{Letter #11} Stand Out, Stand Tall, and Stand Forever!

 

Hey everyone! SURPRISE!  Monday is my p-day this week (thanks to Halloween)!  I hope y'all are doing well!! We've actually had a very eventful week this week The rough overview of our week: we had a day with 7 lessons (more in one day than we've had so far), meat candle, zone conference, fall festival, an amazing sacrament meeting, and now a day early p-day for Halloween! Also today is my sister Emma's birthday, so if you know her you should tell her happy birthday.

On Wednesday we had 7 lessons throughout the day! It made for a very busy and tiring day, but it was absolutely amazing to just be spending that much time discussing with and learning from all the people we taught. In our lesson with Stacie that day she also wanted us to give her sister-in-law a blessing while we were there. That was a super cool experience, and it is amazing how present the Spirit always is, regardless of the setting of the blessing. We didn't get back to our apartment until around 9:30 that night because our last lesson went a bit long. So it was a very long day, but very good.

When we got back to the apartment Elder Strand had decided to make a meat candle. In case you are unfamiliar with this concept, it involved melting a collection of bacon grease from the last 4-5 months that had been sitting on the counter then putting it back in the jar with a wick in it. So Elder Strand, the same one who made the root beer, melted this old bacon grease in a pot, at first it just smelled like someone was really sweaty. it got way worse though. Our entire apartment smelled like rancid meat within about 5 minutes of starting this process. He did successfully make the candle, but we never burned it because it smelled so awful in the process of making it. So if you or anyone you know has the brilliant idea of making a meat candle, don't do it. our apartment still smells like rancid meat 5 days later. it's not a good smell. The candle is now in the trash.

Anyways, Thursday was really good! not super eventful though. We had a lesson with the Hoilands, they have a husky that sheds a lot and is very cuddly, so we were covered with dog hair by the end of that. Other than that, not a ton happened.

On Friday we had zone conference! The theme of this conference was Stand Out, Stand Tall, and Stand Forever! The theme came from the Sequoia trees that only grow in this part of the world. Here are some fun facts I learned about them: they are some of the tallest living organisms anywhere on the planet at about 350 feet when fully mature, they take around 400 years to mature, the come from pinecones about the size of a quarter, their roots only go about 10-15 feet deep despite growing to almost 350 feet above ground, and they are nearly immune any natural disasters (wildfires, floods, earthquakes, etc.) due to a compound in their bark called tannin. All of these remarkable features and they can only grow in one place on the planet! It's kinda crazy! I'll talk more about the spiritual side of zone conference later in the email.

Saturday was pretty uneventful besides our ward Halloween party, which they called  the Harvest Festival. There was a chili cook-off, lots of games for the kids, and a trunk-or-treat thing at the end. It was really good, and a bunch of people brought friends to it so we were able to meet a lot of new people.Unfortunately we were not allowed to dress up for it though, but the good food and new friends made up for that. Overall, just a fun time for everyone.

Sunday was good! We didn't have ward council in the morning. Church was a departing senior couple who are leaving to be in the area presidency in Hong Kong. Their name are the Hansens. They are absolutely amazing, they were formerly mission presidents and Area 70s. Overall just really cool people and they gave some absolutely amazing talks on how the gospel of Jesus Christ can change your life when you live it every day. The second hour of church was also amazing, we went over the new For The Strength of Youth pamphlet as a ward. I would highly recommend you read it if you haven't yet.

Lastly today I am making cookies. I would offer some to all of you, but unfortunately you all would have to come get them, because I can not leave my mission boundaries.

Now for my spiritual thought. During Zone conference they talked about each of the different sections of our theme: Stand Out, Stand Tall, and Stand Forever. The one I wanted to talk specifically about was standing out. When we are living the Gospel of Jesus Christ every day we will stand out. People will be able to tell just by our countenances that we follow Christ. To quote Elder Stevenson in this most recent general conference:

"Your testimony in Jesus Christ isn't just what you say--it's who you are."

When we are living the Gospel of Christ every day in our lives it will take root in who we are and change the way we act, think, and feel in every way. As we are striving to become like the Savior by living His teachings every day we will stand out to people as different. I want to ose with a scripture that teaches this principle well. Nephi taught:


"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."


I love y'all! keep up the good work! make every day count!


Love,
Elder Goold

PS  Thanks for the letters!  

{Letter #10} Somersaults of Joy

Hi everyone!! I hope y'all are doing well! This week in Boring has been pretty boring ;) but there were definitely some fun parts (and some beautiful parts).

So first off, last Wednesday we were going about our day like usual. just after lunch an inactive member that we hadn't been able to get in contact with at all since I have arrived gave us a call! He wanted help moving a double glass patio door from the front of his house to the patio. It was a pretty heavy door. Thankfully Elder Jensen and I successfully carried it around their house and through the blackberries without the door breaking. After we finished carrying the door around to the back, he invited us in to share a message with him! The lesson went pretty well! At the end of it he handed me and Elder Jensen both a large chunk of pumice to take home with us. I'm still not entirely sure why, but now I have a pretty big rock that floats.

On Thursday not much happened during the day. That night we had mutual! It was a pizza cook-off between the young men and young women. The young women had better crust but the young men had better toppings, so it was kinda a tossup with who officially won that. After the cook-off they had a General Conference Jeopardy. They put me and Elder Jensen on different teams, but my team won with the final jeopardy question. 

Friday. Nothing much happened Friday, but it did finally start raining. It poured pretty much the entire day and I was very grateful I was in a car and not on bike. We did have 2 lessons back to back with former mission presidents though. It was cool to hear their insights on the lesson that we had prepared.

 

 Saturday was good! We had a few lessons with some less active members and we invited them to church the next day. They actually ended up coming which is exciting! We also had dinner with Bishop Miller and his family on Saturday. They made really good barbecue chicken. at the end of the lesson with their family the bishop challenged us to do 100 pushups a day and send him a spiritual thought when we finished each day. We accepted; Elder Jensen is regretting it though.

Sunday was good as well! We had ward council in the morning then we went to church. The title of this email comes from sacrament meeting. Sister Wright had just given her talk in sacrament meeting and sat down for a musical number. Her 6-7 year old son ran up onto the stand to give her a high five. On his way back to his seat he did 3 somersaults down the aisle because he was so excited. It was pretty funny but kinda awesome as well. I think everyone should be that excited about church and sacrament meeting. Maybe not doing somersaults in sacrament meeting, but renewing our covenants should be a joyful thing every week!

On Monday we didn't have too much going on. We sat down and calculated exactly how much of each ingredient we would need to fill all the root beer bottles we got. It took a surprising amount of calculations. But we did figure it out and will be making root beer today.

Yeah so that's pretty much my exciting life adventures here in Boring, Oregon!

My spiritual thought for this week will be from Ether chapter 12. In this verse Moroni is writing about faith. He says:

"I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith"

I have been thinking a lot about this verse lately. Blessings come after we show faith. Our belief that good things will come will lead to us to acting in faith. When we pray we must believe that God hears us; when we study we must believe that the scriptures do hold answers to our prayers; and when we repent and turn to Christ we must believe that because of His Atonement we can be forgiven. Faith is an essential role in drawing closer to Christ. My invitation for you this week is to read Alma 32 and think of how you can act in faith more in your life. I know that blessings will come as you do so.

Love y'all! love hearing from all of you! I hope all of you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Goold

 

 

{Letter #9} Birthday, Blessing, Baptism, Beer Bottles

Hi everyone!

I hope y'all are doing well! This has been a pretty crazy week with a lot of stuff going on. But it's been really good!

So the first thing that happened this week was transfers! We weren't expecting anyone to be transferred, seeing as we had both only been there for about a month, but Elder Stone got switched out to a new area! So I was left in Boring to lead out the area while still being trained. It's been pretty good so far. Honestly not that different than before, I'm just the one that knows the people better. A few things that are different: my new companion is Elder Jensen, he's taller than me; I am the designated driver.   I honestly really like it; we now have someone from Utah in our companionship so nobody is making the comment on how weird it is that neither of us are from Utah.

All in all though, it's been really good.
I'm going to go through the title of this email in reverse order. First up, Beer Bottles. We took on Elder Partridge and his ward for a day while Elder Strand was at a leadership training, while we were covering both wards we were helping a member of the Powell Valley ward move out. They had about 30 reusable glass beer bottles. He said we should take them and make root beer in them. So now we have about 30 beer bottles chilling in our apartment. fun times. I will keep you all updated on how the root beer turns out.

 

Next up, Baptism. So When Elder Jensen got here he had a friend, Derold, that he had been teaching that was getting baptized just a few days after he got here. A member of his old ward called this mission president, President Haymond, and got permission for him to come back to his old area to go to Derold's baptism. I don't know how the member did it because it's not something that usually happens in this mission. But he did it. So on Saturday we went to Derold's baptism and we got to be a part of that. It was incredible how strong the Spirit was while we were there. It was really cool to be a part of it even though I had never met him before.

Next item, Blessing. We had just gotten home to eat lunch when we got a call from the mission office. Basically there was a member who was visiting his non-member friend in our ward area and he wanted to give him a blessing. He called the mission office and said that he wanted us to come and help him give the blessing. So we got the call and had to head out right after we got back. It was actually a super cool experience though! The person we gave a blessing to said that they'd be interested in having us back and sharing a message with them again!

Final item, Birthday. There's not a ton to say about this. It was my birthday on Sunday. I'm not a teenager anymore. Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! Some ward members made me cupcakes and cookies. It was a lot of fun! I also made some *kinda* crepes to keep up my family's tradition of crepes for breakfast on birthdays.

A few more random things: we had someone ask how fast we could run while holding back their barking and jumping rottweiler,

we met a few Bassett hounds that were very friendly dogs,

 the rain is finally supposed to actually start this week,

 we helped a bird that flew into a window today,

 and because a lot of Washington is on fire it is now very smoky here.

Now for my spiritual thought. These are a couple scriptures from 2 Nephi that keep popping up.

"Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do ... For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do."

I love what Nephi teaches here. He is teaching that when we feast upon the words of Christ and have the Holy Ghost with us we will know and be shown all things that we need to do. I know that if you feast on the Words of Christ, or in other words: study the scriptures and words of the prophets intently, that you will know what you need to do. I know that the words of Christ along with the Holy Ghost can help you in any situation. I know that these two things are provided for us so we can live up to our full potential that God has for us! So my invitation for you this week is to study The Book of Mormon intently for at least 10 minutes a day. I know that if you do you will find ways that it can apply to your life.

Love y'all! Love hearing from all of you! Hope y'all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Goold

{Letter #8} Technology is Cool

Okay y'all so this week was pretty good! Nothing too crazy has happened, but things are good here in Boring and it's still not raining.

 

So this past Wednesday we had interviews and training with President Haymond. It was seriously so cool! The training was focused on technology and how we can use it to find people to teach. Let me tell you, it is amazing the work that is starting to happen over technology. The Portland mission is one of the piloting missions for some new online tools that the church is using and it's amazing to see the work that is happening because of them. The interviews with president were really good! Its amazing how much he knows about missionary work and just life in general.

Thursday was a pretty average day. Just lots of trying to get in contact with inactive members, and formerly taught people.

Friday is where the second part of the subject line cones from. So one of the people in my apartment, Elder Partridge, was making a smoothie that needed some water in it. So he pulled out the faucet hose thing and put it above the blender. He said "Technology is cool" then turned on the water and sprayed it all over the floor. It was a lot funnier in person. But it just fit with the title this week so I decided to put it in.

Saturday was good, we had SPC and got the new message that we are sharing with the members in the stake. It was pretty uneventful after that.

On Sunday we had fast and testimony meeting which was super good! After that we we to dinner at the stake president's house and shared the message that he had just given us the day before! It was fun.
Monday was our most eventful day. So we met with a referral named Caden finally! He's a super cool guy that currently attends a non-denominational Christian church. He seemed open to continue meeting with us and took a Book of Mormon with him that he said he'd read! Super exciting stuff. Later on Monday we had a lesson with Bubba. We asked Bubba if he wants to be baptized on November 12th and he said yes! I'm very excited for him!

That's pretty much all for the week so I'll get into my spiritual thought. It's going to come from Elder Rasband's general conference talk. In general conference Elder Rasband invited us to share The Book of Mormon with our friends and he promises us the same blessings that are promised in 1 Nephi 13:37 in which the Lord says:

"And blessed are they who shall seek to bring forth my Zion at that day, for they shall have the gift and the power of the Holy Ghost; and if they endure unto the end they shall be lifted up at the last day, and shall be saved in the everlasting kingdom of the Lamb; and whoso shall publish peace, yea, tidings of great joy, how beautiful upon the mountains shall they be"

I am going to extend the same invitation to all of you. I know that if you share The Book of Mormon along with a simple testimony of it that you will have the Holy Ghost with you and that you will have greater peace and joy in your life. If you do act on this invitation I'd love to hear some of your stories of how it went!

This QR code will bring you to the Book of Mormon app,
which makes sharing the Book of Mormon with others as easy can be.

I hope y'all are doing great! Sorry I didn't take a ton of pictures this week! I'll take more next week. Love all of you!

Love,
Elder Goold

{Letter #7} Mirror Lake and Conference

 Hey y'all!
So this week's email is probably gonna a be pretty short because I'm running low on time. But it was a pretty good week.

A miracle we saw in missionary work this week happened last Thursday. We had just gotten out of a lesson with a less active member of our ward and we parked just down the street to figure out where we were going next. We were just kinda sitting there when someone knocked on our window and said that we were parked in front of their house. Once he figured out who we were he actually invited us in to share a message with him and his family. So we taught a lesson to Shawn, his wife Ellie, and their daughter Ryan! We are going to try to stop by tomorrow to have another lesson with them. So we'll see where that goes.

 

This p-day we were able to go on a hike to Mirror Lake which has an amazing view of Mount Hood.

It also started raining a little bit this week and was loving the clouds while they lasted.

I also made a cow friend.

Conference obviously was amazing. I loved so many of the talks and am super excited for the 18 temples they announced!  My spiritual thought from this week will be coming from Conference naturally.

In President Nelson's talk he said:  
"In coming days we will see the greatest manifestation of the Savior’s power that we have ever seen"

This is such an amazing thing to think about. Whatever form that takes whether it be through major miracles, small things, or the spreading of the Gospel throughout the earth I know that is true. My invitation for you this week is to look for ways that you see the Savior’s power being manifested in your life.

 
I hope y'all are doing great! I love hearing from you!
Love,
Elder Goold

PS:  I live in a beautiful part of the world