Ethan is HOME!!!

Hello blog followers. Ethan has been home for almost three months now and I thought I would share a few thoughts about his home coming.
It was an honor to maintain this blog while Ethan was serving his mission. In a small way, it helped me stay connected to Ethan. I felt like I could serve him while he was gone. I always enjoyed reading Ethan's emails and I especially enjoyed the pictures he would send. At times it was very difficult not to be able to call him and hear his voice and see how he was doing. At times I knelt in earnest prayer and petitioned Heavenly Father to bless my dear younger brother and let him know that his family loved him very much and were thinking of him constantly. I see a change in Ethan and I am so proud of him.
Here are a few excerpts from my journal that should paint a picture of what his home coming entailed.

05/13/15
"Ethan is officially home and has been released from his mission. It's bizarre. He actually doesn't look any different except...his facial hair has come in.
I spent the morning at the Cook's house. I exercised, read my scriptures, did a little bit of thesis work, then went over to my mom's house and got ready. Alyssa was wonderful and did my hair and let me borrow a dress. Candyce, as per Alyssa's idea, had a huge picture of Ethan's face blown up at Walgreens. We glued it onto a poster and wrote, "Returned with Honor." The facial expression is a good one.

We Damron girls sped to the airport as nervous wrecks because we left later than expected and didn't want to mis him getting out of his terminal. We made it in plenty of time.
We had a pretty good sized group. My brother asked that it be only family at the airport so it was our immediate family, plus/including LeAnn, the entire Cook family (without husbands, but with new baby Eleanor), my Uncle Spencer, and then Kristie Godfrey to take pictures.

I was the first person to see Ethan and as soon as he came, all of us Damron girls started to sob! It literally came out of no where. I didn't think I was going to cry because I was feeling totally fine. But - I cried. So many tears.
Ethan hugged my mom first and then hugged the rest of us. Scott was hiding behind a pillar because originally Ethan was told Scott wasn't coming and it was all sorts of awkward.
Scott came out and Ethan just lit up. Their picture together was the best because they just HUGGED and looked super cheesy.

We ate lunch at Baja Joe's (immediate family, Scott, and Spencer) then went to the Mesa temple to do some family baptisms. It was pretty cool to see Ethan baptize Candyce and Scott baptize Ethan. I sat next to LeAnn and my dad as we witnessed the baptisms. LeAnn was just glowing. She reached for my dad's hand and said, "This is what it's all about." LeAnn truly has a passion for family history and I love it.

After the temple we went to my mom's stake center to have Ethan get released. Ethan and Scott actually went to the wrong church building, so we waited on them for a few minutes, then joined Ethan after his quick, private interview with the stake president.
When the stake president handed Ethan the certificate of his release, Ethan started crying. As we stood up to leave, Ethan paused at the door and just started sobbing. My dad went over and held him while he cried. Eventually we were all crying. Scott cried and [I handed my dad a tissue for Ethan.] Seeing Ethan cry like that was kind of heart breaking.
Ethan went to the bathroom and when we asked Scott if he cried, he said, 'I cried like a baby for 15 minutes.' Later on I heard Ethan say that when he was told he was released, he felts something and that really affected him. He still feels different."

I wanted to include that last part as a testament that missionaries are truly set apart by God to teach people about the gospel. It is a very special, unique, and powerful calling. I am blessed to be a member of the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Duluth week 30

Last P-Day we helped a lady move that a member invited to church the previous day. At the end the lady asked us how she could get baptized. She almost got baptized a few years ago but had a problem with prophets. but she apparently got over that problem. Miracle!

So we went to a bar for Cinco De Mayo. A member took us to get some of the best burgers i have ever had. Apparently the place was a 21+ but in Wisconsin you can not only enter a bar at any age with your parents but you can drink at any age too. So the member said he would take elder goertzen on as his child. Then he said, "do you know what that means?" E Goertzen then said," im not sure i want to know what it means." Then he said, "it means im your daddy! who's yo' daddy!" soo funny

We had a pretty sweet lesson with a returning LA. Last minute i felt prompted to change the lesson plan to watch a mormon message called "Reclaimed." it was soo good. his wife turned to him and said, "now you better not dare say that was not a very inspired message by the Elders." turns out the husband has been digging up a lot of his past mistakes, in which he has already repented off, and just beating himself up about it. we read some more scriptures with him that resolved a few more concerns. he was a different man when we left. So cool :) 

So on Friday a member took us to go and listen to the Chief Scout Executive of the BSA, Wayne Brock. The member was running a breakfast in which he was speaking so we listened to him and got a picture. He talked to us about President Monson and name dropped a few other GAs that go to board meetings. It was tight

On exchanges with the ZLs we went and taught a guy that showed up to church randomly. We drove 30 minutes into the boons and this guy took us into his secret bomb shelter where he is preparing for armageddon. He also showed us how to witch for water (also known as Water Dowsing) using his copper rods. He was quite the fellow. There were a few moments where i questioned whether i would ever see the light of day again. 

After we got out of the bomb shelter Elder Winder asked me if i wanted to guess where we were going next. I jokingly threw out a random name that all the missionaries talk about because he was involved in a scandal about a year ago. I said it as a joke, but it felt right, so we went! He was sitting on his front steps and he let us right in. First time he has talked to missionaries in months. He broke down and told us that he is lost and depressed and nothing is going right in his life and he is in this fog he just cant get out of. We testified hard core of putting God first and he will help you solve those problems instead of you trying to do it all on your own. he thanked us over and over for coming and he was amazed at the perfect timing in which we showed up. it was pretty sweet :) 

Well, the mission office keeps telling me im going home or something. Despite my best efforts to prove them wrong and extend my mission, i will be flying home this wednesday, May 13th. I cannot fully put into words the gratitude I have to my Father in Heaven for the enormous amount of blessings He has poured upon my head the last two years as I have served His children in this corner of the vineyard. This mission truly has been a gift (Mor 7:2)! i may have thought i sacrificed so much when i first came out, but i have come to know that serving the Lord in any capacity is a gift and privilege. I love my Savior! i know that this is the work of the Master. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and has the power to change anyone's life and heal their souls if they will let it. God our Father loves us unconditionally and wants what is best for us. We are truly His children and once we fully understand this truth spiritually we will know of our divine potential and realize we can accomplish anything, according to God's will, if we do our best and rely upon our Savior. 

I love you all! If you wish to contact me in the future, email me at epdamron@gmail.com or facebook me

Elder Ethan P. Damron

Duluth week 29

I. Am. So. Tired. Almost every single afternoon this last week we moved something. And by something i mean a lot of things. Basically team swollgier came to Duluth this last week. On Wednesday we moved super heavy book boxes for 2 hours. On Thursday I helped mud a ceiling and had my arms above my head for 3 straight hours. Friday WE moved some furniture. Then we went back Saturday with the other Elders to lift some really heavy things that needed all 4 of us. This is where the story gets good :) So Elder Winder squatted down to pick up one side of an extremely heavy sewing table. All of a sudden we all heard a very strange, loud sound. I turned to E. Winder and said, "was that... your pants?" He had a look of shock and stood up and turned around. you bet it was his pants! ha ha ha he totally wrecked them! it was sooo bad. sooo funny. i was crying i was laughing so hard. The whole ward knows about it too. Ruthless. He owns it pretty well

I want to spend most of my time today talking about the R family. The 9 year old daughter was baptized yesterday after Church. Her father was able to set goals and actually baptize her. It was a beautiful service and the Spirit was super strong. 7 months ago I basically made an oath to God that if it was the last thing I did I would help the daughter get baptized and help the family set a goal to be sealed. It took a lot of work, prayer, sacrifice, you name it on our part and their part and the day finally came. When I first started going to their house there was little happiness in the home. Both of the parents didnt smile very often and you could see the burdens of the world just weighing upon their shoulders. But over the last few months i have seen that all disappear. There is light in their eyes and countenance. They joke around with us and they are truly happy. The Spirit is strong in their home and you can just feel the love when you enter. The baptism yesterday was the culmination of everything a mission is all about. Completing families and get them on their way to the temple!

Yesterday I took the time to bear my testimony about missionary work. Seems like a fitting subject, right? Missionary work is a gift from God. It really is! God says in 2 ne 27 "I am able to do mine own work." He could do everything in this life a LOT better than we could do it. So why does he ask us to do it? think about why we are here. This life is the time to prepare to meet God! So God isnt sitting up there thinking: " hmmm how can i really just get under the skin of my children and make them miserable. oh! i know! i will make them share the gospel! Yeah! that is it! i will ask them to share their testimonies of how this gospel has brought happiness and peace to their lives! I will ask them to share the Book of Mormon with people so that others can be blessed with restored knowledge! that is what ill do. that will get those children of mine." no, not at all. He is sitting up there thinking "How can i make my children as perfectly happy as I am? I will ask them to share the gospel!" 

i know that the blessings of sharing the gospel are real! As we share the gospel our happiness WILL increase. We will receive answers to our prayers. Our sins will be forgiven. the list goes on

I love you all! have a great week

Elder Ethan P. Damron

Duluth week 28?

At the beginning of this week we taught a lesson around a fire pit! That was pretty sweet. It started snowing part way through it so we were in a snow storm around a fire teaching a lesson.

So we procrastinated getting an oil change for forever because aint nobody got time for that and finally one day Elder Goertzen told me he didnt want the engine to explode so we finally went and did it. Well the timing was perfect. We went in and a guy asked us how our ministry was going. Turns out he has a bunch of Lds friends and we had a great convo. He committed to watching Because He Lives!

We had some great lessons with the R family this week. We taught about the temple and threw down a little bit. We told them we didnt want them falling out of activity again after their daughter was baptized and i asked them about their goal of the temple. we then had a great discussion with a lot of testifying. They committed to meet with bishop and set a goal. so sweet :D They also want to be sealed in the Salt Lake City temple. i wouldnt mind that!

So we went looking for a less active, who we found out is actually dead, in some apartment building an a crazy african american guy accosted us and we had quite the conversation. he tried to tell us how incorrect christianity was because the letter "j" was invented in the 1600s so how could Jesus' name start with a 'J"????? i asked him if he knew the hebrew translation of Jesus, which doesnt have a j, but he just didnt conceptualize that one. then he told us that King James was a wicked, wicked man because in 1911 he had 41 slaves. even this guy's friend was like bro, king james did not live then, but this guy went off again. gotta love the nutties sometimes!

So we are teaching a LA who just got back from 3 months of cancer treatments. Well we had a fantastic lesson on the Savior healing our souls and we need to build our faith and then i had a distinct impression to challenge him to read the Book of Mormon from the beginning (that didnt work 4 months ago when i tried). He smiled at me and told me i was devious and he knew that was coming. I smiled back. Then his girlfriend started crying because she said he hasnt smiled in weeks. The Spirit was strong and he committed. It was pretty sweet

So last night we had one of the best lessons of my mission. Holy wowza. So we set up a lesson at our ward mission leader's home (who is the closest thing to a saint i have ever met; i think he is one of the 3 Nephites) and our mission president and his wife were in town because we had interviews yesterday so we asked them to come. Powerhouse lesson! Well the lesson was at 8. at 7:30 the Prospective Elder we had the lesson with canceled, saying he felt sick. we freaked out and tried calling him but got voicemail. so we texted him basically begging him to come because it would be an amazing experience and that our MP would be there. no reply.. so we just act in faith and drive to the member's house. we pull up at the same time as PResident and Sister Forbes and we go into our WML home and we still dont actually know if the guy we are teaching is coming. i was kinda freaking out. finally, he texted and said he was on his way. nice try Satan. So the lesson commences and after like 5 minutes the Spirit told me to abandon the lesson plan and skip to the very end when we would talk about gratitude. So we transitioned and our MP's wife brought up how powerful hymns are. So i pulled out the hymbook and we read the lines to "Count your blessings." Then a lot of awesome testifying occurred and Sister Forbes asked if we could read a scripture she found at the bottom of the hymn for a reference (it was D&C 78:17-19) She asked the guy we were teaching to read it and he began and just started bawling his eyes out. The Spirit basically nuked the room and it was so powerful. He finished and i testified strongly that if he showed more gratitude in his life he would begin to feel God's love for him (he struggles a LOT with that). Then i challenged him to say prayers of only gratitude for the next 2 weeks. Only gratitude, repentance, and praying for others. he committed then he said the first prayer under this challenge to end the lesson. As we were leaving President Forbes pulled Dan aside and said that my challenge to him would change his life dramatically if he lives true to it. It changed mine when president Clements extended it to me. so i know it will change his. 

I leave you all with the same challenge I left this wonderful man. Learn to develop the gift of learning to be grateful a little bit more in your life by not praying for yourself for the next two weeks. only gratitude, repentance, and for other people.

i love you all! have a great week!

Elder Ethan P. Damron

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!

Duluth week 26

So this letter won't be too long because he had a slow week... The best way to adequately describe most of my week is Alma 12:17 "Then is the time when their torments shall be as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever; and then is the time that they shall be chained down to an everlasting destruction..." I got the flu and basically was done from part of tuesday to saturday. Im still a little tired but feeling a lot better. I can't really remember a time in the last 7 years of my life being more sick than I was this last week. But we had some sweet miracles because this is God's work and He took care of us :D

On tuesday I had the prompting to call a semi active man we have helped a lot spiritually in the last few months who has a trucking job and is gone a lot. Well, he happened to be in town for only a few more hours so we went over. He was in a pretty down mood and we were able to share a message with him to lift him out of his state of depression and give him a little bit of hope and light. Gotta love the Spirit!

A LA, TM, returned from the VA hospital in the cities this week. the last 10 weeks he has been getting cancer treatments down there. SO i saw him for the first time in a few months and man his treatments did a number on him. It was a sad sight to see. But he has an iron will and he decided he was going to use his afflictions to become more acquainted with God and I can tell he is different spiritually. He looked me in the eye and told me he made an oath to God to be back in church the day he is healthy enough to do so. 

After many months of patience and planning I managed to set up a dinner appointment with a member in the ward with a LA family. The dinner happened to also be a birthday party because the daughter was turning 8. I had been sleeping all day and at 6:30 i managed to drag my sorry soul out of bed and pray for strength to go to this dinner because there was no way i was going to miss it. We were able to make a pretty good relationship with the LA family and the daughter wanted us to show her the "movie" we had shown her when she was being babysat by the members last week. She was talking about Because He Lives so we showed it to the family and the mother said she almost cried. then the 8 year old daughter told us she wants to be baptized! So yeah. we will work on that.

Sunday was a super cool day. First, Brother K got to bless the sacrament. he was baptized 2 weeks ago and that warmed my heart. In sunday school we had a super awesome lesson on sacrifice that the sister missionaries had prepared (yesterday when our WML asked all of us missionaries what lesson should be taught the thought "sacrifice" came into my mind so i suggested it and everyone liked the idea. oh boy was this inspired). A few people in class said they felt this lesson was meant for them. The R family was there, they have the 9 year old child of record who will be baptized may 3, and i knew it would be good for them. later that night we went to the R family's home to teach them and i felt prompted to teach tithing. I had been waiting for the husband to be sufficiently humbled enough for the lesson to be meaningful and after the sacrifice lesson yesterday i felt the ground had been tilled and they were ready. So we go in and the first thing Brother R said is that he felt the whole reason he went to church was to hear the lesson on sacrifice. He told us he hadnt even wanted to go to church yesterday because he wanted to sleep so that lesson humbled him quite a bit. then i told him we would be talking about tithing and he chuckled and said of course. the lesson went great! THe husband said that tithing just adds up little by little and sometimes it is hard for him to part with. I challenged him to pray specifically to notice the blessings of paying tithing and notice how those start to add up. he agreed and committed to pay tithing. I love missionary work!

Well i forgot to mention two things last week. one, Elder Vern P. Stanfill was called to the first quorum of the 70. I heard him speak at the St Paul stake conference in my last area and I wrote about him in my letter. He was an area authority and he is from Kalispell, Montana! Cool stuff. 

Also, a member of our mission presidency, President (now Elder) Rulon Stacey was called to be an area authority in Minnesota. He spoke at a missionary meeting last week and he told us the brethren are really concerned about a few things right now. one of those things is all of the members, particularly the youth, having a meaningful, spiritual sacrament each and every week. So that is what i want to challenge you all to think about. How meaningful is your sacrament? are you early to the meeting or are you running in five minutes late or even right as it begins? are you on your phone? thinking about football? the cute girl down the aisle? basketball? school? the sacrament period is the most important part of your week. you need to think about the Savior and what he has done for you! ponder the covenants you have made. commit weekly to live them again. 

i love you all! have a great week

Elder Ethan P. Damron

Duluth week 25

I have officially been in Duluth longer than i have been in any other area. So it is a weird feeling, but i like it :)

My new companion is Elder Goertzen, from Eagle Mountain, UT. He has been out for one year and wants to be a chef! We are going to have a great transfer together.

So on Tuesday we went to go say goodbye to a member, Mickey Taylor, since he wanted to see Elder Zerkle and Elder Roose before they left. Elder Zerkle had been talking trash about beating Mickey in a benching contest for 3 straight transfers but we never were able to do it. So Mickey told us to get in the car and he would take us to lunch. Well, we drove straight to the gym and you better believe we had a benching contest right then and there (we lifted 185). Mickey smashed us. ha ha ha.

After that Elder Foggin and I were able to go and see Sister Macfarlane from the Andover ward! She drove up with her kids and some other families to spend the day in Duluth. It was quite fun to see their family again after a year. crazy how time flies...

So this week has been great with the Because He Lives initiative. We went to a member's home and a friend had stopped by. We told her we were going to share an Easter message and she was quite excited to hear it. Then he showed the Because He Lives video and bore powerful testimony of our risen Savior. Now she wants to hear more about the church :D

Conference was great, was it not? i took a few questions to conference to seek guidance on. One of them had to do with what i want to do with my life since i have been contemplating other options. Well during one of the talks a borderline vision came to my mind and the Spirit slammed me and i realized that the alternative routes to my career i had been contemplating were not in God's design for me. I dont even remember what the General Authority was speaking at the time of this spiritual experience but i just want you all to know that revelation is real and that God has blessed us with modern prophets and apostles because He loves us. and as we search their words we can find answers to our own questions.

We taught our 9 year old child of record after the first session on sunday about the Holy Ghost. after the lesson she said a prayer and thanked God for us teaching her about the Holy Ghost and she included a few things she learned about the HG. She told God she wanted that gift in her life. it was neat :) she will be baptized on May 3rd. her family has now attended church 4 weeks in a row. prior that that they had not come in a year. Miracle city up in Duluth!!

So a member asked us to come help them replace the faucet on their sink. So i crawled under their sink and they told me that the water was off. well as i unhooked one of the hoses i discovered a very important truth: the water was NOT off. i got pretty soaked. it got pretty real under that sink for about 30 seconds as i manned the war ship to go to battle with a hose flying around spraying water all over the place. But i defeated the hydra and got that water off and replaced the sink. take that! 

I LOVED President Uchtdorf's talk on grace. I have been studying grace for about six months now and i have learned quite a bit on my own. it was cool for me to be able to realize the Holy Ghost had revealed to me many truths that he spoke about, and the talk filled in some gaps i have still been trying to fill. Here is a quote:

“Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased by the blood of the Son of God. Thinking that we can trade our good works for salvation is like buying a plane ticket and then supposing we own the airline. Or thinking that after paying rent for our home, we now hold title to the entire planet earth.”

“We obey the commandments of God out of love for Him,” he said. “Trying to understand God’s gifts of grace with all our heart and mind gives us all the more reasons to love and obey our Heavenly Father with meekness and gratitude. As we walk the path of discipleship it refines us, it improves us, it helps us to become more like Him, and it leads us back to His presence.”

Let us all accept the grace of God into our lives and serve Him not just because we have to, but because we want to out of love for Him. 

have a wonderful week! i love you all!

Elder Damron

"Elder Zerkle benching"

"Elder Goertzen and I"