Duluth week 17

So i only have about 45 minutes to email today so i will have to make this quick... Sorry!

Honestly, this last week has been one of the best of my mission. A couple weeks ago I gave a thought on the will of God and how i was pretty frustrated over some events that occurred. Well without going into too much detail 2 part member families that were preparing for baptism got reassigned by our ward council to the Sister missionaries. Anyway, the exact same Sunday a family showed up to church I had never seen before. So we talked to them. Turns out they had been inactive and finally decided to come back all on their own! They were not on records. So we set up an appointment. We met with them this week and it turns out that the husband and two children (age 11 and 9) arent members! The husband is the one who wanted to come back to church when he watched a video on the church and the Spirit told him he needed to come back! And they all want to be baptized!!! Sometimes the Lord makes us do hard things, but he always gives more than he takes away. 

On a side note, I ate black bear at a dinner this week. It was quite chewy. 

We were spending some time tracting and following up with some other people we had previously met. We got back into our car and and we realized we had missed a door. I was considering just going to our next location since we were running late. Elder Zerkle turned to me and said, "do you want to see another miracle?" you bet we pounded that door down. you bet we got a sweet return appointment. You bet we taught the super cool guy the next day and it turns out his best friend lives in AZ and he is a member.

So an elder in my district this last week was tracting when a rottweiler ran out from under a deck and latched onto his leg. Well this elder is kind of a man and he just punched it in the face and the dog ran away with its tail between its legs. He didnt think it was too big a deal. Alright then. 

I had the opportunity to do two baptismal interviews this last week. back to back on saturday. It was amazing! The first was with an 11 year old girl that hadnt wanted to be baptized until now (her family is active). I was very impressed because she kept telling me she had prayed about the various questions i was asking her and God told her these things were true. Her testimony was so pure and so strong. it blew me away. 

The second interview was with a 19 year old guy who is facing a lot of family opposition. He wants to be baptized and has made the decision, but he is still slightly nervous. I felt prompted to read D&C 20:37 with him and then I explained that the interview wasnt an interrogation or a test, but it was for him to feel ready and to feel confident that he was ready. It was cool to see his confidence grow throughout the interview as he bore his testimony over and over and the Spirit was reaffirming the truths he was telling me. 

So we went to an institute class this past week with one of our returning YSA members and afterwards we were all in the hall chatting. I accidentally leaned up against the handicap door opener button thingy. Anyway, the door nearby swung open and a girl standing next to it jumped a little and was like, "how in the world did that open??" (just a side note, she has been a member for 2 years) and Elder Zerkle told her it was the priesthood. Then he said, "watch ill do it again!" So i leaned against it again. and it opened. she was pretty confused. we did it 3 times and it was hilarious. We got her good. She was in denial for a few days, but she admitted sunday we got her good. ha ha 

The stake President challenged us missionaries to share atonement messages with the ward council members recently and yesterday we were at our WML house (his wife is also the Primary President). There were also 4 YSA people from the ward, one who is a returning member. So i shared alma 7:11-12 and i talked about all the things the atonement does and then i bore testimony on how the atonement can shape us into more Christ-like beings. I had the WML share his testimony on how the atonement has helped him get to this point in his life and it was powerful. Then his wife shared hers. Then we went around the room and we all bore testimony of the atonement. This was probably one of the most spiritual experiences of my life! The spirit was soooo strong. Then i told everyone to take 1 minute to think of 1 new way to apply the atonement into their lives starting today and after that i wrapped up with my own personal testimony. We all walked away from that lesson a little bit different in a very good way.

I want to leave that challenge for all of you as well! How has the atonement helped shape you into whom you are today? How can you apply it even more?

I love you all!

Elder Ethan P. Damron

Duluth week 16

It is starting to get a little colder again... it has been about zero degrees the last few days. Elder Zerkle and I are actually happy about that because now we can go tract some ice huts on lake Superior!! Woot woot. 

I was able to do a sweet baptismal interview this last week. A woman and her husband randomly showed up to church back in october and they have been coming weekly ever since. Her husband grew up in an lds home but refused to be baptized and went pretty off the deep end. His family is still quite active and they recently encouraged him and his wife to return to church because the timing in their life was right. So never give up on your wayward family members! Anyway, I interviewed the wife for baptism. She has come from an absolute crazy life. Drugs and immorality have basically been her entire life the last 20 years. She was married and divorced when her husband went nuts and then he took the kids. She has a lot of pain in her life. She told me that for the first time in her entire life she felt happy. Like actually happy and at peace. In just 3 short months her bitterness and anger has been peeled off and she is a whole new person. It is quite cool.

We taught a sweet lesson to a woman, DW, this week. She used to be a member and somehow isnt a member anymore and doesnt understand how or why and it is kinda a crazy story but she is discouraged about it. So we have been meeting with her and each time we have a lesson she is humble enough to be taught by the Spirit exactly what we want her to learn. When we first met with her she said she didnt want to come back right now because of health and discouragement. But after reading the Book of Mormon and meeting with us she is very anxious to come back! It has been pretty cool.

We also had a cool experience where some of our plans fell through and we planned to go visit someone but I felt strongly to visit someone on the other end of town. So we went there and met the less active I felt we should go visit. We had committed him a few weeks earlier to read the BoM from the beginning again and he said yes, but we havent seen him since. Well, he has been reading! He is through first Nephi. He told us that he has not had as much peace as he has now that he is reading again in a long time. It was pretty cool. He also told us he was moving a few days later so we were able to help him move and get his new address! The Spirit is pretty cool.

After a super sick district meeting on Thursday in which I trained about how we develop spiritual confidence through sincere repentance and learning to recognize and follow the spirit, all of our lessons canceled and our backups werent going anywhere too quick. I had the thought "lets go tract the most ghetto part of Duluth." So we did. It was a pretty sketchy place and we met a woman who told us she lives with 4 ghosts. And one of the apartments next to that one burned down because a lady did drugs and somehow her dog ended up on fire. So yeah, that is where we were at. Well it was 4:50 and we could have gone home for dinner but i had the thought "be an extra miler!" So i looked up and i saw a door and it just felt right. So we knocked on it and met a super cool girl and her fiance who actually are not ghetto whatsoever. They just moved to duluth without knowing where they were moving and they are moving to a much better area pretty quick. She said they are interested in finding a church to attend and they love studying about the afterlife so she was excited when we gave her Alma 40-42. SO yeah. cool miracle. Sometimes we get promptings that just dont make sense. follow them!

So this past Friday we had a "Meet the Mormons" movie night as a ward activity. No one up here has seen it because it only played in theaters in the cities. So I called President Forbes and did some sweet talking to persuade him that it would be a fantastic finding activity if he let us borrow the disc he had. And oh boy, it was a fantastic success. We had about 130 people show up. Roughly 30 of those were non-members or less actives. Everyone absolutely loved it! 

The Sister Missionaries in our ward are pretty funny. So the other two sets of missionaries in our ward are facebook approved. Well Elder Schmidt left his facebook open and one of the Sister missionaries changed his birthday to last saturday (it is actually in may). Well the ward went all out. He got 3 birthday cakes, quite a bit of singing done to him, 40 posts on facebook, and a few birthday ties. ha ha oh man. That awkward moment when he told everyone it wasnt actually his birthday... 

So for my spiritual thought i wanted to talk a little about following the Spirit. So last week I was driving to our apartment and on that particular street you have to turn right to get to our apartment. Well everyone and their dog who turns right on this street pulls onto the shoulder to turn right so i just assumed there was a turning lane. So we are going home and for the first time in 4 months i notice a white line where the turning lane is supposed to be and i had the thought "dont cross the white line." well i was just like whatever, people always cross that line to turn. Well i crossed it. and... got pulled over! SO LAME. i didnt get a ticket or anything the lady cop just wanted to take the time to inform me that there was NOT a turning lane there. but had i listened, nothing would have happened. Often we get promptings that contradict what we think makes sense and honeslty i probably would have never known i was in the wrong had i followed the thought, but i would have avoided a hairy situation. Follow the spirit!

love you all! Elder Damron

Duluth week 15

We had a pretty interesting week here in Duluth. The two sets of missionaries in my district are going to have baptisms pretty soon so I will need to do some interviews. So i spent a lot of time teaching their investigators this week. it was a lot of fun.

One investigator of theirs is Brother K. He grew up in an LDS home but told his parents he didnt want to be baptized and fell into drugs in high school. He has had a wild life and then he and his wife showed up at church one day to fix their lives. The wife is set for baptism and he is super happy for her and supports her, but he is really struggling with testimony problems. We gave him a blessing for some guidance and afterwards you could see on his face he was feeling something different. We brought it up to him and he denied it and changed the subject. It was pretty cool. Gotta love the Spirit!

So on Thursday our WML called us and asked us to go give a blessing to a member who was in the hospital. on wednesday he had been to the ICU with a blood sugar of 1500!!!! By the way, normal sugars is roughly 100 from what i am told. That is insane! He was facing organ failure. We gave a blessing to him and on Saturday he got released straight from the ICU and went home. Flippin insane stuff right there

We also had a super fantastic lesson with the G family. Bishop had asked us to teach a lesson on Ether 12:6 and 12:27 and how trials of faith take time. Faith isnt built overnight. At the end i bore my testimony on God's will and talked about my experiences learning to accept His will, even when we dont want to. I told him we need to set goals and work after we learn what God's will is. Apparently that is what the Spirit wanted me to say because the goal thing hit him and he told us that is why he was slipping with his testimony. He hasnt set any spiritual goals. So he made some with us right on the spot and asked us to keep him accountable! it was pretty sweet. 

Thursday night the Sister Missionaries in Carlton called me and said their male investigator who is a date set is really struggling with family opposition and they wanted me to call him and use a football analogy to help calm him down. I was more than happy to oblige that request... ha ha. It worked!

Sunday night we had a great lesson with Brother M. He is about to head down to the cities for cancer treatments. We werent sure what to share with him but we ended up reading moroni 10:32-33 with him and I bore testimony on how i used to be a hardcore perfectionist and i felt like i needed to be perfect before Christ could help me. Then i bore testimony on how the process actually works. He told us he felt the exact same and he was struggling with it. Then his girlfriend (who isnt actually a member so that was cool) bore powerful testimony of that truth and the Spirit was pretty strong. It was a great lesson and i think he will be able to move forward now. 

well, time is up for the week. i love you all! Make this week the best week ever!

Elder Ethan P. Damron

Duluth week 14

We had a dang good week! Monday night we went to a less active's house and we met their cousin. She is from Billings, MT and her mother is actually a member! We talked for quite awhile and then we invited her to take lessons from the Sister Missionaries. She told us yes and then said,"you know, i have always had a feeling that when i made the decision to be baptized it would be mormon." boo yah

We had dinner with a YSA this last week from the ward and he made the spiciest chicken i have ever eaten in my entire life. It was this ghost pepper based sauce that had a wicked afterburn. it just burned and burned and burned and burned. So i wanted to clean my plate off quickly and get it over with and i shoved like 4 pieces in my mouth and chomped them. bad idea. there were a few minutes where the possibility of my death actually seemed like a pretty reasonable outcome. I couldnt eat the food on my plate for another 20 minutes because my mouth was so roasted. Since i am the bets companion ever i dared Elder Zerkle to try it because he was talking a little smack about how it wasnt too bad. So he shoved in 4 pieces and 4 minutes later he was crying. i, too, was crying. but only because i was laughing so hard. ha ha ha. oh man. im awful. but what can i say, you can either humble yourself or be compelled to be humble, right? :D

We also had a sweet miracle where we got into a part member family's and their daughter just turned 9. we have been trying to set stuff up with them for awhile and then the mother said,"we have been meaning to call you. our daughter turned 9 and she needs to be baptized!" so their reactivation has begun!!!

We had another sweet miracle where after 4 months of trying to get set up with a part member family to reactive the mother, baptize the kids, and get them to the temple we got and taught! that isnt so much the miracle part for this week because we taught them the last 2 weeks, but a few nights ago the 12 year old daughter called and left a message announcing she wanted to be baptized! ah yeah. so that process has begun. 

On saturday a member called us and asked us to help her move just a few things. we showed up and there was a massive u-haul. of course her apartment is on the third floor. 4.5 hours later we finished. im still tired and sore... i guess i should lift more in the morning time

On friday night i went to teach one of the sister's investigators who is 11. she is slated to be baptized in a few weeks so i will interview her. i wanted to get to know her a little before that happened. so this girl has a lot of attention issues with ADHD and a bunch of other things. she is quite spunky and sassy. i have never been more insulted within the time frame of one hour in my entire life than that lesson. and all the jabs were pretty clever and stopped me dead in my tracks. she even came up with a quite clever nickname centered around my last name. i thought i had heard them all but apparently i just need to get dissed my by 11 year old girls. But the lesson went pretty well still and we taught the 10 commandments. she really has a quite good heart and is very kind and loving, she just likes to have a tough girl attitude. I am excited to interview (pray for me, ill need them in that interview)

Mosiah 15:7 "Yea, even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father." 

 This past week I was taught quite the lesson on being swallowed up in the will of the Father. I have worked quite hard to take this area into a particular direction and this past week the Lord abruptly changed that direction for me. Then i had a decision to make. i could either be quite mad about the whole situation and pout and put up a fit, or i could kneel in humility and accept this new path and ask the Lord to direct me. After much difficulty, and about 12 hours of being stubborn, i chose the latter. and i feel a lot of peace right now. I know that as we seek to do the will of the Father each and every day we can have fulfillment and peace. Our life might not turn out the way we want or expect it to, but it will go where He needs it to go. 

I love you all! have a great week

Elder Damron

Duluth week 13

Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone :D I had a sweet birthday. We went to our ward mission leader's house and had dinner then he played happy birthday on the piano. He has like a PhD in piano performance so he spiced it up quite a bit. it was epic. Why did i quit piano again?

So we had a pretty sweet week. We saw a returning member, TM, who is about to go down to the cities for 7 weeks for cancer treatment. it is going to be rough. He was feeling really sick and so we didnt have too much of a lesson. But hedid EMP one of our CDs in his microwave... ha ha

We had a lesson with a member referral who is about 23 years old. He is doing everything wrong morally you can think of and has decided he needs to change his life. We had a pretty cool lesson with him where we read Alma 29 and he recognized the Spirit teach him that change starts with him taking the first initiative. So he wants to do more. He said the prayer at the end of the lesson! He has never prayed vocally in his whole life and he hasnt prayed at all in the last decade. He said a fantastic prayer! He also dropped a swear word or two in it, but baby steps. 

We also went to a less active family's house. Well, they arent completely less active but they are slipping into it and they dont realize. Last time Elder Zerkle was pretty bold and committed them to pray about the Book of Mormon again. I had done this before he got here but the Spirit was much stronger this time and they did it! For the first time in a long while they have read their scriptures and they are doing it regularly now. When we enter their home we can literally feel more happiness and peace. It is pretty cool. 

On Thursday we did a teaching evaluation with a member in the ward. That is where they pretend to be an investigator and we teach them and then they tell us how we did. Well the person we did it with is pretty sassy so i thought it was going to be pretty tough. It was. Elder zerkle was testifying of God's love to His children and the member butt in and said, "is that why God killed all the first borns of the egyptians?" Elder Zerkle's face dropped and he looked at me. I just smiled back. ha ha. oh man. Then later the man asked why God doesnt just wipe all of the false churches off of the earth and Elder zerkle said it was because there are good people in all churches. And then the member said, "oh so the egyptian babies weren't good?" And then Elder Zerkle said, "no of course not! all of those babies were innocent." Then he realized he agreed with him and again looked at me. I just smiled. Dont worry, i bailed him out... eventually. 

We were teaching a man a few nights back when all of a sudden we heard a few pounds on the door. Elder Zerkle opened the door and there were five cops standing there. The cops asked if Elder Zerkle's was the son of the man we were teaching and he stumbled over his words for awhile and then I said no he wasnt. I think elder zerkle was surprised a bit to see five cops. Then the cop asked if the Girlfriend of the son was there and the member insisted she was not. the awkward part was that i could hear her talking in the back bedroom... so it got a little wild and the cops were very persistent in trying to get in the door. Then finally the man we were teaching said, "we are having a bible study here and you are interrupting, could you come back another time?"

So the cops left and Elder Zerkle just looked at me, and I him, and we were just like what the freak just happened.

Last night we were able to attend the CES devotional by Brother Ridd and it was fantastic! He talked a lot about how we need to have real intent and the patience to see the hand of the Lord in our lives. The greatest intent we can ever have is to do things to show our love for the Lord not for some reason centered on ourselves. if we lose ourselves in His service, we will truly find ourselves. 

Love you all!

Elder Damron

pics from Duluth week 12

Filibertos!

We made a blanket for President and Sister Forbes' Christmas present!

District picture

We had a hot cocoa making competition on Christmas.

Gotta love cats!

New Year's Eve Party #DuctTape

Duluth week 12

Transfers are in! And I am staying in Duluth. Woot woot! I am also the District Leader again because our current District Leader just got transferred. I wasn't quite expecting that but I am excited for the opportunity again. 

So this week we saw one of the craziest miracles of my mission. We were driving down the road and we stopped to eat dinner at a fast food place because we had quite a few lessons and not enough time. It is a good problem to have :) anyway, we walk out of the food joint and low and behold there it was: a holiday gas station with a sign that said 1.99 per gallon. :D

So I want to give a shout out to my wonderful father for sending me the best birthday present ever: Filibertos Burritos. He iced them up and sent them in a cooler. The fiery goodness of those God sent burritos warmed my soul in the midst of the horrors of a lake Superior winter. 

We had a pretty sweet New Years day. in the morning we went and played basketball. The elders from Ashland Wisconsin were there and then the WML and his sons came. They are all pretty good so we balled pretty hard. Im still pretty bad but oh well. ha ha. Then we played games at the church with our entire district until Dinner. I have gotten a little sassy while playing card games and things got a little wild. it was pretty fun ha ha

We also had a super cool lesson with a less active native American woman (who is from Pryor Montana! which is close to Billings). She was in quite a bad mood and not receptive at all. Then a little voice came into my head that said "compliment her." My companion was talking at the time. A second time I felt I should compliment her. So I talked about how we loved coming to their home because of the loving environment it is. They absolutely love their two kids and are wonderful parents. I thanked them for their examples. Her mood changed completely and we taught a pretty powerful lesson. Moral of the story: follow the Spirit!

We had a LEGIT lesson with our investigator GP. So we found him in our area book 2 weeks ago and he was quite surprised to see us on his doorstep because a joint teacher and the last missionaries said some pretty uncalled for things to him. Anyway, we played damage control with him and started teaching him. Well this last week we went to our lesson and he put the BoM on the table and told us that his new years resolution was to find out if that book is true or not. Then he told us that you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink but he is thirsty and ready to drink. He put his arms up in the air and said "convert me." it was pretty sweet. then he came to church Sunday!! he loved it. so good things are happening in Duluth :D

So the Saturday before transfers if we get a new assistant in the mission then President calls them Saturday afternoon. Friday night we slept at the Zone Leader's apartment and I told Elder Roose to make sure to keep his phone off of silent so he could hear President calling. He didn't like that joke. I kept getting some good one liners in about him becoming the new AP. then Saturday during correlation guess who called? President Forbes!! Elder Roose's face dropped like the thermometer in January. President was calling about something completely different but oh man it was hilarious. I got him good. 

It was -40 with windchill this morning. yep. Elder Zerkle is a little bit cold... 

We had another cool miracle. A less active lady randomly called us and asked us to visit her step father in the hospital with her! And she is pretty receptive to meeting. So yeah. We like getting calls like that. 

Anyway, we are driving 2 hours north to do some winter hiking with a member so we must be off! love you all!

Elder Damron

I just got word that Duluth was voted the coldest place in the United States or something like that. woot!