West Virginia Charleston Mission

West Virginia Charleston Mission

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

"Cabin Fever is Real"

Hello everyone! This last week and few days has been quite interesting, especially with the weather.

Monday: We visited the Defibaugh family, who weren't doing too great. Their little daughter though always volunteers to pray and her prayers are so heartfelt and full of thanks, it really brings in the Spirit. I think she is about 4 or 5. 

Tuesday: We visited Philippe and tried to visit a less active in Hot Springs. They live up on a hill in a dome house, but their property was gated off, so that was unfortunate. He must be cool if he has a dome house right? 

Wednesday: We had the opportunity to participate in the worldwide broadcast for missionaries. We heard from Elder Anderson, Bednar, and Oaks as well as L. Whitney Clayton and a few others. It was so cool to learn straight from the Apostles of Jesus Christ how we can better serve. The main focus was "Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts", which was really a great topic. All our missionary service does is invite people to repent and receive blessings for what they do! We also had exchanges with Elder Wasden, the new Zone Leader. It also snowed a decent amount Wednesday and lets just say if you are going to attempt to drive in snow for the first time, don't use a Toyota Corolla. Trust me, just don't. Also, Fernando had to cancel with us, so we are trying to get back to his house soon! He has so much potential and he really is just a great guy. 

Thursday: We exchanged back and we worked tracting a little bit before the storm, but basically everyone said we were crazy and that we needed to be prepping for the snow. It seriously wasn't even that big, but people here like to flip their biscuits about snow, which is really funny. We taught Mitzi and it went really well. She had only smoked one carton over the last week, so she is about 3 a day now! She is so close, we are very happy for her! :)

Friday: Day 1 of Cabin Fever. It really didn't snow that much compared to other places, we got 14-18 inches total, but to keep us safe, President Salisbury asked us to stay inside. We did have to make a trip to Wal-mart to get Elder Normans inhaler, because he's basically allergic to our house. We played lots of board/card games and slept and studied.

Saturday: Day 2 of Cabin Fever. Saturday morning was snowing like crazy. We again stayed inside and waited out the storm. Really bored at this point. We also got our calls about who is leaving and staying. I am in Covington for another transfer with Elder Norman and Elder Higgins, released from District Leader, is going back to Clifton Forge with the new companion he's getting. 

Sunday: Church was canceled, but we and the Entsmingers took the church snow shovels and snow-blower and plowed some driveways. We did it for people in the Branch who would have had a hard time. Driving in the snow is an adventure. We still made it out to Philippe’s though! We also stopped for some really cool pictures in Hot Springs with the snow. The waterfall looked the coolest! 

Monday: We worked on Flyers for our Bible study class and put them up where ever we could. We also had to save the Corolla from being buried, since we mostly had been using the Truck. We also worked cleaning the Clifton apartment for the move. Then we visited the Defibaugh’s again and getting to their place in the snow was an adventure. We read Mosiah 4 with them. The more and more I read the Book of Mormon, the more awesome stuff there is in it. I have such a testimony of its truthfulness and the peace it can bring into our lives if we just put forth the effort to read it! 

Tuesday: We moved apartments in Clifton Forge with the help of Jeff, the less active guy who we play board games with. That's basically it, other than we had coordination meeting with President Entsminger. He is the Elders Quorum President and now he is the acting Branch Mission Leader! He does so much it is amazing! He is actually a convert and its cool to see how the Gospel has helped him since he was baptized.

The snow is totally awesome. I enjoy it. I do need boots though, dress shoes aren't too optimal. We have transfers tomorrow to get Elder Higgins new companion, so that will be lots of driving, haha. Hope everyone has had a good week! This next transfer will be exciting and we are hoping and praying for the work to move forward! 

Take Luck,


Elder Goold





Monday, January 18, 2016

"Look for the influence of God in your life..."

Hello everyone! This has been a very fun, very cold week. 

Monday: We went over to Jeff's house and played Lord of the Rings Risk. That was pretty intense. 

Tuesday: We visited with Philippe and the Thompsons, which was great! That night we visited and taught Fernando! He told us an awesome story of when he first came to look at this house before he moved. He said he drove up the hill and saw our church building and could just feel that it was pure and clean! We testified that those feelings he felt was God telling him through the Holy Ghost that this path and this restored Gospel is the path God wants for him in his life. It was such a powerful moment to help him recognize God's influence in his life. He told us he would read and pray about the Book of Mormon and would be back at Church on Sunday! It was an awesome experience. I would challenge all of you throughout this next week to look for the influence of God in your life, because it IS there and He loves each of His children.

Wednesday: Wednesday we visited with Mitzi and we watched the Hope recovery video. We talked about how in order to always be increasing our faith and hope, we MUST be reading and praying, which she does, but we committed her to read Moroni chapter 7.  We also stopped by Jackie’s to set up an appointment for Saturday.

Thursday: We were at the Church building for a little bit and while we were there, the church phone rang. So I answered it and it was some guy looking to talk to people from the Mormon church! That was cool. So we told him to stop by and we would talk to him. So about 5 minutes later, he drove up and we started talking. Turns out he really wasn't interested. What happened was he was part of some random Facebook money scam and he met a member of the Church in the Philippines because they were both part of this scam. So he wanted us to try and talk to her because she is apparently having health problems. Not exactly what he wanted us to do, but ya know, he was nice, and maybe someday he will have a desire to meet with us missionaries!

Friday: We visited the Sampsons and talked with them a little bit. We have been talking a lot about the Book of Mormon lately and my love and testimony of it continue to grow. It seriously is the best. We also had dinner with the Entsmingers and they gave us a really old keyboard for our house. 

Saturday: We visited with Juanita in the morning. She is super awesome and rebuked people for doing dumb things, which was funny. We had our interviews with President Salisbury and that was awesome. He is such a great leader and teacher, I am glad he is here to help and guide. Also, he whistles legit exactly like a bird. It is super cool. We were supposed to meet Jackie with the Edwards, but Jackie got sick so we had to cancel, which really stinks.

Sunday: Church was interesting. We had sacrament meeting and then President Edwards canceled the rest of church at the supposed bad snow storm, but that ended up being nothing. He did give a really great talk on Charity and Pride and the Atonement and it was very powerful. President Edwards is super great. We talked with Fernando after church and are headed back over there on Wednesday, hopefully to teach his family as well! We also saw Philippe and the Thompson's. While Covington didn't get any snow to stick, Hot Springs got a little, and it looked really cool. So of course I took some pictures😀

Twas a good week. Hope everyone is staying warmer than we are, it is about 18 degrees right now. I kinda like the cold though, other than pipes freezing every once in a while.

Take Luck,
Elder Goold






Monday, January 11, 2016

"Tip of the week: Don't do what Satan says"

Hey there!

Hope this last week for everyone was an awesome week! Lots of random stuff happened. 

Monday: We cleaned and shopped and cleaned some more & then took naps. We had dinner with the Morans & taught FHE for the night! They made some bomb chimichangas. 

Tuesday: We did Genealogical Society in the morning and then did some work up in Hot Springs after visiting Philippe. We even visited the Homestead for a little bit and it is so old and fancy and awesome, 10/10, would recommend. We also did some tracting and we are improving really well with our Teach, Ask, Testify about the restoration. Inviting the Spirit asap is so effective and powerful, I absolutely love it. 

Wednesday: We visited April Wills, a less active in Clifton with 5 kids. She is such a kind lady and her kids are great, they have really just been put in an unfortunate situation. We also visited Terry since he is recovering from hip replacement. Also that night, since Jackie also just got back from surgery, we went over with Sister Edwards to bring her and her family dinner! It was an awesome visit and we should be back to visiting them sometime this week!

Thursday: We did weekly planning in the morning and then we walked to a less active, Wayne Douglas, who is actually married to Sister Thompson’s sister, Martha. On the walk, the mill was doing a steam release at ridiculously high pressure and it was absolutely deafening. That night we had dinner with the Tuckers and we committed them to read and memorize one Article of Faith, because the Articles of Faith are so great for teaching simply. Then we visited Jodie. We were going to have a lesson about how unless she is actually progressing and repenting and changing we would make our visits less frequent because it really wasn't helping fulfill our purpose as missionaries, but that didn't happen because she just talked to us about random stuff. While we were there I told her how the way the Holy Ghost works is that we have to be worthy to have it. But she told us we were wrong and that she always has the Spirit in her heart, even if she is sinning. Which is not true doctrine, the scriptures teach us how we must be worthy to have the Spirit, but she didn't believe us. 

Friday: We had an awesome Zone meeting where we role played inviting people to church with a member friend present. I hope that all of you who are members are helping out the missionaries with the work because it truly is our work as well, and if you aren't try it! The blessings are amazing. So right after Zone meeting, I got a phone call from Jodie. She said "I can't study with you guys anymore."  Me: "Why not? What's wrong?" Her: "Because you said when I sin the Spirit leaves, but that's not true and it's in my heart and God knows I am right with Him, so you don't have to come over anymore." So that was very unexpected. It is sad to see that Satan tries so hard and so effectively to confuse people who clearly have a desire to change. Tip of the week: Don't do what Satan says. Pretty self-explanatory.

Then we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders. Elder Norman and I went to Buena Vista with Elder Johnson who, fun fact, is the nephew of Hank Smith. Hank Smith actually mentions him in quite a few of his CDs. We also had dinner with the Hardy family. Turns out that their Return Missionary son is awesome friends with Rylee McKeon and their daughter is roommates with Emily McFadyen! That was super random.

Saturday: We exchanged back and worked a lot in Clifton. Not too much else happened. 

Sunday: Awesome day. We had Kelly and Danny (a less-active and a non-member in Clifton) come to church with Sister Edwards. Mitzi made it this week and she is doing well! So darn close to having quit smoking! Then we had Fernando, the mustache guy from last week, come again! He knows a ton of people in the branch already and we are going to meet with him this week to invite him to learn about the Restored Gospel! He is such a cool guy and he absolutely loved church! Also, Juan had his non-member friend, who isn't Fernando, come with him. His friend only speaks Spanish however, so teaching him might be interesting. Overall, such a great day!

This week has been super great. I hope and pray that all of you are doing well. This truly is Christ's church and it is led by Him, through a living prophet today and I know that that is true. Fun story actually. We knocked on a guy’s door a few days ago and he automatically gave zero cares about us, but I immediately began to teach him about the truth of our message and the Restored Gospel. When I said "There is a Prophet on the earth today, and he leads and guides the LDS Church." He said "Who is this guy who thinks he's a Prophet?" and I responded "Well he doesn't think he's a prophet, he IS one. That is true". That may have been a little too bold, but I wasn't about to retract what I said. Thomas S. Monson truly is a prophet and at that moment and in moments of reflection since that day I have felt the peace of the Spirit reaffirm my testimony of that. 

Take Luck,

Elder Goold

Monday, January 4, 2016

"A random guy with a bushy eskimo mustache..."

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone is doing great! It is 2016, which is super weird. I still feel like I'm 15, hopefully that lasts. This email will probably be a little different. The last week has been busy, but not at the same time. We have been planning and working increasingly effectively but not lots of stuff actually happened this week. So I'll put everything I can remember into a huge glob, since lots of days were dry of major excitement. 

Last P-day was fun, we played a board game called New Dungeon at a less- actives house. It is such a fun game. Tuesday we got a referral to someone who lives in the middle of nowhere and they had a very unhappy pit bull outside their house just chillin because people do that here. They leave their dogs outside with nothing. So haven't talked to him yet, to say the least. Eddie totally forgot we had an appointment, but he was cool about it and we should meet with him this week sometime, since now we have his phone number. Wednesday I spent forever trying to put the less-actives into my GPS, but it didn't work very well, which was a pain. Thursday, we helped Brother Moran move some cabinets and we went to Philip’s, because we were unable to make it Tuesday. Friday, we had District meeting which was awesome. We also saw Jodie for a little bit and had dinner with the Entsmingers. Saturday we did Mormon.org and worked out in Clifton.

Our parked truck got hit by some drunk guys while they were backing up, so we had 30 minutes of paper work while it was super dark and cold outside. Then we had a lesson with Brother Defibaugh (I think I had been spelling their name wrong the whole time) and he is cool. Sunday we had church and there was some excitement to the end of Sacrament meeting. A random guy with a bushy Eskimo mustache walked in the back right after Sacrament meeting was ending and then realized we were almost done and left. But I had recognized him from a good 5 or 6 weeks ago when Elder Rasmussen and I knocked on the door of a potential investigator who had moved. The Bushy mustache guy had moved there and told us where the potential moved to. I literally only recognized his mustache and so we tried his house after church and sure enough it was him! He is actually friends with Juan and Juan had invited him to Church! But Juan invited him for the 2nd hour and that's the time he showed up. So that was quite fun. We also talked to Eddie again and taught the Thompsons a lesson on the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is such an amazing thing if you think about it. All of the ancient prophets, Nephi, Alma, Helaman, had to carry around these giant gold plates. They had to carve all their writings, it wasn't just paper. They only were able to write a fraction of everything that ever happened and they did all of that so that we could have the teachings of Christ and His doctrine. They literally did all of that work for our benefit in this day. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that if you read it, even for the 50th time, as long as you have a sincere desire and real intent you can pray and feel the Holy Ghost testify of its truthfulness. I think the hardest part for people to understand is the "real intent" part. Too many people will pray about it just to know if it is true and that's the end of it. But those people will not receive a witness, because receiving a witness of the Book of Mormon's validity means that Joseph Smith was a true Prophet of God, the Priesthood has been restored, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints is true, and once that knowledge has been shared through the Spirit, it requires the person who received that knowledge to change their lives. Too many people are afraid of the changes, but the restored Gospel blesses our lives so infinitely, that the blessings will overpower and outweigh any changes that someone may have to make. The Book of Mormon is true and I know that for myself, independent of any other person. Last night we also read from Mosiah 24 with Mitzi! It was good and I noticed she didn't have her ashtray for cigarettes next to the couch, so that is an improvement!! 

Yeah, that's really all the exciting stuff I can remember over the last week! It is weird to be in 2016 like I already mentioned. Stay warm everyone, it's been quite cold here the last few days! It actually was snowing this morning!


Love, Elder Goold