Blessings from Boston

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

Monday, October 25, 2010

New Hampshire!!!!

Yes that's right I am now in New Hampshire!!!! In less then 6 weeks I have been to every state of the mission......that's 4 states in 6 weeks wow, Mass. Vermont, New York, and now New Hampshire XD!!!! I'm in the town Keene, it's about the same size as Evanston and the ward is around 130 people which is WAY nice compared to what it was in N. Adams :) so that's really nice to be in a real church again XD!!! My new comp is Elder Gardner and he is from

Canada

, he's way cool and chill and a very good missionary :) he's been out 6 month. Anyway :) so far I am loving it here, all the members are pretty cool from what I’ve seen and we've done some fun stuff so far. On Saturday it was pretty much an all day service for people in the ward. We helped move a bunch of wood for people then raked a LOT of leaves.......it was thee most epic leaf pile I have ever seen.....but sadly I wasn't able to go jump in it :( o well lol I was helping people out and it was a blast. Sunday was the primary singing thing....ya don’t remember what those are called but they were singing and what not...o ya primary program duh....wow I'm slow XD! It was extremity funny actually one kid was supposed to play the violin for one of the songs and he was messing up lol you should have seen the look on his face is was soooo funny then he ended up ducking behind the piano put the violin away and sneaked back to his spot :) it was great! Then we ended up going to this investigators house....they have 2 read tailed boa's XD I had the big one around my neck (about 5ft long) and the smaller one on my hands (about 3ft long) it was cool :) had a good time. Then there is now or Monday :) well still the same for P-day lol go fig huh! Were going to go play some b-ball around 2 or 12 your time :) [probably hit up WAL-MART YA!! and buy some stuff that we need, then ya go to dinner with the smith family at 6 and do some street contacting till 9 :) so its going to be an awesome day :) wish you were here with me love you all tones see ya soon XD!!!

Love
Elder Camron Foust

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

transfer week

It’s transfer week. I've already been in Mass for 6 weeks and yes I am getting moved, but I don’t know where yet ill find out tomorrow and will let you all know on Monday :). so besides that news I finished the B.O.M today for the first time :) yup lol only took just under 2 months and I think it will help me progress even further now as a missionary and help my investigators even more :) well that’s about all the fun that has happened this week, since today is p-day instead of the usual Monday lol and since I am getting transferred tomorrow were not doing anything fun, just going to go visit 2 or 3 families get some pictures and ya that’s about it lol. Well I hope your all doing just great :) love you all and I hope to hear from ya talk to ya soon peace

Love

Elder Camron Foust

Thursday, October 14, 2010

SUP EVERYBODY!!!

SUP EVERYBODY!!! so this week has been quite awesome.....oddly enough though we had 7 appointments cancel on us which was making the week drag on really bad cuz we ended up tracking A LOT this week, but my comp and I started to mess around a bit while walking house to house. One day we were quoting Forest Gump " I love you Jenny" LOL ah fun stuff it was awesome. On Monday though (yesterday) IT WAS EPIC! Best p-day I’ve had so far. So the entire district (6 missionaries) went to my branch president’s house for basically a day at the spa lol. we went into a sauna so we could do this foot thing that gets rid of bad toxins that are in your body then after that since my branch president is a chiropractor by trait we all got our backs fixed lol it was epic. After that we went up to Mt Greylock and went to the top of a light house (yes they have a light house here and i have no idea why) and got some decent pictures of the hills......they call them mountains here but no there hills lol. After that we went back to the house sat for an hour, i took a 30minute nap and we went to a dinner appointment :) it was a great day that was for sure very very fun. Now I am here typing you all an e-mail because the library was closed yesterday due to Columbus Day lol :) well I hope this e-mail was worth reading for once lol i had a bit more to say XD! I miss you all, but its fun here so ya guess ill stay for another year or so lol see you all soon i wish you the best Love you all XD!!!!!

Love,

Elder Camron Foust

camron.foust@myldsmail.net

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Faith walk

Hey everybody :)

So we found a family that looks really promising. Funny story actually, so we were out on our faith walk late at night near our apartment where nobody walks, just hoping that we would run into somebody. We ended up talking to some drunk guy and he told us that we could come over the next day at 3 and he gave us the address. So we went over the next day and nobody was home, so we walked around for a minute and ended up talking with this lady for a minute and she was interested and told us that we should talk to her husband about it, she lead us to the house the drunk guy told us to go to lol :) so it turned out that the guy gave us a phony address, but we might have gotten a golden family. We weren't able to meet with them our first appointment, but the wife kept calling us to come back again and again until we were able to meet with them. The appointment went wonderfully, the parents seamed really interested and we are going back to there house on Tuesday :) hopefully everything works out.

That so far is the best thing that's happened on my mission so far. It's pretty hard out here when nobody wants’ to talk with you, but when you get that one family that listens and they contact you instead of me trying to get a hold of them, really makes this worth while. Even though I don't know what is going to happen with them, I'm starting to realize more every day that what I'm doing means something to other people and that just buy talking to somebody for a minute is all it takes to plant a seed in there heart, that maybe some day they might call the missionaries to come talk to them :)

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.