Omar the Tracter

Hi Everyone!

We had a neat experience this week with tracting, which feels funny to say but this time it was a little different because we were tracting with one of our investigators! His name is Omar, and he lives with one of our member families. It was pretty cool, he actually brought his laptop with him because he'd found a YouTube video of Christ that he wanted to share with people if we got into any doors, which ended up happening! The first door we knocked, a girl about our age opened the door, and told us she only had like 5 minutes because she had to go somewhere with a friend. We went in anyway though, and showed the video which was a little longer than 5 minutes (Omar told us it was only 5 so when it kept going on I got really stressed :) but it turned out to be ok because the spirit came and she decided she could call her friend and postpone whatever it was, because what we were sharing was important. Her mom came in half-way through, and actually joined in the lesson and understood things really well. It was a great lesson, we left them with the invitation to read the Book of Mormon and pray, and they understood the importance of doing it! We'll be seeing them next Monday when we're in the area again. We also taught another guy who wasn't super interested, but it was a good opportunity to teach and testify about the restoration to fortify Omar's growing testimony! We're hoping to resolve his concerns and get him set with a baptismal date soon.

We now have our new mission president, President Maynes! He went around the mission this week and interviewed all of the missionaries, and gave us a small lesson also. He was talking about how we need to purify our motives for being missionaries, and that it's key in becoming better teachers. It was really good for me, I'd like to develop a little more in having charity for the people and do missionary work out of love instead of the duty that sometimes drives me. I'm excited to see the changes in the mission and what'll be rolling forward from Salt Lake, President Maynes is getting instructions from there about where the church is going with missionary work.

I don't have too much time today, but I'd just like to share that I know this work is true, that the gospel is the most important thing in the world. It's like the medicine for cancer, except we have it and can share it with people, and save them from the spiritual sicknesses that are ravaging the world right now. Even though they don't know it yet and won't until they try it, our friends of other faiths can receive so much more joy in this life and so many more blessings of God than the patches and suppressants that world religions offer. The gospel goes straight to the root and cures a person completely, which is the true power of the Atonement of Christ. It's the greatest message in the world, that's why we share it!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis