"My new area of Martin, Kentucky"

Well hello everyone! So sorry I wasn't able to respond to a lot of you all last week, short on time for packing and what-not. I'll try to get back to that today. As you are aware I was just sent to my new area of Martin Kentucky and let me tell you, this place is awesome. It's way different than either Covington or Morgantown, but I love it.

So Thursday was transfers, which was very uneventful and rather bad from being sick. I had a slight fever and bad head-ache and cough, but it was short lived (I was better yesterday). So it was just a lot of driving and feeling bad. But I saw Elders Higgins, Vai, McRae, Kropushek and other missionaries at transfers, so that was awesome! Then, I finally arrived in Martin Kentucky with Elder Baggett! He is awesome. I'll tell you about him: only been out one transfer, he is from Rexburg Idaho, he loves being active, loves Bruce (his shark-pillow), and is really funny. He is a great missionary and once he feels better (I may or may not have gotten him sick) we're going to be running a lot! #soexcited  Elder Curtis was his first half trainer and now Elder Curtis is a Zone Leader here in Huntington (our zone) with Elder Kropushek, so he will get to come on exchanges back to Martin.

Anyways, so more about Martin: We actually live in Prestonsburg, hence the address. It's an area of lots of groups of towns spread out, but there are a good amount of people here. It seems to be much more than Covington in terms of activity. The ward here is also bigger than either Covington or the Student Ward, so that is nice!  We have awesome members and a  good amount of people to teach, which is sweet! I really like it here so far. It is way hotter here than Morgantown, which is weird and driving everywhere is really strange. But it's okay, I'll get used to it! We also get fed a good amount which is REALLY strange to me. We've had like 5 meals since I've been here, it's nuts.

So a few weeks ago, the elders here had an awesome baptism for Austin. He literally came up to the missionaries and talked to them and almost taught himself everything. He is so solid and received the priesthood yesterday! We are actually teaching his little brother who will hopefully be getting baptized next month!

I'm not sure really what else to include so if you want to ask any questions, go for it. I'll also include some pictures from the last few days!

Take Luck,

Elder Goold!

"Sad to leave Morgantown and all its craziness"

Yup. I'm getting transferred to Kentucky. I really have no words to explain what I think. It will be awesome there, I am pumped, but sad to leave Morgantown and all its craziness. I am actually going to be District Leader for the first time and will half-training Elder Baggett. It's going to be quite the adventure!! To be honest, I’m a little sick right now, so I'll perhaps skip some things from the last week and a half, so forgive me if I do!

So obviously, the highlight is all of the students finally being back. It has been so crazy busy and crowded, but it's great. Sooooo many people. We've been able to talk to a few awesome kids on campus and around town in apartments and such, we've been offered countless beers and have been asked to come to tons of parties. It's pretty funny because it's like no one here actually knows what we do. 

Since last email, we got to meet with Cody a few more times, Natalia twice and lots of new people. Cody is doing really well. He's been reading and learning a lot from what he has been reading. It's starting to be very real to him now, which is awesome. He's on date for baptism in September! I'm really excited for him, he has been praying a lot more too and said he's been receiving answers to his prayers! 

Natalia is also doing well. Both her and Cody came to church this last week. She's been reading a lot but she is having some concerns, mostly just with her family, but she knows what she needs to do and she wants to keep learning! We actually just met with her this morning actually.  She's coming to activities here as well and has been meeting lots of the members in this ward, so that's pretty awesome. 

We haven't gotten to meet with the Mankotos since last time, but we will see them tonight. I really can't remember too much of what happened other than all of the crazy busses and saying goodbye to people in the ward. I'm going to miss this place a lot. 

I hope all of you are doing well and are staying safe! Really don't have too much time to email this week, but I'll try and talk more next week! 

Take Luck

Elder Goold

Bert and I

Jescha, Cody and I

Brother Raleigh, Luther's older brother and I

 

Heston and I

Luther and I

Natalia, Ky and I

"I fully split my pants almost all the way open"

Hello everyone!! This week has been absolutely nuts. I'll try to remember some stuff that happened.

This week we got to see Cody who moved back in to town. We met with him and Jescha his girlfriend on Wednesday night. It's really awesome to know that he has a desire to keep learning and especially for coming to church now! He got a job at Chick-Fil-A so he has all Sundays off and is coming to church every week. Elder Roberts and I are really going to focus on him these next few weeks and help him get the gospel more into his heart!

We also saw the Mankoto family last week and it went well. We asked them the baptismal interview questions just to get a better bearing on how they were doing. Brother Mankoto is doing great and continues to read. Their son is doing well too but we are going to focus on his reading the Book of Mormon. Sister Mankoto (the one who doesn't speak English) was a little bit behind the others and rightfully so. We gave her the French restoration pamphlet to read and review for this next visit. She has a good understanding and I hope we will be able to help her along the path.

Friday was a fun experience. We had Zone Meeting in the morning first, which was cool. Recently President Salisbury has been encouraging us to memorize all of Joseph Smith History verses 16-17. Lots of missionaries have parts of them down but President has asked us to fully memorize both. It's really awesome to do it now because of the fullness of Joseph Smith’s experience.

Then Elder Ballard and I went on exchanges. We had a great lesson with an investigator the Sisters passed over to the Elders, we were able to help a lot of her concerns. Then after talking to someone for a short visit, Elder Ballard and I saw some kids moving in for school and we offered to help. This was the beginning of our adventure. They easily accepted our invitation, so for the next 45 mins we helped them move stuff up and down their tiny stairs to their stuffy apartment. Near the end of moving boxes in, I happen to squat down to set down my box and out of nowhere, I fully split my pants almost all the way open (pictures included-luckily they weren’t suit pants).  Luckily, it was hardly noticeable when I stood up, so for the rest of the time, I tried staying upright. So in their apartment, they had no air conditioning yet, since most places the East, or at least WV, don't have the big house units, only window units. So for the rest of the night we worked trying to install this 129 pound window AC unit. Needless to say, it didn't work and they went to Wal-mart that night to get something else. Then Saturday morning we returned to help them one last bit. It was quite fun to just randomly help someone so much and now they are totally cool with missionaries and maybe we will see them around campus someday!

Something that I really liked pondering this last week was something shared in Priesthood that related to visualization from our Zone Conference yesterday.  We were talking about the sacrament and its history/symbolism and one of the brothers mentioned something I had never even imagined! After reading the last supper account in the Bible he paused and said to us "Can you imagine the words Christ Himself would use as He blessed the sacrament that night?" As I imagined that I just felt the Spirit very strong as I imagined listening to the Savior Himself blessing the emblems that would represent the Atonement He was soon going to perform. It just seemed so much more personal after I thought about it that way and so I wanted to share that with all of you. 

Saturday was move in day here and lets just say even before school got out, I had never seen so many people in Morgantown. It was absolute madness. Lots of people were partying like crazy still and we were offered drinks basically anywhere we went. Interesting day - that is for sure. I also hit 11 months last week and I just could not believe that. It doesn’t seem like almost a year ago I was entering the MTC, but it has been. It's been a great experience out here so far and I love every minute.

I hope all of you have a great week this week and stay safe. Praying for you!

Take Luck,

Elder Goold

"We even went for a run Saturday morning, which was hard but very needed"

We didn't get to teach too much this week, but we did get to find a good number of awesome people to talk to! We also had Cody move back on Saturday so we'll try and see him this week, along with Natalia who is more available to meet now.

Last Friday we had Zone Meeting, which was awesome as usual and then afterwards, Elder Hugentobler and I went on exchanges. He's from Moab Utah and ran XC and track in high school as well, so we talked a lot about running. That was nice and we even went for a run Saturday morning, which was hard but very needed.

 Cool story, Elder Hugentobler and I were walking up the hill back to our place for dinner when this student, Christian from Cameroon, stopped us. He had a very thick French accent, but he just needed some help finding an apartment complex that he could try and rent from. We gave him some options and then started talking more about the Gospel. He was actually very interested since he had already seen missionaries in Cameroon. We talked about the Book of Mormon a lot with him and he really wanted a copy, so we gave him his very own! He unfortunately didn't have a cell phone, but he said he'd call us as soon as he got one! We also gave him the address to the Institute because he wanted to come to church. He was really awesome to talk to!

One cool experience that happened this week really strengthened my testimony in how the Spirit works to guide us. Elder Roberts and I were out walking to talk with people, but few people were out. Suddenly I just thought that we should go and try the small apartment complex of 9 apartments that we has already tracted before, since Brunno lived there before moving. But we went anyways! We actually knocked on the door where Brunno used to live in and lo and behold, a Brazilian student named Gabriel opened the door. He was happy to let us right in and talk with us. He really had no clue about our beliefs or anything, so it was awesome to teach the Restoration and tell him about the Book of Mormon! He was really excited for church as well and wanted to come (luckily it is very nearby his house, since he has no car). We are going to be able to see him again this week and we are praying he continues to progress in the Gospel! That was seriously such an awesome experience, I know that God was really involved with it.

Other than that, not too much happened this week. Elder Roberts and I made our own ties, and I really am happy with the tie I made. Making them isn't even that hard. I did forget to bring my SD card with the picture though, so I'll get that next week.  Anyways, I hope all of you are doing well! Stay safe and keep up the good work!

Take Luck,

Elder Goold