January 17th, 2017
This week has been crazy weird! I wasn't worried at all about transfers because I am training and they usually keep trainers with their greenies for two transfers and I was super excited to stay... and then BOOM! I am heading to the west coast to serve in Fort Myers. What the what?!? I am half training my greenie and finishing another greenie's training. So this is super weird. On the bright side, we baptized a little girl in a part member family this last weekend and are about to reactivate and finish another family we have been working with too! I am so happy for them! I love that family so much. I have literally tried them my entire time in this area and they finally came to church and loved it and are going to come back forever!! :)
Other than that super big news that I am leaving, I really don't have much else to talk about from this week. It was a lot of meetings and stuff bringing in the new year, so it was a pretty chill week. My new companion is actually the MTC companion of Elder Moon so I already know a good amount about him so that's super nice. I am heading to an area called Lehigh Acres, which is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Western Florida and Eastern Florida are so different from each other and it is super weird going between the two places. Eastern is like a foreign country full of Spanish and Creole and French and what not, and then you go to the west and it is like the deep south. It is so fun being in such a diverse mission... it really keeps you on your toes! Tonight I am going to head over to all of my favorite members houses and say goodbye to them all, which is going to be sad, but that's alright. I need to leave so I can help people in Lehigh Acres out.
As to your question about prayer, prayer plays an important role in my missionary work every day. Of course! We pray before we do anyything whether it's leaving the house or eating or studying or getting out of the car or teaching or knocking... or anything! I honestly don't feel right if I start anything without a prayer now. But as for specifics, I had one experience that was super cool for me a little bit ago. I was sitting down in personal study thinking of what I could do District Training on that week and how I could help the district to improve, and I was stuck. Just absolutely stuck. I had looked at all of the information for every area (info I had obtained from accounting and talking with them and whatever else) and just couldn't decide what to do the training on. After rolling ideas around for 30 minutes and not feeling right about any of them, I took a second and said a prayer. Then I just sat for a second, and I felt like I should train on the Book of Mormon and using it to further conversion of investigators. I didn't know why, because most of the missionaries in my district had been doing really well with that. To make a long story short, I got to District Training and was talking with the Zone Leaders about what I had planned to do district training on and they just smiled super big and were like, "Man that's inspired!" It turns out that every district leader in the zone had pretty much prepared the same thing for their DT's [district training] and that is what the zone leaders had wanted to really push in the zone. So even though I had no idea why I was doing that, it helped get the whole zone on the same page. That has been my favorite, super cool prayer experience.
Have a nice week!
Elder Foster
January 23, 2017
Lehigh Acres is the place to be!! I totally love this area already! Everything is going dandy. We found some super awesome people this week that came to church and are progressing and the Lord is just dumping boat loads of blessings upon us. I was sad to leave my area of Cypress Creek, but I totally know now why He saw fit to place me here. I love the ward and the people...especially our super dope miracle family we found on transfer day. J&N are the coolest people ever and I absolutely love them. They are going to get married soon and then baptized right after. This week they have invited us to go to a barbecue with them. They love the gospel and learning and are excited about their marriage and baptism. Man I love them sooo much!
Also the amazing news is my "son" [the Elder that he trained during his last transfer] is going to baptize a part member family we worked with this last transfer... ON SATURDAY!! I just barely learned that and my life right now couldn't be any better.
Lots of sick miracles this week, and lots of progress. I love Elder Davis! He is super awesome and way funny and makes life up here so much better. I am privileged to have him as my 'Foster son'... heh.... heh... that was funny :)
Other than that everything is pretty good. I am happy. Elder Davis is happy. The ward is happy. Our investigators are happy. This week has been super awesome sauce!!
Love you all. Have a good week!
Elder Foster
This week has been crazy weird! I wasn't worried at all about transfers because I am training and they usually keep trainers with their greenies for two transfers and I was super excited to stay... and then BOOM! I am heading to the west coast to serve in Fort Myers. What the what?!? I am half training my greenie and finishing another greenie's training. So this is super weird. On the bright side, we baptized a little girl in a part member family this last weekend and are about to reactivate and finish another family we have been working with too! I am so happy for them! I love that family so much. I have literally tried them my entire time in this area and they finally came to church and loved it and are going to come back forever!! :)
Other than that super big news that I am leaving, I really don't have much else to talk about from this week. It was a lot of meetings and stuff bringing in the new year, so it was a pretty chill week. My new companion is actually the MTC companion of Elder Moon so I already know a good amount about him so that's super nice. I am heading to an area called Lehigh Acres, which is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Western Florida and Eastern Florida are so different from each other and it is super weird going between the two places. Eastern is like a foreign country full of Spanish and Creole and French and what not, and then you go to the west and it is like the deep south. It is so fun being in such a diverse mission... it really keeps you on your toes! Tonight I am going to head over to all of my favorite members houses and say goodbye to them all, which is going to be sad, but that's alright. I need to leave so I can help people in Lehigh Acres out.
As to your question about prayer, prayer plays an important role in my missionary work every day. Of course! We pray before we do anyything whether it's leaving the house or eating or studying or getting out of the car or teaching or knocking... or anything! I honestly don't feel right if I start anything without a prayer now. But as for specifics, I had one experience that was super cool for me a little bit ago. I was sitting down in personal study thinking of what I could do District Training on that week and how I could help the district to improve, and I was stuck. Just absolutely stuck. I had looked at all of the information for every area (info I had obtained from accounting and talking with them and whatever else) and just couldn't decide what to do the training on. After rolling ideas around for 30 minutes and not feeling right about any of them, I took a second and said a prayer. Then I just sat for a second, and I felt like I should train on the Book of Mormon and using it to further conversion of investigators. I didn't know why, because most of the missionaries in my district had been doing really well with that. To make a long story short, I got to District Training and was talking with the Zone Leaders about what I had planned to do district training on and they just smiled super big and were like, "Man that's inspired!" It turns out that every district leader in the zone had pretty much prepared the same thing for their DT's [district training] and that is what the zone leaders had wanted to really push in the zone. So even though I had no idea why I was doing that, it helped get the whole zone on the same page. That has been my favorite, super cool prayer experience.
Have a nice week!
Elder Foster
January 23, 2017
Lehigh Acres is the place to be!! I totally love this area already! Everything is going dandy. We found some super awesome people this week that came to church and are progressing and the Lord is just dumping boat loads of blessings upon us. I was sad to leave my area of Cypress Creek, but I totally know now why He saw fit to place me here. I love the ward and the people...especially our super dope miracle family we found on transfer day. J&N are the coolest people ever and I absolutely love them. They are going to get married soon and then baptized right after. This week they have invited us to go to a barbecue with them. They love the gospel and learning and are excited about their marriage and baptism. Man I love them sooo much!
Also the amazing news is my "son" [the Elder that he trained during his last transfer] is going to baptize a part member family we worked with this last transfer... ON SATURDAY!! I just barely learned that and my life right now couldn't be any better.
Lots of sick miracles this week, and lots of progress. I love Elder Davis! He is super awesome and way funny and makes life up here so much better. I am privileged to have him as my 'Foster son'... heh.... heh... that was funny :)
Other than that everything is pretty good. I am happy. Elder Davis is happy. The ward is happy. Our investigators are happy. This week has been super awesome sauce!!
Love you all. Have a good week!
Elder Foster