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