I’M IN ASPEN!!!!!!

Hi Everyone!

I'M IN ASPEN!!!!!! I'm so excited, we cover a bunch of little cities from Aspen in the south to Glenwood Springs in the north, and we cover a little Spanish branch in Glenwood plus a little English one in Aspen. We live in the northern part of the area, a small town called Carbondale, but the entire area is full of mountains and absolutely beautiful!!!

My new companion is Elder Gonzalez, who was born in Mexico city but moved to Utah when he was 1, and is fluent in both languages and we talk almost completely in Spanish!! We have about the same time in the mission, and I'm able to take the lead on a lot of what we do, which is great and I'm finding that it's coming naturally.

I'm so excited for this transfer, we have two branches that need a lot of strengthening and help, and the area is ready for us to find people by proselyting as well. We don't have any forthcoming baptisms, but we're going to change that and also work hard with the local church units.

We found an awesome Italian guy tracting this week named Billy, he's really open because his uncle had an Alma the Younger experience with the Church and is now an awesome person, and so Billy's willing to listen to us.

We explained the restoration, and he really got it! He told us "so basically what you expect of me is that I study this a bit and then pray about it? Sounds pretty fair!" He wants to unite his family, and get God into their lives. His wife is skeptical about religion in general, but we gave Billy enough answers and cleared up enough rumors that he says he's going to talk to her about it and see if we can teach her on the next visit as well. They're English speakers, so eventually we'll have to transfer them to the English missionaries, but I'm excited because we really connected with him and we could easily have a whole family to teach!

We also got a sweet referral from a member in the Aspen Branch, who has a friend who's finished the Book of Mormon already and wants us to come and teach her more about it! The coordination will be tricky, since Aspen is a 60 mile round trip from where we live, and we only get 275 miles per week, but hopefully we can work something out and get her member friend to come to the lessons as well!

Haha, we were down by Aspen one day in a town called Snowmass, and decided to tract some multi-million dollar homes. :) It went about as expected, rejections over the intercom systems and someone threatening to call the cops, but we actually gave out a few pass-along cards and had some good gospel conversations. We got a couple pictures up in those mountains, I'll try to send them as soon as I can.

Needless to say, I'm really excited and am praying for some miracles to happen in these small mountain-town branches, we're going to work hard and I trust that the Lord will do His part! I hope you all have a great week, I know I will! There's nothing better than being in the Lord's service, to sacrifice and then see the blessing pour out spiritually, physically, and in personal growth! Take care!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Transferred! But Where? That is the Question.

Hi Everyone!

I got my transfer calls last night, and it looks like I'll be leaving Denver 1st! I have no idea where I might go or who I'll serve with, we're thinking of a few options (which is a lot easier to guess because I'm Spanish and there's not that many Spanish missionaries and areas, we know where all of us are and time spent in areas and such), but there's enough people being transferred and enough movement that I could go anywhere from Vail in the mountains to Barnum Park, a branch that's Spanglish and is inside my current area.

I'll find out tomorrow at the transfer meeting what's happening, I'm really excited though for a change, another area to go into fresh and do what I can to serve the people there.

This week has been a little slower, we've decided to switch from tracting apartments to tracting houses, because the people in apartments right now are looking for jobs and trying to stabilize, whereas the people in houses are a little more settled. There's not as much concentration of Spanish people in houses though, so we've been looking around and testing some neighborhoods to see who's there.

We found this lady the other day who shows signs of progressing, she speaks English but her husband is Spanish, but we think she speaks enough that we can keep her as our investigator.

In the 1st lesson we taught her, she really liked the fact that we weren't pressuring her to go to our church or pulling out our bibles and trying to convince her, that it was all between her and God and we expected her to pray and receive an answer.

After we'd left that day, she'd gone somewhere and her car broke down, and she didn't have a phone to call anyone, but she prayed and then found 50 cents to make a phone call to a friend, which was really fortunate because she would have been stuck out in the middle of nowhere for a long time if that hadn't happened. God gave her the assurance that He really does answer prayers, now we're just praying that she'll read the pamphlet and truly pray about the message, she's been prepared and now it's up to her free agency.

I'm not sure what more to write, I'm learning a ton out here still and although the work's been a little slow recently, I'll be going to a new area tomorrow and I should have lots of stories for next week! I'm so grateful to be a missionary, and I'm so grateful for all of your prayers, which God hears and answers! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Two Homeless Guys at Safeway

Hi Everyone!

First off, thank you all so much for your prayers and support, the Lord hears and answers those prayers.

This week has been a little bit dull, in the sense that we've been teaching and finding people but all the ones we were finding and teaching the last couple weeks have dropped off the radar, and there isn't much progress. However, the Lord is merciful and there are still definitely some high points, albeit we don't have many forthcoming baptisms.

The first highlight of the week was on Sunday, where we didn't get any investigators to church and so we went out tracting for the 2 hours after sacrament meeting instead of going to Gospel Principles.

The English elders in our area (they both speak Spanish too though) were in the same situation so we split up and blitzed the area, so any English or Spanish we found would already have their respective missionaries, a lot of people get lost in the transfer of referrals.

Me and Elder Arangua, an elder from Chile, went tracting in a neighborhood with homes, and one of the first doors that answered a man let us in.

We taught the first lesson, but the cool thing was that all the kids were in there too, and the mom was in the attached kitchen listening, so we were able to teach the entire family!

Since Elder Arangua is a little newer to the mission, I got to take control of the lesson, and we brought the spirit and the whole family understood what we were teaching! (for some reason, kids seem to get it better than adults, I love teaching with kids there!)

We left them with a restoration pamphlet and the invitation to pray, and they seemed committed, unfortunately the husband works every day but Sunday so it's a week in between appointments, but I think if they really take the step of faith and pray about it, they'll really be able to progress.

Another highlight was yesterday, we made a stop at a Safeway to use the restroom, and while my companion was in there I was sitting at a little table near the restrooms figuring out what I needed to buy on p-day.

A homeless guy came out of the restrooms and was passing by me, but then he looked at me a little funny and come over to talk to me. We started talking about Jesus and about helping people, and then another homeless guy came out and joined in the conversation.

Before they had to leave, the first homeless guy told me why he'd come over to talk to me, he said that one time he'd been at a church and he'd been touched by an incredible feeling of peace, joy, and love, and when he walked out and saw me he felt the same feeling.

The spirit is incredible, I love being a missionary and having the blessing of God to have it with me in a more powerful way. The Lord truly blesses those that give their time and service to him, I love this work and I love being a missionary!

I hope you all have a great week, stay close to the Lord!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Guilty? Unworthy? Access the Power of the Atonement

Hi everyone!

I'm not quite sure where to start, this week has been really eventful for me. First off, conference was amazing! Especially Saturday for me, I took notes for all 6 hours and didn't get worn out or bored! I couldn't say which talk was my favorite, but the entire thing was incredible.

I can't wait till the ensign comes out and I can study it all in depth, but I think this was the best conference I've heard so far.

I had a spiritual prompting this week randomly to share a certain spiritual thought in this email, I hope it helps somebody out.

It comes from Alma chapter 7, verses 11-13, but especially 11, where it says (talking about Christ) "And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people."

What we learn from this scripture is that Christ not only paid for our sins, and felt all the pain we've ever felt so he can comfort us, but he also endured all the temptations we've ever felt and so the atonement covers those too.

When we're in a period of trial that feels like it's from the inside instead of the outside, when we're battling to not give in to temptation, we can go to the Lord and ask for the atonement to be applied in our behalf for our temptations, and like it says in Moroni 10:4 if we ask with a sincere heart, with real intent (promising we'll try our hardest and meaning it), it will be given to us.

A lot of times we feel guilty or unworthy as we pass through times of temptation, because we feel like we're just really weak and it shouldn't be so difficult. The great thing though is that Christ understands, and through the atonement we can access the power to overcome those temptations and have God in our life. Anyway, that's my spiritual thought, I hope it's what someone needed to hear.

Last week I talked about a lady we had an awesome first lesson with, and we were able to go see her again a few days ago. She told us she'd read the pamphlet we'd left her 2-3 times, had prayed and felt incredible peace, in contrast to her being frustrated and angry right before she prayed.

We asked her if she had any questions or concerns, and she told us "I just want to learn more about the church and go there!" She wasn't able to make it to general conference, but she wants to learn more and says her 8 year old daughter does too.

We're really excited to teach them, the spirit really does do miracles when people take a step of faith and pray! We're really excited to keep teaching her, she seems like she's got kind of a rough life so we're going to need to visit her really frequently to keep the spirit fresh with her, the adversary works a lot harder with people who get answers.

Well, I'm out of time, but I hope all of you have a great week! Things are awesome here in Colorado, as usual the Lord is in charge of His work and it's the greatest thing in the world to be involved in it! Take care!

Love,

Elder Damon Janis