Elder Alvarez, the 6’3” Companion

Hi Everyone!

I am now serving with Elder Alvarez, (All-ba-dess) who comes from Bakersfield California and knew Spanish all his life. He's fresh and new from only 3 short weeks at the MTC and is ready to learn and ready to work!

He's about 6'3", which is really interesting because we look funny with me being the trainer, but he's confident and social and doesn't have a problem with opening his mouth.

He's a great guy and is very teachable, I'm enjoying being able to show him a good example of how to be obedient and invite the spirit. I'm doing everything I can to give him the best possible training, so that he'll have full agency and responsibility for how he decides to be as he develops as a missionary.

We're working a lot on teaching the first lesson (the restoration) in English, because he's much more comfortable with the gospel in Spanish and even spoke purely in Spanish at the MTC (he's fluent in English, was born here in the states, but always went to a Spanish branch so his gospel vocabulary in English is smaller).

I'm excited to serve with him because we'll be able to bring the spirit to our lessons and really make an impact on the area! I'm so glad I got to stay here for another 6 weeks, I think the Lord has more for me to do and I'm excited for the opportunity!

Probably the most exciting thing that happened this week is that I got the chance to go to Denver to be trained by the Mission President and the AP's on the new 8 lessons, the trainings that the Brethren are giving all the missions right now.

It was an incredible experience, with 12 hours of classes on Monday and 7 more on Tuesday, and the spirit was strong and told me some things I can improve on and how to help my area. I'm excited to implement the instruction and become a better teacher, this is exactly what I've needed to get to the next level of missionary service.

Something Dad would be interested in is that the format they taught us for asking questions is almost the same as the system he's developed, asking a search question before the principal or scripture, then a question to analyze it, then an apply question, then a testimony question, where the investigator ends up sharing his own testimony about the principal.

For example, talking about prayer you can teach it to where they end up bearing testimony that God can answer prayers, and after that you can commit them to pray if what we've taught is true.

It's pretty cool, I've been trying to use the principal since Dad told me about it, and it really does work!

We've finally got an investigator in Aspen! It's the friend of the 2nd counselor, a lady in her 50's who's searching. She's got a lot of questions, we met with her at the beginning of the summer and had a good talk but she's been on vacation for months, but we have another appointment for next Tuesday!

I think she might be the key for opening up the work here, if she's baptized the branch will get more motivated and see that it's possible!

We're going on splits with the Branch president in Spanish regularly, also with the 2nd counselor who served a mission in Ecuador 14 years ago and is loving the chance to do missionary work again. We put a family of 3 on date this week, hopefully we'll be able to prepare them and help them get ready, the spirit told us to invite them to be baptized but there's still a few commandment issues to work out.

We're excited, God is really blessing us and helping us in the work, I'm so grateful to be a missionary and I love the gospel! It's true and it's the most amazing thing in the world, keep praying for us that some miracles will happen!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

More Pictures!

Elder Janis on the left and his companion, Elder Arangua on the far right.

Elder Arangua and Elder Janis eating a birthday cake that was delivered on his birthday.

He got a birthday package from Heather and she sent him a dinosaur. She said when she saw it, it said "Damon!" He loves it, named it Hugo and he and his companion use him as an investigator and practice discussions on him in the mornings.:)

Package from Mom, with a tie and socks.

More ties from his birthday

Birthday card

The bed bugs. Yuck!

Ouch!

Brand New Comp, an Involved Branch President, and Killing Blood Sucking Mini-Cockroaches

Howdy Everyone!

Big changes are here, and I'm not talking about saying howdy instead of Hi this time!!!

I'm going to be training a brand new missionary, who's coming from 3 weeks in the MTC (already fluent in Spanish and English), and I'll be picking him up on Thursday! I'm SUPER excited, this is exactly the change that this area needs and it's what I've been hoping and praying for during the last few weeks!!!

The two branches we work in are on the point of exploding in the missionary work, and I think my new companion might just be able to catalyze that change!

We're going to be going on splits tonight with the branch president in Carbondale, to visit a bunch of inactive members in the Glenwood area (our biggest part). The President is finally making some real effort to help us get the inactives back, that after a meeting where we'd asked him before-hand to pray and ask for inspiration for what we need to do with the branch, and so now we have the priesthood keys in charge and I think it'll make all the difference.

Pray for us, a lot's going to be happening in the next few weeks and with the Lord's help we'll see some miracles!

We've gotten the first 4 lessons now of the 8, which are basically to focus us on the important aspects of the work. We've learned about our purpose, the role of the spirit and the Book of Mormon in conversion, and have been having role plays to practice what we're learning. It's nothing new or revolutional, but I'm learning a lot about how to be more focused on teaching people instead of teaching lessons, and I'm realizing more the importance of charity and the spirit in teaching.

Unfortunately, because I'm staying I can't talk about the bedbugs yet, so that nobody freaks out because we've had them in our apartment for a while and the entire apartment building will be sprayed on Friday.

I suppose I'll have to talk about the mini-cockroach looking things that suck your blood at night and that the fact that the only chemical powerful enough to get rid of them completely is DHT, the one that was made illegal in the 60's, but since I don't want to scare anyone I'll hold off for a while.

Then again, I'll be sending pictures soon and you'll see for yourselves, so it won't be much longer I'll bet. :) In reality though, we do have bedbugs but it's not because we live in a dirty place, they're just hard to control pests that even infested the Rockefeller theatre in New York and have been going around the apartments in our mission as well.

The worst of it is over though, they've already sprayed once and it helped, and now they'll be spraying the entire building about 5 different times to get them out completely. Kinda makes me feel like a foreign missionary though! :)

Things are going great here, I'm really excited for the change and I love the way the Lord works to prepare members, missionaries and areas for His own purposes, in ways that we don't always comprehend. I'm so grateful to be a missionary, I know that this church is true and I know that this is truly the Lord's work! Keep us in your prayers, have a great week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

The Missionary Work is Going Great!

Hi Everyone!

I'm starting to think i might change the Hi Everyone title. I came up with it in the MTC under enormous pressure to get all my communications done in 30 minutes, but it's stuck and I haven't changed it yet. :)

We'll see what happens, unfortunately I still have a similar time limit for communication and it takes too much effort to be more creative.

Anyway, the missionary work is going great! We'll be meeting with both of our branch presidents in the next 2 days, to engage the priesthood keys and get the Lord's direction for what needs to happen here. We have transfers next week, so we'll see if I'm staying or leaving, so send everything to the mission address please for a while.

I've been so blessed to be able to serve in this area, I've grown so much and have learned so many valuable lessons I'll use for the rest of my life, including motivation to never let myself become inactive for someone offending me.

We taught a family yesterday who had lost their house in Utah because of a biased Mormon judge, and so they decided to be mad at the church and are missing the blessings that they need more than ever in their lives.

Hopefully they'll come back, they seemed receptive to our message about the church being perfect, but not the people.

I'm out of time for today, I got cut short by a bunch of people being in the library today, but thank you all so much for your prayers and thoughts, God is blessing me so much and makes me so grateful to be a missionary! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

The Day of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Hi Everyone!

I'd like to share an experience I had this week on Monday, which starts with a lot of frustrating tracting in some rich neighborhoods in Basalt.

Basically we tracted for 3-4 hours in houses that were easily a half-million a piece, and we weren't finding much success or many happy people (interesting how that works, isn't it? :), but we did happen to run into a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses!

In total we ran into them 4 times, and each time had a conversation with them and had to pretend we didn't realize they were prodding us to bible-bash, instead just bearing testimony and being polite. Getting near the time of our dinner appointment, we decided to take a break and tract in a trailer park, so we did and found a variety of people, which is the great thing about trailers.

We talked to an English lady and offered service, and she said she didn't need anything but there was a lady across the street who was sick with MS and might need a hand. So, we went over and talked to her, and as luck would have it she was a Jehovah's Witness and although she didn't need any help she was so excited to be able to talk about religion with someone that we decided it was a form of service to listen to her and take the Bible and magazines she was trying to give us.

I threw the bible into my pack and forgot about it, but left wondering why we'd been talking to people of that particular religion all day.
After that we went straight to our dinner appointment, a family of a brother and his two teenage sisters who's parents live in Honduras and haven't been with them for a long time.

The youngest sister, she's like 15, went to California to be with her aunt and her family for a few weeks, and she'd gotten back like 10 minutes before we got there. We started talking to her about how her trip had been and she told us that her aunt's family were Jehovah's Witnesses, and that they'd been trying to shove their religion at her non-stop the whole trip! She'd even been to their church a couple times, and had a couple funny stories about it all.

We started talking about our experience from the day, talking to so many people of that faith, and pulled out the magazines and bible we'd gotten. She recognized one of the magazines, which she'd been given and had actually just been looking through!

Being a little concerned about it, for the spiritual thought after dinner I pulled out the Jehovah's Witnesses bible I had and shared two scriptures, one in 2 Thessalonians 2:2-3 about the Apostasy, and the other in Acts 3:20-21 about the "restitution of all things", in other words the Restoration. I showed how even in their bible it was clear that there would be a time without the truth, and that God would eventually have called a prophet to usher in this final dispensation.

Then I bore my testimony that I knew the church was true, not because I'd proved it with the bible but because I'd prayed and received answers that it's true and so it doesn't matter how persuasive the arguments of men are, we can be sure of the truth and not have to worry.

The spirit was really strong in the room, I felt it bear witness as I gave my testimony, and I realized why we'd had all those conversations and been put through a hard day!

It was so worth it to feel that sweet confirmation of the Spirit of the truths of the Gospel, and I knew that it was exactly what the girl had needed to hear and feel after that faith-testing experience!

Everything is going pretty well, we're hoping to get more of the inactives back to church soon as the summer tourist season comes to a close, so many people can't get off Sundays and it's really been a challenge for the missionary effort. I know that the Lord will bless us though as we keep trusting him and working hard, He has plans for these people and will use us as instruments in His hands if we do our best.

I'm so grateful to be a missionary, and I love the Gospel! I hope you all have a great week, don't hesitate to share what you know to be true with anyone, because this is really what brings the greatest joy and happiness in the whole world! Take care!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

PICTURES! -Summer in Aspen and Carbondale

Elder Janis and his companion, Elder Arangua

Panorama gorgeous world

And for your viewing pleasure, some videos!

Apostolic Blessing More Powerful than a Shredded Tire

Hi Everyone!

We've had an interesting last few days, because an brand new elder being trained close to us was put with us in a temporary 3-some. It was fun to see his energy and excitement to share the gospel, and share some of our experience with him as well.

We actually found a really solid couple to teach on Sunday night, the first day he was with us, and we set up an appointment for Tuesday which they kept and listened intently! We basically just taught the Restoration again, because they'd forgotten most of it in the couple days, but this time we introduced the Book of Mormon, gave them a copy and invited them to church!

They really seem humble and ready to learn, I'm just really hoping that they'll like church in our tiny branch and the spirit will touch them!

We also found a kid named Jaime to teach, and he seems pretty interested as well, we'll be going back in about a week.

The weather here has been incredible, it's not extremely hot and it's perfect in the evenings, and even though the locals are complaining about an unusually hot summer I feel like I've died and gone to heaven! :)

The mountains are green, lush, and beautiful, in fact last p-day we went up a mountain in Glenwood Springs and down a bike path, which turned out to be a lot harder and more dangerous than we expected, but also incredible!

The bike I was on got a flat tire coming down the bike path, which was steep, winding, and had some rocks and cliffs that were a lot more dangerous than we'd been told about, unfortunately I didn't realize that my tire was flat and I was basically riding down the mountain on my back rim.

The Lord miraculously protected me though, and I didn't have any problems or have reason to notice my tire hanging by threads to my rim till I was off the mountain and on pavement again, and then I was slipping around and almost fell off on the flat ground, and I looked back and saw the tattered thing hanging limply off the tire!

The Lord really does protect his missionaries, if my tire had slipped (which logically it should have) on one of the sharp turns with a cliff right there, I'd probably be in the hospital right now or worse.

I'm definitely going to be a lot more careful from now on, but I think the Lord protected me because we had no idea of what we were getting into from what other people had told us about the path. That's a direct fulfillment of a blessing Elder Scott gave me in the MTC, he told all the missionaries there that we'd be protected physically if we 1. weren't being stupid, and 2. followed the spirit.

I heard from a sister in my MTC district, who got hit by a car while on a bike, flew off, and didn't have any scratches or bruises. Is an apostolic blessing real? I believe so. :)

I hope you all have a great week, and stay close to the Lord! Thanks so much for all your thoughts and prayers!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis