Fireflies Are Real!

Family!

Lot's to say and not much time, so I'll dive right in!

First off: FIREFLIES ARE REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, I've seen them with my own eyes, and they are amazing.  It took me almost a full week to notice them, but now I can see them everywhere...

Do you remember how the Casto family started calling me Luke because they thought I looked like Luke Skywalker?  Well, I'm starting to think there might be some truth to that statement.  I have now had 4 different occasions where people have told me I look like Luke.  They've come from members, missionaries, and people in the MTC.  One member lady even said I should take a light saber with me tracting to help us get in the doors...

Well, the members here are great!  The branch is super small, so every fast Sunday they have a tradition that after sacrament meeting we go right in to the cultural hall and have a lunch as a branch.  It was really fun, and I got to try cactus!  That's the only really weird food I've had so far.  But anyway, I can kind of communicate with the members.  Most of them know at least some English, so after I've struggled through a few sentences, they'll help me out and respond in English.  I overheard some of them talking about me, and they said that I speak very clearly (or at least I think that's what they said...) so there's that...

Last week was the last day of the month, and with our car we have a limit on the number of miles we can drive each month, so we were pretty much out of miles.  So we drove a bit that day, but we planned on walking the rest of the day.  We had everything all planned out, and we were going to get to our dinner appointment right on time, but then we realized that we were headed to the wrong address!  So we ended up having to call a member to come pick us up since we had walked like two miles in the opposite direction of the real house of the dinner appointment.

On a more spiritual note...  We were in a lesson with a Spanish speaking investigator, and before we started I felt impressed to read 1 Nephi 2 with them.  So we read the chapter, and afterwards the investigator related Lehi leaving Jerusalem to his family leaving Mexico and making a better life in Ohio.  It was a super cool analogy, and it led to a pretty good discussion on how God loves each of us and is always looking to bless us if we'll follow him.  And I said everything in Spanish, which was amazing!

Dad asked about how we do tracting, so I'll put something in about that.  We are primarily focused on teaching the Spanish speakers in our area, so we try and focus on finding the people who speak Spanish.  So our tracting is really only focused in places where Spanish speakers live, which aren't too common in the middle of Ohio.  A lot of times we'll ask people if they have any Spanish speaking neighbors and follow that, but we also spend a lot of times in some little towns north of Dayton where there are more Spanish speakers.  It is pretty difficult to find people who speak Spanish that haven't already been talked to by missionaries, and are also interested.  We also teach a few English lessons as well.  So really I'm doing bilingual work, but I really only know one language... =)

Oh, I forgot to mention last week, Dad, our transfer meeting was in Middletown, so I was there for about half a day!  And we have a referral down there, so I might be back there sometime this week!

Well, I think that's about it.  I'll end with a short scripture that I think is pretty cool and applies to me pretty well.  You can find it in D&C 39:14, “Behold, verily, verily, I say unto thee, thou art not called to go into the eastern countries, but thou art called to go to the Ohio.”  It's a great reminder to me that of all the places in the entire world, I was called to Ohio.  There are people here for me to teach the message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I just have to go find them!

Have a great week!  Love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Foote