{Letter #89} Hail on a Tin Roof

 

Hi everyone! I hope this week has been great! What is the most exciting thing that happened to you? What are you looking forward to?

It has been a good week here! We had a pretty low-key week filled with lessons, service, nine friends that came to church, and lots of rain like normal!

In one of our lessons with our friend Kasey we were sitting outside on her back porch with a tin roof like we usually do. It was particularly rainy day out, so it was pretty noisy with the tin roof. (Going inside wasn't an option). We were practically yelling at each other even though we were sitting about 5 feet away from her and someone from the local church.

After we prayed, it started to hail. We could hear literally nothing. I couldn't even tell what I was saying. It was insane! It continued like that for about 5-10 minutes. we thought we were going to have to cancel and reschedule.

After a little while it just switched back to pouring rain so if we were yelling we could hear each other. That's when our friend Kasey started telling us that she had been praying all the previous day and most of the night asking God to help her know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and if the church was true. She said that she never really felt anything in that moment, and she was asking God to tell her "loud and clear" that these things were true.

She the said that she was pretty sure what we just heard was the loudest thing that she had ever heard in her life. She said that God spoke to her through the rainstorm and told her that it was all true!

After that, the rain stopped and the sun came out and we had a great lesson with her!

It was awesome the she was able to recognize the voice of God speaking to her. Although she didn't literally hear His voice, she was able to trust that that was the answer to her prayers. Which goes along with my spiritual thought this week.

In a couple verses Nephi teaches us these principles. Nephi said:

"the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding." (2 Nephi, 31:3)

"for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men" (2 Nephi, 33:1)

God does hear prayers and He does answer them! He will speak to each of you to your understanding by the Holy Ghost. It is our choice to choose to recognize it as God speaking and answering our prayers! It can be hard though to recognize His voice at times!

I invite you all to listen to this talk from General Conference. It helped me understand how to recognize God's voice better! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Pillars and Rays

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2024/04/15dushku?lang=eng

I love you all! I'm praying for you! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Goold

Some very random photos from this week: 

A glimpse at our family phone call this week:   Ellie in Rexburg, Mom, Emma, and Spence at the Copper Onion in SLC eating Spence's birthday dinner, Dad in Saint George, Me in Canby. 

{letter #88} A Baptism and Some Nature!

Hi everyone! How were all of your weeks? What was a highlight? This week has been insane! Mary got baptized!!, transfers, drove to the airport, musical devotional, Mission Leadership Council (MLC), and we went on a hike today!

First thing that happened was transfers! I stayed in Canby and got a new companion Elder Cherry! He goes home even sooner than I do, so this will be a fun next transfer!

The day following transfers we drove Elder Owens to the airport to depart to his original assignment. I didn't think I'd be back to the airport before I was completing my mission, so it was a little weird.

Immediately following that we went to the church for Mary's baptism! The baptism was awesome! Not a ton of people were there, but Mary loved it and was super excited to have the Spirit with her more!  I was also happy that Jim (someone I taught in Tualatin) was baptized this past week as well! 

Sunday we had an awesome musical devotional all about Jesus! Music is a way that invites the Spirit to communicate with us strongly. It's also a way to drive away the Spirit very fast. Listen to uplifting music! It will bless your life!

MLC was Monday. They talked a bunch about integrity. It was also held outdoors. That was fun! Switched things up a bit! Elder Bangerter's talk from general conference was brought up and kept coming to my mind. It's awesome. Go listen to it! You will learn something new!

Lastly, we went to Columbia Gorge as a zone today! That was awesome! We had an almost 5 mile hike and saw lots of pretty views! I have missed being in nature. It is amazing what God has created!

For my spiritual thought this week I wanted to share something Moroni (and lots of other prophets) wrote:

"God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing"

God does not change! He loves us. He performs miracles. He protects us. He guides us. And the list could go on forever! He will always do these things! I invite you to look for what God does in your life! You will see His hand!

I love you all! I hope you have a great week! I am praying for you!

Love,
Elder Goold

Here are a bunch more pics from the hike:  

A glimpse at our family phone call this week:   Me in Canby, Mom and Lucie at home in Alpine, Ellie in Idaho, Emma driving to Alpine, Dad in Saint George.   Cami and Spence were at the gym. 

 

{letter #87} The Week of Exchanges

Hi everyone! This email is going to be short due to a bit of a lack of time. I hope everything has been going well for you! What is one thing you are looking forward to this week?

This week flew by so fast. We went on 3 exchanges, had some great lessons, and had some fun!

On one of these exchanges I got to go be in a Spanish area for the first time on my mission.  Yo no hablo español, so it was crazy. We had a couple lessons and I got very little of what was going on! It was great though! The Holy Spirit was still present and I got to share some scriptures!

The other 2 were English exchanges, which meant that I at least understood what was happening in those ones. They were all pretty great though! A bunch of good Elders.

One awesome miracle we saw this week:

We had been going by people with almost nobody answering the door. It happens some days. At around 8pm we decided to knock a random door that was close to one of our friends.

A dad answers the door and let us in! He has 4 little kids and they all were so excited to come to church! We got to talk a little bit about the restoration of the gospel and about baptism. They were all just super excited about all of it!

Keep putting that effort forwards all the way until the end! It's worth it!

Our friend Mary got approved to be baptized this weekend! Some prayers for her would be awesome! She is loving diving into the Book of Mormon and getting as much from that as possible!

My spiritual thought this week is going to be from Moroni's words at the end of the Book of Mormon. Moroni said:

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God." (Moroni 10:32)

"Although we are imperfect and may fall short again, there is more grace, love, and mercy in Jesus Christ than there is failure, flaw, or sin in us" (Preach My Gospel, ch.3, lesson 2)

I love this! It is through Christ that our weakness can be made into strength! It is through Christ that we can be made clean from all imperfections. Come unto Him! He will lift and strengthen in a way nobody or nothing else can!

I love you all! I am praying for you! I hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Goold

Here are my pictures from this week:  

A gorgeous sunrise with Mount Hood in the distance

Some ice cream we got

P-day fun

 

A glimpse at our family phone call this week.  Mom, Dad, and Ellie were in the car on their way to Logan to give a presentation to the accounting department up at USU.  

{Letter #86} Higher Joy!

Hi everyone! I hope you all have had a great week! One of the biggest highlights of my week was definitely General Conference! If you don't know what that is or didn't get to watch, I would highly recommend you look it up (link above) and watch it! It's awesome! In addition to that, we had 9 of our friends listen to the words of a Prophet this weekend! That is awesome! Prayers for them would be appreciated!

Please send me one of your favorite talks or some things you learned. I'd love to talk about it!

We also got to go to the temple today.

You all should go if you haven't recently! It is a special place of learning, peace, and joy! And it is the House of the Lord! You will feel Him in your life!

One of my favorite talks from conference was Elder Uchtdorf's talk about joy!

As we focus on Jesus Christ and center our life on Him, He will bring us higher and lasting joy!

I want to close with a scripture from Hebrews 12 that I have been thinking a lot about recently. Paul taught:

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Christ suffered everything so everyone could have eternal joy! But it is still our choice to receive that! Look to Christ! You will feel that joy!

I love you all! I hope you have a great week! I am praying for you!

Love,
Elder Goold

A glimpse at our family call today.  (Me in Canby, Ellie at home, Mom at home, Dad in Saint George, Cami, Lucie, and Oliver in Alabama, Emma at BYU...Spence was traveling, Garrett was at work)

{Letter #85} He Is Risen!

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great Easter week! It was really awesome here! We had 4 of our friends we are teaching participate in ward/primary choirs! So that was cool! What did you all do to celebrate? How did you choose to remember Christ extra this week?

Not a ton happened here this week. We had some good lessons, an awesome Easter,

and some fun zone things!

This week with Easter we got to talk a lot about Jesus and invite a lot of people to church! A few questions that we were inviting people to ponder on were:

What did Christ suffer?

Why did He suffer?

What does that mean to me?

I encourage you all to think about those too! It will help you increase your faith in Christ! I'd love to hear any thoughts you all have :)

Our friend Tree was one of the ones who sang in the choir on Sunday! She absolutely loved that! She is doing really well and is loving every bit of the gospel! She is currently facing some challenges so if you all could pray for her, that would be great!

As for the zone things, that mostly happened today. We played pickleball and had a fun time with everyone there! We only had to borrow paddles from 4 different families for everyone to play😅

My spiritual thought this week is going to be from an ancient Prophet named Samuel the Lamanite. He taught:

"The resurrection of Christ redeemeth mankind, yea, even all mankind, and bringeth them back into the presence of the Lord" (Helaman, 14:17)

Quite simply, because Christ rose from the dead we will all have the chance to return to God's presence!

The more we learn about Christ the more you are able to see His hand in your life every day! I hope and pray that you all will be able to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ!

I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Goold


Some random photos from this week:  

A glimpse at our family phone call this week.  (me in Canby, Mom and Isaiah at home, Emma in Provo, Spence at home, Dad on a walk in Saint George.   Cami and family were hosting people from out of town, Ellie was out with a friend).