The Missionary Life of: May 2017

Wow, is it already Monday again?

Well how are you all doing, it's been a whole week? :)

Things here are going good! We received news for transfers and for this last transfer I will be.... staying in Santa Rosa!!!!! Yay!! I'm really excited to be staying in this area and I will be getting a new companion. Her name is Hermana Latimer I've talked to her a few times in passing but never really had the chance to get to know her so I'm really excited for that. It should be an awesome transfer full of time to serve the lord!

I never know what to say in these emails so I'll just recap a few things that happened this week. We got to see Aura again of course and I just love her so much she is so prepared for baptism we just need to help her pick out a date. In our lesson with her we talked about the gift of the Holy Ghost and about how we all can feel of the Holy Ghost in our lives, how we can feel of his peace and comfort, but about how the only way we can have him 24/7 is through receiving the GIFT of the Holy Ghost after we are baptized.

I love talking about the Holy Ghost, this amazing gift that our father in heaven has given us. We are never left alone truly and as we go throughout life, if we are following Gods commandments, we can have a constant friend and provider of peace and guidance.

We also meet a woman this week named Bobbie. She is an English woman that the sisters were asked to go and meet with her. She's had a lot of things happen in her life and right now has some disabilities physically from multiple things. She needed some help moving some things around in her house so we went over.

Turns out those things are a lot bigger than expected so we figured we would bring the Elders back over another time to help so we ended up just talking with her for a while. She can't talk or move around for too long or she starts to feel a lot of pain but she was so inspiring to me. She had a lot going on and a lot that had happened to her and yet she still chooses the happy side of life. She still smiled and laughed and looked on the bright side of things. She was quite an example to me life can be hard and can get one down but what really matters is how we choose to act even when those times come.

I read about Nephi and his family this week in the Book of Mormon and this principle was highlighted with them as well. They are journeying in the wilderness and Nephi’s bow breaks and they aren't able to obtain food for their families. So 2 things happen. Nephi’s family begins to complain and become so negative they didn't even try to look on the bright side where they had the lord literally guiding them.

As for Nephi yes he may have had a hard moment and seen the negative situation but he didn't let that stop him. He knew the lord was with them and trusted him so with what strength he had he showed the Lord his trust by making his own bow and arrow out of meager sticks and then went where the Lord said to obtain food. And when we endure and train ourselves to think on the positive side of things through challenges the scriptures promises us so many times that we will be blessed. And that happened exactly for Nephi and he was able to obtain food for everyone.

In almost every moment we have the choice to act or to be acted upon so it's our choice whether we are going to feel down about things or if we are going to stay happy despite what's going on. These two things taught me that this week. It's our choice and ya know there's not really any middle ground. We either choose the way Satan wants us to go and we feel negative or we choose the way the Lord will always want for us and we stay positive. So, everyone be happy this week!!

Well that's all I've got for this week. A side note, I did get asked out at a grocery store this week but we aren't going to talk about that one... just a thought for you all to smile a guy at a grocery store asking Hermana Foster if she has a boyfriend.

Interesting things happen every week let me tell ya. Les quiero mucho!!

Hermana Foster

Sam's BFF Hermana Garcia who goes home this week.

Family in the ward.

Xander

District out for dinner

Family home evening with a family.

Goodbyes to Hermana Garcia

Good byes to Hermana Jimenez her companion

They made tostones????

¡Buenas tardes!! ¿Como estan??

This week was busy busy busy! We of course had many finding adventures. This week involved looking for an address on a lot of messed up confusing dirt roads where we saw tons of cow... and llamas... yep llamas like 6 of them so that was great.

We did meet and have the most interesting conversation with a nice man who was very drunk. Let me tell you those conversations are always pretty interesting. But there was a bunch of other things that were awesome!

We tried one other house before going in for the night and Hermana Jimenez was laughing at me because I guess in Puerto Rico if there's a fence around a house that's a no entrance sign and nobody enters. Yea so I've never heard of that here so fences aren't a thing for me everyone has a fence but they all have a door and people inside that need the gospel.

We got to visit with our investigator Aura. She is from Nicaragua so she invited us over for lunch and had us help her cook which was fascinating. Prays for her and her family that they can continue to get better and that a baptismal date can go through for her!! She's so close and feels the difference of the gospel there's just a few more things that need to happen for her to get to that font!

We also were able to have zone conference and I was able to go to MLC which was filled with such a great spirit where I was able to learn so many things.

But I'll share the really cool experience from the week.

So we had a little bit of time after MLC and before dinner to visit someone. So we decided on an investigator we had that we hadn't seen for a little bit, Navidad. So we drive to her apartment complex and we park and we walk up to the door. I had been there the previous week so I was just all confident in knocking this door right cause it was hers. Let's not mind the fact that there was a child car seat right outside the door and that Navidad doesn't have any young kids. We totally both disregarded that and knocked and a nice Indian women answered named Rawand... ha not Navidad... but come to find our this women from Palestine is the in the United States speaking English and is married to a Hispanic so also speaks Spanish.. what? Yep trilingual. But she just started talking away with us as we did the missionary thing and continued to contact her despite our obvious confusion at her not being Navidad.

We ended up having the best conversation with her about how the world is crazy but how Christ is such a comfort to have. She was a golden contact as she told us she didn't understand why there were so many different churches in the world if there was only one God... say what?!? But it was just a great conversation and we got her number and left her with a pamphlet and her telling us she would call us when she got her schedule for the next week.

Right before we left she thanked us for talking with her and for not just leaving when she wasn't who we had been looking for. She said she felt a weight lifted from her shoulders as she had talked with us and that she was so grateful we had knocked on the wrong door so that we were able to meet her.

WOW! If the plan of God isn't the most perfect thing I don't know what is. Our confidence in knocking that door and disregarding all the signs of it not being Navidads house. We came to find out later that we had walked into the section of apartments right before the entrance to Navidads, they all look exactly identical we just somehow got the one right before hers by a NOT coincidence. And the blessing of continuing to contact was see with Rawband, what would have happened if we would have just left? A huge opportunity would have been missed my testimony was so strengthened by her.

And she also told us that she usually works all day Saturdays but that this Saturday she had gotten the day off somehow so she was glad that we had found her. How amazing. :) The Lord is in charge of this work and will guide us at all moments to his children that are ready because they are out there everywhere always. Have I ever said that I love being a missionary? :)

Not to make this email to long but one more thought before ending, a story that was shared at one of the meetings this week. There are so many things that we believe in this church and one of them is that we hold the key to how we can gain eternal life to go back and live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again.

So imagine this. you're in a train station. There are people everywhere that have tickets to the same destination and the train has arrived for them to board. All of these people with tickets believe that they have the ticket that will take them to paradise but those of us that didn't purchase those tickets are more than wise because we know. We know that the tracks aren't finished and that at one point on their ride they will be destroyed.

You are around all those with tickets and you know the secret to saving their lives... Now it's your choice will you save them or not?... You have the fate of their lives in your hands and will choose what to do with that... You are there amidst the crowd and you have a choice by talking and trying to tell someone that they are wrong; you might bother, confuse, or even offend someone in the process. But you know what they don't know and the only way they can even begin to know and make a choice of if they will board the train or not is if you open your mouth and tell them. So what will you choose to do?

Love you all!!!! ¡Espero que pueden tener una semana buenísimo llena del Espíritu y feliz! Gracias por todo de sus oraciones y para su amor.

Que tengan un buen semana,

Hermana Foster