Templo, Lobos, And The Case of The Missing Name Tag...

Familia!

This week was a crazy week!  I don't have many long stories, just a bunch of short random ones que me gustaria compartir con y'all.  Entonces, here we go:

I cut my hair!  That's right, I am a professional hair-cutter person!  Elder Wells had to trim the back, but other than that, it was all me!  I have included pictures so you can marvel at how great a job I did...

Our car got stuck in the snow 3 times in one day!  I have learned that Corollas aren't meant for the snow.  In addition to those 3 times, we have also pushed other cars out of the snow.  I think I'm up to 5 or 6 now...

We had a specialized training/interview with President this week, and they made an amazing announcement: we are now authorized to go to the temple!!!!!  We will get to go once every 6 months!  We were all so excited.  One of the things I have missed the most while on my mission is the opportunity to go through the temple, and now I'll be able to!  We don't know when yet, but I'll let you know as soon as I know.

We went on exchanges this week, and I was down in Dayton with Elder Bradford.  It was really exciting.  You meet a lot of interesting people using public transportation.  We rode the buses all day, and it was super awesome!  I got hugged by a homeless guy, had a music battle (where people hold up their phones and play different songs at each other) form around me, and also had some pretty good conversations with people about the gospel...

I lost my name tag this week!  I had two, so I was still alright, but I was afraid I would lose the other one, so the next day I ordered a few more.  Then the next day, I found my missing tag.  I thought I had brushed it off of my shirt and into the snow while we were out, but it turned out that I had just brushed it into my pocket!  So I had it the whole time...  So now I'm going to have some extra name tags...

We had 4 people at church!  New record for me!

We had some people try to convert us to their religion this week.  It's happened before, but this time it was basically in an attack formation.  They had rehearsed their speech to us, and they kept trying to trap us with the questions they would ask.  They went on for a while, and I finally just told them that I knew with all my heart that this church was true and that it has the authority to act in the name of God.  I said that I would do what God tells me to do, and that I know that he has told me to be a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I felt the Spirit as I told them that, and I know that what I am doing is what my Heavenly Father wants me to be doing.  It's true that you grow as you bear your testimony of the restored Gospel.

That's about it!  Thanks for everything; it sounds like all is well out there.  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

P.S.  Because of the temple announcement, I'll need my temple clothes.  If you could send those to me, that would be awesome!

A New Haircut!

Elder Foote and Elder Wells, New Haircuts

The Dayton Spanish District

The Evidence That There Are Hispanics in Ohio

The Branch Has a New Member!!!!!!

Family!

That's right, there is a new member in the branch as of yesterday!  Mine and Elder Wells' investigator A----- is now officially a member of the Dayton Spanish Branch!  But before you get too excited, let me add a small disclaimer:  we didn't have a baptism or a confirmation this weekend....  Solve that riddle!  Ok, fine, I'll solve it for you, here goes:

So A----- was a referral from some Sister missionaries a while back.  We started teaching her, and I was amazed right from the beginning at how many spiritual experiences she had had throughout her life.  I was super excited to be teaching her, because it seemed like the Lord had touched her life so much; much, much, more than any other person I have ever taught.  After the first time we met with her, we called her a 'Platinum Investigator".  Well we continued to see her, but only every now and again because she could only meet with us once or maybe twice a week.  At the end of one visit, we left her a restoration pamphlet and invited her to read it in preparation for our next meeting.  We came back this past week, and she told us that she had read the whole thing!  And she had some other news: after reading it, she started to remember some things about her past.  She had a period of time in her life where she went through a lot of grief in a very short period of time, and because of that, she has a difficult time remembering parts of her past from that time period.  Well, one of the things that she remembered after reading about the Restoration was that she was possibly baptized in our church back in Mexico.  We told her we could find out for sure, so we got some info from her, and yesterday we sat down with the branch president and searched for her records.  And guess what!?  She was baptized in Mexico nearly 20 years ago!  So we moved her records over to the branch, and now we have another member!  Amazing!  Or at least I think so...  So yeah, this week my testimony grew so much of how involved the Lord is in every single one of our lives.  I've seen it many times so far on my mission, but I just couldn't believe how miraculous it was that she was finally found after almost 20 years...  I know the Lord has a purpose for each of us, and that he cares about each of us deeply and personally.

One more milagrito real quick.  We found some former investigators this week that had lost contact with the missionaries a few years ago.  But after the missionaries stopped coming, they continued to read in the Book of Mormon for a while, and they read over 100 pages before they stopped!  (they stopped in the Isaiah chapters...)  So we'll be teaching them again this week!

I had a few other crazy experiences this week.  We had to fight our way through some roosters to get to a door that we were going to knock. (Really the roosters just flew away when we got close, but saying that we had to fight our way through them sounds so much better.)  So yeah, I included a picture of me next to a rooster statue as a momento of that experience.

Somebody told us this week that this has been the worst winter in Ohio "since '78".  I don't have any other Ohio winters to compare it to, so I guess I believe them...

Last thing.  Don't tell anybody, but I saw about 2 minutes of the Super Bowl!  We were in the house of one of our investigators from Guatemala, and after the lesson he turned on the tv to the Super Bowl (in Spanish of course), and his wife gave us some drink she made with hot milk and oats.  We had to drink the drink she gave us real quick so as not to offend her, so we were in the same room as a tv that was playing the Super Bowl.  I didn't really watch any of it, but I did see that Denver was getting killed at halftime...

And that is all!  Have a wonderful week!  Learn a Spanish word this week, and let me know what it is next Monday!  (there's your commitment from a missionary for the week!)

Love,

Elder Foote

A Real Rooster?

Dayton Patented, What?

I Survived The Battle of The Tacos...

Family!

Before anything else, sorry for not getting to email last week!  We went to the library last Monday, just to find it closed for MLKJ day!  As a missionary you often forget that everyone else observes holidays, so that was a big shock!  We talked to the zone leaders and got permission to cut P-day short and email for an hour on Tuesday.  We ended up having zone conference on Tuesday though, and that evening we had a lesson set up with a member and one of our new investigators, so we didn't get a chance to do it on Tuesday either.  And that's pretty much the story of why we didn't email last week.  Sorry again!

Well, I have two full weeks of things to write about!  It's been a crazy two weeks! 

To sum up these two weeks, I would say that we have begun to see the Lord's hand in our daily activities even more than before.  I'll tell you a story to illustrate:

After planning one night, we prayed as usual to confirm that the plans we had set for the following day were what the Lord would have us do.  As a backup for another person, we had put down a house that we knew was the home of some people that speak Spanish.  After praying to confirm, we felt very strongly that we needed to make sure that we visited this specific house.  The following day, we did just that.  We went to the house, knocked the door, and a lady answered and invited us right in.  We explained who we were, and she invited all her kids to come listen to what we had to say.  We taught them all together, and set up a return appointment with them.  We have now taught them two more times.  The last time we went by, she had read the restoration pamphlet, understood it fairly well, and told us that she believed that the first vision actually happened.  We extended baptism, and she has a goal of being baptized in the middle of February.  The only thing holding her back is her job, but she said that if this is what God wants for her and she needs to make changes to do it, she will make changes.  We are really excited for her!  I know that the Lord has people prepared, and that if we allow Him to, He will lead us to them and allow us to help them.

We also had an amazing lesson with one of our other investigators.  We have talked a lot about the restoration with him, and to really help him understand it, we showed him the restoration DVD.  The spirit was so strong in that lesson; it was probably the strongest I have ever felt it in my life.  It testified to all of us that the restoration was true, and afterwards, this investigator told us that he knows the church is true!

On the other hand, we heard a lot of crazy things these past two weeks.  After reciting the first vision to a guy, he told us that he has wondered for a long time if Mormons are a secret government society sent to gather info about people's beliefs.  We tried to explain the sacrament to a guy, and he spent the following 10 minutes trying to convince us that all the food that we eat and everything we drink is the sacrament.  Those were just a few things that we heard...

We met a pastor this week!  She let us in, and we tried to teach her about the Book of Mormon.  She wasn't terribly receptive, but we'll be seeing her again this week.  New goal: convert a pastor...!

We found a cool referral for the English Elders here.  We were out trying a few potentials one day, and we knocked on this door that was supposedly Hispanic.  Well, it turned out not to be, but the lady who answered had an interesting reaction when she saw us.  She started laughing!  We asked her about it, and she told us that she has seen practically every Mormon missionary movie there is, knows a bunch about the religion, has a Book of Mormon, and likes learning about other religions.  But with all of that, she has never talked to a missionary before!  She thought it was a funny coincidence that after seeing all of those movies the missionaries would knock on HER door.  Coincidence?  I think not!  So yeah, lucky English Elders for getting that referral!

This past week has also been a weird week language-wise.  I'm fairly comfortable with Spanish now, so I guess it's only fitting that I start getting sent all sorts of weird language experiences.  Just this last week I helped a Puerto Rican with his English as a Second Language homework, got taught Chinese by a Guatemalan, and learned how to say a few words in Mum (a dialect from Guatemala).  I also met my first person from Panama and my first person from Peru!  Another goal: try to meet someone from every Spanish speaking country! (I think I'm already over halfway there...)

We had an awesome branch activity this last week: La Batalla de los Tacos (AKA The Battle of the Tacos)!  It was basically a taco cook-off!  A bunch of members and investigators entered in their tacos, and everyone there ate tacos and voted on who's were the best!  Let me just say this: I love Hispanic food.  We found out after the Battle that the winning tacos were actually purchased by an investigator family at a restaurant.  But we still gave them the first place trophy (a bottle of hot sauce)... 

We have been trying to conserve miles because a lot of our newer investigators are spread out in like a 12 mile radius around our house, so this past week I did a mission first:  I rode a bike!  That's right, I avoided it as long as I could, but after 7 months I finally rode a bike!  We borrowed our branch mission leader's bike, planned out a day pretty close to our house, and began my very first bike day!  Turned out we didn't pick the best day, because about halfway into the day it started snowing, and by the end of the day we were riding in a mini-blizzard with the temperature in the teens or less (I can't remember the exact temperature).  But I wasn't cold at all!  Guess why!  Wrong.  I wasn't cold because that was the most exercise I've done in the last 7 months.  Having a car has gotten me out of shape (if I ever was in shape...).  So I pretty much died the whole day riding up the gentle hills in Huber Heights Ohio...

We said goodbye to D----- this past week.  He and his family are headed off to Turkey.  He'll get baptized someday soon, it just won't be me who does it.

I think that's about all, or at least the majority of it.  I hope you all have an amazing week!  Talk to you later!

Love,

Elder Foote

P.S.  Elder Michael Wells.  He is from Fresno California, but his parents are getting ready to move to Cedar City.  He is still 18, so that makes me feel super old...  He has been out in the field 1 transfer less than me.  His Spanish is very good, so good that he was only at the MTC for 2 weeks instead of 6.  He's super awesome!

P.P.S I need to ask a favor of you guys.  Could someone get on my Facebook account and change the privacy settings so that people can look me up and add me?  I've had a lot of people try and find me, and everyone says that I can't be found.  That would be awesome! 

A Trip Through The Snow!

Elder Foote Writing Letters?

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!