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