"Many people are studying for finals"

Hello everyone! I hope you all have been doing well! This last week has been very interesting because so many people are studying for finals, but it was good!

Last Tuesday we played soccer again and it was mostly fun. The one part that was not fun was when Elder Stoddard kicked the ball as hard as he could while I jumped in the way. The ball hit my stomach so hard I immediately collapsed and almost threw up. But I was good about 5 mins later and then went back to running fast everywhere.

Wednesday we had a short lesson on the Restoration with this guy Mohammad we just met. It went well, probably because he loved the Arabic pamphlet, but he wasn't too interested in the end. We also had dinner with Stacey, a sister here who can’t make it to church just because she works basically every Sunday. Wednesday was also transfers and so we got three new missionaries in our district! Elder Ballard, Sister Lee and Sister Fonua. Sister Fonua is being trained by Sister Flake and she's actually from Antelope which is super cool!

Thursday we visited with Bert at the institute and went over the first lesson about Prophets and Joseph Smith and the Priesthood and why it is so important. We walked quite a bit to some of the outreaches of the campus to try and find students who would maybe be here for summer or just lived here but were student age. Later that night we taught Natalie and Andrew for the first time. They are actually a pretty awesome couple and we had a super great lesson! Sadly, because Andrew is a rocket scientist (literally), they're moving to the outskirts of DC this weekend and so they'll try to meet with missionaries there! They also had a Nintendo 64, which made me very happy.

Friday morning we had district meeting, which was actually really awesome. We each took turns teaching a section about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was a very spiritual meeting. Then right after, we got to visit and teach Matt again! We taught him about the Gospel so it was nice that we had just come from a meeting all about it! It was a super awesome lesson and he said that he would be baptized! But of course, he's moving to Florida in a few weeks so we'll hand him off to missionaries down there once he moves. That night we had a lot of student activities at the institute going on, so we just came, ate their food and then went back to finding people. Pretty typical of us. J  Saturday was pretty awesome! We worked a lot up by Ruby hospital and found quite a few awesome people who won't be leaving for the summer! Later we taught Brunno and read from the Book of Mormon with him. He did tell us how he has decided that he wants to wait until he is home in Brazil to be baptized so that he can tell his family and girlfriend more about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon. At first I was kind of down, but then I realized how much of an opportunity it really was and how if it leads to his whole family going to the temple someday, then there is absolutely no reason for me to be sad. He is really such an amazing person the Lord has prepared and we are really excited and him and hopefully his family in Brazil! We also had dinner that night with Brandon, one of the members, and his family. It was weird but nice to be with a whole family for dinner again!  Then we had a night full of lots of cool blessings. We found this Muslim guy, Mortadtha and his wife who set up for us to come back the next night! Then when we were about to go inside and only had a few minutes before we went in, we decided to knock just a few more doors in one complex and of course, we were blessed to find the most prepared lady and her fiancé. They aren't very actively religious but are looking for something for their family and she told us how she loved learning so much in just 5 mins of talking to us at the door! It truly strengthened me to see that immediate blessing from the Lord and we are excited for teaching them soon! They won't be leaving Morgantown either, just moving into the Sisters’ area in a few weeks, so we can still hear about them!

Sunday we had church and it was pretty fun, Bert was there and came in the white shirt we had got for him, so that was sweet.  Then we walked a lot from one side of campus to the other and then back for different appointments we had. We were able to teach Mortadtha and his wife. We had told him about President Monson the night before so he looked up some stuff. He was telling us all about how President Monson has 3 children and his wife had passed away and he could wiggle his ears! It was super funny and the lesson in general went really well! Luckily we have all our supplies in Arabic versions so that helps a lot. They were super cool though!

We have also been having lots of fun with random stuff. We found a super nice soccer ball in these bushes on the side of this one street that some drunk kids had kicked up there, so now it's ours. Friday night there were also some girls drinking out behind our apartments that we could hear from the window, so Elder Vai got his deer call and started blowing it super loud out the window. They FREAKED OUT!! J It was so funny, we couldn't stop laughing for a while.. We also made some really good and really bad food this week. Elder Vai loves cooking and makes really good food, but we need some help in the banana bread category, because ours was trash.

My spiritual thought for the week is that God really does love each of us as His children. I think sometimes we can forget that and not recognize the power that it brings to have that relationship with Him. Everything that God does is for us and everything we have is because of Him. Sometimes though, we just need a little reminder!

Anyways, I hope all of you have had a really great week and have fun this next week!

Take Luck,

Elder Goold