Andover week 5

So transfer calls came today. Last night at 11:10 i got a text telling me to be on the call for the trainers meeting. yep! Im training again! There are a few different scenarios I had in my head about how transfers would play out and this literally was not even on the table for considering. I am humbled for this opportunity. I will still be a district leader too. <3 <3 <3 <3 I love being district leader :)

So last sunday while planning our day for monday I let Elder garrett plan the day out. he made some plans and I asked what we could do for more backups. He said all would be well because we were going out with a joint teacher. I was like alright then... well the next day at dinner with the joint teacher, who was then going to go out with us for a few hours, he had a family emergency and he had to leave. Our entire night was basically ruined. Elder Garrett and I looked at each other and he was like, "yep. the Lord is chastening us for last night and not planning well." Well played. So we got our slice of humble pie. ha ha.

At district meeting the next day Elder Smith and his companion brought hot chocolate! So we were able to have hot chocolate and a wonderful lessson. muy bien.

Then I went on an exchange with Elder Scarlet into Anoka, the neighboring town. That was pretty fun. i met this man named Polo who has like 7 keyboards. he is a professional key boarder and does a lot of band work. So cool. He was going to play us some stuff but he had to leave for somewhere and needed to shower.

We went joint teaching with our stake president this week. holy. cow. absolutely remarkable. we went and taught the W. family. President just absolutely dominated. The W. family would constantly tell us why our beliefs did not line up and were wrong and President came in and was just like stop pulling bible verses out of context. then he "unopapologetically declared that effort is required" for salvation and went to town. Brother W., who is a cool cat and never loses his cool, was visibly shaking. President literally rattled him to the core. It was so insane and incredible to watch. It reminded me of Helaman 5:18 when Nephi and Lehi taught the people with such authority that the people's world was rocked. Oh man.

After that we went and visited brother G. who we have been meeting with for a while. His girlfriend thought we were basically evil trying to baptize her boyfriend to rank up in our church so she wouldnt talk to us. But president managed to get her to come out, talk about christ, realize we truly share a message based on how Christ is the only way, and we do it because we love it. Her countenance changed. she loves us now! man. such a great night.

I also interviewed Brother J. for baptism. Every time i interview someone for baptism I ask them what the biggest change in their life is and they always say they feel such a peace and lasting happiness that they had not felt before. eternal happiness. The gospel of Jesus Christ is remarkable! This truly is a plan of happiness.

Well, I would love to write more but transfers and some crazy things have caused email time to be nada. Also I dont know about next weeks email with christmas and all. So.. merry Christmas!

Have a wonderful week, Elder Damron !

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  

Andover week 3

So it is getting a tad chilly. We have had some single digit days, which isnt too bad really. But the wind. Oh the wind! Basically it doesnt matter what you are wearing. The wind just dominates your soul. ha ha.

Well I had the opportunity to teach the B. family on exchanges with my zone leader this week. They are the family I interviewed for baptism. they are so flipping legit, I love them. We talked of the covenant of baptism. I kept trying to share a scripture but their son went insane and for 20 minutes the children were just bouncing off the walls and causing havoc, so the lesson was... interesting to say the least. Oh man. kids.

While talking to a Sister training leader about some sisters in my district over the phone, Elder Garret snuck up on me and barraged me with rubber bands. he was flinging them across the room. I then returned fire and we had quite the war. All while on a phone call. It was quite impressive. She didnt even know. im pretty sure i won.

Wednesday night we went over to this family's house for dinner. We knocked on the door and the 5 year old son answered. We asked if the parents were there and he said they were busy and slammed the door on us. we stood there like did that just happen? after a few minutes we knocked again. The same boy answered. He said, "did you knock again????" He went for the door slam again but then an adult saw us and let us in. ha ha. I then met the sister-in-law of Sister H., the member who lived there. She looked at me for a minute or two and then said," Damron! You lived in Billings!" A little taken aback i told her I indeed did. She introduced herself as sister Gilstrap (sp) and told me that she served her mission in Billings and had eaten at our house quite a few times. She told me she remembered my mother well and asked how my family was doing. Small world. and oh how the tides have turned... we had a pretty good discussion on billings. It was a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving was definitey muy bueno. We went over to a member's house in our ward and they are FANTASTIC cooks. They are Hawaiin and so there was a unique twist in there as well. Bro. G. let us play his ukuleles for awhile and then we had dinner. we hung around for awhile and chatted and also had some trivia questions. I came up with a trivia question to ask and then immediately one of the daughters, who is in her 30s, was like that is a lie! And googled it. Well the question i asked was a question that my friends and I looked up at BYU or something and we got some answer that made partial sense. i was not actually the one who looked up the answer... well turns out i was dead wrong. So they called me out on that one and then the daughter googled everything else i said the rest of the day. blah. I hate being wrong. :)

That night from 6-9 pm we were supposed to visit less active and active members of the ward that might be alone. We had set up appointments but they all fell through. We were not allowed to tract so we were thinking it was going to be a LOOONG night. But then we felt as if we should go and visit Sister E. She lives quite far away but we committed to it and went. We got there about 20 minutes later and the family let us right in and we had a wonderful talk. her youngest son has been asking about God and Sister E. knows he needs to be in church. This was such a miracle! our plans fell through and then we felt we should go visit this woman! Not a coincidence.

We were teaching Sister W. and we had challenged her to pray to know if Christ was the Son of God. She prayed about it and was shocked to recieve the answer that He was indeed sent her to earth with a purpose. Before she wouldnt even acknowledge He existed. that was a cool experience. She really hates how a lot of churches and a lot of her friends always badmouth our church and this is one reason she is attracted to it. While talking about faith I said something silly like, "all churches require faith. except the golden plates, we need to see those to believe that." She found that quite hysterical. it is slightly true though.

We visited with a less active man who is returning to the gospel after a health scare kind of reality checked him. We were teaching the restoration and we got to Christ's earthly ministry. The atonement obviously came up and he just kept saying how bad a man he really was. it was such a sweet experience to testify that through Christ, all can be made right. he can change. He can feel the peace of forgiveness.

We went to our Bishop's for dinner and the topic of musical instruments came up. Their kids play band instruments and Elder garrett plays the trumpet. Elder Garrett declared the trumpet to be the Celestial instrument since angels play them in most pictures and the trumpet is mentioned in the bible. I responded that the bible uses a lot of symbolism and that angels are not of celestial glory yet and so obviously the cello will be played in the Celestial kingdom. he he

During gospel principles in church we were talking about the priesthood. At one point the teacher said, "if i ran off and tried to start my own sect using the priesthood while also having my children in cages in the basement, what would happen?" I immediately understood what he was trying to get across. That priesthood power is only obtained through personal righteousness and whatnot. Well the rest of the class did not realize this and hilarity ensued. oh man. Im glad we didnt have any volatile investigators who would flip out. ha ha.

 

D&C 59:7 Thou shalt ^athank the Lord thy God in all things.

2 nephi 9:52 Behold, my beloved brethren, remember the words of your God; pray unto him continually by day, and give ^athanks unto his holy name by night. Let your hearts ^brejoice.

The Lord has commanded us to be thankful. It is a commandment! And with every commandment there a blessing. He has promised that as we are more thankful, we WILL be happier. Not only that, but we will be more humble as we recognize how much the Lord actually does in our lives.

 

i love you all! Have a good week!

Elder Damron

Andover week 2

So today is not normal P-Day. Thursday was made our P-Day but we get a very limited time to email today. So for those of you who emailed me, I will get back to you next week. sorry!

So I really hate being sick. like a lot. for the flipping 4th time in sixth months I am sick. I was stuck in the apartment most of saturday then sunday I got a wicked migraine (first one in 6 months, must be a record) and that basically destroyed proselyting efforts there too. Blah. Our zone had a goal of reaching a certain amount of lessons and I am not sure if we made it because we undershot it due to illness. Blah. i feel horrible.

Other than that.. the week was good! We taught the W. family and they basically bashed the whole time. Like I said before, for some reason when i come to town the bashers come out. at one point Brother W. said, "lets take the book of mormon off the table and just talk about the bible." I politely refused and you can tell how that lesson went. ha ha

We had our first district meeting under the reign of king elder damron, i mean, uhm, humble servant elder damron. I'm just kidding.. but the meeting went pretty well. SO MUCH STRESS. at first I thought i would not have enough to do to fill the time, i quickly realized I didnt have enough time. but the spirit was there and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

We are teaching this old man, Brother R. He seems kinda crazy and I am unsure if he comprehends what we are actually teaching. he remembers a lot of it, but its significance doesn't come across well. He rants about how marvelous the book of mormon makes him feel, though. So hopefully he continues to progress. I set a baptismal date for January 11th with him.. That is right. My birthday is on a saturday next year. BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER. So I REALLY hope this one turns out. ha ha. But there will be some struggles. He likes to go off on tangents so teaching can be hard. he talked about being hit by a car on his bike multiple times for like 30 minutes one lesson. That was interesting.

We were walking down the street one day and this woman in a giant van pulled up and told us she respects us for what we are doing, even if we are completely wrong. Then she ranted about her megachurch and how Christ didnt abandon her church like we claim he did, or something like that. I just smiled and expressed my appreciation for meeting someone with such great faith. i really do enjoy meeting these people. we need more faith in the world.

We also went to a blood drive being held at our church building. I had a sore throat so they wouldnt let me donate blood. my zone leader elder Hicken almost passed out before he was about to give blood. so that was quite amusing. ha ha. we mingled with the people and investigators and chatted. it was pretty fun. Later that night I returned to the church to interview Brother and Sister B. for baptism. i cannot describe with words how great of an experience this was. The testimonies and the joy they both have seeped from their souls and shone from their countenance. Miracle after miracle occured during their meeting with the missionaries. One miracle was after they accepted to live the law of tithing. they knew they did not have enough money to pay it, but felt they should commit to it. 5 minutes after the Elders left the got a phone call and brother B. got a job offer for a job he interviewed for like 6 weeks ago (he was supposed to hear back after 2 weeks). they talked so much about the joy and peace they had in their lives now. So remarkable. I am thankful for the opportunity I had to meet and interview them.

We brought Sister W. to church. She liked the service! but after sacrament meeting she basically told us she was done talking to us and she learned all she wanted to. Then she turned to me and called me a self righteous blah blah blah. my jaw dropped a little bit. She told me I am not considerate of other people's beliefs and the other missionaries actually were. This disturbed me to the core. I have always tried to be open minded and respectful. Disrespect is the one thing that really sets me off. She told me my body language gave me away and she knew that I thought her beliefs were a joke. I hate the body language card. A few people have "read my body language" on my mission and claimed i have malice towards them but in each case my body language had to do with something else. Such as feeling super sick and wanting to die... not hating her beliefs. i took the humble route and apologized for the miscommunication. It is humbling to apologize for something you do not think you did. Another problem is the last missionaries stopped teaching her and went over to be her friend only. We need to befriend everyone, but we are also trying to bring people unto Christ. I tried to get sister W. to read the BoM. Not to demean her beliefs, but the help her understand ours. She is meeting with us after all... She didnt like that idea. oh well though. I plan on going over and smoothing things over one more time.

Sorry this email is so short. this whole not a pday thing kinda makes things hectic.

this week i read mosiah 22:9

9 And it came to pass that the king hearkened unto the words of Gideon.

In this case King Limhi listened to the counsel of Gideon on how to escape the lamanites rule over them. I think this applies to all of us. The King, the boss, listened to an underling of his. Are we humble enough to hearken to the advice of those people we sometimes feel are "below" us? Takes a big slice of humble pie to do that.

anyway, i loveth all of thee!

Have a good week, Elder Damron

Andover week 1

So new area. Fun! I miss River Falls a little bit, but I guess that is natural. For the first time in my mission I am actually serving in Minnesota, though.

So the Taylors have this santa plate that Elder Cole and I liked a lot. Well, at the start of me training him he took an oath that he would not eat off of any plate but that santa plate while he lived at the Taylors. I like that plate too and was here first, but he still swiped it. He even would pick my plate up, put my food onto another plate, and then use the santa plate. That goon. haha. Anyway, on Tuesday I walked out into the kitchen to see him and another missionary this was with us eating lunch. And the other missionary had the santa plate. I started laughing and said, "OH MY GOSH." They looked at me puzzled. The realization of what had occurred creeped onto Elder Cole's face. Oh man, that was hilarious. He tried to defend himself as he realized the mix up, but alas, the day before our time together ended he failed at keeping his oath. I need to teach him what enduring to the end means.

We taught and said goodbye to Sister Jessica and Sister Jamie, both of whom got baptized. I teared up a little as we walked out of Sister Jamie's apartment that night after saying goodbye. I truly care for these people. Leaving was one of the hardest things I have done in awhile.

Our investigator Mike was FURIOUS I was leaving. Like, super super mad. He didnt want either of us to leave and called the mission home and demanded we both stay. Oh man.

We tracted into this guy named Ross. I shook his hand and kept shaking and kept shaking. He wouldnt let go. I tried pullling away but he seriously held my hand for like 2-3 minutes and kept talking. so awkard.

So now I am with Elder Garrett, who was actually in my district and room in the MTC! I was happy to hear that I was with him. He is the definition of exactly obedient and I admire him for that. Not that I am not obedient, he is just very aware of what we should be doing.

Basically this area is a tracting area. It is literally all we do here. The missionary who was with elder garrett before me kinda left him hanging dry a little and he doesnt know the area very well and we have no investigators. so basically both of us dont know the area. We are psuedo whitewashing (we call it whitewashing when 2 missionaries with no prior experience of the area come in and start working there). I whitewashed River Falls. It is brutally hard, but it can be fun. We are going to do WORK in this place. I am pretty excited.

This ward is also amazing, I love it already. It is a super missionary minded ward. We have joint teachers lined up throughout the week that are also required to feed us, which we dont mind, and if our plans fall through we go help them work with their people. Their reactivation program is very good as well. Family after family is coming back to the church. I am going to like this place.

While tracting this guy opened the door and said, "Hi, my name is Blaine. Blaine Lutheran." I got a kick out of that one. ha ha. on the same street we met a man who left the church over 20 years ago. He lives on Zion street. Oh the irony...

We dropped by a potential Sister G. we talked for a minute, set up a return appointment, then she told us to hold on because she wanted to give us some stuff. We waited and she came out and handed us a stack of anti. This stuff was honestly so ridiculous. I couldnt even believe that she got sucked into this stuff. I just do not understand people who claim to be the true christians but then run around persecuting anyone who does not have their beliefs. Our return appointment was rather fun, too. She spouted off all this stuff and I just kept telling her to go to the source, not the internet, and read the BoM. She pulled out the 'ol Revelations scripture that basically says (in their interpretation) no more scripture can come forth. I am pretty sick of that one and I told her (politely, dont worry) to look up the order the bible books were written. Since Revelations was not written last, that argument would mean that parts of the bible would have to be thrown out. Then I basically repeated "read and pray about the BoM" 39 times and we had to leave. Why do the bashers come out when I come to town? Ha ha.

We tracted into a woman named Sister B. She is a wonderful lady and we had a good discussion. At the end she told us if we came to her church, she would come to ours. So we did! We went to a baptist church sunday night from 6-7. The first 20 minutes were songs and the congregation could pick them I picked out "I'll Go where You Want Me To Go" from their hymn book and we sang that. It was pertty fun. Then the pastor taught Judges chapter 6. The sermon was great and the music was fun. But whenever I go to another church I cannot help but feel a little empty. Afterwards a man came up and told me that the song I picked was quite fitting for us. They are wonderful people there. Sister B. is coming to ours next week.

At church I told this guy I was from mesa and he rambled about Arizona for about 40 minutes to me. He talked about his family history there, how he goes there a lot, how the ward is very connected to Mesa, and just about anything else possible you can and cannot think of to talk about Arizona. Then he talked about Vegas for awhile. During priesthood he came up and talked another 10 minutes about the surrounding towns. I was mildly amused. ha ha. I liked that guy already.

Anyway, my email time is a tad short today because I have to do some district stuff. Being a district leader is uber fun; I love getting to know all the missionaries and their investigators.

Thought: So the woman who gave us the anti gave us the testimony of some woman that was actually pretty cool. the line I liked out of it said:"I know you think you believe in Jesus, but you may be decieving yourself. It seems you dont belive in him; you believe about Him." This line hit me pretty hard. There is a lot of truth in it! How many of us believe about Him, but not fully in him? I could not help but think of Matt 25: 10-13

 

10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were^aready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was ^bshut.

 11 Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
 12 But he answered and said, ^aVerily I say unto you, I ^bknow you not.
 13 ^aWatch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh

Do we truly know Christ? Will our lamps be prepared that we may be let in to the feast?

I love you all, have a wonderful week!

Elder Damron

pics from week 24

Baptism!

River Falls week 24

Well my time in River Falls has officially come to a close. For the first time on my mission I am being transferred! Six months in my first area. I will really miss this place. I was absolutely shocked. Both Elder Cole and I thought I was staying... I am gong to Andover Minnesota and will be with Elder Garrett, who was actually in my MTC room with me! I am happy about that. I will also be the District Leader there. I am ever so slightly terrified about that... we will see how that goes.

Well, here is the summary of my last week in River Falls, 'Wiscansin. First, BYU lost to Madison. apuoghfasudnfkajsnfjaskdfna. <-- That describes my feelings about that. I may or may not have talked a lot of trash to ward members and investigators... good thing I am leaving before they can all come track me down ha ha :)

So one of our investigators, Sister L., called us on monday night freaking out because CPS showed up at her house and said they were taking the child because the place was too dirty for the child's health. She lives in a trailer park and without going into too much detail, the trailer is the dirtiest place I have EVER been in my life. We went over to help her clean it to try and help her keep the child. I started having an allergic reaction to something in the house and my throat was closing. I was wheezing and coughing. Then I started to itch a lot. We cleaned a good portion and then had to leave so I didnt die or something. Oh man. The horrors. 

Elder Carlos Godoy of the 70 came and toured the mission this past week. He is flipping hilarious. He taught us how to find the real concerns that investigators have instead of the fake ones they throw at us. Someone's phone went off and he stopped talking and turned to the person and said, "you could at least make it a hymn!" He then told a story of when he was with President Uchtdorf and Pres. U. was setting apart someone to be a 70 and someones phone went off halfway through. Pres. U. told the man the same thing. ha ha. 

He also held a fireside later that night which we were allowed to bring investigators too. He told his conversion story. He had always seen the mormon church and wondered what went on inside. Finally he got invited to an event there and when he went inside people were playing a game called Poor Poor Cat. Our investigator, Sister J, Started Laughing hysterically at this (She is from Brazil, just like Elder Godoy). We were just like what... He then explained that in Poor Poor Cat one person gets on his knees and crawls around to all the people in a circle meowing. The person the "cat" goes up to must then pet the person's hat and say "poor poor cat." If you smile while doing this you then become the cat. So yep, that was his first impression of our church. Ha ha. The Sister Missionaries were playing and he eventually was taught by them and got baptized. 

So while out one night checking up one someone we had talked to a few times before a rolled up newspaper slammed into the window next to my head. i turn to see a boy about 6 years old standing there. All of a sudden he screams ALIENS and then grabs the newspaper and chucks it at my back as I was walking away. I, being a great trainer, pointed at Elder Cole and said, "He is the alien!" The little boy and now a little girl who had appeared locked their sights onto him. He took off running as the two children chased him screaming alien and throwing that newspaper at him. I was quite amused as I watched the scene. ha ha. 

So the Hudson ward is getting sister missionaries and we went to the member's home that they are living in to help them clean out their garage and other stuff for the Sisters coming in. We had to take out some screws from the wall in which they were moving in to. Those screws were literally possessed by Satan. It took us 2 hours to pry like 10 screws from the wall. One of the screws took literally 1 hour. Elder Cole and I got up and literally worked up sweats putting all our might into unscrewing that screw. Our pride definitely took a hit that day.. finally we got it out and screamed in triumph. There was a black powder around the hole that the screw came out of. We knew it was Satan's screw....

So our investigator Brother M is a little quirky and very shy. I knew for a fact that he would NOT like the fact that one of us was leavingon wednesday. So when we were at his house last when we went to set up our next appointment I was very careful. I said," Brother M. we are... going on a trip on wednesday and would love to meet you before then!" Elder Cole totally missed what I was trying to do and was like, "yeah! One of us is for sure leaving! We want to see you before then!" I facepalmed. As I predicted, Brother M was not comfortable with that and he ended up calling the mission home and demanding that we stay... oh boy. 

A few days later I went on an exchange with Elder Sharp, another missionary who is from Mesa. We had a blast, but literally no one would talk to us that day. that wasnt fun. ha ha

Our investigator Sister J was baptized on Saturday. She is the most golden and prepared person I will perhaps ever meet. I feel completely unworthy of the gift of teaching her that the Lord gave us here in River Falls. She told her conversion story at her baptism and it was so powerful. Not often do investigators flag you down on the street and then get baptized... 

Well, since transfers are today my email time will be a tad shorter since I now have to go pack for the first time in 6 months. Blah. 

 Thought: Alma 5: 6-7

6 And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, you that belong to this church, have you sufficiently retained in ^aremembrance the captivity of your fathers? Yea, and have you sufficiently retained in remembrance his mercy and long-suffering towards them? And moreover, have ye sufficiently retained in remembrance that he has ^bdelivered their souls from hell?

 7 Behold, he changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God. Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word; yea, they were encircled about by the ^abands of death, and the ^bchains of hell, and an everlasting destruction did await them.

I love these scriptures because we really need to remember how merciful God has been to our fathers. This is one purpose of the BoM. Go read moroni 10:3-5, remembering is also a condition of us receiving answers. God awoke them from a deep sleep and illuminated our souls. This is the point of missionary work. To remind people that before they came to earth they agreed to a very specific plan! Oh how glorious this plan is! This is salvation, people cant remember but we have that knowledge. Share it! 

Sorry if my email is scattered today. I love you all! Have a great week.

Elder Damron