Oct 24, 2011 Letter

Hey Family!

LINDS AND ROB! THAT'S AWESOME! Im tellin you guys I just had a gut feeling he was coming. That gut feeling never fails me. haha. It's right 99 percent of the time. I still hold to what I said with Ash. That was what the gut told me so that's what itll be most likely! Im so happy for you guys and for Paycen! I can't wait to see pictures of him! I bet he is just a little baller. Im glad you guys didn't name him Jacoby cuz now I can name my son that. ha! I wish I could be there too see him, but soon enough right? Congrats!

It was a most amazing week and I have a really sacred and testimony building experience I want to share with you to start off. So We were at a part member families house on Wednesday. This family has just a slew of inactive members over there, and alot of non members, but they LOVE the missionaries and let us in whenever we come by so we decided to buckle down and really discern by the Spirit which ones we needed to focus on. We we found through talking to an inactive member (Tina Cunningham) that her boyfriend (Josh Stubbs) was not a member.  We got to talking to him and turns out he spent 2 years in prison just recently for being a theif. Didn't go much more in depth than that, the kid is only 22 and he really has a big heart, just no direction. Well, in prison like most, he was preached the bible and turned to God because there was no one else, and he found that he was real. He went to church there and when he got out, but then at his church the pastor was corrupt and really rubbed Josh the wrong way so he left and has been looking for a place to go ever since that is pure and not about money. He agreed to let us teach him about the Church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and as we were teaching the first lesson we were focusing on the portion of just the relationship we have with God being our Heavenly Father. The potential we each have inside of us being a child of the most almighty being in the Universe. That is saying something I would think, but we were tellin him how God knows each of his children individually, he doesn't just count his sheep he "numbers" them because each number represents a soul and individual whom he truly loves. We communicate with him through prayer, it is our way to get to know our Father, to remind us of things we once knew that becuase of the veil no longer remember. Just as we were talking about these things a miracle took place. One of the other inactive members "Heather Cunningham" was leaving the house and as she was getting her kids into the van she just collapsed out of nowhere, she turned blue, her vitals dropped and she was on the ground in a pouring rainstorm shaking like she was having a seisure or something. Well someone ran into the house and yelled at us to call 911 using so choice f bombs to get their point across (very typical of every single person we talk to here in Hamilton by the way) well Bro Johnston another inactive member called and we ran outside and immediately had a STRONG impression to give her a blessing, without asking, my comp. and I got to our knees and annointed her and gave her a priesthood blessing. The words distinctly came out which commanded her to be healed and that she would be alright and there was no need for anyone to worry the Lord will heal her according to the faith we exercised by giving her this blessing. I kid you not I said AMEN to close the blessing and not more than 20 seconds later she stopped shaking the color slowly started to come back and she sat up off the ground in the rain and stood up and sat in the back seat of the van. The paramedics got there directly following and still took her to the hospital because she still was a little blue, but her vitals were on their way back to normal and it was more of a precaution than anything. They found out that she has vertego which no one knew and it caused her to lose her sense of direction and when she fell she hit her head on the side of the van really hard. I don't know what all the shaking was from, but whatever was going on to Lord healed her right their in front of our eyes and Josh got to witness it. Talk about Heavenly Father being mindful of Josh, leading us to a place where we would be needed to exercise our Priesthood Authority. There is no better way to learn the importance of the Priesthood than to see someone use it. That is an experience I will always remember. I hold it very dear to my heart now and it's yet another testimony to me that Heavenly Father loves us and that the Priesthood power is His power that He loans to us if we have sufficient collateral (obedience, charity, humility ect..) D&C 84 and 121...  justifying that loan. Im so grateful that I was worthy that day to use my priesthood that I've been given.  Needless to say we are teaching Josh and he is very sincere and spiritually prepared. Temporal Circumstances are going to cause some trouble in progression, but like you said in your letter dad. We can't give up on people. Even though the Savior still loses some of his brothers and sisters to the advesary because they won't accept His sacrifice in their lives, He still has cause to be filled with joy, because at the end of the day He did EVERYTHING He possibly could for every one of His brothers and sisters. He has no regret! He couldn't have done anything more so He is at peace with it. That is the example we are all trying to follow. Do EVERYTHING you possibly can to help save someone else's life. As long as you know you have done ALL you could do, whether or not they choose to let you help them is up to them and you can be at peace nonetheless. The Cunningham's are doing great. Brian is recieving the priesthood next week! Douglas and Gabriel participated in the primary program yesterday, and they both did great! They shared in their parts about their conversion to the Gospel just recently and how the Book of Mormon has blessed their family! AWESOME! We began teaching 3 other people this week, I wish I had the time to tell you the details about every person. They are all wonderful and each have an incredible story, but time doesn't allow that to happen every week. Their names are Julie Martin, Gary, and James Roach. James claims to be a wicken, but we could tell instantly from the Spirit that he was just angry at God for his unfavorable life so he masked it by saying he believes in multiple gods and witchcraft. We came back for our first lesson and his countennace had changed alot, I think he felt the Lord's love for him through us and he is all gung ho about coming to church next week from the sounds of things. That was pretty sweet. Kara's baptism is actually this weekend it wasn't Saturday, but we are stoked for that! Wow it's gonna be sweet. Mike and Judy are doing awesome! They will be baptized soon I know that for sure, we gave them a tour of the church here recently. Also Carolyn Cole and Jake Cole showed up at church yesterday. We hadnt seen them since Jakes Dad committed suicide, but they have mourned and are now ready to turn to God and trust him. They want to start lessons again and Carolyn told us she wants to be baptized she just needs help quitting smoking. She even gave us referalls of family members she wants us to go and start teaching. There are probably 5 more people atleast that we have investigating right now that are progressing too I just don't have the time to go into all the details, but Hamilton is the highlight of my life I'll tell you that much. I love this place! It's so ghetto and hood and it's just the greatest thing ever to be a missionary here ha! The members are already like family and they love missionaries and treat us great! We are doing another 40 day fast for missionary work as a ward starting Sunday. We already did one here back in July and August and all the 15 baptisms here have happened since that started, so were doing another one to show our faith! Well hope everyone has a great week. Jordan Palmer sucks for the raiders!!!!AHHH! You all are the best! Love you so much!

 

Elder Ingram