Greetings From Dayton!!

Family!

If you had told me 1 year ago that I would be on a bus in Dayton Ohio at 10 AM on a Sunday morning, sitting next to a man from the hills of Guatemala who makes his living cutting tree limbs and who speaks Spanish as his second language, I'm not sure I would have believed you.  But that was how I spent my Sunday morning.  This man speaks a Guatemalan dialect named Ay Chi (or something like that) as his first language, and he learned Spanish so that he could come to the US and work.  He speaks Spanish better than I do, but not by much...  Anyway, he wanted to come to church, but didn't have a car.  So we went to his house Sunday morning and taught him how to use the public bus system to get to the church.  He had a great time there.

We got the chance to go on exchanges with our Spanish Zone Leaders this week for the first time ever!  It was super amazing.  They are both amazing teachers, and they helped us a lot with our teaching as well as our skills in connecting with the people.  In an attempt to further change my culture, I have decided to talk more about food, so every email that you receive from me until the end of my mission will have some sort of mention of food.  To start it off: I learned that el estado de Guanajuato is famous for their fresh strawberry jam.  Or at least that's what some guy named Gabriel told us...  but yeah, the Zone leaders taught us a whole lot of things, and I know that as we apply them, we will be able to help the people here even more.

We applied the things we learned the day after the exchanges, and we had one of the most powerful lessons I've ever had.  The lady we taught (D------) felt the Spirit very strongly, especially after we shared the First Vision with her.  She said she felt something in her chest that she just couldn't describe.  She had been visited by missionaries from other faiths before, but she said that there was a big difference between our visits and theirs.  It was a testimony builder for me that the Spirit really is the teacher, and when we allow him to do His job, progress occurs.

Something very sad happened this week.  I went to put on my nametag in the morning, and it broke!  It was my first nametag, the one I got my first day in the MTC...  So now I have to get a new one.

We did a lot of finding this week.  We are finding new Hispanics all over the place, and as we apply the training we received a few weeks ago in our Spanish Training, we're finding that we are able to develop better relationships with the people and help them feel more comfortable with our message.

Oh, I had interviews with President the week.  They went well.  Something memorable that he said to me was "You can either be comfortable, or somebody can have salvation.  It's frank, but that's just how it is."  No pressure, right?  But it's 100% true.  We can either stay in our comfort zones and not talk to people about the gospel, or we can do the uncomfortable thing and change someone's eternity; we can give them the chance to return to live with our Father in Heaven.  I feel like I have improved much in this regard since the beginning of my mission till now, but of course, there is always room for improvement.

That's about all I've got for today.  Oh, you asked about those investigators.  J---- O---- currently isn't progressing.  S----- S------ has only one day off a week, but sometimes he is forced to work on his day off, so there are times where he goes for weeks without a day off.  For this reason we aren't able to meet with him very often, and he can't come to church.  We had a lesson with B---- and her husband in the home of her member friend.  It went well, but now she says that she can't meet with us.  We think her husband isn't too fond of her learning about the church.  There is a lot of opposition to the work.

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

picture caption:  greetings from Dayton!!!   

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