The Lord Prepares People

Hi Everyone!

Thank you all very much for your thoughts and prayers! The gospel really is true and God really does answer those prayers!

Well, the weather is turning colder here in Grand Junction, and we had our first snowfall that actually lingered this morning! Some of the missionaries probably think I'm crazy because I'm so excited about it, and they can't understand how I like the cold and the snow. For me somehow it's invigorating and it makes me happy, even when I have to be out in it. I think in a slightly masochistic way, I'm going to enjoy tracting when it's really cold and miserable out, because I'll feel more like I'm making a sacrifice for something that's really important to me. :) I'm strange, but I guess the Lord knew what he was doing when He sent me to Colorado.

This week the Zone Leaders decided to do something interesting, they're having me go on splits with the other Spanish elders in Grand Junction, where I go to their area with one of them and work there for a day, and there'll be a few days of that before transfers next week. The interesting thing is though, we are under orders that during our time working that day, if we don't have a set appointment we have to be tracting. I think they want to give me more experience doing Spanish tracting, because the other area has a lot more dense pockets of Spanish people, and our companionship hasn't tracted much since it's not very productive in our area. Our first day of doing the splits (or team-ups as the missionaries here call them) was yesterday, Tuesday, and I went to the other area to work with Elder Mackley. He's a cool missionary that's been out a while, I think he has 4-5 months left, and he learned Spanish on his mission. We had a good day of work, with some appointments and some tracting, and I learned a lot and was forced to speak a lot of Spanish. :)

Spanish tracting is a lot different than English tracting, because there are people that let you in to share your message at probably 1 out of 6-7 doors, although a lot of them are just being nice and don't really catch the importance of what we talk about. It's interesting though how the Lord prepares people, because I've had a few experiences now where people we tract into have had really interesting experiences with the church before, and are more ready to accept what we say. On the first door we knocked one of the times we didn't have an appointment, a lady answered the door and let us teach her the first lesson. She was very attentive and seemed to want to pray to know if what we'd taught was true, and after the lesson she told us that she'd had some severe stomach aches and pains a while back, and she knew some LDS people who arranged for her to have a blessing, and she was healed. It was a really neat experience to hear her talk about that, and recognise that the Lord truly is preparing thousands and thousands of people in every mission of the church, we just have to find them.

I love this Gospel and I love doing the work of the Lord! I'm finding that this mission is really hard and challenging, but the Lord provides a way for me to everything that I need to, and continues to bless me in learning Spanish, learning how to be a missionary and strengthening my testimony.

I hope you're all doing well, good luck with everything!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Two Families and How To Teach Youth

Hi Everyone!

Thank you as always for your thoughts and prayers!

Right now we are focused on two families, who we have been spending a lot of time with to strengthen and help understand the gospel. The first is a young couple named Rafael and Alex, who have been investigating for a while with english missionaries but we're really getting all of what they were talking about (they somehow missed the part about us having prophets and apostles who are living, they got a surprise when we invited them to general conference), and so we've kinda taken them over to teach. They're really cool and are sincerely interested in knowing the truth, but so far they haven't really committed to read and pray with the real intent to act on an answer. We're going to try teaching them out of the Book of Mormon almost exclusively from now on, because we want them to gain a testimony of the book and realize how much we need the clarity of it, because our conversations keep getting stuck in the bible and it's difficult to go anywhere with that. I have a lot of hope that they'll gain testimonies and become really solid in the church, but I think it might take some time.

The other family we're working with is la familia Soto, who are inactive members with a 9 year old girl we'll be baptizing soon. We're trying to reactivate the entire family though, which consists of the parents, the 9 year old girl, a young boy (probably 10 or 11, I'm not sure), and a girl who is a junior in Highschool. With the older girl, we've been discussing what to teach her and how to teach her, and we ran into a question that people have probably been asking for a really long time: "How can we teach the principals of the gospel in a way that's appealing and interesting to a teenager?" We spent some time studying and praying and looking through my Efy participant handbooks, and one of the things we came up with is that it has to do with making the gospel mean something to the individual person. We can teach about a principal all day long but it'll have no effect until we can show how they can use it and why they would want it. It's an interesting thing, because youth (myself included) tend to pretty much ignore and tune out anything that doesn't seem directly relevant or interesting, and we're pretty harsh in our judgement. It's interesting being on the teaching side of it, and I'm excited to see what I can learn.

The weather's getting colder now, and the leaves are starting to fall. I'm really enjoying it, Fall is a season we don't really have in Houston, and the change in scenery is really cool. It's awesome to be involved in the greatest work on earth, to be in the Lord's service. I know that the gospel is true with all my heart, I want all of you to know that. If I didn't know that, I wouldn't be out here and I wouldn't have near enough guts to ask people to change their lives and lifestyles for it. I'm so grateful for the blessing it's been in my life, and for the knowlege that God is there and loves me, and has a plan for us to be able to return to Him. It's the greatest thing in the world, we're truely more blessed than we even know.

I love you all, good luck with everything!

Elder Damon Janis

P.S. Daron and Heather, I got a letter from you recently, but the seal was broken, probably during transit, and so the envelope came without the letter. I'm really sorry about that, if you'd like to email me or send me another letter I'd love that. Thank you so much!

Pictures: MTC and Grand Junction on the Grand Mesa

Classroom panoramas

Elders in his district

Elder Janis going solo to Colorado. Everyone else headed to Houston South.

Brother Gamez, one of his teachers

A parting picture of the district

Grand Junction, Colorado. Elder Janis' bed on the right.

The Grand Mesa

Elder Soto (I think) and Elder Janis

Elder Mackley and Elder Janis

Elder Francis (I think), Elder Janis' trainer, and Elder Janis!

We were stopped by a man & The Grand Mesa

Hi everone!

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts, God has been mindful of me and I'm convinced that its the answer to the prayers of others. I've been thinking a lot about it recently, how great of a support system I have and how blessed I am for that. It does put on a lot of pressure to perform, but it's good because it's motivating to know there are people pulling for you when things are hard. So thank you again for that.

I had a cool experience this week, yesterday we went to visit the lady we had a really cool lesson with last week, and she wasn't home, but as we were going back to our car we were stopped by a man, and he started asking us questions like "what exactly is the Book of Mormon?" and "what makes your church different than other Christian religions?". We were able to have a really good discussion with him and bear testimony, and since it was in english I was able to take a more acive role in it which was cool. It turns out he's a Christian and is well versed in the Bible. He is reading "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis and seems to be very interested in religion and obtaining knowlege. Unfortunately we ended the discussion with him talking about what he believed and he said a couple things about how our teachings didn't quite fit with the Bible, giving some weak references and such, but he said that he's usually around that corner where we met him at about noon, because he has a break from work right then, and so we can come and talk to him any time. We'll probably see him again soon, I think he has some potential if he's willing to investigate the idea that the Bible might not contain all the truth and word of God. It was really neat though to be given that opportunity to be approached and asked classic questions that you always hear about at church. :)

Today for P-day we drove up to the top of a mountain called the Grand Mesa, and I got a lot of pictures, although none of them do the view any justice. The whole mountain was just incredible, with all the fall colors and the shape of the mountain and stuff. It wasn't like the mountains I'm used to from Utah, it was more of a gradual slope, with lots of smaller mountains sort of surrounding it, so the entire trip was just amazing. I'm probably going to try to send the camera card to my parents soon, hopefully in the next couple weeks. I need to get to a post office to get a small bubble-packet thing so the letter doesn't get opened and the card taken out, I found out at the MTC that the US postal system doesn't allow you to send things like flash drives in normal mail.

The spanish is getting better, little by little (poco a poco), but I still don't understand most of what people say. I just have to trust that as I do my best the Lord will help me.

Thanks again for everything you do for me, especially your prayers in my behalf,I love you all! This church and gospel are true and amazing, and I love this work!

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

It was all I could do to keep from smiling and laughing

Hola everyone!

I had a neat experience last night, which hopefully will happen many times on my mission but was still really cool. We went to contact a potential investigator we'd tracted into about a week ago, who had said we could come back later and share our message. Her name was Citlale (sit-law-lay), and she had a daughter who looked to be about 8 or 9. We pretty much just taught the first lesson, but she was really attentive the whole time and was really interested. When we got to the Restoration and First Vision, the spirit was super-strong and the whole room was completely filled with it. I felt it different than I have in the past, this time it was more of an overwhelming feeling that just filled my entire body and made me really really happy, it was all I could do to keep from smiling and laughing. The lady told us that she'd never talked to missionaries before, but recently she'd been driving out of Grand Junction and gotten a flat tire, and a couple gave her a ride back to the city so she could get it taken care of, and they happened to be LDS. They gave her a pass-along card or something and told her that missionaries would come by soon and teach her about the church. She says that she doesn't think it's a coincidence at all that we came by, and she committed to praying to know if what we taught her is true, and when we left she was eating up the Restoration pamphlet we'd given her, especially the section on "How can I know if these things are true?". I'm really excited for her, from the little bit I've been able to see of her life, I can see the Lord's hand preparing her to receive the message of the gospel.

I love you all, thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers, God truly does answer them and helps me in so many ways through your faith. I love this gospel and I know that it's true, and it's the most wonderful message we could give people.

Love,
Elder Damon Janis

Hola From the Field!

Hi everyone!

Thank you all so much for your prayers and thoughts, God answers those and I'm so blessed by your faith.

I have my new address, it's:

Elder Damon Janis
1418 Cedar Ave. Apt A4
Grand Junction, CO, 81501

A lot has happened in the last week. I survived the excruciating flight from Salt Lake to Denver, and although it nearly killed me being on a plane that long I made it. :) I got a really bad cold from not having much sleep, so when I arrived in Denver I was exhausted and could barely function. We had a long day with a lot of training from the AP's, President and sister Christison, and the senior couples. We spent the night at the mission home, where I had my first good meal in 9 weeks. :) There were about 15 new missionaries in the group, including other elders and 2 sisters going Spanish. They had all done the 3 week program at the MTC though because they were already fluent, so I had never run into them. We got more personal instruction from President and his wife, and I think I'm really going to like them. They're very spiritual, good people, and they have a lot of experience and practical counsel. The next day I found out where I was going for my first area, and who my trainer would be. Turns out I got to go out west, to a city called Grand Junction, and our area covers pretty much the whole city and a few towns to the west of it. My trainer is Elder Francis, and he's really cool! He's really laid back and easy to get along with, and has about 4 months left in the mission.

This week I've been getting to know the branch, the investigators, other missionaries, and learning the ropes of missionary work. The first few days were really stressful for me because I couldn't understand anything anyone said, but I'm starting to get used to how people say things and I can follow most of what goes on in lessons and gospel conversations. I don't remember the first door that I knocked, but I do remember our first rejection, we knocked on a door and a man came to the peep-hole and said loudly: "GO AWAY! IS THAT CLEAR?" It was kinda funny, I actually didn't really even care about it, I though I would probably have a more difficult time with the slammed doors and such, but so far it hasn't phased me.

So far I've mostly been listening to my companion work, and I haven't been involved in the planning or teaching much. I'm learning Spanish faster now than I was my last couple weeks at the MTC, which is good but I still have a really long way to go. There are still a few members who I can't understand literally one word they say. Those are hard appointments, because my companion enjoys talking to people and so I have to sit there and try to pick out what I can. I'm really learning a lot, and I'm figuring out what my style of missionary work is. Right now I'm just going with whatever my trainer says, but when I get more comfortable and experienced I'd like to do some things a bit differently. I'm loving the experience so far, it's really challenging but it's really good.

I'm so grateful for this church, for this gospel and for this opportunity. It's the greatest thing in the world that all we have to do to know if this church is true is study the Book of Mormon and ask God through prayer. That's our invitation to everyone, and I'm so glad that I've done that and I can bear testimony that I've felt the witness of the Holy Ghost.

I love you all, thanks so much for your prayers!

Elder Damon Janis

P.S. Thank you so much Aunt Becky for the Email! I'd respond but I don't have your address, if you could get that to me it would be awesome!

Last Letter From the MTC

Hi family and friends!

This is my last email from the MTC! Wow, I'm leaving tomorrow morning and going to Denver. My whole district except me left this morning to Houston, so I've been put in a three-some and I'm enjoying p-day.

I feel like this week has been my best at the MTC, with all kinds of things happening every day such as Elder Holland coming and speaking to us last tuesday. My whole district has really become close and it was sad to say goodbye to them today. We had a member of our district go home this last week, and I'm not sure if I can talk about it much more than that, but it was a really interesting experience and our district really rallied together after that. We all had to self-evaluate why we're out here, and it's been a very good thing for all of us. In our last class period, we discussed our purpose as missionaries and spent about 3 hours talking about it and sharing insights. It was very spiritual and I'm SO excited to get to the field and start working! One of the things we talked about was that there's absolutely no reason to be apoligetic about interupting people's lives to share the gospel with them, because no matter how important the things they're doing are, the gospel is more important in their life and will bring them so much more fulfillment and  joy anyway. Also, we should be excited to serve and work, because we've literally given up everything for 2 years to be able to give people the same happiness and peace that we've individually experienced through the Atonement of Christ. It is literally the greatest thing on earth, and it's touched my life so much and given me  so much happiness that I want  to give that to other people. That's why I'm out here, and that's the only reason I would be out here. If I didn't feel the forgiveness and peace and joy that everyone talks about, I would never have the motivation to work so hard, obey so many rules, and put my life on hold to preach the gospel. The church is true, Christ is real, God is real, and the Atonement works. If you have any concern, are going through any kind of hard time, are struggling with doubts, sins, or stress, the Atonement covers those too. Read Alma 7:11-13, and you'll see that Christ didn't have to suffer for our pains and afflictions as well as our sins, but He did because he wanted to truly understand us and know how to succor His people. If you have any kind of doubt about this church or the reality of God, try it. Pray and ask for the Atonement to be applied in your life for whatever pain, affliction, temptation, sin, or trial you're dealing with right now. I promise that God will hear you and answer your prayer. This church is so true, and it's the greatest thing on earth!

I love you all, thank you so much for everything!

Elder Damon Janis