It's the end of the world as we know it‏

Oh wait... No it's not... Who would have thought that a prediction that some guy made based on mathematical calculations using the bible would NOT predict the end of the world... yeah.... that sure happened.

Anyway, I had a good week

   On Tuesday we contacted a former investigator. Her name is Wanda. She last met with the missionaries in 2006. She is in her 70s and legally blind. Her brother is a member, and she was raised RLDS. We taught her the restoration and a lot about the Book of Mormon. We asked her if we could come back and teach her some more and read to her from the Book of Mormon, but she told us that she would have to do a lot of praying first to see if that's where god wants her.

   Wednesday was awesome. We had a really good Zone Huddle where we talked about the Doctrine of Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end).

"Laws are unchanging. Blessings are unchanging. God is unchanging. We, however, change a lot. We need to use our agency to decide whether this change will be for good, or for bad." -Elder Foust

Our zone is having a Book of Mormon Challenge, placing as many as possible this week. The districts are against each other, and so far we are winning.

That night we had dinner with the Mondello Family. The father is deployed, but we could still go there because all 4 elders in the ward went (there has to be at least 3 total adult males for us to enter a house with females present). They have 2 little boys, one is about 8, the other like 6. It was the 6 yr olds birthday. They showed us their nerf guns and we got into a huge nerf war in the living room. it was very fun, and the boys loved it. After dinner I gave the spiritual thought. In their toy room (which they gave us a tour of before the war) I had found some various costumes. So I did the thought on the Armor of God from the book of Ephesians. Once the birthday boy was all dressed up in the armor, he was bombarded by the "Fiery Darts of the Adversary" (the nerf guns, wielded by myself and Elder Warburton). It was awesome (thank you Russell for that idea from your mission).

That night we taught Heather. She's in her 30s, and needs the gospel. After we finished the lesson we talked about the Atonement for a while, and that baptism is the only way to partake of the atonement, and she committed to being baptized! Right now she is set for the 10th. Cool huh!

    Thursday was a good day. We visited the parents of Jeff Blankinship (one of my youth leaders in Kaysville). We had a good visit and they really enjoyed the company. After them we knocked an area and had a really good discussion with a guy named Mike. We placed a Book of Mormon, and he wants to get to page 150 before we talk to him again. I look forward to that.

     Friday we had an exchange. I went to the Killeen 1st ward with Elder Rank and Elder Wood came to K2 with Elder Warburton. We had a great time. We got to K1's apartment and Wood called us telling us he forgot his tag. So we got on the bus to take his tag to him (to save miles on the mission vehicle that K1 has). It was cool to ride the bus. After we got his tag to him we visited a couple people, did a couple street contacts, and then it started pouring on us. Literally just started dumping on us. So we stood under a tree for a minute, then it slowed down and we headed towards downtown. We got to the bus transfer station, but decided to keep walking towards someone Rank wanted to contact, but as we got about a mile down the road it started pouring again, so we sought shelter in a Bus station, and the bus got there right then. We hopped on and ended up at the transfer station again. I guess that meant we shouldn't go that way. so we went north, and it started dumping again, so we ran into a library. While we were in there it really started coming down hard. And we got a text for a tornado warning in our area. Fun stuff. We didn't have a dinner appointment, so the Spanish speaking sisters picked us up and we went to Taco Bell (they are in Temple, Texas, which is north of us, but their area goes all the way to killeen because there is not a huge need for Spanish speakers). It was fun to hang out with them a bit and eat something that I didn't throw together and put in a microwave (even though that's all Taco bell did...). After that they dropped us off and we tracted a bit, and met up with them again later so they could go to an investigator who lives in a shady side of town. We talked to some guys that were in the process of getting drunk (they weren't even tipsy....yet...) while they talked to their inv. We even placed a BoM with one of them. After that it was too late/dark to tract, so we went home. It was a good day.

    Saturday the world did not end. again... who would have thought... Anyway, after WB and I got back together in K2, we got a text from a guy (Devon) we've been trying to teach for a while. He asked us to come over, so we did, and we taught him the first lesson. He's been dating a member for a couple years and has been going to church with her on and off. He told us that he's been to about every church and he feels god in all of them, but there's something missing in all of them. Except the LDS church :) He has already got a testimony, he just doesn't quite see that it's there. So we are going to teach him the rest of the lessons, and he is schedule to be baptized on the 10th. Awesome. That night we got stuck in our apartment because apparently riding your bike down a flat area during a thunderstorm is not a good idea.

    Sunday was a great day at church. We had 2 investigators come with us, Devon and Eddie. After church we went to the Abrams and taught them. We showed them the Talk "Waiting on the Road to Damascus" by President Uchtdorf. It was really good. We are going to have FHE with them this week. After that we went to Devon's and taught him the first half of the Plan of Salvation, and he is stoked to learn more. He is golden. That night was a youth fireside. Elder Martinez was asked to speak on music, and he asked me to join him because he knows it's my passion too. After he talked we did a medley of some songs. He plays guitar (really well) and I played piano. We ended it with Nearer my God to Thee. I am going to take video of us playing it sometime because it is tons of fun.

That's basically my week. Today has been crazy, so I'm out of time, I love you all!

Ephesians 6 (The Armor of God)

"Waiting on the Path to Damascus" - Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Read those and apply the principles.

Love you all!
Elder Foust.

-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--

The thunder rolls, and the lightning strikes. (but another love does not grow cold on this sleepless night) anyway, now that we're not quoting country music

This week has been awesome.

On Tuesday we did a lot of biking to try to contact former investigators in the area, but with no success. After our lunch break we did an exchange and Elder Wood came to our area and Warburton went to K1. Wood and I did some more biking to find people, but with no success still. We had an appointment with Mitch at 4 (during which Elder Warburton came to give us the cell phone for our area since he took it by accident leaving us without a phone). After our lesson with Mitch we had dinner with the Piekarski's (the family with the snake). We had trout. It's amazing how much more tolerant of food I don't like I have become. I even had sushi once (granted there wasn't any fish in the sushi I had, but still). After that we went to the Abrams, and then our 8 o'clock cancelled, so our exchange took us out to get some desert. We didn't complain :) He took us to a frozen yogurt place (where you get what you want, and then they weigh it and charge you by the ounce) it was way good. He told us stories about his mission and it was awesome. He was a big time basher back then. He told us that when he was in the MTC one of the general authorities (I want to say Talmage or Romney, but I do not know for sure) spoke to them. He started by slamming his giant scriptures on the podium so they boomed and said "We do NOT bash." and then he slammed them down again and said "We do NOT bash." and then he slammed them a third time and said "but when we do, we win, so let's look at some scriptures."  So he told us about times when he would get ganged up on by Jehovah's Witnesses. Apparently some other religions straight up take verses out of the bible, so he would tell them that the bible says Jesus is a Mormon, and they would get all upset, and he would tell them a reference that was taken out of their bible and say "see, you were embarrassed so you took it out." crazy stuff like that. Don't worry though, I don't bash. I only argue when I know I can win, and I'm not good at Bible bashing. :)

On Wednesday we had an awesome Zone Huddle where we talked about contacting, I learned a lot and applied it that afternoon. We got a couple new potential investigators from it. As Warburton and I were riding back to the apartment to get picked up for dinner it started raining a little, then stopped. As we were going to dinner with the ZLs it was getting really windy and dark. The clouds were moving in and the storm was on its way. In the distance we could see green. Tornado weather. As we got to the dinner appointment the Brother was standing outside looking out at the distance and as we pulled up he said "this could be bad". We went inside and boom. the storm hit. It was raining sooo hard. I've never seen rain like this in Utah. Holy cow. It was awesome. We got soaked going from the front door to the car. Luckily things happened to come up with our appointments and the ZLs appointments that just happened to make it so they could get us to our appointments and home without us having to cancel, because it was bad enough that walking wasn't really an option. The storm continued all through the night, and it was still raining (not hard though) the next morning.

Because Thursday is weekly panning we were inside until 2, and by the time we got out to work the rain had basically stopped. so that worked out well. The ZLs got several referrals from a guy and some of them are in our area, so they exchanged with us, Warburton went with Martinez to teach one of them and transition to us being the ones teaching them (because White and Martinez had already taught them once before) and White and I contacted a couple referrals and some other people. White and I tracted into this total hippy chick. She was fun to talk to, she had a very odd religious view, and we have a return appointment to tell her more about our beliefs, because she is curious and wants to learn. After dinner that night we had a lesson with the Abrams. It was odd, because there was a ton of contention in that home when we got there, and it lasted most of the time we were there. Brother Abrams was working on something for his daughter, so he couldn't join us at first, but once he finished he came out. We talked about the Book of Mormon a bit, and the spirit jumped in. It was awesome. Our goal that night was to invite them to read the Book of Mormon each day, but we never got to do that, because Brother Abrams beat us to it. He committed himself to read it daily, and he has been!

Friday (the 13th). "good thing I'm not superstitious" - Elder Warburton

Earlier this week we got the "okay" from church headquarters for all missionaries to make Mormon.org profiles. So we did! Friday morning we went to the library and set up our profiles. Mine will be available to see publically in a little while because the site's admins moderate everything and they read everything to make sure there is not false doctrine being taught by anyone. So when it is up you should all look it up. And if you have an lds.org account, sign into mormon.org and set up your profile! they help the missionary work a ton. If you are not a member but reading this anyway, talk to some missionaries, read the Book of Mormon, pray to ask God if it's true, and when you find out it is get baptized and make a mormon.org profile because it helps with the missionary work :)

Anyway, after we finished at the library we went and dropped in to see the Abrams. The craziest thing in the world happened. We walked in that front door and the spirit was already there. It didn't have to wait till we got there to enter, it was there before we got there! That hasn't happened here before! It was awesome! The Book of Mormon is a book of miracles! Brother Abrams has been reading and it has been changing him. He is kinder, has a much happier demeanor, and his patience level has sky-rocketed. It is amazing. Each time we've been there since the spirit has still been there. The book of Mormon is simply amazing. Anyone who says Mormons aren't Christian needs to read the Book of Mormon, because it does nothing but testifies of Christ and the Atonement.

Saturday was fun, we went all the way out to Gatesville to do another carwash. Gatesville is over an hour drive from Killeen when you take the freeway, but because it is so far out there we had to have members take us to save miles and keep the mission vehicles in the area, so we got to cut through Ft. Hood because our ride is military. We cut the ride to less than 40 minutes. It was awesome. We drove on long road through North Fort Hood. The first sign on the road said "Waning, Live Artillery Fired Over This Road. Proceed With Caution and At Own Risk"

Fun stuff huh! other signs like "tank crossing"

and "Machine Gun ahead" and stuff like that. We saw a couple "towns" built up there that they use for practice missions. They looked like Call of Duty maps too.

Anyway, the carwash was kind of a flop. we only washed like 5 non-member cars, because no one in Gatesville would go to the carwash. But it was still fun. That night was Rebecca's son's, Liam, Birthday Party. She invited us but we didn't get there until 5:30 (it went till 6, which is when our dinner appointment was) so we dropped by, said hello, and offered to come back at 7 to help her clean up. She was very grateful for that. So at 7 we went back and helped her mother-in-law clean while she got to sit down and talk to her parents for a minute, they came over from Florida and were headed back that night, so she needed some time to talk to them. We got to help a lot. She was way stressed, because Liam wasn't in a good mood all day, and she's been having a hard time with school and work, and Skype wasn't cooperating, so her husband in Iraq wasn't able to participate in the Birthday Party very well. We were happy to help relieve some of her stress. After all the cleaning was done we talked to her about the priesthood and prayer. We told her about blessings and offered to give her one, but she declined because she wants to have more faith that it will work before she does. That was actually really good to hear, because it shows that she understands the concept, and I think she has a lot more faith in it than she realizes. We are going to teach her the Plan of Salvation this coming week. The doctrine of Eternal Families is going to help her a ton.

and now, we're out of time to email. so... Sunday was good and all.

"Why should we mourn, or think our lot is hard tis not so, all is right."

Read D&C 76. It is awesome. "the testimony last of all..." that is a good verse, I just don't have time to look it up right now.

Love you all!

-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--

I'm a tool

This week has gone by very fast. I am definitely starting to understand the concept of "the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days."

On Wednesday my bike pedal fell off. I inherited the bike from a missionary who was previously serving in this ward, so it has had about two years of wear and tear on it already. So we got to walk up this very long road towards the Abrams' house. Brother Abrams is really into biking, so we figured he would have the tools to help us out. We got there and he took a look at it, and the bold that held the pedal on was gone, so he got one off a broken bike that used to belong to his son and used that to fix mine. After he finished working on my bike he told us that if we came by for our appointment the next night early he would give us both a tune up on our bikes. So we brought them over the nest night and he worked on them. He pulled off Warburton's back tire because it was not spinning right, and as he played with it, it was obvious the bearings inside were ruined. So they offered to take it to a bike store and fix it for us so we would have it before Tuesday. On Friday afternoon sister Abrams took it to get fixed and got rear-ended on the way there, her back door on her van is destroyed. She got whiplash, but she's alright. She should be fine in a couple days. We felt bad because it happened while she was doing service to us, but she told us not to worry about it. needless to say we are borrowing a bike from the ZLs until we get his fixed this week.

Friday was a good day for us though, we had 3 great lessons come from tracting. One of those looks like he can become a really good investigator. We had a ward dinner/party that night. They had a spaghetti dinner for everyone, and then auctioned service and deserts to raise money for the youth summer camps. We were given 20 dollars from Rebekah and her Mother-in-law to bid on something, so we decided to bid on the bishop's wife's brownies. We waited till almost the end to bid on them, and the bidding started at 21... yeah, that was unfortunate. A member heard us talking, and she asked if that was what we wanted, and we said yes, and she said alright and started bidding for them. She ended up paying 53 dollars for those brownies for us. That was not even the highest one either. A cake went for $100 dollars. They basically paid for all the summer camps with all the auctioned "goods." It was a ton of fun.

On Saturday morning we did a free car wash in Copperas Cove, just like the one in Killeen last week. It was a great time. I washed for about an hour and a half, then held a sign down the road for about 2 hours, but it was a lot of fun. We got some great contacts for the Cove Elders. These service projects bring in a lot of people, we enjoy them a lot. Saturday night we visited the Abrams and taught Sister Abrams about the Priesthood and talked about her conversion and baptism 20 years ago. She told us that she was willing to try to come to church tomorrow even though she was in a lot of pain, so we offered to give her a blessing. It was awesome, and she came to sacrament meeting and Sunday school.

Sunday was great. I loved my phone call home. I know why they put the 40 minute limit, because I could have talked for hours. It really was awesome to hear my family's voices and see how they were all doing.

I've been reading Alma lately, I'm about half way through it now. Ammon and Aaron are total studs, not only for converting the kings, but everything they did. The Anti-Nephi-Lehis are awesome too.

Read Alma 26-29. Especially chapters 26 and 29. In 29 Alma shows true understanding of the purpose of missionary work. I am beginning to know how he feels. Alma 29:9 is an absolutely wonderful verse. All through high school and in college I heard people use the phrase "you tool" or "you're such a tool" and other various ways of calling someone a "tool". This verse basically says "guess what, I'm a tool and I freaking love it". And that's how I feel when someone calls me a tool for standing up for my religion.

"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before the judgment seat

Oh be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet! Our God is marching on! Glory Glory Hallelujah! His truth is Marching on!"

-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--

Happy Mothers' Day

Tuesday was an excellent day. We had the baptism of Mitchell Wayne DeBord, our golden investigator. He is just awesome. Elder Warburton was asked to baptize him and I gave a talk about Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was so cool.

Wednesday our new ZL got here, Elder White. He's from Centerville Utah of all places. Now in our zone we have 1 from Centerville, 1 from bountiful, and 2 from Kaysville. Davis county is represented well in Killeen, haha.

Thursday morning I woke up feeling like I was going to throw up, so I fell back asleep for the 1/2 hour exercise time, and then got up and got ready for the day. It is weekly planning on Thursdays, so we are in the apartment planning the next 10 days until 2 pm, so that helped me get feeling better. the rest of the day was fine, we got out and worked and I felt fine. The night ended with us going to a less-active member's house to give him a blessing because he was going into surgery for his elbow the next morning. It was awesome.

Friday night was awesome. We had a really good lesson with Rebekah, and if things continue to work like that one than we'll have another baptismal date set by the end of this week.

Saturday morning we did a free car wash at the church. As the Elder's held signs on the main roads and other Elders washed cars, the Sister missionaries were inside the church with refreshments and copies of the Book of Mormon, Every DVD missionaries are allowed to use, and other various things to give to people. They taught people and got information so we can contact them again at a later time. It was great. So much better than tracting. That night we taught Mitch a little about the temple and the 1st presidency (both were questions he brought up) it was a great lesson. At the end we told him more about the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and he asked me to Confirm him and perform the ordinance of giving him the gift of the Holy Ghost. Then he came with us as an exchange to Rebekah's. We taught her the first lesson (the first time we've officially taught one of the discussions to her) and were able to answer some of her questions about the Book of Mormon and about God. It was a good lesson.
Sunday was great. I got some answers to my questions through fasting. Getting to confirm Mitch was awesome. It was such a great experience for me to have the opportunity to do that for someone that I got to teach the gospel to. It reminded me a lot of when I got to confirm Hannah (my cousin for those of you that don't know). That afternoon we went on a short exchange with the Zone Leaders and went tracting with them. We got some great contacts and a couple return appointments, which is crazy because tracting is not effective at all. It got really cold. granted if I were in Utah and someone told me that 55 was cold, I would have laughed in their face, but once you have been in 85+ with 50-100% humidity for 6 weeks, 55 with humidity is freezing. Man we were so cold.

Today it's just as cold, and raining, but we are not complaining, because Texas really needs the rain, there have been a lot of fires around the stated lately, it's been such a dry spring. Hopefully it will keep raining for a while. A couple days of rain would be such a great blessing.

I love you all!

Happy Mothers' Day to all the mothers who read this!

Read the Introduction to the Book of Mormon, and the Testimony of three witnesses, and the Testimony of eight witnesses.

--

--Elder Braxton C Foust--