Highlights of this week

 We taught Glacier again (ya know, the kid with the polygamy question)

I think I told you before, his whole thought process is he wants to understand a religion intellectually before he looks into understanding it spiritually. Well last week we asked him to read from the Book of Mormon and to pray about it. He did not read any chapters, but he did go over the introduction again. We talked a little about it and then he started asking questions about the bible. Things like where does St Luke even come from (he's not one of the original 12, and as far as I can find he's not really mentioned other than his name on his gospel) and some of Paul's specific teachings. So we talked a little about these, but we told him that as we teach the first lesson he will understand the answers to many of his questions. So we began the first lesson. For those of you who don't know, the main points of the first lesson are God is our loving Heavenly Father, The gospel blesses families, Heavenly Father reveals his Gospel in Every Dispensation, The Savior's earthly ministry and Atonement, The great Apostasy, The Restoration of the Gospel through Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, and Pray to know the truth through the Holy Ghost. During the "Savior's Earthly Ministry" part, we teach about the Priesthood, and how it is the Authority to act in God's name. In this part of the lesson Glacier asked a lot more about the apostles, and we were able to answer his questions. We taught the entire first lesson, and we could tell he felt the spirit while I told the first vision. I think he is worried because he is feeling the spirit, and understanding spiritually before he does intellectually. It is going to be difficult, but we are going to keep working with him and I really think he will come to know the truth of our message and we will baptize him before this transfer ends.

Now the fun stuff :)

We tracted into a Jehovah's Witness yesterday. He knew exactly who we were, and as we talked he told us that he lived in a very dense LDS neighborhood in Mesa AZ for 20 years. So he had a lot of experience with members of the church. He told us a bit about his beliefs, and then began trying to tear us apart. He misquoted a few Book of Mormon verses so that he could be offended by them, specifically 2 Nephi 29. He told us that is says anyone who believes in the bible is a fool. which is incorrect, he does not understand what is really being said, which is that The Bible is not the only revelation given from God. He went on for quite a while, telling us that our beliefs were wrong, that there is no spirit world, so when we die we just don't exist until the resurrection (lol), and other various things. Basically for a half hour we sat there and listened to him quote and misquote (mostly the latter) the Bible and Book of Mormon, and every time he asked us a question we would calmly answer it and bear simple testimony, and he would try to tear that apart. It was actually quite funny. He wanted so badly for us to bash, so to avoid it we didn't even reply beyond a simple answer to his questions. The spirit was not around. But as soon as we were on our bikes again riding away we both had the same confirmation, that what we know is true, and that our faith cannot be shaken by someone as blind and stubborn as he was. We both had the spirit confirm to us that we have the true gospel. It was awesome.

We also met several other devout Christian people. Most of them said basically the same thing, along the lines of "I do not agree with the teachings of your church, but I know that we are all children of God, and so they won't shut the door on us." We talked to a Pentecostal pastor, an older Pentecostal woman, and some other Christian guy that we couldn't really get a whole lot of important info out of (he is what President Sagers refers to as a 'Texas Talker'). With all three of these people we talked for a good 1/2 hour, and shared a gospel message and had a prayer with them before we left. They all had great faith in Christ, but they don't understand the need for the priesthood authority.

Elder Warburton and I walked up a long driveway to get to this house. As we climb the stairs, the door open and a guy comes out, he's probably about 6' 1'', wearing a tank top jeans and dark sunglasses. His face looks unhappy. Elder Warburton starts to say "hello sir, we're missionaries from the church..." and the guy cuts him off. "turn around, get off my property, get on your bikes, and ride away. now." (we're still smiling) "ok, have a good day sir" as we get about 1/2 down the driveway "and tell all your buddies to never come over here again!"   "ok, will do"   "next time I'll let the dogs out!"  At this point I'm grinning like an idiot, because it's just funny to me. I've got 3 inches and probably 60 lbs on this guy and he's acting all tough guy cause he's in a tank top and I'm a missionary, and obviously we avoid any and all conflict, but it's just funny to me. So, with my big smile, I very enthusiastically, (and sincerely) yell back to him "well thanks for not letting em out this time!"   all he does is nod, still with his very straight face. man it was funny, and I think the fact that we were so comfortable and smiling irritated him more. That was fun.

Anyway, We are working hard, and covering a good sized area on our bikes. A lot of appointments are punching, so we do a bit of tracting every day. We keep on trying to contact these people, but it proves to be difficult. But we are still pushing, and won't ever give up. We are making progress with that family in the trailer park as well, so I'm excited to see where that goes. The work is great. I love it out here. Keep us in your prayers!

I want you all to read Mosiah 2 + 3 and 3 Nephi 13 with your families. Talk about how you can use these principles to better yourselves and your family relationships. Consider it an official assignment from the lord :)

"My voice is His voice, and my acts are His acts; my doctrine is His doctrine.
My Commission is to do what He wants done"

My missionary Commission - Bruce R. McConkie

Love you all!

Love, Elder Foust

"Still all my song shall be, Nearer My God to Thee, Nearer My God to Thee, Nearer to Thee." Hymn 100 (one of my favorites now)
Oh, you should all look up Nearer my God to Thee by James Stevens, or BYU Vocal Point (same arrangement) It is amazing.
-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--

How's the weather in Utah

   So we arrived in Texas at about noon on Tuesday morning. President and Sister Sagers and the assistants picked us up and we headed to their home. there we had a devotional + testimony meeting, and then dinner. they made us brisket. holy cow (literally) it was good. that night we drove around a lot, and we went into FT. Worth city to do street contacting. they pulled over and said "ok go" so we just had to choose a temporary companion and go. it was pretty fun. The first people we contacted knew people that had gone on missions, so they were enthusiastic about what we were doing. We even placed a Book of Mormon with our contact info and a place for them to read. The next people, the group I initiated the contact with, were already members. It was funny, but kind of disappointing. I was still very nervous, and very, very green. obviously I still am green, but I'm getting more comfortable.

     The Wednesday morning we all went to a stake center in Hurst to meet our trainers and find out where we were going. My companion's name is Elder Warburton. He has been out for only 3 months, all of those 12 weeks (2 transfers) were with his trainer. So obviously president has a lot of trust in the guy, as I am his 2nd companion. He was serving in Arlington, he was there for the super bowl too (which took place in Arlington, the Dallas stadium isn't even in Dallas). he said it was crazy. So in the meeting we found out we would be going to Killeen. It is only 3 hours south of Hurst. 3 hours! Killeen is the home of the world's largest military base, Ft. Hood. so there is a lot of army here, and a lot of people moving in and out as people deploy. Our ward's bishop has been switched 3 times in the last couple years. And the current bishop is being deployed in June. anyway, we didn't get down to Killeen until 6 o'clock that night.

     Our area is a new area too. We are both new to the area, Camron referred to it as shot gunned when he and E Maxfield did the same thing. They call it whitewashing out here. Our area used to be a part of the Zone Leaders' area, but they decided it was too dense for them to handle alone and split it. They still get the car though, we only have bikes. so they have to pick us up for p-day and church and stuff. but it's all good. I need the exercise.

     On Thursday we went out tracking for my first time. since we are new in the area, we don't have anyone to work with yet. we placed 4 or 5 copies of the Book of Mormon in that first little time. it was awesome. I was not very good at initiating ( or really saying anything at all) on that first day. That night we had dinner with the Brinkman Family. When we have dinners they come pick us up since the area is huge and we wouldn't be able to bike to most of them. It was nice, he drives a Dodge Charger (my favorite car if you didn't know) so I enjoyed that. we had Navajo tacos. they were great. After that we had an exchange (not splits, since that's apparently not correct) with Brother Lalliss, the Elders Quorum President. We got to meet a couple members and he showed us around a neighborhood with a few less active and part member families.

     Friday morning we visited the Abram family (they are less active). We were not given any heads up as to what to expect, other than they lived in a trailer park ( in Texas, may I remind you...) needless to say they are a good family. they have some issues, but we are going to do all we can to work with them and get them back to church. The visit seemed like a waste at first, we couldn't get anything useful out of them, but we did finally get them to talk about church. We are told not to tell the world about the issues we run into, so I guess I won't expound on that. :)

We then met the Pitkin Family. The husband is a member, but not very active, and the wife is not a member. Their 14 yr old daughter is an active member, but the mother will not let the 8 yr old be baptized until she is older and "can make the decision for herself".

After that we tracked a bit more, we placed 2 BoMs and ran into a very opinionated deist (believes in life force and chi)?. We talked with him for a long time. The conversation started like this "Good morning sir" "Good morning, how's the weather in Utah?" I literally laughed out loud, partially because he obviously knew who we were, and partially because I knew how it was 3 days earlier. The man is retired military, and his whole thing was that life doesn't need emotion. that emotion blinds us and makes us weaker. He is all about logical thought and how things work. when we talked about god, he said that understanding god is like understanding quantum physics or global warming. As we talked about religion, it was obvious he believes in god, but idk what the extent of that is. he wouldn't really tell us much. but he did tell us that he admired what the LDS missionaries do and to not give up. Keep on working and do what we know is right. I found that interesting. He also told us that his door is always open and he would be happy to talk whenever we would like. (but i think he just wants to confuse us or try to get us to contradict ourselves or something like that, so I doubt we'll ever go back to him)  I actually enjoyed talking to him.

Dinner that night was with the Walker family. They have 3 young kids, Sophie who is 2 ( who reminded me of lily, made me miss her too), Merrick who is 3, and Braxton who is 5. Unfortunately Braxton was asleep the whole time, haha.

After dinner we visited a non-member names Alby. her husband is a member, but is in Cali doing military stuff. She has had many different missionaries meet with her, so we are going to start with square one, because she doesn't seem to have the basics down. but she does seem receptive.

   Saturday we had several appointments with street contacts, and all of them blew us off. it was upsetting. but we did tract into a member that we had met a couple nights ago. it was funny.

We knocked on a door, but no one answered. As we turned form the door, the lady that lived there pulled up. She very enthusiastically told us to wait for her. she came up and read my name tag and said "I've known a lot of Mormons in my life!" (reminder, the nametag doesn't say the word Mormon anywhere, so this was a good thing for her to say) She was such a nice, happy, and generous woman. she offered to let us in to talk and have some water and food, but we can't go into a house without at least 3 total adult men present. Her husband was golfing, so we went the back porch and talked. She told us about her protestant upbringing, but how she wasn't sure it was true, and she told us what she knew about the LDS faith, and she was very receptive. We talked for a good 45 minutes before we left. We basically gave the first discussion and even ended with a prayer. She gave us her number and told us to call and come back again. We also left her with a Chapter to read in the BoM. It was great.

ugh, I'm almost out of time

Because we are assigned to a specific ward (Killeen 2nd) we get to go to that church meeting every week. all 3 hours. it is a blessing. 

Sunday night, after church and everything, we had an appointment with a 17 yr old kid names glacier. He is a very intelligent kid. He was raised  catholic, and goes to a catholic school, but he is curious about all world religions. And when I say all, I mean all. but as he's looked into them all Christianity stood out. he looked through all the Christian sects, but Mormonism always stood out too. so he was curious.

But that's not how me came in contact with missionaries. In his catholic school they use a couple different editions of the bible, but not King James.

 So he went online to find a free one. but every site that offered a free KJ Bible was implying they were for the needy, sick, poor, jailed, etc. he felt too guilty getting it from those sites, so when he found the LDS site, which offered if for free with filling our an application and such, and with no guilty reasons to not, he decided to go for it. he was amazed when he got a phone call the next day with info about it, and then the day after that missionaries delivered the bible, along with a BoM. this triggered his current investigation of the church.

the problem is all of his info comes from the internet. He told us that it seems like all the sites about Mormons are negative and we get a bad rep in the media, but he wanted to talk to us to find out for himself (sounds golden, right? but it's not) he wants to understand a religion logically before he looks into it spiritually. the problem is that doesn't work with religion. And all the bad rep we get is logical reasons we don't make sense. luckily the spirit is stronger than logic. we just need to help him feel it. it is difficult when his first question is "so the lds church practiced polygamy right? why did they stop?".

anyway, we are going to teach him the lessons, in order, in a spiritual sense to try to get him to understand them. It is going to be difficult, but hopefully we will be up to the task.

The gospel is true. Joseph Smith restored the fullness of the everlasting gospel through the priesthood authority of god. Thomas S Monson is the true prophet on the earth today. Through the gospel of Jesus Christ, through faith in him and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end, we can live with our families and with God forever. I know that this is true!

I love you all.

Keep the missionaries in your prayers! (especially me) :)

Love,

Elder Foust

"Hope of Israel, rise in might! With the Sword of Truth and Might!
Sound the warcry, "watch and pray!" Vanquish every foe today!"  -hymn 259

President and Sister Sagers

Dear Family,

Sister Sagers and I want you to know that your missionary has arrived safely here in Texas. We look forward to serving together in accomplishing the Lord's work. We hope you enjoy the attached picture of your missionary, as well as knowing that the missionaries are in good hands as they are in the Lord's service.

Sincerely,

President and Sister Sagers

In Texas

Braxton arrives in Texas and meets his Trainer‏

(I do not have the names of Braxton's trainer if I receive the information I will update the blog)

Elder Foust boarded his plane

Hi Everyone!
We received a phone call this morning from Elder Foust before he boarded his plane. He is so happy and is also excited to reach Texas today.

 He was so busy on Monday getting packed and finishing up his MTC duties as District Leader, that he didn't get an email out.
He asked me to let you all know that he is well and will write as soon as he can. He misses everyone, but knows this is where he is supposed to be. He has been taking part in a "Pilot" Program at the MTC and taught and studied tons more hours than the regular schedule for the Missionaries. He was so busy...and this is what he prayed for!
I asked him if he saw any filming going on while he was there, because KSL will have that MTC Special aired between General Conference sessions on Sunday. He said yes he did and also that the New York Times was there too! There was one particular time that he thinks he may be seen in the filming. He was walking down the hall with his Tongan Companion, "Toki", and they ran into some other Elders that Toki knew. There were alot of greetings going on and KSL was filming. Braxton says to watch for a bunch of Tongan or Samoan Elders and one tall white guy! (that would be him...LOL)
For those of you who I told about the letter I got requesting 8 ties as soon as possible, they were for his District. As District Leader, he wanted to give them all ties. I still don't know if he wanted the same or different, but he got different!
He was able to participate in the Choir and really enjoyed that opportunity. He has only been able to play the piano once since he left. He asked someone if he could play prelude for one of the Devotionals because he is going nuts not being able to play! He pulled out his Jon Schmidt "Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief"....oh how I miss hearing him play!

Anyway, He is happy, well, and very excited. Thank you all for your support of Elder Foust. We Love you!
Kim Foust

My zone

Braxton's Zone while at the MTC

Elder Foust with Elder Toki

General Epistle of Foust ....Chapter 1

Chapter 1

1. February 28th, Monday. MTC day 6

p day was somewhat uneventful, it was good to get picture from my sister. definitely made the day better. that night we learned about stress, it was actually pretty helpful
2. Mar 1, Tue. Day 7

    this morning we didn't get our gym time because we had to move resident halls. afterwards we had a TRC, I don't know what it stands for, but it's a mock investigator. her name was Lynn. it was a really good experience practicing teaching. that night we taught Anthony, our mock investigator played by a teacher. it also went well. after dinner we had choir practice, it was amazing, we learned an arrangement of come tho fount. it was great. we then had a fireside and sang it, and Richard C Edgley, who wrote the talk that was my topic for my farewell, talk.

3. march

2, wed.

we awoke to go to our first service assignment. we cleaned anothers area. It was pretty fun, elder Toki and I cleaned the showers.. then we had lunch, study, and gym time. afterwards Toki and I taught Roy, another teacher's profile. our next TRC was that night, we taught Ke Xin, a girl from mainland China. the problem with her was she did not act as a very good investigator, cause she asked very guided questions, but it helped Toki and I learn how to answer a lot of questions.

4. Mar 3, Thur

 Personal study after breakfast was difficult, cause most people were not focused, and distracting everyone else. but I started the NT. I know want to learn the significance of the number 14 in Hebrew. In gym afterwards I played 4 square for the first time since elementary school. one of the new elders that got there the day before sprained his ankle really bad. it was depressing for him.

5. Mar 4, Fri

Very productive day overall. we had a TRC, and planned for Lynn, but it turned out we were teaching someone new. and they were an inactive member, not an investigator. so it was very different..

during class after that, elder Toki was called to the MTC presidents office, and since I am his companion I had to go with him. it felt like going to the principal's office. Apparently someone told him that elder Toki was a great guy and he just wanted to meet him. it was odd.

6. mar 5, Saturday

we taught Ke Xin again, and today she was even more obviously a member. but it was still good to talk to her and answer her "questions". the rest of the day was mostly study time. it was exhaustingly boring.

7. Mar 6, Fast Sunday

So it turns out that fasting at the MTC is not difficult if you have a purpose. because the spirit is so strong, you don't even feel the hunger.. on fast Sunday there is no priesthood/relief society meetings, because they have a 2-hour conference instead. during the conference, the mission president told the whole MTC, over 2000 missionaries, about elder Toki and called him up to bear his testimony. it was awesome.. after that we had sacrament with our branch (less than 30 people) and then had our temple walk. pictures will be sent later.

another really long study session, and then, finally, dinner. after dinner was our fireside, where the Provo temple president spoke.  after the devotional every Sunday they show several films around the MTC campus. last week we watched Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the restoration, and yesterday we watched the Testaments. it was cool, cause Toki had never seen them before living in Tonga.

8. Mar 7.

This morning the sisters moved resident halls like we did last week. we carried the luggage up and down the stairs. then we did a temple session. it was excellent. since then I've been writing and emailing.

Love you all, the church is true!
Love,

Elder Braxton C Foust