Dayton Forever!!!

Family!

That's right, I'm still here in wonderful Dayton!  1 transfer closer to my 1 year goal!!!  A lot of people were surprised that I'm still here.  A few investigators were shocked that Elder Elbaba left and not me; they told me that I've been here for a long time.  Also, you know when you've been in an area a while when the Elders Quorum President asks you for the number for one of the members in the Elders Quorum...  After that he told me that they might just have to transfer my records here...  I wonder what they'll all be saying when I've been here for a year........... =)  But seriously, it's such a good area, and I'm super glad I get to be here for one more transfer (at least), because so many good things are starting to happen here!  I'd like to tell you about some of them...

 So we received a referral from some other missionaries, and when we went to contact it, the lady (A…..) was there, but she said that she didn't have time to talk to us then and that we could come back another time. We set up a return appointment, and when we got there, she was ready for us. She told us about her experiences with religion, and she had some amazing stories. When she lived back in Mexico, missionaries from our church visited with her and her family frequently, and her family even attended church fairly often. After a while, her son was baptized at the age of 11. He was the only one in the family baptized. A few years later, he ended up dying of cancer. She went through a very rough time, and she told us that she knows the Lord protected her through it all. Through some truly miraculous circumstances, she was able to come to the U.S. and begin a new life here. She has more faith than a lot of investigators that I have met, and she told us that her one desire is to return to live with her God. We are very excited for the opportunity to teach her how to do that!

Another miracle happened this week that was really amazing. A while back we had asked a man if he knew of any Hispanic people in the area, and he told us of a few doors in the area. We were knocking them, and a lady opened and let us in. We started to speak with her, and after a little while a guy came out of the back room and joined in the conversation. They had both met with missionaries before, and they were completely willing to let us come back. They also told us that they wanted to attend church with us that Sunday, which has never happened to me before. We left them with a Book of Mormon and told them we would come back later. We came back on Saturday night and talked with them again. He (B….) told us that after we left, he took the Book of Mormon in his hands and prayed. In his prayer he asked God if the book was true and if this was the path that he should take. Then he opened up the book and started to read. He told us that the first verse he read talked about how the Book of Mormon supported the Bible, and if you believe in the Bible, you will believe in the Book of Mormon. He loves reading the Bible, and he took this as an answer from God, and I know it was. When we asked him what his thoughts about the Book of Mormon were, he told us that he knows it's true because God told him it was!  We also read Moroni 10: 4-5 with him, and he told us that was exactly what had happened with him!  They both came to church yesterday, and we'll be teaching them again tonight!

Oh, my new companion is named Elder Wells.  He has been out for one transfer less than I have, and his Spanish is amazing.  This is going to be the transfer where my Spanish skills improve like crazy!  He is a great teacher and extremely obedient.  I keep getting blessed with amazing companions!

Other than those few things, not much else out of the ordinary happened.  The temperature this past week has gone from -7 to the mid 40's, and at the moment all the snow is gone because of all the rain we've gotten.  Crazy!

Sounds like things are going well over there, thanks for all of the updates!  I love you, and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Crazy Weather, the New Year, and the Molars of Judgment....

Familia!

Happy New Year!  I realized that since I'll be on my mission all of this year, 2014 is going to be the year where I can say that I dedicated every minute to the Lord and His work.  I'm super excited for what this year has in store!!

Well, I'll start with the crazy weather.  Before Christmas it snowed, then it rained and got rid of all the snow just before Christmas day.  Then right after New Years it started snowing again, and we got a few inches.  Then yesterday, the temperature shot up from the low mid teen's to the high 30's, and it rained all day and nearly got rid of all of the snow.  Then just before we went in last night, it started snowing again, and this morning when we left the apartment it was -3 degrees!  The weather just can't make up it's mind...

New Years wasn't really anything too special.  We had to be in the apartment by 7, and we went to bed at 10:30 like usual.  Party!  We did get to visit some people earlier in the day though and see them preparing for their parties.  You'll enjoy the included pictures of a particularly delicious looking New Years Eve feast...

One of the highlights of this week was the exchange that I went on down to Dayton.  They don't have a car, and the snowstorm made bike-riding near impossible, so we were on foot and on bus for the whole day!  It was an awesome adventure!  I taught this guy some English, and actually learned just how crazy it can be...  I learned that "wisdom teeth" in Spanish (according to an investigator) are "molas de juicio", which literally translates to "molars of judgment"...  I did some contacting with people on the bus, and we got some amazing referrals for the English missionaries.  There are some interesting people that ride the bus...  We were waiting in the bus station, and this guy walked up to me and asked me for some "literature".  I searched my bag, and the only thing I had in English was a pamphlet about the Word of Wisdom.  So I gave it to him.  He went and sat down and read the whole thing.  It turned out that he rode our same bus home, so we had a pretty good discussion about "the little book that told him he should stop chewing tobacco..."  A lot of my area covers the countryside and little towns, so it was really cool to be down in the city for a day where street-contacting is not only possible, but effective.

Other than that, we had some very good lessons this week.  One of our investigators finally opened up to us and told us about her journey from Guatemala to the US, and how difficult it is to live here without much family or really any support.  A lot of people who immigrate here live very difficult lives.  But whenever I talk to people who have moved here from another country (which is practically every person I talk to), I remember something that was said to us Spanish missionaries in a training meeting a while ago.  People might think that they are moving here to have better lives or to make money or things like that, and those are definitely factors, but the real reason that people are here is to receive the Gospel.  They are here because it was the design of the Lord to place them here to hear this message and to receive their birthright.  I'm very grateful for the opportunity that I have to bring that message to them and help them to receive that which is rightfully theirs as members of the house of Israel. 

I hope you all have a great week!  Have fun at school! =)

Love,

Elder Foote

Oh, I forgot to talk about transfers.  Transfers are on Thursday, and I won't know until Wednesday whether or not I'm staying or going.  I'll let you know as soon as I can!

Love,

Elder Foote

A Branch Member Family

A Day In Dayton

New Years Eve Cow Head Soup!

Yes, Those Are Teeth!

Yum Yum!

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