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--

choosing the right

So transfer calls came yesterday and it is transfers this Wednesday!

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Stay in Killeen!!!

Haha, ok, so I forgot to grab my journal today, so I can't give the day by day play by play that I have been in the past.

But I can tell you the last couple days anyway.

So Friday Morning we did an exchange with Elder Rank (DL) and Elder Wood. Wood came to K2 with me and Warburton went to K1 with Rank. This made me Senior Companion for a day. First thing in the morning was a service project, finishing staining a fence that we started last week. We were there for a few hours, and then we had an appointment at 3. This appointment was a complete surprise to us actually. The day before we got a call from a lady asking about us. She said that we had knocked on her door a little while back and talked to someone there (a guy named ron) and that he was asking when we would be back. This was a total surprise to us. We both remembered ron very well. He was in his 60s or 70s, and disabled. He was in a couple wars as a tank mechanic, and the tank rolled on top of him, breaking his back. He has PTSD and memory issues. When we met him he didn't seem that interested, so we weren't really sure if we should go back, but now we knew we should have! So Elder wood and I went over there at 3 with Brother Clark from the ward. The lady that had called us answered the door. She said that ron had not slept well the night before and was asleep now. She was in her 60s or 70s too, and she is his fiance. We talked to her for a while, she seemed happy to have us around. We talked about the restoration and the book of mormon. She had actually been married to an LDS man before, but he was not active, and addicted to multiple substances, so since he was the only member she's ever really known we had the great opportunity to talk a little about agency. Brother Clark started talking about Christ's Baptism at one point, which took me and Wood by surprise, but then we saw why. He talked about how John had the priesthood authority and that's why christ went to him, and he explained that we had the Priesthood and could give Ron a blessing if he wanted it. It was awesome. We are meeting with Ron later this week.

The rest of Friday was pretty uneventful, and I don't want to think back to saturday, cause I'm exhausted, so let's jump to Easter Sunday!

Three weeks ago I was asked to give a talk on Living Righteously on the 24th. As it came up I realized it was easter. great, a full house, haha. It was good though. I enjoyed that topic because as a missionary I get to be bold and be not subtle in calling the general public to repentance over the pulpit and everyone still loves me!

I talked a lot about Agency, choosing the right, and living a good, honorable life. And then I said "Choosing the Right and Living a good honorable life is the best way to get to the terrestrial kingdom" I think I surprised some people with that one. So I talked about how in order to get to the Celestial Kingdom, we have to DO more than that. We must 1) Have Faith in Jesus Christ    2) Repent    3) Be baptized by immersion by the proper priesthood authority    4) Receive the gift of the Holy Ghost    5) Endure to the End ( which really includes the 4 previous steps, being done over and over again via the sacrament and living worthily to take it and renew your covenants) It was a fun talk to give.

Mitch had his baptismal interview on sunday as well! He is getting baptized on Tuesday! (tomorrow) He asked Elder Warburton to baptize him, and I am being a witness and giving the talk on baptism and the holy ghost. It will be excellent.

I was so blessed in my first area. Being put in a ward where I personally work with the Zone Leaders almost every day was huge. They are awesome guys and made a huge impact on me. Elder Nelson, who has been ZL in Killeen 2nd for 4 months now, got called up north, to be an Assisstant to the President (AP). He's such a great missionary and I'm glad I got to work with him. He'll spend the rest of his mission in that assignment. Because he got that transfer call, he left here yesterday to get trained by the current APs, since one of them goes home on thursday. So Elder Martinez has adopted Elder Warburton and myself as his companions until Wednesday when the new ZL gets here. It is going to be so weird having Elder Nelson gone, he was like a 2nd trainer for me, which sounds weird to anyone who hasn't served a mission, but seriously, I love the guy. He is going to be an awesome AP. I'm happy to still have Martinez around, that's for sure.

So last night we had to stay up late becase of Martinez's ZL duties he had to do with transfer calls and stuff, so we didn't get to bed until almost midnight, and we got up at 6:20 to go running this morning. As if I wasn't already sleep deprived enough! but it was great. P-day has been going great, but I haven't written letters yet. I guess that's what I get for playing Flag FOotball with the zone. (which was a blast by the way).

Anyway, I love you all!

3 Nephi 14 is this weeks chapter for you! (or ya'll i guess) (by the way, no I do not say ya'll, so i'm succeeding in my goal so far)

"Sometimes it's the little things that make the big difference" -Elder Martinez's Song that he wrote, and quotes a lot but only the missionaries know that he is quoting his song, so it's funny to us

-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--

Paradise

Ok, so the only parallel with the thought of "paradise" and Killeen Texas at this moment is sunny skies. But "paradise" would be on a beach or something, where heat and humidity don't make you miserable, haha.

    Monday we had our first apartment inspection. We passed with flying colors other than we didn't have a pad under our bikes to keep them from being right on the carpet, so we bought one when we went shopping. It was one of the sister's in the zone birthday, so we all went to the church and had treats and stuff, then went to the chapel and played Brody Ball and Chair Soccer. I do not remember if I have told you about broody ball yet. Same rules as ultimate Frisbee, but with a football, and to score you put it into the basketball hoop. It's way fun. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful night. We didn't make any appointments because we had a youth baptism in our ward and we were asked to attend.

    Tuesday morning we tried to visit some members that we haven't met before, but no one was home. We figure most of them are working, so we tracted around their neighborhoods with no success. We spent a lot of time tracting, and working on our area book. We barely got our area book because of the whole white washing thing, so it was not really put together at all. But after dinner was great. The sisters in the other ward met a guy a few days ago that was interested in learning. After they taught him, they found out he lives in our ward, so we had a transition lesson, and now Mitch is our golden investigator. He is getting baptized on the 26th of this month. He's very excited to keep learning and he's loving everything we teach. Of course there are a couple little issues that are being taken care of, but nobody is perfect. We are very excited for him.

     Wednesday morning we had District Meeting. Elder Rank, our District Leader, taught us about Revelation through Church Attendance. that includes both for us and for the investigator, as well as the importance of attending church (and it is important, so do it) After that we went to a taco place called Mission Taco for lunch. Russell would have loved it because they had all sorts of hot sauces. Including what is currently the world's hottest. It was great talking to the owner about the hot sauces he had, because he got really excited about them. Unfortunately the rest of the day was not too successful as all of our appointments punched, so we did a lot of tracting, which is really not effective.

Thursday was great. It is weekly planning so all morning was filled with that, and then we had Interviews with President Sagers. Our scheduled time was 2:15, and our ride was scheduled for 1:45, so they picked us up at 1:15 so we would be a little early, and no one was there. They were at lunch. So we played basketball while we waited for them, and the elders who were schedule for before lunch came walking in. They were so far behind schedule that they hadn't met with President yet. We didn't get out of the church until about 5:30. After that we had dinner pretty quickly, and then Bishop Gengler was our exchange tonight. We visited the Abrams and had a great lesson with them, which was really good to have the bishop there for. And then we visited Rebekah with the bishop. It was a great talk with her, we gave a watered down 1st lesson, and we will be giving her the full lessons starting later this week, because her mother-in-law who is a stellar LDS woman is moving in to help her out with the baby stuff. So it'll be great.

   Friday (1 month in Texas) morning we had a great personal study time. Elder Warburton had a huge headache, and fell asleep, and the white binder with the health info in it says that if you can't get rid of a headache to rest extra to help it, so I didn't wake him up right away. Instead, I finished the Book of Mormon! (it's true, by the way, in case you were wondering) It was so cool to be able to finish it then. I made the goal to have it finished before bed time Saturday night. The rest of the day was filled with stop-bys (one of them was to a less active family and we set up an appointment to come back and teach them on Sunday night, he told me he wanted me to teach him a lesson from conference) and tracting, until dinner. After dinner we got to go to a BYU-I Dance Alliance performance. They are touring Texas right now, and if we went with an investigator we could go. So we invited Mitch and we went. It was awesome. A lot of weird stuff, but they did a Big Band Swing dance that I loved, because a lot of it was stuff I knew how to do. The music was great. This is one of those Tender Mercies of the Lord, because we heard a lot of music that we should not choose to listen to on our own time :) I even enjoyed the dance they did to some Beatles songs. But that's probably because none of those songs were the Beatles songs that I hate, so it was all good.

    Saturday morning we went to a baptism for the Killeen first ward (we could go because we took Mitch). After the baptism we taught Mitch a lesson, and set up an appointment for that night too. After we finished that we prepared our notes for Ward Counsel and Ward Missionary Correlations the next morning, then hit up Wendy's for lunch. After that we changed into service clothes and stained a fence for a couple hours. Then we had dinner with the people whose fence we stained. The guy and his mother are from Bulgaria, and the wife served her mission in Bulgaria. The mother is 77, and does not speak English, but the ZLs are teaching her through translation but the wife. It is very cool. After that we taught Mitch again, and gave him a priesthood blessing to help him work towards baptism. Then we visited the Abrams, and made it in at 9:29 again.

     Sunday we got to get up very early for correlation and Ward Counsel. we got picked up at 6:30, so we got up pretty early to be ready. After church we had lunch, then did our regular tracting and stop-by thing. (Setting up an area is tough, but it's still great.) We had dinner, and then got to walk to our appointment because Elder Warburton's bike tire got a nasty hole and leaked out. This was the appointment with that less-active family. We taught them about Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk about the Road to Damascus. It was great. (you should all read through it again).

The work is great. I do not really know what else to say at the end of an email.... Keep reading your scriptures and stuff!

Read Helaman 36 and 37 sometime this week.

"You see friends shaking hands saying 'How do you do?'

But they're really saying, I, I Love you!" - Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong) (or IZ the big Hawaiian guy named Israel Komokomo kaw o'ole  or something like that, that's the version I like)

-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--

Hey Everyone!!

Hey Everyone!

    So this week has been great. Monday night we had an exchange come out with us that we really could have done without, haha. He found out that E Warburton has only been out for four months and that I've been out for 1 1/2, so he decided that we must not know what we're doing and he took it upon himself to be the Senior Companion. That was very frustrating, because the Elders are the ones with the calling, we have the authority, but no, he knew better than us so he took it upon himself to talk for over an hour. yeah, that was bad. we're not supposed to stay more than 45 minutes in most situations, but we were there for about 90, because of him. We didn't even get to teach the lesson we had planned because he talked for so long about a completely different subject than was needed for the family. And to top it all off, when we left he chastised us for being there for an hour and a half, but we can't say anything negative to people because we want them to help the work along, and to be enthusiastic about us, so all we could do was thank him for that advice. Luckily in the middle of his sermon he did tell one story about the Atonement helping his wayward son come back to the gospel, which brought the spirit. So if anyone who reads this ever goes out on exchanges (splits) with the missionaries, remember, they are the ones with the calling.

     Luckily the week went better as it went along. Tuesday we had dinner with the Clark Family. Brother Clark is a music nerd, so we get a long great. he loves classical music and operas and stuff, so we talk about that a bit. He is apparently an amazing pianist, so I hope to get to hear him play sometime. It was great to get to know him, because when it comes to music, even though we have different likes and dislikes, we still have very similar ideas of what makes the music good.

    Wednesday was Zone Conference, and the 2 DLs in the zone, as well as the ZLs, taught us about what they had learned at the training from the week before. It was awesome. Other than that we didn't have much success in the day, our only appointment punched and we didn't really have any successful tracting. But that's ok, we are working hard and it will  come eventually. The last thing we did that night was visit a member who lives in our complex. He's a 21 yr old, going through a divorce, and he's awesome. His name is Brother Chai. He enjoyed our company, and told us that he would like to go on exchanges with us on Saturday nights. So that was great. He gave us some excess frozen meat he had that will go to waste now that he's single and he may be deployed soon. So now we have chicken and steak in our freezer for when we don't have a dinner appointment. While we were meeting him, we talked about the atonement, and forgiving others, and forgiving ourselves. E Warburton shared a poem he memorized. I think it's called Touch of the Master's Hand

    Thursday was weekly planning, so from 10 till 2 we are planning for the week. ( with an hour lunch in there somewhere). After that we contacted a referral. Her name is Rebekah, her husband is a member, and he is deployed. They have one kid and she is pregnant. They want to raise their kids in a single religion, and her husband refuses to step foot in any other religion than LDS, and she's fine with raising her kids LDS, so she wants to learn more about the doctrine and come to church to get to know the members. Hopefully she will be golden. She's a really cool lady. She made it clear that she wants to learn so that she knows what her kids are going to learn, not to be converted, but I think that will come too as we teach her. After dinner that night we went to the Abrams again. We had promised their son a snickers if the memorized the 10 commandments, and he passed. We decided to read 3 nephi 17. Josh asked Brother Abrams to join us, and he did (after a little bit of nagging from his son). This is the first time in about 20 years that Brother Abrams has sat down with the missionaries. It was awesome to have him. He really like the chapter we read. After we talked about it, he made a comment along the lines of "oh man, now you are going to have me reading this book again" He told us that he's never read the whole Book of Mormon, and that he didn't know there was anything cool in it, because he never got past the Isaiah Chapters in 2 Nephi. So we told him a little about some of the cool stories in it, like Ammon cutting off the arms, and the Stripling Warriors, and Teancum assassinating Amalikiah. He is actually interested in reading now. We actually made some ground with him! We got on the subject of angels protecting us because they were worried about us riding our bikes at night. So we read D&C 84:88, and 2 Kings 6:13-17. (look'm up yourself). He really liked those too.

    Friday we knocked a n area we hadn't been to yet, no success. So we headed south and knocked another area. We talked to a guy named George, and his 4 yr old Goddaughter, Neveah (heaven backwards). He is not interested in taking the discussions, but he told us to come back and talk about Christ anytime, so we'll use that opportunity to teach him. Friday night we did a missionary exchange. Our district leader, Elder Rank, came to our area to work with Warburton, and I went to his area (Killen 1st ward) and worked with Elder Wood. It was great. We taught one of their golden investigators. He is engaged to a member. Both he and his fiancé (we taught at her house) have had head injuries from their service in the Army, so they both have memory issues. They are both very talkative and it was difficult to keep them on subject, but we were able to get through the lesson.

    Saturday morning we taught them again, and she made us lunch. I managed to get jalapeno juice in my eye ( I would not suggest doing that) but we were able to flush it out. After tracting in Wood's area for a while we got our companions back and WB and I went to dinner at the Raey Family's house. sister Raey makes homemade cheesecake for the elders everytime they come over, it is so good. We taught the Abrams again, but Brother Abrams wouldn't come out for the lesson this time. But E Warburton went over and talked with him in the kitchen and gave a mini lesson to him after we were done, and I kept Sister Abrams busy talking so that she couldn't distract Brother Abrams, haha.

    Sunday was pretty uneventful. Church was great as always, but we didn't have the greatest time with tracting afterwards. That night Brother Clark (the music guy) came out on exchanges with us. We visited a Part member family that he is really close to and a recent convert that we haven't been able to contact was over there too, so we got to talk to him too. These three guys, and a couple other guys in the ward, are all involved with the Free Masons, like the stuff in National treasure, except the real life stuff. It's all kind of interesting, but it is definitely distracting them from understanding some of the basic principles they need to understand. Glacier punched his appointment with us, so I think at this point he is trying to avoid lessons on purpose. But we won't drop him yet. I think he'll come around soon.

Anyway, the work is great. It's hard and all, but I love it.

I'm just about out of time, I Love you all! Read the scripture blocks I referenced in the body paragraph as families!

"Some will say Eat or be Eaten, Some will say Live and let Live

But all will agree, as we Join the Stampeded,

You should never take more than you give!" - The Circle of Life (listen to Mo-Tab sing it, it's awesome.)

-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--

The rock of our Redeemer

This week has been a very interesting one.

Tuesday morning we started an exchange. There was a leadership training from Tuesday to Friday for the Zone Leaders, District Leaders, and Trainers. So I had to be put with some other missionaries. I joined Elders Duke and Clement in the Killeen 3rd ward for those 4 days while Elder Warburton was in Hurst and Colleyville. So bright and early Tuesday morning we got up and drove to the other side of Killeen to drop me off at the other apartment. And by bright and early, I mean we woke up the elders when we knocked on the door because it wasn't 6:30 yet.

Being with another set of missionaries who I didn't know very well was awesome. I got to see what things they did differently than we did, as well as what they did similarly. It was good to be in an area where they had a foundation already set for the work. Elder Clement has been here to 4 months working that ward, so they had appointments, and people to contact, and that kind of stuff. We didn't even tract until Thursday because we were working the rest of the time. We even got to go to "On-post off-post", the military housing that is technically on Ft. Hood. We even had to squeeze through a little hole to get past the giant metal gate blocking the road. But it is legal, they had talked to Military officials about it before. On base we have to remove our name tags, and we can't knock on any doors unless we either have an appointment, or a specific assignment from the bishop, otherwise we could be kicked off, or even put in jail for a little while. They might even refuse to allow any missionaries to go on base at all from that point, which is how it was about 6 months ago from what I hear.

They have 2 "eternal investigators" they are working with. That basically means that they are interested in the church, they enjoy the lessons, but they aren't willing to make any commitments to progress. But after a lesson with one of them she gave the closing prayer (after rock paper scissors and guessing a number between 1 and 10) but she was still willing to and did it. That was more than what they had done with her before, so it was good.

The other lady, is a 58 year old who is an alcoholic and smoker. she has been investigating the church for almost a year, and is now starting to progress. She told us that she would not quit both addictions at the same time, and that she wants to get off the alcohol first. So as we went over every day we taught her about how the gospel will help her do that, and we gave her some church dvds to watch to get her mind off her addictions. We watched "The Infinite Power of Hope" by Dieter F. Uchtdorf with her (not the Mormon messages version, the whole talk that the "messages" version is based on) She enjoyed that a lot. She wanted a picture of Christ, so we got the "Red Robe" picture for her and hung it up for her.

 I got to meet with her every day is was in that area. She is an awesome lady, and I know she will be able to overcome those addictions with the help of the Atonement. Working with her helped me understand the idea of Loving those you teach as Christ loves them, because it is sad that I won't get to teach her again.

There was so much more that happened in those four days, but I don't have time to describe them all. But I did get a lot of bike riding done!

Friday night at about 6 I was back with Elder Warburton, we took care of some business with the zone leaders, went to dinner with the whole group that was involved with the exchange, and then went back to our apartment at 8. We had one hour to work. So we jumped on our bikes and rode to our Less Active families houses to invite them to conference, since we didn't get a chance to all week. We rode about 9 miles, and talked to four of our families, all in one hour. It was crazy.

General Conference was amazing. There was so much great information for everyone. I am so glad I had my study journal out and ready, because as I read back on my notes I am reminded of things that I learned, as well as reading things that I honestly do not remember writing, but that are important. It was a great conference. We watched all 5 sessions at the stake center. If you didn't watch them, go to gc.lds.org and watch them!

last night after conference we had dinner with an awesome family. We had some kind of Russian soup that was really good. After dinner we got to hold their 7 foot boa constrictor. (pictures will come eventually)

after the dinner appointment we went to our lesson appointments, both of which punched. (cancelled). It was rather irritating, so we tried to contact literally everyone on our lists, everyone from part-member families to potential investigators, to street contacts. But we did get a return appointment with one of those, and were asked to call others in a couple days to set up appointments later on this week.

I want you all to read Helaman 5. See how building your faith in Christ can help you. verse 12 is one of my absolute favorite scriptures, so you had better read it. Visualize what it is saying, it is amazing. Verses 10-11 are awesome too. The whole chapter is awesome.

"Come, all ye scattered sheep, and listen to your Shepherd, While you the blessings read which long have been predicted. By prophets long it's been foretold: He'll gather you into his fold And bring you home to Zion to praise the Lamb." - Hymn 322 

-- --Elder Braxton C Foust--