Hey familia!
Well, sounds like little Paycen is just a stud. I saw the pics of him and he is really doing well. I don't check my hotmail anymore Linds so sorry I didn't get the pics or letter you sent last time. So you can send me pics to this one so I can see em that would be awesome! Im sorry to hear Avers isn't feeling to well and that Rob has been struggling too. I'll keep you all in my prayers as well as Ash as she is getting close to having the baby. Things need to settle down a bit there for the holidays, ha, but I'm sure that probably won't come until after Christmas time. Things are always crazy around this time of year, now top it off with two of our family members coming down to join us here in this crazy world is just adding to the excitement! Yesterday we had a great Sacrament meeting!!!! Mike and Judy came! YES! Think they had a good time. Carolyn, Jake, and Noah Cole also came for the second week in a row! Kara's isn't happening till the 12th now haha. Trivial little things about family members from Utah being able to come out and see it keep holding things up. Oh well. It'll happen soon enough. Now on the 12th we will have baptisms all day. First Kara, then Carolyn, Jake and Noah right after! We found an awesome new investgiator this week named Milton Blackmon. He is a BROTHA! YES! ha. I can tell you right now he's getting baptized in December. He loves the church already after just one time. He says he has a HUGE hole in his life. He feels empty. He has a great personality and you would never know that he is so depressed, but he openly told us that he struggles with an addiction to pornography and he used to pick up prostitutes and stuff, "fornicated with half of Hamilton" is how he put it, but he has AIDS so he gave that up and because he was so addcited to it, he picked up pornography and he said it's going to be a battle, but he has never tried to overcome it with Jesus Christ in his life like he will be doing this time. There is no doubt that he will be able to do it. Milton is just such a good guy. Really a pure heart and in just the first week we already met with him twice and had lessons and he came to the chili cookoff! How great is that! We met a man named David Turbin as well. He is a referall from mormon.org. He got on there and requested a Book of Mormon and a Bible. He struggles with faith in general. He knows the theology behind pretty much every releigion there is, but he says there is so much bull that is spread about the Mormons as well as opposition to us now as well as back in Joseph Smith's time that it must be the truth. So he said he is sincerely excited to look into the church and find the truth in his life once and for all! Halloween is no different for us than any other day because it's p day anyways. All we did is instead of going out and working this evening we come in at 7 and have our studies and instead of having studies this morning we went and did service for our bishop. Elder Cannon and I showed up on this doorstep and said Bishop we've got two hours.. How can we help? His garage was attrocious so we cleared all the junk out. Swept the entire thing and put the stuff back in that he wanted to keep as well as through the junk away. It looked like an entirely different place and I think it had a big impact on our relationship with him. The Bishop is the key to missionary work, so if you are close with him then you will most likely be successful. That is what I've learned. Things are truly going amazing. I could never complain. I pretty much agree with you dad I would love to just stay here the rest of my mission, but if I had to predict I would say the trend of my mission says that I'll leave the transfer right before Christmas and for my last 3 months I'll get released as a Zone Leader and go and train another greenie. That is what President Nilsen usually does. It will be a trial if he does do that, because that means I'll get whitewashed in to an area and have to transition from having a comp. that is extremely refined and skilled as a missionary who is exactly obedient and follows the Spirit in all that he does to someone who is brand stinkin new that has no idea to do anything hahaha. Looking back now I've realized that I've pretty much spent my whole mission with brand new Elders and the entire time I really had no idea what I was doing either. Now because the Lord is more involved in my life and I have more skills for him to use and my comp. is insanely amazing at the work it makes me feel like I've died and gone to heaven. We receive strong promptings everyday about where we need to be and without fail we walk right into a miracle! It's the best. I could be a missionary forever..(if i could watch ESPN at the same time and be with you guys too of course) but for real I hear about all the people at home doing this and that getting married, going to school and all of these things and more and more my desires for anything like that are just going away. Missionary work is becoming my drug hahaha. I feel down so I go out and work, if I feel tired I just work harder, if I lose the Spirit I instantly go to the Book of Mormon for comfort and plead for it back. That feeling of the fruits of the Spirit is what I thrive on now and the seeing the Atonement so active in the lives of these people I love there is honestly not a satisfactory substitute. The Savior is exactly what his name indicates him to be. I can tell that I am your son dad, because the exact things that I know bother you about people in the church are the same things that get on my nerves as well. It's not the church of Joseph Smith of Latter-Day Saints. As much as we owe brother Joseph for what he did, I really wish that people in the church would not put so much emphasis on him. He had his flaws like the rest of us, you can never put your trust in a man, but you can put your trust in the Savior and if the Savior is guiding that man in every thing he does that is when he becomes trustworthy. We are so inadequate. We are less than the dust of the earth and I know that. I also know that to Jesus Christ we are everything. No matter how insignificant our lives seem to us, they mean everything to God as President Uchtdorf said in conference. I Love you all so very much! I hope you have the best Halloween ever and I can't wait to see the cute little girls in their costumes! It's gonna be great to get those pictures. Dad have you ever read the book called DAY OF DEFENSE??? I read a few pages of it the other day and it seemed like the coolest book ever, if you haven't read it you should and let me know how it is. Be safe everyone!
Elder Ingy
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