Hi Everyone!
This week was awesome!
We had 2 baptisms in the branch, both of them counting for the sisters, but I count one of them as mine because we helped Gabriel, an 18 year old kid make the commitment to be baptized and he invited me to perform the ordinance! It was a sweet experience, I don't think I've ever participated in a baptism where the person was so ready or so committed to the Gospel! The Lord poured out His spirit in response and that feeling will be one of the highlights from my mission! My companion, Elder Medina, confirmed him on Sunday, and again it was a powerful experience and afterwards Gabriel broke down into tears.
The power of the Gospel is so real, and I love what it does for us! Sometimes we get into a "gospel routine" and it takes a neat spiritual experience to remind us of why we love the gospel so much, but having the contrast makes me so grateful for just the constant presence of the spirit in my life and the peace that comes from righteous living!
This is probably the last email I'll send from the mission, next Monday I'll be getting picked up in the morning to drive back to Denver for a couple days of interviews, testimonies, visits and a temple trip, and then Wednesday morning I'll be on a flight to Houston! I can't wait to see everyone again, I love you all so much and I can't wait to share my experiences here with you all!
This next week is going to be great, we've got so many good people we're working with, the area's probably twice as productive now as it was 6 weeks ago and I think will just keep getting more productive! A lot of less-actives are coming back to church and we're working with their friends and families, a blessing from the Lord. I haven't even gotten to tap the potential here though becuase there's always so much work to do that we don't have time for tracting, don't have time to look for former investigators I used to teach, and we don't even have time to locate all the less-actives in the branch! This has been a great area to end my mission in, I don't have time to think about going home because I'm so busy and occupied with the people we teach!
Thank you all so much for your support, I've been especially grateful this last week or two for all the postcards that y'all have been sending from all over the country, I don't know if it was planned or if it's just a coincidence but I want you to know that I really appreciate it! I hope you've all been able to feel my testimony through the letters I've sent, I'd like to share it just one more time though.
This is God's work and His hand is in it and I've experienced that through the many blessings I've recieved and the miricals I've seen. The worth of every soul is great in the eyes of God and even though change is one of the hardest things to help people do, I've been able to witness many people go through the process of repentance and align their lives with the Gospel. I love this work and I love the Restored Gospel, there's nothing like it in the world because it's the truth and it's powerful! I hope to continue this work even after I'm released as a full-time missionary, I'm planning on using the skills and ablities I've developed here to help people find the joy of the Gospel for the rest of my life. As the call letter says, there's no more satisfying work than this.
I hope you all have a great week, talk to you soon!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Can't Write Even A Hundreth Part
Hi Everyone!
We had another great week, full of teaching opportunities and service! On Saturday we went over to help out the 1st counselor in the branch presidency tear out the roof from the inside of his trailer and put up new sheetrock for the ceiling and walls, and it was an awesome experience! We got menudo for breakfast (It was actually pretty good, I think I'm developing a taste for it) and then we worked hard most of the day with the counselor and branch president. I felt really good about it, I realized that my work ethic has improved a lot on my mission because usually after a few hours of hard manual labor I get tired and poop out, but this time I felt like I was able to push through and get the work done and finish the day strong! It's one of the blessings the Lord has given me, being able to work and work and discipline myself even though I've had to try really hard to get to that point!
I gave a talk yesterday in sacrament meeting about sacrifice, which went well and for the first time ever, I didn't have enough time to share all the material I wanted to and actually had to shorten my talk a little bit! I shared the story of my great great great grandfather Stucki, when he was crossing the plains and was so hungry that he couldn't resist slicing of a piece or two of meat every day, and how he'd chew it so long that it got tasteless. It was a topic I think that the branch needed to hear, I didn't know this but the branch president told me afterwards that the branch council had been talking about it just that morning before church, how the members needed to be more willing to sacrifice their time for church callings, make the sacrifice to pay tithing, and really give their lives to God. I felt inspired with the topic and I felt the spirit testify of what I said in the talk, and I felt like an unusual number of people were actually paying attention to me as I spoke. It was a really neat experience for me, I hope I can do as well when I give a talk in a couple of weeks in Katy!
We almost put one of our investigators with a baptismal date on Sunday, after a good lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Confirmation, Endure to the End), but he wants to wait just a little longer before committing. He's told us that he's pretty sure this is what he wants to do, but he just wants to know a little bit more. I think a good dose of the Book of Mormon and a little prayer might just do the trick, it has a way of helping people change their lives! I love the Gospel and I love what it can do for us if we let it! There is so much power in what we teach and in the saving ordinances we perform. We're actually baptizing 2 youth on Friday, which technically counts for the Sisters missionaries in the branch but neither would be getting baptized without our going over and just talking to them about it and inviting them! I won't count them as my baptisms but I'm really excited for them and their future in the church!
I hope you all have a great week! I love you all and I can't wait to tell you all about my experiences in person, I feel like Nephi or Moroni saying that they can't write even the hundredth part of everything that went on, but I have definitely been touched and changed by my many experiences here and the miracles I've seen!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
We had another great week, full of teaching opportunities and service! On Saturday we went over to help out the 1st counselor in the branch presidency tear out the roof from the inside of his trailer and put up new sheetrock for the ceiling and walls, and it was an awesome experience! We got menudo for breakfast (It was actually pretty good, I think I'm developing a taste for it) and then we worked hard most of the day with the counselor and branch president. I felt really good about it, I realized that my work ethic has improved a lot on my mission because usually after a few hours of hard manual labor I get tired and poop out, but this time I felt like I was able to push through and get the work done and finish the day strong! It's one of the blessings the Lord has given me, being able to work and work and discipline myself even though I've had to try really hard to get to that point!
I gave a talk yesterday in sacrament meeting about sacrifice, which went well and for the first time ever, I didn't have enough time to share all the material I wanted to and actually had to shorten my talk a little bit! I shared the story of my great great great grandfather Stucki, when he was crossing the plains and was so hungry that he couldn't resist slicing of a piece or two of meat every day, and how he'd chew it so long that it got tasteless. It was a topic I think that the branch needed to hear, I didn't know this but the branch president told me afterwards that the branch council had been talking about it just that morning before church, how the members needed to be more willing to sacrifice their time for church callings, make the sacrifice to pay tithing, and really give their lives to God. I felt inspired with the topic and I felt the spirit testify of what I said in the talk, and I felt like an unusual number of people were actually paying attention to me as I spoke. It was a really neat experience for me, I hope I can do as well when I give a talk in a couple of weeks in Katy!
We almost put one of our investigators with a baptismal date on Sunday, after a good lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Confirmation, Endure to the End), but he wants to wait just a little longer before committing. He's told us that he's pretty sure this is what he wants to do, but he just wants to know a little bit more. I think a good dose of the Book of Mormon and a little prayer might just do the trick, it has a way of helping people change their lives! I love the Gospel and I love what it can do for us if we let it! There is so much power in what we teach and in the saving ordinances we perform. We're actually baptizing 2 youth on Friday, which technically counts for the Sisters missionaries in the branch but neither would be getting baptized without our going over and just talking to them about it and inviting them! I won't count them as my baptisms but I'm really excited for them and their future in the church!
I hope you all have a great week! I love you all and I can't wait to tell you all about my experiences in person, I feel like Nephi or Moroni saying that they can't write even the hundredth part of everything that went on, but I have definitely been touched and changed by my many experiences here and the miracles I've seen!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
5 Phenomenal Lessons In 1 Day
Hi Everyone!
This was an incredible week, I've never been so busy on my mission! The work in the branch is awesome, there are so many people that need our attention and our visits and are progressing in the Gospel!
This week in fast and testimony meeting more than half of the people that got up mentioned missionary work and the missionaries in some way or another, and you can tell that people are getting more excited about it! We taught the lesson in priesthood and decided to do it on home teaching, because as one of the prophets says in Preach My Gospel "Missionary work is nothing more or less than Home Teaching for those who are not currently members of the church", and likewise home teaching is nothing more or less than missionary work to those who have been baptized and confirmed!
My companion gave a good example of a soccer team, and drew it up on the board, and explained how home teaching is like a soccer game against the less-actives. We have to be unified to win, and we have to work with the players that surround us (our companions) to move the ball effectively and beat the other team. It was a great example and helped everyone understand, and after that I shared D+C section 4 and asked a few rhetorical questions about how much we really desire the salvation of others or if we're being selfish. I asked about the qualifications to assist in the work, which verse three lays out as "if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work." We bore testimony of the principles and invited everyone to participate more actively in their home teaching visits.
The highlight of my week was doing a companionship exchange with the zone leaders and having Elder Shawhan come with me and work in my area. He served here about 7-8 months ago, so he was familiar with everything and most of the people, and he had a few ideas as well for people we could visit. We ended up with 5 phenomenal lessons, I'll see if I can put them down here so I'll remember them later.
The first was with a lady and her husband that Elder Shawhan remembered but had gotten dropped by previous missionaries, we dropped by and at first the lady was hesitant to let us in but because of her relationship with Elder Shawhan she relented and gave us a shot. We listened to her and found out that she'd been going to church regularly (she's not a member, I think she wasn't married to her boyfriend or something so she couldn't get baptized) and was taking the lessons from the missionaries but then all of a sudden they just stopped coming.
It was the second time that had happened to her, and combined with her work changing to Sundays and some racist things some LDS politician in Utah had said she stopped going to church and decided to start a bible study with a christian church. We had a powerful lesson with her about the restoration of the gospel and gave her a lot of reasons to keep going with the church and the Book of Mormon, and the spirit was really strong and I could feel it testifying to her that what we were teaching was true.
The next lesson was when we came out of the first one, we saw a recent convert playing the guitar with a couple friends, one who I recognized from another time we had gone over to the recent convert's house.
Well, we started talking to them and eventually went inside the house and started teaching again, starting with the Book of Mormon because the recent convert's friend hadn't had the gospel explained to him very well by previous missionaries. We just read the introduction and talked about each paragraph, and had a great spiritual lesson and committed Jose (his wife's name was Maria, we asked if they had a kid named Jesus :) to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! I've never felt so eloquent and powerful as I did then bearing my witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and I could tell that everyone was touched by the spirit there.
We had our dinner appointment afterwards with the family who I'd taught and baptized their daughter Marcela when I was here the first time, my first baptism on the mission! Unfortunately they're still going through hard times and the couple is thinking about separating. We mostly just listened to the sister talk, and we shared some scriptures and helped her feel better and maybe see what she could do to change herself and the situation even if her husband wouldn't do the same. I felt bad for the situation but I felt like we helped her out and provided the moral support she needed at the time.
Next we tried to visit a part-member family who has a bunch of relatives in the branch, but we didn't find them so we went to their parents house which was in the same trailer park. When we got there it was just the Grandma Delatorre, but she invited us in and we chatted for a minute.
Pretty soon a few more family members trickled in, and eventually the entire Delatorre family was there, like 20-25 people! One of the sons was leaving for Chicago to join his wife and kids, and taking advantage that we were there a blessing was requested. We put a bit of pressure on his father, the Grandpa Delatorre, to give the blessing, even though he's been off and on in his church activity recently due to work. He didn't really know how to give a blessing even though he had the priesthood, and so we coached him a little and he relented and gave the blessing. I got to be in the circle, and when the blessing started the most amazing feeling came into the room and a real power accompanied us. When we got done most of us were in tears and the whole family was united and touched!
For the final lesson of the night, we went to the house of some less active members who I'd worked with when I was here before, and who haven't shown a whole lot of progress since. They're very open to our visits though and I thought it was a good opportunity to go. We read Alma chapter 7 with them and we both bore testimony of the Atonement and the amazing plan of the gospel which allows us to repent and progress. During the lesson I actually had the impression to invite them to repent of their sins, and I asked directly "will you repent of your sins and transgressions?" The spirit was powerful and I think had an impact on them, even if they don't start progressing immediately there was a power there that was undeniable.
I'm so grateful for the chance to be engaged in the Lord's work! I love helping people come unto Christ and receive His Gospel, it's the most amazing experience of my life and I'm enjoying this final stretch! I love you all and I hope you're all doing great! Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
This was an incredible week, I've never been so busy on my mission! The work in the branch is awesome, there are so many people that need our attention and our visits and are progressing in the Gospel!
This week in fast and testimony meeting more than half of the people that got up mentioned missionary work and the missionaries in some way or another, and you can tell that people are getting more excited about it! We taught the lesson in priesthood and decided to do it on home teaching, because as one of the prophets says in Preach My Gospel "Missionary work is nothing more or less than Home Teaching for those who are not currently members of the church", and likewise home teaching is nothing more or less than missionary work to those who have been baptized and confirmed!
My companion gave a good example of a soccer team, and drew it up on the board, and explained how home teaching is like a soccer game against the less-actives. We have to be unified to win, and we have to work with the players that surround us (our companions) to move the ball effectively and beat the other team. It was a great example and helped everyone understand, and after that I shared D+C section 4 and asked a few rhetorical questions about how much we really desire the salvation of others or if we're being selfish. I asked about the qualifications to assist in the work, which verse three lays out as "if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work." We bore testimony of the principles and invited everyone to participate more actively in their home teaching visits.
The highlight of my week was doing a companionship exchange with the zone leaders and having Elder Shawhan come with me and work in my area. He served here about 7-8 months ago, so he was familiar with everything and most of the people, and he had a few ideas as well for people we could visit. We ended up with 5 phenomenal lessons, I'll see if I can put them down here so I'll remember them later.
The first was with a lady and her husband that Elder Shawhan remembered but had gotten dropped by previous missionaries, we dropped by and at first the lady was hesitant to let us in but because of her relationship with Elder Shawhan she relented and gave us a shot. We listened to her and found out that she'd been going to church regularly (she's not a member, I think she wasn't married to her boyfriend or something so she couldn't get baptized) and was taking the lessons from the missionaries but then all of a sudden they just stopped coming.
It was the second time that had happened to her, and combined with her work changing to Sundays and some racist things some LDS politician in Utah had said she stopped going to church and decided to start a bible study with a christian church. We had a powerful lesson with her about the restoration of the gospel and gave her a lot of reasons to keep going with the church and the Book of Mormon, and the spirit was really strong and I could feel it testifying to her that what we were teaching was true.
The next lesson was when we came out of the first one, we saw a recent convert playing the guitar with a couple friends, one who I recognized from another time we had gone over to the recent convert's house.
Well, we started talking to them and eventually went inside the house and started teaching again, starting with the Book of Mormon because the recent convert's friend hadn't had the gospel explained to him very well by previous missionaries. We just read the introduction and talked about each paragraph, and had a great spiritual lesson and committed Jose (his wife's name was Maria, we asked if they had a kid named Jesus :) to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! I've never felt so eloquent and powerful as I did then bearing my witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and I could tell that everyone was touched by the spirit there.
We had our dinner appointment afterwards with the family who I'd taught and baptized their daughter Marcela when I was here the first time, my first baptism on the mission! Unfortunately they're still going through hard times and the couple is thinking about separating. We mostly just listened to the sister talk, and we shared some scriptures and helped her feel better and maybe see what she could do to change herself and the situation even if her husband wouldn't do the same. I felt bad for the situation but I felt like we helped her out and provided the moral support she needed at the time.
Next we tried to visit a part-member family who has a bunch of relatives in the branch, but we didn't find them so we went to their parents house which was in the same trailer park. When we got there it was just the Grandma Delatorre, but she invited us in and we chatted for a minute.
Pretty soon a few more family members trickled in, and eventually the entire Delatorre family was there, like 20-25 people! One of the sons was leaving for Chicago to join his wife and kids, and taking advantage that we were there a blessing was requested. We put a bit of pressure on his father, the Grandpa Delatorre, to give the blessing, even though he's been off and on in his church activity recently due to work. He didn't really know how to give a blessing even though he had the priesthood, and so we coached him a little and he relented and gave the blessing. I got to be in the circle, and when the blessing started the most amazing feeling came into the room and a real power accompanied us. When we got done most of us were in tears and the whole family was united and touched!
For the final lesson of the night, we went to the house of some less active members who I'd worked with when I was here before, and who haven't shown a whole lot of progress since. They're very open to our visits though and I thought it was a good opportunity to go. We read Alma chapter 7 with them and we both bore testimony of the Atonement and the amazing plan of the gospel which allows us to repent and progress. During the lesson I actually had the impression to invite them to repent of their sins, and I asked directly "will you repent of your sins and transgressions?" The spirit was powerful and I think had an impact on them, even if they don't start progressing immediately there was a power there that was undeniable.
I'm so grateful for the chance to be engaged in the Lord's work! I love helping people come unto Christ and receive His Gospel, it's the most amazing experience of my life and I'm enjoying this final stretch! I love you all and I hope you're all doing great! Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Two New Investigators And Reactivating A Family
Hi Everyone!
I'd like to start off with an experience from last night, our last lesson to close off the week!
We went over to the house of some less-actives that we've known for a while but haven't been able to contact in a couple weeks. We visited with them and were also talking to their non-member friend who lives with them, and then we shifted things to the Gospel and invited the friend to learn a little bit.
We sat down and started teaching the first lesson, and thanks to some preparation in companionship studies we were teaching in unity and the guy (Jose) was really catching it! The family sat down as well, and we started involving them in the lesson and asking them testimony questions and got a great discussion, and we kept going till we'd done the whole lesson and extended our commitments!
It was awesome, everything just flowed and went by the book (Preach My Gospel) and we now have a solid new investigator with member support and are helping the less-active family remember their strong testimonies and the importance the gospel has in our lives!
Who knows whether or not he'll progress to baptizm, I'm hopeful because he really paid attention and took it seriously and it's usually those investigators that wind up with a testimony, but either way it was a really neat experience and helped all of us grow in our faith and testimony!
Another cool lesson we had was on Sunday, we dropped by the house of a family the Sisters have been visiting but have come to some road-blocks, and we visited specifically the 18 year old kid Gabriel who hasn't been paying much attention to the sisters recently. We got him talking, and it turns out he already has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Gospel, and he even told us that he'd like to get baptized!
We were blown away, and are really excited about him, he's been coming to church and yesterday stayed for one of the classes as well, and seems to really feel the spirit! This was one of those tender mercies the Lord gives you to strengthen your faith that there are a lot of people the Lord is preparing and you just have to follow the spirit and find them!
I'm not sure what else to write about, things are going great and we're helping a lot of people progress, I couldn't be happier as a missionary and love this experience! I'm working as hard as I can and am trying to stay focused so I can endure to the end and finish well. I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
I'd like to start off with an experience from last night, our last lesson to close off the week!
We went over to the house of some less-actives that we've known for a while but haven't been able to contact in a couple weeks. We visited with them and were also talking to their non-member friend who lives with them, and then we shifted things to the Gospel and invited the friend to learn a little bit.
We sat down and started teaching the first lesson, and thanks to some preparation in companionship studies we were teaching in unity and the guy (Jose) was really catching it! The family sat down as well, and we started involving them in the lesson and asking them testimony questions and got a great discussion, and we kept going till we'd done the whole lesson and extended our commitments!
It was awesome, everything just flowed and went by the book (Preach My Gospel) and we now have a solid new investigator with member support and are helping the less-active family remember their strong testimonies and the importance the gospel has in our lives!
Who knows whether or not he'll progress to baptizm, I'm hopeful because he really paid attention and took it seriously and it's usually those investigators that wind up with a testimony, but either way it was a really neat experience and helped all of us grow in our faith and testimony!
Another cool lesson we had was on Sunday, we dropped by the house of a family the Sisters have been visiting but have come to some road-blocks, and we visited specifically the 18 year old kid Gabriel who hasn't been paying much attention to the sisters recently. We got him talking, and it turns out he already has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Gospel, and he even told us that he'd like to get baptized!
We were blown away, and are really excited about him, he's been coming to church and yesterday stayed for one of the classes as well, and seems to really feel the spirit! This was one of those tender mercies the Lord gives you to strengthen your faith that there are a lot of people the Lord is preparing and you just have to follow the spirit and find them!
I'm not sure what else to write about, things are going great and we're helping a lot of people progress, I couldn't be happier as a missionary and love this experience! I'm working as hard as I can and am trying to stay focused so I can endure to the end and finish well. I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Monday, June 20, 2011
Back To The Beginning, And It's Wonderful -- Plus Powerful Priesthood Experiences
Hi Everyone!
Well, I got a surprise at the transfer meeting, I didn't go to Denver like I was expecting, and instead I had a short 45 minute drive to my new area, Grand Junction! It's neat because this is where I started my mission, in exactly the same Spanish branch and area as before! It's cool to be back and to have things be full-circle, end where I started and see how much has changed!
Mom had a question about whether or not I was back to full-time spanish, and to answer the question I definitely am, probably more so than ever before on my mission! My companion is Elder Medina, and is straight from Sonora Mexico. He's been out a while too, and his english is pretty good, so we switch off days speaking nothing but spanish and then nothing but english. It doesn't make much of a difference though to speak english some days, because we're out teaching in spanish all day and I feel almost immersed. I'm completely fluent at this point, I was sitting at a carne asada last night (like a mexican style BBQ party) and we were all sitting around laughing and joking and I realized that everyone was talking super fast and sloppy and unrestrained and understood everything they were saying and could do the same! It was one of those moments where you feel weird because it feels like you shouldn't know what's going on but you do. :) It's strange, sometimes I realize that I'm a missionary and it throws me off a little bit, to think that I'm actually here and actually have the name tag and am actually speaking Spanish and preaching the gospel! I love it though and wouldn't trade it for anything!
This week was a neat testimony builder with the priesthood, starting with a call on Thursday (my second full day back) from one of the sisters in the ward saying that she'd burned her face at work and was in the ER at the hospital and needed translation and a blessing. We rushed over immediately and went into the room, and saw the sister on the chair almost convulsing from the pain. She works at a restaurant and was cooking some meat, and she threw some into a pan with boiling oil and the water in the meat caused the oil to explode and she was burned all over her neck and face. The splotches of oil had left dark marks all over and a couple were starting to swell, and the poor sister was having a hard time keeping herself together. We translated for her and the doctors came in and gave an IV for the pain, and as soon as they left we gave her a blessing. To my surprise she asked if I would do the blessing and my companion the anointing, but I did and there was a sweet spirit as we administered the blessing and the whole atmosphere in the room changed. The pain left, the burns seemed to become less severe, and the medical processes went smoothly. She calmed down and was able to talk normally and even laughed a little bit, and left the hospital within an hour.
That same night, a nephew of the lady we'd given the blessing to had a really bad asthma attack and went to the hospital as well, and they called and asked for a blessing too. We went to the house because the doctors had stableized him and given him a machine to help him, but we left another blessing and again there was a calm feeling afterwards. The next day one of our sister missionaries asked me for a blessing because she'd been sick, and I felt impressed to promise her that her sickness wouldn't affect the missionary work she was doing. She recovered quickly and didn't miss a beat, it was a great testimony for me of the power of the priesthood.
The work in the Branch is going great, we have enough people now to start considering making it a ward! Things have changed a lot since I was here but it's only gotten better and I'm excited to work here! I love my mission and I love the people, I'm so glad to be able to work and serve the Lord for these last few week! I intend to make them my best yet and to rely on the Lord for His blessings.
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Well, I got a surprise at the transfer meeting, I didn't go to Denver like I was expecting, and instead I had a short 45 minute drive to my new area, Grand Junction! It's neat because this is where I started my mission, in exactly the same Spanish branch and area as before! It's cool to be back and to have things be full-circle, end where I started and see how much has changed!
Mom had a question about whether or not I was back to full-time spanish, and to answer the question I definitely am, probably more so than ever before on my mission! My companion is Elder Medina, and is straight from Sonora Mexico. He's been out a while too, and his english is pretty good, so we switch off days speaking nothing but spanish and then nothing but english. It doesn't make much of a difference though to speak english some days, because we're out teaching in spanish all day and I feel almost immersed. I'm completely fluent at this point, I was sitting at a carne asada last night (like a mexican style BBQ party) and we were all sitting around laughing and joking and I realized that everyone was talking super fast and sloppy and unrestrained and understood everything they were saying and could do the same! It was one of those moments where you feel weird because it feels like you shouldn't know what's going on but you do. :) It's strange, sometimes I realize that I'm a missionary and it throws me off a little bit, to think that I'm actually here and actually have the name tag and am actually speaking Spanish and preaching the gospel! I love it though and wouldn't trade it for anything!
This week was a neat testimony builder with the priesthood, starting with a call on Thursday (my second full day back) from one of the sisters in the ward saying that she'd burned her face at work and was in the ER at the hospital and needed translation and a blessing. We rushed over immediately and went into the room, and saw the sister on the chair almost convulsing from the pain. She works at a restaurant and was cooking some meat, and she threw some into a pan with boiling oil and the water in the meat caused the oil to explode and she was burned all over her neck and face. The splotches of oil had left dark marks all over and a couple were starting to swell, and the poor sister was having a hard time keeping herself together. We translated for her and the doctors came in and gave an IV for the pain, and as soon as they left we gave her a blessing. To my surprise she asked if I would do the blessing and my companion the anointing, but I did and there was a sweet spirit as we administered the blessing and the whole atmosphere in the room changed. The pain left, the burns seemed to become less severe, and the medical processes went smoothly. She calmed down and was able to talk normally and even laughed a little bit, and left the hospital within an hour.
That same night, a nephew of the lady we'd given the blessing to had a really bad asthma attack and went to the hospital as well, and they called and asked for a blessing too. We went to the house because the doctors had stableized him and given him a machine to help him, but we left another blessing and again there was a calm feeling afterwards. The next day one of our sister missionaries asked me for a blessing because she'd been sick, and I felt impressed to promise her that her sickness wouldn't affect the missionary work she was doing. She recovered quickly and didn't miss a beat, it was a great testimony for me of the power of the priesthood.
The work in the Branch is going great, we have enough people now to start considering making it a ward! Things have changed a lot since I was here but it's only gotten better and I'm excited to work here! I love my mission and I love the people, I'm so glad to be able to work and serve the Lord for these last few week! I intend to make them my best yet and to rely on the Lord for His blessings.
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Damon's New Address
Damon was transferred a few days ago.
Here is his new address:
Elder Damon Janis
Foresight Village
610 25 1/2 Road #27
Grand Junction, CO 81505
Here is his new address:
Elder Damon Janis
Foresight Village
610 25 1/2 Road #27
Grand Junction, CO 81505
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Last Transfer Plus 7 Investigators At Church Plus 25 Others We've Been Working With!
[Editor's Note: Damon will be transferred but we don't have his new address yet. As soon as we have it, we'll put it on his blog: http://damonsmission.blogspot.com]
Hi Everyone!
Well, the call came in last night and it's verified that I'm leaving Rifle for good and will be serving as a District Leader in another part of the mission.
We don't know exactly where of course, I'll find out right before I get in the car tomorrow, but by process of elimination we've narrowed it down to either Grand Junction (where I was trained) or Denver 1st North (the other side of the ward in my second area).
Our guess is that it will be Denver 1st, and my personal feeling is that it's likely because the Lord would be giving me a second chance at an area that was really difficult for me and I probably didn't do as well in as I should have. It's amazing how the Lord works like that, every time on my mission where I haven't measured up to what the Lord expected, later on down the line he gave me back companions or assignments so I could re-do the experience and make it positive.
I love the Lord and his mercy that way, if I do go back to Denver 1st I'll make it the best experience of my mission and can leave with no regrets!
This week was exciting for us, we were teaching like crazy and saw 7 investigators come to church as well as like 25 other people we've been working with (either inactives or semi-actives or recent converts) and it made me feel really good to see the fruits of my labors!
Probably the most exciting for me was to see Steven and Mindy there, a couple we've been working with really hard, all dressed up and Steven almost looking like a member in a white shirt and tie I'd given him! (the earrings gave him away though :) Both of them have really come a long way, even though they still have a long ways to go, but we're still working hard to help them change the addictions and habits to almost every imaginable word of wisdom substance you could imagine!
During the week I was thrown off a little by the comment of our stake high counselor over missionary work, he asked us "do you think it's a good idea to be spending so much of your valuable missionary time working with Steven and Mindy?" implying that he thought they wouldn't ever progress because of the kinds of things they were involved with.
It bothered me a little bit, and made me analyze it and I decided to redouble my efforts with them instead! :) The result was Mindy softening a little bit and deciding to come to church and commit to read the Gospel Principles manual with Steven each night! Our ward mission leader on Sunday made another comment about Steven and Mindy, saying that they'd been talking about them in the ward council meeting and a similar though to the stake guy had come out, nobody had very much confidence that they would really progress but he made the comment that it's good that missionaries are the ones teaching and not the members, because we tend to have more faith in people.
Honestly, I think it's within all of us to really believe in people, after all we do have the Atonement of Christ on our side and we believed enough to change our own lives and take hope when we though that we were hopelessly lost, and the extension of that is that it can work for anyone! I'm convinced that Steven and Mindy will be baptized one day and I'd love to be there to see it, and to me the change that I've seen in their lives already is an evidence that the gospel is for all of God's children, to any who will "come unto him".
I love the Lord and love the Gospel, I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Hi Everyone!
Well, the call came in last night and it's verified that I'm leaving Rifle for good and will be serving as a District Leader in another part of the mission.
We don't know exactly where of course, I'll find out right before I get in the car tomorrow, but by process of elimination we've narrowed it down to either Grand Junction (where I was trained) or Denver 1st North (the other side of the ward in my second area).
Our guess is that it will be Denver 1st, and my personal feeling is that it's likely because the Lord would be giving me a second chance at an area that was really difficult for me and I probably didn't do as well in as I should have. It's amazing how the Lord works like that, every time on my mission where I haven't measured up to what the Lord expected, later on down the line he gave me back companions or assignments so I could re-do the experience and make it positive.
I love the Lord and his mercy that way, if I do go back to Denver 1st I'll make it the best experience of my mission and can leave with no regrets!
This week was exciting for us, we were teaching like crazy and saw 7 investigators come to church as well as like 25 other people we've been working with (either inactives or semi-actives or recent converts) and it made me feel really good to see the fruits of my labors!
Probably the most exciting for me was to see Steven and Mindy there, a couple we've been working with really hard, all dressed up and Steven almost looking like a member in a white shirt and tie I'd given him! (the earrings gave him away though :) Both of them have really come a long way, even though they still have a long ways to go, but we're still working hard to help them change the addictions and habits to almost every imaginable word of wisdom substance you could imagine!
During the week I was thrown off a little by the comment of our stake high counselor over missionary work, he asked us "do you think it's a good idea to be spending so much of your valuable missionary time working with Steven and Mindy?" implying that he thought they wouldn't ever progress because of the kinds of things they were involved with.
It bothered me a little bit, and made me analyze it and I decided to redouble my efforts with them instead! :) The result was Mindy softening a little bit and deciding to come to church and commit to read the Gospel Principles manual with Steven each night! Our ward mission leader on Sunday made another comment about Steven and Mindy, saying that they'd been talking about them in the ward council meeting and a similar though to the stake guy had come out, nobody had very much confidence that they would really progress but he made the comment that it's good that missionaries are the ones teaching and not the members, because we tend to have more faith in people.
Honestly, I think it's within all of us to really believe in people, after all we do have the Atonement of Christ on our side and we believed enough to change our own lives and take hope when we though that we were hopelessly lost, and the extension of that is that it can work for anyone! I'm convinced that Steven and Mindy will be baptized one day and I'd love to be there to see it, and to me the change that I've seen in their lives already is an evidence that the gospel is for all of God's children, to any who will "come unto him".
I love the Lord and love the Gospel, I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Monday, June 6, 2011
Never Underestimate A Good Ward Mission Leader
Hi Everyone!
One of the most exciting things going on in my life right now is that our ward mission leader is amazing!!! I can't tell you how much of a difference it makes in the missionary effort when that one person does his calling right!
What's impressed me the most about him is that he's not a super talented person, he just does exactly what the brethren have been asking and so our work is exploding. This week when we turned in our progress record to the ward, we had all 15 slots filled of people we're actively teaching and working with, and our ward mission leader was able to get assignments made for members to come with us to each of our lessons!
This is the first time I've ever seen it work this well, usually the ward mission leader decides that he's going to do things his own way and work in a way different that what we've been taught needs to happen, and it just never turns out, no matter how many excellent activities there are or what inspirational firesides are planned.
The way to quickly improve missionary work is to get members to your lessons and to get the ward council involved in selecting and inviting less-actives to be taught by the missionaries. Period.
Now that I understand that, I think if I were a regular member right now I'd just find out who the Ward Mission Leader was in my ward and contact him, telling him that I'd love to go out with the missionaries to whatever lessons they had and then give him my schedule. The cool thing about that is that when members get involved in lessons and then the person they taught shows up to church, there's immediately a support system and a friend for the person.
You can keep being that person's friend and keep in contact with them even if they don't keep investigating, and then later on when the missionaries don't even know who the person is you'll be able to know when they're ready again and give the referral to the missionaries and have the lesson at your house! I think a lot of us are nervous because our non-member friends just aren't ready for missionary contact yet and we have so few that we feel like we can't participate in missionary work, but just getting involved through the ward mission leader can completely change that and make you an invaluable asset to the Lord and the mission program!
I'll get off my soap-box now, and talk a little about the people we're working with. Something cool we did was with our investigator Oscar, who is from Honduras and is middle-aged with no close family (he was divorced a while ago), we've been teaching him for a month or two now and he's slowly coming along and likes what we teach him.
This past week we'd invited him to church and then he didn't show up, so we just figured that he'd had something come up or had flaked on us, but then our next appointment we found out that he'd actually come to the building, but he was a few minutes late and he was too embarrassed to call us or to just go in, and so he'd turned around and gone home! Well, the member we brought with us jumped on that and volunteered us to give him a tour of the church building so he'd be more comfortable there and would know exactly what was going on.
We planned in intentionally for Saturday so it would be fresh in his mind on Sunday, and it worked like a charm! He loved the building and the pictures of Christ, we taught him about baptism at the font and about the priesthood authority at the painting of Peter James and John giving Joseph the priesthood, and testified about the power of the sacrament in the chapel.
It was a really spiritual experience and he enjoyed it, and then he came to church the next day to see for himself and we had a great fast and testimony meeting! It was neat for me to do a tour like that, I haven't done many on my mission but it was a perfect set-up and the Lord blessed us to have it go smoothly.
Steven and Mindy, our investigators with a baptismal date, decided out of the blue to start obeying the law of chastity by getting married! It was stunning for all of us, but I was really excited and we're getting them together with the Bishop so he can validate the marriage. Other than that we're working with several less-active families and helping them get back to church, we're seeing a lot of success and teaching and testifying a lot.
I'm so grateful for my mission and the chance to be in the Lord's service, I love the Gospel and I love helping people to experience the joy and the peace that can only come by living a life that's in harmony with the standards the Lord has set. I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
One of the most exciting things going on in my life right now is that our ward mission leader is amazing!!! I can't tell you how much of a difference it makes in the missionary effort when that one person does his calling right!
What's impressed me the most about him is that he's not a super talented person, he just does exactly what the brethren have been asking and so our work is exploding. This week when we turned in our progress record to the ward, we had all 15 slots filled of people we're actively teaching and working with, and our ward mission leader was able to get assignments made for members to come with us to each of our lessons!
This is the first time I've ever seen it work this well, usually the ward mission leader decides that he's going to do things his own way and work in a way different that what we've been taught needs to happen, and it just never turns out, no matter how many excellent activities there are or what inspirational firesides are planned.
The way to quickly improve missionary work is to get members to your lessons and to get the ward council involved in selecting and inviting less-actives to be taught by the missionaries. Period.
Now that I understand that, I think if I were a regular member right now I'd just find out who the Ward Mission Leader was in my ward and contact him, telling him that I'd love to go out with the missionaries to whatever lessons they had and then give him my schedule. The cool thing about that is that when members get involved in lessons and then the person they taught shows up to church, there's immediately a support system and a friend for the person.
You can keep being that person's friend and keep in contact with them even if they don't keep investigating, and then later on when the missionaries don't even know who the person is you'll be able to know when they're ready again and give the referral to the missionaries and have the lesson at your house! I think a lot of us are nervous because our non-member friends just aren't ready for missionary contact yet and we have so few that we feel like we can't participate in missionary work, but just getting involved through the ward mission leader can completely change that and make you an invaluable asset to the Lord and the mission program!
I'll get off my soap-box now, and talk a little about the people we're working with. Something cool we did was with our investigator Oscar, who is from Honduras and is middle-aged with no close family (he was divorced a while ago), we've been teaching him for a month or two now and he's slowly coming along and likes what we teach him.
This past week we'd invited him to church and then he didn't show up, so we just figured that he'd had something come up or had flaked on us, but then our next appointment we found out that he'd actually come to the building, but he was a few minutes late and he was too embarrassed to call us or to just go in, and so he'd turned around and gone home! Well, the member we brought with us jumped on that and volunteered us to give him a tour of the church building so he'd be more comfortable there and would know exactly what was going on.
We planned in intentionally for Saturday so it would be fresh in his mind on Sunday, and it worked like a charm! He loved the building and the pictures of Christ, we taught him about baptism at the font and about the priesthood authority at the painting of Peter James and John giving Joseph the priesthood, and testified about the power of the sacrament in the chapel.
It was a really spiritual experience and he enjoyed it, and then he came to church the next day to see for himself and we had a great fast and testimony meeting! It was neat for me to do a tour like that, I haven't done many on my mission but it was a perfect set-up and the Lord blessed us to have it go smoothly.
Steven and Mindy, our investigators with a baptismal date, decided out of the blue to start obeying the law of chastity by getting married! It was stunning for all of us, but I was really excited and we're getting them together with the Bishop so he can validate the marriage. Other than that we're working with several less-active families and helping them get back to church, we're seeing a lot of success and teaching and testifying a lot.
I'm so grateful for my mission and the chance to be in the Lord's service, I love the Gospel and I love helping people to experience the joy and the peace that can only come by living a life that's in harmony with the standards the Lord has set. I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
I Love Being A Missionary
Hi Everyone!
I had a truly great week which was a blessing and tender mercy from the Lord, things have been going well but now they are really picking up! I'll share some of the highlights.
First, we had a conversation on Sunday with Steven and Mindy, our top family, where Mindy expressed her desire to be married in the Salt Lake Temple and wanted to know how to purify her life so she could get there!!! I was blown out of the water, she's been pretty offish and not wanting to learn very much, offering a lot of resistance in response to her husband's enthusiasm. She's also struggling with addictions to some of the worst and hardest substances in existence, and has a long way to go in her personal progress.
We're so excited for this breakthrough though, she was sincere in her desire and when we told her that baptism was part of the process she was just fine with it! Today is our appointment with them to teach them about spiritual purification, I won't be there since I'm on exchanges to interview a baptismal candidate but I feel and pray that they'll start to rapidly progress! Steven has a baptismal date for the 9th of July, and I'm hoping we can put Mindy on the same date!
Another amazing breakthrough we had taught me a lesson about persistence, because we came across a golden family that we've been trying to contact for nearly 6 weeks! A couple days ago, we were having a rough day and couldn't find anybody for a certain slot of time, and as we got in the car an impression came to my mind to go visit this family we'd found out about when one of the Assistants to the President was with us and we street contacted this girl who was putting a kid in a car.
We found out that her name was Chelsea, and that she was an inactive member of the church. She said that she was actually just visiting her mom there, she lived somewhere else, but that we could try to visit her family since they she has several brothers who aren't baptized yet.
Well, we didn't have time right then to go visit the family, but we duly recorded the apartment number and went on to our next appointment. For the past month or two we've been passing by there any time we're in the area, and I was honestly close to giving up because we could never find anybody at home no matter when we tried to go by.
But, on Sunday this week when I got the impression to go back again Chelsea's brother answered the door and was a little surprised to see us, and he was soon joined by his mom who had (coincidentally) just been reading a book about our church written by one of our advocates in the media world, because she's been wanting to get back into church and be able to answer some of the questions a friend of hers has about the church!
She told us that she would love to teach her kids about our faith and have them grow up with the church, and she was really excited to have us come over and teach the whole family! We invited her to bring as many of her children as possible to our lesson, (she has 6) and also her friend who's interested in the church, which she readily accepted!
I'm so grateful for the spirit's whisperings, that we were able to find this amazing family who's just ready for the Gospel, and how everything was arranged just perfectly to put us in contact! It humbles me to know how close I was in my weakness to just giving up on contacting the family, and just figuring that eventually it would work out in the future if it was right. The Lord taught me a powerful lesson that He can work miracles, and the tool he uses to accomplish it doesn't have to be 100% perfect or inspired or trusting to make it happen, just a willing heart and striving to do the Lord's will is sufficient.
Another cool thing for me this week was a companionship exchange I had with an Elder in Rangely, which is like the middle of nowhere in our middle-of-nowhere zone. :) The town has maybe 1500 people that live there, and it has 2 wards with a bunch of less-actives.
The Elders there have been struggling a lot, so we arranged an exchange with them to get an inside look at their area and see if we could help them. The working part of the exchange while I was there was a pretty bleak picture, we walked for hours to get to different potentials around the town, and we didn't find hardly any success, just a couple people actually let us teach them.
However, when we got back to the apartment that night, I'd been praying all day that I could know how to help these Elders work their area better, and in our planning session the spirit took over and I taught the Elder about getting referrals, planning to coordinate with members to get them at your lessons, and also planning skills that they could use. I taught for over an hour! The inspiration just flowed and I knew exactly what to tell him, even though I'd been pondering for a long time on exactly how to do those very things in my own area and still had no idea about!
The Lord is merciful and inspires His servants, He called me to serve in the capacity I'm in and he makes me fit for it. Without His help I'm not all that inspiring or great, not more than any other missionary, but by putting my trust in Him and just asking, He's poured out his spirit and helped me rise to the calling!
I love being a missionary and being able to serve the Lord and His children! It's the greatest opportunity of my life and I cherish it. I have a strong testimony of this restored gospel that I teach and I know that it's the greatest blessing a person can receive! I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
I had a truly great week which was a blessing and tender mercy from the Lord, things have been going well but now they are really picking up! I'll share some of the highlights.
First, we had a conversation on Sunday with Steven and Mindy, our top family, where Mindy expressed her desire to be married in the Salt Lake Temple and wanted to know how to purify her life so she could get there!!! I was blown out of the water, she's been pretty offish and not wanting to learn very much, offering a lot of resistance in response to her husband's enthusiasm. She's also struggling with addictions to some of the worst and hardest substances in existence, and has a long way to go in her personal progress.
We're so excited for this breakthrough though, she was sincere in her desire and when we told her that baptism was part of the process she was just fine with it! Today is our appointment with them to teach them about spiritual purification, I won't be there since I'm on exchanges to interview a baptismal candidate but I feel and pray that they'll start to rapidly progress! Steven has a baptismal date for the 9th of July, and I'm hoping we can put Mindy on the same date!
Another amazing breakthrough we had taught me a lesson about persistence, because we came across a golden family that we've been trying to contact for nearly 6 weeks! A couple days ago, we were having a rough day and couldn't find anybody for a certain slot of time, and as we got in the car an impression came to my mind to go visit this family we'd found out about when one of the Assistants to the President was with us and we street contacted this girl who was putting a kid in a car.
We found out that her name was Chelsea, and that she was an inactive member of the church. She said that she was actually just visiting her mom there, she lived somewhere else, but that we could try to visit her family since they she has several brothers who aren't baptized yet.
Well, we didn't have time right then to go visit the family, but we duly recorded the apartment number and went on to our next appointment. For the past month or two we've been passing by there any time we're in the area, and I was honestly close to giving up because we could never find anybody at home no matter when we tried to go by.
But, on Sunday this week when I got the impression to go back again Chelsea's brother answered the door and was a little surprised to see us, and he was soon joined by his mom who had (coincidentally) just been reading a book about our church written by one of our advocates in the media world, because she's been wanting to get back into church and be able to answer some of the questions a friend of hers has about the church!
She told us that she would love to teach her kids about our faith and have them grow up with the church, and she was really excited to have us come over and teach the whole family! We invited her to bring as many of her children as possible to our lesson, (she has 6) and also her friend who's interested in the church, which she readily accepted!
I'm so grateful for the spirit's whisperings, that we were able to find this amazing family who's just ready for the Gospel, and how everything was arranged just perfectly to put us in contact! It humbles me to know how close I was in my weakness to just giving up on contacting the family, and just figuring that eventually it would work out in the future if it was right. The Lord taught me a powerful lesson that He can work miracles, and the tool he uses to accomplish it doesn't have to be 100% perfect or inspired or trusting to make it happen, just a willing heart and striving to do the Lord's will is sufficient.
Another cool thing for me this week was a companionship exchange I had with an Elder in Rangely, which is like the middle of nowhere in our middle-of-nowhere zone. :) The town has maybe 1500 people that live there, and it has 2 wards with a bunch of less-actives.
The Elders there have been struggling a lot, so we arranged an exchange with them to get an inside look at their area and see if we could help them. The working part of the exchange while I was there was a pretty bleak picture, we walked for hours to get to different potentials around the town, and we didn't find hardly any success, just a couple people actually let us teach them.
However, when we got back to the apartment that night, I'd been praying all day that I could know how to help these Elders work their area better, and in our planning session the spirit took over and I taught the Elder about getting referrals, planning to coordinate with members to get them at your lessons, and also planning skills that they could use. I taught for over an hour! The inspiration just flowed and I knew exactly what to tell him, even though I'd been pondering for a long time on exactly how to do those very things in my own area and still had no idea about!
The Lord is merciful and inspires His servants, He called me to serve in the capacity I'm in and he makes me fit for it. Without His help I'm not all that inspiring or great, not more than any other missionary, but by putting my trust in Him and just asking, He's poured out his spirit and helped me rise to the calling!
I love being a missionary and being able to serve the Lord and His children! It's the greatest opportunity of my life and I cherish it. I have a strong testimony of this restored gospel that I teach and I know that it's the greatest blessing a person can receive! I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Monday, May 23, 2011
After Our Faith Is Tried Come The Miracles
Hi Everyone!
This week was pretty busy, I was only here in Rifle with Elder Castaneda for two days out of the week, we did exchanges all across the zone and helped out a lot of the missionaries. We logged a total of 729 miles for the week in our car, over 100 miles per day! It's been tiring for me and I'm glad today's P-day and I can take a break from it!
Our new Ward Mission Leader has been working really hard and it's already making a difference, we got members to our lessons 4 times this week and we had a lady come to church because of it! It's a lady named Charlotte, a sweet older lady who'd asked for her name to be removed from the church records years ago when she re-married, but now she's divorced from the man and has an open mind towards the church.
We found her tracting and asked her if we could "practice" our lessons on her so we could improve our teaching, so we set up an appointment and brought one of the ward missionaries with us! The lesson went great and she responded well to the questions and commitments, and told us she'd come to church on Sunday!
When we got there we didn't see her, so we were sitting in the back waiting for an investigator or less-active to walk in, but our ward mission leader came over and asked us if Charlotte had come yet. We said we hadn't seen her, and he looked around and pointed out an older lady sitting by herself and asked if it were her, and I recognized her so we went over and sat by her and had a really good sacrament meeting!
It's been really fun to be able to work in an English ward, I've had some thoughts about it recently that I'd like to share. In a recent leadership training meeting, our mission president told us that the new ward mission process with 5 names of less-active families coming from each auxiliary is what the Lord wants us to do and what the brethren are instructing us to do. He also commented that in the Spanish wards and branches here in the mission the units aren't strong enough or developed enough to really do this process right, and so those missionaries have a different assignment.
With our change in ward mission leaders, I've been starting to see the beauty of the ward mission process and I'm quickly finding out that in big English wards the only way to do missionary work is to have it be a member-led program. We're starting to see a huge increase in our success as the ward really steps up to help us, and thinking about it I believe it's true that the Spanish wards aren't quite ready for this yet. I'm understanding more that the job of our Spanish elders is still to go out and knock doors and find those people to teach that are ready, and work with the friends of the members, recent converts and less actives to find success. For me it's a little bit of a revelation, because I realize now some of the frustration I had working in Spanish was just because I didn't understand our purpose as clearly, and why here in English the same techniques don't work as in Spanish. It's really quite different, but I'm so grateful that this ward is really stepping up because it shows me how it's supposed to be done!
A lesson I'm learning recently is that when we try our best to do God's will there's always opposition, and there's always blessings as well. These last few weeks have been really trying physically and mentally with all the trainings, travel and exchanges, but at the same time I've been so blessed spiritually and feel very close to the Lord. I see His hand in my life all the time, and many small coincidences on a daily basis help me to know that He's there and is watching out for me. It's always worth it to push through and get the blessings, God makes sure to push us and stretch us when we do His will but after our faith and our patience is tried we get the miracles. I love my mission, and I love serving the Lord and his children! There's no greater work, and no greater happiness than when those you serve and love progress in the Gospel!
I hope everything is going well for you all, have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
This week was pretty busy, I was only here in Rifle with Elder Castaneda for two days out of the week, we did exchanges all across the zone and helped out a lot of the missionaries. We logged a total of 729 miles for the week in our car, over 100 miles per day! It's been tiring for me and I'm glad today's P-day and I can take a break from it!
Our new Ward Mission Leader has been working really hard and it's already making a difference, we got members to our lessons 4 times this week and we had a lady come to church because of it! It's a lady named Charlotte, a sweet older lady who'd asked for her name to be removed from the church records years ago when she re-married, but now she's divorced from the man and has an open mind towards the church.
We found her tracting and asked her if we could "practice" our lessons on her so we could improve our teaching, so we set up an appointment and brought one of the ward missionaries with us! The lesson went great and she responded well to the questions and commitments, and told us she'd come to church on Sunday!
When we got there we didn't see her, so we were sitting in the back waiting for an investigator or less-active to walk in, but our ward mission leader came over and asked us if Charlotte had come yet. We said we hadn't seen her, and he looked around and pointed out an older lady sitting by herself and asked if it were her, and I recognized her so we went over and sat by her and had a really good sacrament meeting!
It's been really fun to be able to work in an English ward, I've had some thoughts about it recently that I'd like to share. In a recent leadership training meeting, our mission president told us that the new ward mission process with 5 names of less-active families coming from each auxiliary is what the Lord wants us to do and what the brethren are instructing us to do. He also commented that in the Spanish wards and branches here in the mission the units aren't strong enough or developed enough to really do this process right, and so those missionaries have a different assignment.
With our change in ward mission leaders, I've been starting to see the beauty of the ward mission process and I'm quickly finding out that in big English wards the only way to do missionary work is to have it be a member-led program. We're starting to see a huge increase in our success as the ward really steps up to help us, and thinking about it I believe it's true that the Spanish wards aren't quite ready for this yet. I'm understanding more that the job of our Spanish elders is still to go out and knock doors and find those people to teach that are ready, and work with the friends of the members, recent converts and less actives to find success. For me it's a little bit of a revelation, because I realize now some of the frustration I had working in Spanish was just because I didn't understand our purpose as clearly, and why here in English the same techniques don't work as in Spanish. It's really quite different, but I'm so grateful that this ward is really stepping up because it shows me how it's supposed to be done!
A lesson I'm learning recently is that when we try our best to do God's will there's always opposition, and there's always blessings as well. These last few weeks have been really trying physically and mentally with all the trainings, travel and exchanges, but at the same time I've been so blessed spiritually and feel very close to the Lord. I see His hand in my life all the time, and many small coincidences on a daily basis help me to know that He's there and is watching out for me. It's always worth it to push through and get the blessings, God makes sure to push us and stretch us when we do His will but after our faith and our patience is tried we get the miracles. I love my mission, and I love serving the Lord and his children! There's no greater work, and no greater happiness than when those you serve and love progress in the Gospel!
I hope everything is going well for you all, have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Awesome New Ward Mission Leader
Hi Everyone!
This week has been exciting, we got a new Ward Mission Leader on Sunday, and he's awesome! He called us after church and wanted to meet with us ASAP along with the assistant WML that got called, so we met for a couple hours and gave him a brief on what's been happening and where the Brethren would like us to go, and he was all for it and shared a lot of his personal goals and philosophies and is really excited about it! He's a really funny guy, still younger, got off his mission about 10 years ago and is really on fire about missionary work!
He has a bunch of plans to get the members more missionary minded over a couple years time, and is helping us get the 15 names process going in the ward. I'm not sure how familiar everyone is with the new way the church is doing missionary work, but basically the High Priests, Elders and Relief Society each come up with 5 names of less-actives or part member families that the missionaries can teach, and then a member goes and invites the person to hear the missionary lessons (the Preach My Gospel ones).
It's pretty simple but for some reason most of the wards in our mission really struggle to get these names, and here in Rifle in the past our ward mission leader would almost just take names from our teaching pool and create a 15 names list to give to the ward, so nothing really got done that way. But, by the end of sunday, after out meeting, our new Ward Mission Leader got each axillary to commit to come up with 5 brand new names that we can get invited and start teaching!
Working with less-active families has been a really big push from the Brethren recently, they like us working with them because when you can get members reactivated, you get a lot of referals because of all their non-member acquaintances, and a lot of times you're twice as effective and can help so many more people!
Honestly the best times on my mission have been when I'm working with less-actives and they progress and bring their friends into the gospel, and I really have a testimony of that kind of work! I'm excited for our Ward mission leader getting involved with us teaching more families like this, because for a while here I've been feeling like things are pretty stagnant and I need something to really sink my teeth into. I want to work hard but it's been hard to know how or where to focus my efforts, but I think with this change and following the brethren (usually they're pretty inspired), the ward will finally catch the spirit and we'll have as much work as we can handle!
Our investigator Steven is struggling a bit, he's on baptismal date for July 9th but he's having a rough go of it with his wife Mindy, they didn't come to church this week and we don't know exactly what could happen. He's talked about going back to Missouri and starting over again, but we're hoping he's able to work things out.
I'm learning a lot right now about being patient in trials and afflictions, I've been sick for almost a week and it's lingering, but I have a lot of responsabilities with the zone and leading my area as well, and I can't slow down or rest to fully recover yet. This whole week is packed and I've been feeling really inadequete and overwhelmed, and in that state of mind it's really easy to get discouraged or to snap at people. True patience though is getting through stuff like this without getting angry and frustrated, not merely enduring and not blowing up and causing negative feelings all around you.
The Lord is good, and I've been leaning on Him a lot and trusting that He'll make me equal to the task, and it's been a good reminder for me that it's the Lord and not me that really is doing the miricals in missionary work. No matter how much experience or time I have, I really need Him just as much as the day I stepped foot in the MTC, fresh and green and terrified of the incredible responsabilities of being the Lord's messenger. I'm so grateful for this opportunity, it's shaped my life and I love the Lord for it!
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
This week has been exciting, we got a new Ward Mission Leader on Sunday, and he's awesome! He called us after church and wanted to meet with us ASAP along with the assistant WML that got called, so we met for a couple hours and gave him a brief on what's been happening and where the Brethren would like us to go, and he was all for it and shared a lot of his personal goals and philosophies and is really excited about it! He's a really funny guy, still younger, got off his mission about 10 years ago and is really on fire about missionary work!
He has a bunch of plans to get the members more missionary minded over a couple years time, and is helping us get the 15 names process going in the ward. I'm not sure how familiar everyone is with the new way the church is doing missionary work, but basically the High Priests, Elders and Relief Society each come up with 5 names of less-actives or part member families that the missionaries can teach, and then a member goes and invites the person to hear the missionary lessons (the Preach My Gospel ones).
It's pretty simple but for some reason most of the wards in our mission really struggle to get these names, and here in Rifle in the past our ward mission leader would almost just take names from our teaching pool and create a 15 names list to give to the ward, so nothing really got done that way. But, by the end of sunday, after out meeting, our new Ward Mission Leader got each axillary to commit to come up with 5 brand new names that we can get invited and start teaching!
Working with less-active families has been a really big push from the Brethren recently, they like us working with them because when you can get members reactivated, you get a lot of referals because of all their non-member acquaintances, and a lot of times you're twice as effective and can help so many more people!
Honestly the best times on my mission have been when I'm working with less-actives and they progress and bring their friends into the gospel, and I really have a testimony of that kind of work! I'm excited for our Ward mission leader getting involved with us teaching more families like this, because for a while here I've been feeling like things are pretty stagnant and I need something to really sink my teeth into. I want to work hard but it's been hard to know how or where to focus my efforts, but I think with this change and following the brethren (usually they're pretty inspired), the ward will finally catch the spirit and we'll have as much work as we can handle!
Our investigator Steven is struggling a bit, he's on baptismal date for July 9th but he's having a rough go of it with his wife Mindy, they didn't come to church this week and we don't know exactly what could happen. He's talked about going back to Missouri and starting over again, but we're hoping he's able to work things out.
I'm learning a lot right now about being patient in trials and afflictions, I've been sick for almost a week and it's lingering, but I have a lot of responsabilities with the zone and leading my area as well, and I can't slow down or rest to fully recover yet. This whole week is packed and I've been feeling really inadequete and overwhelmed, and in that state of mind it's really easy to get discouraged or to snap at people. True patience though is getting through stuff like this without getting angry and frustrated, not merely enduring and not blowing up and causing negative feelings all around you.
The Lord is good, and I've been leaning on Him a lot and trusting that He'll make me equal to the task, and it's been a good reminder for me that it's the Lord and not me that really is doing the miricals in missionary work. No matter how much experience or time I have, I really need Him just as much as the day I stepped foot in the MTC, fresh and green and terrified of the incredible responsabilities of being the Lord's messenger. I'm so grateful for this opportunity, it's shaped my life and I love the Lord for it!
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Playing with the wolf's kids!?!
Hi Everyone!
This week we had some exciting things happen, I'm now officially with Elder Castaneda (pronounced cahst-ahn-yeda) and we're back to full zone leader capabilities. We've had a couple meetings and trainings and have set some goals and focuses for the zone that we're excited about, I've been wanting to implement a leadership style and culture like this since I got to Carbondale over a year ago and I'm really excited to get things started! We're going to be really focusing on the quality of our lessons, because a lot of us are just teaching people that will let us in the door but never really do anything, and those people are hard to get members to lessons with because they don't keep appointments. We've been talking a lot about member-present lessons and the power it gives to us and the ward when we combine and teach people, it'll really forward the work here!
Sunday we had Steve at church again, and this time he brought Mindy his wife and their little 2 year old daughter Arizona! They stayed for all three hours and really enjoyed it, they're progressing well and we'll be going over tonight to set Steve on a baptizmal date. We don't think Mindy's quite ready yet, but the Spirit's been working with both of them and there's a lot of good things happening for the family! We decided to take a member with us tonight, Brother Wolf, who offered to be their fellowshipper and who Arizona chose as well, in Sacrament meeting she was over playing with the Wolf's kids who had coloring books and cheerios! :) Steve and Mindy will have to change their lifestyles quite a bit to accept the gospel, but Steve is really on fire about it all and they know where they want to go!
Unfortunately I got a little gyped on time today, the library's only giving me half an hour, so I have to be brief, but things are going great here in Rifle and in the zone! I love being a missionary and I'm excited to finish strong and see everyone again! I love you all, have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
This week we had some exciting things happen, I'm now officially with Elder Castaneda (pronounced cahst-ahn-yeda) and we're back to full zone leader capabilities. We've had a couple meetings and trainings and have set some goals and focuses for the zone that we're excited about, I've been wanting to implement a leadership style and culture like this since I got to Carbondale over a year ago and I'm really excited to get things started! We're going to be really focusing on the quality of our lessons, because a lot of us are just teaching people that will let us in the door but never really do anything, and those people are hard to get members to lessons with because they don't keep appointments. We've been talking a lot about member-present lessons and the power it gives to us and the ward when we combine and teach people, it'll really forward the work here!
Sunday we had Steve at church again, and this time he brought Mindy his wife and their little 2 year old daughter Arizona! They stayed for all three hours and really enjoyed it, they're progressing well and we'll be going over tonight to set Steve on a baptizmal date. We don't think Mindy's quite ready yet, but the Spirit's been working with both of them and there's a lot of good things happening for the family! We decided to take a member with us tonight, Brother Wolf, who offered to be their fellowshipper and who Arizona chose as well, in Sacrament meeting she was over playing with the Wolf's kids who had coloring books and cheerios! :) Steve and Mindy will have to change their lifestyles quite a bit to accept the gospel, but Steve is really on fire about it all and they know where they want to go!
Unfortunately I got a little gyped on time today, the library's only giving me half an hour, so I have to be brief, but things are going great here in Rifle and in the zone! I love being a missionary and I'm excited to finish strong and see everyone again! I love you all, have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Lot's of work, not much time to write
Hi Everyone!
The big news this week is that Elder Tu'avao is leaving, I'll be getting a new Spanish Zone Leader companion, and most of the zone is getting switched around. There will be big changes and more responsibility as I train the new zone leader (it's his first time being one) and lead the area. I'm excited though, with new challenges come different blessings and lessons, and there's always more to learn here in the mission field!
This week our investigator Steve came to church for the first time, him and his wife Mindy have been going through all kinds of stuff recently and it was really good to see Steve with the kind of self-motivation it takes to fully investigate the gospel, coming to church and fully participating and enjoying it! It was cool, I taught the Gospel Principals class because the person scheduled to teach it fell through last minute, and the topic happened to be the Word of Wisdom, which is Steve's biggest hold up since he is currently in violation of every singe thing mentioned in the word of wisdom, but we happened to have a really small class and every member there had major issues with that commandment before their baptism or reactivation! It was really cool, as we discussed the principles we had members who had been there bearing testimony at almost every principle, and Steve loved it and participated! We'll set a baptismal date with him our next appointment, he says he wants to do it and just needs time to overcome his addictions.
I hope you all have a great week, I'm a little short on time today but I'm so grateful to be a missionary and be out here serving the Lord, there's really nothing better in the world and I'm so privileged to be a part of this work! Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
The big news this week is that Elder Tu'avao is leaving, I'll be getting a new Spanish Zone Leader companion, and most of the zone is getting switched around. There will be big changes and more responsibility as I train the new zone leader (it's his first time being one) and lead the area. I'm excited though, with new challenges come different blessings and lessons, and there's always more to learn here in the mission field!
This week our investigator Steve came to church for the first time, him and his wife Mindy have been going through all kinds of stuff recently and it was really good to see Steve with the kind of self-motivation it takes to fully investigate the gospel, coming to church and fully participating and enjoying it! It was cool, I taught the Gospel Principals class because the person scheduled to teach it fell through last minute, and the topic happened to be the Word of Wisdom, which is Steve's biggest hold up since he is currently in violation of every singe thing mentioned in the word of wisdom, but we happened to have a really small class and every member there had major issues with that commandment before their baptism or reactivation! It was really cool, as we discussed the principles we had members who had been there bearing testimony at almost every principle, and Steve loved it and participated! We'll set a baptismal date with him our next appointment, he says he wants to do it and just needs time to overcome his addictions.
I hope you all have a great week, I'm a little short on time today but I'm so grateful to be a missionary and be out here serving the Lord, there's really nothing better in the world and I'm so privileged to be a part of this work! Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Ugh, More Change :)
Hi Everyone!
I'll have to be a little shorter this week and probably delay responding to my siblings till next week as well, I'm currently in Craig Colorado which is about 90 miles to the north of Rifle (with absolutely nothing in-between) and we came up for their district meeting this morning. Some crazy changes have happened, my companion Elder Hill got a call a couple days ago from the mission president asking him to be the next AP, so he's gone now and I'll be with Elder Tu'avau (from Reno but Tongan decent) for the rest of the week till transfers happens. We were all a little shocked, there was an elder in Denver we were all expecting to get the call, but the Lord calls whom he will and so there's a lot of rapid change in my life right now. :)
This morning I got to train one of the districts for about an hour on how to get member presents, which was fun because the spirit helped me a lot and compensated for me being a single-zone leader, and I've been feeling the Lord's support as I've taken on the challenges of leading an area I'm still learning and a zone that I don't know completely. As much as I resist change by nature (I've been like that my whole life, I used to get sick right before we went on vacation every time because I couldn't handle the change), it's also the way that I learn and grow the fastest.
I'm really grateful for the opportunity, I'm being pushed and stretched in so many ways I hardly have time to think about my return date coming ever closer. It's really a blessing to be busy in the mission field, and I couldn't be happier. There's tough times for sure, but I'm enjoying it all and learning a ton!
Our baptism for this Saturday fell through with Elder Hill leaving, which was pretty disappointing, but we have a lot of other potential people and now I know that I'll be here next transfer as well so I'm working hard to get those people with a baptismal date! We have a great week planned and I'm looking forward to it. Well, sorry to be so short this time, I hope you're all doing well and have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
I'll have to be a little shorter this week and probably delay responding to my siblings till next week as well, I'm currently in Craig Colorado which is about 90 miles to the north of Rifle (with absolutely nothing in-between) and we came up for their district meeting this morning. Some crazy changes have happened, my companion Elder Hill got a call a couple days ago from the mission president asking him to be the next AP, so he's gone now and I'll be with Elder Tu'avau (from Reno but Tongan decent) for the rest of the week till transfers happens. We were all a little shocked, there was an elder in Denver we were all expecting to get the call, but the Lord calls whom he will and so there's a lot of rapid change in my life right now. :)
This morning I got to train one of the districts for about an hour on how to get member presents, which was fun because the spirit helped me a lot and compensated for me being a single-zone leader, and I've been feeling the Lord's support as I've taken on the challenges of leading an area I'm still learning and a zone that I don't know completely. As much as I resist change by nature (I've been like that my whole life, I used to get sick right before we went on vacation every time because I couldn't handle the change), it's also the way that I learn and grow the fastest.
I'm really grateful for the opportunity, I'm being pushed and stretched in so many ways I hardly have time to think about my return date coming ever closer. It's really a blessing to be busy in the mission field, and I couldn't be happier. There's tough times for sure, but I'm enjoying it all and learning a ton!
Our baptism for this Saturday fell through with Elder Hill leaving, which was pretty disappointing, but we have a lot of other potential people and now I know that I'll be here next transfer as well so I'm working hard to get those people with a baptismal date! We have a great week planned and I'm looking forward to it. Well, sorry to be so short this time, I hope you're all doing well and have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Monday, April 18, 2011
What, You're Not Jehovah's Witnesses?
Hi Everyone!
Another wonderful week here in Rifle Colorado, time is passing quick and the work is progressing, I have a few stories and updates I'd like to share!
We've been working with this 9 year old kid for a while now who's mom is a less active member and his dad isn't a member, and he's been on a baptismal date for a while but wasn't progressing much, well this week we went and had a lesson with him and his mom and talked about his upcoming baptism and when we could do it, and we set a more firm date and started to make plans! He'll be baptized on the first weekend in May and we're really excited!
The real miracle is the mom though, because when the missionaries started teaching her a few months ago, she told them that they could talk to and teach her son Ethan, but she didn't want to come back to church and she wasn't ready and there wasn't any use in trying to convince her.
She's been sitting in on lessons though and as Ethan's progressed towards baptism she's softened a bit, and this last lesson finally cracked! Her son asked her in front of us why she doesn't come to church, and she looked at him and told him "you know, I'll go with you to sacrament meeting this time!" It was really miraculous, the spirit has such a power to soften people's hearts and lead them on the course to eternal life if they'll just be open to it!
Another update is that Steve, the guy who came up to us a couple weeks ago and flagged us down as we were driving off is progressing well, him and his wife Mindy finally let us in to teach them and we had a pretty interesting visit, for some reason they had us confused with the Jehovah's Witnesses for half the lesson till we brought up the book of Mormon, which worked out because they actually don't like the JW's at all and were really relieved that Steve's initial impression that we were the "Mormons" turned out to be right!
We had a good laugh about it, Steve looked pretty confused when we were talking about the Book of Mormon and then my companion asked if he could share a scripture from it, and Steve says "you guys have a Book of Mormon???"
It turns out that they've had a lot of really good experiences with our church and they're at a critical point in their lives and marriage that they need the Gospel pretty bad, so we're going to be putting a lot of focus on them and helping them experience the Gospel and the Atonement, which they need a lot of.
I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary and to help people come unto Christ, I love the Gospel and the amazing truths that we have at our fingertips! I hope you all have a great week and have a missionary opportunity during it, there's so many people that need our message and are really looking for it, they just don't know where to look!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Another wonderful week here in Rifle Colorado, time is passing quick and the work is progressing, I have a few stories and updates I'd like to share!
We've been working with this 9 year old kid for a while now who's mom is a less active member and his dad isn't a member, and he's been on a baptismal date for a while but wasn't progressing much, well this week we went and had a lesson with him and his mom and talked about his upcoming baptism and when we could do it, and we set a more firm date and started to make plans! He'll be baptized on the first weekend in May and we're really excited!
The real miracle is the mom though, because when the missionaries started teaching her a few months ago, she told them that they could talk to and teach her son Ethan, but she didn't want to come back to church and she wasn't ready and there wasn't any use in trying to convince her.
She's been sitting in on lessons though and as Ethan's progressed towards baptism she's softened a bit, and this last lesson finally cracked! Her son asked her in front of us why she doesn't come to church, and she looked at him and told him "you know, I'll go with you to sacrament meeting this time!" It was really miraculous, the spirit has such a power to soften people's hearts and lead them on the course to eternal life if they'll just be open to it!
Another update is that Steve, the guy who came up to us a couple weeks ago and flagged us down as we were driving off is progressing well, him and his wife Mindy finally let us in to teach them and we had a pretty interesting visit, for some reason they had us confused with the Jehovah's Witnesses for half the lesson till we brought up the book of Mormon, which worked out because they actually don't like the JW's at all and were really relieved that Steve's initial impression that we were the "Mormons" turned out to be right!
We had a good laugh about it, Steve looked pretty confused when we were talking about the Book of Mormon and then my companion asked if he could share a scripture from it, and Steve says "you guys have a Book of Mormon???"
It turns out that they've had a lot of really good experiences with our church and they're at a critical point in their lives and marriage that they need the Gospel pretty bad, so we're going to be putting a lot of focus on them and helping them experience the Gospel and the Atonement, which they need a lot of.
I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary and to help people come unto Christ, I love the Gospel and the amazing truths that we have at our fingertips! I hope you all have a great week and have a missionary opportunity during it, there's so many people that need our message and are really looking for it, they just don't know where to look!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
PICTURES!!!
Christmas 12 Days with a pillowcase and nativity in it.
Elder Bustos and Elder Janis liking the Christmas pillowcases, or something.
Trying out the pillowcase. Visions of sugarplums dancing in his head.
dog fail.
dangerous tree fail.
Elder Janis with Elder and Sister Merino
Isauro Torrez's Baptism
Elder Janis and his companion Elder Acevedo. Goodbye brother.
Elder Janis and a new companion, Elder Gonzalez.
Emily made Elder Janis and his companion hats on a knitting hat loom thing.
Elder Gonzolez and Elder Janis cutting the hair of, I think, the Hernandez brothers.
Elder Janis has barber skills! Lucky!
The baptism of Seth Young, a nine year old boy.
The baptism of Trino.
Goodbye Hernandez brothers!
Elder Janis with his new companion, Elder Hill.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
You've Got Questions, I've Got Answers
So today I got an email from Mom asking me a few questions, which I'll answer and talk a little bit about the week through it.
Is Carbondale part of your zone?
Yes it is, we actually have our district leader Elder Erni over there who is one of the better spanish missionaries and will probably replace me in a few transfers as a spanish zone leader. I was able to go on exchanges with the Elders there this last week, and had a really good time helping them and teaching some people that I used to work with! It was a little bit wierd being back in the area as a missionary, but we got several more people for the teaching pool from my visit. It was really neat because the Lord really set up the day for us and we just happened to run into 3 families that I'd known before that we'd never taught but it worked out so they'll be taking the lessons now! I was really excited about it, I felt like I was able to contribute to their work because of my experience there.
What cities does your zone cover?
The zone covers basically the whole northwestern quarter of Colorado, it's the biggest zone in the mission and most of it is just out in the middle of nowhere.The major cities we cover are all really small, we've got Eagle on the east (close to Vail), then Glenwood to Aspen, then Rifle and Parachute to the west, and up north we cover from Meeker to Craig to Rangely, and even cover small Baggs Wyoming which only has a couple hundred people in it! It makes you wonder about overpopulation when you go on exchanges with the Meeker Elders and see a total of 5 houses on a 40 mile drive on county roads. :) There's almost nothing in most of the zone, all of the missionaries have cars becuase things are so spread out and we drive more than anyone else in the mission. I love it though, because it's so beautiful, it's the middle of the Rocky mountains and it's amazing no matter where you drive in the zone.
Is your companion a Spanish elder too or not?
Elder Hill is an English missionary, from the Central Valley of California. He's really patient though and endures the lessons that I teach to our spanish investigators, we also are going from Parachute to New Castle (about 60 miles apart along I-70) teaching the spanish people because I'm the only spanish missionary in the area. It's pretty cool for me, we've got some good people progressing, but I feel bad for my companion who has to do a lot of listening.
Are you able to speak Spanish at all?
I don't speak spanish too much, but in the 3-4 lessons I teach in spanish each week I get a pretty good concentrated dose, I was worried a little that it would affect my spanish to have to serve in an english area, but fortunately the Lord's prepared me and is blessing me, I'm still just as fluent when I need to use it.
Do you study the language in the morning?
I'm teaching Elder Hill spanish in the mornings for Language Study, when we get the chance. Our things we have to do as zone leaders often get in the way, but it's alright because speaking is really the best study for me at this point.
I love you all.
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Is Carbondale part of your zone?
Yes it is, we actually have our district leader Elder Erni over there who is one of the better spanish missionaries and will probably replace me in a few transfers as a spanish zone leader. I was able to go on exchanges with the Elders there this last week, and had a really good time helping them and teaching some people that I used to work with! It was a little bit wierd being back in the area as a missionary, but we got several more people for the teaching pool from my visit. It was really neat because the Lord really set up the day for us and we just happened to run into 3 families that I'd known before that we'd never taught but it worked out so they'll be taking the lessons now! I was really excited about it, I felt like I was able to contribute to their work because of my experience there.
What cities does your zone cover?
The zone covers basically the whole northwestern quarter of Colorado, it's the biggest zone in the mission and most of it is just out in the middle of nowhere.The major cities we cover are all really small, we've got Eagle on the east (close to Vail), then Glenwood to Aspen, then Rifle and Parachute to the west, and up north we cover from Meeker to Craig to Rangely, and even cover small Baggs Wyoming which only has a couple hundred people in it! It makes you wonder about overpopulation when you go on exchanges with the Meeker Elders and see a total of 5 houses on a 40 mile drive on county roads. :) There's almost nothing in most of the zone, all of the missionaries have cars becuase things are so spread out and we drive more than anyone else in the mission. I love it though, because it's so beautiful, it's the middle of the Rocky mountains and it's amazing no matter where you drive in the zone.
Is your companion a Spanish elder too or not?
Elder Hill is an English missionary, from the Central Valley of California. He's really patient though and endures the lessons that I teach to our spanish investigators, we also are going from Parachute to New Castle (about 60 miles apart along I-70) teaching the spanish people because I'm the only spanish missionary in the area. It's pretty cool for me, we've got some good people progressing, but I feel bad for my companion who has to do a lot of listening.
Are you able to speak Spanish at all?
I don't speak spanish too much, but in the 3-4 lessons I teach in spanish each week I get a pretty good concentrated dose, I was worried a little that it would affect my spanish to have to serve in an english area, but fortunately the Lord's prepared me and is blessing me, I'm still just as fluent when I need to use it.
Do you study the language in the morning?
I'm teaching Elder Hill spanish in the mornings for Language Study, when we get the chance. Our things we have to do as zone leaders often get in the way, but it's alright because speaking is really the best study for me at this point.
I love you all.
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Monday, April 4, 2011
The Lord's Way Is The Best Way
Hi Everyone!
This week was really exciting, we had a zone conference and then general conference, I got a lot out of both of them and gained a greater appreciation for the Lord's anointed. It's been so interesting to have this assignment, I'm getting a real inside look at how missions work and it's expanded my perspective a lot on how the church as a whole works.
After a long weekend of councils and meetings and conference calls with the mission president discussing the general and specific problems and challenges in the mission, I had a new perspective on how he receives his revelation and inspiration to lead the mission, and I saw some of the same things underlying the addresses at general conference.
I love how the Lord helps us grow so much by not just giving us all the answers all the time, even to the general authorities and presidencies of the church. The process is so much better the Lord's way, because as we counsel and search and ponder and struggle and make mistakes, we learn so much more than if the Lord just blessed us with specific direct revelation all the time.
After a long weekend of councils and meetings and conference calls with the mission president discussing the general and specific problems and challenges in the mission, I had a new perspective on how he receives his revelation and inspiration to lead the mission, and I saw some of the same things underlying the addresses at general conference.
I love how the Lord helps us grow so much by not just giving us all the answers all the time, even to the general authorities and presidencies of the church. The process is so much better the Lord's way, because as we counsel and search and ponder and struggle and make mistakes, we learn so much more than if the Lord just blessed us with specific direct revelation all the time.
This week we had a cool experience, we were leaving the house of person who'd fallen through on the appointment we had, and we were a little bummed, but as we were driving off a guy on the sidewalk flagged us down and came over to the car, and started telling us that he wants to meet with us and learn more about the church! Apparently he'd had a lot of really good experiences with Latter Day Saints in Utah where he'd been, and wanted to see what we were all about! We have an appointment with him tomorrow, he's a cool guy and i could see him progressing really fast!
I'm not sure what else to report on, I'm having a great time and am feeling the spirit a lot, and I feel like I'm helping the missionaries in the zone and the investigators in the area. There's really nothing better I could ask for, it's wonderful being a missionary and I love the experience! I wouldn't trade it for the world! Have a great week everyone, thanks for all your love and prayers! God really does answer them and I see His blessings every day!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
I is havin’ to lern me english agin
Hi Everyone!
Well, I'm now in Rifle Colorado, which was a surprise to everyone, since Rifle hasn't had a Spanish zone leader for more than half a year and we all thought I'd be in the city! I is sure glad to be here though with all them country folk, I is havin’ to learn english again and I is teaching a bunch and getting’ real familiarized with all that right there! We is in a pretty small town, I bet there ain’t more than a few thousand folk here and I is havin’ a hard time gettin’ used to it all.
In all seriousness, I'm actually having a little bit of culture shock from not speaking Spanish much anymore, and also working in an English area and ward. The people out here aren't as hick as I was fearing, they're really good people and there's a mix of just about everything here. The town is literally tiny, it can't be more than 4-5 miles long and not very wide, and most of it is the "downtown" section which reminds you of the wild west. All the shops have the name of a gun company on them, up to and including the "Winchester Hotel"! I'm really excited to be here though and back in the Meeker zone, really close to my old beloved area in Carbondale/Aspen. I love being out here in the mountains and country, it makes you appreciate God and His amazing creations, you loose that sense of nature when you're in Denver too long.
It's been cool learning how to be a Zone Leader and see how the mission works from the inside, it's a little challenging at times and a little stressful but I'm learning a ton from it and wouldn't have it any other way. I'm really grateful the Lord giving me this opportunity here at the end of my mission, it's a gentle reminder to keep going strong till the end and not slow down, the Lord still has plenty to teach me and I'm trying to soak it all up. We've got a lot of people here progressing towards baptism and we're working hard, it's actually harder for me to teach in English now but I'm slowly getting the gift of tongues in reverse, it's a weird feeling to be trying to learn English better but it's fun! :) I can't wait till Ethan comes back and he'll be desperate to talk in Spanish, I'll help him with the transition as he gets massive culture shock! I can't even imagine coming home from a foreign country, I speak English most of the day and it's hard even for me in my own country!
I love you all so much, I hope all is well at home and that everyone is doing well! I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Damon
Monday, March 21, 2011
Called to be Zone Leader and Impressions of the Spirit
Hi Everyone!
Well, I'm not really sure what to say today, I'm kind of in shock because I got a call from my mission president on Sunday telling me that he's calling me to be a Zone Leader, and I'm going to be transfered. It was the futhest thing from my mind when I was thinking about transfers, I was set that I was going to stay in Denver 4th, possibly till I ended my mission. It took me off guard pretty well, and I'm just trying to pull myself together to be ready for the challenges it'll present. We're fairly confident I'm going to go to Barnum Park, a small english area inside of the Denver 1st area (so I'm already familiar with the area), because almost all of the spanish Zone Leaders serve there. I don't really know what to think but I'm excited for it, there's a lot of opportunities especially to help other missionaries and I'm looking forward to that. Sometimes I feel like I'm almost better at helping missionaries than investigators, maybe I just relate to them a little better.
Something interesting we've been doing with the kids of a family in the ward that kind of came out of the blue is helping them use better language by having them read a verse out loud in the Book of Mormon for every swear word they say, it's pretty funny to watch and it's actually helped a lot! The 13 year old girl, Rachel, has actually seen a lot of improvement and her friends have noticed, it's a cool thing and she's setting an example for her friends! Creative ideas usually work good in missionary work I'm finding, we were able to get a couple less-active kids to church because I promised I'd do a dumb-looking tie knot if they came, it's called the "waterfall" and basically you just don't put the tie through the last loop so it's just flapped over, and it looks pretty bad! It's funny though because it actually worked!
I'd like to share a little about a couple experiences I've had recently that have taught me about the power of the Holy Ghost in giving us messages, the first is back in Carbondale where I spent 8 months, at the end of it one day (before I even knew I was leaving) I had the thought to get down on my knees and ask the Lord if He was pleased with my efforts in the area and if my offering was acceptable to Him. It surprized me how fast the answer came, I felt this incredible feeling of warmth, love, and peace come over me and I knew at that moment that God Loved me and was pleased with me. I can't even describe how amazing that feeling is, there's nothing in the world that can bring you down when you feel that acceptance, because you know you're doing the Lord's will and He's happy with you. Again, yesterday after I got the call that I was being transfered, we were sharing a lesson with a couple members where we talk about the atonement, play a hymn while we close our eyes, then ask for referals, and during the hymn I got the same impression: ask. So I sent up the mental petition and got my answer back just as fast, I felt the Lord communicate to me that I'd accomplished the purpose for which He's sent me here. I love this Gospel so much and I know that it's true, it really doesn't matter what anyone else says or does becuase I have a true relationship with my Heavenly Father and as long as I know I'm right with Him, there's nothing that can shake me. I'm so grateful for these experiences, I'm so grateful to be a missionary as well. It's the most incredible thing I've ever done, that's ever happened to me!
These next few weeks should be full of new experiences, new people and new cultures, I'm excited for it and hope I can get down some of the stories and write them here in the email! I hope you all have a great week, I love you all!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Monday, March 14, 2011
To Cousins, Brothers, and Friends Who Are Preparing for a Mission
Hi Everyone!
I'd like to address this email primarily to my younger cousins, brothers, and friends who are preparing for a mission, or would like to serve a mission some day. First off, I'd like you all to know that a mission is the most wonderful and amazing thing you could ever do at this time in your life, and it's worth it to go no matter what the sacrifice is. There are so many people in this world that need the blessings of the Gospel, and God is preparing them to know the missionaries and the church, and He knows which people you can help specifically. When you're sent to your mission you find those people, you love them and you teach them, and when they progress and accept the Gospel, and live the way that makes them happy, you're happy with them and it's an incredible feeling!
A mission can completely change your life, because you really come to know God and Jesus Christ, through prayer and study, and seeing people's lives change. You don't have to focus very much on money or things, you can focus on people and see them how God sees them, and you have the spirit with you all the time. I'm so grateful for my mission, now I understand why the prophets in the Book of Mormon were so excited about sharing the Gospel with people, it makes them so much happier and it makes you so much happier! I love the Gospel, I know that the church is true and that we have living Prophets and Apostles! I hope that all of you who are thinking about serving a mission will decide to do it, it's the best thing you'll ever do!
I love you all, I hope the week goes great! Sorry I don't have a lot of time to write today, but I hope you can feel my testimony of the missionary work, I really love it and I don't want anyone to miss out on it!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Someone needs a lesson on the Word of Wisdom
Hi Everyone!
Yesterday, Sunday, was pretty crazy. As we were heading to Stake Conference in our car, we passed by a guy in the streets, and recognized him as Adan, one of our current investigators, and he looked pretty beat up and dirty. We pulled over and talked to him, he asked for a ride while jumping in the car and we didn't have much choice but to give him a ride back to his house. He told us something about how he was working in downtown (like half an hour from his house) and his friend who took him had to leave early so he had to start walking home, but we didn't really believe him because we could smell alcohol and he was limping, it looked like he'd been in a bar-fight or something. It was pretty sad, we dropped him off at his house so he could get cleaned up, he didn't end up coming to the conference and was already asleep at 7:00 that night when we passed by. It was probably a good thing that we passed by when we did, he looked drunk and still had like an hour walk across big streets to get home, and it could have been a lot worse. We'll have to teach a really good Word of Wisdom lesson soon. :)
On Saturday we had a weird experience trying to teach some people from Nepal, I don't even know where that is but they looked Indian, and our translation between us and the family was the 15 year old daughter who my companions informed me later was totally staring at me the entire time, and her English wasn't very good so we didn't get anywhere. We tried to go to Mormon.org as a last resort, but they didn't have it in Nepalese or whatever they speak, so the lesson fell flat and we were out of options because of the language barrier. What's weird is that the next day we found the same family coming out of a pentecostal church right as we dropped of Adan at his house, there was actually a whole swarm of Nepalese people that were walking down the middle of the street and we couldn't move for a couple minutes. :) It made me glad to be a Spanish missionary, people and a culture I can understand! :)
I'm so happy to be a missionary right now, we've got a bunch of great things going on, including a baptism on Saturday! Trino's ready and it's going to be great! I hope you all have a great week, I love you all!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Monday, February 28, 2011
Moving Miracles
Hi Everyone!
Baptism!!!! This last saturday we had the opportunity to hold the baptism of Seth Young, a 9 year old boy who was born in the covenant but because of work, procrastination, and several obstacles, he turned 9 and so we had to come teach and baptize him as a convert. It was a really good thing for the family though, which has been struggling a little bit, but the mom got up in testimony meeting and talked a little about it and the blessings God has given them as they've put the priority back on church and the Lord. The service went really well and the ward showed up to support, we couldn't ask for more.
I hardly have any time, server issues with the Presidents Letter took up most of my time, but quickly on Sunday we were out tracting and I'd been fasting for a miracle in the work. As we were going we saw a family moving into a house and so we offered to help, and they gratefully accepted. We finished up really quick what would have been a really long, hard task for them, and they were really grateful. The cool part is that the lady moving in has a bofriend who's an inactive member, and they've been praying to know what church to go to. While we were helping them, she called him up and told him that we were there, and he told her: Maybe that's a sign from God! Miracles do happen, the church is true!
We've got a third companion now, Elder Simcox, from here in Colorado, in a several week transition from Chile to Arizona, he got his call changed for medical reasons.
I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Friday, February 25, 2011
Baptism Date Set and More Blessings
Hi Everyone!
I'd like to talk for a minute about the blessing of the Lord for faithful service. As me and Elder Gonzalez have been putting in everything we have to the work, we've seen some incredible things happen and I'm not sure I'll get it all in, time's a little short today. The first thing is that Trino, the investigator who's wife passed away recently and who we helped with the funeral arrangements, now has a baptismal date for March 12th! He's still been struggling with the passing of his companion, but we helped him realize that the next step to spiritual healing is his baptizm, making covenants with the Lord and progressing in his personal spiritual life!
This Tuesday we were at the church talking to the mutual kids and playing a little indoor soccer with them, and all of a sudden a brother in the ward came up to me and asked: i have a 9 year old son that we havn't baptized yet, and his grandparents are coming into town next weekend. When can you start teaching him and get him baptized? It was amazing, a baptism that just popped out of the woodwork, we'll be doing the service this Saturday and the kid is totally ready and prepared!
We've also seen an outpouring of support from the ward, bishopric, and mission, there are some big changes coming with our building situation and the referals from the ward have been pouring in. I feel so blessed to be here right now, this truly is the Lord's work and He really does bless those who serve with all their "heart, might, mind and strenght!" I love you all, have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Constantly Nourishing our Testimonies
iHola Familia! (iY los demas!)
I feel a little more Spanish today than usual, these past couple weeks I've been upping my effort to love the people and the culture I serve, I had a talk with my companion a while back that made me realize that while I've given it my mind, might and strength, I haven't given it my heart and so I can't access the trust of the people as well. It's been interesting to recognize that weakness that I have and work on loving these people, I've found that I don't have to love my own country or culture any less but to just really enjoy and appreciate the differences. It's mostly been just a shift of focus, I realize that when I pay attention when I'm in small cramped apartment with lots of people either teaching or socializing, or just out and among the people and sharing the Gospel with these amazing humble people, I really enjoy it and wouldn't trade it for the world! There's so many amazing things about the Spanish people and their culture, different foods and items of courtesy (like always offering food, fastest way to win over a Janis!), and I love being here with them, serving them.
So this past week was transfers, and I am now serving in the same area with Elder Gonzalez, who I actually served with before (deja vu in more than one way) in Carbondale/Aspen, and we're having a really good time! He was born in Mexico City, but moved to the states when he was less than 2 years old, and has lived in West Valley Utah for a while. He's a hard worker and we're getting a lot of good results, we're now both in the *ahem* "mature" parts of our missions (only a few months left), so we're giving everything we've got and we have the experience to be effective now.
For sake of a reminder, my current address for the next 5 weeks is:
1325 Garfield St. #111
Denver, CO, 80206
There's been some crazy changes in our area this transfer, basically they took out the Elders that covered the South of the ward and put in a pair of Sister missionaries, and we've eliminated the border so now both pairs cover the entire ward area! It's been a little stressful for all of us I think but it's already reaping huge results, the first and foremost is that we can now eat dinners separately and thus be much better in tune with the members. In the past we've had all 4 of us Elders at dinner each night, and not only is it a big burden for the family with food, but also it's hard to focus on the families because they don't eat at the table with you if there's 4. It's been working great and we'll be able to get a lot more referrals this way. Also, this frees us up to find the Less Actives in the entire ward, and it turns out that most of them lived in the south anyway, so my organizing impulses are going crazy and there's a ton for us to do finding the "lost sheep" and at the same time updating records of the people who've moved.
A cool thing that happened this week is when we went to find a former investigator in our records, and what we found instead was an entire part-member family! The daughter of the former investigator turned out to be a member (and was about our age and left my companion speechless in the lesson :), and had come back to live with her parents for a while! Her parents had investigated with some sister missionaries but hadn't really progressed, but we were able to talk to them and they're interested in hearing the lessons again, and accompanying their daughter at church! They didn't come yesterday, but we're hoping that with a little bit of a push they'll start going and have the entire family in the church!
Something else that happened is we found a less active family to teach that had been taught and baptized by Elder Gonzalez while he was here at the start of his mission, it's a couple of teenage girls and their mom who fell off the ward radar after they were baptized and without fellowship started going to a Christian church and have gotten confused. It's pretty sad, but luckily they still love the missionaries and want to learn again, so we're teaching them from scratch. I've found that the principle is true that's taught in the Book of Mormon, that when we accept God's will, we receive knowledge little by little till it becomes a fullness, and when we disobey God our knowledge is taken away little by little till we have nothing. This family at one point had a burning testimony and conviction of the truth of the Restored Gospel, but from neglect and time they hardly even remembered who Joseph Smith is. It's a testimony to me that we have to be constantly nourishing our testimonies or we lose them, there's just too much opposition in the world and the Adversary is too focused for us to ever just kick it into neutral and think that "all is well in Zion".
I'm so happy to be here as a missionary, I love the Gospel and I love this work! There are so many blessings the Lord has given me for my service, and the constant spiritual support and sometimes take for granted is going to be sorely missed when I go home. I'm so grateful for this opportunity right now though, the Lord has placed me in the highest potential Spanish area in the mission, and has given me the tools and companion to be able to effect "a marvelous work and a wonder" in a small way among these people. Thank you all so much for your support and prayers, have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
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