Blessings from Boston: November 2010

Monday, November 22, 2010

Another Transfer soon!‏

Hey everybody so believe it or not I’ve been in keen for 5 weeks already and I might be getting a new comp or moving or everything staying the same next week!!! kind of scary/exciting hopefully I stay where I’m at and with the comp I got :) I’m enjoying it here with him and not too sure if I’m ready to take over the leadership position quite yet....another 6 weeks should do the trick though :). well lest see so sadly no pics this week my camera is low on batteries and i just got some rechargeable batteries so I can hopefully take a lot more pics and start getting them sent though e-mails.

Alright so this week, well we HAD 2 baptisms for next week but as sad as it is we had to move them to Dec 5th instead but that’s alright they both still intend on getting baptized so another week is just fine buy me. So on Thursday night we did tours again....that’s when I get set with a different comp for a day....I stayed in Keene this time and was with my DL (district Leader) E. Black. It was an alright day :) I got to get to know him a bit better and we did the work the best we could since I’m still not too familiar with the area we had a bit of trouble getting places (good thing we had a GPS or we would have been in trouble) but it was still fun and we got a new investigator who we will be meeting with on Saturday :) hopefully we can get him and his family to church the next day! Really that’s the only cool thing that’s happened this week.....its nice having to tell everybody stuff I think its helping with my memory a bit!!! haha anyway I’m still having a great time out here and learning a lot...I will still be the same when I get home but different as i’m sure you all know but still figured id say it :)! O so tonight I will be going on tours with the ZL's (Zone Leaders) and ill be staying in keene again but that will be way interesting so the DL tells me what to do and the ZL tells the DL what to do!!! AHHHH i got the big guy looking at what I’m doing!!! haha no biggie though it will be an easy day Tuesdays always are :) plus it will be fun to see how somebody who has been out for a while works and what not maybe I can learn something from him. I sure hope so :) it will be a good experience I know! Well that’s about it for now I wont be e-mailing till Wednesday this next week due to transfers so you all know :) I love you all very much talk to you soon later!

Love

Elder Camron Foust

Monday, November 15, 2010

The church is ture!

How's it going everybody :) so this past week has actually been way amazing! So the week was going kind of like normal till about Thursday i believe. We went to this lady's house named Jerrie. SHE IS LIKE GOLDEN!!! Only problem is she live 30-45 minutes away from church -_- and she might not even be in town because of the holidays so were going to do our best to get appointments and set a baptism date before she leaves! Then after that E. Gardner and I found out that were getting a new car for the winter XD!!!! It's a BRAND NEW 2011 Subaru so that in itself makes the week amazing! O I forgot to mention Tuesday, so on Tuesdays we go to a old folks place and play games with them for two hours...were required to do a service at least once a week so that’s what we do.....anyway usually its really quite lame mainly because all the people there have like no energy and ya lol BUT this week we played volleyball while sitting down with balloons! HAHAHA it was way fun actually and the old people were really involved which made thing even better :) so that was fun! So jumping to Saturday now! We got a referral on our phone to go see somebody in Putney which is 30 minutes from our apartment, so we decided to go see him because something seemed a bit fishy about him but free miles so what the heck ( it seemed fishy because the txt said that he has been waiting to be baptized for 5 years and he's ready for it) so we went to see him and holy crap the txt was 100% correct. He is what we call a dry Mormon....pretty much he is a Mormon just hasn’t been baptized yet haha he has been going to church since he was 11 went to all of the activities growing up when to seminary/institute and ya so pretty much were going to baptize him on the 28th IF all goes well :) he was at church yesterday so far all looks really good....so ya this week was pretty EPIC....O ya I almost forgot about Tim/Ellen so there a unique story not going to go into detail but looks like they are hopefully going to get married soon (as soon as Tim gets divorced completely) and then we can baptize Ellen so ya haha lots of work to do here WHICH IS JUST AWESOME!!!! well that’s been my week :) if you get an e-mail from my hotmail account that’s because I’m trying to send you all pictures....so far it hasn’t worked on this account but I’m going to try a couple other things before i refer to my hotmail account! Love you all PEACE!

Love

Elder Camron Foust

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Pictures From Boston

Monday, November 8, 2010

Alright yet another Monday :). HMMMMM what to tell ya all......well for the most part this week had kind of dragged on......yet it buy really fast at the same time -_- weird how that goes rite?!?! Well we had zone conference on Thursday which was really nice!!! I was able to see some of the Elders from N. Adams.....ya that’s about all that I miss in N. Adams just the Elders haha!! Other then that it's been kind of slow this week teaching wise. Hopefully though this week we will have 3 or more investigators to teach XD!!! One thing that you will ahe to look forward to is a picture....hopefully soon.....a picture of me with two Read tailed boa's on me XD!!!! The family is Tim and Ellen and they have two kinds. There really cool and were trying to get Ellen baptized...hopefully we can soon....but they have 4 snakes the other two are too small so I don’t really want to hold them while trying to take care of two other decent sized ones while getting a picture hehe.....actually this Friday I believe we will be able to see one of the snakes eat!!!! o ya that is going to be really cool I’ll record it on my camera and try to some how send it so you can all see it :)!!! Well work wise there really isn’t much to tell......W8 I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING!!!! LOL ok so this is kidna funny actually so on Thursday I think we were tracking for the first time since I’ve been here. When we got to the 4th door Steve came to the door and he let us in. This was E. Gardner’s first time ever being invited into a house AND actually teaching the first lesson. ANYWAY back to the story....when Steve answered the door his belt buckle was undone haha and he pants were falling off. So we went inside and he had the TV going with a foot-ball game going on.....as E. Gardner and I turned to go sit on the couch lo and behold what did we see.....A STICKENPLAY BOY MAG!!!!!!! HAHAHAHA we were laughing so hard inside luckily the mag was closed and there was nothing bad showing on the cover and is was mostly covered with a newspaper haha o boy so far that’s been the worst thing ive seen in a house......E. Gardner has seen worse so ya i'll keep ya informed on funny/awkward stuff that happens.....if i can remember them that is ;)! Well i hope you all have a good week Love you all tones PEACE!!!!!!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Keene is just amazing

Sup everybody :D!!! so Keene is just amazing really. I like it a whole lot here and ya its just awesome. we have a lot more to do during the day here it seams like, but sometimes it seams like we have nothing planned yet some how the entire day is gone before ya know it. Well let’s see, this week went by really fast, and not a whole lot happened that's too interesting to talk about. Saturday though was kind of cool I guess, well not till later that night anyway :), the ward did a trunk or treat for the kids and elder Gardner and i went to it. It was a really good turnout and we had a lot of fun and even got some candy XD! Sunday ya know church and what not then we had lunch, personal/comp study, and ya then we had to be in by 6 since it was Halloween :) so we had dinner at some family's house and just played some games with them since we couldn't go out and work which is fine it was nice to get a small break :). O!!! so this coming Saturday E. Gardner and I are going to be in the news paper :) trying to get people to call us or have a tour in the church building or w/e so that will be something cool i can send home and hopefully my mom or syd i guess could send it through an e-mail :). Well that’s about it :) love you all very much ttyl

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, November 22, 2010

Another Transfer soon!‏

Monday, November 15, 2010

The church is ture!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Pictures From Boston

Monday, November 8, 2010

Monday, November 1, 2010

Keene is just amazing

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