Goodbye Dayton....

My family!

Greetings.  What a week it has been.  Let me tell you about it.

First off, last week we returned to the Air Force museum.  An Elder in our district wanted to visit, and he convinced us to go with him and his companion.  It turned out there was a room I missed when I was there the last time, so I'll include a picture of something in that room...

One of our investigators made some huge progress this week.  In one of our lessons with him, he completely opened up to us and shared a lot of his concerns.  We extended baptism, and he said that he'd like to, but he's still not completely sure about it and doesn't feel like he could be 100% committed right now.  So that was where we were at on Tuesday.  Then a miracle happened.  This investigator went to youth conference.  And he had an amazing experience!  The youth all went to do baptisms for the dead at the Columbus temple, so he watched The Other Side of Heaven while they were doing that.  They had a bunch of returned missionaries talk to the youth about how great missions are, they did a bunch of fun activities, and they had a dance where our investigator met a lot of young women (that definitely added to the experience for him).  He also got up in front of nearly 400 youth and bore his testimony of how much he likes what Elder Taylor and I have been teaching him and how good he has felt since we began meeting with him!  So yeah, go youth conference!  We talked to him the day after, and he said "I've been thinking about that question you guys asked me (referring to the baptismal extension we gave him), and I want to be baptized."  WHOOOHOOOO!  And no big deal, but he also wants to serve a mission!!!  (that was sarcasm, it is a big deal!)  So yeah, I'm extremely excited!  He is completely ready and in all honestly could be baptized this Saturday no problem, but he wants to wait a bit until he knows a little more about the church.  So we are working with him to help him realize that he is ready and that the sooner his baptism happens, the better it will be for him.  After you've received a witness of something from the Holy Ghost, waiting to act on it is just an invitation for the Devil to throw all he's got at you to stop that action from taking place.

Ok, so here's the part of the email that corresponds to the subject line.  Yep, this week I left Dayton.  For one day.  I did my first exchange outside of Dayton, hence I did missionary work outside of the Dayton area for the first time in my entire mission!  Crazy, right?  I went on exchanges with one of the Spanish Zone Leaders (Elder Thompson) to Fairfield OH.  It was an adventure to say the least.  Down in that area it is almost exclusively people from Guatemala.  And there are lots of them.  So much so that there is a gigantic apartment complex that upon entering is basically the same as being in Guatemala.  So now I can say I have been to Guatemala...?  Anyways, as a direct result of the high Guatemalan population, I learned a little bit of Mam (a dialect spoken in Guatemala).  One of the zone leaders has learned enough Mam that he can pray in it...  I was also offered a piece of coffee candy by a Columbian, and I was about to eat it, but I was stopped just in time when she told us what it was.  Close call.

We had 49 people in sacrament meeting, which is only 5 away from the most people I have ever seen there in the past year!  The month of July, our average sacrament attendance jumped up by 20 from the average attendance in June!  The Spanish work in Dayton is most definitely hastening.  It's still picking up momentum, but once it gets going, it'll roll forth until it fills the whole city!  I know that this is the Lord's work and that he is currently preparing people and has been preparing people all over the Earth to hear the message of the gospel.  Ours is the responsibility to utilize the tools the Lord has given us and help spread this good news!

Hope you have a great week!  Good luck to Katie living in the land of Ephraim; it's a jungle out there! =)

Love,

Elder Foote   

Elder Foote and Elder Taylor Chopping Down a Tree

Elder Foote The Astronaut

We Are The Champions