Andover week 24

After 6 months in the Andover ward I am finally being transferred. I am so sad about this. I will be going to the University of Minnesota campus to be a zone leader! Basically I will be running around the campus all day street contacting. It is going to be nuts.

We had a pretty sweet week! On Monday we went to a members house and had FHE with a former investigator, Brother E, and the Stokes family. We a lesson on prophets and at the end we played Prophet Says (aka Simon Says). Their 7 year old son got up and was ordering us around as the prophet. I was the first one out... haha.

We also had this neat experience tracting. The Lord always pushes us. We must go the extra mile to receive the full blessings He wants us to have. We had tracted these townhomes for awhile and we had seen a lot of rejection. We had to leave soon to go to a lesson and we needed to make a stop at our apartment to grab something so we thought about leaving. But I wanted to tract the last two doors on the row of townhomes. The last door we knocked we met a man in his mid twenties and taught a sweet restoration lesson! It is always that last leg where our reward lies.

We also had a few remarkable lessons with Brother L. We taught about prayer and he was amazed at what he was learning. He told us he needed to change the way he prays and he told us he needs to start praying for God's will be done. He himself brought up the example of a mother about to lose a baby child to death. He told us we need to ask God what to learn from the experience and ask God to save the child if He wills it instead of demanding God to save the child and being infuriated if He doesn't. It was quite the powerful lesson. He thanked us profusely for coming.

When we got home from Brother L's we locked our door and started to plan. All of a sudden we hear someone at our door. They unlocked our dead bolt and then fumbled with the door. We went to the door and the person took off running and escaped down the stair well. Management was basically like oh that stinks. call the cops next time. Maybe it is a good thing I am getting transferred...  ha ha.

So on Saturday a member invited us to the baptism of their 8 year old daughter and asked us to share a message after the baptism while people are getting dressed. There were a few non-members and a good chunk of the ward there and we taught a restoration lesson. At the end we challenged everyone in the room to read the Book of Mormon and gain a testimony of its truthfulness if they have not already done so or to gain an additional witness if they have prayed about it. We also invited everyone in the congregation who had not been baptized to be baptized.

Well Sunday was testimony meeting (next week is stake conference) and a woman in the ward got up and bore her testimony on how the Book of Mormon will bring peace to our lives amidst confusion and fear. She told the congregation she has been struggling a lot lately and she decided to take up our challenge and pray about the Book of Mormon again. She did and the peace she felt during that prayer bolstered her faith and really helped her in a dark time. It was a touching testimony.

Elder Hawkes and I have had the opportunity to meet people from Ghana and Kenya this week. I have now met people from Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and the Republic of Congo. All in Andover Minnesota. Pretty sweet, eh?

Sunday night we stopped by a name of someone we found in our area book. A Native American man stepped out. I told him I grew up in Montana and he mentioned he had family in Browning. I informed him I was born there and lived there for awhile and he almost didn't believe me. He showed me his Blackfoot treaty card. So that was pretty sweet!

Well I am super sad to leave Andover. I love this ward and the people within it. I have learned so much from the leadership here. I have had the opportunity to joint teach with the stake president 4 times since I have been here and each of those experiences has taught me how to be a better missionary, man, priesthood holder, and future father. But change is part of missionary work.

In Priesthood sunday a man told a story of when he converted twenty years ago. right after his baptism he was called to a presidency position. His bishop was Bishop Holland, brother of Elder Holland. Every Friday Bishop Holland would call his Brother to talk. This member in our ward got to participate in a few calls and got to ask questions. As a new convert this member had a lot of questions that were almost attacking in nature. He demanded why he had to wait a year to go to the temple. After a few weeks Elder Holland loving said, "Just who do you think you are? Sometimes we have to just go and do. Just act in faith and trust the Lord." I thought about that a lot. Who do I think I am to question God and His ways? We must be obedient! Everything falls into place if we will just act in faith.

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Elder Damron

pics from Andover week 23

"Minnesota in April ... and Minnesota in April!"

Andover week 23

So my email this week might be a tad short due to the fact that the library is being silly and so my email time is halved.

We got about 8 inches of snow on Wednesday. Pretty ridiculous. It is April for heaven's sake! We almost got into a major crash when 2 cars in front of me started fish tailing (it was basically a whiteout and it had snowed about 5 inches already). They looked like they were going to correct but they flipped around, hit the curb, the car then almost flipped but it hit a light pole instead of rolling, then the light pole fell over. I had to go off the road because we were sliding forwards while braking. But, all is well. The person was ok. only in Minnesota I guess.

We went over to a man's apartment from Chicago and he came out and told us he hadn't read the Book of Mormon yet. He asked if we would read it with him, so we read Alma 7. He got quite a lot out of it and said that he learned he needs to align his life with what God wants him to do so he will be prepared at the last day. He doesn't want to be doing all the wrong things at the last minute and try to change because he is realizing more and more that wont work. So it was a pretty sweet lesson.

On an exchange with my district leader we met with a member who joined the church 40 years ago as a joke. he didn't even attend church before his baptism and then 20 years later missionaries knocked on his door and got him to come to church. Now he is fully active. And his wife, who previously hated our church, joined after 10 years because the people of the ward basically loved her into the gospel. It was pretty cool to hear her story.

I met perhaps the most interesting man of my mission yet. I think he is a legitimate genius and his vocabulary strained my biochemical computer (this is what he referred his brain to during the discussion. ha ha. im totally adopting it into my vocabulary). He has had a book of Mormon for like 20 years and has been reading it a little so we talked about that for awhile. He asked us about temples. He said it was quite brilliant that God told Joseph Smith to put ventilation shafts in the Salt lake temple that were the perfect size for elevators to fit into years later (This is only what I heard but apparently in the blue prints for the temple they were inspired to put a bunch of large, empty shafts in the temple. People were confused why they were put in and then rationalized them as air shafts. The size of the shafts were the perfect size to later install elevators.) basically God is really smart. He asked me if I was going to get married in the temple and I said yes. He wished me luck in sealing my love eternally with a choice woman of God in one of our divine houses one day. I don't think ill ever get that from a non-member on my mission again. ha ha. At the end I said, "im sorry I don't think I caught your name." he replied, "I didn't say it. You didn't ask." I got a tad sassy and said, "hence the question." He gave us a wry smile and told us his name.

I had my last interview with President Clements and it made me so very sad... I will miss him a lot. I asked him a few questions about finding people to teach, the nature of prayer, and understanding the atonement spiritually, not just intellectually. I think he knows everything. ha ha.

Easter was fantastic. We had tons of people to church, both less active and investigators, and the talks were remarkable. In the shower sunday morning I was inspired to write a poem. now I have never written a poem before (maybe a few times in elementary school) but I was able to produce this haiku:

     Redeemed from Darkness

     Came forth the phoenix from ash

     Cleansed by fire and freed

I like it a lot. I don't think I will ever be able to produce anything like it again.

We had two dinners. the second dinner was with Brother and Sister Z, our investigator and his member wife, at their in-law's home (who are members). After we had a lesson on fasting that was remarkably spiritual. Our mission president pleads us to teach in the homes of members since the spirit is so strong there and I loved the experience. We have set up a few more lessons in the homes of members.

Ether 2: 14

 14 And it came to pass at the end of four years that the Lord came again unto the brother of Jared, and stood in a cloud and ^atalked with him. And for the space of three hours did the Lord talk with the brother of Jared, and ^bchastened him because he remembered not to ^ccall upon the name of the Lord.

I have been studying prayer lately and I like this scripture. the Brother of Jared was called to repentance because he hadn't prayed in awhile. If we don't consistently pray to God and then out of nowhere ask for a bunch of help im sure he still helps, but he might be a little bit slower to help than he would have been if we had been talking to him the whole time. I think it goes the same with my earthly parents as well ;)

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Elder Damron

Andover week 22

Well we had quite the interesting week. We met with Brother F again. He asked us if we were ready to "open our minds up to the truth." I told him yes so he began to show us empirical evidence on why the Book of Mormon was wrong. Well as you can probably guess that didn't go anywhere so we started probing what his beliefs were. He said God doesn't need prophets anymore because Christ came and we can be clean now. Before He came the people were all sinners so they couldn't talk to God, which is why we needed prophets. We pointed out that prophets sinned too and he was like, "well...yes, but they were more righteous." He also told us that if we have the Holy Spirit then we don't need religion because we will know for ourselves what is true. We asked why there were so many churches who professed to have the Holy Spirit and why they all conflicted. He told us that they don't have the Spirit, they just think they do. Basically he alluded to the fact that he has the Spirit and just about no one else. Then he asked Elder Hawkes how he knows this church is true. Elder Hawkes bore a remarkably spirit filled testimony on how he has looked at the fruits of our church and also how is brother, who strayed from the path in a VERY bad way, was able to read the BoM and feel peace. Then he allowed Christ to heal his soul. Then Brother F pulled out the scripture about bragging about alms to discredit E. Hawkes testimony on the fruits of our church (such as the humanitarian work we do) and he said that because his brother felt peace when he read the BoM it was false because when Christ preached the Word to people in the bible they got angry at him. That was pretty ridiculous. Then Brother F's friend piped up and said it sounded like we were saying we had to choose either the Book of Mormon or Jesus Christ. I looked him dead in the eye and said that that was quite literally the exact opposite of what we were saying. Anyway, that went on for awhile then Bro F got mad at us because he said we didn't actually open up our minds to the truth and we closed up when he started to talk. I pointed out that he was doing the same (I pulled out my plan of salvation puzzle to answer a question and he wouldn't even look at it because he didn't want it to "pollute his mind") and he brushed the question off a little. We came to a mutual decision that our meetings would yield no fruit and we will not be going back.

Later that night we were in Ham Lake, which is about 20 minutes from where we live. We had an appointment in 35 minutes and so we had 15 minutes to knock on some doors. The first door we knocked on we got absolutely ripped by this woman demanding to see our permit. We explained we did not need one and she told us that we must immediately vacate her property. There have been robberies in the area recently and we are creeping her out so she demanded we leave. I thought she was going to call the cops. We almost got in our car and left but I am trying to be more persistent in my finding so we knocked on the next door. Brother D came out! He was super open and asked to hear our message. He took our Book of Mormon and wants to learn some more. The best blessings come after the biggest trials.

We also taught Brother L a few times this week. He read Alma 42 and was blown away by the simplicity of its teachings on Justice and Mercy. He told us he is worried that the law of Justice has more claim upon him and he needs to make some changes to allow mercy to help him more. A member invited him to be baptized last week so we followed up on that and asked what he needs to do to have more mercy applied to him and to be baptized. He told us he needs to live the Law of Chastity and Word of Wisdom. We asked what he wanted to work on first (he feels overwhelmed by all the commandments and we explained God does not demand immediate perfection, but immediate progress) and he told us that he needs to dumb his girlfriend and live the law of chastity! Then he asked us if he could pay tithing because he wants those blessings right now. It was a pretty unreal lesson. No one ever asks us to pay tithing.

We went joint teaching with President Toronto this week! This is usually the highlight of my transfer :) We saw some less actives and he committed Brother S to come to church more regularly so that he could meet with him in a few months to get a temple recommend and be sealed to his wife. Brother S said he would try. President Toronto then quoted Yoda (in the Toda voice) and said, "do or do not- there is no try". so fantastic, ha ha. Then he recommitted him to church. Then we visited Brother EM who is married to a nonmember and they go to his wife's parents every weekend in Wisconsin. So he doesn't come to church. President Toronto asked Brother EM if he envisions himself in the temple with his wife and he said no. Then President Toronto asked him what he needs to do to get there. About 45 seconds of pure silence followed. I LOVE these moments of pure, unadulterated silence. They are so powerful. I had a big grin on my face. Then Brother EM broke down a bit on he didn't know what to do. President Toronto committed him to a few things and told him he would follow up by email. So great.

ON Saturday we had some extra miles so we went up and visited Sister M, a less active who lives 25 miles away. I got us stuck in the mud trying to flip a U-turn. So that was fun... luckily we got stuck right in front of some guy's house (we are out in the boonies so the houses were spread out) and he came out with his truck to pull us out. A woman drove by us and turned into the long driveway right next to where we got stuck and she was laughing as she waived at me. Good job elder damron.

We also have a new bishop! I am sad because I LOVE Bishop Macfarlane, but I know the new Bishop has been called of God. The spirit bore that witness to everyone in the room on sunday. He is a remarkable man and I am looking forward to getting to know him better.

Sunday night we went to the oratorio Lamb of God that the Minnesota Mormon Chorale put on. I played this oratorio in high school and the composer is from Mesa so it was flipping sweet to see. I miss playing the cello!

2 Nephi 9: 50-51

 50 Come, my brethren, every one that ^athirsteth, come ye to the^bwaters; and he that hath no ^cmoney, come buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.
 51 Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your ^alabor for that which cannot ^bsatisfy. Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and ^cfeast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness.

I love the part that says don't labor for that which cannot satisfy. Sin does not satisfy our souls. If we live a sinful life we will always be unsatisfied and looking for something else in our life to fill some gap in our lives. Do we have labors that cause us to be unsatisfied, that lead us away from the free bread and water of everlasting life? Repent!
I love you all! Have a wonderful week!
Elder Damron

pics from Andover week 21

Ethan tracting Blackfoot Street

Ethan, Brother E., and Elder Hawkes

Andover week 21

So last Monday Elder Hawkes and I played some pool in our apartment building. After promising to wipe the floor with me I dusted him off a few straight games. I think I will name my pool stick "The Humbler." Ha ha. (Disclaimer: Im actually an awful pool player and probably got really lucky)

Monday night we had a really good lesson with a woman in our ward. We watched a talk by President Monson, then Elder Monson, on Patriarchal blessings. After the talk was over she looked at us and said she needs to set up an interview with the bishop and get her Patriarchal blessing! :)

So Tuesday Morning we got a media referral text. I then noticed the date on my calendar: April 1st. I immediately thought to myself, "oh man... it is April Fools..." but, determining to be optimistic, I chose to believe this was the real deal. I was REALLY hoping so because this person lived 13 miles away. Ugh. Anyway, we went out that direction and knocked on the door. No one answered. As we were walking down the driveway a boy around the age of 13, who had just gotten off the school bus, asked us what we wanted. We asked when his dad would be home, then we asked if his dad was Luke. He told us that he was Luke. We explained the referral process and he insisted that it was most definitely not him who referred himself and he didn't want anything to do with us, so he ran inside. Well I was determined to believe that there was a reason we were 13 miles away from our apartment at that time on that day, so we went driving through the neighborhoods to go tract near a member who lives there. I passed a street and it caught my eye in a way I cant quite describe, but we kept going. A few minutes later I flipped around and we went back to that street. The first door we knocked on we met Brother J! He opened right up and said he has tried just about every religion and hasn't really found one he likes too much, so he goes to some non-denominational church at the moment. he has not come to ours though! So we taught him about the Restoration. It was a pretty sweet lesson and he told us that he believes you can only know something is true by experiencing it. I LOVE it when people tell me that. So we set a return appointment. Unfortunately we could not make it because we had no car and we couldn't get a member to take us.

Which leads me to the next exciting event of the week. After being in the shop for 6 days, we finally got our car back today... Previous missionaries had put a large crack in the bumper and I called the mission office asking if they wanted it fixed. I now realize why no one wanted to call it in... So we were on bikes for 6 days. Normally I would not care, but this is a massive car area. All our investigators live like 6 miles away and so basically everything came tumbling down. All our time between conference sessions was spent biking between member homes. it also rained for 2 of those days. And on the third day it snowed ten inches so we had to walk through a blizzard to some local Less Actives. it was a lot of fun, let me tell you. But the Lord can do His own work, so it will all work out. The lessons we had to miss will be recompensed somehow. I must admit though, I do miss biking quite a bit. it is nice being that active again! And you can talk to people more easily on the streets.

Perhaps one of the saddest moments of my mission occurred this week. We have been teaching Brother E for about 3 months. He has been beating around the bush with truly finding out if the BoM is true and so we challenged him to finally figure it out for himself. When we arrived he told us God had indeed answered his prayers. God told him that the BoM was as true as the Bible!!!! He then explained to us that he would not join our church. He wants to learn more, come when he can, and come to some activities, but he will not join. He said unless circumstances change in the next decade, he does not see how it will be possible (he is not allowed to let his children learn about us or participate in ANY of our activities due to a crazy divorce agreement). A member in the ward has truly befriended him and is going to continue going over and reading with him and teaching him. We will stop by maybe once a month or so. It is hard when someone gets such a clear witness but chooses to not follow it.

We also had a lesson with the Z family this week in which we taught the Word of Wisdom. We committed Brother Z to live the word of wisdom, but he said he was going to wait until after they got back from vacation (they will be in Florida the next 5 days) because he doesn't want to have coffee withdrawals while on vacation. We then read from the WoW pamphlet and we read the sentence that says if you are currently using any of these items, "Stop Now!" I put a little bit of emphasis on those two words and he started laughing. But oh well, he gets back Thursdaynight and then we are taking his coffee maker as a trophy. The member we were with was about to ask for it anyway, ha ha.

Saturday morning we went to go perform some service for a woman that one of the members here knows. He told us she needed a bed moved. That isn't hard, right? Well we got to the apartment and she had a giant picture of Jesus on the door. Score one for the republic. Anyway, we knocked and she finally came to the door. We go to the area where the bed is and my jaw dropped a tad. This sucker was a solid wood, king sized bed frame. At each corner there was a giant pillar with a diameter of at least 6-8 inches of solid wood that went from the floor to the ceiling. we had to take the bed and box spring off and we could still barely move it. the woman is deeply religious (she has a bible in every room, including the bathroom. she made sure to point that one out to us) and kept yelling "PRAISE JESUS" the whole time we were there. She is pretty awesome. We actually had tracted her apartment building out a few days ago and we told her we met her son-in-law upstairs. She felt so bad that she didn't answer and told us we could come back any time so talk about Jesus. She is an African American lady from Chicago and is quite the character. I am excited to teach her. And by excited to teach her I mean let the sister missionaries teach her... but oh well, we all play for the same team, right?

So conference was pretty legit! President Uchtdorf's talk on gratitude resonated within my soul. Gratitude has been my big focus for the last few months and it has really changed my life. I am excited to have a new talk to apply into my life to take the next step.

Elder Christofferson's sermon on the Living Christ was phenomenal and I cant wait to show Elder Corbridge's talk on the restoration to basically everyone. Elder Oaks' talk on the priesthood session on the priesthood was one of the cooler talks I have ever heard.

In another talk in priesthood session one of the members of the 70 said that general conference is essentially pointless if we do not apply these things into our lives. Food for thought.

PMG Chapter 8

"The attitude you have toward your mission experience is a reflection ofyour love toward your Heavenly Father and His Son and your respect forthe priesthood."

I love this quote! I think it extends to everyone, regardless of whether or not you are on a mission. I think it applies to your attitude towards your calling, ward, home teachers, etc etc. Is our attitude towards these things positive and uplifting? or do we feel that there are things within the Church that are a burden to us?  

I love you all! have a good week!

Elder Damron

Andover week 20

Well we had quite the week! 7 people came to church with us yesterday! Our most progressing investigator, Brother Z, got up and bore his testimony!! I was grinning ear to ear.

We had a few lessons with Brother and Sister Z this week that went quite well. We talked about the 10 commandments and the Sabbath day came up. Our joint teacher told brother Z he absolutely cannot watch football on the Sabbath. he kinda flipped out and the JT got a little bit stern. But we calmed the situation down by saying the Sabbath is something you need to determine between yourself and God. Don't get me wrong, I'm not condemning or promoting watching football on the Sabbath, we just have to set our Sabbath day with God. It is one of the biggest commandments with the least amount of detail about the correct observations.

He is well into second Nephi and going strong. His wife got work off finally and was able to come to church. :)

We taught a man named B that the Sisters gave us. He is 52 years old with a 3 year old son and also recently divorced. he liked the message but his son went berserk and absolutely wrecked the lesson with a lot of screaming, throwing things, interruptions, and whatever else you can name. But B still got some good stuff out of it and wants to read the BoM!

We also taught a 21 year old Kenyan named M. The Sisters gave him to us too. We went over with a priest in the ward and we were going to teach him about the Restoration. he then informed us he was atheist and the lesson changed a tad. The priest's eyes got a little big and he had no idea what to do. ha ha. oh man.

We went over to try and contact another person the sisters gave us (they seem to find a LOT of single males...) and a woman opens the door. We hear a man yell "are they talking about church/ SHUT THE DOOR RIGHT NOW!" The door quickly shut. So that was a fun experience. The sisters forgot to mention he was like a sophomore or something. That changes the approach a little bit.

So it rained most of Thursday. The rain then turned to snow. I do not recall ever seeing rain snow before but it was pretty cool. The snow flakes were bigger than quarters and the city just got covered. So we went to go talk to Brother F. Now I have had a few run ins with brother F before and they didn't go too well. he wont accept the BoM and says God told him it was false, even though he has never read it. he watched some movie that proves the BoM false and he wants us to watch it with him. Anyway, Brother F. called the mission office and talked to the assistants for 45 minutes then requested we go see him. So the assistants called us about a referral. i got excited! Then I heard the name and just shook my head. But we had to go see him. So we went and he flipped out about how the bible says Christ was born in Bethlehem and the BoM says Jerusalem. Therefore the book is wrong. He kept saying he knows that faith is required, but then demanded to see physical evidence. i actually really like Brother F. But seeking answers from God with a  closed mind does not work.

We helped Brother G clean out his garage this last week. it is super cluttered and he wanted to get the car in it. so Sister O came out, his roommate, and things got western real quick. She was screaming to throw all his stuff away and leave her stuff out. he was throwing her stuff into piles. it took all I had to keep the situation calm and appease both parties. but hey, we left her stuff out AND got the car in the garage. so it all worked out!

Saturday we biked most the day. it was in the 50s! And so hot! Sunday was 60 degrees. I wore a short sleeve shirt and we had the AC on in the car. but now the temp dropped again and it will snow again. yay...

Sunday the Bishop asked us missionaries to teach the youth about missionary work. He asked me to lead the discussion. the whole thing went pretty well. We talked about how we are ALL children of God. I personally think this is one of the most trite sayings in the church that we as members don't actually think too deeply about. but really, this is a powerful statement. we talked about not judging and getting a testimony of the BoM. I introduced a role play to all the youth in the ward and had them explain to people they meet in the hall ways of their schools something about our church using the Articles of Faith card. I think it went pretty well!

D&C 100: 5-8

5 Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; ^aspeak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be ^bconfounded before men;  6 For it shall be ^agiven you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say.
 7 But a commandment I give unto you, that ye shall declare whatsoever thing ye ^adeclare in my name, in solemnity of heart, in the spirit of meekness, in all things.
 8 And I give unto you this promise, that inasmuch as ye do this the ^aHoly Ghost shall be shed forth in bearing record unto all things whatsoever ye shall say.

I like this scripture a lot. There are so many promises! If we open our mouths God will give us the words to speak and the holy Ghost will testify of these things to the people we talk to! What we say will not bring people to a knowledge of their redeemer. But what they feel will!

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Damron