Week 51

Ok so to start off this email, I'm going to drop two huge bombs. The first bomb- Elder H. is now engaged to Sister K. (a former sister missionary.). Now, this isn't incredibly new information. Even though he denied it repeatedly throughout our transfer together, I always told him he was going to marry her. In addition to that, about 7 weeks ago he emailed me telling me he had bought a ring. So it was more of a time bomb. Has that soaked in yet? Bomb two- Elder L. is now in a facebook relationship with a member from our branch here in Woodland. So pretty crazy, seeing people actually have lives after the mission. I miss Elder H. and Elder L. a ton.

We also had a miracle this week- Marcus, the man to whom we gave a Book of Mormon was baptized. We might not have had the part in teaching him, and he might not count as our baptism, but he was the Lord's baptism. It is good to know that I could be a tool in the Lord's hand. Everything worked out perfectly with him. He was super happy to be getting baptized. Yesterday at church he we saw him wearing a suit and he looked so happy. It was good to see.

Yesterday I had a little fright. When sacrament meeting was over I was just chatting with our less active Fidel who came, when I hear a voice say "Elder Foster, cómo estás?" It was President Alba. Luckily, he wasn't there to talk to me, but still a good scare nonetheless. Good thing- we had our less active at church! Fidel. He's super cool. He has a ton of Gospel Knowledge, and probably the favorite less active I've ever taught. 

I can't think of too many other things. We are just going door to door, walking all day long trying to find new people. We have found many potentials, and The Lord is blessing us with tons of referrals. So things are going well! Nothing new to report on the investigators we are teaching, but we have so many good people to start teaching. We just have to actually teach them. But things are looking up in our area.

I decided that branch councils are absolutely ridiculous. No matter where I go. There will always be contention, there will always be people that throw the meeting so off track that it's ridiculous. I hope that with all these missionaries future branch and ward councils will actually function like they should.

I am sending home part of a Jeffery R Holland talk. I usually try to study at least one talk from General Conference a week that helps me understand the doctrine that we teach. I like this part of the talk, because not naming religions, there are a lot of people that rely 100% on the Bible. But as members of the Church, we get revelation and inspiration from God. The scriptures convey to us His will and His love, but it's not the only way by which we can learn of Him. He speaks today. That is what the Restoration is really all about. Is that God speaks to man, and everyone can learn that for themselves. We don't ask people to believe us, or even to believe in the Book of Mormon, but we invite people to take in the information from us and from the Book of Mormon and then ask God. And if they do that, it works out.

It's raining like crazy here. It hasn't not rained in about 5 days. So I'm getting good usage out of my coat and my rain jacket. It's not super cold, but it's windy and so it makes it fun to contact. People that are inside feel bad and let us inside. We said a lot of prayers with a lot of families. We've got some solid potentials that have told us they are very interested, and so we can't wait to go visit them. Especially the lady that lost her kid, Delia. She told us the last time that it wasn't a good time, but we got her number and she told us to call her so we could set something up. We'll be calling her. 

Sorry I don't have any crazy stories this week or anything. Sometimes you get into the grind and some weeks are more boring than others. But I love you and miss you all! Have a great week.

Elder Foster