My Family!!!
Subject line right off
the bat! I'll be staying in Dayton for another transfer! That's
right, you heard me (or I guess you read what I typed),tomorrow I begin
transfer number 7 in Dayton! You know what that means? It means
that I just need to stay here 1 more transfer and I will have spent half of my
mission in my first area! Crazy! Elder Wells is staying also, which
means he will be the companion I've had for the longest amount of time. I
am super excited! He is a great Elder, and I can't wait to learn even
more from him over the next 6 weeks. Elder Taylor will be staying as
well. He is the Elder I have served around for the most time. He
has been in my district for 7 1/2 months now! The only district member
leaving is Elder Graf! He came back for just one transfer, and now he's
headed back out! And it sounds like he's probably going right back to the
area he just left! Crazy!
Well, that was all of
the transfer excitement. I'm excited to stay here, though I really would
have been fine either way. I want to see other places and meet new
people, but I love the people here so much that I'm glad I have some more time
with them.
Well, I guess mom
already heard about the bed bug recurrence from her encounter with Elder Wells'
mom's facebook page, so I guess I'll tell you about it. When Elder Wells
first got here, he started noticing some bites. I immediately feared the
worst, so we had an inspection an discovered a few more bed bugs on his
bed. We waged a battle, and I thought the problem would go away like
before. But it came back again. We fought it a few times, but they
kept surviving, so we eventually called the housing coordinator and let him
know. Long story short, our apartment is now going through bed bug
treatments. There are a lot of things we had to do to prepare for
that. We had to put every article of clothing or cloth material in the
apartment in the dryer for a bit, then putting it in a trash bag and tying it
shut. We also had to move all of the furniture away from the walls so the
exterminator company could come spray. So that was what we did last
P-day; we spent the whole day preparing the apartment for the exterminators.
It was crazy; I was so stressed. I had to completely tear apart the
apartment I had lived in for 8 months. But it will all be worth it,
because in just a few weeks the bed bug war will finally be over. I
didn't say anything about this before because you kind of freaked out a bit
last time, so I decided I wouldn't say anything more. But since you
figured it out...
I got sick this last
week. Maybe from stress, maybe from something I ate, I don't know.
I had no appetite, and I ached all over. I had exchanges in the bike area
the next day though, so I needed to be well enough to do physical things.
I got a blessing from my district, and I felt fine the next day and was able to
bike all over Dayton.
Speaking of exchanges,
this was the week of exchanges! I had two this week. My first one
was with Elder Graf down in Dayton. It was super awesome. I was
back with my trainer on the same streets we used to cover, it was just on bikes
and 6 months later. Blast from the past! He's a great Elder.
I also had an exchange with Elder Taylor up in my area. He is very
intelligent, and I have learned a lot from him. He taught me the
importance of showing my love for other people. I think that's something
I can work on, so I'll be trying to see what I can do about that over the next
little bit.
You might remember a
long time ago I talked about meeting and beginning to teach an evangelical pentecostal
pastor? Well, we had our final lesson with her this past week. She
wasn't ever very interested in changing, but we didn't feel good about stopping
trying to see her because we didn't feel we had given her a good enough
opportunity to accept our message. This lesson we focused heavily on the
apostasy and the importance of priesthood authority. Any scripture we
used from the bible she would interpret in a way that changed its meaning, or
if she couldn't do that she would just continue on like we hadn't even shared
the scripture. Finally, it was obvious that she wasn't going to accept
what we were saying, so we got ready to leave. We were about to leave her
with a prayer when I started to feel the Spirit tell me to testify of the
truthfulness of the church to her. I have only felt the Spirit
compel me to give an extremely bold testimony a few times, and this was
one of them. I could feel it build up inside of me, and I knew that I had
to do it or I would regret it for the rest of my life. So I bore a very
simple and bold testimony that Jesus had given authority to act in His name to
His apostles, that it had been lost, and that today it was found only in the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It's not that I haven't said
that before to people, but it was how strongly the Spirit compelled me to say
that to this woman that really makes this experience stand out. I know
that the priesthood authority can be found only in this church. I have
learned that some people are prepared to accept the message we bring, and
others are not. If a person is not ready, it doesn't matter how much explaining
you do or how strong the Spirit is, they won't accept it.
Well, that's about all
I've got time for right now. I'll let you all get back to your lives out
there. Thanks for all you do!
Love you all so much!
Elder Foote
P.S. I guess
I'll have to see Sister Brown #2 sometime in the future since I won't be at her
first transfer meeting...
picture is a drawing
Elder Taylor did of me
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| Elder Foote, Drawn by Elder Taylor |
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| Elder Taylor, Drawn by Elder Foote |