pics from Duluth week 9

Ethan's zone in Christmas sweaters

Duluth week 9 (sorry I missed this one)

I just want to let everyone know that I have a strong testimony that God answers prayers. He hears every single one of them and answers them in his own time. Why do I bear such a testimony at this time? Well... IT IS 40 DEGREES!!!! FOURTY! :D I have been praying for 10 months for a warmer winter and now it is 40 degrees and raining in December in Duluth. God is real. I probably just jinxed us.

So our lessons with SI and RE are going pretty well. They asked about the Holy Ghost so we taught them about that this week and showed some sweet mormon messages. We read from the BoM and they told us they need to read it daily and pray together every day to have more of the Spirit. Then at the end they asked us when they can baptize their 1.5 year old daughter. We explained about the age of accountability but the intent is there, right?

We had a sweet lesson with a LA, TM. Our day had been nuts and we got there a few minutes late. When we got in the house he told us he almost called and canceled. We assumed it was just because it was getting late. Then we watched He is the Gift and talked about how to embrace the Gift. The Spirit was pretty thick and at the end of the lesson he told us he almost called and canceled because his PTSD was acting up real bad but us coming and sharing a message made his symptoms disappear. So cool!

We also had a lesson with RE, a LA we have been reactivating. He doesnt really believe that God loves him and talks about how his trials are too great. So we watched The Refiner's Fire and Mountains to Climb, two mormon messages (go watch them; they are super good) and the Spirit slammed him nice and good. Needless to say, the next time we went over he had a change of heart and doesnt think his situation is so bad. It was tight

Cool miracle: we dropped by a less active and it turns out they had moved.... but someone who has taken the missionary lessons moved in! And we are going to teach them now!

We had Christmas Conference this last week and we watched "It's a Wonderful Life." I was the only missionary who had seen that movie. It is a classic! Come one! So thanks Dad for educating me in the classics

So this last week all of the missionaries in Duluth went to a branch in Carlton and helped out with a christmas party there. We sang a few songs and dubbed ourselves the Carlton Carolers. We also all got (ugly) christmas sweaters for the occasion. Mine was voted to be the most particularly awful (i mean absolutely no offense if anyone reading this takes a fancy to my sweater in the pictures i send out...) A girl played the cello very well and i had to re lock my heart after that one because i wanted to play that cello so badly. 

thought: 

Mosiah 1:14 

 14 For I say unto you, that if he had not extended his arm in the preservation of our fathers they must have fallen into the hands of the Lamanites, and become victims to their hatred.

I really enjoy the part about the Lord extending his arm to preserve his people. How often do we forget that the Lord is constantly helping us? That he is supplying us with grace sufficient for us to overcome our trials? Without Him we are nothing. Remember Him! And share Him with others. #ShareTheGift

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Damron 

pics from Duluth week 10

"Brother Will Williams wearing his favorite shirt!"

"We volunteered directing traffic at a light show called "Bentleyville." Google it!" 

Duluth week 10

oh hai there, we had a great week!

We had a pretty good week! Not as much proselyting time as we would have liked because we had to drive to the cities for a new missionary training meeting, but we utilized the time we had!

We managed to teach a former investigator. He took us to a perkins for hot chocolate then he told us his life story. he said he has studied for awhile but he isnt the type of person who will just jump into anything. he said it takes 4 years to get a college degree, so why would he make a huge religious decision in 2 weeks. Anyway, a joint teacher the previous missionaries brought over like a year ago did a number on this guy and offended him in quite a few ways and then the missionaries never came back. So we did some damage control. At the end he was almost in tears and he begged us to not give up on him. it was quite tender

We met with a member this week to talk about getting in contact with a less active woman who has 7 kids at home (quite a few of them are unbaptized, which we dont mind too much...) so he gave us 40 dollars, all in $2 bills, to go buy a turkey and some other stuff to go and drop off to her from him. (the checkout lady at the store was a little shocked when i handed her only twos, ha ha) so we bought the goods, dropped them off, and she looked like she was about to cry. it was quite the tender experience. she wants us to come back and share a christmas message! #ShareTheGift

Another cool experience we had was when we drove back from Minneapolis we got back to duluth at like 9:30. anyway, we hadnt really shopped yet and we thought about buying milk at a gas station. i was like eh, it is late. and kept driving. well for some reason i flipped a u-turn and we ended up inside that gas station with milk in our hands. Just then a former investigator who moved walked in the door. you know where this story is heading! we talked with him and we are going to teach him now. He told us that we had changed his life since last meeting and he is so much happier. I could see it in his eyes. 

We also went by a less active family that has quite the testimony but they just... dont come. i asked if we could share a mormon message and he said sure. I put the disk in and really had no idea which one to show and just started toggling through. I ended up playing "wrong roads." before we had entered we felt prompted to talk about acting in faith. so i testified of that, the room got filled with the spirit, and he said, "even when you act in faith sometimes you still get lost in the dark." the spirit told me to ask a question about that statement. So i asked, "what do you think you can do to prevent getting lost?" he looked at me and said, "you know the answer to that question just as well as i do." I smiled and just looked a him. The Spirit then taught him and he broke down and told us he was in a hole and wasnt sure how to get out and he just didnt know where to start but needed to change. So now we are going to meet with his entire family once a week!!! Woot for teaching by the Spirit

We met with another member who is starting to slip into inactivity. It breaks my heart each time we go over because he tells us he is just too tired and depressed to read, pray, and make it to church each sunday. but he assures us his testimony is strong. well this last time when we went over the Spirit prompted me quite frankly to be bold. I resisted a little because perhaps i was afraid of offending him, but the Spirit urged me a second time, even stronger. So i opened up to a scripture about being filled with the Spirit and finding joy and i was pretty straightforward in testifying that he would not find the joy he is seeking until he beings to take the sacrament each week. The Spirit burst into the room like a gust of wind and he sat back a little shocked and you could tell that our testimonies had pierced his soul via the Spirit. it was pretty fantastic 

On Sunday I had quite the experience during Sacrament. I am somewhat of a perfectionist and i was a little down and frustrated at my imperfections and how i felt like i should be doing a lot better and how i was not following the Savior the way i should. i was reading in mosiah 14, like i do each sunday during the sacrament, and the line, in verse six, "all we, like sheep, have gone astray," pierced my heart. i checked the cross references and was led to Alma 5:37: " O ye workers of iniquity; ye that are puffed up in the vain things of the world, ye that have professed to have known the ways of righteousness nevertheless have gone astray, as sheep having no shepherd, notwithstanding a shepherd hath called after you and is still calling after you, but ye will not hearken unto his voice!"

As i read this i was overwhelmed by the love that God has for His children and how he never will abandon us, no matter how far we stray he is still calling after us. Never forget this!

I love you all! Have a Merry Christmas!

Elder Ethan P. Damron 

Duluth week 8

I'm feeling a lot better this week! So this letter will make a little more sense than the last. :D

So We had some pretty sweet miracles this week. We got in contact with a LA who I have spent 2 months trying to contact but he has never been home. He is super receptive and now we will start meeting weekly! Sick! he also has a super nice non-member girlfriend, we dont mind that too much either

We also had one of the craziest miracles ever the other night. our 8 pm lesson fell through and our backup at 8:30 was to contact on one of the main streets of Duluth. The streets were absolutely barren. But we kept walking. We stopped and looked around and Elder Zerkle asked if we should leave because the streets were barren. I turned to him and said we had planned to be there, so God would provide. Literally 5 seconds later a bus pulled up and dropped a family off 15 feet in front of us. After i was done picking my jaw up off the floor we went and talked to them. The father has a son that is a mormon in Utah! They were pretty receptive and we have an appointment with them tomorrow! #miraclecity

we also had a cool miracle with the Share the Gift initiative.  A member we challenged to share the gift with shared the gift and his friend is coming to church Sunday! woot woot!

Funny story: we were at a members house sharing a message and out of nowhere the 2 year old grandson ran up and slapped elder zerkle in the face with a wet slipper. it took all my willpower to not die of laughter. It left a shoe print on his face. ha ha

While on exchanges with the district leader this week we went to an appointment with a less active. I have been trying to set up an appointment with him for a few weeks but he kept bailing. I quickly realized why... He REALLY did not like a previous missionary. He told us about it for about 10minutes. He also really doesnt like a few members. he talked about that for about 25 minutes. He told us how much he doesnt like mitt Romney, which he spent 25 minutes to tell us about. And then we talked for about 5 minutes. It was intense. But he is a really nice guy and we are happy we are meeting with him now. All is well that ends well. 

We got back in contact with SI and RE. They are a couple from Chicago that came to church last transfer but we lost contact. They are still super interested just working 2 jobs causes a lot of craziness. We picked yo RE from walmart at 9:30 for church. he had worked the day shift saturday and the night shift saturday night/sunday morning and still wanted to come to church. Then he and SI came to the Christmas Devotional Sunday night! So tight. 

So a few more funny stories, because we all like those. 

We had dinner with a Member, Mikki Taylor, and a YSA girl, Josie, and another family yesterday. Funniest dinner of my mission. So Mikki is a little bit of a jokester. So at the end of dinner we were all done with clean plates and he started poking fun at Elder Zerkle and telling him he didnt eat enough. So Elder Zerkle slapped another chicken breast on his plate and stared him down. a few minutes later Mikki starts talking about how you can trust people who eat all the food off of their plate. Then he said, "For example, Elder Zerkle has been too busy staring at Josie all of dinner to finish his food." Elder Zerkle about choked on his chicken and Josie freaked. out. ha ha ha Elder Zerkle was like no no no i swear I was not. and Josie freaked and was like "He is not! oh my gosh he is a missionary he is not. he is looking at someone else." And Mikki was quite adamant that there was no one else at the table who Elder Zerkle would be looking at. Then, like 5 minutes later Mikki was trying to think of the name of an ice cream shop in Vegas (where Elder Zerkle is from) and he couldnt think of the name. Elder Zerkle kept throwing out some ice cream shop names. Then mikki said, "no, the shop was a woman's name.... no elder Zerkle it was not Josie! GEt her out of your head!" Josie freaked again and was like, "He is NOT thinking about me. He isnt even my type. He couldnt even get me if he tried." i was crying i was laughing so hard. ha ha ha. oh man. 

Fun fact I learned at dinner this week and I will probably ruin a lot of cool movies that you want to see: So we had dinner with a brain researcher guy. I asked him if it was true that we only use a small percentage of our brain's full capacity. He shot that down real quick. He said that we use our whole brain, but just not all at once. When you use all of your brain at once (meaning your whole brain is firing neurons off at once) you actually are having a seizure. So this is not a good thing. So the people in movies that "unlock" the full capacity of their brains shouldnt actually be super geniuses, they should be convulsing on the floor and then pass on to the realm of spirits, if you catch my drift... who knew?

Well last week i sort of talked about Sharing the Gift. The Church has produced a brilliantly easy way to share the gospel and christmas spirit with all of the people we associate with in everyday life. The Lord is hastening His work and right now He is really utilizing the social media realm. check out christmas.mormon.org and take up the challenge! Print off a sign off when you will share the gift by and stick to it! The Lord will lead His prepared children to you. 

I love you all! Have a great week. 

Elder Ethan Damron

pics from Duluth week 7

"me with my hmong tie with a hmong girl in the ward"

"me with Elder Schmidt and Elder Teo"

"me with Elder Wilcoxson the night he died (missionary lingo for when he went home)"

"thug lyfe district"

"Turkey bowl! Elder Zerkle is in the back"

Duluth week 7

So i will probably keep this short today because i feel like i might die i am so sick, but i decided to come email anyway. And we bought super ugly christmas sweaters for the ward Christmas party. im pretty stoked :)

So this last Sunday-Wednesday I was with Elder Schmidt, who is part of the other set of missionaries in Duluth since we both didnt get companions till Wednesday. WE had a ton of fun! It was pretty crazy because we were covering two areas so we basically taught all day. No complaints :) A deaf couple that Elder Schmidt knows well drove through Duluth so we went and signed with them for about an hour. Im pretty rusty, but it was pretty fun. Elder Schmidt interprets Sacrament meeting each week and he wants me to get into it, we shall see. 

We had a crazy sick miracle this week where we found some lost sheep. We walked out of this apartment building in which we were dropping off something to a member and then this guy was walking by us. The Spirit told us to talk to him so we did. He was like, "you two mormons?" we replied of course. He was like, "no way! Me too! I was baptized in Midvale, Utah!" What the freak. Then he took us back to his house and we taught his family. They want to come to church! It was insane. :)

Wednesday night I met my new companion. Elder Zerkle! From Las Vegas, Nevada! My streak of having very little companions from Utah continues. He is such a stud. You really wouldnt be able to tell he is a new missionary very easily because he is confident in talking with people and speaking up in lessons. We are going to do some work here. im pretty pumped. The ZLs have a sauna in their apartment complex so he got here then we went straight to the sauna and had a conference call with the zone to introduce new missionaries. Welcome to the mission! ha ha

Thursday was.. COLD. We played the turkey bowl at about 2 degrees. But it was super fun. I caught a few TDs and had a few good runs. The first game i somehow ended up on the team with all the young kids and all the adults were somehow on the other team. So that was not too fun. Second game was more even. 

Then we ate dinner at the Davis family's house. WE joked around and had a good time. Elder Zerkle made a bet with the father (who is bald) that he wouldnt go bald or else he owes Brother Davis a coke. It was a pretty funny conversation. 

The rest of the weekend was nuts with appointments since i hadnt really been in my area for half the week. Sunday night we went over to a member's nieghbor they referred and we ended up upstairs in one of the bedrooms with the 23 year old son who makes music. He showed us some of the beats he has made (which were actually pretty sick) and then he basically opened up and told us about how he wants to make a lot of changes in his life. So we watched a mormon message and committed him to read the BoM. It was pretty sweet :D 

Well if y'all havent heard about the church's christmas initiative you should check it out! christmas.lds.org #sharethegift 

have a great week, Elder Damron 

Duluth week 6

So this last week was pretty hectic. Elder Wilcoxson has concluded his mission and is headed home. And.. IM TRAINING AGAIN!!!!!! I am so happy :) this is round 3 for me. It is funny because when I got to this area everyone told me it was the graveyard and that no one trains up here. So I beat the system. boo ya! I am no longer a district leader. My time in leadership in the mission has most likely come to a close, so now it is full force on the area! wootz!

So Elder Wilcoxson was supposed to drive to Bloomington tonight. But on Saturday we got a call from Elder Teo, one of the ZLs, and he told Elder Wilcoxson to pack his bags immediately because they had to drive down to Bloomington and be there by 6pm. To y'all, this doesn't mean a whole lot. To us, we knew this meant he got called to be an assistant! So then we had to rush home and pack his life away. Sunday afternoon he drove down with Elder Teo and I am with Elder Schmidt, the ZL in the ward, till Wednesday. So it was fun having the ZL insanity of Sunday night reporting and we have to make travel plans for the zone getting to transfers. There are 11 teams in the zone and a companion from each is being transferred. A new area is also being opened. So yeah. Back to the ZL days. so fun. 

Anyway, we had a lot of success this week teaching less active members. We taught this one man, RE, who has come to church ever since I arrived. So that has been good. He has had a REALLY tough life and when we testify of the atonement and divine grace and help he kinda tunes out because we don't have a whole lot of credibility in his eyes in that department. So we brought a joint teacher who did! I was testifying of the enabling power of the atonement and the LA rolled his eyes a little. Our JT stepped in and testified of how he recently went through the most difficult trial of his entire life. How something that was most precious to him was ripped from his life and it was devastating. He recalled a day where he fell to his knees and he just didn't know if he could go on and he poured his soul out to God and pleaded for His help. He testified strongly of the peace that entered his life and how things have worked out. It was a SUPER spiritual lesson and Brother RE got hit hard by the Spirit :)

Elder Wilcoxson and I also had the opportunity to do some service this week up in Virginia, MN (they really like to name cities after other states/countries here; it can get pretty confusing). We went and hauled wood for a schizophrenic man who lives in a shack out in the woods with 40-50 cats. His brother in law is the member and so we helped him get some wood for the winter. We hauled wood from a field for about 4 hours. I love it up here! So much more communing with nature than in the cities. I feel like i am back in Montana sometimes. Minus the mountains. 

In gospel principles sunday we were talking about the creation and the teacher asked what were some of our favorite things God created. I raised my hand and said, "a lot of you might be unfamiliar with these, but i think mountains are definitely a fantastic creation." haha. they tried to tell me that Spirit Mountain, the local ski place, is a mountain. But I would barely call that thing a hill... ha ha

Well today is not actually P-Day. Thursday is. So we dont really get any email time today, just enough to let you all know I haven't frozen to death... yet. Have a wonderful week filled with gratitude and giving! Read the verses to Hymn 219 this week and ponder how you can help those around you :)

Love you all! 

Elder Ethan Damron

Duluth week 5

Well this Monday hasn't had any crazy storms, so that is nice. Last week we got stranded at the church because things got so crazy with the storm. There was no way we could drive home. Luckily the Zone Leaders literally live right next door to the church and they have spare mattresses so we slept there. We had to cancel all of our appointments. So lame. We made a lot of calls and then the senior couple that lives in the same apt building invited us up for some home made apple sauce. yum

The next day we were going to visit a less active and we started talking to an 88 year old man who lived next door. He was out shoveling his driveway. Well, he told us he goes to the YMCA every day to stay fit so I asked him if he even lifted. Yep. I asked an 88 year old man if he lifted. I am pretty proud of that one. He does, if you were wondering. 

We also taught a LA, RE, this past week. When I got here we were able to start getting him to come to church every week. But he is going through a LOT of trials and just doesn't feel like God loves him or answers prayers. So we went over and we read from D&C 121 and we read all of section 122. The Spirit bombed the room. He was really silent for quite awhile. We testified pretty strongly and left him Moses 1 to read and pray about God's love. It was pretty sweet :)

We also went by a guy that Elder Wilcoxson taught on exchanges. he let us in and i looked around to see that he has bible verses and other stuff written all over his walls. All of his windows were boarded up and he doesn't have a single light bulb. Yep. 

We also did 5 hours of dry walling this week with a less active. It was about 33 degrees in his house he was fixing up and I couldnt feel my hands or feet for a few hours, but hey, it's Duluth. That is normal, right?..

So the Zone Leaders took our car on their trip to Canada to do exchanges with the Thunder Bay Elders and they took our car because their brand new truck doesn't have license plates yet. The day before they came back I texted them and said, "on a scale from 1-10 how mad would you be if we put a dent in the truck?" They texted back a bit freaked out and inferred they would be pretty mad. So i just said never mind. ha ha. Well we didnt actually dent their truck, but they freaked and thought we did. So they put flour in all of our air vents and turned the air on high so when we turned in it seemed like a smoke bomb went off. Those punks. we are plotting with the sisters how to get them back good. 

While we had the truck we went out to Solon Springs, WI. Population of 600. Probably less than that. We knocked on a door and this lady answered and demanded to know if we were Jehovah Witnesses. We replied no and she said she wasn't interested if we were Jehovahs. we again told her we were not and said we were Mormon! She said, "no you arent! Im not interested in Jehovah Witnesses!" ha ha

We were tracting in the flipping cold one day and Elder Wilcoxson randomly turned to me and said, "my least favorite thing is knocking on a door and having someone get mad at us for waking up their kids during nap time." you can probably tell where this story is going. The next door he knocked on a very angry woman came to the door and got upset that we woke all the kids up. As we were walking down the drive way we realized it was actually a home day care. oops. 

We also got to help a member kill some chickens this week. It was pretty nuts. Oh the service opportunities you get up here. Tomorrowwe are splitting wood for like 5 hours. 

Thought: 

Alma 42:23   But God ceaseth not to be God, and mercy claimeth the penitent, and mercy cometh because of the atonement; and the atonement bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead; and the resurrection of the dead bringeth back men into the presence of God; and thus they are restored into his presence, to be judged according to their works, according to the law and justice.

I LOVE this scripture. So let us think about this. The atonement is what causes the resurrection of the dead. Think about how many people have ever lived. There are 7 billion people on earth right now. Think about all the people that have inherited the earth since the days of Adam that have passed away. The atonement is going to bring about the resurrection of ALL of them (except a select few, but we dont need to get into that here). Think of the magnitude of the power the Atonement must have to do that. In my mind it seems like resurrecting one person would take an incredible amount of energy, let alone billions of billions of people. If the Atonement of Christ the Lord can do that, then what can't it do? What are we going through in our lives that we seem is too hard to bear that we forget to include Christ in? He has the power to help us overcome literally anything. My plea is that we remember this and allow Him to share our burdens. 

I love you all! Have a great week! 

Elder Ethan Paul Damron 

Duluth week 4

So it is blizzarding outside. We are supposed to get 17 inches. President banned driving but we were able to get to the church to email before that occurred. getting home will be fun... 

So we had a really good week. We found a super cool family from Chicago 2 weeks ago and they are starting to do well. We had 3 member presents this week with them, which this area has not seen in a LONG time. Things are looking up :) Get ready to fill the font! We hope to get hypothermia because we are in the font for so long if you catch my drift

So the boyfriend of the Chicago family is RE. The girlfriend is out of town for a few week so we have taught him alone with another guy from Chicago. They get along really well. We taught the restoration to him this week and before we even got to the end he asked us to be baptized. it was pretty sweet. Then, later in the week, his brother was randomly there so we taught him and he wants to read the BoM and pray about it! woot!

So we had the coolest miracle ever. Elder Carlson visited the mission last week and he told us to plan with crazy detail and we will see miracles. So, we planned with the greatest detail i have ever planned with. We planned which sides of the street to knock, which cross walks to travel by, etc. Well, we knocked on doors for like an hour and then we were seeing nothing. nada. but we kept going. we knocked on another door. nothing. as we turned to go down the stairs a guy walked from behind the house and looked at us. He said, "are you here to talk about the Lord?" We told him of course. Then he said, " come on up boys!" Then we taught a sick lesson. Well, i think it was cool. I was in a super comfortable chair and a really warm apartment and i think i got carried away in the Spirit a little, but Elder Wilcoxson went at it like a boss. I got some comments in too though, i promise. 

We also did the best service ever. A member is remodeling a house so we smashed windows for like an hour then broke the frames apart so they can be burned. at one point we were using a mace and chain :D then we took pictures with an AK-47... so cool 

We also saw another cool miracle. we were contacting downtown and all of a sudden the streets just cleared for whatever reason. We randomly dropped by a less active lady that lives in an old hotel. We were talking to her in the lobby and one of her friends walked up to us. She started talking with us and now the sister missionaries are going to teach her! So cool! #miraclecity

I contacted on UMD campus this week :) i miss the campus work

Check out 1 Ne13:40

a lot of plain and precious truths have been restored. A testimony of this restoration is critical to our conversion and our happiness. Prophets have said we should continually seek this confirmation throughout our lives. So i would challenge all of you to pray about the BoM and Joseph Smith to renew and strengthen your testimony!

love you all, Elder Damron

pics from Duluth week 3

Cats!

Duluth week 3

Hola familia and friends!

So we had a pretty good week. We did a LOT of service. I think I spent more time out of my proselyting clothes than I did in them. That was pretty weird. 

We saw some cool miracles! As always. You always have those when doing the Lord's work.

One night all our plans fell through. It was like 30 degrees and roughly around 8:30. We prayed and felt we should go contact on a street. We had a little bit of doubt since it was pretty cold and we werent sure if people would be there, but hey, it was a prompting so we went. The first lady we talked to had talked to missionaries quite a few times! It was pretty sweet. I love knowing that i am in the right place at the right time talking to exactly who i know the Lord sent me to. 

On Wednesday we had a ward trick or treat. All the missionaries in our ward dressed up as cats. One of the Elders in the ward is obsessed with taking pictures of cats. So we gave in to his pleas to be cats for Halloween. It was pretty fun! On Halloween we all went to a member's house for dinner and we passed out candy withmormon.org cards. Candy and the gospel! Could a night get any better?

So we went over to this less active's house for a lesson. We walk in and the room was filled with smoke it was hard to breathe and pretty hazy. His roommate was sitting on the couch. She said, "sorry it is so smoky in here, we burned something on the stove and it filled the house with smoke." of course she said this with a cigarette in her hand. i found it amusing. 

We went over to our ward mission leader's house this week for lunch and some service. His daughter is an all state cellist and they let me play the cello! Man i loved it so much. Perhaps i will get to play it in church up here. 

So we taught a super cool guy named RE this week. We have taught his girlfriend and they both came to church last week but we hadnt taught him yet. Right as we walked up to his door someone dropped him off from work. Perfect timing. We went into his home and he told us his life story. He grew up in Chicago and has had a CRAZY life. Holy cow. HIs mother left him at age 12 and he raised himself on the streets. He is the most humble down to earth guy i have met in a long time. He asked us to be baptized even before we brought it up to him. Then we read 3 Ne 9:13-14 and Moroni 8:25-26 and linked his pains to healing via the atonement and baptism. This guy is so sweet. At the end he said, "if baptism and cleansing will help me, i take it back, i KNOW it will help me." it was powerful. 

2 Ne 9:18 

But, behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel,they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it,they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared forthem from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.

I have been studying grace a lot lately and i like this scripture. The underlined portion really stood out to me. The saints are those that endure the trials without being full of bitterness. How this this accomplished? By accepting the Lord's will and seeking to apply the atoning blood of Christ into our lives. Then we will be strengthened to carry our crosses by the Holy Spirit of God! And when we do this, our joy will be eternal.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Damron 

pics from Duluth week 2

MOVIE TIME!!!

Saying goodbye at the institute

Elder Wilcoxson and I outside our apartment with firetrucks

Duluth week 2

So i will only have an hour to email today... yesterday was mission conference and Elder Carlson of the 70 came! So we met him yesterday and we have P-Day today. 

This last week we didn't have a lot of lessons, but we built a good foundation for this week. We are really focusing on ward unity and so we have set up meetings with a bunch of members to get to know them and establish ourselves in the ward. 

We did have a pretty sweet miracle this last week! An appointment canceled so we knocked on a few doors and we met a young woman with one kid and another one on the way. She said she wanted to come to church sunday with her boyfriend. So we show up sundaymorning and she and her boyfriend came to church! And they loved it! We will be meeting with them again this week and they want to come to church again. woot! Family to teach. 

I also had the opportunity to go on an exchange to Ashland, WI this last week. It was fun being in Wisconsin! They are an hour and a half away so it was a lot of driving. I felt like I was driving out in the middle of no where back in Montana. Ashland is a small town and then a bunch of farmlands. For dinner we drove 45 minutes out into the woods to have dinner with a farmer. The stew we ate was made with ingredients all off their farm. It was pretty sweet :) 

Then on Sunday we drove 2 hours to stay the night and then we drove another hour to New Brighton Monday morning. Then we had mission conference with Elder Carlson! He is a 4 star general in the airforce. He talked a lot about how at this time all the tools necessary to truly hasten the work are on the earth. There are few hindrances to truly hasten the work. The technology available now allows the Lord to spread the gospel much quicker. Then he gave us a bunch of stuff to improve. 

anyway, time is basically up now.. so i am sorry! I will write more next week. 

 

One thing Elder Carlson talked about is how we need to talk to everyone about the gospel. Members and missionaries alike. Far too many people think sharing the gospel is taking a whole year to befriend and then finally invite your close friends to hear the gospel. yes this is important, but we can also use the church in the media to bring up the influence the church has to people will want to learn more! 

I love you all! HAve a great week! 

love, Elder Damron 

Duluth week 1

So I was pretty apostate this week. Elder Rudd and I went to a movie...

JK im not apostate, but I did go to a movie :) Our mission president allowed us to go to theaters to see Meet the Mormons if we bring investigators so we brought PY and RH. It was AWESOME! boo ya. went to a movie on my mission.

So saying goodbye to everyone in dinkytown was pretty tough. I took a lot of pictures with members and said goodbye to people we were teaching. I was pretty sad.

Wednesday morning before transfers Elder Tseng and Chou came over. Elder Rudd was in the shower so I threw the keys to the apartment out the window of our apartment. ha ha. anyway, our zone leaders came to give us the car and they all sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again. I bawled like a baby. Elder Smith said, "elder Damron I didn't even know you knew how to cry." haha. so funny. im a softie at heart, even if my nickname in HS was Damronatron (because I have the emotions of a robot).

Duluth is BEAUTIFUL. Look up pictures on google. it is seriously ridiculous.

Our first day here we were tracting and my companion, Elder Wilcoxson (who is from Seattle Washington) sang happy birthday to a two year old. I was promising some guy on a doorstep some blessings about family and I accidentally said "your future kids" instead of "your kids." it was awkward since I don't think he wanted more kids... spirit of prophecy?

So they call the Duluth Zone "the Graveyard" since president doesn't send young missionaries up here in case they have a problem since we are so far away from the mission home. everyone in the zone has like 6 months or less left. My companion goes home at the end of this transfer. so I have had 6 companions in 7 transfers. Next will be 7 In 8. am I really that hard to deal with? ha ha

So sick miracle. It was like 8:50 at night and we were walking on a main street finding people to talk to. There weren't a lot of people but the last person we talked to actually walked up to us and stuck his hand out to shake our hand before we put ours out! Turns out he is a lost sheep who wants to come back to church! SO cool!

We also taught a resoration to this guy who is having the EXACT religious confusion that Joseph Smith had. We related the Restoration to his life and he loved it. He told us that he had prayed an hour earlier for direction. Sweet right?

Another sweet miracle is when we knocked on the door of a less active and found out that the less active moved, but a girl whose entire family back in Washington joined the church moved in! She went to church for a long time but never joined! It was sweet!

Well, I have to get running. We tagged along with some other missionaries and they need to leave...

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Damron

Dinkytown week 24

Well... the history of my mission has repeated itself once again. I have been 4 transfers and out in my last two areas, and it has now held true here too. I am going to Duluth, Minnesota for the winter. Wowza. I am going to freeze. 

Anyway, so last monday we taught a class at the Hamline University on Mormonism. It was got pretty western. So we taught about the restoration and Plan of Salvation pretty briefly. Then Elder Rudd started explaining something and then some faculty lady who came, who was a member, then cut him off and said, "Elder, I completely disagree with you" and then absolutely ripped into him. She completely misunderstood him. He didn't say anything wrong. Then of course there was a daughter of two ex mormons there who brought up a question about us being polytheistic. It got wild. But we managed to calm it down and ended up handing out 8 books of mormon and getting some numbers! woot. 

So our investigator PY got pretty anti'd this last week. So we showed her Neil L. Anderson's talk "Joseph Smith" and then asked her what she thought about Joseph. She bore a powerful witness of him being a prophet and of the BoM's divinity. It was pretty sweet. 

Our mission president came and showed my district Meet the Mormons Thursday night! That was pretty cool :)

We had a super cool lesson with DF this week. Over the last few months she has gone from complete atheist to having a desire to believe. It has been really cool to see. She still thinks she has no belief, but her actions show otherwise. She is pretty faith filled. It is pretty sweet to see. 

We took PY to a fireside by the temple presidency. Something that I really liked that was said was that we are in a covenant church, not a commandment church. yes we have commandments, but we get so much in return for what we give. He compared it to a father telling his child if that child works really hard to get good grades, he will pay for that child's education. It is a win win! The child gets good grades, and has no debt! He also said, "you know, im getting old. and as i look back in my life i really don't have many regrets. I mean, who says, 'i really wish i would have had that child out of wedlock' or 'i really wish i would have gotten addicted to heroin.'" ha ha. 

well, sorry this is short but since im getting transferred i will have so much to do... 

I have been studying grace lately. 1 ne 3:7 really took on a little more meaning for me. 

" 7 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will goand do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I knowthat the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men,save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish thething which he commandeth them. 

So the Lord prepares a way for us to do the things we are commanded. We do this through Jesus Christ's grace, or the enabling power of the Atonement. When we have trials or hard tasks to accomplish the Lord does not take these trials away, he gives us the grace necessary for us to overcome it by our own efforts. Although sometimes he does lift this trial, but often times he provides the strength and the way to succeed. The key is that we must act in faith to get the strength. If we are not acting in faith, we will not succeed. 

I love you all! have a great week!

Elder Damron