The Dayton Adventures Continue!

Family!

The highlight of course for this week was general conference.  I was super excited to listen to it, and I wasn't disappointed!  After Elder Ballard's talk, I'm expecting all of you to read through Preach My Gospel... =)  I really liked something said by Elder Hallstrom during the priesthood session.  He said something along the lines of "The purpose of General Conference is only fulfilled if we are willing to act, willing to change."  There are always things that we can do better in our lives, and I enjoy the opportunity to receive personal revelation at general conference for how I can improve and be a better person.  I went in to general conference with some questions, and I came out with a whole bunch of answers.  I know that as we sincerely study the messages and look for ways we can improve, the Lord will help us know things we can change to become more like our Savior.  I also liked one of President Monson's closing remarks about how we should all take the time to review and study the conference messages.

Well, as always, this week was filled with a whole bunch of experiences.  It started with me cutting my hair again right after emailing last Monday.  I decided to try and do it fancy and do different lengths.  It wasn't too bad, but I've still got some room for improvement...  On April Fool's day we received two voicemails on our phone from Sister Porter.  On one of them she said that they had just got a call from Salt Lake, and our mission would be receiving iPads very soon, and on the other she said "Happy April Fools!"  But the messages got mixed up, so we got the "Happy April Fools" message first!  It was a nice try... =)

We taught a guy this week who told us of a dream he had recently had.  He was in this place, and before him were two paths.  One was like a highway: straight and wide and easy to follow.  Lots of people were telling him to follow that path; they told him that it was the path that led to happiness.  The second path was a narrow, winding trail that looked a lot more difficult to follow.  Even though everyone was telling the other path was right, he said he knew that the trail was the way he should go.  That morning I had been studying in 3 Nephi and had read 3 Nephi 14:13-14 which talked about two paths.  I was able to share those verses with him and explain to him that he could follow that narrow path by following Christ and being baptized.  It was a cool experience for me, and it reaffirmed to me that the Lord guides both investigators and missionaries.

I taught about footnotes for the first time this past week!  We recently met this super awesome family, and when we introduced them to the Book of Mormon, the mother asked us what the "tiny letters above the words" were!  I've never had anyone ask me that!  So we were excited about that.

We had a guy run away from us in an apartment complex.  He was walking across the lawn, and we asked him how he was doing, but he just kept on walking.  I was pretty sure he was ignoring us, but just in case he hadn't heard us, we started walking after him.  He saw us walking up to him, and he just kept on walking.  He went around a corner, and when we got there just a few seconds later, he was gone!  The only way he could have disappeared is if he had sprinted around the building and gone into a door on the other side!  So yeah, we are scary I guess.

In the English ward here a missionary just barely returned home from Guatemala.  His mom had us come over for dinner the following day so he would have someone to speak Spanish with.  His Spanish was amazing!  I wish my Spanish could be that good.  I can get it good to a certain point, but I don't think it will ever be like his was.  He was around people who spoke Spanish for 2 whole years, so he learned it on the streets.  I've learned a lot of Spanish from natives, but I don't spend as much time around them, so there's some things that I'll never really master, like the slang or country-specific vocab.  Those were just observations I made in talking with this RM.  I also got a glimpse of what it will be like to come home in just over a year.  It will be weird. =)

I think that's about all.  Today we are finally fulfilling our dreams and going to the Dayton Air Force Museum!  I'll send you some pictures of it next week!

Love,

Elder Foote 

P.S.  By the way, thanks for the conference package!  We watched all 5 sessions of conference at the church, and we got the package just as we were headed out the door for the first session on Saturday.  Perfect timing!  You're the best!

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Graf, Elder Taylor, Elder Foote, Elder Wells

Almost There.......

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

Tribute To The Brown Family!

Elder Foote, Drawn by Elder Taylor

Elder Taylor, Drawn by Elder Foote

The Art of Interrupting.....

Family!

It has been a long week, but at the same time a very short one.  Time is a really weird thing as a missionary.  Anytime you look back, it feels like things have just flown by.  I'm nearing the end of my 6th transfer in this area, and it doesn't feel like I've been here anywhere near that long.

Well, I don't have any super long stories this week, just a bunch of small ones I'll share real quick.  Here goes:

First off, that St. Patrick's Day package was awesome!  Thank you so much!  We liked it a lot.  I especially liked that rainbow licorice thing with the coins.  That was cool.

From my branch president this week I learned about the art of interrupting.  It seems like most of the people we teach either don't talk very much, or they talk a whole lot.  We went with our branch president to someone that talked a whole lot.  Afterwards he told us that there is a skill that you have to develop when talking with people; you have to learn how to interrupt them, but interrupt them nicely.  It's kind of hard to do that sometimes in a different language, but that's something I'll have to try to develop: the art of interrupting.

We were teaching a lesson this week with a brand new investigator that the other Spanish elders had referred to us.  Right at the end of the lesson as we were getting ready to leave, we heard a knock on the door that sounded pretty familiar.  We were at the door, so I opened it, and it was the other Spanish elders!  They were super surprised to have us open the door of this house in Dayton!  They had forgotten that they gave us this guy as a referral.  It was a pretty funny situation.

We taught a person, and at the end of the lesson she gave us a pack of frozen tripe.  We still haven't attempted to cook it...

I learned a super awesome saying from one of the members this week.  She said that if someone tends to forget things a lot, you can say "A ti te voy a mandarte traerla la muerte", which translates to "I'm going to send you to bring death."  If the person is super forgetful and you send them to bring death, they'll forget to go get it and it'll never come.  I think that's the logic behind it...  Anyways, I thought that was interesting.

I had to change my first bike tire!  We were burning through our monthly mile allotment at a pretty crazy rate, so we planned a day this week in which we were only on bikes or out with members.  It was the legendary "0 mile day!"  But yeah, my tire went flat and I had to change it.

One of our less actives is moving into a house (which is closer to our apartment then their old apartment was!), so we spent a bit of time helping them scrape off wallpaper.  So now I know how to do that...

We had an investigator spend a few minutes telling us about the difference between Hispanic and American time.  She said that Americans tend to be more punctual, whereas Hispanics tend to arrive at least 10 minutes late if not later.  Ironically, she was telling us about this after we arrived to our appointment with her 15 minutes late...  So I guess by her logic, I'm Hispanic!!!

There's a few little stories for you.  So many things happen each day it's crazy.  I hope all is going well there at home.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

p.s. I got my camera back, so I'll include the pictures from the temple.

A Day At The Columbus Ohio Temple!

Mission Fun Day

St. Patricks Day Package

St. Patricks Day Presents

Super Hot Sauce Ingredients!

EL TEMPLO!!!

Family!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  An English member gave us some pins to wear, so that's an explanation of the pictures...  

Well, the obvious highlight of the week was our journey to the Columbus temple!!!!!  It was amazing!  The new video they have is absolutely incredible!  The Columbus temple is the smallest temple that I have been in.  It's right next to a stake center, and the two buildings are just about the same size!  But anyways, I was able to have a great experience at the temple.  It amazes me how much the temple can change our perspective of things.  It helped me to see everything as it really is, to focus on what is most important, and it allowed me to clearly see things that I can improve on to become more like my Savior.  I would seriously encourage everyone who can to go to the temple as often as possible.

Well, other than that, this week was pretty normal.  It was Elder Wells' birthday, so we celebrated that by exploring a new town up north.  We had heard a lot of rumors of a large number of Hispanics up there, so we decided to go check it out.  We only found one.  So we probably won't be up there too often...

To illustrate the nature of our work a bit, I thought I'd include a brief description of a lesson we had this week.  We go into the house and sit down on the couch.  The mother of the home calls her two children (17 and 15) into the living room to listen.  The mother speaks only Spanish, but the kids speak both Spanish and English.  However, they prefer to speak English, and in fact, one of them can only read in English.  The one who can only read in English has an English copy of the Book of Mormon and the other two have their Spanish copies.  We read a few verses, explain them to the mom in Spanish, then answer the questions of the kids in English.  Then we tell the mom what the kids' questions were and what our answers were.  This pattern continues for most of the lesson.  Not all our lessons are bilingual like this, but a few are.  I think it's an amazing fulfillment of the prophecy that everyone will eventually hear the gospel message in their own language.

We had an investigator tell us this week that he knows the Book of Mormon is true.  He said that he was conflicted about the book all week long, and as he was at work, he kept praying to know if it was something he should read or not.  One night he had a dream.  In the dream he heard a voice that told him that the book was from God and that he should read it.  He began to read it, and after reading only the first page he said that he felt "a good, warm feeling", and that he knew it was true.  I know that to those who truly seek answers from the Lord, the Holy Ghost will respond and will help guide us to the truth.

I don't have too much else to include for this week.  I'll have to send my temple pictures next week.  I put my camera in the temple bag I borrowed from a member, and I just found out this morning that I left it in there.  So I'll get it back this week and send the pictures next week.

Sounds like there'll be a lot of changes when I get back.  That's awesome to hear about all of the growth out there.  The Lord truly is hastening His work!

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote     

Sporty Ties and Buttons!

Is It Really St. Patricks Day?

Some Kind of a Special St. Patricks Day Pose?

I Don't Think I Can Summarize Two Weeks In This Subject Line...

Family!

It's good to be back!  Not emailing for a week is not fun at all!  As you heard, we had a mission fun day last preparation day.  It was about an hour to an hour and a half long drive there, and we had just enough time to run to the store real quick before we left.  We got back right before 6, so we had just enough time to change and then get to work!  So that's why emailing didn't happen last week.

But yeah, the mission fun day was awesome!  We played a bunch of games (my team were the masters of charades), watched 17 miracles, and drank homemade root beer!  It was very close to the maximum amount of partying approved by the white handbook...

So the title I would have used for last week's email is "party crashers".  We crashed two parties two weeks ago.  We were fed pasole at the birthday party of a 6 year old, and then the next day we were invited into a house, and we found out later that they were having a first communion party for one of their kids...  So yeah, you can call us party crashers if you like...

Two weeks ago church got canceled because of some snow.  We had just finished cooking and packing up a huge breakfast to take to our investigators to help them come to church when we got the call that church was called off.  We were pretty disappointed. 

Because we are the Spanish missionaries, we have a significantly smaller number of members that are able to come out and teach with us.  We have a list of every member that could potentially come out with us, and lets just say that it doesn't take long to call the whole list...  Anyways, the point of this paragraph is to show how much the Lord blesses us and how involved He is in this work of salvation.  A few of the members that come out with us regularly are planning on moving very soon.  But just in the past two weeks we have had two members move into the area who speak Spanish and are willing to come out with us!  One of them even came up to us and asked when he could come out with us!  These two new members are an example to me of the tender mercies of the Lord.  Things might not always be as easy as we would like them to be, but the Lord will always provide us with the assistance we need to accomplish the tasks that are placed before us.

I had a cool experience with following promptings this last week.  We went to visit a less active member, and when we got to their apartment, they told us that they had been called in to work, and they wouldn't be able to meet with us that day.  We were going to leave the area and continue on with our plans, but the idea came to me of trying a potential investigator that lived in the same apartment complex.  We knocked on the door, and he told us that he was leaving to work right then, but that he would love to talk to us another time.  We set up an appointment, and the next day we had an amazing lesson with him.  In the lesson (in preparation for sharing the First Vision) we told him that the Spirit would be here, and he said "The Spirit is already here..."  Amazing!  The Lord has His hand in this work for sure!

I met some people this week from Turkey (I was able to use the two Turkish words I learned a few weeks ago from a less active...), and I met someone from Afghanistan who had only been in the U.S for 3 months!  He spoke really good English!

We were trying some potentials the other day, and we knocked on the last door we were going to try in that area.  A guy opened the door, and to my surprise, it was an inactive member that I had met one time a few months ago!  We had no idea that he lived in that house!  He invited us in, we were able to talk to him about his feelings towards the church, and we set up a time to see him in the future.  Another less active found!

And while we're on the topic, let me tell you about another less active that we found this past week!  This one was truly a miracle.  It was 8:50, we were about 10 minutes from home, and we had finished all that we had planned.  We were thinking about heading home, but we decided to try one more potential in that area.  We knocked the door and a man answered who spoke Spanish.  He told us to wait just a minute, and then he shut the door.  We stood there for a few minutes while his dogs barked and barked and barked.  Finally, we decided that he wasn't going to come back, so we started walking away down his pathway.  All of the sudden, the door opened and a lady said "Hey, wait!"  She came out to meet us, and told us that she was a member of the church!  She had been baptized when she was 12 in Georgia, and she had been very active in the church there.  However, when she moved to Ohio, she had a bad experience and stopped going to church.  The man who had answered the door was her husband, and he was from Mexico.  We told her that we were Spanish missionaries, and she was very excited.  She had tried a lot of times to explain what a Mormon was to her husband, but she didn't really have and materials to help her.  Well, we just happened to have a Book of Mormon in Spanish and a Spanish restoration pamphlet...  She was interested in coming to the branch (she speaks Spanish), and she told us she thought her husband would probably be interested as well.  As we were leaving, she told us that she had done baptisms in the Atlanta temple before, and that she "had always wanted to go into the big part of the temple, but she hadn't been old enough."  That was definitely a miracle finding them that late at night.  That was our "last door of the day" miracle.  It's amazing to me to see how the Lord helps these people be found.  In the last 2 transfers, we have found 6 less active members.

Sorry about not writing a lot on that letter you sent.  I didn't have any time to do it that Monday, and I only had about 20 minutes Tuesday morning to write.  I wanted to get it off Tuesday morning because I wanted to let you know that I definitely did want you to send my temple clothes and that I needed them as soon as possible.  We found out last Wednesday that we will be going to the temple this coming Wednesday, in two days!  We are super excited!  So yeah, that's why the letter had so few details, because I was super rushed in trying to get it off.  If you haven't sent my clothes yet, I want my temple bag with everything that is still inside it.  Even though I won't get it before this Wednesday, I still want it.  The Columbus temple has very few extra sets of clothes, so they want everyone to have their own clothes if possible.  I'll probably be fine for this week, but I definitely need them for the next time we get to go to the temple.  If you want to send another letter with questions, I'll give you more details, sorry again.

It's good to hear from you all.  Keep on pushing on.  I know that life can get tough sometimes, but what helps me through the difficult times is remembering who I am and why I'm here.  We are all children of our Heavenly Father, and our purpose here is to strive to become as much like our Savior as possible and to help our brothers and sisters do the same.  I know that as you remember what the greater purpose of this life is, you will have the strength to do the things you need to do, and that you will experience more happiness as you go about your daily activities.  I love you all!  Thanks for all that you do for me and for each other!

Love,

Elder Foote

The Weirdest Breakfast I've Ever Had.......

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 

Spanish District at Members Home For Dinner

La Policia!!!!!!

Familia!

What a week!  I'll start off by letting you know that I recently received transfer calls...

We met with our recently found less active A----- and let her know that she was baptized and is a member!  She was really excited!  She really wants to come to church, she just isn't able to at the moment because of work.  She has started reading the Book of Mormon though, and we will continue to visit her and remind her of everything that she learned about the church 20 years ago in Mexico.

This week I got pulled over by the police!!!  We were driving through the streets of a neighborhood, following the GPS to the house of our next appointment.  After a few turns, I noticed that we were being followed by a police car!  I drove super carefully, but then disaster struck!  The GPS took us to a dead end street!  As soon as we entered the street, the police officer turned on his lights...  He came up to the window and asked if we were alright and what we were doing.  I said "Well, we're missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints..."  Turns out that he pulled us over because our bike rack was "obscuring our license plate."  It wasn't really though; you could see the license plate just fine.  I think he was just bored and was hoping we were doing something illegal.  Once we told him we spoke Spanish, he asked us where we were headed next.  We told him, and it turned out he had received a complaint from that person a while back, and he asked us if we could translate for him before we started teaching.  They weren't home though, so that didn't happen...  We did talk to him (police man) about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith for a few minutes though...

Our branch had it's first baptism in over two years on Saturday!  One of the other Dayton Spanish Elders' investigators got baptized.  The growth of the branch is beginning!

This week I read two talks by President Benson titled "To the Mothers of Zion" and "To the Fathers of Israel."  They talked about the duties of mothers and fathers, and as I was reading them I kept thinking of how great of parents you two are.  I don't have a clue where I would be without all of the guidance and love that you have given me over the years.  Thanks for everything!

So I'll be staying in Dayton for another 6 weeks!  I'm excited, and I'm glad I'm not leaving.

Sorry if this email isn't the most focused.  We didn't think the library would be open today, so I didn't really plan out what I was going to say...

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

P.S.  That's awesome about Katie's UVU tryouts!

A Valentines Package!

Elder Foote is a Key Holder, Being Photo Bombed!

Elder Foote, Crazy Big Eyes!