A Return to Huber Heights...

Family!

Not too much out of the ordinary this week.  Our branch mission leader moved back to Puerto Rico this past week, so we all said goodbye to him, and we are now branch mission leader-less.  This member moved here last May, so I was here for basically the same amount of time as he was.  Crazy...

We had a great lesson with Elian's mom this past week.  She came into town for just a few days to visit, so we met up to talk with her about the baptism that's coming up.  We gave her a Book of Mormon about 2 months ago, and she was on page 350 (!) when we met with her!  I have never had anyone read so much of the Book of Mormon, and understand it too!  But yeah, we answered some of the questions she had about the church, including questions about baptisms for the dead.  It was a powerful lesson, and she was speechless when we read to her about baptisms for the dead in the bible and testified of the truthfulness of that doctrine.  I have no doubt that she will be baptized when she comes here to stay.  She also said that she believed that God had taken them out of New Jersey and placed them here in Ohio to save Elian spiritually.  I believe that.  He is one of those elect individuals that it talks about in D&C who only didn't have the truth because he didn't know where to find it.  I know that Heavenly Father took him out of a bad situation and placed him here so that he could hear and accept the gospel.

In our lessons with Elian this week, we had him teach us about the restoration and the plan of salvation.  In the second lesson he taught, he said to the "investigator", "We're not here to pressure you or anything, but you need to be baptized." =) He's already an awesome teacher, and he's only 15!  He's going to be an amazing missionary! 

I went back to my old area (the one I spent a year in) for an exchange last week.  It was weird.  I imagine it's probably how it will feel when I come home.  Everything was really familiar, but it was different as well.  It was all the same people and places, but they had changed, just like I have changed in the few months since I left.  But it was lots of fun working with Elder Bradford up there; it brought back lots of memories.

Now for a mini-list of random Dayton-only events:

·  Some guy tried to convince me that C++ is a sport...

·  As we were riding on the bus, the bus driver saw someone having a BBQ in their front yard, so he pulled the bus over to the side of the road, got out, bought a hot dog, talked to the guy for a few minutes, then got back on the bus and started driving like nothing happened...

·  I have successfully made friends with the 4-year old son of a member family.  I taught him how to make a whistling noise with a piece of grass.

·  I helped an Uruguayan man put up a portable garage in his back yard.

·  We arrived at the downtown bus stop to hear a man singing in a foreign language from an old and tattered bible.  Upon talking to him, we learned that he was singing a special psalm in Latin.  He said that he is one of 1,000 people in the U.S. that fluently speaks Latin.  His name is Kenneth.

·  Our zone leaders' phone got stolen, so I took part in a secret mission to recover the phone, which ended with the phone being traded back for a power bar.

·  As we finished a lesson with a less active around 9:00, a random guy from Tegucigalpa Honduras wearing a suit approached us out of the dark and began relating to us his conversion story to Christianity.  Very rarely to people approach us to talk about religion, especially when it's dark out and the person doing the approaching is a suit-wearing Honduranian...

One last story that wasn't random enough to be included in the random-list.  As you may remember, near the beginning of this year I began to cut my own hair.  A certain family in the branch always took pleasure in lightly critiquing my abilities, and they have never failed to comment each of the 4 or 5 times I have attempted to cut my own hair.  Well, the mom of the family told me that this past week it was time for her 13 year-old son to get a haircut, so she asked him how he would like it cut.  His response was: "Cut it like Elder Foote cuts his hair."!  So I can now honestly say that my hair-cutting skills have reached a point that I am causing envy here in the branch...  I might have to tone it down just a bit... =) 

And that is all!  Hope all goes well out there in the wilderness!  Good luck with school!

Love,

Elder Foote    

Elder Foote in Front of a Spanish Church

Elder Foote With Evidence of the Old Debit Card Being Destroyed

Elder Foote's Sunshine Package

Elder Foote With Elian and a Service Elder

Lots of random stuff...

Family,

As I was looking over this past week for some things to write, I realized that this week was completely full of completely random things.  There's no real central theme to anything, it's just all a whole bunch of different experiences woven into the normal routine of teaching and trying to find people to teach.  So here's what I've got:

·  I gave a 54 year-old Costa Rican man a haircut as part of my P-day.

·  I ate hamburgers cooked by convicts at a 96% African-American ghetto party.

·  I ate the spiciest food I've had in my entire mission to this point. The lady who fed us (an investigator I found in my last area that is progressing really well) said that she liked super spicy food, and we didn't believe her.  She wasn't lying.  Luckily she gave us some watermelon juice to extinguish our mouths...

·  I cooked my first carne asada while wearing a sombrero.

·  Talked with a less active about how when she tells everyone she's from Ecuador, they always ask her what part of Mexico that's in...

·  Frustrated an elderly woman from India when I didn't put my arm around her for a picture...

·  Learned that people say funny things when they are both drunk and high.  The guy I talked with said, "I was going to get baptized when I was 12, but I ended up going to the Spaghetti Warehouse instead." and "I could probably quit smoking weed whenever I wanted to, but the keyword is probably."  Word of wisdom exists for a wise purpose.

·  Used my skills from my 11th grade drafting class to create a floor plan of a house in order to help an investigator get a materials estimate for the installation of electricity into his house.

·  Helped a man who speaks no English buy paint at Home Depot.

·  Found a new investigator while filling up the car with gas.

·  Talked about the Book of Mormon with a Catholic priest

·  Ate raw shrimp. (in a Mexican ceviche)

So yeah, pretty random if I do say so myself.  Never a dull moment in Dayton Ohio, that's for sure.  

E---- is getting hit with lots of temptations as his baptism gets closer, but he isn't letting any of them stop him.  I think the reason he's been able to resist so much is because he has been very faithful with his reading in the Book of Mormon.  I know that the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, have great power in helping us to avoid temptation.

E---- came to church yesterday wearing the church clothes we had found for him; he looked just like a missionary!  I'm super excited for him!

That's about it!  Hope you all have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Foote

Elder Foote as the Sombrero Wearing Chef

Elder Foote finds Elian reading the Book of Mormon in the bus station...

Elder Foote The Barber

Indian lady as I hover my arm over her shoulder...

Indian lady trying to make me put my arm around her...

Missionary in Training

Notice the convicts in the background...

They think they are special agents

When the spanish zone gets together for meetings...

I Bet You Can't Guess Where I'll Be For The Next Six Weeks....

My Family (and the new refrigerator),

Buenos dias!  Yep, I received the news this morning, I'll be staying in Dayton again!  And so begins transfer 10...  But I seriously am super excited to stay!  I'll get to be here for Elian's baptism, the baptism of a kid from a less active family, and hopefully for some baptisms from my first area!  The Dayton Spanish branch is growing!

We went on two exchanges this week.  Both times I took over the area.  I was with Elder Bradford for a day.  It was cool to serve with him again and reminisce over our MTC days.  I had a cool experience with him on that exchange.  Some of our plans fell through, so I was trying to decide what we should do.  The thought came to my mind to try a potential who wasn't home very often.  I didn't have any other idea of what to do, so we went.  We found him out in his backyard, and we had only talked with him for a few minutes when it started to rain.  He invited us into his house, we talked with him a bit more, had a brief lesson with him, and helped him pray for the first time.  It was a really great experience.

We helped some less actives cut the weeds at an abandoned house their parents had bought.  As a direct result of that service, I can now say I have used a machete...  I have also seen poison ivy for sure.  

We searched around this week and were able to find some church clothes for Elian.  He's super excited about being baptized!  He's decided he wants to do it before the end of this month.  We're just trying to figure out what time his Mom can come over from New Jersey, and we'll be all set!  He came to a dinner at a member's home with us, and when the member asked him what his plans are after he finishes high school, Elian said: "I'm going to go on a mission, then I'm going to BYU."  He is a champion!

I took some pictures with members and investigators just in case I left, so I'll include those.

Hope you all have a good week!

Love,

Elder Foote  

Elders With Machete's?

Elian With The Elders

Great Family and Elder Foote

Eating Equadorian Empanadas

Missionaries on Splits

Hermano Vazquez With Elder Foote

Goodbye Dayton....

My family!

Greetings.  What a week it has been.  Let me tell you about it.

First off, last week we returned to the Air Force museum.  An Elder in our district wanted to visit, and he convinced us to go with him and his companion.  It turned out there was a room I missed when I was there the last time, so I'll include a picture of something in that room...

One of our investigators made some huge progress this week.  In one of our lessons with him, he completely opened up to us and shared a lot of his concerns.  We extended baptism, and he said that he'd like to, but he's still not completely sure about it and doesn't feel like he could be 100% committed right now.  So that was where we were at on Tuesday.  Then a miracle happened.  This investigator went to youth conference.  And he had an amazing experience!  The youth all went to do baptisms for the dead at the Columbus temple, so he watched The Other Side of Heaven while they were doing that.  They had a bunch of returned missionaries talk to the youth about how great missions are, they did a bunch of fun activities, and they had a dance where our investigator met a lot of young women (that definitely added to the experience for him).  He also got up in front of nearly 400 youth and bore his testimony of how much he likes what Elder Taylor and I have been teaching him and how good he has felt since we began meeting with him!  So yeah, go youth conference!  We talked to him the day after, and he said "I've been thinking about that question you guys asked me (referring to the baptismal extension we gave him), and I want to be baptized."  WHOOOHOOOO!  And no big deal, but he also wants to serve a mission!!!  (that was sarcasm, it is a big deal!)  So yeah, I'm extremely excited!  He is completely ready and in all honestly could be baptized this Saturday no problem, but he wants to wait a bit until he knows a little more about the church.  So we are working with him to help him realize that he is ready and that the sooner his baptism happens, the better it will be for him.  After you've received a witness of something from the Holy Ghost, waiting to act on it is just an invitation for the Devil to throw all he's got at you to stop that action from taking place.

Ok, so here's the part of the email that corresponds to the subject line.  Yep, this week I left Dayton.  For one day.  I did my first exchange outside of Dayton, hence I did missionary work outside of the Dayton area for the first time in my entire mission!  Crazy, right?  I went on exchanges with one of the Spanish Zone Leaders (Elder Thompson) to Fairfield OH.  It was an adventure to say the least.  Down in that area it is almost exclusively people from Guatemala.  And there are lots of them.  So much so that there is a gigantic apartment complex that upon entering is basically the same as being in Guatemala.  So now I can say I have been to Guatemala...?  Anyways, as a direct result of the high Guatemalan population, I learned a little bit of Mam (a dialect spoken in Guatemala).  One of the zone leaders has learned enough Mam that he can pray in it...  I was also offered a piece of coffee candy by a Columbian, and I was about to eat it, but I was stopped just in time when she told us what it was.  Close call.

We had 49 people in sacrament meeting, which is only 5 away from the most people I have ever seen there in the past year!  The month of July, our average sacrament attendance jumped up by 20 from the average attendance in June!  The Spanish work in Dayton is most definitely hastening.  It's still picking up momentum, but once it gets going, it'll roll forth until it fills the whole city!  I know that this is the Lord's work and that he is currently preparing people and has been preparing people all over the Earth to hear the message of the gospel.  Ours is the responsibility to utilize the tools the Lord has given us and help spread this good news!

Hope you have a great week!  Good luck to Katie living in the land of Ephraim; it's a jungle out there! =)

Love,

Elder Foote   

Elder Foote and Elder Taylor Chopping Down a Tree

Elder Foote The Astronaut

We Are The Champions

The Keystone

Family,

We have done a lot of work this week with some of our more progressing investigators.  Two of them were planning on being baptized soon, so we started going over the baptismal interview questions with them.  Before we even got to it, they brought up some large concerns about tithing.  In talking with them more about tithing, we found some other doubts that they had.  We talked about everything, and we found out that they haven't been regularly reading from the Book of Mormon, and so their testimony was a little shaky regarding the Restoration.  We tied everything back to the Book of Mormon and committed them to begin reading it again.  This lesson was a big reminder to me of the importance of the Book of Mormon.  It really is the keystone of our religion.  You can teach someone each commandment meticulously and help them understand one by one, but if they are rooted in the Book of Mormon and have a testimony of its truthfulness, then every commandment and really every doubt can be tied back to that testimony.  If you know that Book of Mormon is the word of God, then you can know that everything else that the church teaches is true.

We've been helping out a Costa Rican family that recently moved here from New Jersey.  They are fixing up a house, and currently don't have water or power, so we have been doing a lot of asking around to see if we can find things to help them.  It's amazing how willing the members are to help out people that they've never even met.  It reminds me of that quote (I don't know who by, and I don't know if these are the actual words or not) "True Christianity is love in action."  (or something like that...)

Not too much else to report.  I'm glad to hear about Grandma and Grandpa Foote.  Hope all is well there and that Katie enjoys her last week of living at home! =)  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Gotham Needs Elders!

Greetings From The Ohio

Family,

Sometimes on a mission time seems to go by super slow, but then when you look back at what has happened, it seems like it went so fast it almost didn't happen.  As I sit here at this library computer typing, it feels like I was just here sending last week's email.  Time is super weird.

This week us Ohioans have been under attack.  The poison ivy season is here.  I don't have it, but my companion does.  It doesn't look very fun.  I've been keeping an eye out for it this past week, and I'm pretty sure that I've seen it a few times.  It looks so innocent, but I know better...

This area is only a few miles away from my last area, but there is so much more diversity here.  While I've been here I've been working primarily with Costa Ricans, Colombians, and Ecuadorians, whereas in my last area almost all of the people were from Michoacan, Mexico.  Needless to say, when we found a family from Michoacan, Mexico this past week, I was super excited!  Good old Michoacan...

We found a lady from Mexico who was having a yard sale.  We talked to her for a bit, and she was super excited to meet with us again.  As we started leaving, she asked us if we wanted some watermelon.  We said yes, and she gave us each like a quarter of a watermelon.  It was crazy!

We found a ton of people this week, and all of them are super close to our house.  We're super excited to start teaching them all!

That's about all.  Sorry I don't have anything too interesting this week.  Hope all goes well in China Meadows!  Catch a moose for me!

Love,

Elder Foote

Oh, I almost forgot.  I met my first person from Bolivia this week!  I'm only a few countries away from having met someone from every Spanish speaking country!

4th of July Watermelon

Spanish Zone Conference

Branch Picnic...Number 2!

Family,

Another wonderful week here in Dayton Ohio!  However, this may have been the first 4th of July ever where I haven't seen fireworks...  I heard a lot of them, but I never saw any...  Crazy to think that last 4th of July I was in the MTC!

This week we organized a huge service project with all the missionaries in our zone.  We went out to a house that one of our investigators is fixing up and spent a few hours helping them scrape paint off of the outside of the house.  We had a great time, and the family we helped out really appreciated 16 missionaries and some members helping them out!

For the 4th of July we were asked to gather together as zones in local parks, draw out the plan of salvation with chalk on the ground, then talk to everyone who walked by about the drawings.  We started at a park in Dayton.  Everything was going really well until a guy came who was in charge of the park fountain.  He told us we had to stop because the chalk was going to change the pH of the water...  So we were rejected from that park.  We went and drew it out at another park though, and it looked really cool!  It was a 4th of July party!

We had a zone meeting this week as a Spanish zone!  Usually we meet with the English zones near us, but this week they had all of the Spanish missionaries gather to have some specialized training.  There's only 18 Spanish missionaries in the mission, so we all know each other really well, and we're like one big family.  Out of those 18, there are only 7 that I haven't served with or gone on exchanges with.  

Well, as the title of this email says, this week we had our annual branch picnic.  And yes, this is my second picnic here in this branch!  We had 6 investigators who came, and we had tons of fun!  We ate, played a branch-wide soccer game, and I had the chance to play catch with some lacrosse sticks!  One of our investigators is from Costa Rica, but he just recently moved here from New Jersey, where he played lacrosse!  It was awesome to get to play after over a year of not playing!

This week I learned a bit about Wilford Woodruff and the importance of journals.  He diligently kept a journal for 63 years! (if I remember right).  He would say that he would hear a sermon from Joseph Smith, and until he had wrote it down he would feel super uneasy.  But as soon as he would write it all down (and he was blessed to be able to remember these sermons almost word for word), he would feel much better.  His journals became important resourced for compiling the history of the church.  This helped me realize even more the importance of making a record of the things that we do.  It might not seem too important now, but in the future it might make a huge difference.

One last thing.  This week I saw a white squirrel!  It was crazy!

Have a great week!  Love you all!

Love,

Elder Foote

Chalk Plan of Salvation

Elder Foote and a Branch Family

Fourth of July Package

Fourth of July Bar B Q

Fourth of July Service Project

Ladder Transport