Monday, May 12, 2014

1 Year in Dayton?, Elder Foote The Roofer, And My Trip to The Hospital

Family!!!!!!!

Long time no see!  It was great to talk with all of you yesterday.  It sounds like all is going well out there in the great state of Utah! (now when people ask me where I'm from, I say the great state of Utah...)  All of you look great! 

Well, I guess I'll tell you the big news....... I'm staying in Dayton again!!!  That's right, the dream will be realized; yo voy a morar aqui por 1 ano!  The sad part of this news is that Elder Wells will be leaving.  He is an amazing Elder, and I'll be sad to see him go.  But that means tomorrow I'll have a new companion.  This will be my 4th companion in my first area!  Crazy!!

Well, this was a week of adventures.  I'll dive right in and tell you a few things that happened this week.

All my mission I've heard legends of people from Mexico who have red hair.  I never fully believed those rumors, but then one day we saw someone outside of a house that we knew housed someone who spoke Spanish.  We went to talk to him, and sure enough he was from Mexico, but he had RED HAIR!  The legends are true!!!  So now you know.

I went to the hospital this week.  I decided I'd say it like that to give Mom a bit of a scare. =)  We actually went there to give someone a blessing.  A inactive member from the branch that I've only seen 3 times in my year here asked us to come and give his brother a blessing.  His brother overdosed and had a heart attack, then went into a coma.  It was pretty serious.  So we gave him a blessing with probably 20 people crowded around us watching to see what would happen.  It was the first time I've acted as the voice for a blessing in Spanish.

We talked to some people having a carne asada near the house of one of our investigators, and they invited us to eat with them.  That isn't an uncommon thing, but these people had nopales (cactus) which isn't too common.  I've had it before, but Elder Wells hadn't.  As we ate it, this old guy told us a story about Pancho Villa eating cactus in the desert with his army.  So there's some history for you as well as an experience with food...

I am now a professional roofer.  One of our friends needed half of her garage roof replaced, so guess who she called?  Los Elderes!  Her boyfriend (who happens to be from Peru) gave us orders, and we followed with exactness.  We got all the plywood up, but we had to leave before we started the tar paper or the shingles.  As we were leaving, the lady who invited us over tried to come up onto the roof to help her boyfriend.  As she stepped off of the ladder, she stepped on some sawdust, slipped, and went backwards off of the roof!  She landed on her side and hit her head on her neighbor's shed.  Luckily she was alright!  It was pretty scary!

We had a great lesson with one of our less active members this week. She told us that all through the last week she felt like she was being attacked. She was very irritable with everyone, she didn't want to pray or read, and she just all around felt bad. The night before we came over she decided she had better read something so she could tell us she had read. As she read, she felt better. During our visit, we shared with her 3 Nephi 18:18-19, which says that Satan desires to have us, and therefore we must always pray. We talked about a lot of the bad influences in the world, and at the end of the lesson she said that from now on she will read every day to be able to resist the attacks of the Devil. When we asked her if we could come by next week she said "Yes! You have to come!"

That's about it!  Prepare yourselves for another 6 weeks of adventures from Dayton Ohio!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote
Waiting For The Skype Call
Elder Foote Got a New Name Tag
Worth The Wait, 3 Hours to be Exact
Elder Foote and a Branch Member