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