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