May 31, 2016
HEYYYYYY MOM,
So I don't have very much time again this week (getting stuff sorted out here), but I will send something just really quick for ya and you can send it out or do whatever it is you do with these emails haha.
Umm could you send me my Seattle socks, I wanna wear them on P days.
So this area is crazy...it's super fun though! I get chased by dogs all the time and threatened to be shot and all that southern stuff. I also found out this week that the areas that we knock called the Golden Gate Estates are the largest estates in the whole world (land per capita), so that's interesting.. and I gotta bike up and down it! WOOO. This transfer has been pretty good so far, but not much of anything exciting has been happening. The work in this area is hard and people are pretty wealthy and hard hearted, BUT we have tons of Faith so ha!
Love you all and wish you the best this week
Elder Foster
June 6, 2016
ALRIGHT,
So this week I actually have time to write! :D
This week was pretty normal, though. We knocked A LOT and didn't find so much...which is kinda hard on us. But it is getting better. This area is flipping huge, so we don't knock nearly as many doors as anywhere else but that's alright.
Fun story: this week was we knocked on this man's door and he just kept saying we shouldn't be there because he is on the 'apostate list', which we thought was pretty weird. After further questioningwe found out he was a REALLY REALLY less active member who even taught Sunday School a long time ago but fell away. He knew a lot about the Gospel, which made it kind of sad to see him like that. But his friend he was living with at the time was SOOO cool and let us come in and teach him a little more about "those Mormons" which was really awesome. He didn't want to be baptized or really commit to anything but he was a super great guy.
Honestly our days are pretty similar in this area and not too much exciting happens. We get chased by dogs pretty consistently... so that's kinda weird. And people threaten to shoot us unless we get off there property, which is pretty sketchy. But that's the 'south' for ya!
My recent convert, Tito, went to do baptisms for the dead just the other day which was SOOO awesome to hear. In a year I am totally going to be with him and Elder Adams in the temple going through for his endowments!!! YAY !
So yeah that's about it from here for this week..
Love you all,
Elder Foster
Just kidding. I will squeeze some more from the week :P
I am doing really well. Elder Keith and I are getting along much better now which is a blessing. We are putting in more work and getting more done now that we aren't arguing as much as before so that's a really good thing. The Spirit is stronger in our lessons and door approaches now which is making things much better.
We made a lot of women cry this week, which is the greatest. I realized that making people cry at the door or anywhere else is the best feeling ever! It really shows how much of an impact just asking to help someone can have. Even if they don't accept the gospel right away I always know that the "good seed" that was planted during our visit will eventually blossom and they will accept the Gospel whether in this life or in the spirit world :)
This ward is pretty great. They are all Utah mormons who moved here to go to a program for anesthesiology and they are literally ALL in Utah this week because finals just ended. So half of our ward is gone starting tomorrow.
We get fed a whole lot here which is super awesome. I got a free haircut today from a lady whose family is Mormon... which was super awesome! Honestly not much happens during the week here. We knock doors for about four or five hours a day... which is crazy.
I still haven't gained any weight at all.. which makes me sad because I want to gain at least something on my mission that I can turn into a little bit of muscle haha.
I have been reading a lot lately from books about the history of the church, which has been super good for me and for my teaching because I am so much more confident now about answers i give people. I am almost done reading the Book of Mormon again, which is sick! I love that book a lot. I am reading the war chapters right now and they are without a doubt my favorite chapters in the whole book.
Love, Elder Foster
June 13, 2016
Okay. Yes it is safe. It is a gated community and they leave packages at the door to our apartment. I need my tendinitis work out thing for my elbow. It hasn't been doing too good and I think that will help . No i haven't bought any study stuff that is approved. I will next transfer for sure though. I still have the books. They are chilling on my desk with a note on them that says "Don't read! These are my apostate books!", just in case we are on exchange or something. Do you want me to send them back to you?
My teaching pool is very very small haha. Like crazy small compared to my last area, but we are making due with what we have. We actually just found a super cool guy yesterday named AJ that we will be going back to teach this Wednesday and he is super down to get baptized and go to church and everything. We got a super awesome referral that we are going to go see as well who has already been taught two of the lessons and is dating a Mormon in Utah. From what the other Elders told us he is pretty much going to be baptized :D.The ward is really amazing here, although they are ALL out of town this week because they are pretty much all young families here to do the anesthesiology course at a nearby college. They all decided to go back to Utah during the one week vacation they get, so church was pretty empty this last week. BUT when they are here they are really amazing and so willing to come out and teach with us. They all served missions pretty much and are really missionary minded which makes working with the ward a lot easier.
I love the war chapters in the Book of Mormon because they are just so awesome haha. I love wars. I love God. And that is both of them put together! You can see manifest the amount of power and control God really has on this earth. Like when 2000 young men who have never been to war or even fought in a battle before decide to pick up weapons to defend their families and end up just whooping down on some Lamanites who grossly outnumber them all because of the Faith that they have that the Lord will deliver them, its insane. I just love it :).
I kicked a dog this week so that was exciting! It was a tiny yappy dog who came running out a door we knocked and just started biting my pant legs so I just kind of lifted my foot up and flung him off and he went flying. I felt bad but then was alright with it when the family laughed at it haha. A random guy gave us some bratwursts this week too. We knocked on his door and it went like this:
*knock knock knock*
*opens the door*
Guy: "Not interested" closes door in face
Us: somehow squeeze in a "Have a nice day sir"
So we turn around and start biking away and then he comes running out and is like "Hey, you guys want some bratwursts? I can make them to go?" And so we had some bratwursts and sour crout.. Crowt.. Croouutt?? I dont know how to spell that. But yeah they were amazing!
As for pictures, I will send out pictures in a minute here. Today we are going to go see alligators. There is this trail nearby that has some really personable alligators on it! And you can just kinda walk on by them and they will just chill there. So i am way excited for that :)
Since coming onto my mission I've become super straightforward about everything. I'm very out there with new ideas and such. This experience has made me see how much I have changed since beginning my mission. I have had to really step it up in talking to people and that has really shaped me into such a better missionary. It's amazing how the Lord puts people in our path to help us grow into something so much greater.
[Regarding the shooting at the club in Orlando] Yeah, we heard about that one right quick. Everybody was watching the news when we knocked on their doors. Sounds like it was crazy. We said lots of prayers with people for the people in Orlando the other day.
Love you so much mom :) Have a great week!
Elder Foster
HEYYYYYY MOM,
So I don't have very much time again this week (getting stuff sorted out here), but I will send something just really quick for ya and you can send it out or do whatever it is you do with these emails haha.
Umm could you send me my Seattle socks, I wanna wear them on P days.
So this area is crazy...it's super fun though! I get chased by dogs all the time and threatened to be shot and all that southern stuff. I also found out this week that the areas that we knock called the Golden Gate Estates are the largest estates in the whole world (land per capita), so that's interesting.. and I gotta bike up and down it! WOOO. This transfer has been pretty good so far, but not much of anything exciting has been happening. The work in this area is hard and people are pretty wealthy and hard hearted, BUT we have tons of Faith so ha!
Love you all and wish you the best this week
Elder Foster
June 6, 2016
ALRIGHT,
So this week I actually have time to write! :D
This week was pretty normal, though. We knocked A LOT and didn't find so much...which is kinda hard on us. But it is getting better. This area is flipping huge, so we don't knock nearly as many doors as anywhere else but that's alright.
Fun story: this week was we knocked on this man's door and he just kept saying we shouldn't be there because he is on the 'apostate list', which we thought was pretty weird. After further questioningwe found out he was a REALLY REALLY less active member who even taught Sunday School a long time ago but fell away. He knew a lot about the Gospel, which made it kind of sad to see him like that. But his friend he was living with at the time was SOOO cool and let us come in and teach him a little more about "those Mormons" which was really awesome. He didn't want to be baptized or really commit to anything but he was a super great guy.
Honestly our days are pretty similar in this area and not too much exciting happens. We get chased by dogs pretty consistently... so that's kinda weird. And people threaten to shoot us unless we get off there property, which is pretty sketchy. But that's the 'south' for ya!
My recent convert, Tito, went to do baptisms for the dead just the other day which was SOOO awesome to hear. In a year I am totally going to be with him and Elder Adams in the temple going through for his endowments!!! YAY !
So yeah that's about it from here for this week..
Love you all,
Elder Foster
Just kidding. I will squeeze some more from the week :P
I am doing really well. Elder Keith and I are getting along much better now which is a blessing. We are putting in more work and getting more done now that we aren't arguing as much as before so that's a really good thing. The Spirit is stronger in our lessons and door approaches now which is making things much better.
We made a lot of women cry this week, which is the greatest. I realized that making people cry at the door or anywhere else is the best feeling ever! It really shows how much of an impact just asking to help someone can have. Even if they don't accept the gospel right away I always know that the "good seed" that was planted during our visit will eventually blossom and they will accept the Gospel whether in this life or in the spirit world :)
This ward is pretty great. They are all Utah mormons who moved here to go to a program for anesthesiology and they are literally ALL in Utah this week because finals just ended. So half of our ward is gone starting tomorrow.
We get fed a whole lot here which is super awesome. I got a free haircut today from a lady whose family is Mormon... which was super awesome! Honestly not much happens during the week here. We knock doors for about four or five hours a day... which is crazy.
I still haven't gained any weight at all.. which makes me sad because I want to gain at least something on my mission that I can turn into a little bit of muscle haha.
I have been reading a lot lately from books about the history of the church, which has been super good for me and for my teaching because I am so much more confident now about answers i give people. I am almost done reading the Book of Mormon again, which is sick! I love that book a lot. I am reading the war chapters right now and they are without a doubt my favorite chapters in the whole book.
Love, Elder Foster
June 13, 2016
Okay. Yes it is safe. It is a gated community and they leave packages at the door to our apartment. I need my tendinitis work out thing for my elbow. It hasn't been doing too good and I think that will help . No i haven't bought any study stuff that is approved. I will next transfer for sure though. I still have the books. They are chilling on my desk with a note on them that says "Don't read! These are my apostate books!", just in case we are on exchange or something. Do you want me to send them back to you?
My teaching pool is very very small haha. Like crazy small compared to my last area, but we are making due with what we have. We actually just found a super cool guy yesterday named AJ that we will be going back to teach this Wednesday and he is super down to get baptized and go to church and everything. We got a super awesome referral that we are going to go see as well who has already been taught two of the lessons and is dating a Mormon in Utah. From what the other Elders told us he is pretty much going to be baptized :D.The ward is really amazing here, although they are ALL out of town this week because they are pretty much all young families here to do the anesthesiology course at a nearby college. They all decided to go back to Utah during the one week vacation they get, so church was pretty empty this last week. BUT when they are here they are really amazing and so willing to come out and teach with us. They all served missions pretty much and are really missionary minded which makes working with the ward a lot easier.
I love the war chapters in the Book of Mormon because they are just so awesome haha. I love wars. I love God. And that is both of them put together! You can see manifest the amount of power and control God really has on this earth. Like when 2000 young men who have never been to war or even fought in a battle before decide to pick up weapons to defend their families and end up just whooping down on some Lamanites who grossly outnumber them all because of the Faith that they have that the Lord will deliver them, its insane. I just love it :).
I kicked a dog this week so that was exciting! It was a tiny yappy dog who came running out a door we knocked and just started biting my pant legs so I just kind of lifted my foot up and flung him off and he went flying. I felt bad but then was alright with it when the family laughed at it haha. A random guy gave us some bratwursts this week too. We knocked on his door and it went like this:
*knock knock knock*
*opens the door*
Guy: "Not interested" closes door in face
Us: somehow squeeze in a "Have a nice day sir"
So we turn around and start biking away and then he comes running out and is like "Hey, you guys want some bratwursts? I can make them to go?" And so we had some bratwursts and sour crout.. Crowt.. Croouutt?? I dont know how to spell that. But yeah they were amazing!
As for pictures, I will send out pictures in a minute here. Today we are going to go see alligators. There is this trail nearby that has some really personable alligators on it! And you can just kinda walk on by them and they will just chill there. So i am way excited for that :)
Since coming onto my mission I've become super straightforward about everything. I'm very out there with new ideas and such. This experience has made me see how much I have changed since beginning my mission. I have had to really step it up in talking to people and that has really shaped me into such a better missionary. It's amazing how the Lord puts people in our path to help us grow into something so much greater.
[Regarding the shooting at the club in Orlando] Yeah, we heard about that one right quick. Everybody was watching the news when we knocked on their doors. Sounds like it was crazy. We said lots of prayers with people for the people in Orlando the other day.
Love you so much mom :) Have a great week!
Elder Foster