Elder Inman Letter December 1, 2014

Holy Crap it's December!

Happy Birthday Dom! I can't believe he's turning 21. I told him he better not do anything crazy. But over there, everyone is crazy at like the age of 12 haha. He said no one understands why it's such a big deal to turn 21. I really can't believe December is already here! November went by far too fast.

It was a pretty fun week here. Lots of random, funny, and spiritual events. Monday night I had a baby bite my finger three times! We were at a recent convert's home teaching the new member discussions and their 2 year old picked up like a month old goldfish off the floor and put it in his mouth. I put my finger in his mouth to try and take it out but he bit me 3 times instead haha. I guess I deserved it!

Tuesday...one of the funniest days ever. Picture this: It is raining outside and the streets are nice and slushy from the snow the day before so it is super slippery on the roads. You are about to pull out from your street turning right onto the neighborhood road (like Verde Vista) and there is a truck coming toward you on your left. A deer prances right into the middle of the road and the truck DESTROYS the deer. It fly's 30 yards and slides across the slush and slams into the back of you car...that is EXACTLY what happened to us hahahahaha. The truck kept going! It didn't even phase him! I got out of the car (I was the passenger) to see this whitetailed doe UNDERNEATH our car with it's head just under our exhaust pipe. Elder Burnham pulled forward and the deer's hind leg was broken at least 4 times over. It couldn't get up so we parked and called for someone to come get it. While we were waiting, a car drives up next to us and asked if we had a knife...we replied that we didn't. She totally wanted to take the deer, skin it, and take it home! We told her we had already called someone and she said she was going to come home and get her van. Lo and behold she comes back with a van. It had been an hour and no one came to get the deer so she put it in her van like right next to where her kids would sit. And she drove home with it...that is disgusting haha.

We did do missionary work that day though. Somehow there was no damage done to the car. We taught the Plan of Salvation to a 9 year old, complete with cutouts and a flow chart for him to color. His name is Bill Bailey and he is getting baptized this month! Afterward we visited the guy that got shot in the face named Mike Aja. We had Bishop with us and we made it very clear to him that he needed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. His wife is really less-active but she really wants to be active. We talked about the temple what he needs to do if he wants an eternal family.

Thanksgiving was good! Not as memorable or as fun as last year in Bigfork. But it was good. We ate dinner with a family by the name of Chapman. Cool enough, it is extended family of our Ward Mission Leader in Billings, Thomas Chapman and he was there for Thanksgiving so I got to see him. The food was really good!  It was a very relaxing day. President told us to proselyte with all our heart, might, mind, and strength every day EXCEPT Thanksgiving which felt odd but I enjoyed relaxing! We had a second dinner with our ward mission leader here and a few of his friends. They are all young families and we all ate at the stake center. We played categories and did some other fun things. I was actually missing Thanksgiving at Peggy's house, they always have the best food!

Friday and Saturday we were trying to get things figured out for a baptism. Robert Mackenzie is a young single adult who we weren't sure was ready to be baptized due to some things he still needed to overcome. We didn't have his interview till Friday and so it was quite stressful trying to get people to his baptism that happened Saturday. Everyone was out of town and it was super last minute. We nearly had to cancel it and had to make all kinds of phone calls. Fortunately a miracle happened and there was about 20 people there! Granted that 10 were missionaries but it was ok :) Another baptism!

This week will be Christmas Zone Conference which I am SUPER stoked for! Half the mission will be on this side. I'm glad you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving and that Torie was able to come home for it. I just wrote her back so it should be there in the next few days. Cool story about the Zoo! Note to self..panthers don't need to be looked in the eyes and they like babies. Have a great week and stay warm in the freezing 70 degree temperatures there in Arizona! Love you!

Pictures: 1412-1413 is the Deer Story, 1383-1384 is the view out of our apartment, 1419 was taken on Thanksgiving (Snell, Burnham, Me, Sister Hoggan, Sister Randall), 1426 is Thanksgiving (check out the tweed!)

Robert's Baptism