{letter #102} Rain in Portland? Unbelievable.

Hi everyone! I hope all of you are doing great! What is something cool that's happened lately?

It's been a great week here in Mt. Hood! Not a lot in the way of eventful things but here's what happened: some lessons, we got rain!, more time in Damascus, and some fun kids!

First off, we had some awesome lessons with our friends this week! Several of our friends are preparing to be baptized soon and are working hard to get to that point. They could all use some extra prayers right now. So if you could keep Lori, Wendy, Ashley, Jen, and Edgar in your prayers that would be great!

We had several instances this last week where we had little kids ask us what we were doing (while knocking at someone's door), after we told them we were missionaries and talk about Jesus they then point us to several houses to visit! All of which invited us back! That is crazy! God works in many ways to lead us to the people who He has prepared, we just need to be willing to be lead.

I got to spend some more time in my first area again. Saw another couple people that I had worked with early on in my mission. It's a really special experience to see how people have continued to learn and grow in the last 18 months.

We got rained on yesterday! It's quite an experience getting rained on while on a bike, but it was actually a lot of fun! For as much rain as we get during certain times of the year, it weirdly doesn't often rain this time of year here in Portland, so it was a fun change.

My spiritual thought for this week is going to be from Moroni's teachings in Ether 12 in The Book of Mormon-Another Testament of Jesus Christ. Moroni taught:

"And again, I remember that thou hast said that thou hast loved the world, even unto the laying down of thy life for the world, that thou mightest take it again to prepare a place for the children of men. And now I know that this love which thou hast had for the children of men is charity; wherefore, except men shall have charity they cannot inherit that place which thou hast prepared in the mansions of thy Father."

I love how simply this teaches about Christ's love! He loves you enough to lay down His own life for you!

We must have the pure love of Christ in our lives to return to our Father! It's a lifelong process that is made possible through Jesus Christ! As we strive to follow Him we will be filled with that love!

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

Love,
Elder Goold

Pics from this week: 

Hiked to Latourell Falls today 

Got to ride in a Cybertruck this week!  

A glimpse at our family call this week (me in Mount Hood, Mom, Dad, Ellie, and Denali in Saint George, Spence at home, Cami and Lucie in the car in Birmingham, Emma in Provo) :  

{Letter #21} Rain, Sun, and Beavers

Hey everyone! I'm a little bit short on time, so this email won't be too long. Things are really good here all in all! Some highlights of this week: fast and testimony meeting, interviews, Lance, Nick, and p-day prison!

Okay, so first off we had interviews with the mission president last Wednesday! We also had some training from the mission president, his wife, and the APs.   They talked a lot about some new ways that we can use social media to find people to teach. They also talked a lot about the importance of praying with a sincere heart and real intent! It was a really good day! Very long though. We were the last interviews of the day, so Elder Feltner and I were at the church from 11am to 6pm. Definitely a little bit tired of being in the church that day.

On Friday we were stopping by the Hiatt's house to set up a time for a lesson, but as we were driving up their driveway an amazon driver flagged us down and asked us to stop. His name is Lance, he had gotten stuck in the mud off the side of their driveway and needed us to help him out. We got him out of the mud without too much difficulty. After we did, we talked to him a little bit, gave him a Book of Mormon, invited him to learn more about Christ, and he said he was needing some more peace and spirituality in his life. so that was super cool. The Hiatt's weren't actually there either. But still a cool experience!

Not a whole ton to say on Nick. He was a referral that we got last night! We haven't actually been able to get in contact with him yet, but we will keep trying!

Fast and Testimony meeting got moved to this Sunday instead of New Year's Day and that was super good! They called a new Bishopric, so we got to hear from the leaving Bishopric and the new one as well! Elder Feltner and I also got up to bear our testimonies during that! It was an amazing and very spirit filled sacrament meeting!

P-day prison wasn't actually much of a highlight. We had to drive about an hour to the mission office to watch some safety driving videos because Elder Feltner was speeding too much. So we drove there and back. About 2 hours of driving and 1 hour of videos. Definitely not the best way to spend the day, but it wasn't terrible.

For my spiritual thought this week I wanted to share a verse I read in my recent studies. In it, Nephi says:

"For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come; wherefore, the course of the Lord is one eternal round." (1 Nephi 10:19)

When we diligently seek answers from Heavenly Father through prayer and study, He will provide them to us! Part of seeking diligently is having real intent, or a desire to grow, and act on the answers we receive. God will provide far more answers to us if we show tat we are willing to change ourselves, our behavior, and even our thoughts to act on the answers we receive. Sometimes the answers may not be ones we like, or they may not come when WE think they should. But God has a plan. For every one of us. He wants you to receive every blessing you can!

I know that God loves each one of you! Trust in His plan and you will come to feel that as well!

Love you all! I hope all of you are doing great! Bonus points to anyone who can guess what the beavers in the title were about ;)


Love,
Elder Goold

A glimpse of our family phone call today....

{Letter #20} Off to a New Year!

Hey y'all!! Happy New Year! Hopefully it's been a good first few days of the year. We have had some pretty uneventful days, but all still really good! A quick summary of what happened throughout the week: zone council, New Year's Eve celebration, 12pm church, exchanges, and lastly the temple this morning!

 

On Wednesday we had zone council! That was pretty good, we talked a little bit about our transfer goals that we had set, and practiced teaching simply, like we were teaching children. That same night we had a lesson with a member family in our ward that has 3 kids between the ages of 4-9, so we were able to apply those things we talked about pretty quickly after zone council.

Thursday was extremely uneventful. We tried to stop by our friend, Robin, to drop off a Book of Mormon for her because she requested it. The person who answered the door decided that she didn't like us much though. So we will need to figure out how we can work with that in the future.

Friday, we went by a bunch of people and were able to set up lessons for later. But nothing too crazy happened Friday.

Saturday was New Year's Eve! It was a little bit crazy to think back on the last year with everything that has happened and all the people that I've been able to meet. It was a REALLY good year!! We actually didn't have a huge celebration in our mission. We had a mission wide call where we talked about how we did on our year goas that we had set, and about our upcoming study of the Book of Mormon as a mission. That was a really good way to end off the year honestly!

New Year's Day was pretty good! Our church switched to 12pm. There were some really good talks in sacrament meeting about setting goals and how we should focus them on Christ (which I'll talk a little more about later :) We, once again didn't have a ton happen until that night. We got a referral for someone named Robin (yes, a different Robin). We haven't actually met him yet, but we've been texting him and have been able to set a time to meet with him this week! We will see how that goes!

Yesterday we had exchanges, yet again! I actually left Damascus this time! I went with Elder Partridge to Powell Valley ward. It was a good day, we had a ton of lesson throughout it. Because Elder Partridge and I came out at the same time we ended up talking a lot about what to expect on the rest of our mission. Just how fast the time already has gone by, and what we can do to improve ourselves so we continue to grow closer to Christ throughout all of it. It was a good exchange!

Lastly, our whole zone was able to go to the temple today! It is such an amazing place to feel of God's love for us. If you haven't gone recently, you should!!

And now for my spiritual thought! I wanted to connect it to setting New Year's goals! I'm gonna connect this very strongly with the youth program and how they set goals too. When Christ was on earth we are taught that:

"Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." (Luke 2:52)

Christ is a perfect example for us on how we should be trying to improve ourselves! This leads to the four groups that we are taught to focus our efforts on improving within ourselves: intellectually, physically, spiritually, and socially.

So my invitation to each one of you is to set a goal in each one of these four areas for this year! I promise you, that as you set these goals and work on them throughout the year, you will see an improvement in your life.

I'd love to hear any goals that you all have set!

I love all of you! I hope you have a very happy New Year!

Love,
Elder Goold

Here's a screenshot from our family phone call today: 

{Letter #19} Merry Christmas!

Hey y'all! I hope all of you had a very merry Christmas! This week was actually quite uneventful, despite it being Christmas and Christmas Eve! The quick overview of what happened: I got sick, it sleeted, we got stuck inside, there was a Christmas Eve devotional, and it was Christmas!

On Wednesday it was about 20⁰ and windy the entire day. It also happened to be the day that I woke up with a mild fever. So I was just very cold and tired the entire day. We did a bunch of phone calls  and definitely tried to keep it pretty low key. 

Thursday the weather got COLD with  a high of about 15⁰. I was feeling a lot better though, so we were able to go out for most of the day.

At around 6pm, it started sleeting, so the mission president asked us to go back to our apartments and stay there unless it was absolutely necessary to leave.  This picture was taken just after the sleet started.  

We finished the day up with a bit of facebook work.

When we woke up on Friday nearly six inches of sleet had fallen and the world was encased in ice.  This was the view out our apartment window.

 Oregon has some of the worst road care I've ever seen and it seemed like they never even treated the roads. Because of this fact, we did not leave the apartment at all on Friday. We made many many phone calls though trying to get in contact with a bunch of our friends that we're teaching. 

Saturday was Christmas Eve and it had warmed up enough that the roads were much better and we were  finally able to safely leave our apartment. The church parking lot, however,  was still an ice skating rink, so that was fun. 

Most of the day was taken up by our mission's Christmas Eve Devotional! That was amazing! President and Sister Haymond talked a lot about Christ, and how His Atonement for us is the reason that we celebrate the Christmas season!

It was a super good devotional. They also made a video of the entire year in the mission, it was cool to see a bunch of those memories that people have!


Christmas day was really good! I got to call my family and go to church.  Church was also a really cool Christmas devotional, lots of singers and great talks on Christ. All around just a great way to celebrate Christ!

Monday was pretty uneventful, we had district council like usual, then the rest of the day was filled with normal missionary stuff. We had a phone call lesson with our friend Robin, we were able to set up a time to stop by and drop off a Book of Mormon to her.  It was really good! She seemed excited about coming to church this next Sunday.

And now for my spiritual thought! A verse that stood out to me this week comes from a vision that the prophet Nephi, from the Book of Mormon.  After this vision Nephi wrote:

"And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory."
(1 Nephi 14:14)

I love the promise this scripture makes, and it also reminds me of President Nelson's (our modern day prophet) most recent general conference talk where he says:

"My dear brothers and sisters, so many wonderful things are ahead. In coming days, we will see the greatest manifestations of the Savior’s power that the world has ever seen. Between now and the time He returns “with power and great glory,” He will bestow countless privileges, blessings, and miracles upon the faithful"

Our Savior can and will bless us as we make and keep our sacred covenants with our Heavenly Father. He will give us the power and strength to face anything that we face. This does not mean that life will be easy. But we will see the Savior's hand strengthening and enabling us to overcome these hard times!

My invitation to all of you is to focus on heavenly covenants this week.  Think of what you can do to be more faithful to them. I know that if you do that, you will be blessed with strength!

I love y'all! I hope y'all are doing well! I hope all of you had a great Christmas!


Love,
Elder Goold

PS  Can you spy me in this picture?    

{Letter #18} So This is Christmas

Alrighty everyone! Another week in the books here! Unfortunately I am running out of time so this will be a pretty short email. It was a pretty busy week, so a quick summary of what happened: our ward Christmas party, Exchanges... again, and today a zone Christmas party! All in all it was a very good week!

Our ward Christmas party was on Saturday, We went to the church Saturday morning to help set up chairs, tables and other decorations. I didn't take a picture unfortunately, but they decked out the gym with decorations. It was really cool! They set up chairs for about 200 people at the Christmas party and they actually filled it all almost exactly! It was a really good time, an a lot of people brought their friends and family, so it was a great opportunity to meet new people.


On Monday we had exchanges again! I stayed in Damascus and took Elder Jensen along with me!

 It was a fun time, we were able to find a few people who were interested in meeting with us and learning more! we also ran into someone who had just finished serving in the Salem mission a few months ago, so that was cool to talk to him for a minute.


Finally, today we had our zone Christmas activity!

We went to the church, did a little gift exchange, played a couple other games, and drank way too much fruit punch. It was fun to hang out with the other missionaries for a bit!

My spiritual thought for this week will come from my personal study.

I was studying Preach My Gospel about the Plan of Salvation. and in the section about the Creation the very last sentence says:


"We must walk by faith rather than by sight."


Which is also stated in 1 Corinthians 5:7

This just really stuck out to me this week again. Faith is not stagnant. It does not say that we must wait in faith. It says that we MUST walk by faith. We must act on what we have faith or a hope in. When we have faith in Christ we will act on His teachings before we recieve a sure knowledge of it's truth. we do not know manythings in this life with absolute certainty. Desite that we still walk forward, walk forward trusting that Heavenly Father has a plan for us. Find ways that you can walk in faith this Christmas week! Christ is the reason that we celebrate this season! Find ways to shine that light in faith!

Love y'all! I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Love,
Elder Goold