Monday, June 30, 2014

Greetings From...

Family!

Preparaos.  

Well, I bet you're all wondering where I am.  Actually, I know you are all wondering that, or at least I know that Mom is... =) so I guess I'll let you know.

We said a very difficult goodbye to the family of the branch president Monday evening.  I have lived a block away from them for the past year, and they have become my second family.  The branch president is from Chile, so to send me off they gave me a really cool Chilean bag.  But yeah, that was a super hard goodbye.  We then went to say goodbye to the investigator that we had just put on date.  That was tough too.  I also made some calls to other members to let them know that my time had finally come.  Packing was a little tough.  This is the first time I've packed since I left the MTC.  Let's just say I've accumulated a few things in my past year here in Dayton...  But I conquered, and everything made it to transfer meeting.  When I reached transfer meeting, I saw a familiar face: that of Sister M. Brown!!! (I have included a picture to prove that this actually occurred)

When they called Dayton Spanish 1, I was glad to hear that Elder Bradford and Elder Shiffler will be taking over my old area.  They're really good Elders, so everything will be alright there for sure.  Then I listened to who would be the other Elder coming in to the Dayton Spanish district.  I was shocked when they called my name!  I have been moved from Dayton Spanish 1 to Dayton Spanish 2!  I am companions now with Elder Taylor, who has been in my district for the last 7 transfers!  I now live a whopping 7 miles away from my last apartment!  And all those members that I said goodbye to... well, I'm still serving with all of them in the same branch!  Crazy!  It took a long time to sink in that I was staying in Dayton!

During my first transfer in the field, I covered both Dayton Spanish 1 and 2.  That means that technically, I'm still in my first area!  I just haven't been down here working for 11 months...  But I have come down here quite a few times over the past year on exchanges, so I already knew the area a bit, and I knew a lot of the investigators as well.

So yeah, it's been a super crazy week.

Even though I'm still in the same branch, this area is completely different.  Whenever I said that I was living in Dayton before, I was kind of lying a bit.  It's like living in Murray but saying that I lived in Salt Lake.  I was living outside of Dayton in a suburb area.  But now, I'm really in Dayton!  It's great!  We live real close to downtown.  We still have a car, but it has very limited miles, so we ride the bus a lot.  You see some pretty crazy stuff on the buses and in the city here.  I was talking to a guy on the bus, and he just randomly started shouting "Alleluia!" and doing some sort of dance in his seat.  That's the least of what I've seen...

It's very diverse here.  In one day, I talked to people from Costa Rica, Columbia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Mexico, Honduras, Saudi Arabia, and the US.  8 countries!  I'll let you know if I beat that record...

We went to a lot of baptismal services this Saturday.  I have never been a witness for a baptism before, but this past Saturday I was a witness for 5!  The power of God truly is made manifest in the ordinances. 

I think that's about all for this week.  Thanks for all of your emails; it sounds like everything's going well back at home!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote
Champion!!
Elder Foote and Sister Brown.
 Building a dog house!
Hola.
My new friend from Ecuador.
Woof.
President Vilches
La Familia Vilche! (goodbye)