Week #3!!

Family!

I will preface this email by saying that there were few things that happened this week that are worth writing about.  That being said, I'll do my best to give you some things to read this 4th of July afternoon...

First off, I hope you got the letters that I sent out earlier this week.  Sorry again that it took me so long to reply, I'm super behind, I know.  And if you didn't get them, then check the mailbox, because I sent out a letter for each of you on Monday...

Next, I guess I'll talk a little bit more about our investigators.  We've been working to get them to commit to pray, but neither of them feels like they understand enough about Heavenly Father or his love for us to justify their praying.  I just want to let you know that I know that prayer is real, and that it is the way that we learn of truths for ourselves.  It is how we talk with our Heavenly Father, and it is the way that allows him to talk to us and help us with whatever we may be experiencing in our lives.  I just wanted to share that with you, because as I've been focusing on the importance of prayer this week, I have learned for myself even more how important it is.

As far as Spanish goes, it's coming.  It's kind of crazy to be able to sit down and give a 20 minute lesson in Spanish no problem.  Well, when I say no problem, I mean I feel like my Spanish is ok when I'm giving the lesson.  Then I get out and think about what I said, and I can pick out all sorts of crazy things that I said wrong.  For example, I just found out a few days ago that I have been saying "Heavenly Father loves himself" instead of "Heavenly Father loves you" for the past 5 lessons or so.  No wonder the investigators have been giving me weird looks!

And really that's about all I've got about this week’s experiences.  I now have less than 3 weeks here, so we are quickly approaching veteran status as the older districts leave.  That also means that things start to fall into a bit of a routine, but we still have fun and learn lots!

So happy 4th of July!  I hope you guys have fun with whatever you're doing.  As for us, we get the opportunity to go and watch the fireworks at the Stadium of Fire!  We are all super excited about that!  Though they don't want us to hear the music of the performances (Sister Clarkson and Sister Jepson), so they are having us go into the chapel until the fireworks start...  But yeah, we're super excited for that.  Also, me and Elder Maughan have been working on a Restoration rap in our plentiful free time. =)  Seriously though, we don't have much time, so it's pretty short, but it's pretty amazing if I do say so myself.  We may or may not be performing it tonight during the fireworks...

To answer your questions: no, I haven't gotten the package yet.  I didn't have time to get it yesterday, and the mail room is closed today.  I'll go get it first thing tomorrow morning though.  When I say investigators, I really should say "investigators".  They aren't actual investigators.  They are usually just members portraying people they met on their missions.  But we treat them as investigators, and we do all we can to teach them what they need to know.  All of the Elders in my district (all 6 of us) are learning Spanish, and we all leave around the same time.  3 of them are going to Washington D.C., two of us are going to Cincinnati, and one is going to Columbus.  As far as Cincinnati goes, I don't know very much, you probably know more than I do.  Though I doubt they would pair me us with an English speaking missionary as my trainer.

Well, that's about it!  Thanks for the letters, packages, and emails!  I hope you all have a great 4th of July, and a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

MTC Week 2

Family,

Hey everybody!  Week 2 is up, and here are some of the things that happened this week:

First and foremost, we had that worldwide leadership broadcast!  Wasn't that amazing!?  I absolutely loved hearing about ways that members are working with the missionaries all over the world!  It was an amazing experience to hear from Apostles of the Lord and the Prophet about ways that we can help spread the Gospel.  I just want to add my testimony to theirs that the Lord is hastening his work.  They tell us that at every devotional we have, and it is completely true.  There are now more than 70,000 missionaries, and the number just keeps on growing!  I know that if we all chip in and do our part, the Lord will bless not only us, but the whole Earth as his truth rolls forth!

I saw some familiar faces at the conference as well.  I saw Sister Karista Williams, which was great, because we have been on separate campuses and she left on Tuesday.  I also saw a couple of my friends from school and lacrosse, which was really nice!

On Saturday I got the opportunity to take the bus up to main campus and meet my mission president, President Porter.  President and Sister Porter are amazing people, and I am super excited to be serving with them for the next two years!  I also got to see all of the other missionaries that will be going with me out to Cincinnati in 4 weeks.  Currently, there are 4 Elders (including me) in the entire MTC going to Cincinnati!  And all of us are Spanish speaking!  From what I could gather, it sounds like the Hispanic population in Cincinnati isn't terribly high right now, so I will be doing a lot of teaching in both languages when I get out there.  But that also explains why there are so few missionaries going to Cincinnati here right now.  All of the English speaking missionaries to Cincinnati will most likely be here in a few weeks so that they arrive the same time that us Spanish speakers do!  But anyways, President Porter is amazing!  Me and 3 other Elders got to meet with him and his wife for an hour and just talk about ourselves and the mission.  President Porter said something that I really liked in that meeting.  He said that 200 years from now, people would remember our names as the missionaries that had helped to convert their ancestors.  He also said that the work that we are doing now "will change eternities..."  Isn't that amazing!?  The Lord's work that is rolling forth right now is literally changing the eternities of countless souls!  It just blows me away to think about...  So yeah, needless to say, meeting with President Porter got me super pumped to get out in the field and start serving the people of Cincinnati!

Let me tell you about one last meeting that I had this past week that was absolutely amazing.  In our Tuesday night devotional at the Marriott center, Janice Kapp Perry came and spoke to us.  Now I didn't know who she was at first, but as people started introducing her, I recognized whop she was.  Sister Perry wrote a whole bunch of the Primary songs that are often sang in Primary, and she also edited a few hymns in the hymnbook (I think).  So she basically wrote the songs that I grew up singing!  The devotional was a musical devotional, where the whole MTC sang primary songs in this amazing chorus, led by Sister Perry herself!  The Spirit was incredibly strong, and it was an amazing experience.

Ok, so let me now talk about a few of the more day-to-day matters.  First off, I apologize for not labeling those pictures I sent last week.  I'll try to do better at that.  I believe I sent a picture of our district in front of the temple, one of me and Elder Maughan, one of me and Elder Rawle, and one of a picture someone drew of me on the board.  I'll try to send a few pictures later on today.

For this past week I have been in a trio!  It has most definitely been an interesting experience, but it was also so much fun!  Me, Elder Maughan, and Elder Bradford had an awesome time being in a trio over the past week.  This morning Elder Bradford was assigned a new companion, so I'm back in a companionship again!  It was most definitely a great experience!

I am now teaching two investigators (in Spanish of course).  It's been kind of difficult teaching them because we don't really speak Spanish, so we can't connect with them too well.  But I had an experience with one of them that completely changed how I think about missionary work and my role in it.  We were teaching one of our investigators named Ruby for the first time, and things weren't going terribly well.  She wasn't very talkative, and neither were we because we couldn't figure out to respond to her in Spanish.  After we had talked to her for a bit, we decided we had better start with a prayer.  One of my companions offered a prayer, and immediately afterwards, the Spirit came into the room so strong.  It was almost overwhelming, and it bore testimony to all of us of the love that Heavenly Father had for Ruby.  We could feel it all through our lesson and for a long time afterwards too.  That experience was a huge testimony builder for me that missionary work is all about love.  It's about the love that God has for each and every one of his children.  He loves us more than I can comprehend, but I felt like I had just a small taste of that love when I felt the Spirit in that room with Ruby.

Let's see, what else? I gave my first blessing as a missionary a little while ago, and that was an amazing experience.  I've started playing basketball at gym.  Granted, it's only that shooting game called Speed, but still... Basketball for Elder Foote!!!???  We have a pretty long walk from West Campus up to the Marriott center for devotionals, but I absolutely love it!  Every time we walk up there, we get honked and waved at all the way there!  I feel like a celebrity!  I'm sure that's only because it's Provo though; I doubt that will continue in Cincinnati...  Yesterday I got to host the new missionaries coming in, and that was super fun!  It's crazy to think that I was in their shoes only 2 weeks ago...  It feels like I've been here for forever... and I've still got 4 weeks left!  I'm not complaining though, don't get me wrong.  I really like it here at the MTC.  The companionship of everyone here is incredible.  Never before have had I felt as much a part of a greater whole as I do here.  I guess that comes out of us all having one goal and one purpose; to further the work of the Lord!

Well, that's about all I can think of for now.  Like I said, I'll send picture a little bit later on.  Oh, and thanks for the letters from dearelder!  I got them all, including Dad's original and his shorter duplicate...  Letter writing time is a little bit limited, but I'm working on some responses, so you can expect some replies shortly!  And thanks for the doughnuts as well!  It was basically a doughnut part at our apartment last night.  Our trio ate a bunch, and the Zone Leaders came over and had some with us too.  Party for sure!  Anyways, thanks so much for the letters and packages.  And also, you can still email me; just know that I won't be able to reply with a huge long reply while I am here in the MTC. 

Thanks so much!  Miss you all!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Foote

Week 1!

Hey Family!

It's finally my first p-day!!!!  And let me tell you, it was most definitely needed...  I don't have tons of email time, so I'll just jump right into all of my crazy adventures and stories.

The MTC is amazing!  However, it is also very difficult.  I can honestly say that this is one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life...  Everyone told me that before I came, but I guess I didn't really believe them, because it is way harder than I was expecting.  Or at least the first few days were.  It's not near as bad now that I've been here for over a week!

So after you guys dropped me off, I got my name tag, which was really cool.  It might not seem like a huge thing, but it was a super cool experience for me.  We then met our teachers.  They only spoke in Spanish to us, so after only about 2 hours I already had to draw on every ounce of Spanish knowledge that I possessed.  On day two, I noticed one of the main differences between a missionary life and my old life.  A missionary's life is super busy!  I mean, I thought I had busy days back at home, but now that I'm here, it seems like my busiest day there was pretty relaxing.  Every single minute, from 6:30 to 10:30, is scheduled.  At first it was super overwhelming, but now I actually enjoy being able to look in my planner and know exactly what will be going on every minute of every day.  Anyways, we were super busy the first few days learning how things worked and relearning everything I ever knew about Spanish at the same time.  On day three (Friday) we taught our first investigator.  Me and Elder Maughan thought we were all ready to go, but when we got in to the investigators home, we found out that we were nowhere near prepared...  Teaching in English isn't too bad, but when you have to teach to an investigator who only speaks Spanish, it can get pretty nerve wracking.  We started off our lesson by trying to get to know her, but we ran out of questions to ask her after about a minute, so we jumped right into our lesson.  We blew through the material super-fast, and then every question that we asked really didn't matter because we couldn't understand what she was saying anyways.  Pretty soon, we were just sitting in awkward silence trying to come up with things to say.  We had just learned earlier that day how to pray and bear testimony in Spanish, so that's what we did.  Except I could only bear testimony of like 4 things, so I ended up bearing testimony over and over again of the same thing. Needless to say, our 30 minute lesson only lasted 10...  Since then though, things have been much better.  It's amazing to me how much we have already learned.  I have now taught lessons, and the last few have gone really well.  It was really amazing when we were able to get her to pray.  We had to teach her, and I'm amazed she understood our Spanish, but it ended up working really well.  We also had one lesson where we prepared a great lesson plan, but when we got in to teach it, the Spirit completely took us in a different direction.  We taught for 30 minutes on a topic that we hadn't even prepared on, and it was the best lesson we've had.  It's amazing to me how the spirit can guide us if we are ready and receptive to its promptings.  But of course, not every experience in my teaching has been perfect...  We had one lesson where we asked the investigator what she knew about prayer.  She said that in her church they memorized prayer and recited them.  She then asked if we did that in our church.  I was super excited to answer, but  I guess I didn't really understand her question, because I blurted out "Si"!  My companion realized my mistake and shouted out NOOO!, and I was able to realize what I had said and try and correct it.  So yes, I have already told someone that we memorize and recite our prayers...  Another great experience happened when we first told our investigator about the first vision.  We had been talking to her about how her prayers can be answered, and then after the first vision she said "Well, I don't think God is going to appear to me if I pray..."  We hadn't been expecting that response at all, so I just sat there trying to piece together some Spanish to answer, but I couldn't think of anything, so I just said "Es un milagro!"  Which I think means "It's a miracle!"  That response to her question got a few laughs...

The west campus of the MTC is amazing!  Our rooms are really nice.  We have apartments with two rooms, and each companionship gets its own room.  The food is really good, and right now they're in the process of building a new cafeteria.  One of the downsides though is that most of the missionaries are up at main campus, so I haven't been able to see very many of my friends who are here.  I do see Elder Rawle pretty often though which is super cool!

So my companion is awesome!  His name is Elder Maughan, and he is seriously the best companion I could have asked for.  My district is also super amazing!

During gym time I have regressed to playing games that I played during 5th grade.  We actually have started calling gym time "recess" simply because that's what it feels like.  I have become a pretty decent 4-square player, though compared to the Finnish missionaries I played against I'm not really all that great at all.  I have also been playing volleyball, and I tried my hand at basketball yesterday.  I actually help organize a game for those Elders that can't play basketball to save their lives, like me.  It ended up being a pretty interesting experience...

Oh, thank you so much for the packages!  It's always great to be able to open them up and get all that great stuff!  Also, I would suggest that you use dearelder.com to send me letters.  I don't have tons of email time, but I can read the letters all week...  Also, dearelder is free and gets here the same day!  So yeah, just something to think about!

Another thought: time flies here, but it also drags on and on and on....  The first few days seemed to take forever, but now it seems like each day is gone before I can even realize what happened.  And I've only been here a week, but it seems like I've been living here forever...

Seriously though, I love it here!  The spirit is super strong, and it just amazes me how much we are learning!  I mean, I have already talked to someone in Spanish for a full half hour about then gospel!  Granted, it was extremely broken Spanish that was probably all in one tense, but it was Spanish nonetheless, and if they didn't understand, at least the pretended to...  But seriously, there is no were else I'd rather be.  I know more than ever now that this is where the Lord wants me, and I know that if I do my part and work hard; he will use me to bless his children.  I'm excited to keep learning, and I can't wait till the lesson I teach and the things I say in Spanish actually make sense!

Well, I really can't think of much more to say right now, and my time is running out, so I'll start wrapping this up.  I just want you to know how much I love you and miss you.  I can honestly say I wouldn't be where I am right now without the love and support that you have given me over the years.  And Dad, HAPPY FATHER DAY!  Sorry that's late, but I couldn't communicate with the outside world until right now...  But I do just want you to know how great an example you've been to me and how much I appreciate all the help you've given me over the years.

Anyways, I'll try to write soon, and if I'm not able to, I'll talk to you next Thursday!

Love,

Elder Foote

P.S.  I do have a few pictures, but I forgot to take my flash drive to the computer lab, so I'll try and send them later today.

P.P.S.  I don't know if you guys have heard about the worldwide training/missionary/super top secret broadcast from the Marriott center on Sunday, but I'm super excited about it.  Rumor here is that there's going to be some amazing announcement made...

FIRST LETTER HOME!!

Family,

So the MTC President challenged us to write home as early as possible, preferably tonight, so here I go.  From the moment you dropped me off the adventure began.  My host missionary and I lugged all of my stuff up three flights of stairs, only to find that the key didn't work!  We thought it might be the wrong apartment, so we took it all back down, then took it all back up another flight, only to find the key didn't work there either!  After a little while, we finally decided to go get another key, and after we had taken everything up one more flight of stairs, I finally got in my apartment!  It was lots of work, but it was worth it, because the apartment is nice!  My companion (Elder Maughan) is from Southern California and played basketball at BYU-Hawaii.  Anyways me and Elder Maughan have a room all to ourselves, and our apartment has one other room in which two other Elders live.  So yeah, the West MTC campus has been pretty nice so far.  After meeting with the mission presidency  we met our teachers.  They almost only speak to us in Spanish, and they expect responses with as much Spanish as possible.  They say that for the first few weeks we will be speaking Spanglish, not Spanish.  After a while of being nearly completely immersed in Spanish, we went to lunch.  They give us tons of food, so there isn't any fear of going hungry at meal times.  However, dinner is pretty early in the day, so any snacks you could send would be much appreciated...  After lunch we unpacked, then went to a meeting where we practiced teaching investigators.  It was a very humbling experience to say the least...  We met with our zone leaders after that, and then we came back to prepare for tomorrow.  My P-day is Thursday for now, so expect an email not tomorrow, but the next Thursday.  I'm having trouble finding stamps right now, but once I do, I'll get this sent off (hopefully tomorrow!).  I've only been here nine hours now, but I already love it.  It's a lot to take in, but there are already plenty of experiences that make it worth it.  My favorite thing so far was when we sang The Army of Helaman Primary Song, and we substituted the line "we will be the Lord's missionaries" for "we are now the Lord's missionaries."  I'm so happy to be out here preparing further to serve the people of Cincinnati   I know that's where the Lord wants me.  Thanks for all that you guys did for me over the years.  I love you all. 

Love, Elder Foote 

Here are a few more pictures from yesterday!  We miss you Colby!  

Goodbye Colby!!

Provo Temple, last minute pictures and goodbyes.

Entering the MTC!

This is it!!  Colby will be set apart as a missionary and tomorrow he will enter the MTC.  We are so excited for him to start this new chapter in his life, and we can not wait to see how he will impact the lives of those around him.