Hermana Inman Letter January 29, 2013

Good News!

Hello Dearest Family!

 

This week has been much much better :) so many miracles have happened. We picked up 3 new investigators this week!! They are golden!! After much fasting, prayer, and hard work, the Lord has blessed us with opportunities to share the Gospel with His children here in Vista. Oscar & Loo Loo are 2 of the new investigators. They are husband and wife and have a 10 year old son- the ideal teaching situation!! They were actually a referral and they really want to learn and come to church, so we are excited for them. Andres is the other investigator we picked up this last week. He's about 19 years old or so, and we found him last week knocking on doors. He is SO ready for the gospel! Throughout our lesson with him the other day he kept saying "oh yeah, that makes sense." and "oohhhh! okay! I was wondering about that!" and he just soaked it all in. Then towards the end of the lesson, when we were really feeling the spirit and we were telling him about the Book of Mormon, his mom came in and said "ok, you have to leave now. Go to your room or the church or something, I need to clean." And Andres got so upset, he said "oh my gosh! as soon as we get to the really good part the devil interrupts us because he doesn't want me to learn the truth!" haha it was so funny, and not that his mom is the devil, but it was neat to see that he already recognizes the spirit, and also the influenzes/interruptions satan brings, because he can't stand it when we can feel the spirit. So to close, we told him to read the Book of Mormon and pray before our next appointment, and then we'd talk about it when we came back. He said, "oh yeah for sure, I'm defintely going to because I want to make sure I'm not going to the wrong church or anything!" And he was being serious! This guy is GOLDEN! Too good to be true. But it is true, because the Lord is preparing His children. :)

 

My health is also getting better, which is wonderful! I'm still a little sick, but compared to how I was, I'm doing great. I also received a priesthood blessing last week, and in my blessing it said that I would be healed and that my sickness would not impede on the work. Thank you for sending me medicine! I haven't received the package yet, but I'll get it right before I run out of singulair, so that was perfect timing. Thank you! We usually get mail each Tuesday, but the time of day always differs. We try to see our district leader in the morning so that we have time to reply to our letters before p-day is over, but today the zone leaders said there wasn't very much mail this time so they are going to wait to give us our mail until Monday. Lame.

 

That's great about so many sisters wanting to serve missions! My companion's mission got cut short as well because of the influx of missionaries. This transfer was cut to 5 weeks instead of 6.

 

I loved that story you told me mom about Jesse recognizing the Spirit :) he is just such a sweetheart. I'm so glad to hear that you can feel the spirit stronger and that you are seeing blessings :) I wonder what blessings you'll receive when Jake is out! (which is in just 6 days... wow). How fun that you have been able to get all of the shopping done for his mission! And yes mom, we can definitely go to the westgate outlet mall when I get back. Thanks for telling me Jesse's pirate joke, that was funny! I'm going to tell it to my district at our district activity today.

 

Dad you asked which language I do my studies in. I was doing them in English for awhile because they want to you to learn first in your native language so you understand the doctrine, and then later they want you to study in the new language. This past week I have been trying my best to study in Spanish. I understand most of it. I'm getting nervous, especially about learning the language, because President told me I'll be training really soon (probably within the next 3 or 4 transfers), which means I have to be able to speak Spanish because the new missionary won't be able to yet! Aaahhh! So scary. We're already starting to see the flood of missionaries here in the Carlsbad mission. Generally each transfer we get 10-15 new missionaries. Last week we got 19 or 20 new missionaries, and next transfer we are getting more than 20, closer to 30 I think. So exciting!

 

This past Sunday I gave my first Spanish talk in sacrament meeting! In fact, I was asked to speak in both of the wards we cover! We work in Vista and in Fallbrook. Then to top that off, they asked Hna. Farr and I to give a musical number and give a talk at a baptism that night. What a day! I did alright, I guess; I got compliments on the one I gave in the Vista ward... the other one, I'm not so sure about haha, nobody said anything.

 

Last night we went to a Family Home Evening with Mayolo's family (he's the one that got baptized with his son last month). They invited us over to their house to show them how to do it, and when we got there, half of their branch was there too! In a one bedroom apartment! It was a fun surprise and they made us Mole (mole-eh... I don't know how it's spelled), and we all just had a good time and shared their first family home evening with them! It was so great. The spirit was so strong. I'm finding however, that Hispanics can be really dramatic, not necessarily in a bad way, but they are just very passionate people. So this FHE felt like we were living in a Spanish soap operah for like 2 hours. Everybody took turns saying things like "I'm so glad to be here with you. Thank you for taking our family in, and feeding us, and letting us be in this part of your life." and "each and every single one of you has a place in my heart. In this moment I feel like our house transformed to our house in Mexico, and that I'm here with all of my family. You all make me feel like I'm at home." and things like that haha. Seriously the whole entire night- man I love it here. :)

 

I hope you all had a great week! I'm sure this next one will be a very busy one getting Jake ready to leave on his mission. That is so exciting! Have a fun and great week together. I want to hear how Jake's setting apart goes and stuff like that.

 

Thanks for your letters and encouraging words :) they mean a lot.

 

I love and miss you all very much.

 

Love,
Hermana Inman

Hermana Inman Letter January 22, 2013

Another Crazy Week!

Hello fam bam,

 

Thank you so much for my package of medicine and snacks! Those are some of my favorite snacks! And I love to breathe, so that was nice as well. I've been really sick this past week. I've actually been sick off and on for about 3 weeks or so. I keep coming down with different viruses or infections, and so by now my immune system is shot and is having a hard time fighting off new viruses that keep coming my way, and so this week my body's been really down. It's okay though, I'm on a ton of medication and have been eating really healthy and have been drinking lots of water, so hopefully it'll all be gone soon. I've got a virus but I'm not sure what. Sister Cook called the dr. and that's what he told her. Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good today! No fever! :). I might need some more singulair in a couple weeks.

 

I'm so glad that this weekend went so well for you! I'm sure Jake did a fantastic job, and how neat that Bro. Thalman was able to sing that song that mom's dad used to sing at farewells. Mom told me about Jesse's talk and it made me cry haha he is just so precious and I could here his cute little voice speaking when I was reading it in mom's email. How fun that so many old friends came to the party for grandma and grandpa!! I bet that was a blast :) I am so grateful for them and the wonderful family they have created. That was so nice of Torie to make that beanie for Jake! I'm sure he'll need it in that cold weather! She is so talented!

 

You asked how the baptism went this past week... it didn't happen :( this past week we had to drop two of our investigators because they just wouldn't progress. I know someday they'll come around when it's their time, but right now it's just a waste of our time to keep seeing them if they aren't going to work towards baptism. We can use that time to find others who are ready. We had to stop seeing Gabriel, our favorite investigator just the other day, and it was a total surprise, but we had a hard heart-to-heart, and it was very clear to us that he wouldn't be ready for awhile. On a brighter note, that very same night, the Lord blessed us with a new investigator named Juan Pablo, and we have high hopes for him! We also received 2 referrals this week from people who want to learn about the Gospel! We are so excited :).

 

We had interviews with President Cook this past week and it went very well.  Things are getting much better :)

 

I'm afraid I don't have much time left. I've only got 25 seconds! Literally! so I've got to go.

 

I love you and miss you all very much!

 

Love

Lacey

Hermana Inman Letter January 15, 2013

Top O the mornin to ya

 

Hey howdy,

 

I'm so excited for Jake to get his endowments this week and for his farewell! He is so awesome! And that's a bummer that somebody blabbed about the surprise party this Saturday.. oh well. It's going to be an exciting weekend! Let me know how it goes! That's fun that Jesse will be speaking on Sunday as well! Is this his first talk? What is he speaking about? Did he write it all by himself? I'm sorry to say that I laughed pretty hard when I heard about the dogs destroying Torie's phone haha that would happen to her. Those puppies are so silly. Did that phone have insurance? My old phone still works (the smart phone one) that I used before I left. I'm not sure where I put it, but if you can't buy a new one right now Torie can use that one. If there's pictures on it though I'd like her to save them. It might be in my night stand... I'm not sure.

 

I can't believe that it is colder in Arizona than it is in California! 20 degrees?! That's ridiculous. It has been freezing cold here, too, but it's only gotten to like 40 degrees... I've had a cold for a couple weeks that I think might be turning into a sinus infection because my allergies are awesome when the weather is bad. But I'm fine. Oh, am I supposed to take Claritin with Singulair? Zyrtec with singulair? What was the combination? I can't remember so I've only been taking one.

 

My district leader told me you sent me a package :) I haven't been able to see him yet to get the mail, but thank you in advance for sending me a package :) that's the best thing ever- is to receive mail from home. I don't care which photos you put up on the blog, whichever ones you feel like. Actually, I would like the picture of Mayolo and his family to go up there but I don't care which other ones you put up.

 

I do write in my journal a few times a week! This is definitely the Lord's work and He reminds us of that each day, it's so neat and really just amazing. :) The Lord knows where each of His children are, and He knows at exactly what time they need to hear the Gospel. I try to write each of those divinely inspired experiences in my journal. It's already proven to be helpful on the mission to have a journal, because when things are rough I can just go back and read about an experience I had and how my testimony was strengthened, and it gives me the strength to keep moving. How is your journal writing going mom and dad?

 

Dad, do you know Whitney Moss's address? Some of the missionaries in Temecula would love to go talk to her... :) but if you think she might be offended or not ready or something, I understand. Maybe I'll run into her sometime when I serve in Temecula. But, you never know, her family could be ready to receive the Gospel!

 

Oh, Jake, I forgot to tell you in the email I sent to you- memorize the "how to begin teaching bullet points" in preach my gospel in chapter 10. It will save your life.

 

We've been reading about faith this week in the Book of Mormon, in Ether. Read Ether 6:6&12. Each day we ask for miracles to happen in our lives when we say our prayers. However, we must remember that the Lord cannot do anything until we prove to Him that we have enough faith. Faith proceeds miracles. We receive no witness until after the trial of our faith. Maybe this week you could take a few minutes each night and count the miracles that happened in your life that day. There's a lot!

 

Also, I learned something interesting this week about prayer. When we end our prayers, we say "in the name of Jesus Christ, amen." Therefore, everything we say in our prayer, we say in Christ's name. Another thing- prayer is "the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other...." (prayer in Bible Dictionary- read the rest, it's really interesting!). So, if prayer really is binding our will with God, of course we can pray in the name of Jesus Christ. But, if we ask for things that may or may not be God's will, we can't really say "in the name of Jesus Christ" at the end of our prayer. Just something to think about.

 

Thanks so much for writing to me each week :) reading each of your letters/emails is my favorite part of P-Day. I hope you all stay warm and healthy! Have a great week and an even more AWESOME weekend! I'm sure it's going to be wonderful.

 

I love you all and miss you very much. Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers.

 

Love,
Hermana Inman

Hermana Inman Letter January 8, 2013

Buenas Tardes!

 

This week was interesting, as I'm sure every single week will be. I'm finding that many times every single one of your plans in a day will fall through, and even your backup plans, and yet somehow the Lord puts someone else in our path who really needs the Gospel right now. The Lord is involved in every detail of our lives, especially in missionary work. The Lord protects His missionaries and blesses them when they put forth all their heart, mind, and strength (and then some more after that). Sometimes it's surprising when we talk to someone and they are actually interested in learning about the Gospel- you never know who is ready to receive it! So talk to everyone!

 

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! I'm so glad to have been so blessed with faithful parents who are sealed in the temple and have a beautiful marriage. It is a great example for me and brings so much peace into our family's life.

 

This month (on the 10th &11th) is a mini anniversary for me because it's my 3 month mark of my mission and my month mark in the actual mission field! Woop woop! Pretty exciting! It's also my trainer's year mark in the field this week, so we plan to have a party.  The language is coming, still slowly but surely. I understand most of the time what is being said it's just speaking that's the hard part. The members and our investigators are kind though and help me out when I can't think of the right word. Most of them speak a little bit of English.

 

This week the members have given us so much bread! On January 6th, Mexicans celebrate the wise men, and I don't remember all of the details, but basically they celebrate the wise men finding Christ and giving gifts to him. Part of this celebration includes a sweet bread that they make with sugar and fruit on the top of it. Inside of this bread they hide 4 little dolls (they put them into the dough before it is baked). Then, when you cut the bread, if your piece has a doll in it, you have to throw a party (I think within the next week or so, maybe month) for all of the people there. Any reason for a party here :).

 

Mom, I'm glad you were able to visit with Gaylene. I'm glad you had a good time! Thanks for giving those shirts to Megan! I'm glad she liked them. Thank you for your words of encouragement mom. I looked at that mormon message about the currant bush, and I really enjoyed it, it was the perfect message for me.

 

Congratulations Jake on working on your recommend and setting up the day to get your endowments out! You are awesome! Just remember to go with an open mind and pray and maybe fast before you go. Which day exactly are you going on? You'll have to let me know how it goes :)

 

Torie, how's school going? Band? What have you been up to lately?

 

Jesse, how is your school going? The Star Wars dance sounds like that will be so much fun! Who are you going to dress up like?

 

I'm glad that you are feeling better dad. Are you still sore? How's work going? Thank you for reminding me about the sons of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon. They are my role models and perfect examples of how a missionary should be. They definitely went through so many trials and I'm sure they never once complained.

 

President Cook (our mission president) extended a challenge to us for this year to read through the Book of Mormon before Easter, and to highlight every single refrence there is to Christ. The Book of Mormon truly does testify of Christ, you can see that from all of the red highlighter marks on each of my pages. If you haven't ever done that before, try it out. It is helping me to come closer to the Savior and to realize how our whole lives are centered on Him and the atonement.

 

I can't think of anything else that I need from home, but I'll let you know if I think of anything. Thank you :).

 

There is a sweet sweet family here named the Legg family. The Legg family lives in a trailer park and they don't have very much, but they give us and everyone else SO much! All that they have they share with others. They are also power missionaries! Everyone they come in contact with is introduced to the gospel. She's adopted Hermana Farr and I as her daughters here. She's the one who let us come with them on Christmas morning to skpe and make our phone calls. They take really good care of us and are always making sure that we are fed and taken care of. I'm not sure why I told you that except that maybe you don't need to worry if I'm being taken care of and watched over. :)

 

I watched a mormon message this week called "good things to come" by Jeffrey R. Holland. Check it out, it's so good :). All the mormon messages are really uplifting, really. Watch some more of them!

I hope you all have a great week! Share the gospel with all of your neighbors and coworkers and aquaintances. Send the missionaries over to visit them. If you're too shy to bring it up with your friends yourselves, ask the missionaries how they can help with that. Just make sure that everyone knows the Good News!

 

I love you and miss you very much. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers, I can definitely feel them each day.

 

Love,
Hermana Inman

Hermana Inman Letter January 2, 2013

Hello :)

 

Happy New Year! It's so great to hear from you! It sounds like Jake had a fun birthday (electric boots? that's awesome!). I'm sure Alex's talk was great as well, he'll be a good and fun missionary. His companions will love him.

 

We had to be back inside our apartments at 7pm on New Years Eve to stay safe and stay away from all the parties and drinking and such. We as roommates had plans to build forts and do dumb things but then we ended up having like a 2 hour scripture study/discussion haha we are such missionaries... we didn't build our forts or anything. We literally studied for 2 extra hours together. And we enjoyed it! We could hear the fireworks from our apartment but we didn't see any.

 

New Years Day was the worst day ever... hopefully it's not a foreshadow for the rest of the year. As a missionary you see and hear a lot of things that you don't want to ever see in your life, it's sad and discouraging at times. But, that's the reason why we're here, is to share the Gospel with everyone and turn this world into a better place.

 

On a brighter note, the baptism of Mayolo was beautiful :) I have pictures and will be sending home my memory card either this week or next week. I have tried several times to email pictures home but I have to install some kind of software (the cd that came with my camera) in order to upload any pictures by USB, which I can't do at the library haha. Sorry! Maybe I'll go get an adapter at Walmart today or something that will fix the problem. But anyways, Mayolo and his son got baptized on Saturday and the Spirit was so strong. He didn't end up baptizing his son, I'm not sure why, but they were both still baptized that day :). The next day they had their confirmations at church and their blessings were beautiful. We have baptismal dates with a few of our other investigators that we're working with; it's so great to see the light in people's eyes when they learn about the Gospel. We brought our investigator Gabriel to a different baptism on Saturday as well, and afterwards we asked him what he was thinking and how he felt. He said "I just can't describe it. It's so different from everything that I know, but I feel good. I cannot deny that this is true." :) Me either Gabriel! I cannot deny that this is true!

 

We've been learning about family history a lot lately and have been sharing it with others. If you get a chance, could you send me some family history stories? I would love that, and it's fun to share stories with other people about our heritage and where we come from. It encourages and excites them to do their own geneology.

 

Random side note- if you check out the Vista 4 Ward facebook page it has a couple other pictures of me on it that you can check out. They have a whole photo album set aside on there for all of the missionaries that serve in their ward.

 

I read a scripture this morning that I want to share. It's 3 Nephi 13:32 and it says "For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." It's such a simple yet comforting verse. The Lord knows you and knows what you need, and he will help you.

 

Well I hope you all have a great week!! I'm still working on replying to everyone's letters. Be patient with me :). Good luck with school starting up again! Have fun and be safe these last few days of vacation. I love and miss you all very much.

 

Love,
Hermana Lacey Inman