Week 38 - Woodland

Querido todos de mis amigos!!

This week has been a pretty fantastic week. Missionary work isn't for the faint of heart but I do love being a missionary.

On Monday we had a bit of an adventure. Elder Crowley has some Trinidad scorpion chiles that are said to be like the second hottest in the world. My companion and Elder Osorio decided they wanted to eat one whole. As for me I'm not that dumb I dipped my finger in some of the crushed up chile powder and ate that. And it was hot, I probably could have breathed fire.

Elder Osorio and Hermana Dorny however chewed a whole one and immediately started crying. To make a long story short Elder Osorio threw it all up and Hermana Dorny sucked on a frozen waffle so she could regain feeling of her tongue, for me it was all quite entertaining.

I didn't feel too super great this week though I caught a cold that we think is going around! So we got to travel to the missionary doctor and get some meds, and it was right by a Chick Fil A so of course we got lunch there and it was awesome.

I was able to eat a piece of the biggest mango I've ever seen in my life and was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting, and yes it will be all in Spanish and yes I did kind of freak out a bit. We also met with Maria and on Wednesday we were able to have such a powerful lesson with her. Fun fact the spirit can be emotionally draining but it's so cool!

The Lord has just been with Maria so much and it's amazing to see the change that's happening in her and the perspective change she has had! She is recognizing that the Lords hand is in her life and has such a huge desire to change her life! We have so much love for her!

This week was a big week with repentance and it's just such a beautiful thing that we can repent for everything big and small. We can be forgiven of everything and that feeling of knowing we don't have to live in our mistakes is so amazing! The enabling power of the atonement that helps us to change is also so powerful and basically just the gospel is super rad.

Thursday our new district leaders played some pranks on us and thought they were super funny. They pretended to be the APs and tell us they needed our car, we figured out that it was them though.

We did meet some homeless people at service as well who accepted a Book of Mormon and we learned how to jump a car because the elders left theirs playing music. I'm also pleased to announce my futbol playing is getting a tiny bit better!

The Book of Mormon is just seriously important and it really has such great stories in it! As I was reading some talks this week on the Book of Mormon there was one quote that I really liked: "Moses never entered the promised land. Joseph Smith never saw Zion redeemed. Some of us may not live long enough to see the day when the Book of Mormon floods the earth and when the Lord lifts His condemnation. (See D&C 84:54–58.) But, God willing, I intend to spend all my remaining days in that glorious effort."

This week was also the general women's session! It was so amazing to hear from some of the general authorities their words are truly inspired by God. One of my favorites was Elder Uchtdorf who talked about faith. He talked about how we just always need to continue going. I think sometimes having faith is hard because things don't always make sense.  He said we need to keep going and push through because one day everything will make sense.

We are promised in the scriptures that if we knock we shall receive, but that doesn't mean that our answer will be behind the first door that is opened. We are here to come to find God which means we must work to find him.

So let us all preserver and have faith to have faith because God is with us all always! Espero que sus semana fueron muy bien y que este semana es bueno! Les quiero mucho!!

Don't forget this week is general conference where the apostles and the prophet will speak to us! We have this amazing opportunity and I encourage you all to take advantage of it! Find the questions you don’t have answers to and pray to have them answered and also ask what you can improve on and I promise the Lord will help you know! I'm so excited to be able to listen to the words God needs us to hear! Love you all!!

Que le via bien,

Hermana Foster

Branch President in Woodland

Spanish District

Laura's Baptism

Week 37 - Woodland

We had a busy week this week! First off we got transfer news and Hermana Dorny and I are staying together!!!! And that is so so exciting she's the greatest and I'm excited to be able to have fun with her and learn from her for another transfer! She's the best.

Well we have one every week but it was a good week. Tuesday was a very very good day! We had our last district meeting of the transfer and were able to talk about the importance of church. We watched a video about when Christ had the last supper and began the sacrament.

WOW. It was so awesome the sacrament is such a special blessing that we have! Every week we get an opportunity to be washed clean again as we repent and partake of the bread and the water. And then we receive the beautiful promise that if we continue living right we can have the spirit to be with us ALWAYS!

One thing really hit me, we have such an opportunity to receive revelation during the sacrament. Christ wants to bless us with what we need during the specific time we have to remember him.  When we don't receive that revelation it's because there is something we are doing to block it.

A member did give us money this week for dinner and told us to get tacos from jack in the box. Fun fact you can get 26 tacos for 17 dollars. The cashier definitely gave us a weird look.

We were able to visit with Patty and Thomas again and we had such a spiritual lesson with them! We talked about The Plan of Salvation and Thomas asked us many a questions. Let me tell you a six year old with questions very much tests your knowledge about things, he stumped us on quite a few. For example he asked us what spirits were and how we got bones. But after a while he started playing and we were able to talk with Patty. He actually started eating hot Cheetos and finished the bag and poured the rest of the crumbs in a bowl and started eating them with a spoon. Genius.

But the lesson was so awesome. The Plan of Salvation is such a special part of our church that can bring so much joy to people and their families, being able to tell someone that they can be with their family forever is one of the greatest things ever.

Patty was so excited to learn about everything and you could see on her face the happiness she had for this plan our Heavenly Father made for us. The spirit was very strong during the lesson and Patty opened up about how she has seen Christ in her life and it was amazing!

We also had a chance to meet with Maria! And we got to have another very spiritual lesson with her! We talked about her struggles and the goals that she has. The spirit was able to come in and open up the conversation, we were able to discuss so many things. The spirit also guided Hermana Dorny and I both to the things that Maria needed to hear, what a blessing the spirit is, there really isn't any missionary work without it! The spirit is essential in everything! She has such a desire to change her life around and seeing the spirit work within her was something amazing as was feeling the presence of the spirit in that lesson. We have such an immense love for both these families!! :)

We had dinner with a family and the husband asked me to say the closing prayer and after I said it he told me he liked me because I was a small thing but had a backbone. Ok... That's another strange thing to add to the list of things I've been told on my mission.

Also, as we were walking around a cute 8 year old lookin dude rode up on his scooter and said "excuse me ma’am’s would you like to buy some candy for a dollar." And he had one of those fundraiser boxes they have for school things and it was the cutest thing ever so of course I bought some Gobstopers from him and he was so happy it was super great!

Some pictures of the Spanish Squad

I read this article this week and really really liked it! It's makes this email a little long but if you have time you should read it! I hope you all had an awesome awesome week!

Sitting in the Space of Not Knowing

By Ariel Szuch9 de Septiembre de 2016,

Seeing the pain in my friend’s eyes made my heart ache. In her situation, she struggles to feel like her life has purpose and direction in the context of the restored gospel.

My challenges are not the same as hers, but I, like many others, have also struggled with the same underlying questions: Where do I fit in? Is God’s plan of happiness possible for me? I’ve experienced times where the situation at hand feels at odds with God’s direction or His promises, making it impossible to see how they could ever be fulfilled.

Like when I felt prompted to enter a relationship, believing it would work out, and it didn’t after all. Or when my mother, as she battled cancer, was promised in a priesthood blessing that she would be healed, but she passed away a short time later.

I think we as humans crave certainty and control. When we encounter complex issues and situations—more general ones like polygamy or priesthood restrictions, or intensely personal ones like having same-sex attraction or dealing with a devastating divorce or death—we want to make sense of them. We want to know why it’s happening and how everything is going to work out.

In the absence of a clear explanation, we or others may invent one. The truth is, sometimes we have to grapple with ambiguity. As much as we want Him to, God does not always give us neat explanations that tie up in a bow. He is His own interpreter; He reveals Himself in His own way and in His own time, line upon line.

There are a few insights that have come as I’ve navigated times of uncertainty.

1.  What I do know helps me have the patience to grapple with what I don’t. Since my mom passed away, I’ve often reflected on Nephi’s exchange with the angel when the angel asks, “Knowest thou the condescension of God?”

After what I imagine was a moment of profound reflection, Nephi responds, “I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things” (1 Nephi 11:16–17).  This knowledge—that God loves His children—does not take away the pain of our uncertainty or make everything all right.

Instead, this knowledge gives us the courage to be uncomfortable enough long enough to feel our way through the sometimes long and painful process of coming to understanding.

2.  I can’t go around the uncertainty to get to understanding; I have to go through. Dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty is hard. It can be painful and messy, but there’s no way around it. We have to go through it to gain peace and understanding.

I sat in my room and stared out the window. Despite my best efforts, my recent relationship had ended. Why did I have to go through that? I had tried so hard. I felt like it was right and that I needed to move forward. And while I had learned some important lessons, I wondered if the pain I caused myself and others in the process was necessary.

Somehow I should have known better than to try in the first place, I thought. And then this thought: I couldn’t. I couldn’t have known better. It is because of the process I went through that I gained the understanding I had. As uncomfortable as it is, the process has power, and it is faith in God’s promises that helps us make it through.

3.  God will come through in the end. In moments of intense struggle, sometimes I look up and cry out, “God, I don’t know. I don’t know how my life is going to work out. But you do. Help me keep going. Help me have patience until I can understand.”

I have realized that God will not deny any of us the opportunity to have a personal experience with Jesus Christ. Life gets real. But the Atonement is real too. In crucibles of doubt and uncertainty, we have the opportunity to seek the Savior the most earnestly, the most sincerely, and come to know on a profound level how the Atonement applies to us personally.

When we come unto Christ, He will come to us. In Isaiah 49:23, God is speaking to His covenant people about the time when His promises will be fulfilled. The Lord tells them, “And thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.” In times of ambiguity and uncertainty, I will keep my covenants and wait for Him. He will come. His promises will be fulfilled. I will see Him and know Him “even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). And I will not be ashamed that I waited for Him. 

Week 36 - Woodland

Querido todos!!

This week was amazing!! To start off Tuesday was a fantastically awesome day. We were able to visit a bit with Jorge and we got to have dinner with Patricia, Thomas, and Luna! It was seriously great.

The Lord has been preparing Patricia to come back to church so so much. She has two jobs and this week got another one so she could quit one that is farther away. We were planning on talking with her about coming to church on Sunday.  Today she mentioned how they needed to go to church, so the Lord is guiding her in so many ways. She was so happy we were there and we were so happy to be there.

Thomas told me I looked like I was 60 and that he was going to call me Jenny because Sister Foster sounds like a boy name. Wonderful. That night we visited with a former investigator named Maria. We had an awesome lesson with her she opened up a lot to Hermana Dorny and I and we were able to open up a lot to her.

She actually contacted us and asked us to come by and she said that she could feel the difference in her life when missionaries were visiting her and that she wanted that peace and feeling back. I had never had someone say that to me before but it was very awesome and she asked us to visit her everyday. She has some struggles in her life and said that she needs a strength with her everyday and she knows that God can give that to her through us. We readily agreed. So please pray that she can have strength to follow the Lords path for her!

She also has some kids and they have two pet bearded dragons and two pet chameleons and yes I got to hold a chameleon and yes it changed colors and yes my life is now fulfilled because of this experience.

I want to testify this week about the love that God has for each of us. The Lord has blessed me very much in giving me an opportunity to serve in Woodland and with Hermana Dorny.

First I have so much love for Hermana Dorny she is so willing, ready, and amazing. She inspires me and teaches me new things everyday.

Second the people here in Woodland I have a crazy amount of love for. It is here with all of these people that I can catch a glimpse of the love Heavenly Father has for each of us. The love I've developed for people here has been very fast and it is huge. I think I can say I would do anything for them.

This just makes me think about how we can't even comprehend how much our father in heaven loves us. He loves us more than anyone on this earth can love us and he watches over EACH of us daily and that is only one of the things that is so beautiful and amazing about this Gospel. So remember that God loves you this week always always remember that he loves you and that he wants to hear from you, all we have to do is kneel and pray.

I also testify that obedience is the key to everything. The Lord wants to bless us and when we are obedient he has the power to do that. Our obedience in the small simple things is how we demonstrating our love to Him. Nothing at all can happen, we can't receive blessings and we cannot grow without obedience to the commandments.

They could be hard but we do hard things because we love Him. Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven so strive to be obedient in all the small and big things this week as well!

Well I love you all so much and I hope these emails all make sense.  Sometimes I feel they are all jumbled. I learn SO a much every week here and try to put it into words to share so I very much hope it makes sense!

Love you all so so much and thank you thank you thank you for all the birthday wishes!!! :) 

I had an awesome awesome birthday with cake and presents and was able to see Sister and President Wright at a little conference we had for trainers and new missionaries!!!

Thank you all so much! Love you!!

Con amor

Hermana Foster

Angelina and Thomas

Thomas