{Letter #25} Crazy Week in Beaverdam!

Hey everyone! I hope that y'all have had a great week! It has been a bit of a crazy week here in Beaverton (which my mom has informed me used to be called Beaverdam, so I will now refer to it as that because I like it better). A quick rundown of what happened this week: exchanges, lots of lessons, boundary changes, and a very friendly {and drooly}stray cat.

 

On Friday, I went on exchanges with Elder Stallard to the West Hills Ward! The West Hills Ward is a really interesting one, it goes from Beaverdam all the way to downtown Portland. So it definitely made for an interesting day going around Portland. But it honestly wasn't as weird as I was expecting. While we were there we were able to teach Nathena, the lady that was baptized last Sunday! So that was awesome to talk to her a bit more since that experience! It was also a very rainy day, so it was a good day to be in a car for me.

Saturday was probably the busiest day yet on my mission! We had 9 lessons all over our area! When we weren't in a lesson we were pretty much biking to a different lesson. There are definitely worse problems to have though.

On Sunday we had fast and testimony meeting, that was amazing to hear from the ward members! After our normal church we had an extra meeting where they redrew the ward boundaries! They completely dissolved the Griffith Park Ward right next to us and we got some new areas added in to our ward boundaries, it will be rather large to be covering on bike now. After that meeting we were doing some Facebook work in a park. A very friendly and temperamental cat just came and sat on my lap for about 10 minutes. Rather unexpected, but mostly a nice surprise until it scratched and bit me.

On Tuesday we went to the temple.  I love that place. 

For my spiritual thought this week, I wanted to send some of the teachings of the prophet Lehi {from the Book of Mormon} in 2 Nephi 2:6-8. In these verses Lehi is teaching his children about Christ and what He will do for us! Lehi taught

"Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth. Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered. Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise."

I love these verses and how simply they teach the necessity of Christ coming to earth for each one of us! It is only through Christ that we are able to truly obtain a remission of our sins and return to our Heavenly Father. Christ willingly offered Himself as a sacrifice so this would be possible! In order to accept the gift that He has so lovingly given, we must turn to him and exercise our faith in Him!

My invitation for you all this week is to pray about how you can access the power of Christ's atonement more in your life!

I hope y'all are doing great! Love all of you!

Love,
Elder Goold 

PS {added by Mom}  This also happened on Sunday:   A ward member's older relative died {in the next room} while we at our dinner appointment.  😦