This Week Has Been Incredible

Hi Everyone!

This week has been incredible, I'm not really sure where to start. Elder L. Tom Perry came and spoke to our mission for an hour, and we also had the opportunity to shake his hand. It was an incredible experience, the spirit bore a powerful witness that he was an apostle of the Lord, and it was an experience I hope I'll never forget. He spoke on a different topic than we were expecting, which was the restoration of the priesthood. He didn't give any specific instruction for missionary work or how to work with ward leaders, he just took us through from the days of Christ till now about priesthood keys and the importance. It left the mission a little confused, but in the past few days we've been teaching people about the same topic and it seems like we really needed to know more about it to be effective. Also we realized that we need to take our priesthood and our calling more seriously, as a group of Spanish missionaries in this ward we've been less mature than we should, and it was a really good reminder to keep our conduct in line with our true power and responsibility.

A day after Elder Perry came, Sunday, we had a baptism!!! We baptized Jose Jacob, who is awesome and totally committed to the gospel. I got to do the ordinance, since he's a big guy and my companion was worried about having to do it several times. It went really well though, especially since it was the first time I'd done a baptism of anyone other than little girls, and the spirit was so thick you could've cut it with a knife! For my I felt the spirit super-strong the hour before and after the baptism, and it just stayed constant throughout the ordinance as well. Now I understand why all of this is so worth it! The joy and peace you feel is incredible, you have so much love and it makes you want to share that with everyone even more!

Then on Monday this week we had probably the best day of my mission so far, with 7 lessons, 10 new investigators, 4 hours tracted and 2 baptismal invitations! We were still riding the spiritual wave from Elder Perry and then a baptism, and the Lord prepared our day for us. We had 5 doors let us in to teach them a lesson, and only had one Quality Gospel Conversation (QGC's, we measure them in this mission) that didn't turn into a lesson!

One door that let us in was 3 guys who had met at drug rehab and were living together trying to find work and overcome their addictions, and they were SO ready for the gospel! We taught the first lesson, but they turned it into a lesson about how to be forgiven of our sins and receive blessings (the 3rd and 4th, the Gospel and the Commandments lessons). They're really interested in hearing us more, and we're going back tonight to teach them. The spirit was strong, and we promised blessings and bore our testimonies. I love being a missionary! It's the best feeling to teach by the spirit and have everything you do be guided by the Lord.

I love you all, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Damon Janis

YEEAAAH!!!

Hi everyone!

We set 4 people with a baptismal date this week, a family of 3 kids and the mom. We thought the mom was an inactive member, but we started talking to her and found out she couldn't remember being confirmed. We searched the church records and couldn't find her, so we have to baptize her again. They'll be baptized March 7th, and we're really excited for it! We also have Jose Jacob with a date, he'll be baptized the 28th of February.

I'd like to make something clear: the gift of tongues is real. I went on splits yesterday with our zone leaders, and since they're English I was doing all of the work in Spanish by myself. We tracted for 4 and a half hours, and had about 10 good conversations about the gospel in Spanish (plus some in English). We also had 2 Spanish lessons, as well as multiple phone calls to coordinate lessons with members in Spanish. The Lord has truly been blessing me, and even though at times it seems like progress is slow, I've been able to learn this language in 6 months well enough to communicate what I want to and understand other people. The work can go on without my language skills being a barrier, which is a blessing of the Lord I'm really grateful for.

An interesting lesson I learned yesterday while teaching a lesson by myself is how the spirit has to be working with both the learners and the teachers for it to be an excellent lesson. We went into the lesson with the spirit, taught by the spirit, but the couple we were teaching weren't very into it. They didn't open themselves to the direction and instruction of the spirit, and so to them it was just another lesson. As missionaries or teachers we can do everything in our power to bring the spirit, but if the listeners aren't receptive to it there won't be any real learning. It's the same in a sacrament meeting, or a seminary class, or wherever the gospel is being taught. If we're not in tune with the spirit, we won't learn anything, regardless of the presentation. If we are in tune, we'll always learn something, regardless of the presentation.

Elder L. Tom Perry is coming to our mission on the 20th, and he'll be instructing the missionaries for 2 hours, after which he'll instruct the local stake and ward leaders. If we get there early we'll have the opportunity to shake his hand, which is a very rare opportunity. The whole mission is preparing for his instruction, he'll be teaching about how to work with ward leaders and members. I think this is exactly what we need, and exactly in time. That's one of our challenges in our ward right now, and this could be the boost that we need.

Comic relief: tracting stories! Yesterday we were knocking some doors in an apartment complex, and as we went up to a door we heard someone inside yelling YEEAAAH!!! Like his team had just won a championship or something. He kept going, so we decided to just knock on the door and see what would happen. A younger guy opened the door while on the phone, (probably mid-twenties) and looked surprised to see us there. He stepped outside and closed the door, asked the person to hold on, then asked us "So, what part of Utah are you guys from?" We had to tell him we actually weren't from Utah, although I'd gone to BYU, and then he asked us "so where are you going to serve your missions?" We told him this was our mission, and then he told us that he'd grown up in Utah and had a lot of Mormon friends, so he'd just wanted to say hi. Then he went inside and shut the door before we could talk about the gospel. :)

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers! God is truly in charge of this work, because it's His work, and he blesses us every day. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to serve full-time, to be able to dedicate myself to helping others for 2 years of my life. I know that this church is really the one true church of God, restored to the earth through a latter-day prophet. I see the spirit work every day and I feel it time after time tell me that what we share is true. I love you all, and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Tracting, More Tracting, Then Success!

Hi Everyone!

We had a really cool experience this week, trying to tract. I say trying, because we found an English family (members) the first door we knocked who needed some spiritual help, so we listened to them and then taught a quick lesson and left the spirit. The second door we left a pass-along card, then the third we found an inactive Spanish sister, who also needed some spiritual help. We talked to her and got to know her a bit, and she's an awesome lady who has a strong testimony and wants to help us teach. She just needs some support to make it to church and be strong in the church. We also taught her a lesson and then had to go to an appointment. We were really excited about finding her, because we've been racking our brains trying to figure out who we can take with us to teach, we have a good ward but nobody seemed to fit with our set of investigators. We came back a few days later to keep tracting in that apartment building, and the first door we knocked (the one right after the Spanish lady) we found a lady who was interested to hear us because she'd talked to missionaries in the past. So now we have a solid investigator, living right next to a member who wants to help us teach! It's amazing how the Lord works, to set things up like that. I've seen it time after time on my mission, and even though not every story ends in a baptism (because of individual agency), it's easy to recognize the hand of the Lord as he works alongside us.

We had a Zone Conference this week that was incredible, and our mission president took the opportunity to let us know how we're doing as a mission. During the holiday season we set a goal as a mission for 100 baptisms, 20 more than the year before, which was the highest ever for the mission. We got 117, blowing our goal out of the water. In January we had 53 baptisms, compared with 23 the year before and less the year before that. The average companionship is teaching 19 lessons per week, and also tracting (or other means of finding) 19 hours per week. The thing that blows me away is that it's an English mission, and the English missionaries are having just as much success and teaching opportunities as the Spanish! It's interesting for me to watch, because the Spanish companionships are actually lower on average (from what I've seen) in the numbers than English, and it reminds me again that it really doesn't make a whole ton of difference where you're called, it's just the attitude you have. For anyone who hasn't left on a mission yet, don't be worried about being called English speaking, because there's so many opportunities and people waiting here in the states, the field is still white already to harvest, no matter what people say.

Something interesting President Christison said is that 31% of our baptisms come from tracting, and that's why we track our hours and have a standard of excellence of 20 hours per week. Tracting isn't a dead program (even in English), and so we'll continue it.

I'm out of time, I'm loving being a missionary and learning the lessons the Lord has for me! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Because we're taking our calling seriously and teaching them seriously, I think they'll take us seriously too and listen to what we say.

Alright, I now have a new email address, it's "damon.janis@myldsmail.net". The only difference is the dot, but we're now on a gmail based server and they didn't let me choose my own name.

Ok, so the guy I mentioned last week briefly, Jose Jacob, now has a baptismal date for the 14th of February! He's awesome, we're just finishing teaching him and then baptizing him, and the best part is that he has built in support in the ward because he started investigating from a member inviting him. That's what our true purpose is as missionaries, to be the full-time teachers, and the members to be the finders. It works so much better that way, I can't tell you how many stories I've heard and teaching records I've seen where a person is found by the missionaries, taught, baptized, and then when the missionaries get transferred they go inactive and nobody really knows who they are, so there's no follow-up or fellowship. We're really not that great at finding and retaining, what we do best is teach.

I had a couple of lessons with a part-member/inactive family that gave me some insight. We decided to start teaching 2 brothers who have been investigating the church off and on for several years, also to see if we could get the wife of one of the brothers, a member, to re-activate. We had a nice chat the first time, and as we talked we found out that they'd never been taught by the missionaries about the temple. We decided to watch part of "Between Heaven and Earth", a church video that is a bunch of professors from various religions talking about our temples, and it's really cool. We also left a chapter from the book of mormon, and then set a return date. When we came back, we didn't have enough time to teach a full lesson about temples, but since the wife wasn't there we just read the chapter we'd left them. During the lesson, my companion got prompted to ask them if they had any questions about the church or restoration, and at the same time I got prompted to ask them what was holding them back from being baptized. He said his, which was a perfect transition into my question, and we had a really good talk about it. It turns out they both want to learn a little more first, but they're in a position now with some economic difficulty that they want to put themselves in harmony with God's will. It was really cool, it seems like they're really sincere and me and my companion feel like we're going to baptize them.

Something we did though that may have made the difference is that when we came into the house, they were watching some old movie, and they asked if we wanted to watch it for a few minutes. We said no, and then had a really good talk and taught them about repentance. A lot of missionaries before us (this family has been working with missionaries for probably 5 years) would come over just to hang out and watch soccer with them, and weren't really serious. Because we're taking our calling seriously and teaching them seriously, I think they'll take us seriously too and listen to what we say. It's been a good lesson for me to realize how important my calling is, and that I need to present myself in a way that shows people the importance of that calling. Hopefully they progress, as always people have their agency, but we have a lot of hope.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and especially prayers, this is truly the Lord's work and he blesses those who serve Him. I love the gospel, how simple it truly is yet how incredible and life-changing at the same time. I love this chance to serve, to bring other people the joy that I've experienced in my life, and enrich and bless the lives of everyone we talk to by the spirit. It's the coolest and best feeling in the world to teach, talk, or testify, and see and feel the spirit touch the heart of the person you're talking to. I love you all, have a great week!

Elder Damon Janis

P.S. Sorry if you've written me a letter and haven’t responded in a long time! I'm really backed up on letter-writing because of p-day time getting eaten up by other things. I'll keep trying though, please be patient with me!