pics from Duluth week 21

Michigan!

Tallest Native American statue in the world!

Duluth week 21

I had a great week! 

On Wednesday I exchanged with the Ashland Elders and we went to Michigan! They are the only area in the mission that covers a portion of Michigan. So that means I now have served in 3 states. i also exchanged in Carlton and ended up being gone from my area from Tuesday-Friday. then we spent the night at the ZLs for two nights. So last night i finally got to sleep in my bed for the first time in foreverrrr. IT is all about the small and simple things. 

Sickest news ever!!! WE ARE GETTING iPADS!!!!!!! WOOT WOOT. Since June of 2013 they have been telling us we would be getting them soon. Having iPads will be sweet because we can study with a lot more resources at our hands, we can download all sorts of videos and use them in lessons, and other stuff like that. So I am pretty pumped. It gets better, though. Two General Authorities are coming to the mission to give a Mission Conference on how to properly use media and technology in missionary work!!!! They will be coming on May 26th!!! ... oh.. wait. What do i care? 

So on my exchange in Michigan I met a European man who married a native american woman (who is a member) and he is a Thor worshiper. He also only wears kilts. Yep. He doesn't own a single pair of pants. He also is a weapon specialist and had all sorts of weapons all over his house. He is about 6'7" and has a massive dwarf beard. pretty cool stuff.

We were also at the Davis' family's house for dinner last night and the daughter was showing us pictures of baby elephants and going on and on about how cute they were. I definitely mentioned how my sister Alyssa had a baby animal picture looking addiction for awhile. Anyway, Elder Zerkle said, "that thing doesn't have any hair on it! It looks disgusting!!" Then Brother Davis, who happens to be bald, looked E. Zerkle in the eye and said, "are you telling me I look disgusting?? I let you into my home to eat a meal and you call me disgusting?" I was crying i was laughing so hard.

So now that all the great stories are written, we did missionary work too! The K family continues to be doing super well. They will be baptized on March 28th. We taught a powerful lesson on receiving a witness of the Book of Mormon by the power of the Holy Ghost. They believe it is true already, but I want this family to receive the fullness of the blessings they can receive. I don't want them to just have a testimony, I want them to be converted. And that all starts by praying about the Book of Mormon and asking God the Father, in the name of Christ, if that Book and this Church is true. I'm excited to hear about how this week goes :)

We also had some great lessons with our blind investigator, BG. He came to church again and he told us that he had quite a few concerns. Well we had a particular member give him a ride to church today. What we did not know is that this member also brought someone else to church who had an interview with Bishop after church. So BG and this member talked for like 40 minutes and this wonderful member missionary, who is a  convert, was able to solve and answer every single one of BG's concerns. Later, BG told us that it was a "stroke of genius" that we brought this member. We call that revelation in the Church :D

Luke 22: 41-44 

41 And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast,and kneeled down, and prayed,
42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven,strengthening him.
44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

This week I gave a district meeting on discouragement. I found quite a few examples in the scriptures of when we are discouraged and perhaps feel abandoned by God, but the Lord sends an angel to help His servant in a time of need and they are able to complete a task. The Savior, in the darkest hour that one could possibly imagine, was probably a little down. He pleaded with the Father to remove the burden, but He was obedient and continued onward. Our loving Father in Heaven sent an angel to strengthen the Savior. Not only that, but modern revelation speculates that this angel was Michael, or Adam, who is mostly likely a very dear friend to Jesus. 

The Lord knows everything we go through and is in the details of our lives. I know he sends angels to us in those times of need to help us. Most likely these people are not literally angels from heaven, but people around us the Lord sees fit to use to our aid. 

Show some gratitude this week! Reach out to someone who has had a profound influence upon your life in some way and say thank you.

I love you all!

Have a great week.
Elder Damron

pics from Duluth week 20

Lake Superior

Lake Superior

Zone P-Day

Slumber Party!

Duluth week 20

So we had zone conference last Monday and that night we had 10 Elders in our apartment. Thankfully some members let us borrow some air mattresses so that they didnt have to sleep on our hardwood floor. It was a lot of fun. Perhaps too much fun... we got some sleep dont worry! The next day we had a zone P-Day and played lazer tag. It was pretty epic 

We are teaching a blind man named BG and he came to church yesterday! He brought his service dog and all of the little kids were absolutely flipping out about having a "puppy" in Church. it was pretty adorable. He also loved church, so that is a plus :D we taught him the plan of salvation last week and at the end of the lesson he said, "you know, it makes sense that we needed to leave God's presence to experience mortality. How could we truly appreciate immortality if we did not experience the opposite?" It was a pretty powerful statement. He is a beast!

Elder Zerkle and I have been working very hard at putting up everything on the alter of sacrifice and becoming consecrated missionaries. And you know, I think we are close to achieving our goal because this last week we went and walked on water. Thats right. We just walked out onto Lake Superior. okay, we cheated a little bit. The lake was completely frozen with about 11 inches of ice, but baby steps, right? We will work on a more marvelous miracle when the lake unfreezes. But yeah! we ran out onto the lake and ice hut tracted. SOOOO fun. All the ice fishermen just sit there in their little hut all day just waiting to be talked to! We had a decent amount of success, too. They are fishers of fish and we are fishers of men so it all worked out!

So I was standing in our bedroom tying my tie and i see out of the  corner of my eyes a spider hanging in the doorway. my hands were occupied so i asked Elder Zerkle to kill it. He is a big guy and thinks he is tough sometimes so I figured he would be able to hand it. Well i turn around and he has a paper towel and he carefully tries to pull it out of the air. THen he opens up the paper towel and the spider leaps at him a little bit. I thought there was a 7 year old girl in the apartment from his little shriek so then i had to go and kill the spider on the ground. For heavens sake he reminded me of Alyssa waking me up at like 5 in the morning to kill a spider in her bathroom. ha ha

We had a pretty sick lesson with a less active named JH this last week. I have been trying to contact him for some time and then the EQ president asked us to go over and see if he wants home teachers so we decided to go again. So we got in the door for the first time and he opened up about all his trials. We read about the atonement of Jesus Christ in Alma 7 and told him that Christ felt all of his trials already so he didnt need to go through this alone. He told us he realized and that after he started feeling healthy again he would make God more of a priority. Well obviously I didnt agree with the way he wants to go about the situation so I opened up to 3 Ne 13:33 and told him that the quality of his life was only going to improve once he put God first, not last and then we committed him to pray every night for the next week, read the Book of Mormon, and then look back to see how his week was different. He said, "you know, that is completely reasonable. Ill do that." #repentance

Abraham 3:25 

 25 And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;

One of biggest lessons I have learned since coming to Duluth is learning to accept the will of the Father with humility.I have had opportunity after opportunity up here in the Duluth to either be humble or resist what God wanted me to do. This is exactly why we are here on earth! To learn to accept God's will. When we try to do God's will the grace of His Son, Jesus Christ, fills our souls and we can accomplish absolutely anything He wants us to do.

I love you all! Have a great week. 

Elder Ethan P. Damron

pics from Duluth week 19

"My most favorite district ever! These are like siblings I never had."

"10 elders - one apartment. It was a lot of fun."

Duluth week 19

So today is Zone P-Day and we all have like 25 min to email so i wont be able to respond to very many emails today and this will be short... ill make up for it next week! I promise!

So we had an awesome lesson with the K family this week (the part member family that walked into church a few weeks back). We brought a joint teacher and taught the word of wisdom. We knew it would be a tough one going in because the returning member loves coffee and she didnt get why her father could drink 2 or more liters of soda a day and be living the word of wisdom but she cant get coffee. The joint teacher bore powerful testimony of the blessings of the WoW and talked about some of his kids who had made a lot of mistakes with it. He testified of how their kids need this in their life and so they need to all commit to live it. The family committed. at the end the husband looked us in the eye and said, "i will be baptized on March 28th." so cool :D

Last week we had one of the most powerful lessons of my mission with a returning member, DP. A prospective Elder. We felt prompted to teach about the atonement of Christ and how to apply it. We talked about how it was an infinite atonement and there is always enough for us. It will never be "used up." We read from Alma 34 about it and then we started reading about repentance in the Gospel of Christ pamphlet. the very last section talks about relying upon the Savior and that we cant do it alone. DP was reading the section and he broke into tears as he read it. I looked at our joint teacher, Brother Faerber and he nodded at me, then opened his mouth and bore an incredibly powerful testimony. Then i went. then Elder Zerkle went. At the very end DP told us that for the first time in a long time he feels like there was hope. it was cool stuff :D 

well, sadly i must be off. sorry for the lame email this week. 

john 6:8-13 

 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto him, 9 There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? 10 And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. 11 And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. 12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. 13 Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

So I love this story. And here is an interesting twist on this perhaps some of you have never taken from it. The Lord created a miracle so that everyone could be fed, and then there was a ton left over too! So it is with the Atonement of Christ. It is infinite. There is always more. We cant use it all up. There is always more for us to apply and be healed with. 

I love you all! have a fantastic week! 

Elder Ethan P. Damron

Duluth week 18

So today was transfer calls... and what we thought was impossible actually happened. Elder Zerkle..... IS STAYING IN DULUTH WITH ME!!!! WOOT! So this is pretty unheard of. Trainee and trainer staying together after the training is complete. Staying together for 3 transfers in this mission is also super rare and we call them "eternal companions." So we are stoked. Unfortunately, Elder Schmidt, my best mission friend, is being transferred. I am pretty sad. But, Elder Foggin is taking his place so that makes me happy. Father and son reunited :) I called that happening last week.

Anyway, Our week was quite solid. We went into a nursing home to visit a member and we got on an elevator with a man who had a cowboy hat on. Well it was a cool hat so we started talking to him and he was like, "oh, how are you doing elders?" turns out this guy is a lost sheep. what. gotta love that crazy inspired timing, right? So yeah. we are going to visit him weekly now.

We also had a great lesson with Brother PB. He is a less active that relapsed into smoking and we contacted him and he really wants to make some changes in his life. He has been humbled quite a bit lately. So we taught the sabbath day and i said the quote from PMG about how sabbath day observance decays, all other aspects of life are negatively affected. he spoke up and said, "you know. that is true. ever since i stopped living these things my life has tanked and gone to garbage." so yeah. He is ready to come back. :)

We had a pretty sweet night with a returning YSA we are helping out named DP. He is a guru at family history so we had a family history night with him and he taught us a lot about how to do it. Then he showed us his family line back to Adam and Eve. Trippy stuff.

We had a SWEET lesson with a guy named BG yesterday. He called the church looking for missionaries to come teach him. Naturally we were more than happy to oblige. It turns out he is blind and has been that way the last 18 years. But he is completely functional and lives on his own. he has conference calls with blind friends on weekends and most of them are lds and he has talked to them a lot. So he wanted to learn more. We shared a powerful restoration lesson and he said,"you know i like the way you view God. I have always thought He was a loving father and not a vengeful God." it was pretty cool :)

We also taught the K family a few times. They are the PM family that walked into church a few weeks back and the family wants to get baptized. We set a date for March 28thand Bro K was a little nervous, but he told us he is ready and he knows he is ready. he just wants to learn a little bit more. So yeah #miraclecity

I love you all! Have a great week. 

Elder Damron