Week 2 (MTC)

So this second week flew by. Yet at the same time, I feel like I have been here for about 3 months. Home is a distant memory that seems foreign to me now. Time is such a funny little thing. When I got here I wanted to leave ASAP. But now I kinda want to stay. I never believed I could grow so close to a group of people in less than 2 weeks but when half my district and the other district we came into the MTC left monday morning I was quite sad. And they are going to North Carolina, so I wont see them anymore. Then this morning 2 more elders left for Ohio. It has been quite sad. Tomorrow i leave for Minnesota! Its really exciting and kinda terrifying. Im a missionary now, we are supposed to start proselyting in the airport. It will  be a different experience. 

Anyway, this last week we taught this man named Junichi twice. The MTC hires people to come act as investigators or less active members and whatnot. Some of the people are LDS, some are not. There is this one guy who is Baptist who just likes to come in and bible bash the heck out of the new missionaries. I bet he gets a good laugh every time. Two elders in my district had him and the baptist guy wouldnt even let them in the door. Back to Junichi. oh man. So Junichi is a Japanese immigrant who is very set in his Shinto beliefs. He only talked to us out of respect to his friend John, who referred us to him. Junichi did not believe in talking about religion because it causes contention. And since that was exactly what we were there to talk about, thinks got... crazy. So we tried to peer into his beliefs and find ways to share ours but he wouldnt have any of it. He would cut us off mid sentence and say he didnt care what we believed because it was our belief not his. At one point I asked him if he knew who jesus was and he got up and started yelling at me, "DO YOU KNOW WHO BUDDHA IS???????" Then he said something about being silly, uneducated Americans. I do actually know a decent amount about Buddha, but I didnt want to start arguing with him so I changed the subject. As missionaries we are told not to bible bash, and he wasnt bible bashing, but he was belief bashing of sorts. I quickly realized what was happening and calmed myself down. My companion though was not so fortunate, he started to fall into arguing and voices were being raised. So I again changed the subject and decided it was time to leave (our time was up anyway) so i began to bear my testimony by saying "I Know..." and he cut me off again and said "I do not care that you know whatever you know, the Buddhists know they can  be reincarnated as monkeys so who says you are right." We left. When we returned later we found out he doesnt believe in an afterlife, nor does he care if there is one. But he cares about family. so we talked about family a lot and he had the same views about family. But he didnt say our views pertained to religion. He said a style of living is not religion, its a standard of living. Thats why he talked about it with us. We tried to tell him that in our church we live what we believe but he wouldnt have any of it. We had a good conversation, i asked him if he wanted a book that would teach him about families and he said no. By companion went for the direct approach and asked if he would read the book of mormon and he said no again, stating that he didnt have time. But he promised to call his friend John and ask him about it later. Before he left he said something that really taught me a lesson. He said "The last time we talked I felt like you were trying to give me a hot drink when i wanted a cold one". he didnt want to talk about the eternities or other beliefs, he wanted to talk about families. We must teach to the needs of investigators! I will get better, i just need experience. 

So last week i talked about Elder Richardson. A 6'3" 210 lb 18 year old of complete muscular form. He is a freak of nature. Anyway, i made the poor decision of decided to guard him in basketball at gym (i really wanted the challenge. I did a decent job too! until..) and at one point he was driving, he jump stopped, lunged forward and his shoulder slammed into my jaw. I immediately felt quite a bit of pain and my mouth began to fill in with blood. i had seriously bitten the front left of my tongue and it was gushing. Luckily, i only got the side of my tongue so i didnt bite my tongue off (i probably would have and for that i am so thankful). anyway, my tongue looked bruised for like 5 days. it was pretty crazy looking. i can still feel the wound a little, but thank heavens the tongue heals so fast.. 

On wednesday on Elder Johnson and I's way to teach Junichi, i stepped around the corner to get a drink of water (he was like 5 feet away, not too  big a deal and he knew i was there. He was watching for when the investigator's door would be ready for us) and i started choking on the water a little and coughing. Right then, 2 brand new sister missionaries (they have stickers that scream "IM A NOOB AND JUST GOT HERE") walked up and started chewing me out for being alone. Im standing there choking on water trying to explain he was just around the corner but i couldnt get it out. they left after giving me disapproving glares. i got my breath back, walked around the corner and my companion was just laughing. Some people's kids...

So the whole time we have been here we have been having this "Alpha Male" competition sort of thing. So we had an arm wrestling contest, races, basketball competition, and some other stuff. My companion won most of them so we called him Alpha the whole week. ha ha. anyway, we joking had a 4 square competition as part of our alpha competition. I stayed in the no. 1 square the longest, so i took home a slice of the alpha pie.

We also taught another man named Alfred "Scoop" Johnson. Was an older man who loved the outdoors. He was pretty awesome. At one point he went off on a tangent about how he had to sell everything he owned pretty much to deal with his 4 teenage daughters in high school. Thats why having sons is better, right? ;) lulz jk. anyway, we taught him the restoration, gave him a book of mormon, and i was prompted to ask him to be baptized and he said yes! it was a great feeling.

Anyway, thats all i have time to write this week. i have gotten all the dearelders and letters people have sent and i have replied to all of them. From this point on, if you want to write me write my mission home address on my facebook page or my dad can send it out or something.

Love you all! -Elder Damron