Dinkytown week 20

Well I have been gone for 16 months. What. Pretty crazy.

Anyway, now that I have picked my jaw up off the ground from my amazement I will tell you about my week!

We met this guy on campus this week who told us he was going to his German class. I asked him if he knew German or was learning and he said something in German. Elder Rudd and I both kinda looked at him and then I told him that naturally I understood what he said but I asked him, for the sake of my companion, to translate what he said into English so he could understand too. ha ha. Then we talked to the guy about his life experiences and he said that he is an atheist. He was abused as a kid and pretty much completely abandoned. It was one of the saddest conversations I have ever had. The man wasn't interested in pursuing our church further (he had actually investigated last year) but I still felt like we were definitely supposed to talk to that man just to let him know that God loves him. God truly loves all of his children no matter if they know of His goodness or not.

We had a sweet lesson this week with a returning member and his roommate who wants to be baptized pretty soon. We listened to "We thank thee oh God for a prophet" and then taught about prophets and we left them President Monson's april talk on love. They both were surprised we handed them the talk because they both said they had a lot of pent up anger and they were seeking ways to overcome it. It was a pretty sweet miracle! Gotta love the Spirit and what happens when you follow His promptings!

There was one night where we went to a member's home for dinner at like 8 pm (he wanted us to meet his non-member roommates and inactive roommates). Elder Rudd said he was too full (we had already had a big dinner) so Elder Tseng came with me. They fed us halibut straight from Alaska and holy heavens it was fantastic! I'm becoming a fish lover. Elder Tseng had never had halibut before and he flipped out a little. He also REALLY loves potatoes and we had cheesy potatoes. He flipped out over those too. ha ha.

While walking on campus we got recruited to do some artwork on a giant campus that people were drawing on to donate to charity or something. Since I have negative artistic ability I very carefully, and with as much articulation as I could possibly muster, painted "CTR" in big Blue letters for the world to see. boo ya!

We had a ward talent show and a friend of a member, who is deaf, came! I was able to sign with him a little bit. It was super difficult and I have forgotten a lot. But it was a neat experience.

We had a pretty ruthless week on campus and got shut down left and right. We had high expectations Friday to catch up on the goals we set but we got raked through the coals on campus. Saturday morning came around and I just knew that God had someone out there for us and we needed to find him/her. So we ran to the institute as quick as we could and then hit the pavement on campus. We only had 1.5 hours before we had to be somewhere but we were confident someone was there. 1.25 hours later we talked to a guy on a bench in a park like place who we hadn't seen the first time we had walked by. We talked to him and taught him a sweet lesson! He actually talked to missionaries quite a few times last year. This was definitely a tender mercy. The Lord has miracles waiting for us each day. The question is do we have the faith sufficient to see the miracles He has planned out/

One of our investigators from last semester is back and we had our first lesson with her Saturday. She is leaning towards Atheism and this summer she read the whole book of Mormon and prayed daily, yet she still says she feels nothing. Then we asked if she had seen a difference in her life since she had started reading/praying. She then said no, everything is worse and she told us about how her life has  basically completely fallen apart and she gave us the details on some pretty major trials going on. Elder Rudd and I were basically speechless and had no idea what to say. But I just opened my mouth and words started coming out and by the end she decided she wanted to continue to read, pray, and come to church. Most of what I talked about was having peace amidst the storms of life. The gospel blesses us with a deep and abiding peace that is not reliant upon the circumstances of our lives. We can be happy no matter what. It was a pretty crazy experience. I think I learned just as much as her. That is when you know the Spirit is the one who took the lead.

Yesterday the Stake President, President Baker, came to our ward and bore his testimony. He talked about the sacrament and expressed his love for the sound the little cups make when they hit the bottom of the sacrament tray. He said that this is the sound of renewing covenants and that we should all learn to love this sound. I thought about that quite a bit. While obviously the sound could definitely be a reminder of what we just did we should also remember the meaning behind taking the sacrament each week. I think the most important part is remembrance. I have gotten up on my soap box a few times on this subject but I feel that it is so vitally important. Last night in the CES broadcast Elder Christofferson said something along the lines of, "we should acknowledge the Lord in every imaginable aspect of our lives." in other words, "that we may always remember him." If we do this then the theme of our lives will become to please the Father and do His will, which was exactly what the Savior's life theme was. This will lead to eternal happiness and fulfillment. It will lead us to becoming even as the Savior, albeit in a much longer time period.

I love you all! Have a great week :)

Elder Damron