{Letter #101} Creator of All Things

 Hi everyone! I hope that you all have had a great week! What is something you're looking forward to? It's been a pretty good one here! We had zone conference, some exchanges, awesome lessons, and fun training things!

First of all, zone conference was awesome!

President Botchway talked a lot about the importance of becoming converted to Jesus Christ and the importance of focusing on him in everything we do! It was awesome!

What are some ways that you all focus on Christ every day?

On exchanges I got to go back to my very first area.... Boring, Oregon! It was awesome! I didn't see too many people that I knew while I was here, but it was still cool to be back. Kinda a full circle moment!

The people that we are working with here are awesome! There are a good number of people that are really close to accepting a baptismal date. If you could be praying for the Montiel family, Ashley, Blessing, Viola, and Wendy that would be great! The members in this ward are really great at connecting with our friends and being a part of their lives so it's always great to bring them along and see them become friends!

This week in training we have had all sorts of fun things. It's still a work in progress helping Elder Guymon, but he has already grown a lot! Working with new missionaries is awesome because they always give such simple and powerful testimonies! It's been awesome!

My spiritual thought for this week is going to be from Alma's teachings to his son Helaman in The Book of Mormon-Another Testament of Jesus Christ. Alma taught:

"I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise."

I love this principle! The Lord can do great things in our life but it often comes by small and simple means. This also applies to our own efforts! When we put forth small but consistent efforts, we will be able to make big changes!

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

Love,
Elder Goold 

Here are some photos from this week:

A cute duck family

P-day trip to Costco after a trip to the doctor for his comp earlier.  Rotisserie chickens were purchased...

Departing missionaries from my zone, along with President and Sister Botchway.

  I've been comps with three of them (Nielson, Moore, and Crum)

Another departing missionary shot...

A glimpse at our family phone call this week: (me in Gresham/Mount Hood, Mom at home, Spence at home--Dad was driving to Saint George, Emma, Cami, and Garrett were at work, Ellie is in the middle of finals week)

{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).

{Letter #84} I Like Public Speaking

Hello everyone! How has your week been? Did anything fun happen? What are you doing to celebrate Easter this Sunday?

This week it felt like I was wearing a sign that had something to the effect of the title to this email. In case you were curious, I don't actually love public speaking.

This week was busy and pretty epic! We had zone conference, gave a training there too, temple tour, spoke in sacrament meeting (with about 10 minutes notice), and exchanges!

First of all, Zone Conference! That was awesome! It was held in a historic Portland Tabernacle. It's the first stake center in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the pacific-northwest. It is pretty cool! Lots of cool history around it. If you want to know more, you can email me!

In zone conference we got to give a training on planning! The main teaching point was actually the story of the Brother of Jared in Ether chapters 2-3. I highly recommend you read them and listen to what the Spirit teaches you about planning!

We had an awesome temple visitor center tour with our friend James! He is so cool! He knows a lot about the gospel already and is working towards being baptized! If you could pray for him that would be great!

This Sunday (Palm Sunday), we were outside the chapel greeting people as they walked in. The bishop walked in then turns around and comes back. "One if the speakers couldn't come today, would you be able to speak?"

That was fun! If you haven't given a talk in front of a few hundred people with 0 prep time, I wouldn't recommend it! It's okay though, it actually turned out really well! The Spirit definitely guided that😂

That goes very well into my spiritual thought for this week! It is some of the verses I shared in that talk. The prophet Alma taught his son Helaman. He talked about a compass that worked by people's faith in Christ. Alma said:

"And now I say, is there not a type in this thing? For just as surely as this director did bring our fathers, by following its course, to the promised land, shall the words of Christ, if we follow their course, carry us beyond this vale of sorrow into a far better land of promise.... The way is prepared, and if we will look we may live forever. And now, my son, see that ye take care of these sacred things, yea, see that ye look to God and live". (Alma 37:45-47)

(If you want more context you can read verses 38-47)

I love these verses! Christ is joy! If we look to Him we will have life, joy, and direction!

Especially during this Easter season I invite you all to ponder on Christ and His atoning sacrifice! You will feel those things.

I love you all! I am praying for all of you! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Goold

Here are some pics: 

Our friend Bailey and a couple of her friends

Our friend Jana

Our friend Diane

On p-day, we got to tour this incredible house built from scratch by a member of one of our wards.  It's huge and has lots of personality.   Our whole zone spent a couple hours touring around it.  Come to find out, one of the owners of the house grew up in the same ward I did in Virginia!  

Check out that dragon gargoyle! 

The scenic views from the house were incredible!

The grounds were pretty amazing too.

There were different themed rooms throughout the house

From last week's temple trip

P-day shenanigans

Last week's p-day included lunch at the Botchways' with the whole zone

Some more temple pics

A glimpse at our family call today 
(Me in Canby, Mom at home, Dad in Saint George, Spence in the car on the way to the gym, Emma in Provo, Ellie in Vietnam, Lucie in Alabama, Cam,Garrett, and Oliver were also there, but not in the picture)