River Falls week 18

Transfer calls! Elder Cole and I are staying in River Falls. 

Elder Mattison, my zone leader from Mesa is leaving. He is in our ward and I am actually really, really sad. I know missionaries get moved around a lot, but we cannot write other missionaries in our mission and he has become a good friend.

So this week was pretty crazy. Basically every investigator we have dropped us except one. So we have nothing on our plate. We will be doing a lot of finding this week... But last night we were tracting at 8 pm (which no one likes to do because people get quite irritated) and at 8:35 we knocked on this woman's door and had a wonderful restoration lesson. She looked at the picture of Joseph Smith's first vision and told us she believed it. So hopefully that pans out well. 

On P-Day Elder Cole and I played chess to some classical music. I won the first game, he won the second, and I absolutely dominated his soul in the third.. sort of. So he takes FOREVER to play so the last game we played timed chess. He didnt like that much. Anyway I systematically eliminated all of his pieces off the board until he had his King left. I began setting up the board to annihilate him when he realized he couldnt move anywhere because anywhere he moved would mean he was in check. Apparently this is a stalemate in chess. So the game was a tie. He got up and was like, "man it feels great to both have the same record at the end of the day doesnt it?" with a big grin on his face. Revenge will be mine today. 

So we got a call from a friend of a man we know to go and help this woman he knows. So we show up at her house and she was like oh, not me! Help him! She is a caretaker for this elderly man. SO we went over to his apartment and cleaned the place for him because she didnt have time. She said it "looks like a crack house" and oh man, I had to put some elbow grease into it but that apartment looked absolutely beautiful after we got done with it. We will try and go back and teach the man soon. 

We went over to a member's home to give a spiritual thought and then give them invitations to the primary program to hand out. We get in there and the one son wants to play me in chess, the father volunteered me. So I started playing him. I just moved random pieces to let him win. Elder Cole kept on taking turns on me to try and beat the kid, but he had been playing chess for a week and he was only 7. I was not going to beat this little kid at chess. Elder Cole is merciless, oh man. Anyway, Elder Cole was trying to share a thought while I tried to let this kid win at chess. Then the other son started riling up their little dog. He went berserk and started running around the room, up the couches, jumping across the furniture, and snarling the whole time. Imagine this scene: I am playing this kid at chess, the dog is going berserk, the daughter is growling at the dog and trying to cling to Elder Cole's leg as the father is yelling at her to get off, Elder Cole is trying to share a message, and the mother just has her hands on her head. Oh man. So much chaos. Ha ha. 

On Thursday Elder Sharp got emergency transfered to our area. He is also from Mesa and is best friends with Elder Mattison from back home. He was with us till saturday and we had a lot of fun. Working in a tri-companionship is pretty difficult, though. 

So we came out from an apartment complex and Elder Cole had a note on his bike that said, "HI. You should lock up your FRAME, at least. I could totally steal it. YA DANGUS." He had locked up only his tired to the rack. The person had also loosened his bike tire as if they were going to take it off. He was pretty spooked that his bike was almost stole it... YA DANGUS. ha ha. I have no clue what a dingus/dangus is. Hopefully it isnt offensive.. if it is.. I apologize and will go repent. 

So we were teaching a less active in this trailer park. He daughter comes in and tells the LA that someone just committed suicide. That was awkward for us. Then she talked about her schizophrenic neighbor that calls the cops on santa every other day and some other crazy stuff. She looked at us and said," the next time you come there will probably be a shoot out or something, ha ha. I dont know what you would do, maybe hold up your Books of Mormon." I said," actually, that would be the best thing for us. After all, nothing gets through Second Nephi." ZING. She laughed pretty hard at that one. That is the first time I have used that joke in conversation. (Shout out to my wonderful mother for telling me that joke)

So our zone leaders sent out a challenge this week to use Mahonri Moriancumre in conversation 5 times one day (to promote us talking to a lot of people). It was quite difficult teaching people and keeping a straight face while saying," there are prophets in the BoM just like in the bible, In the bible you have Moses, Abraham, Jeremiah. In the BoM you have Alma, Nephi, Mahonri Moriancomre." Oh man. SO much lulz. 

Yesterday we helped this man move who has a lot of faith. He is the second person I have met on my mission who believes God is a woman because men aren't nice enough or something like that. His girlfriend called us to ask us to come over (i gave her my number two weeks ago and she didnt actually believe I would come) and she asked me if I was Jesus. That one got a good chuckle out of me. But I told her no, I am not Jesus. 

Spiritual thought: D&C 93

12 And I, John, saw that he received not of the ^afulness at the first, but received ^bgrace for grace;

 13 And he received not of the fulness at first, but continued from^agrace to grace, until he received a fulness;

 Christ received grace for grace. And if we received his fulness over time, wouldnt that mean we need to work even harder to receive grace for grace? So many people we meet deny works, and yes we cannot get to heaven on works alone. But Christ did good works to reach his fulness, we must too. We cannot sit idly and pretend to be faithful. Faith is an action word. 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Elder Damron