“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