Feliz Christmas y un Happy Año Nuevo

Family!

Just in case you were wondering what language I speak on my mission, the subject line to this email is a great example...

Well, this week was Christmas!  We got invited to eat at a ton of places.  I was more full on after the 24th than I think I've ever been in my whole life!  I also got super sick of tamales.  I had a ton of normal tamales as well as some Dominican tamales made out of yucca root and platano.  Between the 24th and the 25th I spent Christmas with people from: Mexico, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the U.S.  

It was good to talk to you all on Christmas!  I enjoyed hearing about all of the crazy stuff going on in Eagle Mountain, and it was good to be able to share a little bit more about what's going on out here.

I'm trying to think of anything out of the ordinary to write, but really it was a pretty average week other than eating way too much and trying to develop some better relationships with the members.  I tried to take more pictures than usual this week, so I'll send a bunch to you.

Sorry this is shorter; time is once again pretty limited today.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Best Tamales He's Ever Eaten

Christmas Skype

Elder Foote's Christmas Stocking

Christmas Tamales

Elder Foote and Elder Elbaba and a Dominican Family

Christmas Crab

Elder Foote's Family Photo

Elder Foote's Fierce Family

Elder Foote, Elder Elbaba and Luz

The Elders at a Member Christmas Party

Christmas Pinata

Lots of Rice For Christmas

Back to Dayton and Meet the Mormons

Family!

Preparation day is a bit shorter today because of Christmas later on in the week, so this will probably be a little shorter than usual.  

As you already know, we had our mission Christmas conference this last week.  It was awesome!  They had a bunch of musical numbers, then we got to watch Meet the Mormons!  It was really good; the Candy Bomber is awesome!  Great example of how the Lord can work through us if we follow impressions.

This week Elian's Mom (Yorleni) and younger brother (Aaron) got baptized!  And I got to go up to Dayton for the baptism!  It was really good to see all my friends up there and be able to see the baptism!  After she was baptized, Yorleni gave a very powerful testimony.  She said she wasn't baptized out of a sense of debt towards the missionaries or the church for what they'd done for her and her family, but she was baptized because she had read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants (!!!!!), and she knew that the church was true.  She said "I know Jesus Christ is my Savior, I know that God loves me, and I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God who was called to translate and bring forth the Book of Mormon..."  The Spirit was there very strong.  I definitely expect this family to be sealed someday and to be a rock-solid family in the Dayton Spanish branch.

I'm excited to talk to you all this week!  It'll be on Skype, and I'll probably be on between 12 and 2 your time.  See you then!

Love,

Elder Foote  

Baptism in Dayton, Ohio 

Elder Foote's Christmas Packages

Elder Foote and his good friend Raul

Elder Foote at Church

Elder Wells, Elder Foote and Elder Garcia

Elder Foote, Elder Prach and Elder Elbaba

President and Sister Porter

Keeping The Sabbath Day Holy!

Family!

Another long, busy week.  I did a better job this week of keeping track of everything that happened, so I'll just go through the week chronologically and put down anything of importance.

First off, thanks for the package!  It was awesome!  Our apartment is now super festive thanks to that tree!  And I did get the other one from the Keller's yesterday.  Thanks!

We helped a member finish painting their gazebo this week.  It's been an ongoing project for awhile now, so we decided that it was time to finish it up once and for all, even though it was only 40 degrees outside...  Afterwards he took us out to eat at a really good Mexican restaurant where I ate my first ever chile relleno.  Another noteworthy thing I ate this week was a seafood soup that had whole crawdads in it.  You had to pick them out and shell them by hand as you were eating.  It was pretty good.

We found a lot of people this week.  One was a super intelligent Guatemalan man named Jairo.  He knew the bible better than most people I've met on my mission.  Usually when I teach I have to explain things very simply and assume that the people haven't ever heard anything about this stuff before, but with this guy I was able to be more straight up with what I said instead of only saying the bare minimum.  It was kind of weird to be honest.

This week almost everyone we tried to visit was sick.  We were really surprised; we'd never seen so many people sick at one time before.  I got sick as well, but luckily it passed in a few days.

A member told us a super cool story this week.  He used to work as a manager at Skyline.  He made pretty good money, he had a decent schedule, and he was the boss.  The only downsides were that he had to work Sundays, and the work environment wasn't very good.  After working in that job for awhile, he finally felt like he needed to quit and find a job that would allow him to have Sundays off.  So he quit his job and took a job doing maintenance in an apartment complex for a lot less money.  Over time however he was able to learn a lot, and he soon took over the management of the entire complex, as well as a few other complexes.  He now makes better money than he did before, he has better hours, he doesn't have to work on Sundays, and he has a very relaxed work environment.  He was definitely blessed as he took a leap of faith and did all he could to obey the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy.  Mosiah 2:41.

We went to try a former investigator in an old trailer park, and it turns out the trailer where they used to live didn't exist anymore.  We started to leave and were stopped by a lady wanting to talk to us.  She said that she had met with the sisters before, but that her husband never had because he was Hispanic.  We told her we spoke Spanish, she gave us her info, and now we have a new person to contact.  I felt like we were definitely led to be in that place at that time.

I tried White Castle for the first time!  70 cent sliders!

That's about all for this week!  Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Foote   

First White Castle

Second White Castle

Third White Castle

Elder Foote's Christmas Tree

Parking For Elders?

Elder Foote's Christmas Package

Christmas Decorations

There's no place like Hamilton for the Holidays....

My Family!

First off, transfers are in, and I'll be in Hamilton for the holidays!  Elder Elbaba is staying as well, this will be our 4th transfer together.

We had a pretty good week this week.  We've been sharing the gift with everyone (christmas.mormon.org or navidad.mormon.org). If you haven't seen the video or shared it yet, now is the time!

We've been focusing a lot on some of our investigators that are very close to baptism, they just need to get married!  It's a super complicated thing to do with them not being legal and all.  They have to go to a different state where the marriage laws are less strict, they have to have a passport.  One of the couples we've been dealing with doesn't have any documents at all, so in order to get a passport they need some documents from Mexico, but they can't go back there, so yeah... super complicated.  My mission has taught me quite a bit about immigration law.

We've been doing a lot of service for a less active lady recently.  She used to not let the missionaries in or even really talk to them, but in the last two weeks or so we've developed a pretty good relationship with her.  We helped her translate today when she took her kid to the doctor, and we also ordered a prescription for her over the phone.  We're going to try and help her get back into church.  Also, another less-active has started coming again.  We visited her a few times, then all of the sudden after over 8 months of not coming, she started coming!  She's now come two weeks in a row, and she bore her testimony yesterday about how she's had a change of heart and has decided to make an effort to come every week from now on!  Go less-actives!

I spent some more time with Dominicans this week.  I can understand them a little bit better now, but it's still a work in progress.  I ate tostones with them, which is basically fried plantain.  It was pretty good.  I also ate a type of meat I've never eaten before with a Mexican family.  I won't say what it was, but I'll include a picture...

Really there's not too much else to put down.  We've been super busy, which is really nice, because the worst times are when you have nothing to do.

The lights look super good!  Hope all is going well with you all at home.  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote  

Elder Foote and Elder Elbaba at Church

Elder Foote and a Hispanic Couple

Elder Foote's Holiday Mug

Elder Foote

Elder Taylor, Foote and Elbaba at their Zone Conference

Mystery Meat

Pasqual and I

The Familia Zamora

Baptism!

Family!

Good to see the CLMK again!  I'll start off by answering your questions.  No, I didn't get your Thanksgiving package yet.  The post office has stopped leaving the packages at our doorstep because they don't think it's a safe enough location, so we have to go by the post office today and pick it up.  (By the way, I was given a scarf this week, so I no longer need one for Christmas).

Thanksgiving was really good!  We started it off with a 3 hour-long planning meeting.  Then we went to an English family's house for a Thanksgiving lunch.  Later on we had dinner with a less-active family from the branch.  They made a pretty traditional American meal, so I didn't really eat anything too crazy.  We played a little Mexican bingo with them, which is just normal bingo except that the squares have pictures on them and the markers are beans...

This week Valentina got baptized!  It was a really great service, and afterwards her family threw a huge party.  They invited at least 30 non-members to the service, so the whole party was spent talking to all the people who came.  Crazy!

This week I did English work for the first time in over a year.  We went on exchanges with the English Zone leaders, and I went to their area.  It was still basically foreign work though because the families we visited were from Micronesia and Ghana.  It was super hard not to speak Spanish while we were teaching them.  I also had to focus super hard while praying or I would slip into Spanish as I was praying.  It was a super fun day, but it was nice to go back to Spanish work when the day was done.

Nothing else super huge happened this week.  Most of the week was spent prepping for the baptism and things like that.  Here's a few random small things that happened:

·  I ate flautas (tacos durados) for the first time this week.

·  I committed a 7 year-old to never drink tea again.

·  We tried to put out a metaphorical fire when Gospel Principles class turned into a 30 minute-long discussion on polygamy.

·  I learned that our assistant branch secretary's older brother once slapped Pancho Villa in the face.

·  I talked to a few different families who are absolutely ecstatic about the Executive Order.

Just in case you haven't heard, the church is launching a huge initiative called "He is the gift."  It's a video about the true meaning of Christmas.  They bought out all of the billboards and televisions in Times Square on black Friday to promote it, and on Dec. 6th they're going to buy out the YouTube banner all day.  You should definitely go watch it and then share it if you haven't already.  christmas.mormon.org

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Foote will teach anyone who will listen

Elder Foote and Elder Elbaba November Baptism

New Member of the Church

Elder Footes Thanksgiving Package

Tongue, Cheek and Head

Family!

Lots happened this week as usual.  We focused a lot this week on getting members out to lessons with us and involving them in the work.  We set a goal of how many lessons we would have with a member present, and we worked all week long to hit that goal.  We called basically every member that lives in our area and even a few in the other area, and basically no one was available to come out or they just didn't answer.  We asked a few less-actives who hadn't been to church in months if they would help us, and we were able to get a few lessons with members present with their help.  We did all we could all week, but when Sunday arrived we were still short by 3.  We had no clue how we would get 3 more by the end of the day with nothing set up.  We talked to all the members at church and were able to set up 1 for Sunday evening.  We had a lesson after church with V-------- and a member of the primary presidency.  We still needed 1 more.  We decided we would just go try less actives and hopefully find an opportunity to teach with a member.  The first less-active we tried opened the door and invited us right in.  She led us into the living room where her non-member husband was talking with one of the members of the branch!  We had walked right into the perfect situation to teach with a member!  We ended up hitting our goal!  That experience helped build my testimony that the Lord's grace really will make up all the difference if we do all that we can and ask for His help.

This week I had a super intense lesson with some Dominicans.  I think I already mentioned how they speak super fast and I have a hard time understanding them.  Well, the guy we were teaching spoke faster than anyone I've ever met.  And he shouted when he spoke.  At first I thought he was mad, but after a bit I realized that he just spoke like that.  There were some other people in the lesson, and for a while they talked amongst themselves and I just tried to follow along.  I felt like I was teaching my very first lesson again.  I could only pick out a few words here and there, so the majority of the time I had to guess what was being said.  When they asked me a question I would just respond to what I thought they were saying, and every now and again my response wouldn't even answer their question because I hadn't understood.  It was crazy!  It's a super humbling experience to work to master a language for a year and a half, then just when you think you've got it, have an experience like that where you can't understand hardly anything.  It definitely helped me turn to the Lord and ask Him for help to understand and to be able to speak.  That brings to mind Ether 12:27: 

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness . I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

The Lord doesn't immediately make us perfect at something because He wants us to learn to rely on Him.  He doesn't take away our weaknesses in the moment we pray for relief because He wants us to develop the habit of looking unto Him in "every thought".  I've definitely learned a lot about this principle on my mission.

As far as the subject line is concerned, those are the types of tacos I had this week.  Cow tongue, cow cheek, and cow head.  I also had some with venison.  I can just imagine your face Mom... =)

Sounds like all is well out there.  Maybe a little busy and crazy with the broken oven, but still good.  Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Foote Eating a Head Taco

Elder Foote Enjoying a Tongue Taco

Elder Foote's Deer Soup

Elder Foote's Tongue Taco

Back to Primary...

Family!

It snowed!  We woke up to a pretty nice layer of snow all over everything.  Our car didn't have an ice scraper, so we had to buy one so we don't have to clean the car off with our hands anymore.  But yeah, it was a super good week!

We taught V-------- (the little girl we have on date) twice this week.  She's super smart, and she's really excited about her baptism.  They announced it in sacrament meeting this week, so it's pretty set in stone.

I met a lot more of the members this week.  I think I've now met almost all of the members in our area.  There are a lot of them compared to my last area, and they're all really spread out.  I met an amazing Columbian family who fed us a really good meal and gave us a whole pan of brownies to take home.  I met an awesome part-member family from Mexico/Texas/California who fed us some really good enchiladas and cinnamon water.  I told them I was from Michoacan, Mexico and there was a few seconds of silence while they stared at me in disbelief until I finally broke it by telling them I was from Utah.  I guess I'm still not Mexican enough to pull it off...  Speaking of that though, I did recently meet a less-active guy who uses tons of slang, so I've become a little bit more cultured (or uncultured I guess) as far as Mexican slang goes though.  But most of what I learned is mas o menos vulgar, so I can't really use it....  I also met my third Peruvian family!  We ate something called seco con frijoles y arroz.  Pretty good stuff.  This week we have plans to work a lot with all of these people and others to help get them more involved in the work.

Let's see.  I invited one of our Dominican investigators to stop smoking, and he said that maybe one day he will.  It's sad when people don't even try...  I went on a short exchange with the Elder Prach while Elder Elbaba and Elder Shiffler went to a baptism of someone they used to teach. Our exchange consisted of a carne asada outside in the 30 degree weather, then playing soccer at the church with a bunch of investigators and the branch president.  When I imagined missionary work before my mission, I never imagined it like this...  But I love it!

After sacrament yesterday we were recruited to go help out in the primary.  There were so many kids that they need more people in the class to help the teacher maintain some sort of order.  So I learned about Shad, Mesh, y Abed (Shadrac, Meschac and Abednego translated to Spanish and then abbreviated so the kids could say the names), got cookies, and helped everyone learn "Tell me the Stories of Jesus" in Spanish.  It was a pretty nice Sunday. =) 

This week Elder Anderson of the second Quorum of the Seventy came to visit our mission.  He and his wife had recently returned from living in the Dominican Republic for a few years, so I was able to speak with them in Spanish a bit.  That's the second general authority I've spoken Spanish with on my mission!  But anyways, I learned a lot from that meeting.  First, I learned more deeply the role of the Holy Ghost in our lives.  We can learn things with our minds, but only the Holy Ghost can teach our hearts.  In order to have the desire to keep the commandments and endure to the end, we must have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.  It is his companionship that helps us have the desire to press forward.  I also learned how to study even more effectively and really seek the revelation that my Heavenly Father is trying to give to me.  The way I've been doing things has been completely different since that meeting.  I know that the Lord inspires His servants and helps guide us as we seek to follow Him. 

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote   

Ohio Winter Begins