Blessings from Boston: February 2012

Monday, February 27, 2012

Transfer week!‏

Hello again everybody! So this coming Saturday we will find out who is staying and who is going.....if I go I will be really surprised to say the least. Well first I want to tell you about Saturday. So Saturday was a really good day for service. That morning we went over to brother Ardiboni, like we always do, and helped him cut/stack some wood again.....I’m going to be a professional cutter/stacker when I get home. After we were done helping him out he decided that he wanted to take us out to eat for some lunch, so he took us to some Chinese buffet and it was pretty good actually. After we did that we ended up going to another members house and helped them paint their basement, It was really quite fun. Finally we had dinner with another member and he fed us some chili and it was actually really good. When we got home, i took a shower and passed out haha I was sooooo tired, but it was well worth it. On Tuesday i was on tours with E. Hall in my area. It was going pretty well until i got a phone call from Tim. His message went something like this, "I'm not sure why you guys never answer you phone, I’m going to have a talk with God and figure out why that is, call me back, I’m at the strip club". When i heard the last part i started to freak out because Tim is a recent convert of about 4 months and i thought we had just lost him big time. So im freaking out (calmly on the outside but not so much on the inside) and started calling people. Finally i got a hold of Carol (his wife) and she told me, "well he is just up the road doing some work" then i though o TIm ya bugger you got me! HAHA so ya he was just kidding, but it was interesting to me to see that i have know this guy for only 4.5 weeks now and when i hear that he was at the strip club i started doing everything i possibly could to make sure that we were going to bring him back into the fold and help him get back on track. Needles to say i didn’t need to do any of that, but it was good to know that i care for him enough to want to make sure he stays where he is at :). O so i got a new recipe for all of you to try, it's a desert and no it is not healthy what so every so make sure you have a lot of people eating it with you so you get a really small portion.

It's called Dump Cake, it's pretty much cobler but i think its cooked a bit differently and it is cooked in a Crock Pot :)

All you need is,

1 Can of pie filling (any flavor)

1 Box of cake mix

1 stick of butter

Put the pie filling in, the cake mix on top (DO NOT MAKE THE BATTER!!!), cut the butter up and put it on top of the cake mix.

Set the crock pot on high and let it sit.

when the butter melts, mix it up with the cake mix, but try not to mix any of the fruit into it, a little is ok but try not to.

Let it sit for about 45 minutes to an hour, and dig in :)

Really simple and WAY good :) anyway i love you all have a wonderful week!

-- Love

Elder Camron Foust

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Hello

So things are going well for the most part at the time being :) can’t really complain I guess. So Yesterday was an amazing day. Sure it was P-Day and all but that’s not the reason why. The reason why is because I was able to visit with Avinash! If you don’t remember him, he is the baptism I had in LP2 when I was in Cambridge and he is from India.

So that is really far away, and the past 6 weeks he has been in Cambridge again for work. So he found my number some how and we set a time that we could meet up and chat for a little bit. Well very luck for E. Hunter and E. Lystrup (the two comps I had while teaching Avinash) they were able to join us as well so it was a really good day for the 3 of us. Avinash is one of those people who I will love for probably the rest of my life and one of those friendships that was great to receive on my mission. He is an amazing guy and I miss being able to see him grow, but we all have life’s and things keep moving on :). So what else happened this week. Saturday was a good day. So on Saturday we were able to go play some B-Ball at the church with a lot of members. It was a lot of fun and a good work out, but the coolest thing that happened is we were able to get an inactive member to the church, which probably hadn't set foot in a church in about 2 years! So that was really exciting, and he brought over his RC helicopters and we were able to fly them around for a bit :). O and by the way, I hit 18 months this past weekend, well on Saturday actually :). Well really that’s all the good news that has happened this past week :) so I hope you all have a wonderful week and keep enjoying life!

-- Love

Elder Camron Foust

Monday, February 13, 2012

YEAR 1 FOR ELDER FOUST JR!

HAPPY YEAR MARK BRAXTON!!!! Alright now that I have that out of the way I can continue with this e-mail, maybe his year mark is next week idk but I know its this month sometime :) ANYWAY!!! So my mom asked me to try and include something about love in the February month so lets see if I can pull it off. Wow my hands already hurt and its been like 4 sentences if that, well anyway.....So WE HAD A BAPTISM YESTERDAY!!! April and Damian got baptized yesterday and it was a really good/funny service. Damian is 8 and his mom, April, is in her early 30's I think. So its pretty interesting at how fast you can learn to love somebody when you have only know them for a couple weeks, but when it comes to something like the Gospel, you just want to see them experience the joy that you have been able to receive and so you just learn to show them your true self and help them in any possible way you can so that they can enjoy the blessings that we are able to receive as members. So in two weeks they will be getting the Holy Ghost, this being because April has to work every other Sunday. So that was pretty exciting. So funny story of the week. On Thursday we went over to the Permenters for dinner. So E. P knows how to tie people to a pole without using rope that being said lets go on with the story. So these members have 2 boys and they wanted to show us there downstairs and play some darts with us before dinner, so we went down stairs. As we were playing E. P saw this pole that was rite in the center of the room and I just saw his face light up like noon day time and I knew he was going to tie one of those boys to the pole. So we got both of them to try it and it was the funniest thing every to watch. Then boys being boys they though LETS DO THIS TO DAD WHEN HE GETS HOME!!! Great idea rite, well it actually was to be honest, their dad went down stairs and what do you know..............we tied him to the pole as well! Even better, I GOT IT ALL ON MY CAMERA!!! Haha so ill have to send them to Lyndi and she can post them on my FB so you can all get a good laugh hopefully :) well I think that’s it for this week, I love you all and ill chat with you all next week!

-- Love

Elder Camron Foust

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Week 2‏

Alright hello there everybody! This week has been pretty good. So Sunday was probably one of the best testimony meetings I have been to in a while on my mission. Everybody that spoke actually gave a testimony instead of a thankathone and there were all pretty much on the same thing which was even cooler, the temple ended up being the topic for some reason but it was really cool. So on Friday I decided to do the ab ripper X from P90X and let me tell you what, I was sore till today!!! The worst part of it was that it felt like my hip was out of place the entire time! But it was good :) now I need to do it again that I don’t hurt so that my abs will start hurting instead of my hip muscles haha. So its kind of had to say what has been going on over here because we go to a lot of peoples houses and chat with them, but I’ve been doing that for the past 18 months so nothing really new. Tim, a recent convert, just got off of house arrest which is pretty awesome, he was one happy camper and went out and had a bit of fun :) he called us up rite after court and asked us when we were going to go play some b-ball with him haha so hopefully we will do that this week sometime. On Saturday we went to a member’s house and helped him cut some wood again. It is a really fun service to do even though it can get pretty repetitive, but it is still really fun and we get a breakfast out of it so cant complain :). This member has a helicopter R/C and he let us fly it around his house for a minute, I got it figured out and was having a lot of fun flying it around, while we were on our mini water break from the work.

So the other day I decided that I should ask God again to let me know that the BOM was true and to help me find some stuff that I needed as I read from it. Well I just want to let you all know that I have a testimony of the BOM and that it was truly written for our day and that it can and will, if we let it, help us get though each and every day that we read from it. I hope that all of you are reading from it and trying to find things in it to help you as you read. I hope you all have a wonderful week and have a bit of fun :)!

-- Love

Elder Camron Foust

Mercy

When our hearts are filled with the love of God, we become “kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving.” My dear brothers and sisters, not long ago I received a letter from a concerned mother who pleaded for a general conference talk on a topic that would specifically benefit her two children. A rift had grown between them, and they had stopped speaking to each other. The mother was heartbroken. In the letter she assured me that a general conference message on this topic would reconcile her children, and all would be well. This good sister’s sincere and heartfelt plea was just one of several promptings I have received over these last months that I should say a few words today on a topic that is a growing concern—not only for a worried mother but for many in the Church and, indeed, the world. I am impressed by the faith of this loving mother that a general conference talk could help heal the relationship between her children. I am sure that her confidence was not so much in the abilities of the speakers but in “the virtue of the word of God,” which has a “more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than … anything else.” Dear sister, I pray that the Spirit will touch your children’s hearts. When Relationships Go Bad Strained and broken relationships are as old as humankind itself. Ancient Cain was the first who allowed the cancer of bitterness and malice to canker his heart. He tilled the ground of his soul with envy and hatred and allowed these feelings to ripen until he did the unthinkable—murdering his own brother and becoming, in the process, the father of Satan’s lies. Since those first days the spirit of envy and hatred has led to some of the most tragic stories in history. It turned Saul against David, the sons of Jacob against their brother Joseph, Laman and Lemuel against Nephi, and Amalickiah against Moroni. I imagine that every person on earth has been affected in some way by the destructive spirit of contention, resentment, and revenge. Perhaps there are even times when we recognize this spirit in ourselves. When we feel hurt, angry, or envious, it is quite easy to judge other people, often assigning dark motives to their actions in order to justify our own feelings of resentment. The Doctrine Of course, we know this is wrong. The doctrine is clear. We all depend on the Savior; none of us can be saved without Him. Christ’s Atonement is infinite and eternal. Forgiveness for our sins comes with conditions. We must repent, and we must be willing to forgive others. Jesus taught: “Forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not … [stands] condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin” and “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” Of course, these words seem perfectly reasonable—when applied to someone else. We can so clearly and easily see the harmful results that come when others judge and hold grudges. And we certainly don’t like it when people judge us. But when it comes to our own prejudices and grievances, we too often justify our anger as righteous and our judgment as reliable and only appropriate. Though we cannot look into another’s heart, we assume that we know a bad motive or even a bad person when we see one. We make exceptions when it comes to our own bitterness because we feel that, in our case, we have all the information we need to hold someone else in contempt. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, said that those who pass judgment on others are “inexcusable.” The moment we judge someone else, he explained, we condemn ourselves, for none is without sin.5 Refusing to forgive is a grievous sin—one the Savior warned against. Jesus’s own disciples had “sought occasion against [each other] and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened.” Our Savior has spoken so clearly on this subject that there is little room for private interpretation. “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive,” but then He said, “… of you it is required to forgive all men.” May I add a footnote here? When the Lord requires that we forgive all men, that includes forgiving ourselves. Sometimes, of all the people in the world, the one who is the hardest to forgive—as well as perhaps the one who is most in need of our forgiveness—is the person looking back at us in the mirror. The Bottom Line This topic of judging others could actually be taught in a two-word sermon. When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following: Stop it! It’s that simple. We simply have to stop judging others and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of love for God and His children. God is our Father. We are His children. We are all brothers and sisters. I don’t know exactly how to articulate this point of not judging others with sufficient eloquence, passion, and persuasion to make it stick. I can quote scripture, I can try to expound doctrine, and I will even quote a bumper sticker I recently saw. It was attached to the back of a car whose driver appeared to be a little rough around the edges, but the words on the sticker taught an insightful lesson. It read, “Don’t judge me because I sin differently than you.” We must recognize that we are all imperfect—that we are beggars before God. Haven’t we all, at one time or another, meekly approached the mercy seat and pleaded for grace? Haven’t we wished with all the energy of our souls for mercy—to be forgiven for the mistakes we have made and the sins we have committed? Because we all depend on the mercy of God, how can we deny to others any measure of the grace we so desperately desire for ourselves? My beloved brothers and sisters, should we not forgive as we wish to be forgiven? The Love of God Is this difficult to do? Yes, of course. Forgiving ourselves and others is not easy. In fact, for most of us it requires a major change in our attitude and way of thinking—even a change of heart. But there is good news. This “mighty change” of heart is exactly what the gospel of Jesus Christ is designed to bring into our lives. How is it done? Through the love of God. When our hearts are filled with the love of God, something good and pure happens to us. We “keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.” The more we allow the love of God to govern our minds and emotions—the more we allow our love for our Heavenly Father to swell within our hearts—the easier it is to love others with the pure love of Christ. As we open our hearts to the glowing dawn of the love of God, the darkness and cold of animosity and envy will eventually fade. As always, Christ is our exemplar. In His teachings as in His life, He showed us the way. He forgave the wicked, the vulgar, and those who sought to hurt and to do Him harm. Jesus said it is easy to love those who love us; even the wicked can do that. But Jesus Christ taught a higher law. His words echo through the centuries and are meant for us today. They are meant for all who desire to be His disciples. They are meant for you and me: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” When our hearts are filled with the love of God, we become “kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving [each other], even as God for Christ’s sake [forgave us].” The pure love of Christ can remove the scales of resentment and wrath from our eyes, allowing us to see others the way our Heavenly Father sees us: as flawed and imperfect mortals who have potential and worth far beyond our capacity to imagine. Because God loves us so much, we too must love and forgive each other. The Way of the Disciple My dear brothers and sisters, consider the following questions as a self-test: Do you harbor a grudge against someone else? Do you gossip, even when what you say may be true? Do you exclude, push away, or punish others because of something they have done? Do you secretly envy another? Do you wish to cause harm to someone? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may want to apply the two-word sermon from earlier: stop it! In a world of accusations and unfriendliness, it is easy to gather and cast stones. But before we do so, let us remember the words of the One who is our Master and model: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.” Brothers and sisters, let us put down our stones. Let us be kind. Let us forgive. Let us talk peacefully with each other. Let the love of God fill our hearts. “Let us do good unto all men.” The Savior promised: “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over. … For with the same measure that [you use] it shall be measured to you again.” Shouldn’t this promise be enough to always focus our efforts on acts of kindness, forgiveness, and charity instead of on any negative behavior? Let us, as disciples of Jesus Christ, return good for evil. Let us not seek revenge or allow our wrath to overcome us. “For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink. … “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” Remember: in the end, it is the merciful who obtain mercy. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wherever we may be, let us be known as a people who “have love one to another.” Love One Another Brothers and sisters, there is enough heartache and sorrow in this life without our adding to it through our own stubbornness, bitterness, and resentment. We are not perfect. The people around us are not perfect. People do things that annoy, disappoint, and anger. In this mortal life it will always be that way. Nevertheless, we must let go of our grievances. Part of the purpose of mortality is to learn how to let go of such things. That is the Lord’s way. Remember, heaven is filled with those who have this in common: They are forgiven. And they forgive. Lay your burden at the Savior’s feet. Let go of judgment. Allow Christ’s Atonement to change and heal your heart. Love one another. Forgive one another. The merciful will obtain mercy. Of this I testify in the name of the One who loved so well and so completely that He gave His life for us, His friends—in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Transfer week!‏

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Hello

Monday, February 13, 2012

YEAR 1 FOR ELDER FOUST JR!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Week 2‏

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Mercy

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