{Letter #52} The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling!

 Okay, okay.  The sky isn't actually falling, but it has just been a crazy crazy week. A lot has happened, and the sky falling is kinda what it feels like currently. Here's a summary of all the stuff: Elder Dahl finished his mission, serving with Hazeldale Elders, training(!!!!), transfers, temple, and lots of interviews/meetings.

I'll start with the temple. President & Sister Botchway gave us some Tongan ancestor's names to take through the temple. That was awesome. The temple is an amazing place! You should go. It is a house of peace, learning, and the House of the Lord!

My previous companion, Elder Dahl, completed his mission! He had to pack a bunch, so Wednesday and Thursday were pretty full of that. We dropped him off at the mission office Thursday afternoon, then I went with the Hazeldale Elders until transfers the next day.

I have lived with one of those Elders {Elder Partridge} for 6/9 transfers on my mission, but those ~24 hours were the first time that I've been his companion *technically*. We had a total of 3 lessons during that time, all were pretty good. Teaching in a trio is definitely a unique experience.

On Friday night I got to pick up my brand new missionary! His name is Elder Thatcher! He's awesome. He's going through a lot of things that new missionaries often do with the adjustment period. He's a very solid teacher and has a strong testimony of Jesus Christ! I'm looking forward to the next few weeks of this transfer.  In the picture below, Elder Thatcher is the one right behind me in the blue suit.

There have been so many interviews and meetings since the transfer began. We have driven to the mission office almost every day. They have all been good, a collection of meetings to help trainers, trainees, and also just interviews with President Botchway.

In addition to all this, as of today it has been 1 year since I began my mission! Time has flown by. It has been a great year! Lots of amazing people, both missionaries, members, and friends that have made my mission what it is to me today!

Also, it has been about 105 degrees out the last couple days and the houses here don't have central air conditioning, so that's fun.

My spiritual thought for this week is going to come from Chapter 5 of "Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ"

In preparation for district council on Monday, we all read the section: The Book of Mormon Testifies of Christ. after we had studied that section we answered these questions at the end of the section:


-What have you learned about Jesus Christ from your study of the Book of Mormon?


-How has your study of the Book of Mormon influenced your testimony of Jesus Christ?


I invite all of you to ponder on those questions! Write them down somewhere! I testify that the Book of Mormon is the greatest witness we have of Jesus Christ as our living Savior! If you don't have a testimony of that, I invite you to study ponder and pray about the Book of Mormon.

It will change your life! It will make Christ a part of your every day life! You will be happier! You will have peace!

Love y'all (my mom was right about this part). Let me know if there's anything I can do for you! I'm praying for all of you!

Love,
Elder Goold

A glimpse at our family phone call this week:  (Emma, Garrett, and Spence were at work)

And another little tidbit he shared with me this week...his current ward gives the missionaries a lot of food, which means he's had very little to buy since he's been here.

{Letter #50} A Blessing and a Curse

Hi everyone! I hope y'all are doing well! This has been a pretty good week. Lots of things happening. Here's what happened: a mission devotional, 3 baptismal interviews, and honestly not a ton else. It felt busier than it was I guess🤷‍♂️

We skipped district council yesterday to go to a mission wide devotional with Elder Ahadjie from a Quorum of the 70. He has been friends with President Botchway for a very long time. It was his very last day in the calling, so as of today Elder Ahadjie has been released. It was a fantastic devotional.

We got to hear from President and Sister Botchway and also Elder and Sister Ahadjie. Here's some things that stood out to me:
-we love the Lord
-that should be our why for doing missionary work
-we must apply the scriptures to our own life
-specifically using "me, I, my, etc." when studying
-we are blessed for obedience
-we curse ourselves when we are disobedience
-when we act in disobedience we remove ourselves from the presence of the Holy Spirit
-we can return by choosing to repent
-the Lord can shape our hearts and our desires when we act in obedience
-have JOY in the Lord's work
-we are CALLED to share the JOY of the Savior’s atonement

Those were just a few of the things I learned, I don't currently have my notes on me, but those are some of what I still remember without reviewing them

Elder Ahadjie's use of the Old Testament was very inspiring. He taught the gospel and doctrine of Christ very simply and effectively. It was inspiring and very Spirit filled.

We had 3 baptismal interviews this week. One was our friend Michael! He's gonna be baptized this Saturday. We're very excited for him!

The other 2 were interviews that my companion and I conducted. They went very well! And there are going to be 3 baptisms this Saturday. Very exciting times!

If everyone could pray for Michael, Ella, and Mykaela that would be much appreciated!

A verse I wanted to share this week is from the Prophet Benjamin's address. He taught:

"And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you."

This is a verse that Elder Ahadjie used in his devotional. These things are true! When we love the Lord and are obedient to Him, we will be blessed! It is a promise that has been given to us from the Lord! "and he never doth vary from that which he hath said".

I invite all of you to find one thing that you can be more obedient in this coming week. You will be blessed!

Love you all! I hope all of you have a great week! Let me know if I can help out with anything🙏

Love,
Elder Goold

A glimpse at our family phone call today (missing Emma and Dad):  

{Letter #49} Marriage

Hi Everyone! I hope you all are doing great! I'm quite short on time this week, but here's a summary of what happened this week: Michael & Kira's wedding, exchanges, and the airplane home!
First off, Michael & Kira's wedding! It was amazing! They had it at their home, only had about 20 people there. The ceremony was performed by the bishop of our local congregation out here. It was a very happy time and all around pretty good experience. Michael & Kira said that they both felt the Spirit.

The exchanges this time around were really good! I was in my area with Elder Francom. We talked a lot about faith and humility and how these things will help us to see God's hand more in our life. We also talked about a quote from chapter 1 of Preach My Gospel regarding our own conversion. It teaches:

"Remain focused on your commitment to Christ... not the outward results. These results often are not evident immediately. At the same time, keep your expectations high regardless of the challenges you face. High expectations will increase your effectiveness, your desire, and your ability to follow the Spirit."

This is true! We will have a greater desire and ability to feel the Spirit when we remain focused on Christ and keep our expectations high, for ourselves, and for what Christ is able to do in our life!

Today we went to an old plane in the woods that someone turned into their home. It was really cool! apparently it made some appearance on a Netflix show. not sure what its called.

My spiritual thought from this week will be some of the words of Christ. He taught:

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33)

When we turn to Christ we will find joy even in our hardest challenges! I invite you all to find one way to turn to Him this week! It will bring you peace and joy!

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

Love,
Elder Goold

A glimpse at our family phone call this week (Mom and Ellie are still in Thailand):

{Letter #48} Jesus Loves You oO-Oo-oO0

 

Hello everyone! I hope all of you have had a great week! Things have gone pretty well here, lots and lots to keep us busy. A few things that have happened: interviews, cleanup, and Patrick!

First off, last Wednesday we had interviews with President Botchway! These were awesome! It was President's very first time doing interviews with a zone, so it was a pretty new experience for him. It was honestly just him trying to get to know us a bit better. It was cool. He follows the Spirit very well.

We also had a training going on at the same time that went pretty well! We talked a lot about treating everyone with the love that Christ would. It was very powerful. We have so many examples in the scriptures, and around us today, that we can look to and follow as we try to develop this love.

One that stood out to me from recent studies was in the account of Lehi's vision of the tree of life (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/8?lang=eng). He saw many people seeking to come to the tree of life (which represents the love of God). All of them trying to press forward through a variety of different challenges, struggles, and temptations around them. The only ones who made it to the tree of life and stayed there, was the ones who help fast to the iron rod (which represents the word of God).

In other words, the only way that we can be filled with the love of God continually is to hold fast to the word of God! Hold fast to the scriptures! Hold fast to the teachings of the living prophet! Hold fast to what the Spirit teaches us!

When we do that we will feel God's love acting more in our own life. Not only that, but we will feel of God's love for all His children. We will be better able to love like Christ did if we hold fast to the word of God!

Next, we were able to go to Michael's house to help cleanup his property for his wedding on Friday! It's kinda out in the middle of nowhere on a bunch of fields. It's a very pretty place and it was good to help out with that.

We also had a really cool experience where we met our friend Patrick yesterday. We were trying to get in touch with a referral we had received the previous day. we had just knocked on their door with no answer. As we were walking towards the next person we were visiting we walked around a corner and Patrick was there! We started talking, he has a christian background and said that he had always wanted to meet with missionaries.


We had a really good discussion with him and he really loved the Book of Mormon! He said that it just makes sense that we would have another record of Jesus Christ. We invited him to read from it and pray about it, he seemed very excited to do so.

Th craziest part about this whole experience, Patrick is from Florida. He was visiting a friend of his, in our area, for the week. He was working from home that day, had just decided to step outside to take a walk for a little break. Everything had to fall into place just right for all that to happen! God is a God of miracles!

My spiritual thought from this week comes from what the Lord said to Moroni in Ether 4:

"Therefore, repent all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me, and believe in my gospel, and be baptized in my name; for he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; ... and signs shall follow them that believe in my name."

Here the Lord, Jesus Christ, is speaking about us! I love the promise Christ gives to us! there will be signs and wonders that follow those that believe in Christ! There will be miracles! I add my witness to that! If we believe in Christ we will see those signs, miracles, and wonders in our own life and te lives of those around us!

I love you all! I hope you all have a great week! Let me know if I can do anything to help you all out!

Love,
Elder Goold


Pictures:
-random 9pm picture we sent to our zone

-Michael's dog Acorn


-interviews


-a cool decoration


-the view from Michael's

{Letter #47} Love One Another

Hi Everyone! I hope all of you had a fantastic week! This felt like a bit of a slower week here, but it was still very good! Here's some of the events of note: zone conference, painting, ward barbecue, and a great lesson with our friend Alma!!
 

We also went to the temple today! It is an amazing place of learning and peace! If you haven't been, or haven't been recently, you should go! You will learn something new if you go with a desire to learn!

Next, zone conference! It was amazing! We no longer have themes, but I still learned a lot from it. It was President and Sister Botchway's first zone conference in the mission! We got together with half of our mission and got to hear from them, and also some trainings from the new Preach My Gospel. One of the things that stuck out to me was Sister Botchway talking about Christlike attributes demonstrated in the scriptures! It was really cool to see how every prophet in the scriptures testifies and emulates Jess Christ! And now we are doing a mission wide study of the Book of Mormon to search out these attributes and how we can develop them ourselves! (If anyone wants to participate I'll put the schedule here)

Next, we had a service where we got to paint a less active member's house and also help hang their gutters up. Nothing too crazy there. The funniest part was how they greeted us. When we first pulled up and got out of the car they said "do you want a four leaf clover? I'm really good at finding them" *proceeds to hand me and my companion a four leaf clover*

so now I have a four leaf clover.

We also had a ward barbecue that our friend Michael came to! He is continuing to progress really well towards baptism and is making lots of friends in the ward. It is going very well! He's also getting married soon!

Just yesterday we had some very good trainings/discussions in district council about teaching for understanding. immediately after district council we got to teach our friend Alma! She has a lot of concerns with feeling inadequate and people judging her. We were able to help her understand how the scriptures can help her even with that! Our friend from the ward was also very good in helping Alma understand the importance of reading. We invited Alma to read from the Book of Mormon, pray about it, pray to receive strength, and to come to church. She seemed very excited!


My spiritual thought from this week is going to come from Nephi's experience in retrieving the plates (or scriptures) from Jerusalem. Nephi said:

"And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless I went forth"

We often face challenges in life that we don't know what the next step to take is. The Spirit can guide us though! It is essential for us to take the first step despite not knowing where it will take us. When we put our trust in the Lord, follow the Spirit, and take the first step into the unknown, that is when we will truly be guided like Nephi!

Take that first step! trust God! He loves you! He cares about you!

I hope y'all have a great week! Love you all! Let me know if there's anything I can do for you!

Love,

Elder Goold


The pictures:

-some Ghanian food made by President Botchway


-The animals I interacted with throughout the week

-Zone temple trip 

{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.