pics from Dinkytown week 21

Ethan with Elders Tseng and Chou

Ethan with President and Sister Forbes (mission president and wife)

Direct quote from Ethan: "Elder Rudd looking fly."

Ethan eating alligator on a stick

All you can drink milk! (He seems pretty excited about it.)

Elder Tseng..."yep. That about sums him up."

Elder Rudd after the pond.

The pond. (He has a pretty funny story about this.)

Dinkytown week 21

We had a pretty good week! I exchanged with Elder Tseng and we saw some sweet miracles. At one point we were contacting on campus and I felt inspired to go to another part of campus. So we walked there and the first person we talked to was a Chinese man who had come to church for a few months 2 years ago. Elder Tseng talked to him in Chinese for awhile and then we departed. He didn't want to meet again. Yet I felt quite confident that I was supposed to meet that man and give him the invitation. God really loves each and every one of His children and he wants to give them all as many chances as he can.

Perhaps the funniest occurrence on my mission happened the other night. It was about 10:20 and we hear a blood curdling scream from an alley next to our apartment. Then we hear a woman scream STOP IT. You don't just hear that and not do anything so we got our shoes on and got ready to go out and find out what happened. Elder Rudd tried looking for a flashlight but I said we would be fine and we ran out. Well elder rudd was leading the way and we crawled through a crack in a fence in the alley because we could see people at the far end of the other side of the fence. We ended up in a dark backyard and the people were on the other side of the fence at the end of the yard. So elder rudd started walking quickly to the other side. All of a sudden he disappeared. and then I heard a loud splash. I ran forward and he was scrambling to get out of a pretty deep pond. So he jumped out and we ran back to our parking lot and he was soaked from his neck down in mud and algae. I died laughing. ha ha. so good.

On Friday President Forbes came and taught a lesson with us. Then he came out on campus with us! It was so much fun! He has an air of authority about him and everyone listened to him intently. We also got to know him a lot better so that was pretty fun. I love that man!

We have been teaching a woman named DF. She just got back from summer break. I taught her before she left. She has had a lot of hard things happen in her life and she has turned atheist, but is trying to figure out if there really is a God or not. We realized she hasn't been praying with very much intent so we taught about prayer. We then watched the new Mormon message about the man who fasts and learns of God and we committed her to fast. She is expressing a lot of faith, she just doesn't realize it.

Elder Vern P. Stanfill of the 70 ( I don't think he is in the first or second quorum) came and spoke at our stake conference this last weekend. He is a rancher from Kalispell, Montana! I  told him I grew up in browning and he said, " I didn't know white people grew up there.. what in the world were you doing there?!" it was pretty funny. I really liked his talk.

My thought for today will stem from his talk. He talked about unwritten stories in our lives. Also stories we have helped write but we have no idea about. He gave instances where a small act of kindness led to someone joining the church. He told of a woman in Canada who asked a stranger in a park if their kids could play together. the woman had just moved to Canada and had no friends. she got baptized. He told another story where a little girl on a school playground invited a lonely girl to be her friend and play. years later she got baptized, went to byu, and married Elder Stanfill. he said in many instances we don't realize the extent in which our small acts of kindness affect people. Often we do some act of kindness and that act goes off to really help someone's life (he talked about how it helps create a story we have no idea about) and we don't realize it. He told the members that we don't have to pound on our neighbors doors to share the gospel with them. We just need to start by doing small acts of kindness in the moment the Lord needs us to do them.

I love you all! have a great week!

Elder Damron

Dinkytown week 20

Well I have been gone for 16 months. What. Pretty crazy.

Anyway, now that I have picked my jaw up off the ground from my amazement I will tell you about my week!

We met this guy on campus this week who told us he was going to his German class. I asked him if he knew German or was learning and he said something in German. Elder Rudd and I both kinda looked at him and then I told him that naturally I understood what he said but I asked him, for the sake of my companion, to translate what he said into English so he could understand too. ha ha. Then we talked to the guy about his life experiences and he said that he is an atheist. He was abused as a kid and pretty much completely abandoned. It was one of the saddest conversations I have ever had. The man wasn't interested in pursuing our church further (he had actually investigated last year) but I still felt like we were definitely supposed to talk to that man just to let him know that God loves him. God truly loves all of his children no matter if they know of His goodness or not.

We had a sweet lesson this week with a returning member and his roommate who wants to be baptized pretty soon. We listened to "We thank thee oh God for a prophet" and then taught about prophets and we left them President Monson's april talk on love. They both were surprised we handed them the talk because they both said they had a lot of pent up anger and they were seeking ways to overcome it. It was a pretty sweet miracle! Gotta love the Spirit and what happens when you follow His promptings!

There was one night where we went to a member's home for dinner at like 8 pm (he wanted us to meet his non-member roommates and inactive roommates). Elder Rudd said he was too full (we had already had a big dinner) so Elder Tseng came with me. They fed us halibut straight from Alaska and holy heavens it was fantastic! I'm becoming a fish lover. Elder Tseng had never had halibut before and he flipped out a little. He also REALLY loves potatoes and we had cheesy potatoes. He flipped out over those too. ha ha.

While walking on campus we got recruited to do some artwork on a giant campus that people were drawing on to donate to charity or something. Since I have negative artistic ability I very carefully, and with as much articulation as I could possibly muster, painted "CTR" in big Blue letters for the world to see. boo ya!

We had a ward talent show and a friend of a member, who is deaf, came! I was able to sign with him a little bit. It was super difficult and I have forgotten a lot. But it was a neat experience.

We had a pretty ruthless week on campus and got shut down left and right. We had high expectations Friday to catch up on the goals we set but we got raked through the coals on campus. Saturday morning came around and I just knew that God had someone out there for us and we needed to find him/her. So we ran to the institute as quick as we could and then hit the pavement on campus. We only had 1.5 hours before we had to be somewhere but we were confident someone was there. 1.25 hours later we talked to a guy on a bench in a park like place who we hadn't seen the first time we had walked by. We talked to him and taught him a sweet lesson! He actually talked to missionaries quite a few times last year. This was definitely a tender mercy. The Lord has miracles waiting for us each day. The question is do we have the faith sufficient to see the miracles He has planned out/

One of our investigators from last semester is back and we had our first lesson with her Saturday. She is leaning towards Atheism and this summer she read the whole book of Mormon and prayed daily, yet she still says she feels nothing. Then we asked if she had seen a difference in her life since she had started reading/praying. She then said no, everything is worse and she told us about how her life has  basically completely fallen apart and she gave us the details on some pretty major trials going on. Elder Rudd and I were basically speechless and had no idea what to say. But I just opened my mouth and words started coming out and by the end she decided she wanted to continue to read, pray, and come to church. Most of what I talked about was having peace amidst the storms of life. The gospel blesses us with a deep and abiding peace that is not reliant upon the circumstances of our lives. We can be happy no matter what. It was a pretty crazy experience. I think I learned just as much as her. That is when you know the Spirit is the one who took the lead.

Yesterday the Stake President, President Baker, came to our ward and bore his testimony. He talked about the sacrament and expressed his love for the sound the little cups make when they hit the bottom of the sacrament tray. He said that this is the sound of renewing covenants and that we should all learn to love this sound. I thought about that quite a bit. While obviously the sound could definitely be a reminder of what we just did we should also remember the meaning behind taking the sacrament each week. I think the most important part is remembrance. I have gotten up on my soap box a few times on this subject but I feel that it is so vitally important. Last night in the CES broadcast Elder Christofferson said something along the lines of, "we should acknowledge the Lord in every imaginable aspect of our lives." in other words, "that we may always remember him." If we do this then the theme of our lives will become to please the Father and do His will, which was exactly what the Savior's life theme was. This will lead to eternal happiness and fulfillment. It will lead us to becoming even as the Savior, albeit in a much longer time period.

I love you all! Have a great week :)

Elder Damron

Dinkytown week 19

So i guess it is september or something. Alright then.

So change is hard and this week has been a LOT of change. But this was actually one of the best weeks of my mission! I am LOVING my current assigment right now :) the Chinese elders here are absolutely hyseterical, the new sisters missionaries aren't crazy and are pretty chill and hard working, and Elder Rudd, my new companion, and I are getting along great. and since im not a ZL we spent a ton more time on campus this last week and a lot of cool things happened. so yeah, life is great on the U of M!

 

Elder Wall was pretty sad to go home. Tuesday morning I hugged him goodbye and watched him drive off with bishop to have his final interview. It was pretty sad. Then I went with Elder Tseng (pronounced "zen") and Elder Chou (pronounced "zjo") for a little while. Then, the spanish elders came over and helped me move apartments. That was... not fun. Since i lost my car to the sisters we had to move to an apartment right next to the inistitute building so we could walk there pretty easily. The new sisters cover all of the satellite campuses. and i would rather stay on the UofM so i dont care too much about the car, really. After the move I saw down with Elder King, one of the spanish missionaries, and taught him everything he needs to know about zone leading. He and his new companion are both zone leaders for the first time this transfer so i have to fill them in on a few things. They are great, though. i have no worries.

 

On Elder Rudd's first day we were on campus and i asked this guy how he was doing. He replied,"fantastic." he was walking away when i asked him so i turned around and asked him what had made his day so good. He turned around, made a heart shape with his hands, winked, then pointed at me. oh heavens. have i said how much i love this place? ha ha

 

We had a super cool experience teaching sister PY. She is navajo and is living with a member. We actually just gave her a navajo book of mormon, which she is pretty happy about. anyway, right at the beginning of the lesson she told us that she wanted to get baptized in november (when she moves out of where she is living). This is when we wanted to set the date anyway, so we were pretty happy. Then she told us she wants her heart to be "pure" before getting baptized. She said she has a lot of anger towards someone in her life right now who really hurt her and she needs to get over it before she will be baptized. We had conveniently planned to teach about faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the holy ghost so we started talking about how faith and repentance leads us to a change of heart. we testified that as she seeks to repent, or change, that her change of heart will occur and she will forgive the person. We also read 3 Ne 9:13-14 which talks about Christ healing us if we convert ourselves to him. It was pretty powerful. Then we watched a mormon message about a man whose family was killed by a drunk driver and he forgave the young man very quickly (fun fact, that was actually Elder Rudd's bishop back home in salt lake!). it was a powerful lesson.

 

There was a crazy old man with a sign that said something along the lines of "repent and keep the commandments or burn in hell" on campus a few days ago. He was screaming all sorts of crazy things. So one of the students had quickly made a sign that said "i choose to go to hell" and he had written a bunch of sins he does or something like that. So the old man was yelling that they were all damned and the young man was yelling "who drinks???!!" and the crowd would yell "WE DO!!!" and they kept going down the line of things they probably shouldnt be doing. It was a mad house. then we walked by and of course things got even better. One person yelled, "the mormons!" then they all starting yelling how much they love mormons and then, this is the best part, they started chanting elder harrison's name (my first companion here). ha ha. man, i have said it a million times but i love this place.

 

A pretty cool miracle occurred yesterday. We went off to campus to contact. I felt inspired to bring a chinese restoration pamphlet, which i dont normally do. So we end up contacting this chinese guy that was pretty interesting but was struggling to understand what we were saying. So, much i elder rudd's surprise, i pulled out a chinese resoration pamphlet and started teaching him from it. The man got pretty excited and was really happy that we wanted to pray for him, which is really abnormal because very few of the Chinese people believe in God. The Chinese elders will teach him soon.

 

Thought: I have been reading in Helaman and I have been looking for the similarities between the circumstances in it and today, since both are times before the coming of Christ. I came upon this scripture: Helaman 16:15 "Nevertheless, the people began to harden theirhearts, all save it were the most believing part of them, both of the Nephites and also of theLamanites, and began to depend upon their own‍ strength and upon their own wisdom,saying:"

How often do we forget the Lord our God and try to do everything ourselves? I think much too often we try to much to be perfect or as close to it as possible before we let the Savior in to take care of the rest. But honestly, we will fail if we do that. We can't do anything without him to propel us forward. His grace is sufficient for all men! That our weaknesses will become strengths and that we might receive salvation.

 

I love you all! have a great week

Elder Damron

Dinkytown week 18

Well, transfer calls were this morning. President Forbes called me last night and basically threw a curve ball I would not have expected in million years. he told me that there is a shortage of cars in the mission. And he said my area was the only area he could think of right now to take a car from, so he told me i was being switched into a bike area. because of that he told me I would no longer be zone leader and a spanish set of missionaries are going to be the zone leaders. Neither of them have ever been ZLs so i have to train them how to be ZLs. President told me that he was reluctant to do this but when he was on his mission ZLs and APs were supposed to go home in leadership positions, but he said that this mission will be run differently. He doesnt want missionaries at the latter end of their missions in leadership positions if he can help it anymore. Now I am a district leader over just the TCYSA missionaries. One set of chinese elders and two sisters. in total there are 5 new missionaries this transfer in our ward and me. so things will be a little bit crazy the next few weeks. Since we live about 4 miles away from the campus we will be moving into a new apartment tomorrow as well. so yeah, lots of crazy stuff. 

This week was pretty eventful. On wednesday the two chinese elders were Emergency transferred here so they could to pass off lessons with the chinese sisters, who are being transferred. Elder Wall got sent to another area for a few days to be with one of the chinese elder's old companions so president didnt have to shut the area down. the two chinese sisters set up a bunch of lessons to hand of and introduce people to the chinese elders so i sat there and read the scriptures as they taught in chinese. all in all i ended up reading 30 sections of the doctrine and covenants in those lessons! It was pretty sweet. i enjoyed it a lot! 

Last Tuesday we went to the state fair! It was a ton of fun and a lot of good food was consumed. i ate hotdish on a stick (Minnesotans call casseroles hot dish), alligator on a stick, cheese curds (they freak out about these things around here), some super good rootbeer that is locally made, and we found a stand that had unlimited refills of milk when you bought their cup! sooo good. at one point we were joking around and someone asked where the Sisters went. We jokingly guessed that they were in the miracle of life center. Sure enough, 3 minutes later we get a text saying: "elders! Where are you?! you are missing the calf being born!" Typical. So we went and watched a calf get born. it was intense. 

Anyway, im sorry this letter is so lame but since it is a holiday we only get an hour to email since all the libraries are closed. i love you all! have a great week. next weeks letter will be better :)