Late again

(from bottom to top)

1st- Standing in front of the pecan orchards in Las Cruces. Such a beautiful place!

2nd- Blowing out birthday cake, before my birthday, with great friends in Las Cruces. It was her birthday too :-)

3rd- Elder Byrd and I acting cool in our first good rain of the year

4th- Getting drenched and loving it!

Hey everyone,

Sorry my email is a day late again. Yesterday Elder Byrd and I helped some missionaries get around and go to the doctors to have his stitches taken out so I only had a small amount of time on the computer yesterday to email President miller before we had to take off. It was a great week though and I am excited to tell you about it.

I have discovered that I have become an expert at getting in with people through them feeding us. It makes it harder to stay in shape, and I have to work out extra hard, but people love having us over and cooking for us. I have had some amazing meals throughout my mission, and have been the test subject to some fun ideas, but this last week I had some of the more interesting and good tasting food so far. We are working with a great couple found through tracting a few weeks ago who love having us over as many times as we want so they can cook for us. Before I tell you what they concocted for us I will go ahead and tell you a little background on who they are, because it should make more sense then.

There two people are some of the most unique people I have ever met, and I am sure I will never forget them. The first time we sat down with them we said almost nothing, just sat and listened to their story for almost two hours. The wife is about 20 years younger then the husband and I would say the husband is in his 30s, and they are completely in love and perfect for each other. At first they came across very hippie like with many of their ideas and how self sufficient they are, but then they showed us around. They live in the nicest trailer I have ever seen because they love working on it together and invest heavily into it. Their kitchen floor alone is a couple thousand dollars because it is bacteria resistant and good for joints, and much of their molding is solid oak. They also have one of the best theater rooms I have ever seen! Who knew I would ever be so impressed with a trailer? After looking around they showed us two very hidden compartments in their kitchen and bathroom that hold some really high end guns and ammo, just in case. They do not currently attend a church because their beliefs vary from all the churches they have looked into, which beliefs are very close to Christs doctrine that we teach. They love reading the bible and even compare it page by page to the Hebrew and Greek translation to get a more accurate understanding of it.

Then we walked into their back yard and he showed us all of the chilies (peppers) they are growing and I quickly realized he is the biggest chili enthusiast I have ever encountered. They are growing jalapenos, red hots, habaneros, and even ghost peppers (bhut jolokia) which are probably the hottest in the world, which they intend to have me eat at some point. They are such a funny couple, and I love going over and visiting with them, and almost every time we go over near lunch they have an amazing meal prepared. She loves cooking so much that for the first two years of marriage they never had the same meal twice, and they rarely go out to eat. The twist is that in everything they cook they add some type of chili, which to people outside of New Mexico is probably refereed to as pepper. Our last one was brauts (sp?) with caramelized onion and hebanero sauce with a side of potato salad with habanero and jalapeno powder. They also served us jalapeno poppers with their special blend of chili in the cream cheese. Then of course their chips had home made salsa with a variety of different chilies. After that they brought out mixed fruit with habanero powder sprinkled over it and a little whipped cream on top. Don't judge it before you have tried it :-) Every bit of the meal was incredible tasting!

Wow, I just spent a long time talking about them and their cooking so I will quickly wrap this email up. The ward here is amazing and I love serving in this area, although I still miss Las Cruces at times. We are teaching some amazing people and some of them are very close to entering into Christ's church right now. I just don't see how going back to a 'normal' life could compare, so I will have to be sure to take every member a missionary seriously so I don't completely lose this feeling in 6 months.

Love,

Elder Inman

Adventures & All settled now

Adventures (from July 19th)

Greetings :-)

This was a crazy and fun week of missionary work, and I hope all of yours was a great as mine!

On my birthday we were able to go over to the home of some recent converts and eat some cake they baked me. It was a lot of fun and I was able to get to know them and their family a lot better. Both of them are in high school right now and are the only members of their family to have joined the church. Their family is incredibly supportive and amazing people as well so I have high hopes that eventually they will all be ready to be sealed for eternity together, especially with how great of an example these two kids are. They had a family vacation this week and both of the kids left a day later so they would be able to go to church and keep the Sabbath day Holy. They are also very athletic and have already sacrificed certain sporting events to be able to fulfil the promises they made at baptism. If all the members of the church were as consecrated as these two are then missionary work would be so many times more successful!

There were some great things that happened throughout the week in our teaching and training, but I am going to wait on those for now to write about some unusual things that happened on Preparation day. There was an Elder who needed to go to a dental appointment in Santa Fe so we offered to give him and his companions a ride to the train station since they are on bikes. They were running a little behind so we ended up needing to drive them up to Santa Fe ourselves so we decided to spend the rest of the day up there. Since nothing opened until 10 am, and we left at 6am, we spent a good amount of time walking around a beautiful veteran's cemetery and reading the names and dates. It was even more fun when we began seeing headstones that had the AngelMoroni on the top instead of a cross, which I had never seen before. Then we spent some time walking though the Meyer Gallery to see my dads artwork. As we were walking we got stopped by a couple homeless guys who wanted to talk, so we spent a few minutes talking about their lives. One of them said he was from Muncie Indiana even before I said where I was from. How crazy is that?! As we were leaving he told me that he could tell I "will rise to the top in the world". Now I know I will be successful, lol :-)

After spending some time with them we went over to the church building to play some basketball with the rest of the zone. We played for about an hour when one of our elders took an elbow to the face and the skin on his cheek bone split open almost a full inch. We attempted to patch it up with our little first aid kids but eventually gave up and took him over to a doctor in the local ward who had to put 5 stitches in. On the way home from Santa Fe we realized that if we had not missed the train and drove up then he would have had no way to get over to the doctor, or to get back home since it would have made him miss the train going to Rio Rancho. It is so amazing to see how the Lord works in our lives!

Love,

Elder Inman

All Settled Now (from July 11th)

Hola,

Transfers are always such a crazy time and this one is no exception, but I am finally about settled in. Shortly after leaving Las Cruces I realized I had forgotten my water bottle, camera, Preach My Gospel, and scriptures. When I was packing I decided to leave those things out so that I could carry them onto the transfer van with me and use them on the long trip back to Albuquerque, but then I left them sitting on my desk with no way to go back and get them. I was told that the next time someone would be making the trip there and back was 2 weeks away so I got a new water bottle and started teaching and studying from the missionary Book of Mormons. The Lord blessed me though and a great friend from my old ward was able to bring them from Las Cruces to Rio Rancho to give them to me because she was traveling up to see family. I feel like I am beginning to have life long friends in every part of New Mexico and am so excited to travel back through and see them all again.

Much of this week was spent organizing our zone and area since both Elder Byrd and I are pretty new here, as well as going out and meeting ward members and investigators. In just a couple of days I have already fallen in love with the ward members and those we are teaching and am so excited to spend the next while here, however long that ends up being. I have had so much fun already and am growing close to people that I am sure the Lord has placed me here to serve. One of the families here has 5 hilarious kids ranging from 5 years to 18, and they have friends over all the time about the same age. Every time I am with them I cant help but think of how life was with my family and I just love it. Two of their friends were baptized recently and they seem incredibly solid (with very supportive and strong parents), and now we are teaching another one who is very sincere and fun to teach as well. We will be playing basketball with them today so I can remember just how out of shape I have gotten as a missionary. Each family I meet here just makes me more happy that I have been called to serve them. I have also been able to get to know the member we are living with better and he is a really cool guy as well, and was nice enough to give me an mp3 player loaded with approved music. It seems that with each passing month of my mission I am growing to love it more and more!

I will give more updates later :-) Take care!!

Love,

Elder Inman

Happy 4th

Happy 4th!!

I have officially left Las Cruces as of yesterday, and it was one of the more emotionally difficult things I have done on my mission because I love the people there so much now. The only time I can remember feeling like that leaving anywhere was when I said goodbye to my family as I left on my mission. Leaving home was a little bit more difficult, but they were way closer then I ever thought I would get on my mission during transfers. I spent my last couple days saying goodbye to so many people, and getting fed way more then I should have. My last night was spent playing volleyball and watching fireworks with my University ward before I left to pack and leave the next morning. Serving in Las Cruces has changed who I am in an amazing way and I am very excited for when I get to go back to visit all of them, and even introduce them to my family and future family. I hope and pray that I had even close to as big of an influence for good on them as they did on me.

The Lord now has need of me in Rio Rancho, right by where I started my mission in Albuquerque. I was frankly a little disappointed to come back up north after having spent six amazing months down south, but after finding out who my companion is I cheered up quite a bit. My new companion is Elder Byrd, and I served as his zone leader in Las Cruces for three transfers before he came up here to serve as a zone leader himself. He is an amazing missionary and we get along great, and both of us are very excited about how much fun we should have working together. We are serving in the Panarama Hights ward and it sounds like the work is moving forward well here. My living situation is much different then what I am used to since we are living with a member of the ward in his spare bedroom. But from what I can tell after a day I feel I am going to enjoy living here because the member is a really nice guy and his home is beautiful.

It is such a strange feeling to be where I am in my mission right now. Next week I am turning 21 and do not feel at all that I should already be that age, and this month I hit my 18 month mark which is a major mile stone for missionaries. The sister missionaries that came out with me already went home this last transfer! I feel so blessed to have served the mission I have up to this point though. I have had amazing companions, wards, zones, investigators, friends, experiences, spiritual insights and revelations, and I have become the priesthood man I have wanted to be for such a long time. Because of my assignment as a mission leader I have had the opportunity to support and teach more missionaries then I had ever dreamt before I came out here, and life long friends have been made through those times spent in their service. Many of my weaknesses have been made strengths as I have grown as a missionary, and my strengths have become gifts that the Lord has used to better the lives of those around me. My service so far has changed who I am going to be for the rest of my life in a miraculous way and I have complete faith in Elder Cook's promise that everyone I associate with from now on through eternity will be blessed because of my time as a missionary. It has become incredibly apparent why we are asked to serve at this time in our lives because I can not imagine what my life would turn out being without it.

Coming to this point in my mission has caused me to reflect a lot on my mission and who I was and am becoming. I was told by my trainer almost a year and a half ago that at 18 months a missionary has learned the majority of what they need to know as a missionary, so one of two things will happen. They will either take those developed tools and become the most powerful they have ever been as a missionary and teach those to others as well, or they will start coasting through since they are close to the end and happy enough with how they have served already (or because they just want to endure the rest). Through my reflection on my mission so far I understand what he meant and have firmly decided that the last part of my mission will be my best, favorite, and most powerful. I love being a missionary and look forward to what the Lord has in store for the next 7 months.

Love,

Elder Inman

P.S.- Funny story... Before I even had time to unload my luggage we had a teaching appointment with a family in the ward. They told me that when they first heard my name, a few days earlier, it sounded very familiar but they couldn't figure out why until very early in the morning when one of them rememberd while laying in bed. They told me that I was all over the Internet and they had read some things about me previously and didn't put it together until right before I was getting transferred in. They are close friends with someone I had grown to be good friends with in the University ward in Las Cruces.

Awesomeness

Hi Everyone,

This week was sooo incredible! It felt like the Lord opened heaven up and poured so many blessings upon us, although I am still hoping rain will be one of those blessings soon for Las Cruces' sake. I have a lot to tell you about so I will go ahead and jump into it.

Our zone has been very blessed as of late with our tremendous success so we decided to do a zone fast on Sunday in thanks, and to ask for even more blessings and miracles to come. As Elder Karren and I were on our way to our second ward we noticed someone on the side of the road struggling to change a tire so we pulled over to offer help. They accepted gladly and I wish I could have seen what it looked like from the outside with Elder Karren in his 3 piece suit and me in my blue silk one climbing under a truck to get the spare tire. The spare was not releasing correctly so we ended up spending 2 hours working to get them back on the road, and we were working in 108 degree weather. When we finally got them going we exchanged numbers so we could meet up for lunch some time and then we arrived to church 5 minutes after it ended. Elder Karren and I both had to lay down for a few minutes because heat exhaustion hit us pretty hard and then we got up and went to dinner.

That same day we were blessed to have 6 investigators come to church! Sam, Brite, and Joseph are all roommates from Nigeria going to school here who we found because their door was open when we walked by and we started to talk. At the end up Gospel Principles one of them asked a great question considering we have not even taught them the restoration yet. He said that if he is going to be a member of this church he needs to be an active one and intends to teach others about it, so he wanted to know what sets us apart from the other churches. Wow, that is the dream question I love to hear! We briefly bore testimony and set up a time to teach them after church. In our lesson after church they told us of the anti material that exists in Africa, which is even worse then here, and said that now they believe it is a result of ignorance. They are wanting to be baptized the 16th of this month and want to learn as much as they can so they will be able to explain it to their families back home. They are some of the most amazing people I have ever met and am sure they will become very powerful members of Christ's church.

There is so much more that has happened and I have fallen in love with the people of Las Cruces. If it was greener here I would consider living here some day :-) This Saturday transfer news is coming and my chances of staying to see these amazing people enter the waters of baptism is very slim since I have already been here for 6 months. I have been so blessed on my mission to have all amazing companions and I have loved every area I have served in. I don't feel I will ever have any stories about horrific areas or companions that I almost killed. I am so amazed with how blessed I have been!

Love,
Elder Inman

Sooo Happy!

Greetings!!! This has been an amazing week and I have so much to tell you, so I will do my best to type the speed of light so I still have time to email President Miller. To start of with I got food poisoning, I think, for the first time in my life. I was on an exchange, so I had an elder come to my area for training, and I felt great that night. I woke up around 2am feeling horrible and freezing so I turned down the a/c and tried to go back to sleep. A while later I was still freezing and shivering badly so I turned over to turn the a/c down again but this time I noticed the other elder was not even sleeping in his covers so it couldn't be that cold. I got out of bed and realized it was warm in our apartment and then almost fell over because my stomach and my head hurt so much. I rushed to the restroom and spent the next hour throwing up and then got a blessing from my exchange companion, since he was already up from the disturbing noises coming from me. The blessing said that I would be able to heal as I worked so I wasn't worried about having to stay in bed. I went back to bed and when I woke up I felt just as bad, and throughout the day I was so weak and nauseous that I had difficulty staying on my feet for to long. The amazing thing is that in our teaching appointments, which we had a lot of, I felt amazing! As soon as we sat down to teach my mind was clear and my body was strong and the lessons went amazing, and then within a minutes of leaving I was sick again. I felt fine the next day, but it was a great experience to see the power of priesthood blessings. We are being incredibly blessed with our efforts in our own area and in the zone. Elder Karren and I are amazed by how many people are basically asking us to teach them lately and neither of us has ever had such a large teaching pool. It seems like everywhere we go the Lord is placing someone in our path who is ready to receive the restored gospel into their life. I hear about how difficult others missions are and how many people yell and throw things at missionaries, and that they will tract for hours without meeting anyone who is willing to listen, but I have experienced very little of them. There are so few people that have said no to us lately, and almost everyone we talk to loves and and wants to be around us. We have people who offer to buy us sushi just so that can be near us and and leave feeling amazing, and others have told us they see halo's over us and want to know why. Everywhere we go it seems people notice us and wave happily in our direction. To end I wanted to share an experience I had in church this last Sunday. It was mentioned at the pulpit how we need to forgive our parents for their mistakes and give them a break because they are not perfect. He continued by saying that most of us grow up thinking our parents are super heroes and then when we realize differently, which he says happens at about 19 or 20, we are let down. Just because we realize our parents are not super human does not mean that we have to love them any less is what he said. I pondered that for a while and realized he was wrong, at least for my parents. When I was in high school I thought my parents were confused about certain things and I thought I knew so many ways I could do better, but since going on my mission I have learned how super human they really are. I have never met parents that are more valiant or consecrated as my own, and I dream of being able to raise my own children as they have. Tears came to my eyes as it hit me that right now is the only time in my life that I feel I carry the spirit as powerfully as my dad. I suddenly felt scared for the time that I get released and my mantle is taken away because my light will not be as bright, and my dad will not get to fully see who I have become as a missionary. I love my mission and feel it is going by to quickly. I look forward to when I get to spend time with my family and friends again, and of course have big dreams for my future, but this is the best I have ever felt and I don't want to leave it. I never could have guessed how much I would love these people who I am called to serve, or who I would grow into as I served them. Love, Elder Inman

Hecktic & Powerful

missionary working hands...
Powerful
(from June 6th)

Hi everyone, Our stake had an amazing miracle take place yesterday! We are in a record setting drought right now and many people here are worried. I have been told over and over that they don't know the last time this place has ever gone this many days without water fall of any kind worth measuring. So, as a stake they fasted for rain yesterday and during testimony meeting many members got up and bore testimony that they knew it would rain very soon. That same night, last night, we had an incredible storm come through with a beautiful lightning show and pouring rain fall that caused the streets to flood! It is amazing to see what happends when the Lord's people ask for a miracle in faith. They did all they could do and then stood still to watch the power of God. We had a great week with our work as well. I had several experiences that strengthened my faith and made me feel so happy knowing that I am able to hear the Spirit's promptings t

o me: - We got home a little late earlier in the week and were in a hurry to do our nightly planning and fall asleep. As we walked up the stairs we said hello to our neighbor and went inside. Our neighbor is a really nice guy, but we have never invited him to meet with us because we assumed all of the missionaries before us had already done so. As we were praying to begin our planning I felt a strong impression to go talk to him and invite h

im to meet with us. It was past 9:30 and he had gone inside so I wasn't real sure about knocking on his door right after we said goodnight, and then out of no where ask him to take the lessons. When the prayer ended I knew we needed to talk to him so all three of us walked out and knocked on his door. He answered looking a little confused at first but then invited us in excitingly and agreed to start meeting with us. - Saturday morning I got one of the more odd promptings I have received on my mission. It was to go through our area book and start texting all the former investigators to invite them to a baptism that was happening later that day. I thought I would end up texting ten or so of the more recent ones but I ended up sending out well over 100 texts to people I have never met, and until today my thumbs were still sore. None of them were able to make it to the baptism. But something amazing came from it anyway because from those texts we have 7-10 more people who are willing to start meeting with us again and some appointments are already set up. There were also numbers that now belong to someone else and after talking to them they agreed to meet with the missionaries and we sent those referrals to other missionaries in our zone. That hour and a half of prompted texting helped us find more people then a transfers worth of tracting! - I will share one more and then I need to hurry and email President Miller my weekly email. This happened yesterday after all of our church meetings as we were going to change out of our suits. I was really wanting to find someone else to start teaching that day, but we had almost no time to go finding because of all our meetings. As we were abou

t to walk into our apartment I noticed another one of our neighbors pull up who I had previously had a short conversation with. He had told me that he would invite us over some time but he worked a lot and has not had the opportunity. I yelled out hi to him and then continued walking away. I felt that I should turn around and yell out that we were still waiting for him to invite us over. My companions looked a little worried because they have still not got used to my random approaches to people. To their surprise, and frankly my own, he said we could come over right then and we went and taught him before our next appointment. It still amaz

es me how

many people the Lord has prepared all around us! Love, Elder Inman

(this weeks)

Hectic

Hey everyone,

I was really excited to write this week because so much has happened. I was busy finishing up my third paragraph when suddenly something weird happened and I lost everything I had written!! So now my time is running really short and I still need write President about the week...

Here is a quick overview of what I wrote:

- Elder Norquist is back from the Washington mission so now him and Elder Webb have taken over Rio Grande. He is really excited to be back in this mission and seems like an amazing missionary.

- Because Elder Webb and Elder Norquist will be on bikes and our apartment is right by there area we gave it to them and had to move into a new apartment. A good amount of the past few days, Sunday Excluded, has been spent scrounging up furniture and other necessities, and getting it ready to live in. We are almost done.

- We were blessed with incredible success last week with our finding and teaching. It almost seems like God is sending people to us asking to take the lessons, which is great feeling to have. Last week we actually had someone ask if they could cook us dinner if we would teach her. After I inquired about her cooking skills I gladly accepted the invitation :-)

- The wards I serve in are amazing!!!

Well that's it for this week. Sorry it is so short, but I had no choice this time. Thank you for your prayers and faith, because my mission is amazing!!

Love,

Elder Inman

Good Morning

This is a part member family on the road to being eternal! It took quite a few missionaries working with her but the baptism turned out beautiful. The shirt was an inside joke :-)

Good morning! (written May 31st) This past week has been so wearing, but I had a great time with it. I look forward to the day that I can sleep in every couple months, lol! We had a lot of opportunities for service last week, and since there is now 3 of us in our companionship we were able to get even more accomplished while working. Things like showers, making breakfast, and personal space have suffered, but it was great to have more help while cutting wood and digging ditches. With summer in full swing it seems like there is constantly someone who needs some help outside with something, and those lead to great teaching opportunities. This morning we went to mow a ladies yard and our lawn mower didn't work, so then we got to borrow the neighbors and talk to them about what we do as well. People are so much more likely to listen to our message when they see us pulling weeds then knocking on doors. Sundays are even more crazy now too. We start the day with going to ward council at 8:30, then church at 10, 11, and noon, usually finishing up at about 4 and only being able to make a fraction of our church meetings. And to add to the hectic schedule each of the wards we work in meets in a different building, all on very different sides of town. It is a lot of fun though. This past Sunday we got to attend Dona Ana, the new ward we are serving, and the people there are great. Our bishop even texts us regularly to make sure the work is going smoothly. Since it was the 5th Sunday our last meeting was combined and the lesson was on working with the handicapped. There is a very large percentage of handicapped members in this ward, physical and mental, so there were some really great insights and lessons that I was able to learn. We have another full week of service, finding, teaching, and then training other missionaries so I better close this one up and get going. Please continue your prayers because I know they are helping those I am serving as well as myself and the other missionaries. I feel there are many times that the only reason I am able to continue this work with energy is because of the many prayers going out to us. Love, Elder Inman

Transfers! (Written May 26th)

Hey y'all, We received transfer news Saturday night and I got the best of both worlds, which in this case I didn't think was going to be possible. Last transfer I was working in Rio Grande and the University ward. I love working in both of them, and the work is progressing at an amazing rate so I felt that Rio Grande was ready for its own set of missionaries. With how much is happening we have not had enough time to focus on them as they need, which meant that the area would be split and I would lose Rio Grande if they got their own set. On the other hand, there are several people who I am working with really closely in that ward that I don't feel I am ready to leave by being transferred out. So this is how it ended up working perfect, further proof to me that God is in charge of transfers: Rio Grande recieved their own set up missionaries, but one of the missionaries is getting over some health issues and has been serving in the Washington mission to help him get better faster, and he won't be returning to this mission until mid June most likely. So this means that his companion, Elder Webb, is going to work with us in a tri-companionship until the other missionary is able to come down and we will cover Rio Grande, University, and Dona Ana. It is going to be a lot of work but I am so excited for this coming transfer! Most of this week was a lot of fun. With that guy advertising the end of the world all over the place we have been able to comfort a lot of people concerning last weekend (the day the world was supposed to end). It is amazing to me that so many people will hear some guy on TV or see him on a billboard and then put so much trust in his opinion of when the apocalypse is going to be, yet we have a prophet who speaks to us on a constant basis and most will ignore his council. They will rush to the store to by candles and food in preparation for the upcoming date some guy concocted from studying the bible with math, but most still will not prepare a food storage as commanded by a man speaking the word of God, or invite their neighbors to meet with missionaries like they have been told over and over in Conference (I had to put a missionary call out). I have wondered so many times why people are still clawing after 'a form of godliness but denying the power thereof' when it is so easy to find the peace that comes from being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I hope and pray that people will learn from this fraud who claimed revelation of when the world will end rather then decided that since he was wrong then it will just be better to turn towards the growing trend of atheism because their is no reliance on divine guidance. Well time is short again so I better sign out... Love, Elder Inman