The Centrality of Love in Missionary Work

iHola a Todos!

I feel like speaking Spanish today, not sure exactly why. I've been very blessed by the Lord in my language abilities, and have been able to pick up more and more fluidity with time. A couple weeks ago I had a landmark event in Spanish, a lady actually asked me what country I was from after hearing me speak! I'm amazed at how the Lord has blessed me even though I don't speak much Spanish most days. I talk in English with my companion because he's a native Spanish speaker and it helps him with his accent so he'll be more comfortable with the intimidating Americans in Aspen. It's amazing though that even with that, I've been able to continue learning and becoming more familiar with the language. I never would have believed it possible even a year ago.

We've had more spare time than usual lately, and we've used some of that to clean out all of our records that the missionaries in the past kept. It's been interesting, we discovered that about 75% of the teaching records created for investigators never should have been created in the first place, because they're mostly spanish people who let the missionaries in to teach 1 lesson, to "hear the word of God", and then never can be found again.

So, I spent about 4 hours transfering all their information to a different form, the "potential investigator" sheet, and we've been working off of that list now to contact these people who at one point let the missionaries in but never really investigated. We've had a couple lessons off of that so far. They weren't the people we were actually looking for, but we did find some of their neighbors who were interested in hearing us, hopefully they'll progress a little bit and we'll have more investigators!

I had a cool experience this last Thursday at a District Meeting. I had an elder train about the role of prayer in conversion, which is one of the 8 Preach My Gospel trainings we've been given, and then I was going to train on the centrality of love in missionary work. I'd been inspired to train on that topic right after I recieved my call to leadership, but I hadn't had time to do it, and this last meeting I was only left with about 10 minutes, so I shortened it and gave it anyways.

As I was teaching, the spirit filled my mouth and started teaching truths that I'd never thought about before, and gave me some answers to questions I'd had for a while. In your missionary call letter, the 1st Presidency tells you that "more joy and happiness await you than you have ever before experienced as you lose yourself in the Lord's service", or something to that effect. I'd wondered before how that was possible, because a lot of the time I find missionary work to be hard and not always joyful.

What the spirit taught me as I was speaking is that when we truly do lose ourselves in the work, and when we have charity for and love the people we teach, we recieve more joy and happiness than we've ever experienced when they make decisions to progress and change, and that's how it works. You get out of it what you put in, because if you really make the effort to seek for the gift of charity and really love the people, their progress will fill you with joy.

I love being a misisonary right now, in these last days, and I'm so grateful for the blessings I've recieved from the Lord! This is truly His work, and He's carrying out His plans for His children, and it's awesome to be a part of it! I love you all, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Damon Janis

What does auto body work, reactivity, and repentance have in common?

Hi Everyone!
 
This has been a great week, we're seeing more of the blessings from our focus on service.

There's a less-active family in the branch that we've been working with since I got here but haven't made much headway, well the other week we started telling them about our emphasis on service and offered our time to help them in any way. They have a truck that their 14 year old son crashed while trying to impress his friends, he slammed straight into a tree and bent the front of the truck in almost perfectly, as if the front of a train had hit it.

Well, the engine was mostly untouched, but the front part of the frame was pretty messed up, so my companion offered his expertise in cars to help them get the frame straightened out. So, we went to the local ACE hardware store and bought 2 small propane tanks with a flame attachment, as well as a pull-cable thing (like what you'd use to get a truck out of the mud)  and we went with the 14 year old to start rearranging the shape of the steel.

It was pretty fun, we got permission from our Zone Leaders to use the torches, so we set about heating up the metal to several hundred degrees and using the pull-lever attached to a tree on one end and the bent metal on the other to make it straight.

It worked like a charm, I was actually amazed that we were able to get it so well. I forgot to take pictures, I was too focused, but I'll take some of the finished product still because you can see where the damage was.
 
The cool part is that when the father of the family came home that night (he'd previously been pretty discouraged about coming to church and getting active again) he went out with his wife to see what we'd done, and he broke down into tears.

We found out that the truck (their van is currently out with a broken transmission, we're helping fix the truck so they can get to church) was actually a gift from some members a few years ago, and it had been given to them then so they could get to church.

When the father realized who was fixing their truck now, and for what purpose, he was overwhelmed by the spirit because he realized it was a message from God telling them how much He wants them in His church.

This is so exciting for me, because this is one of my favorite families here and they're finally on track to get back into activity, and in the process we're helping out the almost 15 year old kid, who's taking the chance to re-evaluate his life and the power of repentance!
 
I'm so grateful for this gospel, I'm so glad I'm able to be a part of it and to share it with others! There's nothing in the world more satisfying than helping another person who you love receive the wonderful blessings our Heavenly Father has in store for us!

I love the church, the doctrines of the Restoration, the Plan of Salvation, and the Temple. This is God's work, this is His church!
 
Love,
Elder Damon Janis

The Importance of Being "Exactly Obedient"

Hi Everyone!

I don't know how much I'll get off today, I'm at about half speed due to frozen fingers. Temperatures have been in the low 30's and high 20's the past few days, and the library feels about the same. :) We had our first snow fall of the season, and the mountains here are beautiful and the world looks brighter. The downside is that our car will soon have resrictions as the roads fill up, but this is a beautiful place to serve the Lord and help people in these small mountain towns!

We're seeing some results of service. This week a less-active family came to church for the first time in months. We have been helping them fix their truck that was slammed into a tree, and just needs a couple new parts to run again. It was an exciting day at chruch, we had 26 people in sacrament meeting!!! That's the highest it's ever been since I've been here. I hope we can keep the motivation level high and maintain there.

We also taught a small lesson to a lady who is fighting cancer. We did a little bit of service tracting and offered to help her with anything, after which she incredulously looked at us and said: "Really?" We assured her that we were serious, that we were just there to help in any way possible, so she gave us a couple rakes and set us to work on her lawn! It was a great feeling to help someone out, and afterwards we answered some of her questions about the church, taught a little of our beliefs, and invited her to be taught by the English missionaries! It was a great experience regardless whether or not she follows through, we were able to help someone in need and helped resolve some doubts and misconceptions she'd had of the church!

This morning I was preparing a training for a district meeting tomorrow, and I thought I'd share a little of what I learned. I was inspired to spend a little time on the importance of being "exactly obedient" and helping the missionaries understand a little better what it really means. We can look first at the story of Laman and Lemuel, who in 1 ne. 3 become angry with Nephi and Sam and start beating them with a rod. An angel appears and instructs them that they need to repent, and go do the Lord's commands. In the 4th verse of chapter 4, we learn that Laman and Lemuel remain angry, but go anyways to fulfil the commands of the angel. What's interesting is that they were obedient, they performed the action with "exactness", maybe even "perfectly". However from later chapters we learn what they eventually did and became, in spite of that obedient act.

In Alma 53 we learn of the 2000 Stripling Warriors, and how they chose for their leader a spiritual man, the living prophet actually. In 57 we read how their exact obedience to his commands kept them protected and safe from their enemies, and was the key factor that won the battle. We can contrast the rest of their lives and the change that occured with the lives of Nephi's brothers, after critical points of exact obedience, and at first it's confusing, because both did what was expected, both fulfilled and the blessings followed (getting the brass plates, and winning the battle). They key though is that their hearts were different. And so Laman and Lemuel remained unchanged, while the stripling warriors continued faithful the rest of thier lives.

When we give ourselves to God and follow His chosen prophets "with exactness", and our hearts are right and we give willingly, that is when God can change us and make of us more than we could ever imagine. That's the difference in obedience, it's not whether or not we drink coke, or if we do or don't watch the game on Sunday. It's about our hearts, and the sacrifice we make to follow Him willingly, and then we get the blessings, and we're changed people.

I love the Gospel, I love being a missionary! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Damon Janis

Ammon-Based Approach: Serving and Softening Hearts

Hi Again!

Sorry this is coming a little early this week, we got a surprise zone conference that's on wednesday, our p-day, so we had the day shifted to Monday. It's a little weird, it doesn't feel like an official p-day yet.

We've decided to shift our approach in missionary work to serving the less-actives in the branch and softening hearts, sort of an Ammon based idea. We helped a family move on saturday that's been inactive for about 5 years and they've invited us to come by any time and share the gospel with them! (Apart from that they also gave us a free pair of sweet baseball shoes, they used to sell them but went out of business, but they still have a whole shed full of stock that we had to move) We're excited for them though because they're a young couple and really neat people, and if we can get them active again they could be excellent youth leaders!

This coming week we have the opportunity to help out putting in new windows, fixing a car (my companion used to work on cars a lot), putting in blinds (thank goodness for the cypress canyon rental, I'm a pro!), and doing landscaping for various people! We're actively looking for any kind of service at all. We actually went up to aspen one day and just wandered around in our p-day clothes looking for hospitals, rest homes, or anything to do service! It's exciting, it feels really good to serve and know that you're blessing the lives of these people. I hope it turns out some results and we can fill our time with teaching these people too!

Well, not too much more to report, I hope all is well with all y'all. I'm so grateful to be a missionary here in the mountains of Colorado. I love the gospel and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything! I love you all, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Damon Janis

Jesus Gonzales Baptized and Investigator Bears Testimony

Hi Everyone!

This has been a really interesting week, the highlight of course being the baptism of Jesus Gonzales, which was very spiritual, organized, attended, and a wonderful experience for a new convert!

We had to spend most of Saturday before the baptism cleaning the baptismal font, the one place in the whole building that wasn't cleaned up after the remodeling they've been doing, so we had to clean the drywall powder from off the glass, tile, and changing area.

In the end though everything went really well, Elder Alvarez did a great job performing the ordinance and the spirit was strong!

The following day he was confirmed in church, and by chance an investigator we've had who we'd found drunk showed up to church that day, and him and Jesus just happened to be from the same part of Mexico City and struck off an immediate correspondence!

It surprised the entire branch, but at the end of the fast and testimony meeting Philemon (Filemon, the investigator, biblical name!) got up and shared his own testimony, talking about how we'd found him, how he feels like it's a message from God telling him to change, and also he thanked everyone for welcoming him and asked for their support! He closed in the name of Jesus Christ, amen, and the spirit was so strong and it got the members more excited about sharing the gospel and fellowshipping people!

We're doing what we can to help Filemon stop drinking, it might be a long road but he seems dedicated and is a great guy!

Another thing that happened is that our mission president completely changed the way we do missionary work, by changing the indicators that we report. Now we're using the number system that's in Preach My Gospel and in our planners, and we received instructions that we are supposed to focus more on less-actives and helping the wards and branches that way.

I'm really excited for the changes, I've tracted out my entire area literally 3-4 times, and it produces almost no results. Now we can be more focused on getting the less-actives back, and be more creative in our missionary efforts!

So to answer a few questions Mom asked me, I have 2 other companionships in my district, 1 Spanish and 1 English. We are having weekly district meetings where we're focused on the 8 lessons the brethren have given us to make us better missionaries, and it's fun to be able to direct those. I get to follow up every night with both companionships, talk about their efforts and plans, and help inspire them to be better. It's a great opportunity!

I love being a missionary, have a great week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

"I know what I'm getting into and I'm committed to following this path for the rest of my life!"

Hi Everyone!

The big news this week is that I'll be staying in my same area for my 5th transfer, staying with Elder Alvarez! I'll also be serving as the district leader here, a humbling call that I'm not quite sure how to fulfill, I trust though that the Lord will magnify my efforts.

I'm really excited at the prospect of staying, even though figuring out where to tract will become tricky. I'll be tracting some of these apartments and trailers for the 5th or 6th time, now when I tract people recognize me and it's fun. :)

This last weekend we watched the conference with some of our less-active members, the family of a brother who takes care of his two sisters and another less-active family. One of the sisters brought her boyfriend to the two Sunday sessions, which led him to ask her about why she believes what she does and also brought her to tell him that she wants to raise her kids in the church and be married in the temple, which shook him up a bit but they've decided that he'll start talking to us (the missionaries) and see what happens.

I'm really excited that I'm staying and can be a part of that, because I've known the guy and have been talking to him for 3-4 months, so there's already a relationship of trust which will help a lot as we help him find his own testimony of this wonderful gospel!

Another exciting thing is that we have a baptism on Saturday, a man named Jesus Gonzalez who just walked into our sacrament meeting and liked what was taught so much that he came to stake conference, started taking the lessons, and committed to be baptized after the first lesson!

We had his baptismal interview Monday, which he came out of saying that "I know what I'm getting into, and I'm committed to following this path for the rest of my life!" We're so excited about him, he's going to be a huge strength here and I think will motivate the members, this is the first baptism in the area for a solid 6 months!

One of our most staunchly inactive families is starting to melt, their daughter who is 18 and her boyfriend who's an investigator are getting excited and motivated to get active and furthermore participate and contribute, the daughter wants to have some sort of responsibility with the Young Women so she can help reactivate, motivate, and organize activities for the many inactive young women in our area!

We're excited for her help and with that are seeing part of a general and gradual change in atmosphere at church, people are coming back and others are getting more actively involved, and despite the efforts of the adversary the Lord is working a miracle here!

I'm so glad to be a missionary serving here in the tops of the Rockies! I love this area and these people, and I'm so grateful for the inspired call to serve through a living prophet! I know the church is true, I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God and that Joseph Smith was called as the prophet to restore the gospel in these last times! I pray that the Lord blesses each of us as we strive to apply the gospel in our lives, have a great week!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Baptismal date set for Jesus

Hi Everyone!

This has been a really exciting week, probably the highlight is that we have someone on a set baptismal date! It's Jesus Gonzalez (American guy, going to the English branch) (just kidding :), he's the one who just walked in off the street and then wanted to learn about the church and join!

He's so solid, he's reading, praying and coming to church, and he doesn't have any issues to keep him back from baptism! The service will be on the 9th of October (Happy Birthday Dad!) which is after transfers so it's likely I won't be here to witness it.

Another thing that happened is that we've had a couple more visits with a family of 5, all of the kids being boys (16, 11, and 8 years old) and the parents have decided that they don't want to force any set of beliefs on their kids, but let them decide for themselves.

The kids got really excited about the prospect of listening to a modern prophet this weekend at General Conference, and they are progressing rapidly in testimony and desire to learn more! We found out that the 16 year old is actually in a leadership class with one of the Spanish youth in the branch, and he's good friends with her so we have built-in fellowship!

I could definitely see the kids getting baptized this coming transfer, and be a huge strength to the youth and primary programs here in the branch.

We have a less-active couple (actually dead inactive for 10 years) that's starting to come back to church and meet with the members and missionaries! They're a sweet older couple that were offended several years ago by a tactless missionary, and have just been in the habit of inactivity for so long that they never came back.

We tracted into them a couple weeks ago, and after a few visits by us and one where we brought the 2nd counselor, they finally came to church and loved it!

Last night we went to see a less-active family who've recently gone through some hard times and it's softened the husband, who in the past wouldn't even speak to missionaries or have anything to do with the church. We taught a family home evening, singing hymns and having prayers, and did a lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ (basically the principles and ordinances of the 4th article of faith) and used a cool object lesson to explain the Holy Ghost.

They have 3 girls, one 10, one 8 and the other 4. They loved the lesson, and afterward we were able to talk a little more to the parents. We told the husband that he could actually baptize his 8 year old daughter, which he really liked, and they committed to coming to church in spite of any obstacles that the Adversary would put in their paths. We're really excited about them, they could be a huge strength to the branch as well and would really benefit from the Gospel!

Basically things are going great here, I feel like the Lord has blessed us for being obedient and working hard, and although I might not be able to see everything come to fruition here I think I'll be content knowing I did my best in this area and was able to help in the cultivation of this field so that the real harvesting can occur!

I love the people here and I love this little Spanish branch, I'm excited about where things are going here and I know that the Lord will continue to pour out his Spirit here!

Have a great week, stay close to the Lord! I love you all, thanks so much for your prayers, love and support!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis