Three Minute Letter

AH! I have 3 minutes! I'm really sorry, the church is moving all the missionary email accounts to a Gmail platform and the first part of the move happened today, so it took a bunch of time.

We had a good week, we're working on getting our investigators to understand that this church is the only true church and not like the other ones, and hopefully we'll be getting more time as we talk to some of our investigators about stopping teaching them, we have too many semi-interested people who don't keep appointments and it kills a lot of time. But, we have an awesome investigator who really wants to learn and get baptized, we should set a baptismal date for him tomorrow.

I love you all, thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers! Also, I'm really behind on letters too, sorry!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

“Do you guys have a cigarette?”, Medical Marijuana, and New Investigators

Hi Everyone!

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers, the Lord is really blessing this area right now and we have a lot of work!

We had a couple cool lessons this week where the spirit was really strong and everyone felt it, and it was also neat because I was blessed with the gift of tongues and was able to teach without much of a language barrier. The first lesson was a guy named Hector that we found tracting, who is about our age and from a state of Mexico where the people look African American. The legend is that a slave ship wrecked and the slaves intermixed with the people there, which is cool because Hector looked African American but is completely Spanish in culture and language. Anyway, we had a couple lessons with him to teach him about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, and he liked how the Book of Mormon clarified things in the bible, but we really hadn't felt the spirit with him, it was just informational at that point. We went back a third time though, and watched "The Restoration" video with him. The spirit was super-strong, and afterwards we bore testimony and we could see that he was touched. We left him Moroni 10 to read, set a return date, prayed, and left while the spirit was still really strong. We're really excited to keep teaching him, I hope he takes the chance to act on what he felt and do as Moroni directs, to ask God with a sincere heart if it's true.

The other lesson was with a lady we found tracting as well, we'd knocked on her door at about 8:20 at night and she answered, but we couldn't come in right then because it was so late. She seemed really nice though and really open, so we set a return date and left her a pamphlet to read in the meanwhile. We came back and taught her the first lesson, and it wasn't really remarkable except that the spirit was so strong and she accepted the message really well. We're really excited to be working with her as well and again hope that she'll take action and find out it's true. I'm finding that it's the hardest part of a missionary's job to get people to pray, it seems like we teach so many people who think the message is great but aren't willing to act on it. It blows my mind how after a lesson where we make it really clear why the Gospel is so important and why it's so important to know if it's true, so many people just leave the pamphlet lying around and don't pray! Hopefully as I become more experienced I'll be able to teach better so they'll understand the need to pray, also as I can help the spirit be in our lessons better.

Quick tracting blip, we knocked a door and a guy answered, and he just stared at us for a few seconds and then said "do you guys have a cigarette?" and we said no, and he was like "oh, ok" and shut the door. :) That reminds me, is it just here in Denver that you drive down the street and there are people holding signs advertizing Medical Marijuana shops? It's really freaky how fast these shops have popped up, although we still haven't tracted into many people who are smoking it.

Well, the Gospel is true, and even though the world is going crazy, it's still the greatest thing in the world to be a missionary and be able to take the good news to the people here! Watching the spirit touch and change someone's life as you teach, having your words guided by the spirit is the best feeling! I love this opportunity, and again thank you all for your prayers!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

“Sorry Guys, I Worship the Goat-Lord”

Hi Everyone!

Ok I've got 8 minutes, wish me luck.

This week we've started to teach a man named Ruben, who lives with his father and mother-in-law to work with his family being in Mexico. He's been going through some tough times with the economic situation, which has really prepared him to accept the gospel. We met him one day, we were led to visit this member family (forgetting it was Monday night), and we got there and it was a bit awkward as they were holding family home evening. But, the son (he's about 40) walked into the room for a bit, and his dad said "Ruben, they're here to teach you!" At first he just walked out of the room, which was really uncomfortable, but he came back and decided to listen to us. So we went in the kitchen and had a fantastic 1st lesson, and he accepted the invitation to pray and read the Book of Mormon. We came back a few days later and taught him more, and he'd read the scripture we'd given him (alma 32) and he even remembered exactly that faith is "things hoped for but not seen, which are true!" He came to church, and is progressing fast. It's amazing how the Lord prepares people, and can use even a poor economy to do it!

Funny blip, we tracted into a guy who after we said who we were said "sorry guys, I worship the goat-lord" and did a horns sign on his head. Really funny, the interesting people you find.

I love you all, thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers!

Elder Damon Janis

I Can Stomach Menudo!

Hi Everyone!

Sorry this is a little late, it snowed on our p-day and we couldn't drive, so we didn't get to do email. It's about 6-7 degrees right now, and tomorrow morning it's going to be about -3 degrees. Welcome to Colorado I guess. I should probably count my blessings though that I'm not in Russia or Mongolia right now, the missionaries there probably would love 7 degrees.

I have two food stories this week, the kind that your mom prepares you for your whole life when you don't like a dinner and she tells you it'll prepare you for your mission where you'll eat really weird food and have to eat all of it - with gusto. So, I'm pleased to announce that I got down 2 huge bowls of menudo, a Spanish soup eaten at special occasions and made with the inner walls of a cow's stomach. Basically it's these mouthful-size chunks of cow stomach floating in a red soup base with onion, cilantro, and oversize corn kernel things. The texture of the "meat" is like a rubber sea-sponge toy, and it's pretty much useless to break it down by chewing. The taste is OK, not overpowering, although I'm not sure why it might take the place of a birthday cake at a party. In each bowl I had to eat about 20 mouthfuls of the stomach, and since the other elders' bowls were smaller I had to eat quickly to keep up and avoid the appearance that I didn't love the dish. That meant less chewing, so I had big chunks of the stomach I had to straight-swallow, and I gagged once, luckily nobody was paying attention to me right then. But, I made it through, and now have liberty to use a slew of new puns, like a shirt that could say "I can stomach menudo!"

The next story is the classic Spanish meal story, which missionaries have been telling me about since I got here. There were 5 of us missionaries who went to eat with a nice old Spanish lady (she's about 90) named Hermana (Sister) Riviera. She cooked enough food for us to have fed an entire zone conference, and she insisted that it was all for us because she didn't want us to leave empty. We got started, and took heaping portions to convince the hermana that her food was great and we were grateful. She kept us eating continually for over an hour, and if it seemed like we were starting to slow down she would tell us "I'm sorry you don't like the food, my cooking isn't that good. My mother was so much better of a cook."! We then had to redouble our efforts and try to tell her that the food was fantastic. I ate so much that I almost lost it on the table, and it was barely enough to appease her. I've never viewed eating like working out before, but getting down the last couple plates was as hard as a swim-team workout. You have to pace yourself and push yourself mentally, resist thoughts of giving up and putting the food back on the table, or just yelling out that you've had enough. We were eating for nearly 2 hours, then we sang a few hymns for her and left, completely useless as missionaries for the rest of the day.

The missionary work here is going great. We had 5 investigators at church this week and we should have more this next week. We've got to get a bunch of people married, and we'll have 6 baptisms. The people are otherwise ready. We taught a few really cool lessons this week where it was apparent that the Spirit had been hard at work, changing lives and attitudes, and the people are progressing. The Lord is involved in this work, sometimes a lot more than we think.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers. I often feel like the Lord blesses me and the missionaries a lot more than we deserve, and the credit belongs to the faith of those who support us. So again, thank you all so much, I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Damon Janis

Pictures!

Still in Grand Junction with his companion, Elder Francis.

Checking the mail.
Snow!
It looks cold!



Halloween.





Transfer day. Goodbye Elder Francis.
His room.
New Companion, Elder Murray (I think) on the right.

Transfer day. Elder Janis and Elder Murray. Goodbye Elder Murray.
New room in Littleton on Christmas day.
New companion, Elder Alcocer!