Elder Inman Letter October 13, 2014

Week 80 something I think ...

I'm so jealous that I am missing the Phoenix Temple open house! Especially after hearing about all the murals in it. I wasn't sure if new temples were going to have the murals or not. And you get to be such an active part of it! Tour guides and such. Way cool. That's a lot of people coming to attend! 1,100 an hour!

It was an ok week. Tuesday was MLC which I always love! It was in Helena and I got to see Elder Rasmusson, Elder Packham, and several others who I have served with or who were in my MTC group. What was new this time?...I drove the van starting at 4:30 in the morning! Really fun but super tiring. I'm getting pretty good at it though. :) We discussed a lot about how to manage our zone effectively, finding efforts, and focussing on activities that actually bring results. Not just time-wasting things to make it look like we're doing something. Lots to counsel on!

I was so tired from MLC Wednesday that I fell asleep for 40 minutes on my knees in preparation from personal study. We spent some of the day painting. Most of the time I was on a ladder or on the roof painting a non-members home. I enjoy painting and it was a good stress reliever. That night we tried hunting down Kevin (our AWOL baptismal date).

Meet the Mormons has been a huge success! We got enough people to request it and it got here to Billings as well as Helena. Our Ward Mission Leader is awesome. He got 7 radio stations to announce it in theaters and did all kinds of advertising. It sold out several showings here in Billings and was #10 in the box office nation wide! Pretty dang good for only showing in select theaters. Mormonnewsroom has more detail.

Lots of good things are happening with the church media. As a mission we are now approved to do #hashtags, pictures, and even videos in our online proselyting efforts! Friendly reminder though, that if I post something to facebook you can't "like" comment or message me! It will be fun to follow though :)

I've been struggling a bit. We had two potential investigators drop us and we have been trying to find people for weeks. Our third companion is draining all patience from me and honestly I feel less of the spirit when I am around him. But I need to exercise more faith. Yesterday we fasted for those on baptismal date in our zone and we currently have twenty! Not to shabby but I would like to contribute to that number you know? Hope to see some miracles this week.

Well that is all I got for this week. Glad to things are going pretty well. That was funny about Jesse's dream that Jimmy got drawn to hunt bread! hahahahaha so funny. Have a great week! Love you!

Pictures: I'm in the back row, Elder Packham to my left, Elder Griffith to his left, Elder Rasmusson in third 

row :)

 

 

Elder Inman Letter October 6, 2014

Fantastic General Conference

I LOVE general conference! I am sad that I slept through so many of them in years past haha. I think now that I truly understand what it means to have Prophets and Apostles alive here on the earth today, it changes the whole purpose of the conference. These men are called of God with the same authority as Moses or Abraham or Noah or any prophet of old! The same as Nephi, Lehi, Jacob, Mormon, or Alma! We see scripture unfold in real time with a current Prophet and the words said are specific to our day and time! Now we choose to respond as righteous saints or to reject their words as many of the Lamanites and the Nephites eventually did. Keep in mind the Nephite civilization gets destroyed for once being a righteous people and then rejected the Prophet :)

Of all the speakers I think I enjoyed Jorg Klebingat's and D. Todd Christofferson's. They were both super straight forward and not sugar coated at all. Their talks applied perfectly to those we are teaching and for me as well. Elder Godoy who spoke in Portuguese was the one who came to our mission!

This week has been a week of finding and frustration. It was transfer week and we received a third companion Elder Bond. He goes home in 5 weeks but has been ready to go home since his 6 month mark.

On a more exciting note, our mission got enough people to request "Meet the Mormons" and it is going to show here in Billings! I hope lots of people will go see it so that they can use it as a proselyting opportunity. It's easy to invite someone to the movies!

It sounds like things are going crazy for everyone! I cannot fully comprehend Torie being at college. She was a Junior in high school when I left! And Lacey is married...still hasn't quite registered with me yet. And Jesse is 16. Wow. And the 303 freeway is finished? Ahhh! The world didn't stop when I left!

The Davis' went to the temple this week! I was bummed I wasn't able to join them but they had an amazing experience! I hope to be able to join them soon. It has been so cool to see people I have help taught return to the temple or to go there for the first time. The church is true and I am so happy to be such an active part of it in this exciting time. Another message or theme I saw in conference was the need to establish our own testimony. The end is near and only more persecution and supposed "evidences" will come forth to destroy the Kingdom of God. "No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. Persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame. But the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent. Till it has penetrated every continent, visited every climb, swept every country, and sounded in every ear. Till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say, the work is done." - Joseph Smith

Elder Inman Letter September 29, 2014

The Book of Mormon is SO true

I don't think I've had so many opportunities to testify and defend the Book of Mormon than I have this week. We are coming across more and more people who are so quick to claim the LDS church to be false, yet have either never read the Book of Mormon or have never prayed about it with sincerity and real intent.

We did an exchange this week with the Foryth Elders. I was here in Shepherd with Elder Manufekai who is Tongan. $ lessons in a row it came down to the Book of Mormon. We met a new Less-Active who let us in and said, "I don't mess around, what do you want with me." We explained he is a member of the church and the Lord checks on his people. He vented for about 20 minutes about how the church treats women like property and how we were decieved. He doesn't beleive the Bible is true or any book is true because it was written by man and not God. That is his reasoning as to why we have a patriarchal society and why women don't hold Priesthood offices. We tried to explain the seperate but equal roles and that it was a waste of time to try and tell God how to run his church. I cut him off in his rant and asked if he had read the Book of Mormon. He said he had not and that he doesn't need to read a book written by a con-man in New York to tell him there is a God. He told me I was living by blind faith. I flat out responded, "FALSE. You do not know what I have studied or what I know to be true. You can NEVER tell me this is not true until you ask God for yourself and you CANNOT tell me what I know and believe to be true. If the Book of Mormon is true, than this is the ONLY church on this planet with the ability to seal your family for eternity and you will lose that opportunity because you won't do something as simple as asking God." Elder Manufekai then bore his testimony and explained it was a waste of time for us to be there if he was not willing to take that invitation. He told us to come back in a week and he will have read some :)

We had two similar experiences after that but slightly more effective haha. All I know is the Book of Mormon is absolutely true. If we trust God enough to answer our prayers, he will answer us. Wednesday morning we got to see a pre-screening of "meetthemormon's" on a projector at the Stake Center. So sweet! Such a good film and the beginning is hilarious. It isn't playing in Montana yet, so President Mecham has all of us spending an hour a day asking people to request the film online. We have a goal to get 10,000 requests in before October 4th. We are nearing 4000 and it's only been 5 days!

I don't have a lot of time today so I'll skip to Saturday. We helped paint a house for an older couple who are not members of the church. Their house got destroyed by some crazy hail not to long ago. I love painting! That night we had dinner at a Recent Converts house who had a non-memeber there. At first he was super standoffish because he thought we were the Jehovah's witnesses. Upon teaching the Restoration, he decided we weren't and instead accepted a baptismal date! Woohoo the church is true!

Transfers start today. I am staying here in Billings with Elder Griffith as a Zone Leader and happy to be! Our whole zone seemed to have been transferred so we are starting fresh again but that's ok I guess. Thanks for the letter grandpa! Can I get Jensen and Shane's letters/emails? I have heard from those two in seriously 20 months!

 

 

LeeRoy's Baptism

 

Elder Inman Letter September 22, 2014

Temple, Zone Conference and a 15 Passenger Van!

Hello!

It was another very busy week here in Shepherd! We only got to teach 11 lessons this week but we found 3 new less-actives to work with and got to go to the temple! Our whole mission went through the temple this month and had a mini zone conference with the Temple President. We discussed Temple Covenants and how serious they are. That if we are not being exactly obedient, we are covenant breakers and the Spirit simply will not attend us. Our Zone went through on Wednesday and it was an incredible experience. President and Sister Mecham joined us all in the Celestial room and President told me some of the revelations he has received for our zone and the confirmation he had that I needed to be there...I ask for your prayers for our area and the zone!

Something fun this week, I got to be trained on driving the transfer van! A 15 passenger van so that I can assist with transfers coming up. It was an entirely new way of driving but I have almost driven every model car the mission has! Fusion, Cruze, Colorado, Jeep, Transfer Van...just have the minivan and the 2014 Silverado's left! I'm determined :D

Thursday we had zone conference from 9-4 and it was basically a condensed version of Mission Leadership Seminar we had earlier in the month. It covered chapters 8-10 in Preach My Gospel (Using Time Wisely, Finding, and Teaching Skills). Thursday night, the Elders in Hardin (about an hour away on the indian reservation) had to get their truck repaired for hail damage. So I got to drive them down in the Transfer Van without the vehicle coordinator! So much fun. I want one.

We had a baptism this Saturday! His name is LeeRoy Maxwell, and he has been waiting to get baptized for over a year. There was a lot of legal issues with the divorced parents and we finally got it figured out. I did his baptismal interview and he got baptized in the Yellowstone River( that was one of the legal conditions)! Other than that, Saturday was just odd. We witnessed a car accident, and saw two other ones. There was a 10 passenger van laying vertical in a ditch from a drunk driver, one head on crash, and we witnessed a pretty bad rear end accident. We had three solid lessons though. One was with Rick Watt, someone we found last week. I don't remember if we mentioned him or not, but he actually met an Apostle on a plane ride to Tucson. He said it was the most engaging conversation of his life. He had no idea who he was. Either way we shared a lesson partially about the Plan of Salvation and partially about the Book of Mormon. He actually asked us for a copy and said he would read it :)

Other good things happened this week but they should probably stay in my journal. It was so cool to hear all the tender mercies happening at home. The Lord will always take care of his children if we are keeping the commandments. Dad thank you for sharing your testimony. I think I am going to print it out and read it when I am having a bad day. I thought of the scripture quoted by every missionary in Moroni 10. A part I think we skip over is it says to "remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men from the creation of Adam, even down until the time when ye shall receive these things and ponder them in your heart." Part of Moroni's promise involves reflecting on how merciful the Lord has been unto us and even to his children in general from the creation of Adam. Thank you for your faith (Mom and Dad). I have been thinking a bit lately just how blessed I was to be taught the doctrine of the kingdom in our own home. The most sacred place on earth second to the temple only. I love this work and all of you reading this! Have a great week!

Elder Inman Letter September 15, 2014 (yes, we posted 2 letters today)

"Rise and Shine ... it's butt kicking time" - Cool Runnings

(from the blog master: sorry, we were taking four kids to college this week, so Jake's letter from last week was posted earlier today. Please be sure to read both.)

Hey all! I don't know why I used that as my headline but it's the mood I'm in haha. It was a much better week this week. We were able to double the number of lessons from last week and talk to a few more people. That's no fun that both you and Lacey had flat/destroyed tires on your road trips north! And that's really dumb that U-Haul doesn't provide a spare tire. They didn't charge anything did they?

We did a lot more walking this week. Montana just passed through a freeze spell that put us down in the 40's. I loved it though, I'm not a fan of the heat! This is the best time of year in my opinion! While walking around, I actually saw Kim Dillon who was someone I worked with in Powell! The LDS world is SO small.

We had a troubling dinner that night...we actually didn't have a place to go for dinner so we showed up at Panda Express. The sisters were there with a member who was taking them out to dinner. He got all mad thinking we planned to bum a free dinner off of him. We explained it was totally not planned and he bought us dinner anyway. (This guy owns a Porsche and has travelled the world, so he wasn't hurting for money either). Anyway, there is a teaching technique in our mission that we are big on. Inviting investigators to be baptized on the first lesson. Every time. Preach My Gospel mentions 5 times we are to invite investigators to be baptized INCLUDING the first lesson. This man said he refuses to give referrals to the sisters for that reason and in his words said, "I am tired of you sisters asking the ward to do missionary work." The sisters apologized if they seemed pushy and his reply was, "Oh, I don't just feel that way, the whole ward does!" I was ready to blow up on this man. He went on to blaspheme truths taught in the temple and he's been a former Bishop as well as a temple worker!

We later heard word that this mentality was spreading to other wards. When did Jesus Christ NOT invite people to be baptized the first lesson? Over and over again whether it be to the Nephites or to the Jews, "this is My Doctrine. Repent and BE BAPTIZED." If we aren't inviting people to repent and be baptized, what is our purpose in seeing them as a missionary in the first place? This man said, "Now if Elder Oaks came down and told us we need to do missionary work, we would do it." I responded, "see that's a problem." As if Jesus Christ and the Apostles haven't mentioned it before? This week I have definitely seen a lot of "sifting" going on even among members of the church.

I had a more fun experience later in the week though :) We were n splits with the Skyview ward and I was with the Elders Quorum President. We were visiting Part-member families and prospective Elders. We knocked on a man's door who wasn't home. When we walked out, a car rolled up and a man got out. This is the conversation:

Brother Kimball: Hey are you Brother ______?

Man: WHAT?!?! (really mad)

*Question repeated*

Man: Yes. What do you want man.

Kimball: You're a member of our church so we came by to visit you. 

Man: Michael Jordan is my church. But I want Jesus to visit me!

Me: Well we're not Jesus but...

Man: GOD is in me. JESUS is in me. I am GOD. I am JESUS. BOW DOWN.

Me:I'm not going to bow down to you.

 *Asks me to bow down 2 more times*

Man: I want Brigham Young to arm wrestle me. 

Me: I've heard Joseph Smith is a good wrestler! 

Man: I AM a good wrestler.

* He walks into the middle of the street pretending to converse with God*

Man: Lord, these...BRETHREN (spitefully) want me to bow down to them. They think they are prophets!

Me: Yeah we never said we were prophets...

Man: But you believe in prophets! 

Me: Yes we do! 

Man: BOW DOWN

Me: I will bow down to God. Let's all bow down and say a prayer. 

*We all kneel but Brother Kimball squats down (we were in the middle of the road)*

Me: *Offered a prayer to help this man* 

Man: NO! (Slamming his hand on the ground). Lord thank you for these two gentleman. I love them. I love you. Amen.

Hahahahahahaa that made my top five favorite experiences of my mission! So funny, that guy was so gone!

Other things that were neat this week is we have been taking an active role in ministering to those who are on baptismal date within our zone (including those out of our area). We helped teach 3 of those lessons this week and they all went really well!

Thank you Grandpa for your missionary story! We laughed because we have had several people ask us if we've been saved before. Happy birthday Lacey! 23 o.O Holy Moly. I hope everyone enjoys school! Love you all and have a great week!

Elder Inman Letter September 8, 2014

I am at a loss for words!

Wow I don't even know what to say! Jesse turns 16, Torie is leaving for College and and Lacey is married! I seem to be the only child in the family not doing much different! Haha. But I am doing something important so I'm ok with that :)

My week will sound so lame compared to everyone elses! This week was a week of finding...or at least trying to. It seemed like everyone we talked to wasn't interested or wasn't home. We also didn't get fed this week because we share a ward with another set of Elders. But that's ok, I need to lose weight anyway haha.

Part of the week was spent on exchanges with the Lockwood Elders. I was there with Elder Paris who is a new District Leader. This week they found 7 new investigators! We were on bikes and it has been over a year since I've biked! While biking, I thought I was just super out of shape...but after 1.5 hours i discovered that the front brake had been applied the entire time and was providing me with resistance the whole time while going uphill -__-. Good thing I took that cycling class!

It has been a week of blessings. Particularly Priesthood blessings! I have given at least three priesthood blessings this week, 2 to missionaries and one to a non-memeber. The thought occurred to me that the same priesthood being used for these blessings was the same priesthood that was used to seal Lacey and Eric for time and all eternity, just through different keys. I am so grateful for that authority here on the earth. We also had a very good District Meeting about Temple Covenants. Sister Aller (one of our STL's) talked about the Savior's "yoke" actually being our covenants and that is why it can be easier when we become yoked with the Savior. Interesting thoughts.

Other highlights this week was a huge breakfast at a members home who fed our whole zone french toast! The previous night I ate a $27 steak haha. Since we weren't get fed I figured we'd tak ourselves out! So worth it.

That's about it for this week. Those videos made me and my companion laugh so hard! I didn't know I could dance so well! Glad Jesse had a good Birthday and that Lacey's wedding went so well :) I was happy to be there and to be the life of the party! Wait where are Lacey and Eric going to be living? Not St. George are they? Are they going to live in or near Rexburg for school? Where did they go for their honeymoon? They both looked so happy and beautiful. Thank you for all the pictures :)

Please pray for our area! And our zone. I feel like we are trying so hard but the Lord's elect just haven't been presented to us yet. Hope all travels go well and I love you all!

Elder Inman Letter August 31, 2014

"And if it so be that you should labor all your days ...

D&C 43: 28 Wherefore, labor ye, labor ye in my vineyard for the last time—for the last time call upon the inhabitants of the earth.

Happy Labor Day everyone! I am so blessed to be the Lord's servant in his vinyard for the last time. And I wouldn't want to be anywhere else but the Montana Billings Mission! This week was very spiritually draining but excellent.

Lots of meetings. Tuesday through Wednesday we actually had a two day Mission Leadership Seminar. From 7:30am till 9:30 PM Tuesday night we discussed important points of Preach My Gospel and had a 2 hour testimony meeting. I want to include something from my journal,

"President talked a lot about Purification, Sanctification, and Edification. I was so humbled by the responsibility I have in the Billings East Zone. Both in the scriptures and in the temple we are given something called "charges." After studying it, the spirit confirmed to me today that a "charge" is a commandment and responsibility given by someone in authority. To whom is given the charge takes absolute accountability for those whom he/she has stewardship over in seeing that they also obey this charge (hence why it was given to Adam, the father of us all). If I (who am charged to purify and sanctify this zone and its missionaries) do not carry out what I was charged with, everyone's sins will be upon my head (Jacob 1:19). Sweet."

After all of this I felt like I could baptize the world. I'll just call in another flood haha. Seriously though, it really opened my eyes to what true leadership and charges mean! This seminar was very uplifting but also very fun. Elder Rasmusson stayed the night with us for the 2 days and his companion Elder Izatt was actually Elder Griffith's companion so it was a reunion! We got to go to Golden Corral as a Council (of like 80 missionaries).

Thursday we had Zone Training (another 3 hour meeting) that I conducted. I gave a discussion on the Law of the Gospel, which encompasses all other Laws (Obedience, Sacrifice, Chastity, and Consecration). Basically it is the set of Laws given to Adam and Eve (and therefore us) allowing us to choose to live a life like Christ's and return to our Father's presence. Section 88 is a good source if you would like to study that! 

Other events of the week included seeing a rattlesnake that we nearly ran over. It coiled up and was ready to strike our car...so we didn't leave the car :) We met with the Stake President, Ward Mission Leader, Bishop, and lots of active families to figure out who needs to hear the gospel. We've had a rough start trying to find people who the other Elders worked with. But we have found several part-memeber families that we are excited to start teaching. I've been a bit frustrated lately but trying to be open with Elder Griffith. Things are going well for the most part.

I can't believe Lacey is getting married this weekend. My mind has not quite comprehended it. I'm excited for them though! Take lots of pictures! And I expect a picture with my cardboard cutout :D Happy Birthday Jesse! I'll be sending you a letter this week! I love all of you and congratulations Lacey! Good luck with school Torie, I am proud of you! 

They don't call it "Big Sky Country" for nothin! And this little tricycle reminded me of Mario Cart.