25 People at Church!

Hi Everyone!

This week was great, we saw the Lord's hand in the work and we're starting to see a miracle happening!

This week at church we had over 25 people, including several less-actives we've been working with, our top investigator Omar who came by himself (even without his member girlfriend!), and a friend of another young woman who didn't understand any Spanish but stayed all three meetings! :)

We'd been praying all week that the Lord would bring the people to church He wanted there, because me and my companion gave talks about tithing, offerings, and fasting, with the purpose being to have the branch unite in fasting this fast Sunday for the missionary work, with a focus on the members being able to find people for us to teach.

I prepared 7 pages of a scripted talk to give, and then got up and didn't use any of it! I just spoke as the Lord directed me, and even felt inspired at one point to promise that if we all take our tithes, offerings, and fasting seriously, we'd have double or triple the people here that we had.

I really believe that's true, because this little branch has so much potential and the Lord is just waiting to bless us. Like always though, He waits till we come to him and ask, which is the purpose of this fast next week.

Omar, the guy who came to church by himself this week, is really progressing and is learning really rapidly! He's gaining a testimony and it'll probably be a matter of weeks before he's baptized. He told us he wants to go out with us and experience missionary work, so we'll be taking him tracting with us on Saturday! He's our age, and a really cool kid all around.

It's going to be fun showing him what daily missionary work is like, and I think he'll appreciate the things we teach him a lot more once he sees what we face on a daily basis! (I was tempted to take him to Aspen to tract, but i decided he doesn't need to be traumatized :)

One lady we've been working with for a few months, an inactive who hasn't gone to church for 10 years, finally came to church this week and is dedicated to keep coming! She brought her 6 year old niece who LOVED primary and is begging her aunt to take her next week too!

It's such a great feeling to see people come back into the church, to me it's just as satisfying as seeing someone get baptized and start their progression towards the temple! The Lord is starting to pour out his spirit here and get things mobilized, and he's using us to accomplish his work notwithstanding our weaknesses because we're willing to do and try whatever he asks of us.

I'm amazed at how much of a difference particular lessons have made that I've taught, even when I felt awkward and tired and couldn't communicate clearly, the Lord magnified the effort and taught the people with the spirit!

I'm excited to see what's going to happen in the next bit, we've got some changes coming since we got our new mission president in on Monday, and also the Aspen branch is mobilizing more!

It's the greatest thing to be at the center of a miracle the Lord's working, to be able to see how He works and shapes and changes you in the process! I know that this church is true, that the gospel is the good news that the world needs and we're so blessed to have it! I hope you all have a great week, I know I will here in the Rockies!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Slightly Drunk Rich People

Hi Everyone!

This weekend was the first time we've done any work in the downtown Aspen area, and it was an interesting experience! It was our luck that the Saturday we had planned to do our tracting and prostlyting in Aspen coincided with the Food and Wine Festival that attracts rich people from all over, and so we had a lot of empty houses and slightly drunk rich people! (Aspen is always full of rich people, but usually they're in a better frame of mind) I've decided that I never want to live a lavish lifestyle with everything I own being super expensive and luxurious, after seeing what it does to people and how it completely takes people's focus off of God, I'd much rather live in a trailer park comfortably and have a Christ-centered, family-oriented life.

We talked with a few Jews, it was funny how the more expensive the places we tracted got, the more doors had the little sideways piece of wood with the little torah quotes rolled up inside (I forget what they're called, could I get some help on that Mom?). One was a kid about our age who told us he was Jewish, and I was like "Man, that's so cool! My whole family is Jewish and I grew up celebrating all the Holy Days!" I asked him if they practiced their religion much, and he basically said that they didn't practice or believe much, it was just traditions handed down in their family. Ugh! It's annoying, I really want to talk to a Jew who would actually appreciate the significance of Elijah appearing at the Kirtland temple on Passover to give the sealing keys to Joseph Smith (hearts of the children to their fathers), and the golden plates being received on Rosh Hashanah, with Jews around the world blowing rams horns to usher in the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. I wonder if I'll ever have the opportunity to teach someone of that faith, I would love the chance to be able to explain the truths of the Restored Gospel in the context of the ancient covenant people!

We're starting to see some referrals and some organization starting with the Aspen branch, I think we'll have a lot of success really soon coming from the members there. We're helping them implement the Ward Missionary Process (by the way, if any of you don't know what that is, talk to your local missionaries about it and get educated on it, because the 1st presidency and council of the 12 have said that it's the process by which the church will do missionary work till the Savior comes for the second time). The field is white here, and with the help of the members we're going to break into even Aspen (where they have the winter X-Games) and bring people to the gospel. :)

I love being a missionary and I love the Gospel! I'm so grateful for the knowledge and blessings the Lord has given me, and also for the opportunity I have now to give back and share it with others! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Money for Food Just in the Nick of Time

Hi Everyone!

This week has been one of high stress and high growth, we had an incredible zone conference, which was the last one for our mission president, and we basically reviewed the past state of the mission and how far it's come, and then looked at the future and where we're going to carry it. I'm really excited for the new president, where we're at and where we're going. The stress part came from a lot of coordinating, because the mission and stake presidents want us to work in Aspen a lot more in the English Branch, going to church there every week as well as in Glenwood, 30 miles away. With the Lord's help though we got everything figured out, and we'll be going to Aspen every weekend and staying with members overnight, then going to church and booking it back to Glenwood after sacrament meeting.

We had a really cool experience while tracting yesterday, we were going around a trailer park in a tiny town called El Jebel, and as we went up to one of the trailers there were a couple American ladies on the porch we started talking to. One of them told us that she was from St. George Utah, and although she wasn't a member of the church she had married an LDS man, and had raised her three daughters in the church. She told us how much she admired missionaries and what we do, and then insisted on giving us $10 each so that we could buy a nice dinner on her or something. We asked her if there was anything we could do for her, and she told us to just pray for her. The neat thing is that me and my companion were basically out of money for the rest of the month (don't worry mom, we spent it on groceries so our apartment was stocked :), but we'd forgotten the sack dinner we'd made that morning and because of miles couldn't go back to the apartment, so we were facing starvation but with the generosity of the lady we were able to secure some food and teach a great lesson afterwards! It's another testimony that the Lord really does look after those who serve him. It reminded me of the scripture in D+C 84:81-86 that talks about going without purse nor script, and to consider the lilies of the field.

I'm trying to learn better right now the skill of using effective questions to get my teaching better. Good questions can provoke searching and understanding from the investigators, and reduces the chance that you'll leave a house and the person didn't understand anything (really common in Spanish), but I think I'm getting a little bit better. Yesterday morning I was studying what Preach My Gospel says about it, and after thinking about the principles during the day's activities, we got into a door while tracting and I was able to put some of it into practice. It was a Spanish lady and her not-very-interested brother in law or something, they had been taught before by some other missionaries but had never kept commitments or progressed, we basically realized that they'd never grasped the message. We led the lesson, and after some of the effective questions we used based on PMG principles, she started opening up and was willing to actually understand and learn our message. We invited her to be baptized as she came to know these things were true, and she accepted! Because of scheduling it'll be a week before we can see her again, but we left the Restoration pamphlet to study and we're excited to teach her!

The Spirit is really starting to be poured out on this area, we're seeing the Lord asking for big things because we're willing, and then providing the way for us to accomplish them. I love the gospel, I love the opportunity to share it with others! I'm learning and growing in so many ways on my mission, and I've had the spirit confirm to me that this is exactly where the Lord wants me, doing exactly what He wants me to do. Thank you all for your faith and prayers, I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Success with Less-Actives

Hi Everyone!

Things are going well here in Carbondale/Aspen, and although it seems a little slow at times I can see the hand of the Lord shaping me and teaching me all kinds of lessons! I'm with my new companion now, Elder Arangua, who is from Chile but has lived in Utah for about 9 years. He did BMX biking before his mission, and did a couple years of college. We served in the same district when I was in Denver, so I've know him for a while and didn't have much of a transition. He works hard, although he gets distracted pretty easily and will often stop to examine bikes or different technology items, I think he wants to go into a computer profession after the mission.

We're trying to get things going in the Aspen branch, none of the missionaries here have made it a priority for a long time (mostly because of miles, it's a 60 mile round trip and we only get 275 per week, covering a 35 mile area for the Spanish branch alone), but the stake president wants us to use the members and the leadership to get appointments set up and work in the area for a couple days at a time. I really hope we can get it going soon, the branch mission leader there has been in Oklahoma for the whole time I've been here and won't be back for a couple weeks, but hopefully we can coordinate with the branch president and find enough work to do to justify a few long trips over there.

We're seeing some success with the less-actives! We had fast and testimony meeting on Sunday, and several showed up and even bore their testimonies! It's awesome to see people you've been visiting and working with take that step of faith and come to church, I think that might be the key to getting this branch strengthened and unified! We're also going to try to plan some activities so that the Spanish people will do their thing and socialize, we should be able to get a lot of less-active members and non-member friends if we do it right!

I'm finding that I don't really mind the rejection and rude people we meet every day, because I'm understanding more and more the amazing message we have for the world and I'm not afraid to share it. Our mission president has been pushing us to do "OYM"'s, where you Open Your Mouth and share the gospel with everyone, even the lady walking her dog and the man reading the paper, to strike up a conversation and talk about the gospel. It's been a hard thing for me to learn, I'm usually quiet and don't like to bother people, but I'm finding that I can do it with the Lord's help and we've had some really good gospel conversations come out of it! We talked to one lady who was watering her lawn, and she was really nice and chatted with us about how she'd read a book recently by a Mormon author and she was interested in knowing what made us different from the rest of the churches. We explained about how God always called prophets to lead his people, and Christ himself set up his church with apostles and prophets, but after the people rejected them and killed them a lot of truths were lost, but God has called another prophet in these times to restore that original church of Christ. She wasn't interested in learning much more, but it was a really pleasant conversation and was definitely a good seed planted!

I hope you all have a great week, and stay close to the Lord! I love the scripture in Alma 34 (can't remember the exact verse) that says that to those who exercise faith and repentance, the great plan of redemption will begin to work immediately. God is always there to help and guide us, and as soon as we start seeking him he's immediately there to help us! I'm so grateful for the blessings of the gospel in my life, and also for the opportunity I have to share it with others here in the mission!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Out With the Old, In With the New

Hi Everyone!

We got our transfer calls last night, and I'll be getting a new companion tomorrow! I'm really excited for the change and the opportunities it brings, and I'm grateful for the confidence that the Lord is behind the changes and has his own plans for what he wants here. I feel like Elder Gonzalez and I have fulfilled what we were put together here to do, a lot of heart-softening, confidence-building and hard work proselytizing, and I think we'll see the blessings poured out in the coming months. The branch is slowly becoming more united and more people are coming, and the leadership is getting more energy and excitement to help us in the missionary work.

We've gotten some new instruction too from our zone leaders that the stake president wants us to spend more time working in Aspen, but the hitch is that we won't have the miles or time to do it, so everything will be on the shoulders of the branch mission leader and the branch president to set up enough appointments and opportunities for us to be able to spend a weekend at a time working there. It's going to be a lot of coordination and work, both on our part and theirs, but I'm excited to see what we can accomplish in that affluent, English area. :) I'm learning to love working in English, before my mission I was terrified of serving in the United States but as I'm gaining experience and confidence I appreciate how I can communicate and understand clearly the needs and concerns of English people, and have the ability to do a lot of good when people will listen.

I'm short on time, but I want to thank you all for your faith and prayers! God really is there and the gospel is true. I believe that with all my heart and that testimony is confirmed to me over and over as I give myself to the Lord in His service! I love you all, have a great week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis