{Letter #58} T’s Up?!

Hi everyone! I hope all of you are doing well! Things have been good here. It has been a crazy week. Probably felt way busier than it was though. Here's a few things that happened: transfers, mission leadership council (MLC), and pday activities.

Definitely felt far busier than it was.

On Wednesday night transfer news came out! I got moved to Tualatin! (that's what T's Up means in our mission) No more living in the land of beavers unfortunately. Another fun part about the transfer is that I'm with my MTC companion Elder Crum again!

Everything felt super rushed to get ready for transfers. Not to mention we were whitewashing out (meaning both my companion and I left the area). So we had to prepare notes for everything and pack to move. It was a blast. Felt super fast.

Transfers happened Friday. All went well with that. The new zone is awesome. Elder Crum and I are covering 2 wards out here, both are really cool. We get to go to both wards on Sunday, makes for a lot of sitting around church. Overall all fun times!

This Monday, yesterday I guess, we had MLC! That was awesome! We talked about quite a lot. Here's a few things we covered: 

-how we can better set goals and plans and act on them
-following the Spirit in goal setting
-the purpose of counseling, best summed up by Doctrine & Covenants 50:22 in my opinion
-the importance of focusing on Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice
-the importance of unity!!
-3 Nephi 11:30
-when we become more unified with each other, we become more unified with the Savior
-a fun little acronym for the Oregon Portland Mission
Obedient
Purposeful
Missionaries
-consecrating our time talents and abilities to serving here
-when we do this, we will be happier, more diligent, more obedient, more unified, and we will become more like Christ!

I'll stop there. It was an amazing meeting. Very filled with the Spirit.

Today we had a couple zone and district activities. Played some games at the church then went bowling. Fun times!

My spiritual though for this week is going to come from the teachings of the prophet Abinadi. He taught:

"Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord—I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are the heirs of the kingdom of God."

The purpose of prophets is to lead us towards Jesus Christ that we can become heirs to the kingdom of God!

We have the opportunity to hear from a livng prophet this weekend! It is available in all sorts of places, the church website, youtube, BYUtv, and maybe some more.

BRING A QUESTION

WATCH IT

STUDY

PONDER

PRAY


It is such a blessing to have a living Prophet today! I know that Russell M Nelson is that living prophet that has been called of God. He has been called and given authority to lead Jesus Christ's restored church on the earth!

I love you all! I'd love to hear from you if it's been a while! I'll do my best to respond in a timely manner. Let me know if I can do anything for you!

Love,
Elder Goold

P-day bowling! 





A glimpse at our family phone call:  me in Tualatin, mom and dad in Saint George, Ellie in Rexburg, Spence getting dinner at Aubergine in AF, Cami in the car on her way to a baby shower, Emma and Garrett were at work, and Lucie was sleeping! 

{Letter #57} Another One Gone...

Well, It has been another week and this transfer is almost over. It's been busy and good!  Here's what happened: interviews, social media training, baptisms, and a fun district council!

First off, we had interviews with President Botchway this Thursday! Those were awesome! He said that lot of missionaries are completing their missions and about 30 new missionaries are coming in, so there are going to be a lot of changes. We will see what happens, I suppose. He also made some Ghanaian food for the zone. It was really good. I would definitely recommend you try some if you ever get the chance.

During the interviews we also had a training done by the social media leaders in the mission! It is really cool to see work that is being done over social media and also ways that we can improve. Phones and social media are tools that have been given to share the gospel! It's important that we use them the way that they were designed. Share the gospel over social media--it will help hasten the work!

This Saturday 3 people in close-by areas got baptized! Elder Thatcher and I got to attend one of them and give the intermission message right after the baptism was performed! It was awesome!  It was the first time that Elder Thatcher had done that and he did a great job.

Here are the scriptures we used:
John 3:16-17
3 Nephi 9:17, 20
Moroni 8:25-26
2 Nephi 31:20

Yesterday we had a fun district council! We did a little object lesson for listening to people. We had a missionary blindfold themselves to make their way through a maze of chairs, while Elder Thatcher played the piano, someone gave them verbal directions, 2 missionaries were shouting scriptures, and someone else was expressing their concerns.   Basically, at the end of the maze we asked the blindfolded missionary what the other missionary's concerns were. They had no idea!

We need to listen with charity. Not think of the next scripture to say, not thinking of some song from home, or just going strictly with what you have planned out. If we listen to people with true charity we will understand their concerns! We will be able to love them even more and help them increase their faith in Christ!

Which leads me to my spiritual thought for the week. Mormon, the prophet historian who compiled the Book of Mormon-Another Testament of Jesus Christ, wrote a letter to his son Moroni. In this letter Mormon taught:

"But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen."

We must always be praying to be filled with the pure love of Christ! When we do we will receive so many blessings!

Love you all! have a fantastic week! Let me know if I can do anything for you all!

Love,
Elder Goold

-Picture after district council with the STLs and Murrayhill elders


-district council set up

-a zone call to pray together

-a chicken on a leash in someone's front yard

-a cool tree

-a cool sunset

More on the saga of horses:
Horse parking only (again)

No trespassing horses (its funnier to read that way)

And some horses


Also a hummingbird I managed to snap a picture of

A glimpse at our family phone call this week (Elder Goold in Portland, Mom at home, Ellie in Rexburg, Emma in Provo, Dad at work, Cami, Spence, and Garrett were all at work and unable to join): 

{Letter #56} Finding, Serving, Teaching, and Not Swimming

 Hi Everyone! I hope this week has been a great one for all of you! Nothing too crazy has been going on here. A quick summary of what happened: service, teaching, and a lot of finding.

Our service this week was helping a member of the ward set up a pool. It was extremely muddy, so it was dirty work, but it went pretty quickly and cleaned up well. It was a lot of fun. We also found a little frog while we were doing it.

Teaching this week was pretty slow. Meaning we, unfortunately, did not have a lot of lessons. The lessons we did have were pretty good! We were able to bring members with us and the Spirit was very strong!

Another cool thing that's happened this week is we had a missionary farewell talk at church! That's 2 in the last 3 weeks now! It's awesome to hear the testimonies of these people as they are leaving on their own missions for the next two years.

Because we haven't had many lessons we have been putting in a lot of effort to find new people to teach! We haven't seen a ton happen yet, but we will keep on trying new things!

My spiritual thought for this week is Alma 5:28. In which Alma says:

"Behold, are ye stripped of pride? I say unto you, if ye are not ye are not prepared to meet God. Behold ye must prepare quickly; for the kingdom of heaven is soon at hand, and such an one hath not eternal life."

Pride is at the root of pretty much everything that goes contrary to God! We must be humble to feel God's power acting in our life in a greater capacity. I invite all of you to listen to the talk "Beware of Pride" by Ezra Taft Benson and think of how you can improve this coming week!

Love you all! Let me know if there's anything I can do for you!

Love,
Elder Goold

PS  Here's a glimpse at our family phone call this week (Dad in Saint George, Mom at home, Spence at Walmart, Cami and Lucie at home in Alabama, Emma at her apartment in Provo, me here in Oregon, and Ellie at her apartment in Rexburg.  We were just missing Garrett!)

{Letter #55} Serving in the Rain!

 Hi Everyone! I hope all of you are doing great! This last week has absolutely flown by. Training is a blast and makes things always pretty interesting. Some of what happened: service, service, service, and also an awesome lesson.   We always had something going on this week!

As I just mentioned, we had so much service this week, which is awesome! We helped 2 people move, did a wood-chopping service in the pouring rain, cleaned the church, and also helped someone set up a pool in their back yard.  Sometimes I miss teaching the Gospel when we are immersed in a service project, but then I remember that Jesus spent His days teaching AND serving.   This is part of God's work too. 

Elder Thatcher doesn't have a rain jacket yet, so he just got absolutely soaked while we were chopping and stacking wood. We're going to work on getting him one. He will definitely be needing it in a couple months when rainy season arrives.

We also had a couple meetings for new missionaries this week! It's been really cool to see all the ways that Elder Thatcher has grown, even in just the first half of the transfer. We currently are talking a lot about setting goals and plans and also developing Christ-like attributes. When we seek to turn outwards and love others, we will begin to become more Christ-like.

The awesome lesson we had this week was with our friends Chris, Pam, and their two kids. They have a few really close friends that are members of the ward that I'm serving in. We invited one of them to join us for the lesson and it was seriously awesome!

We read through the Introduction to The Book of Mormon with them and we got to this phrase describing what is in The Book of Mormon:

"It puts forth the doctrines of the gospel, outlines the plan of salvation, and tells men what they must do to gain peace in this life and eternal salvation in the life to come"

When we read this, the member bore testimony of the peace and the power that The Book of Mormon has had in their life. Pam just sat there for a second and said "WOW, THIS IS WHAT I NEED!"

It was amazing. The Spirit was very strong. They committed to come to church and were very excited to read from The Book of Mormon and pray about it also.

I have a testimony of this phrase from Preach My Gospel chapter 13:

"(The Lord) will magnify your efforts to the degree that you work in unity with local leaders and members"

My Spiritual thought from this week will be something I read in personal studies recently. The ancient prophet Alma taught his son Helaman about prayer. Alma taught:

"Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever. Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good"

When we turn our mind and heart to the Lord regularly in prayer we will be blessed! We will be guided!

God loves you all! He will guide and direct you when you turn to Him!

I hope you all have a fantastic week! Let me know if I can do anything or all of you!

Love,
Elder Goold

Photos from this week:

Some really really tall sunflowers we saw

The ward I'm serving in is very generous and gives us so much food, we've hardly had to buy any recently.  Here is one of the more interesting items we've been given. 

A district lunch together after district council

P-day activity

 Here's a glimpse at our family phone call this week (in 2 parts, which meant we got everyone but Cami, who was at work):