Thank you God for “these two amazing guys you've sent to help me get my faith back.”

Hola!

Well as you can see I've mastered the Spanish language, I'm pretty much fluent. :) Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts, as always they're very appreciated as I see the blessings on this end.

First off, all those missionary stories you hear about people who were found and were just so ready actually do happen! We tracted into a Vietnamese girl who's 18 five days ago, and she decided yesterday that she wants to get baptized! It was the most incredible experience I've had on my mission so far, we knocked on her door and at first she was just like "I'm a really strong catholic" and was just asking questions about our religion, but she let us in after a bit and kept talking to us. After about 20 minutes she really opened up and was telling us about how she'd completely lost her faith because the first time she'd prayed really sincerely was when her grandparents were dying, and she asked God to save them and they died. She said she'd really believed when she was young, but now she just went to church, confessionals, and was active in her church because she'd been taught to be afraid of all kinds of things, and she was even afraid of talking to us because she thought her priest would say it was "sinning". She had pictures on her wall of the virgin Mary and God, and apparently they were "blessed" so you'd talk to them and it was like talking to God. She was constantly apologizing to these pictures as we talked to her when she expressed her feelings about the Catholic church and God, especially when she admitted that she didn't have any love for God, just fear. We taught her about prayer and how to have a real relationship with God, and the spirit was just incredibly strong. She was crying by the end of it and had really been touched. We set an appointment for the next day and left with the spirit really strong. We came back the next day and she told us that when we'd left, she'd prayed like we'd taught her and asked if she should keep talking to us, and she'd felt really good about it so decided to do it even if it was "sinning", and also by the time we went again she'd taken down her pictures and decided to completely throw away the form of praying she'd been taught for her whole life. She said the opening prayer for the visit, and asked God to protect "these two amazing guys you've sent to help me get my faith back". We taught her about the Book of Mormon and had prepared some passages to read with her, and also sort of a study guide to do over the next couple days. Again, the spirit was incredibly strong and we all had an amazing experience, and she said she was really really interested in reading the book. We came back two days later (actually it was Elder Murray and Elder Geigle, an English elder we're transferring her to, we can't teach and baptize English people) and she'd done the entire worksheet, plus started reading from the front and had gotten to Omni! In two days! She'd prayed about it and knows it's true, and she'd talked to her priest and very Catholic grandfather, and they said that she was sinning by looking into this church but she told them she didn't care and knew it was true. She left yesterday for Denver and then on to New York for a week, but she called us last night and told us that she was almost through with Mosiah, and would call the next day so we could give her more parts she could read. She also said that she'd told her cousin that she's going to join the Mormon church, and she didn't believe her. She'll be going to church in New York with her Aunt's boyfriend or something, who happens to be Mormon. So in 4 days she went from an extremely staunch Catholic to having incredible spiritual experiences and knowing the church is true, not to mention having read a third of the Book of Mormon. Absolutely amazing. The Lord really is preparing people, even if at first you'd never be able to tell.

Things are going fantastic with the work here, we got two sisters last week for the other Spanish missionaries, and they're both motivated and extremely good, a good sister set puts any elder set to shame. With Elder Murray leading our companionship though and now having sisters, we're ripping up the Spanish work in Grand Junction and we're starting to see miracles. :)

I hope all of you are well, and I pray that the Lord will be with you. The church really is true, and it's awesome to be a part of the greatest work in the world!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis