Duluth week 27

We had a pretty good week! I wasn't dying of a demon attacking my soul in the form of the flu, so that was nice. Last monday night a few lessons canceled and then we ended up at a potential's house and we talked to him outside for a few minutes but the conversation wasn't going anywhere so we chose to move on. Before we talked to the potential I told Elder Goertzen about a former investigator who lived in a lock out apartment building across the street but the previous Elders were failures when it comes to updating area books so they decided it would be a good idea to say the cross roads to the apartment building and not put an apartment number in the area book. Anyway, right after we finished talking to the potential a guy walked up to us and introduced himself. I immediately knew that he was the former due to his name. The guy asked us to pray with him and then come back later to teach him. So we prayed and he had to go. Dont worry, i got the apartment number! Cool miracle, eh?

On Tuesday we volunteered at what is called the Empty Bowl (google Empty Bowl in Duluth) and we served soup to people for a few hours as part of a fundraiser for a food bank. Another Elder, Elder Winder, and I were serving next to each other. He had chicken noodle soup and I had a bacon cheeseburger soup. Anyway, Elder Winder and I got into somewhat of a competition of who could pass out more of our respective soups. We started "pitching the oatmeal" so to speak on our soups and talking it up and whatnot. Well I was sweet talking this one guy and he started to walk down the line a little farther and I turned to Elder Winder and said that he bit the hook and he would be back. Then i made a little bit of a reeling motion of a fishing pole. Sure enough he came right back and got my soup. So then Elder Winder decided to try his hand and he saw this lady and really started to talk up his chicken noodle soup. She stopped him and said, "im vegan." and walked away. ha ha ha ha ha i was dying. Her daughter ended up getting my soup. :D better luck next time Elder Winder

We had a fantastic lesson at with the R family this week (they have the 9 year old daughter getting ready for baptism). We taught the law of chastity and that was as eventful as teaching the LoC to a 9 year old generally is and then we pulled out a talk about exercising our faith by Richard G Scott from the October conference and we told them we wanted to talk about scripture study. i have committed them to study probably 4 or 5 times in the last 6.5 months with no real progress. I read the scripture study portion of that talk to them, which is quite upfront and candid, and then asked them about their efforts to study the gospel both individually and as a family. They all looked at the floor and I began to testify of the power of the scriptures in my own life and those whom i have taught on my mission. Then Brother R looked up and told us that the Spirit has been telling him to start reading the BoM again for the last month but he just hasnt done it but we rattled his cage a little bit and he realizes he REALLY needs to do it. The whole family committed to read and i think they will do it! It was a powerful lesson! Man i love the Spirit. 

We met a less active this week, RS, who... is an interesting guy. he LOVES missionaries. He had a whole wall full of pictures of missionaries that taught him. He told me how much he loved me even though he didnt know me yet for about 20 minutes. He has a picture of Joseph Smith on the walls and his baptismal certificate is framed on the wall. So i think we can go places with him. 

Here an the excerpt from Richard G. Scotts talk

Scripture Study

Don’t yield to Satan’s lie that you don’t have time to study the scriptures. Choose to take time to study them. Feasting on the word of God each day is more important than sleep, school, work, television shows,video games, or social media. You may need to reorganize your priorities to provide time for the study of the word of God. If so, do it!

I add my testimony to his. Don't let Satan fool you into thinking you are too busy to study the scriptures, or serve the Lord in any capacity. If you are too busy to live the gospel then you are probably busier than God intends you to be. Dont deny yourselves and your families of these blessings!

I love you all! Have a great week

Elder Damron

A member got an 18-foot anaconda snake skin in Brazil

Empty bowls!