1 Year in Dayton?, Elder Foote The Roofer, And My Trip to The Hospital

Family!!!!!!!

Long time no see!  It was great to talk with all of you yesterday.  It sounds like all is going well out there in the great state of Utah! (now when people ask me where I'm from, I say the great state of Utah...)  All of you look great! 

Well, I guess I'll tell you the big news....... I'm staying in Dayton again!!!  That's right, the dream will be realized; yo voy a morar aqui por 1 ano!  The sad part of this news is that Elder Wells will be leaving.  He is an amazing Elder, and I'll be sad to see him go.  But that means tomorrow I'll have a new companion.  This will be my 4th companion in my first area!  Crazy!!

Well, this was a week of adventures.  I'll dive right in and tell you a few things that happened this week.

All my mission I've heard legends of people from Mexico who have red hair.  I never fully believed those rumors, but then one day we saw someone outside of a house that we knew housed someone who spoke Spanish.  We went to talk to him, and sure enough he was from Mexico, but he had RED HAIR!  The legends are true!!!  So now you know.

I went to the hospital this week.  I decided I'd say it like that to give Mom a bit of a scare. =)  We actually went there to give someone a blessing.  A inactive member from the branch that I've only seen 3 times in my year here asked us to come and give his brother a blessing.  His brother overdosed and had a heart attack, then went into a coma.  It was pretty serious.  So we gave him a blessing with probably 20 people crowded around us watching to see what would happen.  It was the first time I've acted as the voice for a blessing in Spanish.

We talked to some people having a carne asada near the house of one of our investigators, and they invited us to eat with them.  That isn't an uncommon thing, but these people had nopales (cactus) which isn't too common.  I've had it before, but Elder Wells hadn't.  As we ate it, this old guy told us a story about Pancho Villa eating cactus in the desert with his army.  So there's some history for you as well as an experience with food...

I am now a professional roofer.  One of our friends needed half of her garage roof replaced, so guess who she called?  Los Elderes!  Her boyfriend (who happens to be from Peru) gave us orders, and we followed with exactness.  We got all the plywood up, but we had to leave before we started the tar paper or the shingles.  As we were leaving, the lady who invited us over tried to come up onto the roof to help her boyfriend.  As she stepped off of the ladder, she stepped on some sawdust, slipped, and went backwards off of the roof!  She landed on her side and hit her head on her neighbor's shed.  Luckily she was alright!  It was pretty scary!

We had a great lesson with one of our less active members this week. She told us that all through the last week she felt like she was being attacked. She was very irritable with everyone, she didn't want to pray or read, and she just all around felt bad. The night before we came over she decided she had better read something so she could tell us she had read. As she read, she felt better. During our visit, we shared with her 3 Nephi 18:18-19, which says that Satan desires to have us, and therefore we must always pray. We talked about a lot of the bad influences in the world, and at the end of the lesson she said that from now on she will read every day to be able to resist the attacks of the Devil. When we asked her if we could come by next week she said "Yes! You have to come!"

That's about it!  Prepare yourselves for another 6 weeks of adventures from Dayton Ohio!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Waiting For The Skype Call

Elder Foote Got a New Name Tag

Worth The Wait, 3 Hours to be Exact

Elder Foote and a Branch Member

Not Too Much This Week...

Family!

Not too much to report this week, so this email will probably be fairly short.

As far as teaching goes, things were pretty normal this week.  We had a really good lesson with a man named A------ who is looking for a way to have better unity in his family.  He said he was praying for a way to help his family, and then we showed up!  Awesome!

A man from Mexico taught us about the Amish a few days ago.  This man was born in Mexico but did a lot of his schooling in California, so our conversation was in Spanglish.  He would say a few words in Spanish, then a few in English, then back to Spanish, and so forth.  It was pretty interesting.

There is a less active in the branch who doesn't like missionaries at all.  We have tried many times to reach out to him, but he is never interested in talking to us, and he will usually only respond to us with very short sentences if he has to talk with us.  Well, this past week we had a great visit with him and talked to him for over half an hour.  It went so well that he offered to let us test drive his BMW around the neighborhood.  If it wasn't for the rule of only driving mission vehicles, I would have been able to drive his BMW!

As far as my vow goes to talk about food each week, this week I learned that you can't make a good carnitas out of turkey, and the same goes for barbacoa out of lengua.  (This is all according to a guy named Elias we talked to on the street, so don't get mad at me if it's wrong =) ).

I think that's about it.  Sounds like the dance concert was a success!  I'm sad I missed it.  I guess I'll just have to go to one in whatever college Katie goes to...  And Trevor better keep that Skyrim song good for when I get home, because I want to hear it!

I'm excited to talk to you guys on Sunday!  I have 40 minutes, and I can Skype this time.  I've been working through the details with Dad, but I should be calling after 2:30 your time, and I'll call Grandma Pat right after, so probably anywhere from 3 to 5 for her.

Oh, and thanks for the package.  I had a pretty good lunch with the stuff that was in there!

Love,

Elder Foote

P.S. The picture you requested is attached...

Elder Foote's Cinco De Mayo Package!

Elder Foote and Elder Wells Grew Mustaches

Elder Foote's District

Greetings From Dayton!!

Family!

If you had told me 1 year ago that I would be on a bus in Dayton Ohio at 10 AM on a Sunday morning, sitting next to a man from the hills of Guatemala who makes his living cutting tree limbs and who speaks Spanish as his second language, I'm not sure I would have believed you.  But that was how I spent my Sunday morning.  This man speaks a Guatemalan dialect named Ay Chi (or something like that) as his first language, and he learned Spanish so that he could come to the US and work.  He speaks Spanish better than I do, but not by much...  Anyway, he wanted to come to church, but didn't have a car.  So we went to his house Sunday morning and taught him how to use the public bus system to get to the church.  He had a great time there.

We got the chance to go on exchanges with our Spanish Zone Leaders this week for the first time ever!  It was super amazing.  They are both amazing teachers, and they helped us a lot with our teaching as well as our skills in connecting with the people.  In an attempt to further change my culture, I have decided to talk more about food, so every email that you receive from me until the end of my mission will have some sort of mention of food.  To start it off: I learned that el estado de Guanajuato is famous for their fresh strawberry jam.  Or at least that's what some guy named Gabriel told us...  but yeah, the Zone leaders taught us a whole lot of things, and I know that as we apply them, we will be able to help the people here even more.

We applied the things we learned the day after the exchanges, and we had one of the most powerful lessons I've ever had.  The lady we taught (D------) felt the Spirit very strongly, especially after we shared the First Vision with her.  She said she felt something in her chest that she just couldn't describe.  She had been visited by missionaries from other faiths before, but she said that there was a big difference between our visits and theirs.  It was a testimony builder for me that the Spirit really is the teacher, and when we allow him to do His job, progress occurs.

Something very sad happened this week.  I went to put on my nametag in the morning, and it broke!  It was my first nametag, the one I got my first day in the MTC...  So now I have to get a new one.

We did a lot of finding this week.  We are finding new Hispanics all over the place, and as we apply the training we received a few weeks ago in our Spanish Training, we're finding that we are able to develop better relationships with the people and help them feel more comfortable with our message.

Oh, I had interviews with President the week.  They went well.  Something memorable that he said to me was "You can either be comfortable, or somebody can have salvation.  It's frank, but that's just how it is."  No pressure, right?  But it's 100% true.  We can either stay in our comfort zones and not talk to people about the gospel, or we can do the uncomfortable thing and change someone's eternity; we can give them the chance to return to live with our Father in Heaven.  I feel like I have improved much in this regard since the beginning of my mission till now, but of course, there is always room for improvement.

That's about all I've got for today.  Oh, you asked about those investigators.  J---- O---- currently isn't progressing.  S----- S------ has only one day off a week, but sometimes he is forced to work on his day off, so there are times where he goes for weeks without a day off.  For this reason we aren't able to meet with him very often, and he can't come to church.  We had a lesson with B---- and her husband in the home of her member friend.  It went well, but now she says that she can't meet with us.  We think her husband isn't too fond of her learning about the church.  There is a lot of opposition to the work.

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

picture caption:  greetings from Dayton!!!   

Dayton?

Spanish Zone Leaders Came For a Visit!

The Chihuahua Named Dirty

I saw the Easter Bunny!!! (Conejo de la Pasqua)

My family!!

Happy Easter!  Thank you so much for the awesome Easter package!  It was really great!  I wore that tie that you gave me the next day (I got the package on Saturday), and I had a ton of people say how much they liked my tie. =)  I also got something from the Brown family; if you have a chance, please tell them thanks for me.

Well, lots of stuff happened this week.  Last Monday we went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant that I had never been to before.  It was the first time I've ordered in Spanish in a restaurant before! (that I can remember)  The waiter was really surprised that we knew Spanish...

Speaking of restaurants, we have had some exciting things happen at the local Chipotle.  Turns out one of the managers is a less active member, so when we went to pay for our food, she had told the guy at the register to give it to us for free!  She came out and talked to us for a while, then said that she would give us our food free whenever we came if she was there!  So we might be going to Chipotle more often now...

I went on exchanges with Elder Taylor this past week, and we had to make a stop at the DMV because he needed to get a new license.  Except guess what?  In Ohio, there are no DMV's!  Here they're called BMV's...  Weird...

With the combination of really nice weather and Easter weekend, tons of people were outside this past week, so we had lots of opportunities for street-contacting!  Because of that, we found so many new people that speak Spanish it's crazy!  We're really excited for all of these new people we've contacted.  All of these new contacts also gave us lots of opportunities to apply the Spanish missionary training we got a few weeks ago.  The work is going to explode in the area pretty soon!

We had my first real member referral this past week.  A sister in the English ward speaks Spanish and has become really good friends with a lady from Argentina who live near our home that we didn't know about.  This sister told us about her friend and asked us if we'd like to take over some Easter treats and introduce ourselves.  Of course we did!  We went over there, and this lady (B----) was very interested in the church.  She told us that she could see the peace and happiness in the sister that had befriended her, and she wanted that in her life.  She asked us what was different about our church than other churches.  Well... =) So we will be teaching B---- tomorrow in the home of this sister!  This was a great example to me of how important it is to be an example and a friend to those around us, as well as giving the missionaries referrals... =)

A missionary recently got home from Guatemala here in the English ward, and we took him out with us to teach for the first time this past week.  As luck would have it, all of our plans fell through.  So we decided that we would try a potential house that just happened to have 4 Guatemaltecos living in it.  This RM loved it!  He started talking to these 4 guys from Guatemala, and there was a few minutes where I didn't have a clue what was going on because they were just talking about all of the geography down there and using all sorts of Guatemalan slang that I didn't know.  He connected really well with these guys, and we were able to have a really good lesson and set up another appointment.  I put this in here because it was a good reminder to me that in order to help people accept the Gospel, we have to love them and be their friends first. 

And now the part you’ve all been waiting for…the part where I tell you about how I saw the Easter Bunny!!

Yep that’s right, even though Nachistis said she was going to hunt the Easter Bunny, she obviously

didn’t catch him, because we saw him in Huber Heights! We were headed back to our house Sunday night, and as we were driving through the neighborhood, we saw a little bunny hopping across the lawns. Obviously the Easter Bunny heading home after a long day of work!

I hope you had the opportunity to see the video the church put out for Easter.  If not, you can find it at mormon.org/BecauseofHim. (or something like that)  It was a really good video.  It helps put in perspective the real meaning of Easter.  I am so grateful for my Savior and for the sacrifice He made for me.  Because of Him I have the chance to work out my salvation.  I have the amazing opportunity to become a better person every day.  Every day I come short of perfection, but because of Him my weaknesses can become strengths and I can one day return to live with my Father in Heaven.  As President Porter puts it: "Every minute of every day is about the atonement."

Thank you so much for all you do for me and for each other!  I really enjoyed seeing all of the pictures of your Easter celebrations.  I laughed quite a bit at the difference in money found and at the dumb-looking lion-cat.  I bet he's not happy about that.  At all.

Well, that's about it!  Until next week!

Love,

Elder Foote       

Elder Foote's Easter Package

The largest gathering of Spanish missionaries ever!! (in Ohio)

Family!

Time is my enemy right now.  I had to write a long letter to President today in response to an assignment he gave the whole mission, so I have less time right now than usual.  So I'll get right to it.

Air Force museo!  It was pretty cool.  I can honestly say that I have never before seen so many planes gathered in one place.  We started at the beginning of flight with the Wright Brothers and such, then moved through time and ended with some space shuttles and satellites.  I'll include some pictures.  Some people have had the theory that the reason I've been here so long is that I hadn't ever seen the museo.  I'm not completely sold on that reasoning, but if that is the case, this might be my final transfer in Dayton?

The highlight of the week was the 2nd Specialized Spanish Training for the Cincinnati Ohio mission.  The first one was held during my first transfer in the mission, and ever since then every Spanish missionary has been anxiously awaiting the next one.  And it finally happened.  It was the largest gathering of Spanish missionaries ever (in Ohio) with 20 Spanish missionaries in attendance and 2 English Elders who fluently spoke Spanish.  We learned a lot about how to better connect with Hispanics and help them make commitments.  It was an amazing meeting, and I learned so much.  We receive a lot of trainings, but the majority are geared towards English work, so at times it can be difficult to adapt what we learn to the needs of the Spanish work here.  For that reason it was nice to have some training specifically geared to the Spanish work.  We had some awesome food too. =)  We celebrated our Spanish Zone Leader's birthday, and we got to enjoy the rush hour traffic that goes from Cincinnati to Dayton.  It was an awesome day.  There should be some pictures on Facebook if you haven't found them already.

We have been doing a lot of contacting and finding in a large Mexican store in Dayton, and the owners are finally starting to notice.  They started coming up to us and asking us if we need any help, and the owner specifically told us that he doesn't want us to talk to people inside the store anymore.  Opposition always comes right before the miracles!!

We got invited by a guy to go to Mexico with him this coming winter for Christmas.  Unfortunately, I don't think we'll get the permission from President to go...

That's about all I've got.  Sorry this one is so short.  I'll write more next week.

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Foote & Early Bombs

Elder Foote & First Helicopter

Elder Foote's Trainer Posterity

Elder Foote Helping Make Repairs

Elder Foote Return With Honor

Elder Foote, Elder Graf, Elder Brown

Mexican Air Force

Air Force Museum Hangar

Air Force Museum Wax Figures

Cincinnati, Ohio Spanish Zone

The Dayton Adventures Continue!

Family!

The highlight of course for this week was general conference.  I was super excited to listen to it, and I wasn't disappointed!  After Elder Ballard's talk, I'm expecting all of you to read through Preach My Gospel... =)  I really liked something said by Elder Hallstrom during the priesthood session.  He said something along the lines of "The purpose of General Conference is only fulfilled if we are willing to act, willing to change."  There are always things that we can do better in our lives, and I enjoy the opportunity to receive personal revelation at general conference for how I can improve and be a better person.  I went in to general conference with some questions, and I came out with a whole bunch of answers.  I know that as we sincerely study the messages and look for ways we can improve, the Lord will help us know things we can change to become more like our Savior.  I also liked one of President Monson's closing remarks about how we should all take the time to review and study the conference messages.

Well, as always, this week was filled with a whole bunch of experiences.  It started with me cutting my hair again right after emailing last Monday.  I decided to try and do it fancy and do different lengths.  It wasn't too bad, but I've still got some room for improvement...  On April Fool's day we received two voicemails on our phone from Sister Porter.  On one of them she said that they had just got a call from Salt Lake, and our mission would be receiving iPads very soon, and on the other she said "Happy April Fools!"  But the messages got mixed up, so we got the "Happy April Fools" message first!  It was a nice try... =)

We taught a guy this week who told us of a dream he had recently had.  He was in this place, and before him were two paths.  One was like a highway: straight and wide and easy to follow.  Lots of people were telling him to follow that path; they told him that it was the path that led to happiness.  The second path was a narrow, winding trail that looked a lot more difficult to follow.  Even though everyone was telling the other path was right, he said he knew that the trail was the way he should go.  That morning I had been studying in 3 Nephi and had read 3 Nephi 14:13-14 which talked about two paths.  I was able to share those verses with him and explain to him that he could follow that narrow path by following Christ and being baptized.  It was a cool experience for me, and it reaffirmed to me that the Lord guides both investigators and missionaries.

I taught about footnotes for the first time this past week!  We recently met this super awesome family, and when we introduced them to the Book of Mormon, the mother asked us what the "tiny letters above the words" were!  I've never had anyone ask me that!  So we were excited about that.

We had a guy run away from us in an apartment complex.  He was walking across the lawn, and we asked him how he was doing, but he just kept on walking.  I was pretty sure he was ignoring us, but just in case he hadn't heard us, we started walking after him.  He saw us walking up to him, and he just kept on walking.  He went around a corner, and when we got there just a few seconds later, he was gone!  The only way he could have disappeared is if he had sprinted around the building and gone into a door on the other side!  So yeah, we are scary I guess.

In the English ward here a missionary just barely returned home from Guatemala.  His mom had us come over for dinner the following day so he would have someone to speak Spanish with.  His Spanish was amazing!  I wish my Spanish could be that good.  I can get it good to a certain point, but I don't think it will ever be like his was.  He was around people who spoke Spanish for 2 whole years, so he learned it on the streets.  I've learned a lot of Spanish from natives, but I don't spend as much time around them, so there's some things that I'll never really master, like the slang or country-specific vocab.  Those were just observations I made in talking with this RM.  I also got a glimpse of what it will be like to come home in just over a year.  It will be weird. =)

I think that's about all.  Today we are finally fulfilling our dreams and going to the Dayton Air Force Museum!  I'll send you some pictures of it next week!

Love,

Elder Foote 

P.S.  By the way, thanks for the conference package!  We watched all 5 sessions of conference at the church, and we got the package just as we were headed out the door for the first session on Saturday.  Perfect timing!  You're the best!

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Graf, Elder Taylor, Elder Foote, Elder Wells

Almost There.......

My Family!!!

Subject line right off the bat!  I'll be staying in Dayton for another transfer!  That's right, you heard me (or I guess you read what I typed),tomorrow I begin transfer number 7 in Dayton!  You know what that means?  It means that I just need to stay here 1 more transfer and I will have spent half of my mission in my first area!  Crazy!  Elder Wells is staying also, which means he will be the companion I've had for the longest amount of time.  I am super excited!  He is a great Elder, and I can't wait to learn even more from him over the next 6 weeks.  Elder Taylor will be staying as well.  He is the Elder I have served around for the most time.  He has been in my district for 7 1/2 months now!  The only district member leaving is Elder Graf!  He came back for just one transfer, and now he's headed back out!  And it sounds like he's probably going right back to the area he just left!  Crazy!

Well, that was all of the transfer excitement.  I'm excited to stay here, though I really would have been fine either way.  I want to see other places and meet new people, but I love the people here so much that I'm glad I have some more time with them.

Well, I guess mom already heard about the bed bug recurrence from her encounter with Elder Wells' mom's facebook page, so I guess I'll tell you about it.  When Elder Wells first got here, he started noticing some bites.  I immediately feared the worst, so we had an inspection an discovered a few more bed bugs on his bed.  We waged a battle, and I thought the problem would go away like before.  But it came back again.  We fought it a few times, but they kept surviving, so we eventually called the housing coordinator and let him know.  Long story short, our apartment is now going through bed bug treatments.  There are a lot of things we had to do to prepare for that.  We had to put every article of clothing or cloth material in the apartment in the dryer for a bit, then putting it in a trash bag and tying it shut.  We also had to move all of the furniture away from the walls so the exterminator company could come spray.  So that was what we did last P-day; we spent the whole day preparing the apartment for the exterminators.  It was crazy; I was so stressed.  I had to completely tear apart the apartment I had lived in for 8 months.  But it will all be worth it, because in just a few weeks the bed bug war will finally be over.  I didn't say anything about this before because you kind of freaked out a bit last time, so I decided I wouldn't say anything more.  But since you figured it out...

I got sick this last week.  Maybe from stress, maybe from something I ate, I don't know.  I had no appetite, and I ached all over.  I had exchanges in the bike area the next day though, so I needed to be well enough to do physical things.  I got a blessing from my district, and I felt fine the next day and was able to bike all over Dayton.

Speaking of exchanges, this was the week of exchanges!  I had two this week.  My first one was with Elder Graf down in Dayton.  It was super awesome.  I was back with my trainer on the same streets we used to cover, it was just on bikes and 6 months later.  Blast from the past!  He's a great Elder.  I also had an exchange with Elder Taylor up in my area.  He is very intelligent, and I have learned a lot from him.  He taught me the importance of showing my love for other people.  I think that's something I can work on, so I'll be trying to see what I can do about that over the next little bit.

You might remember a long time ago I talked about meeting and beginning to teach an evangelical pentecostal pastor?  Well, we had our final lesson with her this past week.  She wasn't ever very interested in changing, but we didn't feel good about stopping trying to see her because we didn't feel we had given her a good enough opportunity to accept our message.  This lesson we focused heavily on the apostasy and the importance of priesthood authority.  Any scripture we used from the bible she would interpret in a way that changed its meaning, or if she couldn't do that she would just continue on like we hadn't even shared the scripture.  Finally, it was obvious that she wasn't going to accept what we were saying, so we got ready to leave.  We were about to leave her with a prayer when I started to feel the Spirit tell me to testify of the truthfulness of the church to her.  I have only felt the Spirit compel me to give an extremely bold testimony a few times, and this was one of them.  I could feel it build up inside of me, and I knew that I had to do it or I would regret it for the rest of my life.  So I bore a very simple and bold testimony that Jesus had given authority to act in His name to His apostles, that it had been lost, and that today it was found only in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It's not that I haven't said that before to people, but it was how strongly the Spirit compelled me to say that to this woman that really makes this experience stand out.  I know that the priesthood authority can be found only in this church.  I have learned that some people are prepared to accept the message we bring, and others are not.  If a person is not ready, it doesn't matter how much explaining you do or how strong the Spirit is, they won't accept it.

Well, that's about all I've got time for right now.  I'll let you all get back to your lives out there.  Thanks for all you do!

Love you all so much!

Elder Foote

P.S.  I guess I'll have to see Sister Brown #2 sometime in the future since I won't be at her first transfer meeting...

picture is a drawing Elder Taylor did of me

Tribute To The Brown Family!

Elder Foote, Drawn by Elder Taylor

Elder Taylor, Drawn by Elder Foote