die in war, some of them from bullets fired from his own gun. There were times he would need to, by order, take an infant found on board a ship, wrap him in a blanket, and drop him overboard to limit the risk of catching the infants illness. And now he feels the guilt of having a family and home while so many of his fellow soldiers died horrible deaths in battle all around him, even though he knows he should not feel guilt for that. He attended his son's wedding and was overwhelmed as he thought of his friends years ago, while his son's age, that left their pregnant wives to go fight and never return home. We can not say that God is responsible for all the good in the world and not give him the same credit for the horrible things that happen as well, because that would mean that an omnipotent being watches it happen and does nothing about it. Therefore, God can not be real, and if He is why would someone worship such a being!

What was I supposed to say to this man? I have never felt a portion of his pain or seen a glimpse of the horrific things that took place all around him and still follow him through his dreams and memories. I know that Christ has felt all that he has and more, but this man had given up on Christ long ago. I felt like giving up, thanking him for his time, and walking away because it seemed impossible for me to help him, but I felt so much love for him that walking away was an even more impossible task. I bore my testimony that I knew those children were brought to a loving God. He said that he had to believe they were taken somewhere wonderful or he could not live with himself. Then I shared with him my experience with Roy a year prior and what transformation had taken place within him as he accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I asked him if I could leave a scripture for him to read and he said that he would read it. I opened the scriptures to Alma 14 and explained what had been taking place as well as the question that Amulek asked as he watched the woman and children burn in the fire, and I promised him that as he read he would feel the Spirit's promptings. I left our number and told him to call us to talk about the feelings he has while reading, and to talk about anything else that he feels would help him. All of us felt the Spirit and he said that he thinks he will call us because he feels something we have to share with him will help. I promised him that he was right and told him I was excited to here back from him. I do not know for sure if I will hear from him, but I do know that he is one of the people I was sent here to serve and I am so thankful to have found him.

Christ loves His children!

Elder Inman

New Pics

Hola,

First, an explanation of the pictures-

Yep, my good suite is no longer... I have taken great care of it, hung it up about every night and avoided rain in it, but it just was not made to handle a Mormon mission, lol. The seat was beginning to wear through to the point where I could almost see through it, but I thought I was in good shape because I had just dry cleaned the black one dad gave me. I took out the black one and as I was getting dressed I discovered the dry cleaners had ruined the zipper, which of course they are not responsible for. So instead I found a great member in the ward who offered replace the zipper for me. While repairing them said she has never seen such well made suite pants and is not surprised by how long they have lasted. She thinks they will last another mission(Harrison). I wore my blue suite the day she was working on my pants and on the way out the door after lunch Elder Evans stopped me and said I needed to change because there was a hole in my pants. I looked in the mirror and saw the pants had worn through all the way and had no hope of repair :-( I wore one of Elder Evans suites for the day instead. I was blessed to be in a ward with such an excellent seamstress, and my black suite is in great shape! It's amazing how much wear and tear a mission will give clothes. She also had to sew up a white shirt that was falling apart, my proselyting shoes are beginning to deteriorate, I am onto my second belt, and many of my ties have fallen apart. I know exactly what Harrison needs for his mission now though!

And the story behind the snake... We were knocking doors and as we approached this one I noticed something weird and stepped back to see a huge snake waiting to pounce. I pulled my companion back and we moved to the side of the house for a better view. We were horrified to knock on the door because that meant we had to walk right under it, which we thought meant a very painful death at the least. So of course the first thing I did was take a picture, and then we strategized what to do to get to the door. Our strategy was weak though... It came down to me running to the door, knocking, and then running back out so fast that the snake wouldn't know I had even been there, lol. After closer examination we have decided the snake is most likely fake, but it made for a good adrenaline rush and story!

Hope you like the pics!

This was also our first week being able to attend church in our new ward, since conference was last week. We loved it! The ward here is absolutely amazing and far surpasses my expectations for them. We stopped into priests quorum to see who was available to go out and work with us through the week and every one of them gave us their number and said they would love to go out tracting, teaching, and anything else we may need them for. We also met with our ward mission leader and ward missionaries and each of them are ready to go out working with us as well. I am very impressed with the ward here and am confident the work in this area will pick up very rapidly with their help. After just one week we are already being blessed with more lessons taught then they have in many months here and there are several people we have found that have expressed interest in learning more about the church. The excitement is quickly growing in the ward and Elder Evans and I love being here.

Love,
Elder Inman

PS. I do not need a new suite, shoes, ties, or anything else. I just wanted to show you because its good mission humor. I am doing just dandy and the Lord is taking care of me :-)

David wanted this posted: http://newsroom.lds.org/article/mormon-media-campaign-expands-across-us-australia

Reflecions

Balloon Festival

Our Ward Mission Leader and us at the temple

Home Folks,

I officially only have 4 months left until I return home... It is such an exciting, scary, and sad thing to have pointed out to me by all the missionaries I am around, and those that feel it necessary to call across the mission to remind me how close I am. Thankfully, so far, all the reminders of how close my return date is has only made me realize how precious the time remaining is and how much I still have left to do. I never thought I could love being a missionary so much, even when our teaching pool is currently extinct.

This week was a weird combination of joy and boredom rolled up in one. I love my new area and the ward seems absolutely solid, and Elder Evans, my new companion, is a great missionary and fun guy to be around. The difficult part is that there are no records at all for the last month, and very little records kept for the last year or so. As far as we can gather from meeting with ward leadership the missionaries do not have anyone they were actively teaching, which meant we have the opportunity of starting completely anew in the area. We spent many hours going through our area book and doing the best we could at organizing the names we have into geographic areas to begin visiting. The rest of our time was spent tracting, teaching active members, organizing our area, and cleaning our living quarters (which looks great now btw). My areas for the last while have become so well functioning that tracting was very rarely an option because of time restraints, but now we have all the time in the world to go out knocking doors. This last week we had some mediocre success knocking, which we are thankful for, but are earnestly searching for other more productive ways of finding the elect in this area. Over all Elder Evans and I are enjoying the work and having a lot of fun despite the lack of immediate success, and we are completely sure success is barely around the corner.

And even though I am sure you already know this I just wanted to remind everyone how amazing General Conference was this past weekend! I can not imagine a better one to have as my last in the mission field, more especially including the priesthood session. In between one of the sessions my mind began to drift to Conferences of the past that have had an impact on me. Memories of talks from just six months ago all the way back to pre-teen, when I heard President Gordon B. Hinkley relate the story of two young boys who put silver dollars into a poverty stricken man's boots, began filtering through my mind and I became even more thankful for the blessing of having a prophet on the earth. As these thoughts ran through my mind I began reflecting on my testimony and how it has changed, spurred by a district meeting a couple weeks back where we bore our testimonies about our conversion process. As I bore my testimony of my personal conversion at that meeting I related how I have always known the church is true. I continued explaining that I have grown up in a home with goodly parents who helped me gain a testimony early in life with consistent scripture study, prayer, and seeing my family live the gospel principles we professed to believe. There was not a time in my life that I can remember ever seriously questioning the validity of the Book of Mormon or the restored gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith.

That testimony I bore began to echo through my mind as I mentally tracked my spiritual progress over the past few years. I began to wonder what changed in my testimony since entering my mission because I knew for sure I was a different person now and my testimony had gone through a large transformation. The only thing I could come up with was that I just knew more now then I did before, but then while listening to more talks later in Conference I received the answer to my question. I realized that the difference in my conversion is that while I have always known The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ's true church I have not completely understood what that can and should mean for someones life. I never comprehended what miraculous changes it can cause within any one of us, including myself, nor did I understand what applying the atonement really meant or how to do it. I know I still do not completely understand but being a missionary has changed my testimony from a strong belief to a passionate way of life that has had a great affect on many of my goals and priorities. This transition has taken place over the past 20 months and it felt great to realize it while listening to the words of a modern day prophet. It is no longer duty that pushes me to the next door after being ridiculed and yelled at, it comes now as a result of further conversion and love. I think this is the reason I have gone from enjoying my mission to loving it and holding it sacred. I cannot imagine what life would be like without this time as a missionary, and I am thrilled at what it means for the future.

Love,

Elder Inman