Elder Daniel Goold: Hollerin' without a truck

Well this last week has been pretty awesome. Lot's of fun times for sure!!!

So we were able to find a lot of cool people this last week!! Some of them in main-town, and some in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Good times!

We met this guy named John in Ravenswood. He was weeding a bocce-ball court and we walked by and started talking to him. He definitely enjoys talking, but he had a lot of similar beliefs to us and he really enjoyed that. So we talked with him for a while and turns out he lives right near Tim. Really funny too, and now he's interested in coming to church and he's starting to read the Book of Mormon! We were able to then go by his house yesterday and teach him about the Plan of Salvation which went really well, since he had always thought that "burning in hell" and other things other churches always talk about was too mean.

Then, Earl was the other guy that was fun to talk to. We met him while walking in Ripley and he was visiting his friend at a trailer park. He and his wife have been wanting to get back into a church and so we talked with him about how we can know which church is true and receive our answers through prayers. Then, we asked where he lived and he gave us the classic WV directions, "just 'bout a mile up *insert holler name here* on top the hill". For all of you familiar with West Virginia, everything is a hill. Luckily, we knew where the road was and decided to just wing it later in the week trying to find him. Yesterday was that day. But we were successful! We drove about as far up in the holler as a Corolla can make it and then hiked the rest of the way. We were successful in finding them and they were busy, but invited us back. It was quite the holler though, hollers are just the best!!! I don't think I'd mind living in the middle of nowhere after my mission!

We were able to meet with and teach the “B” family on Thursday. They fed us dinner, which was really nice and then we were able to teach them about the basics of the Restoration and why our church is different. They're a catholic couple, but were really open to learning and reading the Book of Mormon and studying further!

We also got to see Tim again on Saturday and taught him about the Plan of Salvation. That went really well. He is a super good guy who just wants to help people! He was going to make it to church on Sunday, but something happened. We actually knocked on his door in the morning and helped him wake up, but we think he may have fallen back asleep after we left. Next week!!!! And then we got to see Sister Meadows again but this time she didn't call her friend and all was well. In fact, it really seemed to help her understand the gospel better and why we are different than other Christians. Right now she works on Sundays so she can't make it to church, but we are going to work with her more to get Sundays off.

Then like normal, we did service at the food pantry, had church, walked a lot and did a lot of talking to people. We're starting to work more with the branch presidency to inspire the missionary work in this area. It's going great so far!

This week we did a lot of teaching about the Plan of Salvation. It was awesome. Something that really amazed me is just how perfect God's plan really is, and how careful and in depth everything is. And what's cooler is how we can never seem to learn it all. So I wanted to challenge you all to look for something in the Plan of Salvation that maybe you don't know a whole lot about, or something you want to know more about and then study it! I know for a fact that you will be able to feel God's love and draw closer to Him with a better knowledge of his plan. Hope you all have a great week!!! Peace out

Take Luck!

Elder Goold