Andover week 4

I love it when it gets so cold that for a few days straight the temperature does not rise above 0 degrees. That is my life right now. It is quite... fun! ha ha. On saturday we got a text from President Clements telling us not to go outside until noon because of the windchill advisory.    -30 windchill anyone? Unfortunately we had no appointments, so we had to find all day. I wore two hats, 2 pairs of glove, 2 sweaters under my coat, 2 pairs of thermals on my legs, 2 pairs of socks, boots, and a neck warmer. still flippin cold. We took frequent car breaks to warm up.

So we talked to brother L. this week. He is in his 30s and loves to have us in because he just likes talking about faith. He told us about how he was in the darkest of spiritual holes you can imagine when he was in college and he cried out to god begging Him for a sign that He was there. Brother L. told us he was terrified of being smitten for being a sign seeker or something, ha ha. anyway, he said the next morning he woke up and went downstairs. he was shocked by what he saw. He said he saw God himself standing right there looking right at him. I never quite know what to say in these sorts of situations...

I went to my first Mission Leadership Conference. This is a monthly meeting for all the leaders in the mission to talk about the needs of the mission. Uber spiritual and powerful experience. we talked a lot about how sacrifice for the Lord is how we push our faith to produce miracles. As we give something up for the Lord, he will help us out!

I talked to my old zone leader from Hudson at MLC and asked him about the different people I taught back in River Falls. He told me that Brother J., who absolutely hated (yes I know this is a strong word but it is true in his case) the catholic church, prayed about the Book of Mormon, then God told him the Catholic church is true so he went back to the Catholic church. Brother J. literally went around persecuting that church in every way he could. My jaw dropped about 3 feet. Almost went through the table. I'm still in shock a little bit.

On Wednesday we had a crazy snow storm. About 8 inches fell over the course of the day. President ended up grounding the cars for the day, so we couldnt drive anywhere. Before he grounded the cars I managed to get over to another missionary's apartment for exchanges. I went with elder smith. All our plans fell through so we shoveled a lot of driveways and went out with Calvin Gaudette. He recently returned from the Mesa Arizona Mission! We talked for awhile. He is pretty crazy. We were driving down the street and we passed our turn. He slams the steering wheel to one side, pops the E-brake, and we flipped around in a perfect 180. like straight out of a movie or something. I look out the window to see a woman with a shocked look on her face shoveling her driveway. ha ha. what a site. We drove around dropping by people and shoveling some more. Then he took us to a gas station to get some drinks. I got a bottle of nesquik out and he chuckled and told me to get the half gallon. i thought he was kidding so i closed the door. he was like no, really. get the half gallon. So I walked out with a half gallon of chocolate milk. i wasnt complaining :)

We met Bro. S. again. He is coming back to the church after a long period of inactivity and we are helping him get ready to attend the temple next summer. In every lesson we are supposed to incorporate a baptismal interview question to help build and monitor faith. Well I finally got into a good position to ask the question so i rephrased the first interview question, "Do you believe God is our Eternal Father?" I phrased it to make it fit into the conversation. He looked at me like I was an idiot with a "no duh" expression on his face. I need to figure out better ways to incorporate those questions.. ha ha.

We went over to Sister W.'s again. She came to church last week and we wanted to invite her to the christmas party we were having. She opened up the door, held up her new, golden kitten, and said it's Aslan! Well, last time we were over she had just gotten her kitten. she told us she had no clue what to name it so i jokingly said Aslan. well, aparently it stuck because she liked it enough to name her cat aslan. She also is excited to tell the story of how mormons named her cat. I named a cat Aslan. muy bien.

I FOUND TRAILER PARKS IN OUR AREA. I AM SO HAPPY. I love them a lot. Such fun places :) we were tracting there on saturday, the uber cold day, and this guy opens up and says, "come on in! it is cold!" Shocked, we stood there and stared. he beckoned us in again. We got in and i immediately noticed that his walls were covered with pictures of Glacier national park. We had a pretty good conversation about the wonders of montana but he was on his way out the door, so we had to leave.

Saturday night we had our ward christmas party. We were asked to help serve. The bishop's wife told us we were to serve the jello and the vegetables. she looked at us and asked which one of us was willing to be the mean one and tell people they could only have 2 pieces of jello. elder garrett volunteered me. so i was the jello warden! It wasnt too bad. I just joked around with everyone and I actually had a good time. This one little girl, about 5, came up and started to get some jello. I looked away for a second and when i looked back i realized she had quite the full plate of different types of jellos. I managed to pry the prongs out of her hand and she ran off. Little rascal swindled me of quite a few pieces of jello...

After the party we went caroling across the street. Another set of missionaries have an investigator there so we knocked on that door. The door was at the bottom of the stairs and the caroling group was at the top of the stairs and couldnt see down. the 5 year old son who lived there came up the stairs and froze once he saw how many people were there. the group burst out into Joy to the World. The poor kid looked terrified. after the song was over he ran down the stairs to escape to safety. ha ha. 

 

Elder Bednar gave a talk in general conference on convesion a few years ago. In it he set forth a way to deepen our conversion. R.O.D. Repentence, Obedience, Diligence. As we repent, are obedient, and are diligent in doing the first two and seeking out the Lord's will, our conversion and dedication to Him will increase. 

I hope you all have a good, warm week!

Love, Elder Damron