Family!
Let me start by
telling you how my morning started off to show you just how tough we have
it here in Ohio. We start each morning with a run in our neighborhood,
and this morning we decided instead of the usual exercise, we would go for a
doughnut run. A literal doughnut run. For our exercise we ran to
this little family owned bakery near our house and bought doughnuts, then ran
back to the apartment and ate them! It was the perfect way to negate all
the effects of our running! And let me tell you, they were the best
doughnuts I have ever eaten. They put Krispy Kreme to shame. So
yeah, we've got it pretty rough out here...
Well, this week has
been awesome, and there was one experience in particular that made it so
good. We went on exchanges with the new Spanish Elders, and Elder Graf
went with Elder Taylor down to Dayton leaving me up here in our area with Elder
Garcia. Elder Garcia has been out 3 weeks, and I've been out 3 months, so
we had less than 4 months experience between the two of us. But, because
he was so new, I was senior companion for the day! Which means.........I
GOT TO DRIVE A CAR!!!!! That might not seem like a big deal, but one
thing I've been missing recently is driving. It has been 3 months since I
last drove, and we do a lot of driving out here, but since I'm not the
"designated driver" of our companionship, I just ride along.
But I finally got to drive! And I didn't crash! =) But anyways, I
was in charge of the area for the day, which was super exciting, but also a lot
of pressure. It was up to me to take the lead in everything and come up
with things for us to do. But it worked out really well, and me and Elder
Garcia had a great time. We did have a pretty crazy experience with one
of our lessons though. We went to teach a guy named F-------.
F------- has been taught everything. Everything from the restoration to
tithing, he's heard it. And he's been being taught for nearly 6
years! So we went to go teach him the about the sacrament again and try
to get him to come to church. The lesson was going really well, but all
of the sudden it took a crazy tangent, and we were out of nowhere talking about
Adam and Eve! I have to still concentrate pretty hard to understand what
people are saying, so I had no idea how we had got to that point. I kept
trying to bring us back on topic, but I still don't have the language skills to
cut someone off and take complete control of the lesson again, so I just had to
sit and wait for an opportunity. Elder Garcia had the language skills, but
he lacked the teaching experience to know how to get us back on track. So
we both kind of just sat there, trying to get the lesson back on track, while
F------- talked and talked and talked about the beginning of the world and all
of his beliefs about all sorts of stuff. We ended up finally stopping it
and ending the lesson alright, but it was a pretty crazy experience.
Here's another story
about a new investigator we found. We were on exchanges and had just
tried to contact a potential investigator, but they didn't answer, so we were
headed back to the car to go to our next appointment. I saw a guy sitting
on his porch, and I had the idea that I should go talk to him. He was in
no wise Hispanic, but I went anyway and started talking to him. He wasn't
interested in what we had to say in the slightest, so the conversation was
pretty brief. At the end of talking with him, I asked him if there was
anyone who spoke Spanish nearby. He pointed us to his neighbor's house,
so we went to try it. No one answered, but since finding Spanish speakers
is rare, we made note of it and decided to visit it again next time we were in
the area. We were in the area yesterday, so we tried it. A guy
answered the door and immediately let us in. That was pretty surprising!
We had a really good first lesson with him (J-----), and we set up a
time later in the week to meet with him. Asking referrals from people
really works!
Here are just a few
other things worth noting from this week:
--We taught the T-----
family again. It went well, but for some reason they were really
concerned about what types of meat we are allowed to eat in our church.
They brought it up again and again, and it was kind of weird...
--Our ragtag futbol
team is growing! We had 12 people there on Saturday!
--We spent 3 full
hours digging through nearly 6 years’ worth of records in our area while
splitting the area book for the new Elders. Lots of paperwork!
--There are some
amazing member families out here. We eat with the English ward every other
week and one member said this: "I figure we're all here to build the
Lord's kingdom, so if we're not doing that, then what are we doing?"
I really liked that quote.
--We have started
singing to invite the Spirit into our lessons. We're not too good, and we
still need to work on learning the hymns in Spanish, but I have definitely
gained a testimony of the power of music this past week.
--Ohio has some pretty
cool sunsets!
And that's about
it! Thanks so much for the package last week! That was amazing!
I'll send a picture of my reaction.... I do have a request. It's
not urgent, but when you get the chance, could you maybe send me a few
talks? In particular I would like:
"Seek Learning by
Faith" by Elder Bednar, 2006; "The Fourth Missionary" by Lawrence
E. Corbridge; and "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary" by Tad R.
Callister. If you could find those and get them to me anytime in the
future, I would really appreciate it!
Love,
Elder Foote
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| Colby's expression when he opened Mom's amazing package. |
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| I got to drive!! |
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| A sunset over Huber Heights Road.. |
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| How awesome is this sunset?!? We're right by the air force base, so we get all sorts of cool airplane exhaust patterns. |
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| The results of our literal doughnut run. The best doughnuts I ever had. |