Andover week 10

Hello!

So we had another fantastic teaching week. We have had 6+ member present lessons the last couple weeks. We had maybe 2 or 3 for the first month I was here. Things are picking up and the ward is getting quite involved! We had 10 joint teachers this past week.

We are teaching Brother E. This guy is a powerhouse. I feel like he teaches us every time we go over there. When talking about repentance this week he said, "Repentance is the goal setting to change." boom. That is powerful. He should make a quote book or something. He has wanted to come to church but someone took sick leave and so his schedule got changed. He had to work 3 Sundays in a row for the first time in years. Flipping Satan. You are so annoying.

We also taught Brother L a few times. He is a former who dropped off, it a hole in his life again, and now wants to come back to church. He knows everything he needs to be doing and every time he goes over we don't need to really extend commitments because he just tells us what he needs to be doing. It is pretty great. :)

Brother G. is doing quite well. Except he got super sick this weekend and could go to church or meet with us. His lessons are the highlights of my week so I was quite sad. The ward missed him a lot, too. We called him Yesterday to see how he was doing. He was hacking up a lung, had no voice, but still managed to remind me about the fact that I forgot to bring him a bible a few days ago. ha ha. He is hilarious, I love that man. He definitely keeps me on my toes.

We also taught Brother S too. He is a Liberian man who the missionaries met awhile ago but lost contact with. I cant remember if I wrote about him last week but when we knocked on his door he was like, "the missionaries! I love you guys! Come in!" We taught him with Brother Scott from our ward, who has native American heritage. Brother Scott and Brother S. talked extensively about their different tribal heritages. Even though Brother S is from Liberia, a lot of his native customs and whatnot are similar to Brother Scott's native customs. It was pretty cool. We showed him biblical references to the Book of Mormon and he is quite excited to read it. I love Liberians :)

So Wednesday night we had one of the Priests in the ward come out with us. We called up Sister Colburn, who cant attend church because of medical reasons, and asked her to pretend to be an investigator. Then we told the Priest we were going to meet someone we met just recently. We went into her apartment and she was TOUGH. Man. She flipped out about God being a Spirit for like 10 minutes. She is a fantastic actor. The Priest got some good insights and scriptures in. At the end of the lesson, when Sister Colburn wasn't looking, I handed the Priest my BoM and told him to read a scripture (on baptism) and then invite her to be baptized. He looked at me and said, "isn't that your job?" I just smiled at him. He read it and invited her! We then said, "CUT" and told him it was all a role play. Oh man. It was so fantastic. We got that Priest good.

We had interviews with President Clements. I love interviews with him. Every three months I get to sit down with probably the most inspired man I have ever met and pick his brain on how I can improve and become more dedicated in my service. His counsel is literally what the Lord wants me to hear.

Friday night we taught a 7th Day Adventist family with Brother F., who is pretty well versed in the scriptures. Holy cow that lesson was crazy. The son asked a question so we taught the PoS to answer the question. The mother, Sister L, basically went on a rant about how much she disagreed with our beliefs and how weird our beliefs are. She said some blatantly offensive and quite frankly wrong things that we didn't even say. It sounded like ridiculous anti you look up online. Then she explained her beliefs on the afterlife. Brother F. spoke up and said, "Well. We do not believe that whatsoever at all. I also learned something today. 7th Day Adventists have the same belief of the afterlife as the Jehovahs!" Well as you can imagine Sister L did not like that at all. ha ha. It was so uncomfortable. And fantastic. Elder Foggin stopped talking. I tried talking a few times and Sister L cut me off.  I finally managed to just end the conversation and we left since it was 9 pm. oh man. so fantastic. They thanked us for coming, though. They are actually the kindest family I have met in a long while.

Sunday night we were tracting. Some woman opened her door down a few doors down from where we were  and starts yelling at us. She demanded to know who we were, we said missionaries. She yelled back," DONT YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS??? IT IS 7 PM ON A SUNDAY NIGHT. PEOPLE HAVE WORK TOMORROW AND SLEEPING SO THEY CAN BE READY." Then she slammed her door. OK then. Well then she opened it again and yelled, "YOU GUYS SERIOUSLY NEED TO LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE. WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING HERE?? YOU ARE WEIRD." ha ha got to love tracting. But honestly, 7 pm on a sunday? no one was sleeping. They were all watching the Seahawks and 49ers play. Which caused enough problems in itself.

Thought: Jacob 2:8

 8 And it supposeth me that they have come up hither to hear the pleasing ^aword of God, yea, the word which healeth the wounded soul.

The first step to applying the atonement in our life is reading the scriptures and hearing the word! Then our wounded souls may be begin to be healed by the Great Physician, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Elder Damron