"I got certified to drive"

Well this week I think has gone buy the slowest and the fastest. Elder Pickett is right about the MTC having no real sense of time, but the field is the exact same way. Some strange things happened this week.  I’ve been sick this week with a cold starting Tuesday which made me real tired, I was mostly better by Saturday and now I'm good.

Monday: We went to Jodie’s after P-day and had a lesson on the Sabbath. Also, President Salisbury called and I got certified to drive, so now I can drive every once in a while.

Tuesday: We had a training conference call and so we did our Genealogical service on Thursday. Really, not much else happened.

Wednesday: We got to visit with an investigator family, the Simpsons. They are both newly retired and some of the nicest, most Christian people. We also went to the Gibson's house and talked with them for a little while and they gave us Chicken and Dumplings, which were real good.

Thursday: We had our Genealogical society service and then weekly planning. We weren't able to meet anyone, which kinda sucked, but we got to have dinner at Brother Arritt's. He just had surgery so he has a caretaker who's not a member, but she is nice. She's from Roanoke but she does come to church with him!

Friday: We had the first District meeting of the transfer this week and it was pretty good! Then we had to go to Jodie’s and feed all her animals because she was gone for back surgery! We got a bunch of people to contact out of our area book and we walked/drove around to see these people, but no one was home. We had a good lesson with Mitzi that night and she's doing better with smoking! Our prayers and help has been strengthening her a lot! She told us that more and more, she's having days or parts of days where she just has no desire or feeling to smoke, which is such an amazing miracle! We are praying she will be able to stop and work towards baptism in the end of December (she personally wants to be smoke free for near a month before baptism)!

Saturday: We tried super hard to catch a lot of people, both new investigators and less actives, but to no avail. We did go tracting for a short while and that was awesome. Only one person was actually home, but I was determined to have a bold, truthful door approach like Elder Kopischke taught us. So I said "Hello! We are missionaries for the LDS church sent here by a prophet of God to share a message about our Savior Jesus Christ with you. What would it mean to you if our message helped you come closer to Christ?" It is amazing to see the power being bold has, because you wouldn't typically think that talking at the door would invite the Spirit, but it is true, we are called of a Prophet and we are called to share our message with everyone in our area! Turns out the guy who answered didn't live there, but it was still good! We did though get to go over to Jodie's with Brother Becktel and have a lesson with reading chapter 4 of first Nephi. It was good and then we also had dinner there! Oh we made Mitzi a church music CD and she loved it. 

Sunday: Mitzi made it to church, which was great because she had lots of obstacles in the morning but knew it was something she wanted and needed to do! The missionaries in Clifton have been working with Sister Defbaugh and her family for the last month or 2 and she gave a solid talk on prayer in church. Philippe is doing well still, he's been healthy for a few visits in a row now!

It was a hard week, but it flew by and we keep working and praying to find more people to teach and help progress. We haven't been able to catch William as of late and Harry & Josh seem to have disappeared off of the face of the earth. Sister Carter  just had heart surgery, but is doing well and we are trying to see her more often.

Fun Story: Saturday, we were proselyting and a suuuupppeeerrrr drunk lady (at 4:30 mind you) started sing to us across the street. Lyrics are as follows: "Sheee (pointing at her comrade) is myyy bessssttttt friiiiieeeennnndddd! Shhhheeeeeee iissssss my beeeeessstt frieeeennndd ever! Also my besssssssst frriiiiiieeeeeennnnnd is Christ and Jessssuuus! But SHeeeee iss myyy besssttt frrrriiieeenddddds!" Pure poetry, definitely has potential to top the iTunes charts. Also, once we got home from that episode, I literally had gotten 5 things in the mail on the same day! Thanks for writing me to those who did! Hope everyone is doing good and well. 

We've been invited to many people’s houses for Thanksgiving, but we are going with the Lockharts to the Edward’s (Branch President and His wife) for dinner.  Also, the Lockharts have a daughter on a mission in the California Irvine Mission! That’s literally the mission Charlie Riggs (Hunters Friend) lives in!

You are all the best!

Elder Goold