Glass flowers

Hello everybody :) so my b-day was good. Not a whole lot went down like it normally would back home, but we did have a good time. So we had an appointment with this Jewish Mormon, haha ya weird but that's what she is, anyway after our lesson she took us to a museum for a couple of hours which was fun. We were able to see some Glass flowers

 that looked so real you would never believe that they were made from glass. Then we saw some minerals and rocks and gems and what not, not too terribly exciting but some of the rocks they had were pretty cool. Then we went to the other side and there were a lot of ancient stuff of the Americans. So that was pretty cool to see what kind of houses they lived in and what tools they used and stuff like that. So that was my b-day for the most part other then that we talked to random people and gave out some Book or Mormons. So this is kinda cool and weird at the same time. So I have been having a really hard time talking to random people on the streets or at their doors since the beginning of my mission. After my b-day and actually this started on my b-day, i have been able to gain the courage to actually stop and offer people stuff. Also while I'm on the subway or buses I can get myself to ask people questions and start talking to them about the gospel. I'm not sure why I have been able to do this a lot easier ever since my b-day, but I have been and I'm grateful for that. I've been feeling like I wasn't helping my comp out at all with talking to people most of my mission, but not i feel like I'm doing a lot better at that and I'm sure I will be able to get some good stories out of it now :) so that's a plus and then when I get home hopefully I won't be the shy boy that i was when it came to meeting new people! Anyway I hope you all had a wonderful mother's day and that you all have a wonderful week! School is almost out which means I've almost been out 9 MONTHS!!!! Chat with ya soon!

Love
Elder Camron Foust

B-day thats legit :)

I made the b-day cake today for E. Yim and I. WE share the same B-day so thats pretty legit :)

Happy Mothers Day

Hello everybody!  Well this coming Wednesday is my birth day and I'm not too excited for it.  Well I'm way excited haha but not excited to be 20 and no longer a teenager!!!  AHHHH where did the time go people?!?!?!?!?  I keep getting told that time goes by fast and well it sure does, I mean it seems like yesterday I was getting into high school and now I've been graduated for 2 years now WHAT THE CARP!!!.  Well that's about all my thoughts on that as of now :)

 anyway let's see what happened this week.  Well i went on tours again with E. Clements.  If none of you remember I went on tours with him when I was in Keene and he got moved to the Cambridge South Zone so I got to tour with him for a 3rd time :) it was fun.  He came to my area, so sadly I don't have any stories of being in a new area for a day.  We did have a good time though we got to talk to each other about random stuff and helped teach each other some stuff concerning meeting people on the streets (he taught me more then I taught him I think) then we has a dinner appointment with Matt and his sister.  Originally he was going to cook for us but his sister wanted to go to a Mexican restaurant that was just down the road so we went there.  It was pretty good actually :) I had a chicken burrito and it was huge, I wasn't able to finish it even though I tried my best because the next day was fast Sunday haha :).  After that we went to the LP1 talent show, it was kind of lame after seeing LP2's talent show (my ward) anyway it was good for the most part but seemed like it was put together in 2 days if that haha but they had good performers which helped.  Hmmm what else to tell you.  O right so yesterday at church somebody asked E. Hunter to give him a healing blessing.  So naturally I go with him and do the anointing of the oil.  It was pretty normal, I've done that a couple time, but when E. Hunter was giving the blessing I had a minor cool experience.   As he was giving the blessing I was doing my best to show that I had the faith that the blessing would help the person and then all of a sudden I felt like a surge of energy went though me and into the person!!!  It was pretty amazing, it was only for a second or two, but I could feel it and it felt amazing!  I've helped give a couple blessings, but this was the first one that I feel like I could feel the power of the priesthood through me going to somebody else.  I'm glad that I was able to have the experience so that whenever I get asked to give a blessing I might not be AS scared to give one for the first time.  I'm sure I'll still be scared to death but since I was able to feel that power I have a better testimony of it now and that's what I needed :).  Well I hope you all have a wonderful week and show some love to your mothers :) I'll tell you what I'm going to do for my mom ;) I'm going to  call her haha big surprise there!!! Love you all very much and have a wonderful week!!!

Love
Elder Camron Foust

Elder Zwick from the first quorum of the 70

Hello there everybody!  So this week was quite eventful to say the least.  So on Wednesday we had zone conference and Elder Zwick from the first quorum  of the 70 was there with us.  It was really awesome to hear from him and his wife.  They spoke about a lot of stuff and not really just one subject.  I think though that the main message was focused on faith in Christ and in all things in the church and that with faith nothing can stand in our way if we just believe.  It was quite amazing to be able to feel the spirit that they were able to bring into the chapel and listen to their testimonies.  After words we had lunch and then Elder Zwick spoke to us for about 2 hours.  He just talked about how we can have a stronger foundation and how we need to set that foundation for our self's and for our investigators.  Then he let us know that we as a mission are working very hard and diligently, but that were not working too smart haha.  I think all of us thought yup that right but we don't know how to work any smarter.

 So he told us a few simple things and then let us know that he was going to speak with our Zone Leaders and give them some pointers to tell us about later on.  Then on Thursday we were able to hear from him and his wife again at a fireside that they put on that night.  They talked about how members need to help the missionaries a lot more than they are and that they could times the work out load that we have by 5 and that we as missionaries wouldn't be on overdrive yet.  So that was really cool to hear him say that.

Well let's see what else is there to tell.  O YA! We had a baptism on Saturday!  Roxanne was baptized and then confirmed yesterday!  It was really cool, the sprit was quite strong at the baptism and both talks given were phenomenal.  It was nice to feel like I was part of her conversion and to see her willingness to be baptized into the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints.

So it was quite the week for Elder Hunter and I to say the least.  Other than that we did the normal stuff.  Contacting people, trying to find crazy's so that we can have some funny stories to tell our family's (sadly none this week) trying to have fun on p-day and get dinners from the members :).  Easter was great, I was a tad home sick which surprised me but it was good.  I got my roommates an Easter basket and they enjoyed that.  Well that's my week for ya :) I hope you all have an amazing week and that you all had an amazing Easter!

Love
Elder Camron Foust

Dodge Charger

So you might be wondering why the title this week is Dodge Charger.  Well you will all soon find out.  On Friday night we went to Freddy's house.  Freddy is a very spiritual man and he has his own religion.  There are only 5 members, but it's still pretty cool.  So we went there to have bible study with him and his friends/members.  The first thing we do is pray, then sing songs.  We sang for an hour!  It was cool but kind of annoying at the same time.  After about the 5th song I was ready to stop, but seeing as it wasn't my program I just kept singing with them :) it was good though they are good singers and I though I did pretty well myself.  After words Freddy read from Matthew 16 I think, and just said what he thought it meant to him and what not.  He said some really cool stuff and it seems like he has a good relationship with God, , only sad thing is he thinks that the Mormons are wrong so that's a bummer,  But he loves the missionaries and enjoys having us over whenever we like and he said that we should come back next week :) so I think we are but ya never know.  Anyway after we were finished with everything we had to go home and Freddy said o I'm going to give you guys a ride home I need to go near your house anyway.  So we thanked him and he took us to the garage.  When I saw his car my face just lit up and E. Hunters words were "You looked like a little kid on Christmas morning" haha ya I was pretty happy to see that he drove a Dodge Charger.  So ya i got to ride shotgun in a Dodge Charger on Friday and it was way sweet!

Yesterday as you all know was Patriots Day :).  I WOKE UP AT 3AM!!!!  Holy cow I was really tired the rest of the day BUT we woke up that early for a reason.  Around 545 AM they show the Lexington battle in, well, Lexington imagine that eh :) haha.  Anyway they show that, and the reason why we had to get up so early was so that we could get there around 430 and have a decent place to stand so we could actually see the battle.  Well it was pretty cool and I took a small video, but I'm def never going to do it again, that's just too early to wake up.  Afterwards a member has a big breakfast for everybody so we went there for an hour and ate.  After that the temple was open so me and about 30-40 other missionaries when to the 8:00 session :) it was really cool.  The Temple is quite amazing and you have a great feeling whenever you are in there.  Pretty excited to go to the SLC Temple here in about 18 months give or take.  When we got home from the temple it was about noon and E. Hunter and I just crashed for 3 hours haha.  We woke up around 3 then decided that we needed to cut our hair so we did.  Then we got ready to go to our dinner appointment with the Bishop and his wife :) it was a great dinner filled with Chicken, Potato, Corn, and Cornbread.  It was really good, then we went home and slept some more :).  Well that's about it for now everybody :) ill see what I can come up with next week.  Maybe something funny or spiritual ya never know just depends on what happens :) Love you all have a great week!!!

Love
Elder Camron Foust

Doc Rivers

So you might be wondering why I named this e-mail Doc Rivers.  Well let me tell you a short story.  Saturday morning we were going out to help somebody who just got married move.  We got there about 30 minutes early or so and Patrick was running a little bit late.  So the four of us, E. Hunter, E. Yim, E. Larson and I all decided to go to Starbucks and get a smoothie.  After we order our drinks we all sat down for a minute and we then see E. Yim tell E. Hunter "That's Doc Rivers!" so E. Hunter and E. Yim are all excited and Doc Rivers over heard then and was like "Hay guys how are you doin" (in a deep black voice) for those of you who don't know, Doc Rivers is the coach for the Boston Celtics B-ball team in the NBA :) so that was really cool to be able to see him :) funny enough none of us knew what to say to him.  First off I didn't know who he even was until we were out of Starbucks and E. Yim, E.Hunter froze because they were so excited.  Anyway we said good bye to him and walked outside then we were saying o crap I should have given him a pass along card.  Even funnier he didn't know who we were because we were in street clothing since we were helping somebody move and we didn't want to rip our clothing haha.  Anyway it was pretty cool to be able to see him on my mission.

Alright so some more good news.  We have a baptism set for this coming Sunday!!! WOOT!  Her name in Roxanne and she is from Portugal. I don't know much about her because I have only taught her once.  What I do know is that she is pretty much a Mormon already and just needs to be baptized.  Originally she was supposed to be baptized on the 9th but she drooped that because she wanted to inform her parents first.  Yesterday though we had a lesson with her and asked her how things were going with her parents and she said "I know I need to be baptized so when is the date" and we were just shocked and didn't really know what to say so we were like "Well we can set the date for 2 weeks from now and get everything set up" then a member we had with us, Brian, (He worked with Roxanne) said "Well why not this Sunday? is that too soon" and Roxanne was like "Alright that works for me".  So ya we now have a baptism coming up with Sunday :D WOOT!  She is way cool and already follows all the commandments.  So that is the sweet story for this week :).  Other than that things are going great and I'm learning a lot.  I'm slowly getting guess to talking to random people, but still sucky at it haha :) o well ill get there someday!  Love you all and have an amazing week!!!

Much love
Elder Camron Foust

Thank You!

Hello everybody!  So this entire transfer has been kind of interesting!  As you all know I was sent to a Cambodian speaking area for 4 weeks then I got moved back into an English speaking area.  We had t-txts last night and no surprise I’m staying in my new area :).  This last week has been kind of slow.  It always seams to go this way when the transfer is coming to an end.  Sometimes it is hard to keep focused when you think that you might be leaving, but we did the best we could and even had some help from the Zone Leaders!  We went on tours with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday night and it was a lot of fun.  I ended up staying in my area and Elder Kooper switched with Elder Hunter.  E. Kooper had served in my area for 3 months before he became the new ZL so it was nice that he knew what was going on for the most part seeing as I had only been in the are for a week and had/still have no idea as to what is going on.  In the morning for companion study E. Kooper and I ended up just talking to each other getting to know a bit about each other.  One thing we talked about was listening to the spirit and how it has affected us so far in the mission.  I told him that I really hadn't had any experiences because I'm still learning to decipher if the spirit is telling me stuff or if there just my thoughts.  He told me that it took him about 6-7.5 months to figure that out as well and that he finally figured out that if its a good though it doesn't really matter if its us or the spirit we should still do it even if were scared.  So fast forward a few hours we ended up talking to that person on the side of the street and I had the thought that I should give him a B.O.M. my first reaction was E. Kooper has one in his hand I don't need to offer it, but the thought came again and I remembered what E. Kooper and i had talk about earlier so I pulled out a B.O.M. and I talked a little bit about it and offered it to the guy.  What do you know the guy took it, I was really proud of my self for listening to the spirit and giving it a chance to see what would happen.  Later that day we were in the subway and we started talking with the guy who had just gotten off work who was waiting for the same train.  We talked to him for a minute and E. Kooper kept talking to him while we were on the train.  After we got off the train we started walking away and I had the thought to give him a B.O.M. but I said E. Kooper is way ahead of me and I need to catch up to him, the though came again so I was like alright I need to give this guy a B.O.M.  I walked up to him and I just said "I would like to give you this book it means a lot to us and I know that it can help you in your life".  When he took the book he gave me this look that I cant really descried, but the look was so amazing and wonderful I could just tell that the guy felt loved and was so happy that i was willing to give him something.  He told me "Thanks thanks thanks ill be sure to read from this" with the most sincere voice I have ever heard in my life.  I felt so good after words I didn't really know what to think.  It may be hard to listen to the spirit for all of us, but I know that when we listen good things will happen.  Heavily Father will never lead us astray so why shouldn't we listen to what he has to say?  I really liked that experience and it helped me a lot in my personal growth.

Well other then that the week went by really fast and it’s hard to remember what even happened haha :) time is going by so fast it's crazy!  I'll be home in no time wondering what happened in the last 2 years.  The time I have here is amazing and I want to thank Lyndi so much for pushing me in the rite direction and helping me decide to serve a mission.  I never would have thought that this experience would be so worth everything that I had to leave behind.  In a way though i didn't leave anything behind other then my family and the girl of my dreams.  Those of you who are young men and don't know if you should serve a mission or not I want to tell you rite now that it is well worth the time, effort, money, and experience.  It may seam scary at first, but before you know it you’ll be surrounded in the work and wont have much time at all to think about home.  I didn't plan on serving a mission at all really.  I had planned to be going to collage right now with my friends, but I’m so grateful again to Lyndi, and my parents for helping me along the way.  I wouldn't give this up for anything.  The experiences you have and the things you learn out here are beyond anything you could experience anywhere else.

Well that's all I got for now :) we got a new transfer and new experiences.  I want to encourage all of you to enjoy your selves.  If you are working non stop and have no time to be with the family TAKE A DAY OFF!!!  I miss being able to hang out with my friends and family and I wish I had spent more time with them :) time goes by to fast to not have fun every now and again!  :D anyway have a wonderful week and enjoy life.

 "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25)

Have joy and love  :) no matter where you are or what you are doing!  I love you all very much and cant Wait to see you all again, but for now I’m out here having the experience of a life time and am so thankful for the opportunity that I have to be out here.  Love you all very much :)

Love always
Elder Camron Foust