Week 16 - Sonoma Valley

Hola todos!!! Buenas tardes!!!

So just a heads up! Next week I will get the amazing opportunity to go to the Oakland temple!! I'm so excited!! But this means that my pday will be on Thursday so I will email out next week on Thursday!!

We may or may not have gotten locked out of a church building so I was voted as the one to climb through the open window to go open the door.....yes I have bruises from it.

This week has been good!! We have an awesome investigator named Anthony! He's pretty sweet and has been at church all three hours each Sunday! He seems to really like church and has read a little bit of the Book of Mormon. He really wants to add church into his life and even took Sunday's off of work which is super amazing and awesome! So there's a little bit of our investigators, his mom is investigating to and hasn't come to church as much because she works but she loves the gospel and lessons so that is cool too, they are both super awesome and the sweetest people!! We have another bunch of few investigators that we are going to visit right now trying to see who is really interested and who was just trying to be nice when they said we could come back! So fun stuff fun stuff!!

Wednesday and Thursday I went in exchanges and was part of a zebra!  Which means I was with an English sister for the night and was the only Spanish misioneras! It was super fun I was with Sister Malmfeldt who is just awesome! She is hilarious and I actually had a conversation on the phone in Spanish, which if you wanted to know is 12 million times harder to understand from a cell phone, BUT I had a conversation with a dude and it was crazy exciting. I mean it was broken Spanish to the max but it was still fantastic!

I got to see around an area called St. Helena it's gorgeous!! Trees everywhere!! It's more north so it's closer to the red oaks! Anyway all four of us went to sweat at the garden and then we came to St. Helena and had dinner with a cool family that gave us glorious strawberry shortcakes. Which also side note now is the time of year that people start selling fruit all over and the strawberries are the bomb!!

Thursday was also zone conference where we were taught by our mission president and his wife and some others as well. It was a really awesome conference! We learned a lot about teaching and how powerful it can be, especially the restoration! There is SO much power behind the first vision that it is crazy! I learned a lot and saw a glimpse at just how much there is to learn about missionary work! Always something that we can improve on and do better! The mission is a crazy learning experience that is so amazing! I'm learning new things so fast that I either never would have learned anywhere else or wouldn't have learned for quiet a long time! The Lord is in every single little details of our lives and the more I'm on my mission the more I come to understand that!

President wright compared a mission to a toothpaste thing. He said when it is all squeezed out you can't get any more after that, and that is how our missions should be. We should squeeze out all the experience and blessings we can until there is no more left so at the end we will have done what we were supposed to do!

This week on Saturday I had the amazing opportunity to hear from one the twelve apostles David A. Bednar. I will NEVER forget this experience. All the missionaries in Santa Rosa gathered and basically had a question and answer with an apostle. I can't even begin to explain all the things that were said and the things that I learned and the things that I want to do because of the conference! It was downright amazing! Elder Bednar did extend a challenge to us that I thought was very cool. He said if you have a question take it to the Book of Mormon. Get an inexpensive paperback one and start reading and highlight every instance that talks about the question you have or the thing you want to learn about. He promised that as we did this and listened for the Holy Ghost we would be guided and questions would be answered. It was such a fun conference and he is a super funny guy that truly is a disciple of Jesus Christ!

So it has been a great week of learning, tracting, and laughing with some spirit thrown in there. :) this mission is such an amazing experience that is teaching me SO much. It doesn't seem real that this week I will be entering my fifth month out it really feels like yesterday I just got here. I know that this gospel is true and that we are the only church that holds the restored priesthood that makes everything we do possible! I know with all my heart the Book of Mormon is true and that the apostles and prophet we have today are called of God! Love you all so much and hope all is well!! Hopefully things are ok with all the rain you are all in my prayers!!!!! :)

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Foster

Bambi, I love visiting her.

Hermana's matching President and Sister Wright at our zone conference

We keep getting mail for a house a couple block away and this is one of the THREE no soliciting signs on their door. They almost yelled at us when they opened the door and then realized we had their mail.