“Talked to a few nice people and a few not as nice people”

This whole month has gone by way too fast!  I'll try and tell some of the highlights from this last week:

Peoples we visited:

We got to teach Nathan again on Monday with his friend Miranda there, it went pretty well! They even invited themselves to church! They both made a good connection with the Spirit, but they're hold-up right now is making time to read the Book of Mormon. We're seeing them again tonight and we're pretty excited for that.

Saturday evening we got to see Tim again and we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He really seemed to understand it well! It was good because it helped him connect the good things and service he already does to following the Savior. Then Tim came to church on Sunday!! It was awesome! He really enjoyed it and told a lot of the members he was wanting to come back next week! And he has a phone now, which is great, so we can actually contact him and set appointments up!  My favorite part was a really old man in the ward, Bro. Adkins (90) kept coming up to Tim and telling him how awesome he was for coming to church and that he better listen to us! 😂 Bro. Adkins is hilarious.

The Moores!! We saw them again on Friday! It's been a while since we saw them last, but they are doing well. Sister Moore had just started a new job when I got here and so that was keeping her busy. We had a good lesson with them though and set goals with them about reading the Book of Mormon! We're going to see them again tomorrow though, so that's awesome!

We didn't get to see the "M" family sadly :( He was called into work at the hospital a few times and so we had to reschedule for this week. But we're still excited for them, keep them in your prayers!!

We saw Earl as well and read some of the Book of Mormon with him. He was still having questions about the reason for the Book of Mormon if we already have the New Testament. It went pretty well though and he liked the idea of it being easier to understand.

Other than that, we didn't see too many other people. We went out to Ohio and talked to a few nice people and a few not as nice people, all while getting drenched, so it was a good time! It rained a lot this week actually.

We had exchanges all day in Spencer on Thursday and that was awesome! I was with Elder Scott and we went to teach one of their investigators who's getting baptized soon! We actually went to teach her kids who she shares custody of, because they were asking questions about the temple and Book of Mormon! It was absolutely hilarious. Here kids are all younger than 12 so it was a lot of really funny questions, answers and teaching. In the end, Elder Scott demonstrated how to baptize someone by pretending to baptize me behind their couch because they thought we were drowning people haha😂 We also found a turtle!!!!! We had a mini-photo shoot and I found out if a turtle is carried around in the air, it thinks it's swimming hahah!

We also have had a crisis with our fridge. It broke and now the fridge part is room temperature and then freezer deep-freezes everything, so we had to throw away a bunch of good food sadly. 0/10, NEVER recommend.

So my thought for the week is inspired by this awful church sign pun in Ravenswood (below).

The absolute best way to see if something is good and true is to try it yourself! If you don't know what chocolate cake tastes like or if it's good, try it! If you have doubts or questions about the teachings of Jesus Christ and how they can help you, then just try them! Live it and you'll see the blessings! I have a testimony that our actions are what make the difference. The way we live shows who we are and it is one way we can learn for ourselves the truth. Because as we live a certain principle or way, the Holy Ghost will be there to testify of it's truthfulness. The Spirits voice is the most assuring witness we can receive.

Anyways, hope y'all had a good last week and a good memorial day! We definitely did!😁

It was the “extra most bestest” day of disk golf! Good times! Peace out!!

Take Luck

Elder Goold

Bad Church Pun

Our new turtle friend

More Frisbee Golf, or Frolf!

Messy lunch with the Walters Family

Embarrassing lunch mishap!

Check out the newest tie I made!

"Epic Everything"

My email title is inspired by some random brand of bread in Walmart. This last week was pretty awesome! Lot's of fun things happened:

Last Monday we got to meet with the Greenings, one of the families in the Branch here and help them share the gospel via social media. They're a cool family, so that was good! He makes a lot of his own furniture, so we got to sit on a homemade couch!

Tuesday was pretty bland, so I'll skip to Wednesday. We had Zone Conference in Charleston for most of the day and that was awesome! It was our second to last Zone Conference with President and Sister Salisbury. Kind of sad, but it was really good. We read through 1 Nephi 17-18, so much great stuff in just two chapters! I really like 1 Nephi 17:13 because of the amazing promise Christ gives to those who keep the commandments! I'll talk more about it later!

After Zone Conference we rushed home for our Family History class, but sadly no one made it :( But it actually wasn't terrible because we learned by experience that it takes a few centuries to get onto our library's wifi, so it wasn't too bad after all. Now we are better prepared! Then we were on exchanges with the elders from Spencer, both here in Ripley. Elder Webb (the older, not my old comp) and I were together and we got to teach the “M” family!!! It was awesome!!! It was a great lesson and they both committed to baptism! So we are pretty pumped for that:) And the craziest part was what I realized right as I left.

So, we were talking about how long they've lived here and such and they told us how Sis. M & their baby had been in Huntington for 2 months earlier this year because of her baby being born premature. Then I mentioned how I had been serving in Huntington before I came here. Anyways she said how while in Cabel Hospital, she had asked her cousin (a member of the church in Southern WV) to send church people to give her baby a blessing. Then it hit me; Elder Webb and I had been asked to give a premature baby a blessing while we were there in Huntington and it turned out to be the M’s baby!!!!! (included on post from 2/27/17) I couldn't believe it. I felt an overwhelming influence of the Spirit testifying to me about how Heavenly Father's hand is in every detail of what we do. Literally, after all of the areas I could've been sent to after Huntington, I was sent here to the place this family lived...totally incredible. I didn't even know what to say. Crazy awesome though!!!!!

Then we ran around Thursday and Friday doing some catch-up after meetings all day Wednesday, but we got to swing by the Evans again! Sadly, they're both sick and their brother-in-law is going in for surgery soon, so pray for them all!

We didn't get to teach Nathan this week, but we set something up with him for tonight, so we're pretty excited. He had a rough last week, some issues with his girlfriend, and so he broke up with her. But he got the Gospel library app on his phone last night and said he'd go through as much as he could on there before tonight, so that should be fun!

Lot's of funny things happened this week! Yesterday we were having lunch with the Walters and randomly a blue bird flew into the house through their fireplace so Elder Bailey and I were running around trying to catch it and get it out side haha! That was pretty funny! Also, our refrigerator here is really dumb. Right now, it is keeping the freezer really way too cold and isn't doing anything to the actual fridge part, so we've had to start ice-bucketing all of our normal fridge things. Fun!! It should be getting fixed sometime this week though.

Something I really liked from our discussion of the chapters in 1 Nephi was verse 51 of chapter 17. It reads: 

And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me, that I should build a ship?

I love this scripture because of it's simplicity in self-application. Think about something that is hard for you that you've been asked by God to do and replace "build a ship" with whatever you've been asked to do! Nephi was such a great example of unwavering faith, and how to act on the faith we have. Verses 7-11 are also really good to study and take apart, but I'll leave my comment at that:)

Hope y'all had a good week! Stay safe and keep up the good work!

Take Luck,

Elder Goold

This is from the top of the hill in the hollow where Earl & Justine live.

Covered Bridge at Cedar Lakes

Notes about the “Casto Hole” noted on the sign near Elder Goold:

The Casto Hole is a cave hidden by the woods, located near Limber’s Ridge on the waters of Straight Run, a branch of the Tug Fork of Mill Creek in Jackson County. It was a Unionist refuge during the Civil War and achieved notoriety in the scurrilous contemporary ballad, ‘‘The Casto Hole,’’ by Elihugh Powers. It has since become a part of local historical lore.

Jackson and adjacent counties were mostly loyal to the Union, and a Tug Fork Home Guard militia was established to protect the local citizens and their homes from Confederate scouts and raiding parties. The Home Guard held meetings in the Casto Hole. At times of threat Unionists would go there for safety, and it has been said that runaway slaves could find refuge there. Nicholas Casto was elected captain of the local Home Guards.

Elihugh Powers, a prominent resident, was a Southern sympathizer. This prompted Nicholas Casto to write a poem, now lost to time, critical of the rebellious Southern states and censuring Powers for his belief in their cause. Powers responded with enthusiasm when he penned ‘‘The Casto Hole.’’ Originally 27 verses, over time it was reduced to 19. It ridiculed the people and activities at the Casto Hole and stirred strong emotions in the county. High-tempered Casto youths wanted to tar and feather Powers, but calmer counsel prevailed. As time passed, the song came to be taken with more humor than hostility and some members of the Casto family were even said to laughingly recite some of the verses.

Inside the Bridge

Elder Bailey

Mother's Day!! Good Week!

This last week has been good! Elder Bailey and I both got to speak in Sacrament Meeting on Mother's Day, so that was fun! I'll talk about it later! :) It was also great to see my family yesterday!  My family is the best! :)

So last week we got to see Earl and his wife, Justine up in Cherrycamp Creek. We hadn't met his wife before, but she had already read through some of the pamphlets we left and so the Restoration went really well! They committed to read the Book of Mormon together and they're looking to come to a church, so they're pretty excited! Then, we were stopped by their neighbors on our way out, which was really cool.  They asked us whether or not we talked to people who used food-stamps, because someone told them we hated poor people! So that was pretty crazy and it was awesome to clear that out of the way and they were actually really interested after that and took a copy of the Book of Mormon!! #hollowblessings

We did a lot of planning for our Family History class this Wednesday and a lot of walking, so that was good. We got to teach Roger in Ravenswood on Saturday, which was good. We got to teach him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was a spiritually strong lesson. Sadly he's hasn't been really keeping commitments, so we're just trying help him read and come to church. 

Last night we were back in Ripley and we finally got to see Nathan! It actually went really well, we got to teach him the fullness of the restoration of the gospel! It was awesome. The Spirit was especially strong because he told us what he was going through the first time he talked to us. He was going through a hard time and said he wanted to go and make bad decisions and then he saw us walking, he heard something tell him to talk to us! So that's why he started talking to Elder Strunk and I. We asked him where he thought that voice came from and at first he wasn't sure, but he thought about it more and he told us he felt like it was a part of God's plan for him to see us and talk to us! It was a great lesson and we're seeing him again Wednesday night! 

Other than that, nothing super exciting happened! But this next week will be good, we've got a lot of good things planned, which is exciting!!! 

My spiritual thought for the week is what I based my talk on yesterday: gratitude! Because it was mother's day I discussed and dove into the example of mothers and just how great they are and the countless reasons we have to be grateful for them! I promise if you start to ponder all of the things that have blessed your life that come from your mother, you'll quadruple your gratitude for her in your life! The best part it.... moms are only one of and endless list of things to be grateful for (albeit, high on the list😊)!!!! It's completely incomprehensible just how much Heavenly Father has blessed us with. So my challenge is to think about, ponder and analyze everything you have in your life and I promise you'll be filled with gratitude and love towards God! 

Fun (kind of?) story! We had dinner with Brother Angus on Friday at Bob Evans Restaurant and Elder Bailey and I found TABASCO CHOCOLATE!!!!! Don't get too excited, it's not as great as it sounds (unless you thin it sounds bad, then yes, it's exactly as good as it sounds). I've gotten over my pure hatred of spicy food enough to eat them for entertainment sake, so I tried some and it was terrible. But really funny, that's for sure! Pics included! Hope y'all have a great week!!!!

Take Luck!!!

Elder Goold

PS: We visited America's smallest Community Museum right here in Ripley, WV!