{Letter #46} Happy 4th!

 Hi everyone! I hope y'all are doing great and having a great Independence Day! This has been a pretty good week. A lot has happened. here's a quick rundown: President and Sister Botchway's incoming devotional, transfers, MLC (again) and a few interesting lessons.

I'll start with the lessons. We had a couple "lessons" with people that they just talked about politics for a long time. That definitely wasn't ideal, we had to try to direct the conversation away from that. One of these lessons was in a cottage/workshop that an older guy built himself. He had cut the trees and chopped the wood and built it on top of a big hill. It was a very cool house. It also had a fantastic view that we could see Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helen's, Mt. Rainier, and the Sister's Mountains. It was very pretty and I should've taken a picture.

On Thursday we had the incoming devotional with the Botchways!

That was fantastic! They truly are people that have been called of God to lead the Oregon Portland Mission for the next few years. They talked about the importance of learning the language of the Spirit, so we can teach with greater authority. Learn how you feel the Spirit! It will greatly bless your life!

We had transfers (yes, again) on Friday! I got another new companion! Elder Cramer is now my shortest companion by 1 day and my new companion is Elder Dahl!

He goes home at the end of this transfer. It'll be good! We're excited to be here in Farmington for the next while.

Lastly, we got to go to Mission Leadership Council again! This time it was lead by the Botchways though! It was amazing to hear some of what they had to say on how we can better help other missionaries to fulfill their purpose. An exercise we went through was to read the first chapter of the new Preach My Gospel manual, and talk about the differences from the previous edition. It is amazing how evident it is that the Lord is "enlightening our understanding". He is giving us more knowledge so we may know how we can come closer to Him!

My spiritual thought for this week is a scripture that President Botchway shared in the incoming devotional. Paul wrote to Philemon:

"Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say." (Philemon 1:21)

We must always be willing to do more than the minimum that is asked of us! When we strive to serve God with all our heart, might, mind, and strength we will be blessed! I testify that that is true!

Love you all! HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!!!  I hope you all have a great week! Let me know if there's anything I can help with!

Love,
Elder Goold

A glimpse of our family phone call today:  Ellie, Dad, Mom, Spence at home in Alpine; Me in Portland; Cami on her way to work in Alabama.  Emma {not pictured} was at work.