SNOW

Family,

It snowed this past week.  It also got pretty cold.  It was bad enough that they cancelled school all week long.  It actually wasn't that bad of a storm, I just don't think that Ohio is quite as prepared for snowstorms as Utah...

This week we put a huge focus on having members come out with us to teach.  We also focused on having those members extend invitations to come to church.  We saw so many miracles because of it.  We had a amazing lesson with one of our most progressing families that was one of the more powerful lessons I've had in the past few months.  We found a long lost less-active who everyone thought was in Peru, but it turns out she has been living in Kentucky for the past 6 months!  We were called up by members and investigators to give blessings.  We met many new people who have a lot of desire to come to church and learn more.  We had a great tour of the chapel with a few of our investigators who are preparing to be baptized on March 21st.  I found an extremely prepared family while on splits with our branch president, and now he is super excited about the work in our area.  Really it was just a super miraculous week.  

It was also super busy.  We made so many plans all week in order to coordinate our efforts with the members.  I learned that if we put in our best effort, the Lord will pick up the slack.  We had a member set to come out with us for a few hours one day, and we really needed his help in order to reach our goals.  But when we woke up that morning, it was snowing super hard.  The member texted us and said that because of the snow he wouldn't be able to come out.  We weren't sure what we would do to get our goals, so we started making calls.  After a little bit, we found someone who was able to come out with us who we never would have guessed would be available at that time.  Really we saw the Lord's hand in our work this week.

But we also saw lots of opposition.  The biggest opposition we saw was the weather.  I messed up a lot of our plans on Saturday, but it really messed things up on Sunday.  Sunday morning we got a call that church was cancelled because of the weather.  We were super disappointed because we had 15 investigators that were committed to come!  So we had to call them all and tell them not to come to church...  It was pretty sad.  It was tough to see all of our work during the week lead up to no one coming to church, but it was comforting to know that we did everything in our power to make it happen.  And they should all be coming next week!

But yeah, it was a super good week.  I've really learned a lot about how with the Lord's help we can accomplish things we never thought possible.  I'm amazed every day at what He is doing here.

Hope you all have a good week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Slang, Spain, and Furnace Repairs

Family!!

Greetings from snowy Ohio.  It's been snowing all day today.

This week our mission had a huge focus on baptismal extensions.  We ended up extending baptism to 55 people in our area.  The focus really helped increase my testimony of the importance of inviting people to be baptized.  Baptism by the correct authority is essential, therefore, for a person to be saved in the celestial kingdom it is essential that they be invited to be baptized.  I know that is true.

We found a lot of new people to teach this week, and also because of the increased focus on extending, we found a few people who have real desires to be baptized and learn more.  Our Spaniard/Dominican friends came to church again yesterday and are all working towards a baptismal date of March 21st!  We've got a few other people we're working with that have shown a lot of interest as well.

One of the more exciting things that happened this week was the part we played in fixing the furnace of a part-member family.  They called us up Saturday morning to see if we knew anyone who could fix their furnace.  It had been out for two days, and we were their last hope in fixing it.  We made 4 phone calls and found a member that was able to come over and fix it within a few hours.  We translated for him when he came, and in about half an hour he had it running again.  So I'm basically a furnace repairman now...  Or I guess I'm just good at making phone calls...  But something I've learned on my mission is that the church really is a very strong support network.  With just a few phone calls you can find a member who can help you with basically any problem you have.  It really is like a huge family.

Well, I don't have too much more time today, so I'll wrap this up.  Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Elbaba and Elder Foote

Elder Foote

#finding #grace #Spaniards

Family!

Super awesome week!  I'll tell you about it!

We had a ton of meetings this week, one of which was our mission zone conference.  It was one of the most powerful meetings I've been in on my mission.  We set a goal as a mission to reach 345 baptisms by June!  To help us reach that goal, we have another goal of baptizing 100 people in the month of March!  In this area of the U.S. the record for most baptisms that have ever happened in a month is 68, which we set last year.  So 100 is a huge stretch!  To help us get pumped for March, all this month we are participating in March madness: missionary style.  Every week we are competing with all of the other zones to see who can find the most new investigators, extend baptism the most times, have the most members present at lessons, or have the most people in church.  This week the focus was on new investigators.

We really focused hard as a Spanish zone, and at the end of the week we came in with 196 new investigators!  The previous record was 60 in a week!  As we really focused on working extremely hard and doing all we could to achieve our goals, we saw tons of miracles and we were accompanied by grace all week long.  It really helped me to see that there is always more we can do.  We can never get complacent.  This week helped me to realize that it is possible to accomplish more than we think we can as we rely on the Savior.

So here's some miracle (and other things):

·  We started meeting with a family of former investigators this week, and they are super prepared!  Their 10 year-old son loves reading so much that he has been reading by himself in the bible that previous missionaries left them and had questions for us about Enoch walking with God in Gen. 5!  They all accepted a baptismal date for March, and we're helping them work towards it!

·  We met with one of our newer Dominican investigators named Jr. and had a really good lesson.  I learned some Dominican slang, and we invited him to be baptized in March, which he accepted!  He came to church on Sunday (more to come in a bit).

·  One of our less-actives is one of the only members in his family, and he decided that it's time to have us teach the rest of his family.  So this week he's going to have his wife and all of his kids sit in on our lesson for the first time!

·  We extended baptism to 3 of the kids of an inactive member, and they all said that they really wanted to come to church and be baptized!  Later that week we went by with the branch president and talked with the Mom about returning to church.  The man she's living with also said that he would like to be baptized!

·  One of our appointments fell through, but immediately after they canceled we received a referral, which we contacted and turned into a new investigator!

·  Jr. (from before) came to soccer on Saturday, and he brought 2 of his friends with him!  His friends turned out to be from Spain (which is super rare...)!  After soccer we invited all of them to come to church the next day, and they all came!  They stayed for all 3 hours, participated in the classes, and loved it!  So now we're teaching some Spaniards!

So yeah, it was an amazing week!  The Lord is hastening His work, and I definitely saw that hastening happen this past week.  I am so amazed at how involved He is with us and with the people here.  I know that He loves us so much.  I know that we are all here at this time because we have the strength to make it through these difficult times and to help others around us come unto Christ.  I love this work so much, and I'm grateful every day to be a part of it.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

¡Me enchilé! (AKA I got burned by a super hot pepper)

Family!

The saga continues.

We went to a less-active's house to eat one night this week.  They are Mexican, so they eat very hot food.  The local Kroger had a clearance on habanero chiles this last week.  This family bought the habaneros and put them on the table while we were eating.  The dad (like a true Mexican)  starting eating the habaneros like candy.  We decided that we have been out here so long that we are basically Mexicans as well.  We both did what the dad did.  We grabbed a habanero, braced ourselves, and ate it in one bite.  Instant pain.  After a few seconds my poor mouth couldn't take it anymore.  I had two options: spit the partially chewed chile onto my plate or swallow it.  I chose poorly.  It burned all the way down.  Within seconds my stomach was burning as the chile mixed with my stomach acids.  After a few minutes of trying various remedies to take away the burning in my mouth, it slowly began to subside.  There are few things in my life that I have regretted eating.  That habanero was one of them.  My quest to become Mexican continues.

I hope you enjoyed my epic story of the habanero chile.  

In other news, we had a very powerful lesson with one of the families we're teaching this week.  They have been meeting with missionaries for a long time, have come to church, read a bit of the Book of Mormon, and have had many powerful spiritual experiences confirming that this is the truth.  But they still aren't baptized.  We have been trying to help them get back into the habit of reading the Book of Mormon, but it seems as though whatever we say just doesn't stick with them.  Well, we brought a member with us to the lesson this week, and he was able to connect with them in a way we couldn't.  He told them the exact same things that we had been telling them, but this time it all seemed to make sense to them.  They expressed many concerns that they had never brought up before, and in the end they told us that the believed both the Book of Mormon and the church were true.  They just were afraid to take the leap of faith and leave their church.  We testified of the Book of Mormon and how God will answer us if we read it and then pray to know if it is true.  The Spirit was there strong.

This week Elder Elbaba had a meeting to go to as District Leader, so I got another day of English work!  It is really tough trying to not speak in Spanish all day long.  It's also weird doing English work in your same area.  We were in the same area I'm always in, but we were visiting different people.  It was pretty weird.

This week was stake conference.  It was a really great meeting.  One of my favorite things about it was the fact that I got to do part of the translation!  I got to wear the fancy headset and have my voice broadcast into the ear of all of the Spanish speakers in the congregation.  It was really hard because everyone spoke super fast and didn't quote the scriptures they used, but it was also really fun!

Recently I have begun to notice the Lord guiding me in preparing lessons for people that will help them with their specific challenges.  We visited a member family this week and had planned on sharing a short message about missionary work and the power of simple invitations.  I felt impressed to prepare a certain scripture for them, so I did.  As we talked with this family, one of the members told us of some of the difficult experiences she had had over the course of her life.  When the time came to share our message with them,  I opened up to the scripture I had prepared to share.  I found that the verse before it applied perfectly to this Sister, and we shared that scripture and applied it to her.  I know that the Lord truly guides His work and is conscious of each of us and our specific needs.

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Elders Elbaba, Gunnoe and Foote

The Legacy Meeting

Family!

Here's the rundown of what happened this week...

·  I finally went to Jungle Jim's!  It's this huge store where they sell food from all around the world.  We bought a papaya for a less active.

·  We started having family home evenings with an awesome member family in our area.  They have a lot of goals to progress in the Gospel this year, so they have invited us to come and help them start doing regular family home evenings.

·  We helped a less active clear out some wood in her backyard, then as we were about to leave she asked us to translate for her at Kroger, so we went and did a little bit of translation.

·  We had a super cool meeting that they called the Legacy Meeting.  It was for all missionaries in the mission who have 6 months or less in the mission.  They held it because when our mission started, we got a ton of brand new missionaries and we were one of the youngest missions in the world experience-wise.  Now that almost 2 years has past, we are one of the oldest missions in the world experience-wise.  So the meeting was to help the nearly 130 of us who are leaving in the next 6 months to think of the legacy we want to leave behind for the coming generations of missionaries.  The Spirit was very strong in the meeting, and I'm very excited to see what happens with the work here in the next few months.

·  One of our investigators dropped us, but we also taught a lot of great families this week who are very interested.  It seems like a cycle that happens pretty regularly: as you lose investigators, you find new ones who are even more interested.  I believe that those who want to change their lives are definitely out there!

·  We went over to an investigator's house and he was trying to put a new door on one of the door frames.  We tried to help him, but he was dead set on doing it his way, even though he had no clue what he was doing.  It was pretty funny.

·  We met a lady named Ricarda this week.  We tried to figure out what that name would be in English, and the best thing we could think of was Richardette...

·  We had three baptisms in the branch this week!  One investigator of the other Elders, and two little boys from member families.

·  We had branch conference yesterday.  I got to translate for the stake guy who sat in on Elder's quorum.  It was kind of difficult because I would translate some American-Spanish, then some Colombian-Spanish, then some Dominican-Spanish, then some Guatemalan-Spanish, and so on.

·  We had 100 people in sacrament meeting yesterday!  The week before we had 108, which we found out is the branch record!  The branch is growing!

·  I met my first person from Spain!!!!  I've almost met someone from every Spanish-speaking country!!

That's about it!  Hope you all have a great week!  Happy late birthday Dad!

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Foote at Church

Elder Foote and an Investigator

Refrigerated Dominican Mondongo

Mondongo After Being Heated in the Microwave

Mondongo Before the Microwave

Elder Elbaba, Elder Foote's Companion

Hamilton: My third home.

Family!

I am writing you from a library here in the Hamilton/Fairfield area to tell you that I will staying here for another transfer!  That's right, here comes transfer 3 in the Hammy town.  And Elder Elbaba is staying too!  That means this will be our 5th transfer together!  Almost every Spanish missionary is staying in their areas this transfer.  Elder Taylor is going home, his last companion is leaving Dayton 2, and Elder Bradford is leaving Dayton 1.  And this transfer we're getting our first new Spanish missionary in over a year!  Everyone's super excited!

This week was a week of firsts.  I met my first real Cuban.  I met my first real Nicaraguan.  I ate my first pupusa.  I had my first apartment check in over a year. (passed with flying colors by the way...)  I also learned how to make Mexican cheesecake, had a birthday party for a 69 year-old Dominican lady, and got permission from a less active to call him over and over and over until he woke up and came to church.  We gave up when he still didn't answer after 20 or so calls.

I also met with a few less actives who were really suffering.  It was very difficult to see them in such stressful situations, but it helped impress upon me that our actions definitely have consequences.  Sometimes we can't see it until it happens, but choosing to not obey God's laws always brings misery.  We can always trust that we will be the most happy when we follow His commandments.

We had a really good sacrament meeting yesterday.  There was a mix up with the program, so there ended up being no speakers prepared, so Presidente Maya changed the theme of the meeting to missionary work and had the 4 Elders, our mission leader and a Priest who recently decided to serve a mission bear our testimonies about missionary work.  We also had a full house: 108 people in sacrament meeting!  It was packed!

I also had two really great experiences that impressed on me the importance of following the direction of priesthood keys.  In the stake that I'm serving in the stake president has asked the missionaries to teach a very specific lesson to all of the members about how to invite others to increase their faith in Christ by the Spirit.  The lesson is a little complex, and so we were a bit worried that some of our members wouldn't be able to grasp it very well.  But we decided to do what we were told and teach the lesson.  We taught it first to a less active Guatemalan man who hadn't been to church in over a year.  The Spirit was strong, and it caused him to really think about his goals for his family, and rekindled his desire to come to church.  We next taught it to a pair of Colombian sisters who are very active.  Partway through the lesson they thought of someone they could invite to the upcoming branch family home evening, and the rest of the lesson we just watched as they came up with idea after idea of things that they could do to help this person they wanted to invite.  These experiences helped me realize even more that those who have priesthood keys really do receive guidance from the Lord.  If we will pay attention to what our Bishops, Stake Presidents, and other leaders counsel us to do, we will be blessed, even if the things they tell us to do don't make sense to us at the time.

Well, that's about it!  Hope all is well out there!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Foote and the Big Boy

Elder Foote and a Spanish Family

Mystical Hispanic Cures...

Family!

Really not too much to report this week.  I got pretty sick during the first part of the week.  I got over it pretty quick, but for most of the rest of the week I had no appetite.  That normally wouldn't be a huge problem, but we get fed by people pretty often, and most of them get offended if you don't eat at least two servings, so I had a constant feeling of being way too full for most of the week.  But I guess having too much to eat isn't the worst problem I could have...

In response to me being sick, I received a few mystical Hispanic cures.  One was by a Pentecostal man we're teaching who believes he has a mighty gift of healing.  He got me a shot glass, poured in some apple cider vinegar, mixed in some water, then had me drink it.  Then he pushed on my stomach and told the sickness to leave...  Another family gave me four teaspoons of olive oil to drink.  I also got some super thick Dominican cough syrup even though I didn't have a cough...

We made empanadas with some members this week, I'll send you some pictures.

Other than that it was a pretty average week.  One of our investigators believes the church is true, and he wants to be baptized, but he just can't give up smoking.  We've tried everything, but he just hasn't been able to give it up.  Well he finally started coming back to church last week, and yesterday during priesthood we all introduced ourselves and he said "My name's Jose, I'm Dominican, I'm coming to the church because I know it's true, and hopefully soon I'll be baptized."!  Yeah Jose!  So we're working with him on that.

Hope everything keeps going well out there!

Love,

Elder Foote  

Elder Foote and the Missionaries at Church

Elder Foote

Empanadas