Dinkytown week 19

So i guess it is september or something. Alright then.

So change is hard and this week has been a LOT of change. But this was actually one of the best weeks of my mission! I am LOVING my current assigment right now :) the Chinese elders here are absolutely hyseterical, the new sisters missionaries aren't crazy and are pretty chill and hard working, and Elder Rudd, my new companion, and I are getting along great. and since im not a ZL we spent a ton more time on campus this last week and a lot of cool things happened. so yeah, life is great on the U of M!

 

Elder Wall was pretty sad to go home. Tuesday morning I hugged him goodbye and watched him drive off with bishop to have his final interview. It was pretty sad. Then I went with Elder Tseng (pronounced "zen") and Elder Chou (pronounced "zjo") for a little while. Then, the spanish elders came over and helped me move apartments. That was... not fun. Since i lost my car to the sisters we had to move to an apartment right next to the inistitute building so we could walk there pretty easily. The new sisters cover all of the satellite campuses. and i would rather stay on the UofM so i dont care too much about the car, really. After the move I saw down with Elder King, one of the spanish missionaries, and taught him everything he needs to know about zone leading. He and his new companion are both zone leaders for the first time this transfer so i have to fill them in on a few things. They are great, though. i have no worries.

 

On Elder Rudd's first day we were on campus and i asked this guy how he was doing. He replied,"fantastic." he was walking away when i asked him so i turned around and asked him what had made his day so good. He turned around, made a heart shape with his hands, winked, then pointed at me. oh heavens. have i said how much i love this place? ha ha

 

We had a super cool experience teaching sister PY. She is navajo and is living with a member. We actually just gave her a navajo book of mormon, which she is pretty happy about. anyway, right at the beginning of the lesson she told us that she wanted to get baptized in november (when she moves out of where she is living). This is when we wanted to set the date anyway, so we were pretty happy. Then she told us she wants her heart to be "pure" before getting baptized. She said she has a lot of anger towards someone in her life right now who really hurt her and she needs to get over it before she will be baptized. We had conveniently planned to teach about faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the holy ghost so we started talking about how faith and repentance leads us to a change of heart. we testified that as she seeks to repent, or change, that her change of heart will occur and she will forgive the person. We also read 3 Ne 9:13-14 which talks about Christ healing us if we convert ourselves to him. It was pretty powerful. Then we watched a mormon message about a man whose family was killed by a drunk driver and he forgave the young man very quickly (fun fact, that was actually Elder Rudd's bishop back home in salt lake!). it was a powerful lesson.

 

There was a crazy old man with a sign that said something along the lines of "repent and keep the commandments or burn in hell" on campus a few days ago. He was screaming all sorts of crazy things. So one of the students had quickly made a sign that said "i choose to go to hell" and he had written a bunch of sins he does or something like that. So the old man was yelling that they were all damned and the young man was yelling "who drinks???!!" and the crowd would yell "WE DO!!!" and they kept going down the line of things they probably shouldnt be doing. It was a mad house. then we walked by and of course things got even better. One person yelled, "the mormons!" then they all starting yelling how much they love mormons and then, this is the best part, they started chanting elder harrison's name (my first companion here). ha ha. man, i have said it a million times but i love this place.

 

A pretty cool miracle occurred yesterday. We went off to campus to contact. I felt inspired to bring a chinese restoration pamphlet, which i dont normally do. So we end up contacting this chinese guy that was pretty interesting but was struggling to understand what we were saying. So, much i elder rudd's surprise, i pulled out a chinese resoration pamphlet and started teaching him from it. The man got pretty excited and was really happy that we wanted to pray for him, which is really abnormal because very few of the Chinese people believe in God. The Chinese elders will teach him soon.

 

Thought: I have been reading in Helaman and I have been looking for the similarities between the circumstances in it and today, since both are times before the coming of Christ. I came upon this scripture: Helaman 16:15 "Nevertheless, the people began to harden theirhearts, all save it were the most believing part of them, both of the Nephites and also of theLamanites, and began to depend upon their own‍ strength and upon their own wisdom,saying:"

How often do we forget the Lord our God and try to do everything ourselves? I think much too often we try to much to be perfect or as close to it as possible before we let the Savior in to take care of the rest. But honestly, we will fail if we do that. We can't do anything without him to propel us forward. His grace is sufficient for all men! That our weaknesses will become strengths and that we might receive salvation.

 

I love you all! have a great week

Elder Damron