Family!
What an awesome
week! Let me tell you about it...
First, as you already
know, I stayed in Dayton for another transfer! Elder Bradford left, and
you'll never guess who came to Dayton in his place! It was my trainer
Elder Graf! That's right, Elder Graf is back! So now my district
consists of me, my companion, my district leader who I've served with for 6
months now, and my trainer!
Our branch president
left for Chile on Tuesday, and he'll be gone almost this whole
transfer. So my goal is to get some of our less actives coming more
frequently before he gets back, as well as have a few people ready for
baptism...(more on that later...!).
We street contacted
the owner of a local Mexican restaurant this week. Some of our
investigators work there, so we have decided that if we can convert this owner,
then we can persuade him to give our investigators Sundays off so they can come
to church. Foolproof!
I have a tie trade in
the works with a Puerto Rican. I just thought I'd mention that.
Ok, I've put it off
for too long. Let me tell you about the highlight of the week.
We started teaching
J---, his sister I---, and her two kids J--- and P---- a few weeks ago.
It started out with us just teaching J---. And he wasn't very interested
at all. He told us he would listen to us, but that he didn't want to act,
he didn't want us to invite him to do anything, and that he was completely
comfortable where he was. Our visits quickly evolved from that to him
inviting his sister and her kids to listen, to him reading from the Book of
Mormon (even though he has problems with his eye), to... coming to
church!! We met with them Saturday night and were planning on
talking a lot about the importance of church and trying to help them see the
importance of coming, but it turned out it wasn't needed. They had been
having some problems with the church they had been attending, and they started
asking us all sorts of questions about our church. Finally we told them
that we would love to have them come and see how it was for themselves.
J----- reply was "What time does it start?" (but in
Spanish...). We offered to make them breakfast and then go down to church
with them, and they thought that was a great idea, except for one part.
They wanted to make breakfast for us.......... So we showed up Sunday morning,
and I was terrified to find my old enemy waiting for me in their kitchen...
menudo. So we had a lovely (cough cough) breakfast of menudo and grape
soda... But it was totally worth it because they came to church!
And they loved it! J--- answered a bunch of questions in priesthood, and
his answers were amazing! All of the members were amazed by how much he
knew even though we'd only met with him a few times. He told us after
that he felt like Joseph Smith in that he was trying to find the right church
for him, and he said that he really liked our church. The best part of
all though was when his nephew came up to him after primary and asked if they
could come back to this church. J--- looked at me and said "This is
what I want. I want a church that the kids want to come to."!
YEAH! So yes, I am pretty excited! I've had investigators come to
church before in the attitude of trying to find things wrong with the church,
and they always find something that they don't believe is correct or that they
don't like. But I know that if a person comes to church seriously wanting
to know if it is the church that God wants for them, they will find their
answer.
That's about it!
I wish I had time to tell you everything that happened this week. We had
a run in with a really witty 5 year old, I had an interesting conversation
with a Peruvian about the differences entre English and Spanish, and we had a
car chase adventure with our branch mission leader...
Have a great
week! Read your scriptures!
Love,
Elder Foote
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