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