Andover week 12

Transfers.... And Elder Foggin and I are staying!! Which I am really happy about. We had an absolutely FANTASTIC week. We knocked on probably 10 doors. The rest of the time we taught. Muy bien :)

Monday night was flipping cold again and we were relegated to the apartment. This cold weather should end. I miss arizona....

So we taught Brother T again. he is THE man. We started teaching him the Plan of Salvation and he stopped us, said, " you are telling me what I already know. The only new thing is the Book of Mormon." Then he summarized the first half of the PoS to us. My draw dropped, again. We then explained what the BoM being true meant for him. Sadly when we went over again on Sunday we discovered he has the flu... so we wont be over for awhile. Blah. Opposition is annoying.

On wednesday we volunteered again at the Food Shelf. Most weeks about 45 people are served. This week 71 people came (which is a LOT). That tied the most people they served in one session last year. It was pretty intense. I loved it!

I got this mysterious package from new Jersey with a little silver spray bottle in it. Elder Foggin and I examined it for about half an hour in every way possible but we have no idea who it is from or what it is for. Let the conspiracy theories begin.

We taught a Liberian less active member this week, Brother Th., and we talked about coming to church. He told us all the reasons he hasnt been to church in a few months, realized how awful his excuses were, then committed to coming. And he came! We asked him if he would go Joint Teaching with usSunday night and he was like, "no no no no! It's my superbowl! I was going to invite you over to watch it and have finger food!" ha ha. We thanked him for the offer but passed this round.

We went to visit another less active man, Brother AS, who lives in probably the sketchiest apartments in our area. Every time we go over there the people scatter because they know who we are and they know they shouldnt be doing what they are doing. Ha ha. Rather amusing, really. Anyway, one of his female roommates who usually runs away when we come around came out and invited us to dinner thursday to Surprise brother AS! We were surprised, but very happy!

We taught Sister J this week. She is a 20 year old Liberian girl whose father we taught about a month ago. She happily let us in and thanked us for shoveling her walkway a few weeks ago. We taught her and set up a return appointment. When we returned her father joined the lesson. He then told us he would never read anything but the bible and left. But he told us we could teach his whole family, he doesnt care. We were sad becaues we knew we would have to refer her to the Sister missionaries (mission policy. if there are sisters in the ward, all single women under the age of 35 must be taught by sisters. and vice versa). We told the sisters and they got super excited. The next day we found out that her apartment complex is about 100 yards out of our area and in another ward. We have gone to this area 2-3 times a week for the last 7 weeks and now we have to turn everything over to another set of elders. We know this is for the best but it also stinks because we worked hard there. Salt Lake City sent us a media referral there so we assumed it was our area. I guess not...

We also taught Brother S. this week, another Liberian man. When we walked in there was a man we had never seen before. He introduced himself as Brother F. I knew immediately who he was. My last companion warned me about him and told me to NEVER go visit him because all he would do was bash. He sat in on the lesson and 5 minutes before we had to leave he raised his hand and asked if he had a question. Well then all the stuff Elder Garrett warned me about came to pass. We didnt bash but just challenged him to find out if it was true for himself. He refused to even touch the BoM and then asked us to please stop reading from it. Luckily our actual investigator declared he was definitely going to read the Book and find out if it was true or not. the whole situation was a mess.

Sorry I cannot write a lot this week, transfers and a few other things caused email time to be short :/

Mosiah 23:21

23 For behold, I will show unto you that they were brought into ^abondage, and none could deliver them but the Lord their God, yea, even the God of Abraham and Isaac and of Jacob.

Even during the times of our life when we are following God's commandments we will still have trials and tests! Happiness is not dependent upon life events or absence of adversity, but upon the degree to which we are following His commandments. I love you all! Have a great week!
Elder Damron