Wolves in Denver

Hi Everyone!

Ok first off if anyone sent any mail to the office address at 999 E. Tufts Ave
Cherry Hills Village, CO 80113, and it got returned to you, I'm really sorry. There was some miscommunication and I thought they'd already moved to the new address, so I told you guys that address for when I was transferred, but I guess they didn't and so any mail anyone sent there would have been returned. They've officially made the move now though, so mail sent there is fine and I'll be telling you that address for transfer times now.

Aright, crazy story this week! Me and Elder Alcocer were tracting, and we got stopped by a guy walking his dogs on the street (it was a residential area with nice small houses). He talked to us a little about his beliefs in God, and then asked us "have you ever met wolves before?" We told him we hadn't, and he said "well you just did". It turns out his dogs were actually wolves, which could be mistaken for really really big and lean Siberian Huskies or something. He showed us their fangs, and he let us pet the girl wolf (wolfess?) which was a little more gentle and safe. Just about then a guy came out of a cross-street walking his dog, without a leash, and it was like a black medium sized dog. The dumb animal decided to go check out the wolves, and the wolves decided to check out the dog. The wolf owner started yelling at the guy and the dog to get back, to go away, and tried to hold back his wolves. The dog trotted up to them anyway and started to sniff them, and the male wolf snapped onto the dog's neck. Luckily the wolf owner was able to get it off before the dog was killed, but he was being dragged by the wolves, still yelling, trying with all his strength to restrain them but having almost no power. He finally got dragged to a curb (on his knees, there was snow on the street so he wasn't too badly hurt) and got some leverage and the dog was able to escape with it's owner swearing at it. It was a crazy experience, and now I can say I pet a wolf! (oh yeah, they were illegal, they guy has had wolves illegally for 23 years)

For the spiritual side, we had a couple cool experiences. First, we tracted into a family (first door on the street, we were led there) that is interested, we've given them a couple copies of the Book of Mormon and now one of them is seriously progressing towards baptism! It's cool to see the hand of the Lord do stuff like that. Also, we had a night a couple days ago where everything was falling through and we were both tired and a little under the weather with colds, and so my companion wandered around with the car and we happened to end up at an apartment building where a potential investigator lived. He happened to be home, and we taught a fantastic first lesson, he'd read the pamphlet and accepted everything we said so it was pure teaching and learning, guided by the spirit. It was really cool, again we were led to be in the right place at the right time. Right now I'm working on being more obedient and more dedicated so the Lord can trust me with more experiences like that, because the Lord can tell when you're in a position to teach by the spirit and be trusted with those He's prepared.

I hope you're all well, thanks for everything, all the packages, letter, and especially prayers! I love you all, have a great week!

Elder Damon Janis

Transferred to Denver; The Lord Organized Everything and We Performed the Teaching

Hi everyone!

Alright, I'm now in Denver Colorado, working in the south-west part of the city in a spanish ward called Denver 1st. I can't believe how different it is here! The ward is completely independant of the missionaries, it's just like an english ward except I can't understand anyone! (joke, I'm getting a lot better) My new companion is Elder Alcocer (pronounced all-co-sair) and he's super cool. He's what's called a "chicano", which means he has spanish parents but was born and raised in the US. He's fluent in spanish, although he's told me his accent isn't the best.

We're living with members now, they're a super-cool mexican couple who are grandparents and have been in the states for 30 years, and they try to offer us food every other minute while we're at home. :) We live in the basement, in a tiny cramped room with two beds, a very small table with two desks we use for studying. I've been having claustrophobic attacks during personal study recently from not being able to move at all during study time, and have to take frequent walks around the basement. I'll send pictures soon, but since our official p-day this week is Christmas (we get 2 hours today for email and laundry) it might be a little while before they get there.

We had a really cool day yesterday, we found 8 new investigators with barely any effort on our part, the Lord just organized everything and we performed the teaching. First we were just going back to the car after eating lunch with a couple other missionaries, and we ran into a spanish lady who was going home from getting groceries. We talked to her a bit, and she invited us to come into her home and share our message. We taught her and two of her daughters, one's in 8th grade and the other has 8 years (spanish grammer, yay!) and they all seemed interested. We gave them a book of Mormon and they said they'd read it and pray, and we set a date to come back. Later that day we went searching for good places to tract, and we wrote down a whole bunch of streets but there was one that stuck out to us called Mariposa St. (it means butterfly in spanish) so we decided to tract that one before dinner. The first door we knocked on the people invited us in, and we taught the first lesson once to 4 interested adults, and then another one came in and we briefly went over it again. We left them with a couple copies of the book of mormon, committments and a return appointment as well. It was so cool to see the Lord's hand in our work, setting things us so we'd be in the right place at the right time! It's the best feeling to be teaching a lesson with the spirit, knowing that you're supposed to be there teaching! Another neat thing is that I'm starting to feel a little more connection to the investigators and people, because my skills in the language are improving and so I'm more involved in the teaching and conversation. Before it was tough because although I cared about the people and their progress, it was more just like hearing about the progress of an investigator in a different mission, it makes you happy but becuase you really don't have anything to do with it there isn't as much joy. My companion is letting me do a lot more of the work now though and I'm connecting to the people and loving the work, there's definitely nothing better than to see the spirit work through you to change people lives as you exert yourself and follow God's will.

I hope all of you have a fantastic Christmas and enjoy the season, it's a great time to really focus on the Savior and all He's done for us! The gospel is true, God and Christ live, and we have prophets and apostles that really do communicate with God to help us out in these days. It's amazing how obvious and apparent all of those truths are on a mission when you see the details of so many people's lives, can better see society in general, and also have the Spirit testify so often about it. I love this work, I'm so grateful to be a part of it and have God's help, it's the best thing I've ever decided to do!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Fallen Appointment Leads To New Investigator. Upcoming Transfer.

Hi Everyone!

This week has been really interesting, I had a lot of cool experiences, I'll try to share a couple.

So a few days ago we decided to go tracting because an appointment fell through, so we looked around in the area for a good place to find spanish people. We stumbled across a street full of apartments, with most of the cars having expensive rims and in all ways appearing very promising. What was odd was that we hadn't found it before, because we've been trying to find places like that for the past 6 weeks. So we started at the end, and the first door we knocked on a white lady answered and ushered us in. (Just a note, this is like the 5th time this has happened, we always get into the first door that opens, and teach a good lesson in English, I have no idea why :) So it turns out that the lady is an inactive member, and her mom happened to be there taking care of her new baby with down syndrome. The mom was a member and seemed active and everything, which was cool. There were also 2 little kids, a 9 year old boy named Elijah, and an 8 year old girl named Sierra. The kids had been interested in going to church, so their mom though it would be a good opportunity for them to be taught about God and everything. The little boy had had limited contact with a Christian church, and the little girl had never been to church and had never been taught to pray either, so neither of them had almost any exposure to religious ideas. We said a prayer to start, and then we started to teach the first lesson. We asked the little girl if she believed in God, and she told us yes, that we're His children, and He loves us. She told us that she feels Him help her get up when she falls down, and makes her feel better. We asked her why else she knew God loved her, and she told us because He'd given her such a good family and good parents, which is the second principle in the lesson. The rest of the lesson went like that, we'd just ask simple questions to guide the discussion and these two kids just filled in the rest with things they'd never been taught but somehow knew instinctively. We asked them after explaining the apostasy, "So now we have all this confusion and all these churches without God's permission, so what do you think God and Christ will do about it?" They answered "They'll come down and call someone to be a prophet and bring back the church!" We almost had to fight to relate the story of Joseph Smith because they guessed what happened so exactly that it felt redundant to tell it! The entire lesson was so easy, it made so much sense to them and they grasped it better than anyone I've taught so far. It was incredible to see how much they knew about God's true nature, His plan, our relationship with Him and everything, and to realize that it's because they've never had anyone teach them anything about it what they knew before this life never got confused with the doctrines of men. It was awesome to be there, the veil was thin and the Holy Ghost was teaching and reminding them. It's experiences like that that really  build your testimony, especially of God's hand in missionary work and the Holy Ghost. Our appointment happened to fall through, and we happened to stumble across a couple of kids who were so ready and so prepared to be taught. What are the odds? Not good without God's help. It happens too often to be just chance though, it's awesome to watch the Lord work through us.

Well we got our calls last night, and it looks like I'm being transferred, so don't send anything to the Grand Junction address! I'll let you know when I can my new address, for now send it to the office address (there's a new one, it's the return address of the last letter I sent to Mom and Dad), I don't know if it's been posted yet but that's the one to send stuff to.

I'm excited for this next transfer. It's been awesome learning from Elder Murray, but I think the Lord has plans for me to have more responsibility this next transfer as far as teaching and planning and everything. I've learned a lot, and now I'm ready to be pushed a little further. :)

I hope you're all well, thank you so much for everything, for your thoughts and prayers, the Lord really is there and He loves us and answers those prayers. Have a great week, enjoy the Christmas season!

Elder Damon Janis

Pitfalls of Pride

Hi Everyone!

Well, transfers are right around the corner, and there's a good chance that I'll get moved since I've been here for 2 transfers now. So for the meantime if you wouldn't mind, send letters to the Mission Office, they'll get to me faster that way if I do get transferred. The mission office is actually moving locations though, but I don't have the new address yet, but I'll get that out hopefully next week. It should be fine to send it to the old one for a while though. Also, the church is moving off the Myldsmail.net system for email, and will be using one powered by Gmail, so I'll let you know when that happens as well.

This week has been interesting for me, we started teaching an English class so that the members and their friends can gain more skills, and it's been interesting to figure out what are the more important parts of the language to teach. In some ways English is easier to learn, because even if you slaughter the grammar people usually get what you're trying to say. On the other hand though, the spelling and pronunciation are killer, and it's really difficult to explain. We're teaching with the Sisters, and we're hopeful that it'll be a good tool to find people to teach, but also to give true service, because language skills are desperately needed by so many of the people.

We had an experience this week while teaching with the senior couple here, we were teaching a Spanish man who was living with an American woman, and he needed the gospel to be explained in his own language because the gospel vocabulary in English was too hard for him to understand. The lesson started pretty well, they were receptive and had good questions, but as the time went on the Spanish man (Javier) started to really take over the discussion with a lot of really deep doctrinal questions from Genesis, which he'd recently started studying in depth. He'd come to the conclusion that Adam had 2 wives, and that Cain had married a demon lady who had been cast down to earth. We tried to answer his questions, using the scriptures and explaining them, but he just kept asking more. We eventually brought it back to how he needs to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, or at the least pray for understanding as he read the Bible, but he utterly refused. His attitude was that he could figure it all out on his own, he didn't need prayer or God's help. Also, he wouldn't read the Book of Mormon till he'd finished completely understanding the bible. After wasting a couple hours trying to tactfully reason with him, we finally left and set another appointment. That experience though was interesting for me, because it made me realize how big of an obstacle pride is. I've been absolutely floored to find how many people won't pray, or at least not specifically, and almost always it's because of pride. Often they won't be as blunt about it as Javier, but they are too proud to get on their knees and plead for an answer from God, with real intent to act on that answer. I'd say that's probably the biggest factor in why people don't progress to baptism, it's because after we've taught the first lesson they don't act on it, either out of pride or laziness, and they lose interest. Admitting that God knows better than you, and that you can't figure things out for yourself really takes a lot of humility, but it's absolutely incredible the things that happen when people really do it. When people let Him, God comes in and completely changes people's lives, and they find so much more peace, happiness, and joy than they've ever experienced.

Thank you all so much for your prayers, I'm so grateful for you all and for God who answers those prayers. The church really is true, and Christ really did suffer so that through Him we can be healed from our pain, sins, and everything bad. I hope you all have a great week, and enjoy the Christmas season!

Elder Damon Janis

P.S. Auna, I sent you a letter to the address you gave me, but it got returned to me and said that the address wasn't valid. Could you send me it again please? :)

Thanksgiving Beef Soup and Two Investigators with Baptismal Dates

Hi Everyone!

Another great week has gone by in the mission field, and I'm still doing great thanks to God's help. The Lord truly qualifies the people He calls, there's no way I could do this if I didn't have divine intervention. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers, as always I'm being blessed for them far beyond what I deserve.

With the Thanksgiving weekend things were a little slow, because a lot of investigators were out of town and we couldn't make very many appointments. Speaking of thanksgiving, I got to eat at a member's house and we had a traditional beef soup and tamale dinner. :) It was a little sad to not have the turkey and real American food, but the company was really fun and it felt like a home. Ok, another tangent. The Spanish people like to cook meat with the bones still on it, especially in the soups and stuff, so a lot of times you have to scrape meat off the bones in your soup with a spoon. It's a little interesting, I'm still not sure how to do it.

We now have two investigators with a baptismal date, and we're working with a couple others that will probably have one soon. One of them is named Pablo, he's from Honduras and his wife is an inactive member, but all their family are members and are in the branch. He's ready to be baptized as soon as possible, he decided to really pray sincerely to ask God if he should go to our church or the "Roca Eterna" church he'd been going to, and he said "it was revealed to me that God wants me to be a part of this church, and I can't stop thinking about it!" The only holdup is that he needs to get married to his wife first, and he needs photo ID to do that. So, we're trying to get a Hondurian ID sent out from his country, hopefully we'll get it in a week or so.

I'm discovering out here how important it really is to get married in the temple, because I'm seeing a lot of people who didn't and it's really sad. It really has a huge impact on the rest of their lives and the lives of their children. The good thing is that there's always hope, we're working with some of the members in getting them to the temple, and I'm understanding more fully now how big of a step it really is and how important it is.

I'm so grateful for the knowledge of the Gospel I have, and for the chance I have to serve the Lord full time for two years, and help bring His children the blessings that come through the restored church. I know that the church is true, and that everything that we talk about is real. The greatest part is, I don't know that because someone convinced me of it or because I was brainwashed, I know it because I've asked God about it and He's told me. We have the greatest thing in the world here, and it's awesome to be able to share that!

I hope you're all doing well, have a great week!

Elder Damon Janis

P.S. Daron and Heather, thank you so much for the laminated Plan de Salvacion figures you sent me, we use them multiple times a week and they're fantastic!