I'm giving Christ my son

A MISSIONARY CHRISTMAS
(author unknown)
I skipped the sales after Thanksgiving. The thrill just wasn't there.
No pictures taken with Santa Claus, my decorating has no flair. His
presents are shoes, shirts, and ties, two suits and socks...no fun. I've
bought him all white clothes because... This year I'm giving Christ my
son. I've spent more time in the temple, my testimony stirred. I've
reread November's Ensign, Felt strength
come from His words. Our family prays more frequently. My tears are
quick to run. Abraham seems closer because, This year I'm giving Christ
my son. I wonder how those Lamanite mothers, gave their sons to war? Or
how the pioneers chose Zion , their sacrifice was so much more. My loss
will be his presence, I'll miss his smile a ton for two years we will
pray for him, I'm giving Christ my son. I stare at his face when he's
not looking. I memorize his eyes, their shine. He's always hungered for
the part of him, that makes his soul divine. The stories and lessons he
always heard, His choice and mine are one. I'll put my faith in God's
hand, This year, I'm giving Him my son. Past gifts have lost their
glitter; I think I finally understand Christ's birth should be
celebrated by giving Him a hand. It's because I know Christ lives and
reigns that all his packing's  done. My gift has taken years to make,
This year... I'm giving Christ my son. I know there's One who
understands, the sacrifice I'm making. Who knows the gift I willingly
give, The toll it will be taking. For He has done it all before Greater
love - there could be none. For years ago God gave to me, His only
begotten son. The hands I washed, the hands I held, The hands I taught
to pray; Now knock on doors to find the ones Who will listen to what
he'll say. Because I know Christ needs him, Until all the gathering's
done, My gift has taken years to make. This year..
.I'm giving Christ my
son. —         

Lord I'm Grateful for my life‏

This week was Thanksgiving. Obviously. It was very interesting for me to not be at grandma's house (either one) eating with all the family and seeing all the cousins and just having a good time. It was weird to not do the regular traditions, like going to a movie that morning, then going to grandmas and eating way too much. I still did the eating way too much, but it wasn't at grandma's, so it just wasn't the same :)

We had thanksgiving with three families in the ward. It's pretty normal for that to occur, multiple dinner appointments on Thanksgiving and family hopping, but ours wasn't multiple appointments, it was one. Three families in the ward had it combined and invited us. It was awesome. One of the families has 6 kids, another with 7, and another with 3, but all three have slight mental disabilities. So it was crazy having all those kids in one living room. We had a great thanksgiving dinner, with all the regular thanksgiving things except no dessert. We had dessert later at the church, where more families (including those three) went to the chapel and played games and had pie and stuff. It was great. Thank we visited one of my favorite families in the ward, They have 5 kids that love the missionaries. And This family is the one that is letting me borrow a guitar. So I took it with me over there and we played around a little bit. He made a dark chocolate cream pie. With some kick. He had a couple of different kinds of pepper in it, like cayenne and a couple others. It was really good. It is an interesting sensation to eat dark chocolate that is spicy. I think Russell would have liked it.

Anyway, the next two days we did not have anyone signed up to feed us, but there were two different families that offered to give us some leftovers, so we still ate well. We had Cornbread stuffing. Apparently in the South that's the way to do it. It was good, but I still prefer regular stuffing.

So that was my thanksgiving. I am grateful that being in America, I got to enjoy that.

So, cool story for the day.

There is a guy from this ward, Jon Beesley. He was a Bishop, he was a stake president, and now he is a mission president in the Alaska Anchorage mission. President Beesley is an amazing man. Everyone in the fort worth stake knows who he is. He used to work for Lockheed Martin, a defence contractor company, (I guess it's kinda like L3? Cory will have to clarify for me if that is true) Anyway, he was the number one test pilot for Lockheed. He was one of the first people to fly an F-16, F-35, F-22, and the Stealth Fighter. Actually, the 35 and 22 he was the first person. And he named the F-22, the Raptor. Actually, his son did. One day he came home from work and told his son that the new fighter jet they were working on needed a name. His son asked him what it could do. well, being the confidential information it was, he told him that it basically kills anything alive on the ground. SO his son said. "Call it the Raptor". and they did. Cool huh. But I did not get to meet this man, because, like I said, He is in Alaska. Originally he was assigned to go to Russia, but when the Russian Government found out his credentials they basically said "Heck no." They thought he was really CIA undercover. What a joke.

Anyway, there's my cool story about someone from the "Bounding Metropolis of Burleson Texas" (As someone once sarcastically referred to it as)

Well, our baptismal date, I referred to him before as Elvis, has to be moved back because he couldn't make it to church and investigators need to come to church a few times before their baptism. But that's ok, we will still get him baptized this month. He has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it, which is exciting for a missionary to see. There's nothing like the Book of Mormon. It is wonderful.

Our District is pretty awesome. The new missionary's name is Elder Fowers, he is from Cache Valley. I told him I am an Aggie and he told me all his friends go there, but he goes to BYU. My response was an obvious "Ah... one of "Those"". he laughed and said Yup.

I get to give my first district meeting tomorrow. That'll be weird. Then I get to go on my first exchange with a Zone Leader as a District Leader right after that. So I will get to learn a ton tomorrow. Honestly, I will probably learn more from preparing and teaching a District Meeting than the members of my district will. At least that is what I am told.

The other day I had the most interesting dodge from a door contact yet.

*Dingdong*

Hello, we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, out talking about Jesus Christ today.

Oh, that's ok, we're Mormons.

... Well, that's the church we're from!

Umm.... That's ok, we have a church

*Door closes*

Elder, did that just happen?

yeah....

I thought it was hilarious. My thought is this, She thought we were JWs, and most JWs will not even bother with Mormons (outside of Utah) if you tell them you are because they know how stubborn we are when it comes to religion. So she tried to dodge us, and it failed. funny stuff huh.

Well, I do not know what else to talk about... so... I love you all

Check out the song "Lord I'm Grateful" By Paul Cardall. It rocks.

New mormon.org profile!

http://mormon.org/me/546C/

love ya!

--
--Elder Braxton C Foust--

Transfer #6... completed

Here goes transfer number 7/17, it starts on Wednesday.

Well, let me start by talking about transfers.

Elder Warburton was training the last 2 transfers, and these last couples weeks we have all said that Elder Gypp (My mission brother (Elder Warburton is both of our mission father, if you still aren't following)) is ready to train, and sure enough, Saturday morning came and his phone rang. Elder Gypp is training. So Elder Warburton needs to go somewhere right? I called it by the way. He's going to be a Zone Leader in Hurst ( I called the ZL part not the Hurst part). So he is leaving both of his sons, and both of his grandsons, in the same district.

But wait Elder Foust, If Elder Warburton is leaving, that means you need another District Leader. Well.... that is correct.....

and our phone rang on Saturday morning as well.

The situation went like this

"ring ring... ring ring... (automated voice) "Call from... President Sagers..." ring ring... ring ring.... "Call From.... President Sagers..."

meanwhile "Elder Pipher, answer the phone!" " I don't know what to do!" "Just answer it!" "But I... Uh.... Hello, this is Elder Pipher"
"hello Elder Pipher, this is president sagers. How are you today?"
"I'm doing well"
"Good. is your companion there?"

"Yes, here he is"

*tosses phone at Elder Foust

"Hello this is Elder Foust"
"Elder Foust, this is President Sagers. The Lord has a new assignment for you. You are going to stay in your area with your companion, and you are going to be the District Leader. Can you do that?"
"yes president, if the Lord says I can than I can"

etc. etc. etc.

Now... Let me tell you a little bit about the days before.

On Wednesday it occurred to me that if Elder Gypp was going to train, we would need a new DL, and it would probably be me. Honestly, the thought went through my head.

Then on Thursday it came stronger.

Then on Friday night, I had the thought to turn the cell phone up to max volume because it was going to ring the next morning.

My explanation, that was the spirit's version of what I call "Get over it now" Because if it came as a shock, I would have been thrown for a loop, but I was prepared for the shock.

So now, I am a District Leader. Well, no, I take that back, On Wednesday I will be a District Leader.

Meaning:
I give trainings to my District each week

I conduct baptismal interviews

I collect and report numbers each week

I go on 24 hour exchanges with each elder in my district

and all that "great light greater condemnation" stuff.

There is more to it than that, but it is definitely more than the MTC when I was the DL and my duties were

Mail Getter.

Yeah, that was a good time :)

And my District will rock, because the only thing that is changing is that Elder Warburton will be replaced and Elder Gypp will get a new missionary, and the Joshua Elders are both staying! AND They are getting a third companion. Crazy sauce huh. Elder Gardner, the 3rd, was in the mission for 9 months, then got honorably released for eye surgery that was supposed to keep him out of the mission for a month. but it lasted for 6 because of complications with his eye. But now he's back. He dodged the summer, the lucky son of a gun. So that'll be cool. More people for me to go on exchanges with!

anyway, so now that that is past, this week has been awesome.

We had a baptism on Thursday! Gracie ( I called her Grace last week, clever right?) got baptized AND confirmed. Which is weird, because converts are not confirmed at waterside, but she has a special case because she was moving on Friday and we wanted to make sure the ordinance was completed. Boom. Success. I believe my mom should already have the pictures. I am sorry they are blurry, the photographer did not let the camera focus or was shaking or something.

Anyway, that rocked.

Other than those two events, not much has really happened this week for me. Well, I have written a song, but I am still working out the kinks in that, so we'll see what happens. Can I just say I love guitars? I do.

Anyway, As I re-read this email, it seems a little braggy, but I do not mean it to. I just have a lot of positive things to focus on! The work is going great. We have a few people to teach and we have some baptismal dates. so that rocks.

Life is great and the Church is true. I am sorry I do not have time to say more, we have dinner in 5 minutes.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!

--
--Elder Braxton C Foust--

Make like a plumber and get the crap outta here‏

Elder Nielsen has done a great job of using song lines as all of his subject lines, so I figured since I'm in Texas I should use the door mat sayings I see on a daily basis. This was a great one I saw on Thursday.

Ok, I probably won't use many more, but I needed a subject line and that seemed like a good one.

This week has been awesome. We had a great District meeting, We had a great exchange with our District Leader, and we had a great weekend.

What makes it all so great? Well, we did a lot of bike riding, a lot of talking to people, a lot of doors slammed in our face, a lot of people looking out their windows to see who it is and straight up dissing us by not answering, and a lot of great lessons.

We taught this awesome lesson to the son of a less-active brother in the ward. I will not use his name for privacy's sake (something President Sagers asked us somewhat recently I believe I said something about it about 2 months ago), but I will call him Elvis. Why Elvis, well, because that's the name that popped in my head. So Elvis is 17 years old. Like I said, his dad is a member but not active. Elvis visits his Dad and grandma every weekend. This weekend we taught him and he told us that he has wanted to be baptized for a long time, and that he finally is ready to make the step and do it. We taught him the Restoration and he accepted the baptismal invitation and accepted a baptismal date for December 10th. I am stoked. He told us that he is not doing it for anyone else, just himself.

On Thursday we have a baptism! It is a 16 year old girl, we will call her Grace. Why? Because That is one of the words in the street name she lives on that's why.

Grace is awesome, she has been coming to church for the last couple months and has been preparing for baptism. She is moving in a couple weeks, so we won't get to see her continue to grow in her testimony, but she already told us she knows how to find her new ward, so that's awesome. I will be sending pictures from the baptism next week (hopefully :P )

So, if you remember last week I told you about the three little girls, well they are still learning a lot and love it. They love the church and their mom is optimistic that their dad will allow them to be baptized once he sees... something, i don't even know what. We don't know his concern yet. but we're working on it, and so is she.

We have 2 other good investigators but not a lot of progress there yet. Well, one of them is a 9 yr old boy, and he loves going to church and learning, so we will set a date for him with his parents sometime this week. The other is an 18 yr old, I am not sure how much he is really interested, we will see where it goes.

So there is a great scripture in Matthew 10:22. "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: But he that endureth to the end shall be saved." I love this scripture for a couple of reasons. One, it is the Doctrine of Christ (The Doctrine of Christ is Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End). The other reason is ties in with the first. It is that we do have to DO something to be saved. God doesn't give us commandments just for fun and say "Oh, by the way, if you proclaim Christ, and then you are saved anyway, so don't worry about the commandments". NO! What he says is Endure to the End.

Do everything you have to in order to be as good as you can be. So many people out here "Confess Christ" and think all is well and done, and then go out and hit up Golden Corral for a big Church Dinner after services. Ummm... .What about keeping the Sabbath day holy? Bible Thumpers that don't even get what's in the scriptures really bug me with their hypocrisy. And I don't feel bad at all that hypocrites bug me, because they bugged Christ too.

And then you get people that come out and say "You Mormons can't be a true church, because your teaching and organization are not in line with the bible"

........ Really?

Ephesians 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

Luke 10:1 after these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come.

1 Corinthians 15:29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

1 Corinthinas 15:41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

Yeah... let's see... Show me any other church that has all of these principles and comes even close. Not gonna happen

There's my rant for a minute.

I am out of time, I love you!

http://mormon.org/me/4PQ8/ This is a prett good one.

-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--

More Holiness Give Me‏

Hello my family,

This week has been one of the more successful weeks, as well as one of the more difficult weeks. Things are hard. But it's a different kind of hard. It's hard because people still don't want to talk to us. It's hard because on paper we look like we aren't a successful area. It's hard because we don't get a lot of referrals and the less-active members we work with don't progress like we feel they should. It's hard because of all the things we cannot control. Which really bites by the way. When it is something you can control you get to blame someone (usually yourself) and fix the problems. But when there's nothing you can do about it, you just keep trucking.

But then there were the really good things this week. First of all, we had interviews with President Sagers. I love interviews. All of 10 minutes one on one with President Sagers helps you learn a lot. His counsel is amazing. Then the next day was the new missionary meeting, so all the new missionaries and their trainers go up to Hurst to get a training. It's great to see all the Elders and the Sister that Elder Pipher came out with and see the growth that has happened. President told us that it is not uncommon to get to those Meetings 3 weeks after getting to the field and find one of your friends not there anymore. That they have gone home for one reason or another. But the great thing about this group is that it had 18 Elders and a Sister when they got here (which is a big group), and that meeting had 20 Elders and 2 Sisters. So yes, 3 extra new missionaries, and none had gone home. We had some great trainings and were taught some great doctrine.

I had an interesting experience this week. A couple of experiences added together got me frustrated. Now, anyone who knows me is going to think "big deal. Braxton has a short temper. Of course he got frustrated". But honestly, for the last 8 months, I have not been angry once. Not at all since I left for the field. but a couple of things added together and I got upset. It's hard to follow the spirit when you have contention within yourself, so I hit my knees. A lot. over and over again for a couple days, because I was fine until something reminded me of the things that frustrated me, then I would hit my knees again. Then I was reading in the Book of Mormon.

2 Nephi 4. it is amazing. read it.

Elder Foust's Words of Wisdom (not to be confused with THE word of wisdom) to the world for this week:
Anger is dumb. If you are getting angry, shut up for a minute, go say a prayer, and fix the problem. The problem is probably within yourself, not anyone else. Honestly, I cannot think of a possible scenario that would actually justify being angry. not one. This goes to everyone, because let's face it, we all have tempers. Especially if your last name is now or ever has been Foust. So next time (and every time after that) you get angry, just remember, there is NO reason to be angry.

Ok, new subject. I am going to teach you a little something that I wish all these Bible Belt Christians understood.

The Law of Moses had two parts.

1) The Law of theGospel, which included the 10 commandments and anything else pertaining to spiritual welfare. It also included Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. It has to do with the spirit of Prophecy, of Revelation, and of Miracles.

2) The Law of Carnal Commandments, which included the things like stoning adulterers, giving back 5 oxen if you steal and kill one, and the death penalty for two boys if they knock over a pregnant lady while wrestling and it kills the baby (that is really in there by the way)

Now, when Christ came, he fulfilled "The Law". The Law being the Law of Carnal Commandments. He was the Sacrifice and he paid the price. Now it was up to us to Live the Law of the Gospel. He explained that clearly, but people didn't get it.

And now, we read the words of Paul the Apostle in Romans, Galatians, and many other books. People read in Romans things about "Confess Christ and by his grace ye are saved" and "Only by grace are ye saved and not by works."

Well, do you know what works really means in this sense? It means the Law of Carnal Commandments. It means sacrificing a lamb without blemish as a sacrifice of Pride, or on the day of atonement. It means all of the laws that are not in the Law of the Gospel.

Yes, we are saved by grace, but AFTER ALL we can do. meaning, we must have Faith in Jesus Christ, which faith leads us to repent. The First fruits of repentance is Baptism by water and by the Hold Ghost, and then we must endure in righteousness through the end of our lives.

Ok, there is my doctrinal rant for a minute.

We had 3 baptismal dates set on Saturday afternoon, but then on Sunday, the girls' mom told us we had to push the date back, because 1) Her mother (their grandmother) wants to be there for it and she lives out of town. and 2) their non-member father kind of flipped out when she told him they were getting baptized already. He's worried they don't know what they are getting into. But it's not a big deal, we will be able to patch up that speed bump because we already have a decent relationship with him.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is on the Earth in it's fullness. It has been restored to the Earth through the prophet Joseph Smith. I know he was a true prophet. I know that Thomas S Monson is a true prophet on the Earth today. I know this church is Christ's one and only true church on the earth today.

I know that is a bold claim, and I do not want anyone to take my word for it. I want everyone to read the Book of Mormon and ask God to know for themselves. If you haven't gotten an answer, you are doing something wrong and need to clean up first, then ask again.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
There is a new mormon.org video!

http://mormon.org/me/6TDH/

--Elder Braxton C Foust--

Let me tell you a secret about a father's love

Happy Halloween everyone!

I don't really have anything crazy to tell you about this week. Sorry. I wish I did.

Saturday was the ward Chili Cook-off and Pie Baking Contest Halloween party Trunk r' Treat. Elder Pipher and I got to judge the Chili and the Pie. It rocked because I got a little bit of everything, and got to eat before the crowd hit. It was a good little activity. we had some fun.

I'm really just drawing a blank right now on what else to tell ya'll ;)

Nothing really big or cool happened this week. It was just a regular week full of the everyday stresses of being a missionary. I got cards from Eli, Caleb, Hannah, and Lily, so that was awesome. Letters from home are always great to get :) (hint hint to people that haven't written me for a while) Then again, I am pretty bad at doing hand written letters back, so I apologize for that, I am working on doing better at that part.

We have a less-active lady coming back to church, and she has been bringing her 3 kids, all of which have not been baptized, so we talked to her about it yesterday and she asked her kids and apparently they all want to be baptized, so now hopefully we will get to teach and baptize them. The only thing that would stop it would be the non-member father. We'll figure it out. Unfortunately they are in the process of moving right now, so we may not get to teach it all to them and they will finish up in their new area, which is good that they'll still get baptized, but I just wish we could be involved in the whole thing.

One of the missionaries out here has a "Christian rock" cd. I am not really a fan of this particular cd because it is parodies of popular songs, and the instrumentation and music in them is spot on so if you are not paying attention to the lyrics, it's just rock n roll. for example, the song Corinthians is In The End by Linkin' Park. Or Tom Say Ya (which I do actually like) (it's about doubting Thomas) is Tom Sawyer by Rush. Anyway, I was reading in the lyrics of the CD the other day to see what doctrine was taught, and it was pretty disappointing. People are convinced that Grace means that all they have to do is "confess Christ as their savior" and they are saved forever from everything. But that's not at all how it works. We have to DO something. we have to SHOW our faith. It's in the Bible. It's in the Book of Mormon. Every man must work out his salvation. We are saved by grace after all that we can do. We have to perform the ordinances of salvation by the power and authority of the priesthood. That is also in the Bible. Why did Jesus go to John to be baptized? Because he had the Aaronic Priesthood, that's why. The Priesthood is critical.

Well, the subject line of this email has to mean something right?

This week, although it has been slow, has been hard for me. I'm not sure why but I was down for quite a bit this week. So I prayed a lot for strength and guidance. One day we were riding with Elder Whittier (from our sister ward) and he had a country Christian cd in. This song came on and it reminded me about the power of the Atonement and that Christ and God are there for us at all times. Obviously this wasn't the moment I learned about the Atonement, but I love music, so it spoke to me a little bit in the way I needed it to (even if it is country....)

I would suggest listening to this song sometime, I like it (Again, even if it is country.....)

"Let me tell you a secret about a father's love, a secret that my daddy said was just between us. He said father's don't just love their children every now and then. It's a love without end amen."

Well, I guess this is it. Here's a mormon.org profile

http://mormon.org/me/141P/

I love you all, and Happy Halloween!

--
--Elder Braxton C Foust--