Week 8

Hello!
I'm hurrying for time, so if this is short I'm sorry! I'll do the best
I can to include information.
So let me say that Napa is beautiful! Hot, but beautiful. I've seen
deer here, bluebirds, squirrels the size of cats, and everything is so
green! Just so you have a better idea of where we are, I live right
next to the Napa outlet mall. Our area is Napa South, and out
boundaries are 1st Street to the North, Laurel Street to the West, and
Napa River on the East. It's really a great area. Also, there are so
many orange trees and people are always giving us fresh oranges, and I
don't think I'll ever go back to grocery store oranges ever again!
The people here are also really great. There are 6 missionaries in our
branch, and we all eat dinner together every night. We have dinner
every night, and usually when we don't have dinner/ someone cancels,
we get money to go out and eat. Quite great! We have eaten everything.
And last night, at scone night with the Perez family I weighed myself.
Let me say, I'm not too happy about the results. Let's just say, more
than 15 pounds in less  than two months isn't good! Dad, send me some
of those Costa Rican tapeworms! But in all seriousness, we probably
ride at least 10 miles a day, and on a single speed bike I'm getting
good leg muscles. Yes, a lot of the weight isn't muscle, but some of it
is!
We fasted over the weekend, and we have a cool thing here called might
prayer, where when we break our fast, everyone in the whole mission
prays for an hour! It's quite awesome. And while we were tracting
yesterday, this guy invited us into his backyard for a party, and we
couldn't eat the barbeque! It smelled so good, but we explained we
were fasting and he seemed interested. We'll talk to him again soon
I'm sure!
We did lose two investigators this week, and it was pretty sad. One
has a problem with the Law of Chastity, and he said he didn't want to
take lessons because whenever he sees us he feels dirty, but we just
bore our testimony of the atonement and told him that when he's ready,
we'll be there!
We did have one amazing experience. We were riding down the street and
this lady was having trouble with her bags so we decided to talk to
her and ask if she needed help. We took her bags in and she asked why
we kept calling her "hermana." We explained that we're all children of
God, and that she was our sister. We asked if she believed that and
she said she didn't. But when we took out the restoration pamphlet
with the picture of Jesus, we asked her if she knew who He was. She
burst into tears and told us her whole story and we're really excited
to keep teaching her!
So I think that's it for this week. I'm sitting here, and in the cd
shelf I can see a copy of Mermaid Avenue by Billy Bragg and Wilco, and
I do miss my music! I miss shows and Salt Lake, but I'm excited to be
here. Just staying focused on the work will help!
Love you all,
Elder Foster