"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