Branch Picnic...Number 2!

Family,

Another wonderful week here in Dayton Ohio!  However, this may have been the first 4th of July ever where I haven't seen fireworks...  I heard a lot of them, but I never saw any...  Crazy to think that last 4th of July I was in the MTC!

This week we organized a huge service project with all the missionaries in our zone.  We went out to a house that one of our investigators is fixing up and spent a few hours helping them scrape paint off of the outside of the house.  We had a great time, and the family we helped out really appreciated 16 missionaries and some members helping them out!

For the 4th of July we were asked to gather together as zones in local parks, draw out the plan of salvation with chalk on the ground, then talk to everyone who walked by about the drawings.  We started at a park in Dayton.  Everything was going really well until a guy came who was in charge of the park fountain.  He told us we had to stop because the chalk was going to change the pH of the water...  So we were rejected from that park.  We went and drew it out at another park though, and it looked really cool!  It was a 4th of July party!

We had a zone meeting this week as a Spanish zone!  Usually we meet with the English zones near us, but this week they had all of the Spanish missionaries gather to have some specialized training.  There's only 18 Spanish missionaries in the mission, so we all know each other really well, and we're like one big family.  Out of those 18, there are only 7 that I haven't served with or gone on exchanges with.  

Well, as the title of this email says, this week we had our annual branch picnic.  And yes, this is my second picnic here in this branch!  We had 6 investigators who came, and we had tons of fun!  We ate, played a branch-wide soccer game, and I had the chance to play catch with some lacrosse sticks!  One of our investigators is from Costa Rica, but he just recently moved here from New Jersey, where he played lacrosse!  It was awesome to get to play after over a year of not playing!

This week I learned a bit about Wilford Woodruff and the importance of journals.  He diligently kept a journal for 63 years! (if I remember right).  He would say that he would hear a sermon from Joseph Smith, and until he had wrote it down he would feel super uneasy.  But as soon as he would write it all down (and he was blessed to be able to remember these sermons almost word for word), he would feel much better.  His journals became important resourced for compiling the history of the church.  This helped me realize even more the importance of making a record of the things that we do.  It might not seem too important now, but in the future it might make a huge difference.

One last thing.  This week I saw a white squirrel!  It was crazy!

Have a great week!  Love you all!

Love,

Elder Foote

Chalk Plan of Salvation

Elder Foote and a Branch Family

Fourth of July Package

Fourth of July Bar B Q

Fourth of July Service Project

Ladder Transport

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)

That's all folks

Family,

This email will be a little shorter than normal.  I'm leaving Dayton.  After 1 year, I'm headed out.  But that's not the craziest part.  Elder Chandler is leaving too!  Doubled out!  I wouldn't be so shocked if just I was leaving, but with both of us leaving I'm pretty nervous.  I've learned a lot about this area in a year, and I really hope that the new missionaries that take over are able to keep up the work here well.  Me and Elder Chandler have had a lot of success here in the past few weeks, and I really want that to continue.  This past week was probably the best week I've had in all of my time here, so I'm sad that I'm leaving just as the work is finally beginning to pick up.

The man who came to church last week is a miracle.  He wants to change his life around completely.  We met with him almost every day this past week, and he accepted an invitation to be baptized in July!  We're super excited, but that means I'm leaving here just before the 1st baptism in this area in over 4 years!

A whole bunch of Spanish missionaries are getting moved, so when I email next I could be in Cincinnati, Kentucky, or Indiana.  We'll see what happens.

Hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Elder Foote

Dinner Time in Huber Heights

Dayton, Ohio City Skyline

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYY VIIIIIIIIIIVOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Dear Family,

That's right folks, it's that magical month that only comes around once every 4 years..... the WORLD CUP!!!  It started on Thursday, and on Friday we received some amazing news from our Spanish Zone Leaders.  Not only are we as Spanish missionaries allowed to watch the world cup, but President Porter encourages us to go and watch it with people!  YEAH!!  I've never been all that into soccer, but I am now for sure.  We're allowed to watch 30 minutes every day with investigators to help build better relationships with them.  So Friday we watched part of the Mexico vs. Camerun game with someone we've been teaching.  It was super cool!  I'll be watching more soccer when I get home for sure.  And, because everyone is super excited for soccer right now, we had one of the best turnouts ever at our weekly Saturday soccer games.  It was super fun!  I'll include a picture.  

Are you ready to hear a Spanish mistake I made this week?  We were talking about the Mexico/Camerun game, and I had never heard of Camerun before, so I asked the person we were talking with to pronounce it for me.  When I repeated it back, I said Cameron instead.  Cameron (accent over the o) means seafood/shrimp in Spanish.  So they laughed at me because I thought the Mexico was playing shrimp in the world cup.  Asi es...

Lots of people continue to comment on my long stay in the Dayton area.  Yesterday at church I received a few comments, and I'll share a few with you:

In the phone of the Branch President’s wife, instead of saying “Elders” for our phone number, it says “Elder Foote.”

The Branch President told me that he was going to put me into the “Branch Hall of Fame”, which includes my picture on the wall in his office and a ceremony in which I receive the key to the church building. (I don’t believe either of those things will really happen. =)

I received yet another “They’re going to call you to be the Elders Quorum President” comment.  Everyone thinks that one is super funny…

I hope I never leave here.  Lots of people are predicting that this will be my final week here, and I really hope they're wrong.  The work can be difficult at times, but the people here are amazing.  This is my second home, and I'm starting to dread the day a get the call that says I'm headed out.  I hope I didn't just jinx myself...

Oh, I hit my year mark.  As I sat in the apartment eating a cheese and tuna quesadilla I had made myself for dinner, I remembered that exactly one year before that moment I was being set apart as a missionary.  I thought to myself: "What would I have thought then if I could have seen myself one year in the future?"  Crazy!

Ok, here's a miracle for you.  A few months ago we found an investigator that we thought was dorado (golden).  He came to church that first Sunday, and he had a bad experience.  He didn't like church at all.  We continued to teach him, but he had some serious doubts about our message, and pretty quickly he rejected what we had to say and we stopped seeing him.  A few days ago his name popped into my mind, and so we wrote his name in our plans.  We went to his neighborhood and first knocked the door of his next-door neighbor.  She wasn't there, but he (this former) heard us knock and came out.  When he saw us, he was super friendly and excited to see us.  He invited us in, and we had a really good lesson about the Plan of Salvation.  At the end of the lesson, we invited him to church again.  He immediately said yes.  He said that maybe the adversary had made him not have a good experience the last time to try and stop him from finding the truth.  That is exactly what happened! (I love it when investigators tell us truth like that!)  So he came to church yesterday and had a much better experience than the last time.  He said it was very peaceful.  He also saw something on the program about temples, so he started asking us about temples as well.  Amazing!  We have been working really hard to have people at church for months now, and the Lord miraculously blessed us with someone! 

Our investigators are beginning to progress as well!  The work is beginning to move along here!

Thanks for the packages!  Sorry, I completely spaced commenting on the year mark package.  Everything fits well.  I liked the pants a lot.  I also really enjoyed that photo album.  It was probably one my favorite things that you have sent me.  It was good to see everybody again!  The HP package was great too, thanks!

I'm healthy, thanks for asking.  Only two of my teeth have fallen out from lack of seeing a dentist, so I should still have a few remaining when I return.  =0

Thanks for everything.  Love you all!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Foote's Futbol Team

Seriously Though

Of Course He Gets a Harry Potter Package!

Out Came The Sun....

My family,

Hey!  How's it going?  Let me include a few experiences from this week:

It was pouring rain one day, but we had planned some service for an investigator outside, and we really felt like we needed to go do it.  She lived far away, and so if we went out to her house and weren't able to do service, we would have wasted a lot of time and miles in getting there and coming back.  So we said a prayer that everything would work out so that we would be able to go up there and do what we had planned, then we left.  As we were driving there, the rain slowly subsided, and by the time we got there, the sun was out and the weather was perfect.  We started to do some work in her garden as we had planned, but then something unexpected happened: she got home early from work!  So we were able to have a great lesson with her about the Book of Mormon!  That was a miracle that showed to me that the Lord places us places to do certain things, and sometimes those things are different than we are expecting.

We had stake conference this week, and Elder Falabella of the 1st quorum of the Seventy came to speak.  He's from Guatemala, so after the session our Spanish district went up and talked to him in Spanish for a few minutes.  He gave us some very specific counsel for how to help our branch and the work in our areas.  His counsel was the answer to some questions I've had for a long time.  I know that the Lord speaks through his servants to help direct His work.

This week we were caught into the most intense Bible-bashing battle I've experienced on my mission so far.  It was really just a one-sided battle; this guy just kept attacking us, but we refused to bash back.  Anytime we tried to answer a question of his or really just say anything, he just kept talking.  It was pretty crazy.  Always remember that the most important thing regarding gospel truths is not what people teach, but if the Holy Ghost is present when they are teaching.  You can always trust the feelings that come when the Holy Ghost is testifying of the truth.

We have an awesome investigator!  She is super prepared!  When we taught the apostasy, she understood it better than anyone I have ever taught.  Then when we taught her about the Book of Mormon, it made complete sense to her!  She loved the idea that the Lord would provide a second witness of Christ to help stabilize the teachings of the Bible!  We were super excited!  But the best part is an experience she shared with us.  She called her mom to let her know that she was meeting with us, and when we heard that, we were a little nervous.  But her mom only talked about how much she admires the church, how much it focuses on families, and she encouraged her daughter (our investigator) to keep listening to what we had to say!  Yeah!

Not too much else happened.  Elder Chandler is teaching me more about soccer, so I'm getting better bit by bit.  This morning I learned how to do a rainbow kick (I think that's what it's called).  So yeah, preparense...

Love you all!  Have a great week!  Thanks for the pictures!

Love,

Elder Foote 

Elder Foote Waiting

I have now lived here for at least one day in each of the 12 months!!

Family!

Another week has past!  Sounds like all went well with you all this week.  Looks like graduation went well; I'm sad I missed it!  You'll have to let me know how the trip went when you email next week!

As far as Dayton goes, things are pretty normal here.  Last P-day we went to the Dayton Art Insitute and looked at art.  I'll include some pictures of our adventures... 

You know in the Restoration DVD where Joseph Smith and the little boy are planting and Joseph sticks a stick in the ground, moves it forward a bit, then the kid puts the seed in and they close up the hole?  Yeah, we did that this week.  We were helping out in the garden of our Branch President's family, and Elder Chandler and I were given the opportunity to plant the green beans.  So we found a stick, and we acted out that part of the movie!  It was exciting.

We went out with a member who recently returned from his mission in Guatemala.  He is the epitome of becoming Hispanic.  He internalized the culture so well I would dare say he is Guatemalteco.  Anyways, he taught us a new form of speaking that I've heard of before, but never known how to use.  In Spanish there's a formal way of speaking, and informal way of speaking, and this other way called the "vos" form, which I guess they only use in certain countries.  It's basically just a super informal way of speaking.  So that was cool to learn.  Elder Chandler and I are starting to take note of all the words we learn from all of the different countries that are represented here.  Soon I'll be able to speak Spanish from Mexico, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, La Republica Dominicana, Honduras, Costa Rica, etc.!

We had an amazing lesson with a new investigator this week.  She is super prepared; she basically taught us about the apostasy when we started discussing it!  We are super excited for her!

That's it for this week!  Hope all goes well with the cruise!

Love,

Elder Foote   

Elder Foote, Dayton Art Museum

Elder Foote, Dayton Art Museum Sculpture

Elder Foote, Dayton Art Museum Weird Thing

Elder Foote, Blending In

Elder Foote, One Year Package

Elder Foote, Name in Spanish

The Cleanest Car!!!!!

My family!!!!

Please allow me a moment to brag.  For as long as I have been in Dayton, I have been engaged in a silent struggle, a year-long battle, a fight that I have never been able to win.  Until now.  (did you like that build up?)  Every few months we have a zone conference, and at that zone conference they check all of the cars.  Out of 10-15 cars, they pick a winner for cleanest car, and that companionship is given something more precious than gold: they are given a few miles added to their monthly mileage allotment.  Well, I had almost given up hope that I would ever win, but this past week at zone conference my dreams were finally realized.  We won!  So I can now check winning the clean car award off of my missionary bucket list...

Quite a bit happened this week.  I used a garden tiller for the first time, I was offered (and successfully rejected) tequila, and I witnessed a flash flood!

We also found lots of new people this week, all with tons of potential!  I'm super excited for all the amazing lessons we will have this week with all of them!

Our P-day was moved to today because of a miracle!  President Porter was inspired to have P-day on Tuesday this week instead of Monday, and to have a huge focus on finding new investigators.  The whole day our phone went crazy as everyone reported and new investigator that we were able to find.  At the end of the day, as a mission we found 234 new investigators!  That is over half of what our weekly record is: in just one day!  We had a mission-wide conference call and talked about that amazing miracle and about how that was just the beginning of the miracles that will occur in June.  I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us.  I know that he is behind all that happens out here, and that as we obey, he blesses us and those around us.

Sorry this email isn't too long.  If I had more time I'd go into a bit more detail on some things, but the library is super full today, so I don't have much time.

Thanks for your emails!  It sounds like things are going well at home.  I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Floating Car During a Flood

View From an Over Pass

Flooding on The Freeway

Flooding in Ohio