Monday, October 28, 2013

A Change In Focus!

Familia!

This week we had an awesome zone conference.  I wish I could record the talks that President Porter gives; they are the standard against what I measure a powerful talk.  I am amazed at how well he knows the scriptures, and at how well he is able to invite the Spirit into his talks.  After that zone conference, Elder Elbaba and I felt that we needed to change our focus a bit.  We realized that we need to focus more on the members and on strengthening the branch.  In order to have new converts and retain them, we are going to need more member support.  It will take all of us to baptize.  The missionaries in this area have been working for years now with little member support as far as teaching goes, and that is what we are going to try and change.  Changing what I've been doing for 4 months now isn't easy, but it's what needs to be done right now.

We had a new family move in from California a few weeks ago; I think I already mentioned them.  Anyway, the house that they moved into needs a lot of work, so we've been out there helping them a few times this past week.  Right now we're digging a huge trench to put in some power lines so they can have electricity.  We were almost done with the trench, then we decided we'd take another look at the plans, and we realized that instead of 13" deep, it needed to be 30" deep...  So I've been doing a lot of digging.

Not too much else happened this week.  I saw the boundaries of my area for the first time in my mission the other day.  It is HUGE!!!!!!!  I was shocked!  I thought we had been covering quite a bit of our area, but we are only covering a tiny part of it!  Based on the map I saw, our area is roughly 60 miles long running from north to south....  And that is after it was split 2 months ago...

We had a power outage yesterday morning.  I have learned that it is really dark at 6:30 in the morning...  Luckily some other Elders had left a flashlight in the apartment, so we were able to get ready by the light of the flashlight.  That was a pretty crazy experience.

Thank you so much for your emails this week!  They were awesome!  It's great to hear how everything is going back there.  I hope you all have a great week!  I love you all!

Love,

Elder Foote

P.S.  Winter clothing time is upon us...
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