pics from Dinkytown week 23

"Matching ties!"

"The mud (sesame)"

"Barber Chou cut Elder Tseng's hair."

"FORE!"

Ethan, his companion, and their Bishop

"my artistic golf shot"

Dinkytown week 23

So much to say, so little time. We are teaching a class at a university on Mormonism today so our P-Day will be a tad short. We are also dependent upon another set of missionaries for the car, so that makes things slightly difficult.

This morning our bishop took us to play golf. Elder Rudd hit PGA status right before he came on his mission and went to flippin work. I scored a 59 on a par 35... not bad, right? oh man. by the end I was doing pretty well, though.

Monday night we had a pretty sweet miracle. We tried to set up an appointment with our investigator DO Monday night but things just didn't work out getting ahold of him. We thought of a PERFECT joint teacher for him and really wanted to get them together. well, Mondaynight DO randomly walked into the institute and the JT we really wanted just walked up to us and was like Hey, need me for a lesson? Boo ya! So we taught DO and the JT testified of how he used to be a bum who was throwing his life away drinking. Then one of his friends told him if he didn't fix his life he would end up dead. so he cleaned his life up, got active in the church, served a mission a few years later, and is a beast now. Little did the JT know, but our investigator is in basically the same situation. It hit him pretty hard. It was powerful!

So I have waaay too many funny stories this week. where to start. First, the Chinese Elders gave each other haircuts. Let me just say hair cutting is not their strong suit... Elder Tseng has a borderline bald spot on one side of his head. sooo funny. I will email a picture out.

We also gave them cinnamon apple sauce. they have never had apple sauce before and they HATED it. oh man they did not like it. it was so good! A few days later we walk into the kitchen and it looks like they are simmering a pot of mud and they managed to convince me to eat said mud. elder rudd wouldn't do it. In reality it was sesame they had boiled or something. it had an interesting taste. but honestly, who doesn't like applesauce?

We were walking down the street going to get some food and this one girl was like "you all look very nice tonight" (we were in our suits before priesthood) then her friend a few feet behind her was like, "YEAH. YOURE ALL BABES!" well, I never thought id get called a babe on mission. ha ha.

Sometimes I have no idea how these conversations come up but us and the Chinese elders started talking about santa claus. Elder Tseng said that not even the 4 year olds he taught primary too believed in Santa. then we got into a friendly debate about the existence of Santa. Of course santa is real so I made a convincing argument that they lacked a lot of faith on the matter. then I was like, "elder tseng, by the end of dinner tonight I will show unto you that Jesus is the Christ and Santa is the Claus!" Later, Elder Tseng showed me a picture he has of santa kneeling next to Christ's manger and he was like, "Elder Damron! Santa is the Claus!" oh man. so funny.

We have a lot of fun here. maybe too much fun... we haven't burned anything down yet though, so I think we are good.

I really liked Richard G. Scott's talk. When he was talking about scripture study the importance of it really struck my soul. He said reading our scriptures daily is more important than school, sleep, and work. How many of us actually feel that way and do what the Lord has asked? The blessing is of peace.  A deep, abiding peace that can only come with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I love you all! have a great week.

 Elder Damron

pics from Dinkytown week 22

"gotta  love teaching a marine! his cat really likes to be held upside down.. it is a tad off I think."

"I went to the temple for the first time in 17 months!"

"Elder Smith and I with our Word of wisdom trophies"

"Minnesota state fair!

...in sota, we say pop!"

Dinkytown week 22

We had quite the eventful week this last week!

I went and taught sister PY this last week with one of my zone leaders, Elder Smith. PY committed to October 27th for baptism and she gave us her coffee and tea. She is quite remarkable. She was telling us during the lesson that she doesn't want to be a hypocrite when it comes to just living her religion sometimes so she has started making small changes in her life that she feels will bring her closer to Christ. none of which we talked about. So cool! True conversion is taking place. She recognizes that healing comes from being converted unto Christ and she desperately wants spiritual healing. The fruits of her actions are definitely showing it.

Super sweet miracle this week. When I first got to Dinkytown I taught a guy named DO. But I thought he had graduated and moved away. Well it turns out he has one more class here at the U and he just straight up walked into the institute the other day! so now we are teaching him again. so sick!

So I am pretty terrified because my companion read the talk "Mountains to Climb" this last week and he decided he wanted to grow a little so he prayed for a big mountain to climb. Now we are both absolutely terrified about what the Lord has in store... oh heavens. President Clements told us to never pray for that because there are enough mountains in life to climb without us praying for them. I told that to elder rudd and five minutes later he was like, "did President really say that??" ha ha. oh man.

Friday night we had a really sweet experience. A brother and sister in the YSA ward had us over for dinner with their parents. Their father is on the verge of leaving the church and they wanted us to share a really inspired message. We went to the temple (my first time on my mission! Woot!), fasted, and that night had the most amazing meal since being in Minnesota. During our lesson we testified strongly of this church teaching plain and precious lost truths about the atonement and the Godhead that are essential to our happiness and progression to becoming more Christ like. Elder Rudd bore testimony of how life in the church is not happiness (he was less active most his life) even when we think it might be. the spirit was thick. Everyone in the room could feel it. it was so powerful. The wife also made super good cookies and I may or may not have eaten 8 of them... he he

We also took our investigator DF, whom I taught last semester and how she is back, to a baptism on Saturday. I will be honest, the service was.. sub par. the speaker (who is supposed to speak for 5-7 minutes about baptism and confirmation) rambled about Christmas for 35 minutes and the elders didn't fill the font up enough so they had to baptize the man a few times to get him under and some little kids were screaming the whole time. But, despite all of this, the moment he came up out of the water after he was correctly baptized the Children grew quiet and the Spirit was super strong. It is amazing how even amidst crazy situations that still small voice can still be there.

well, I read a super cool scripture this morning that is now one of my favorite. Let me introduce you to Mormon chapter 8: 38

 " O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God?Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the world?

I think this sums up the world pretty well. The thing that sets us apart from the world, that makes us a peculiar people is that we take upon ourselves the name of Christ. we aren't ashamed to do it. Well, we aren't supposed to be ashamed. Even amidst the Church members we still have our fears and trepidations. head Moroni's call! avoid the misery which never dies. We should all think of the ways in which we shirk to take Christ's name upon us and change those things.

I love you all! have a great week :)

Elder Damron

pics from Dinkytown week 21

Ethan with Elders Tseng and Chou

Ethan with President and Sister Forbes (mission president and wife)

Direct quote from Ethan: "Elder Rudd looking fly."

Ethan eating alligator on a stick

All you can drink milk! (He seems pretty excited about it.)

Elder Tseng..."yep. That about sums him up."

Elder Rudd after the pond.

The pond. (He has a pretty funny story about this.)

Dinkytown week 21

We had a pretty good week! I exchanged with Elder Tseng and we saw some sweet miracles. At one point we were contacting on campus and I felt inspired to go to another part of campus. So we walked there and the first person we talked to was a Chinese man who had come to church for a few months 2 years ago. Elder Tseng talked to him in Chinese for awhile and then we departed. He didn't want to meet again. Yet I felt quite confident that I was supposed to meet that man and give him the invitation. God really loves each and every one of His children and he wants to give them all as many chances as he can.

Perhaps the funniest occurrence on my mission happened the other night. It was about 10:20 and we hear a blood curdling scream from an alley next to our apartment. Then we hear a woman scream STOP IT. You don't just hear that and not do anything so we got our shoes on and got ready to go out and find out what happened. Elder Rudd tried looking for a flashlight but I said we would be fine and we ran out. Well elder rudd was leading the way and we crawled through a crack in a fence in the alley because we could see people at the far end of the other side of the fence. We ended up in a dark backyard and the people were on the other side of the fence at the end of the yard. So elder rudd started walking quickly to the other side. All of a sudden he disappeared. and then I heard a loud splash. I ran forward and he was scrambling to get out of a pretty deep pond. So he jumped out and we ran back to our parking lot and he was soaked from his neck down in mud and algae. I died laughing. ha ha. so good.

On Friday President Forbes came and taught a lesson with us. Then he came out on campus with us! It was so much fun! He has an air of authority about him and everyone listened to him intently. We also got to know him a lot better so that was pretty fun. I love that man!

We have been teaching a woman named DF. She just got back from summer break. I taught her before she left. She has had a lot of hard things happen in her life and she has turned atheist, but is trying to figure out if there really is a God or not. We realized she hasn't been praying with very much intent so we taught about prayer. We then watched the new Mormon message about the man who fasts and learns of God and we committed her to fast. She is expressing a lot of faith, she just doesn't realize it.

Elder Vern P. Stanfill of the 70 ( I don't think he is in the first or second quorum) came and spoke at our stake conference this last weekend. He is a rancher from Kalispell, Montana! I  told him I grew up in browning and he said, " I didn't know white people grew up there.. what in the world were you doing there?!" it was pretty funny. I really liked his talk.

My thought for today will stem from his talk. He talked about unwritten stories in our lives. Also stories we have helped write but we have no idea about. He gave instances where a small act of kindness led to someone joining the church. He told of a woman in Canada who asked a stranger in a park if their kids could play together. the woman had just moved to Canada and had no friends. she got baptized. He told another story where a little girl on a school playground invited a lonely girl to be her friend and play. years later she got baptized, went to byu, and married Elder Stanfill. he said in many instances we don't realize the extent in which our small acts of kindness affect people. Often we do some act of kindness and that act goes off to really help someone's life (he talked about how it helps create a story we have no idea about) and we don't realize it. He told the members that we don't have to pound on our neighbors doors to share the gospel with them. We just need to start by doing small acts of kindness in the moment the Lord needs us to do them.

I love you all! have a great week!

Elder Damron

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