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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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