Navidad!

Familia!

Hope you all had a great Christmas!  Ours was awesome!  I'll start off by telling you all about it...

We started off the morning right: by studying the scriptures!  After studies, the partying began!  We headed over to an English member's house and talked with them and the English Elders for a while, then I got to call home.  That was awesome!  It was so good to hear your voices, and I was impressed with your Spanish during the Feliz Navidad song...  After that, I talked to an 8 year-old boy named L--- about ninjago (Trevor's ninja lego show) while Elder Elbaba was on his phone call.  After calls were over, us and the other Spanish elders went to a less-active's house for Christmas lunch.  We then took the other Elders to one of their investigators, where I was served goat soup!  It was super good!  Also at that house, I had an interesting conversation with a drunk Mexican on his couch...  We finished off the day by going to the house of another family in our branch for a traditional Christmas dinner.  It was a great day!

To be honest, the rest of the week was pretty average.  Not much out of the ordinary happened.  We had some really good lessons, and we were able to get a member out with us that hasn't come out with missionaries for a long time.

I did want to share with you one of the funny moments of the week.  We were talking with this lady and telling her about a lasagna that a member had made for us a little earlier.  She said that her daughter always asks her to make lasagna, but she tells her daughter that she doesn't know how to make lasagna because she's "not white."  It's always funny to hear comments like that, because immediately after them, people will get all nervous that they offended me...

Anyways, that's all I've got for this week.  Thanks for everything, and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Branch Christmas Party

Branch Pinata Party

December Day in Ohio

Merry Christmas!

Elder Foote and Elder Elbaba

My Christmas Stocking

My Stocking

Christmas Spirit!

Party at a Members Home

Poor Minion

Soccer Ball Got Stuck

Tree Covered Road

Indiana!

Familia de Pie!!!!

I'll start off with the subject line, just to mix things up a bit!  This week I went to Indiana for the first time!  We had a mission Christmas devotional in Muncie Indiana at 9 in the morning, and it was about an hour and a half long drive from Dayton out there.  Road trip!  And guess who got to drive?  I did!  It was actually a pretty boring drive. The GPS took us on a backroad through the fields, so we pretty much didn't see any modern civilization for an hour or so.  I say modern civilization because as we were driving, we passed a horse-drawn buggy, with lanterns for headlights!  Amish country all the way!  But yeah, the Christmas devotional was really fun, and we learned a lot as well.  In total, I ended up driving 200 miles that day!  I was pretty worn out by the end...

One of the Elders that we took to Indiana is waiting for his visa to the Netherlands; he's going to the same mission that is in The Best Two Years.  So he taught me some Dutch.  I can now kind of say "We are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" in Dutch!

As we were walking down the streets of this little neighborhood this week, a car pulled up alongside us.  The guy inside asked if we were Mormons, and we said we were.  He said "I thought so, I'd just never seen a Mexican Mormon before, so I thought I'd stop and see..."  He was talking about Elder Elbaba, but I keep trying to convince Elder Elbaba that he was talking about me since I'm so Hispanic...

In response to your questions about D-----, he isn't quite there yet.  He had the baptismal interview, and there are still a few things that need to happen before he can be baptized.  But his desire to know the truth is definitely there, and I have no doubt that it'll happen in the future!

I tried menudo for the first time this week.  Menudo is cow's stomach, and it was the first time I have eaten anything really weird while out on my mission.  It wasn't all that great.  The texture was really weird, and I don't think I'll be having it again anytime soon (voluntarily).

That's about it.  We're excited for Christmas here in Dayton.  We have a half P-day today and the other half on Christmas, so that should be fun.  The branch Christmas party is tonight, and we're really looking forward to that.  And the members here are super awesome; I think almost every member of the branch has invited us over for Christmas. 

I'm excited to talk to you guys on Wednesday.  I'll call mom's cell, and it'll probably be between 8 and 12 your time when I call.  Talk to you soon!

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Foote's Christmas Tree

Fine, I'll Stand by the Tree!

The Week of the General Authorities

Family!

Greetings from icy Ohio!  It gets really icy here!  They actually canceled the English ward this week because there was just too much ice in the parking lot for them to take care of.  Crazy!  But they didn't cancel our meetings...  I'll get to that in a bit...

Well, if you will remember, a while back we had transfers, and I completely forgot to mention who the new Elder was that replaced Elder Garcia.  It was..... Elder Bradford!!  He was in my MTC district, and it is super cool to be working with him again.  We have all these awesome MTC inside jokes, and it's kind of funny to speak Spanish with him and think back 6 months ago to how our Spanish was back then.  The Lord has definitely been helping both of us!  Anyways, I tell you all this because I got to go on exchanges with Elder Bradford this past week.  Not too much exciting happened, just a lot of trying people and finding them not at home.  We did have a lesson with an investigator who started off the lesson like this: "So I started reading that book you left me last time, and I'm a little confused about these gold plates..."  YES!!  He actually read out of the Book of Mormon!  That was exciting for us.  We also had a great lesson with a guy, during which he explained to us all of the intricacies of crossing the border into the U.S.  The things people go through to get here blew my mind!

We've recently been starting to have success in re-contacting former investigators from the area book.  I wanted to tell you one story real quick about one that we contacted this week.  We were cleaning out a corner of our study room, and for some reason or another, we found a stack of teaching records that weren't in the area book.  So I split them up by area, then gave the ones that fell in the other Elder's area to them.  A few days later we get a call from Elder Taylor.  He said the night before he was looking through the records, and he saw one named J---- H------.  The next morning, he ended up sitting next to a lady who spoke Spanish on the bus.  He asked her what her name was, and she said "J----." and before she could say her last name, he said "H------".  That ended up being her last name, and she was a little spooked out by that...  =)  But anyways, turns out she was in our area and I had just been mixed up, so he gave us back the record and we went to go visit her the other night.  I thought that was a great example of how the Lord knows his children, and he has small things happen; like us cleaning out that part of the study room or me mixing up where this lady lived, just to get us in touch with people again.

This weekend we had some amazing opportunities to hear from some general authorities!  We had an amazing zone conference on Saturday with Elder Perkins of the first quorum of the seventy.  He taught us a lot, and I was able to learn so much from him and from the Spirit that was there.  That night, we were allowed to attend the adult session of stake conference in our area.  Elder Smith of the seventy was there, as well as Elder D. Todd Cristofferson!  We were standing at the door talking to some other missionaries before the meeting started, and all of a sudden, there was Elder Cristofferson!  He shook our hands as he walked into the meeting.  Two apostles down, 10 to go!  Anyways, we got to hear from him that night, as well as the next morning for the general session of stake conference.  That was a great experience.

D----- has accepted all of the commandments we have taught him, but he still has a few doubts about the restoration, so that is what we are working on with him.  The baptismal date is still for this Saturday, and as of right now, that's still the plan.  After tonight we'll know more for sure what will happen.

Two other quick things.  You may remember that I ate some super hot salsa a few months ago at a member's house.  Well, they got a new kind, and I tried it this week.  It was called "Black Mamba Salsa: A Venomous Hot Sauce."  I believe that was a great description.  It was insane!  Definitely the hottest thing I have ever eaten...  Also, I had a lady lecture me for about 10 minutes on Mexican herbal cures.  That was a pretty interesting conversation...

Well, that's it for this week!  Thanks for everything.  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

GROUNDED!!

Family!

This week was pretty crazy, though after seeing your pictures and reading about the weather there, it really hasn't been too bad...  We officially have snow in Ohio.  On Friday night we got a pretty big storm (Ohio-speaking).  It was bad enough that we got a message from the assistants saying that all cars in the mission were GROUNDED!  We couldn't drive!  So we did what we could, we made muffins and took them to people in our area in the snow!  It was quite the party...  Ohio also doesn't have intricate snow-removal systems like Utah, so when it snows here, they are much more likely to shut the schools down.  And that's what they did.  Also, because they don't have tons of snow-removal stuff, the roads get super icy.  Last night we were late to a few appointments because everyone was driving so slow...

Thanks for the package!  I got a notice for it on Thursday, but they didn't want to leave it on the doorstep, so they took it back to the post office, and I didn't have time to get there until Saturday.  But I got it!  That GPS will definitely be helpful.  Elder Graf had one, and we were given one to use in this area by Elder Elbaba's trainer, but this one will certainly be put to good use.  If you want, you can go ahead and activate that warranty that you were talking about.  Thanks also for all of the cards and letters and things.  I haven't had time yet to read them all, but I'll let you know when I have and thank you again!

As far as the work goes here, it's still going.  We filled in that giant trench that we dug before the snow came, and hopefully that family will have power in the next week or so.  We talked with a local library that is near to a lot of Hispanics, and we will be starting some English classes there after the first of the year!  I'm excited for that!  We were also given a bunch of holiday treats to take around to our investigators by one of the English members.  And those treats helped us get a new investigator.  The English member made those same mini-cheesecake things that you make Mom!

We taught D----- (E-----) the word of wisdom this past week, and he committed to keep it and give up a few things that would hold him back from living it.  We also taught a new investigator who came to church for the branch anniversary party.  We taught him with the branch president, and it went really well.  It's amazing to see how people have been prepared to receive the gospel by the experiences that they have in their lives.

That's about all I've got!  Thanks for everything!  Have a great week!  We have Elder Cristoffersen coming to our stake conference this weekend and Elder Perkins of the 70 coming to our mission conference, so this should be a good week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Christmas Package!

Elder Foote's Christmas Tree!

Milagros estan pasando!

Familia!

I went against my better judgment and read the many emails that were in my inbox before writing, and now I'm super excited!  I love hearing all the news from home and seeing all of the awesome pictures!  That was great!

Anyway, now I don't have tons of time left to write, so I'll do my best to capture how awesome this past week was in the time I've got. 

Thanksgiving was great!  We had an amazing dinner with the branch president's family.  They are an amazing family, and it was a great time.  We also had a dinner with the Torres family, and we found a new investigator there, and then we got invited over to a less-active's house to eat as well.  We were stuffed!  And the food progressively became more and more Mexican.  We started the day with turkey and mashed potatoes, and we ended the day with pasole with pigs feet (or some kind of feet...).  Party for sure!

This week I had probably the biggest miracle of my mission happen.  The most people we have ever had come to our Saturday morning soccer games was 13... before this past week.  We started playing this past Saturday with 12 people, but as we kept going, people just kept showing up.  It was like the Hispanic floodgates had been opened, and people just poured into the church!  We ended up having a total of 26 people there, and 18 of them were non-members!  Afterwards we had a brief chapel tour with them all.  It was amazing!  The work is moving along in Dayton Ohio!

The chances of having a white Christmas here in the Dayton Spanish branch are looking very good!!!  Yesterday we helped our investigator D----- set a baptismal date for the 21 of December!  He still has to receive an answer for himself that the Book of Mormon is true, but we promised him that as he prepared for that day and sincerely sought an answer, he would receive it.  And he said yes!  I have been teaching him for as long as I have been out in the field, and it has been amazing to see the change that the gospel has brought about with him and his family.  I am so excited for him!  Keep him in your prayers!

Those are some of the amazing things that happened this past week.  I am so excited for this area.  The work is really starting to pick up, the members are starting to get more involved, and I am seeing every day how the Lord has prepared people to receive the gospel.  This work is amazing!

Thank you so much for all you do!  Have a great week, and listen to Feliz Navidad for me!

Love,

Elder Foote

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dayton Spanish Branch

Our Awesome Soccer Team!

The Elders and the Goodro Family

Voy a cumplir (por lo menos) 6 meses en Dayton!!!!!!!!

Mi familia!

Yep, the subject line is in spanish.  Good luck with that!  But it says exactly what the theme of today is:  I'm staying in Dayton!!!  My goal is to be here for at least a year if not my whole mission, but I am now guaranteed at least 6 months in this wonderful area! =)  So don't worry about me leaving, because I'm not going to be!  I'll be here for another 6 weeks!

Anyways, winter is coming.  Every year I can tell when winter is here, because I have to scrape the car windows, and it is no different here in Ohio. 

Another way that I know that it is winter time once again is because of soccer.  The other stake was having stake conference, so we weren't able to play in the chapel on Saturday.  So instead we went and played out on the field in the park..... in 32(ish) degree weather!  Yeah, it was a little cold...

But the work moves on: por supuesto!  And it really did move this week.  Each day we record numbers for the day based on the lessons we had and people we found, and we total them all up and report them each week.  And although numbers aren't the sole indicators of success, this past week's numbers were much better than pretty much any others I've had.  If I had to describe the past week in one word, it would be: blessed.  The Lord blessed us in many ways, and I'll list just a few of them here:

1) We found a lot of potential investigators.  Finding people who fluently speak Spanish and are willing to listen to us can be very difficult, but this past week we were blessed by being able to find an unusually large number of people who were willing to talk.  I am very excited for this coming week because of the potential that we were able to find last week.

2) We nearly lost our car.  There are a lot of new sisters coming in this transfer, and as far as I know in this mission, every set of sisters gets a car.  So they have to figure out who to take the cars from.  They gave us a call and said that they were considering it, and they asked us to gather some information about our area so they could make a more informed decision.  We went about getting everything together, but before we had finished, they texted us and let us know that they had changed their mind.  Which is a good thing, because I don't know how we would cover our area sin carro.  The majority of our work is roughly 10 miles from our house!  However, the other Spanish Elders are losing their car.  So we will most likely be working a lot more closely with them in the future.

3) We had people at church!  To be more exact, we had 2 investigators at church, which is a record for me!  And the members completely came through as well.  We almost didn't have to say a thing to our investigators, because as soon as they walked in the doors, the members took right over!  That's how it should be.  It was amazing to see things work so smoothly, and we are very excited for both N---- and D----- who came.  Moral of this small story:  if you're at church and you see someone you don't know, go talk to them!

Of course we had many other blessings this past week, but these were some of the major things. 

A few more small stories that I think are funny.

I sat with one of the less active families yesterday and tried to help their son stay kind of calm during sacrament.  He has one of the funniest habits I've seen.  After every time someone prays, he says amen, then immediately says "Did I do a good job?"  Every time.  And sometimes (especially during sacrament meeting) it's very loud.  Hilarious.

I ate a jalapeno this past week, and it wasn't even that bad!  Except it squirted all over me, so I exclaimed "me squirtio!"  Elder Elbaba and the member we were with thought that was pretty funny.  Spanglish for the win!

Also, the zone leaders have decided to nickname every area.  Ours is now named "Mexico."  How creative.

That's about it!  Have a happy thanksgiving!  I'll be spending it at our branch president's house the Chilean-American way! (he is Chilean, his wife is American)  Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Foote

You caught me almorzando...

Super awesome English member family...

Happy Third Year Anniversary Dayton Spanish Branch!

Family!

This past week was a really good one!  We started it off right last P-day; a member had us over to his house for a BBQ, then he took us bowling!  Then the work began.

The branch made a huge push this past week to help the new family that moved in a few weeks ago.  We finally finished digging that massive trench, and along with that the branch also fixed their roof and a wall that was in pretty bad shape.  Hooray for service!

We went to teach one of the less active families with the Elders Quorum president this past week.  When we got there, the mom was asleep, the dad had just left, but the two boys were there (11 and 8).  We went in and talked to them for a bit anyways, and it went pretty well after we had them turn off the Teen Titans show they were watching.  I had forgotten how distracting TV can be to little kids...

We had a great lesson with a family that we met a few weeks ago.  Ever since then we've been trying to see them again, but the dad is always working, and we haven't been able to catch him home.  We finally did though, and it went really well! 

Finding a new family to teach is always awesome!

We were going to bed on Thursday night when we got a text from the Zone leaders.  They told us that we had to drive over to their chapel to do weekly planning the next day.  That hasn't happened before, so we were wondering what was going on.  When we got there, we found out that they were doing planner checks!  I haven't ever had that happen before, so I had no clue what to expect.  Basically they went through every single day in my planner during the last month, looked at how effective my planning was, and then offered me suggestions on how to improve.  I thought my planning had been pretty good, but I guess I've still got some things to learn...

Our district leader gave us the challenge to try and hand out as many mormon.org cards as possible during this week.  As a way to start it off, we went to a pizza buffet place, and he had us pick people for him to go talk to and give cards to.  One of the other Elders picked a youth basketball team that had just walked in.  He sat there for a while trying to figure out how to start the conversation, then he went to go give them some cards.  To break the ice, he purposely tripped right by their table, then he was able to start talking to them about the gospel from that!  I was pretty impressed.

Yesterday we celebrated the 3rd anniversary of the Dayton Spanish Branch.  The stake president and his wife came, he gave a short message, and afterwards we had a little Thanksgiving themed get together thing in the gym.  It was the perfect way to help the members invite their friends to church, and there were a lot of investigators and less actives there.  We actually set a new sacrament attendance record (at least since I've been here)!

We had some really great lessons with D----- this past week, and we invited him to be baptized again last night.  He said that "we had him in the tractor beam" and that he was getting close.  We talked a lot with him about recognizing an answer, and the Spirit was very strong in that lesson.  I'm super excited for him!

That's about it.  Thank you for your letters and the pictures.  Take care of each other, and let me know if there's anything I can pray for, for you guys.  Thanks so much for being so amazing!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

The Big Trench Project