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 

pics from Dinkytown week 23

"Matching ties!"

"The mud (sesame)"

"Barber Chou cut Elder Tseng's hair."

"FORE!"

Ethan, his companion, and their Bishop

"my artistic golf shot"

Dinkytown week 23

So much to say, so little time. We are teaching a class at a university on Mormonism today so our P-Day will be a tad short. We are also dependent upon another set of missionaries for the car, so that makes things slightly difficult.

This morning our bishop took us to play golf. Elder Rudd hit PGA status right before he came on his mission and went to flippin work. I scored a 59 on a par 35... not bad, right? oh man. by the end I was doing pretty well, though.

Monday night we had a pretty sweet miracle. We tried to set up an appointment with our investigator DO Monday night but things just didn't work out getting ahold of him. We thought of a PERFECT joint teacher for him and really wanted to get them together. well, Mondaynight DO randomly walked into the institute and the JT we really wanted just walked up to us and was like Hey, need me for a lesson? Boo ya! So we taught DO and the JT testified of how he used to be a bum who was throwing his life away drinking. Then one of his friends told him if he didn't fix his life he would end up dead. so he cleaned his life up, got active in the church, served a mission a few years later, and is a beast now. Little did the JT know, but our investigator is in basically the same situation. It hit him pretty hard. It was powerful!

So I have waaay too many funny stories this week. where to start. First, the Chinese Elders gave each other haircuts. Let me just say hair cutting is not their strong suit... Elder Tseng has a borderline bald spot on one side of his head. sooo funny. I will email a picture out.

We also gave them cinnamon apple sauce. they have never had apple sauce before and they HATED it. oh man they did not like it. it was so good! A few days later we walk into the kitchen and it looks like they are simmering a pot of mud and they managed to convince me to eat said mud. elder rudd wouldn't do it. In reality it was sesame they had boiled or something. it had an interesting taste. but honestly, who doesn't like applesauce?

We were walking down the street going to get some food and this one girl was like "you all look very nice tonight" (we were in our suits before priesthood) then her friend a few feet behind her was like, "YEAH. YOURE ALL BABES!" well, I never thought id get called a babe on mission. ha ha.

Sometimes I have no idea how these conversations come up but us and the Chinese elders started talking about santa claus. Elder Tseng said that not even the 4 year olds he taught primary too believed in Santa. then we got into a friendly debate about the existence of Santa. Of course santa is real so I made a convincing argument that they lacked a lot of faith on the matter. then I was like, "elder tseng, by the end of dinner tonight I will show unto you that Jesus is the Christ and Santa is the Claus!" Later, Elder Tseng showed me a picture he has of santa kneeling next to Christ's manger and he was like, "Elder Damron! Santa is the Claus!" oh man. so funny.

We have a lot of fun here. maybe too much fun... we haven't burned anything down yet though, so I think we are good.

I really liked Richard G. Scott's talk. When he was talking about scripture study the importance of it really struck my soul. He said reading our scriptures daily is more important than school, sleep, and work. How many of us actually feel that way and do what the Lord has asked? The blessing is of peace.  A deep, abiding peace that can only come with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I love you all! have a great week.

 Elder Damron

pics from Dinkytown week 22

"gotta  love teaching a marine! his cat really likes to be held upside down.. it is a tad off I think."

"I went to the temple for the first time in 17 months!"

"Elder Smith and I with our Word of wisdom trophies"

"Minnesota state fair!

...in sota, we say pop!"

Dinkytown week 22

We had quite the eventful week this last week!

I went and taught sister PY this last week with one of my zone leaders, Elder Smith. PY committed to October 27th for baptism and she gave us her coffee and tea. She is quite remarkable. She was telling us during the lesson that she doesn't want to be a hypocrite when it comes to just living her religion sometimes so she has started making small changes in her life that she feels will bring her closer to Christ. none of which we talked about. So cool! True conversion is taking place. She recognizes that healing comes from being converted unto Christ and she desperately wants spiritual healing. The fruits of her actions are definitely showing it.

Super sweet miracle this week. When I first got to Dinkytown I taught a guy named DO. But I thought he had graduated and moved away. Well it turns out he has one more class here at the U and he just straight up walked into the institute the other day! so now we are teaching him again. so sick!

So I am pretty terrified because my companion read the talk "Mountains to Climb" this last week and he decided he wanted to grow a little so he prayed for a big mountain to climb. Now we are both absolutely terrified about what the Lord has in store... oh heavens. President Clements told us to never pray for that because there are enough mountains in life to climb without us praying for them. I told that to elder rudd and five minutes later he was like, "did President really say that??" ha ha. oh man.

Friday night we had a really sweet experience. A brother and sister in the YSA ward had us over for dinner with their parents. Their father is on the verge of leaving the church and they wanted us to share a really inspired message. We went to the temple (my first time on my mission! Woot!), fasted, and that night had the most amazing meal since being in Minnesota. During our lesson we testified strongly of this church teaching plain and precious lost truths about the atonement and the Godhead that are essential to our happiness and progression to becoming more Christ like. Elder Rudd bore testimony of how life in the church is not happiness (he was less active most his life) even when we think it might be. the spirit was thick. Everyone in the room could feel it. it was so powerful. The wife also made super good cookies and I may or may not have eaten 8 of them... he he

We also took our investigator DF, whom I taught last semester and how she is back, to a baptism on Saturday. I will be honest, the service was.. sub par. the speaker (who is supposed to speak for 5-7 minutes about baptism and confirmation) rambled about Christmas for 35 minutes and the elders didn't fill the font up enough so they had to baptize the man a few times to get him under and some little kids were screaming the whole time. But, despite all of this, the moment he came up out of the water after he was correctly baptized the Children grew quiet and the Spirit was super strong. It is amazing how even amidst crazy situations that still small voice can still be there.

well, I read a super cool scripture this morning that is now one of my favorite. Let me introduce you to Mormon chapter 8: 38

 " O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God?Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the world?

I think this sums up the world pretty well. The thing that sets us apart from the world, that makes us a peculiar people is that we take upon ourselves the name of Christ. we aren't ashamed to do it. Well, we aren't supposed to be ashamed. Even amidst the Church members we still have our fears and trepidations. head Moroni's call! avoid the misery which never dies. We should all think of the ways in which we shirk to take Christ's name upon us and change those things.

I love you all! have a great week :)

Elder Damron