Goodbye Dayton....

My family!

Greetings.  What a week it has been.  Let me tell you about it.

First off, last week we returned to the Air Force museum.  An Elder in our district wanted to visit, and he convinced us to go with him and his companion.  It turned out there was a room I missed when I was there the last time, so I'll include a picture of something in that room...

One of our investigators made some huge progress this week.  In one of our lessons with him, he completely opened up to us and shared a lot of his concerns.  We extended baptism, and he said that he'd like to, but he's still not completely sure about it and doesn't feel like he could be 100% committed right now.  So that was where we were at on Tuesday.  Then a miracle happened.  This investigator went to youth conference.  And he had an amazing experience!  The youth all went to do baptisms for the dead at the Columbus temple, so he watched The Other Side of Heaven while they were doing that.  They had a bunch of returned missionaries talk to the youth about how great missions are, they did a bunch of fun activities, and they had a dance where our investigator met a lot of young women (that definitely added to the experience for him).  He also got up in front of nearly 400 youth and bore his testimony of how much he likes what Elder Taylor and I have been teaching him and how good he has felt since we began meeting with him!  So yeah, go youth conference!  We talked to him the day after, and he said "I've been thinking about that question you guys asked me (referring to the baptismal extension we gave him), and I want to be baptized."  WHOOOHOOOO!  And no big deal, but he also wants to serve a mission!!!  (that was sarcasm, it is a big deal!)  So yeah, I'm extremely excited!  He is completely ready and in all honestly could be baptized this Saturday no problem, but he wants to wait a bit until he knows a little more about the church.  So we are working with him to help him realize that he is ready and that the sooner his baptism happens, the better it will be for him.  After you've received a witness of something from the Holy Ghost, waiting to act on it is just an invitation for the Devil to throw all he's got at you to stop that action from taking place.

Ok, so here's the part of the email that corresponds to the subject line.  Yep, this week I left Dayton.  For one day.  I did my first exchange outside of Dayton, hence I did missionary work outside of the Dayton area for the first time in my entire mission!  Crazy, right?  I went on exchanges with one of the Spanish Zone Leaders (Elder Thompson) to Fairfield OH.  It was an adventure to say the least.  Down in that area it is almost exclusively people from Guatemala.  And there are lots of them.  So much so that there is a gigantic apartment complex that upon entering is basically the same as being in Guatemala.  So now I can say I have been to Guatemala...?  Anyways, as a direct result of the high Guatemalan population, I learned a little bit of Mam (a dialect spoken in Guatemala).  One of the zone leaders has learned enough Mam that he can pray in it...  I was also offered a piece of coffee candy by a Columbian, and I was about to eat it, but I was stopped just in time when she told us what it was.  Close call.

We had 49 people in sacrament meeting, which is only 5 away from the most people I have ever seen there in the past year!  The month of July, our average sacrament attendance jumped up by 20 from the average attendance in June!  The Spanish work in Dayton is most definitely hastening.  It's still picking up momentum, but once it gets going, it'll roll forth until it fills the whole city!  I know that this is the Lord's work and that he is currently preparing people and has been preparing people all over the Earth to hear the message of the gospel.  Ours is the responsibility to utilize the tools the Lord has given us and help spread this good news!

Hope you have a great week!  Good luck to Katie living in the land of Ephraim; it's a jungle out there! =)

Love,

Elder Foote   

Elder Foote and Elder Taylor Chopping Down a Tree

Elder Foote The Astronaut

We Are The Champions

The Keystone

Family,

We have done a lot of work this week with some of our more progressing investigators.  Two of them were planning on being baptized soon, so we started going over the baptismal interview questions with them.  Before we even got to it, they brought up some large concerns about tithing.  In talking with them more about tithing, we found some other doubts that they had.  We talked about everything, and we found out that they haven't been regularly reading from the Book of Mormon, and so their testimony was a little shaky regarding the Restoration.  We tied everything back to the Book of Mormon and committed them to begin reading it again.  This lesson was a big reminder to me of the importance of the Book of Mormon.  It really is the keystone of our religion.  You can teach someone each commandment meticulously and help them understand one by one, but if they are rooted in the Book of Mormon and have a testimony of its truthfulness, then every commandment and really every doubt can be tied back to that testimony.  If you know that Book of Mormon is the word of God, then you can know that everything else that the church teaches is true.

We've been helping out a Costa Rican family that recently moved here from New Jersey.  They are fixing up a house, and currently don't have water or power, so we have been doing a lot of asking around to see if we can find things to help them.  It's amazing how willing the members are to help out people that they've never even met.  It reminds me of that quote (I don't know who by, and I don't know if these are the actual words or not) "True Christianity is love in action."  (or something like that...)

Not too much else to report.  I'm glad to hear about Grandma and Grandpa Foote.  Hope all is well there and that Katie enjoys her last week of living at home! =)  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Gotham Needs Elders!

Greetings From The Ohio

Family,

Sometimes on a mission time seems to go by super slow, but then when you look back at what has happened, it seems like it went so fast it almost didn't happen.  As I sit here at this library computer typing, it feels like I was just here sending last week's email.  Time is super weird.

This week us Ohioans have been under attack.  The poison ivy season is here.  I don't have it, but my companion does.  It doesn't look very fun.  I've been keeping an eye out for it this past week, and I'm pretty sure that I've seen it a few times.  It looks so innocent, but I know better...

This area is only a few miles away from my last area, but there is so much more diversity here.  While I've been here I've been working primarily with Costa Ricans, Colombians, and Ecuadorians, whereas in my last area almost all of the people were from Michoacan, Mexico.  Needless to say, when we found a family from Michoacan, Mexico this past week, I was super excited!  Good old Michoacan...

We found a lady from Mexico who was having a yard sale.  We talked to her for a bit, and she was super excited to meet with us again.  As we started leaving, she asked us if we wanted some watermelon.  We said yes, and she gave us each like a quarter of a watermelon.  It was crazy!

We found a ton of people this week, and all of them are super close to our house.  We're super excited to start teaching them all!

That's about all.  Sorry I don't have anything too interesting this week.  Hope all goes well in China Meadows!  Catch a moose for me!

Love,

Elder Foote

Oh, I almost forgot.  I met my first person from Bolivia this week!  I'm only a few countries away from having met someone from every Spanish speaking country!

4th of July Watermelon

Spanish Zone Conference

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!