Elder Daniel Goold: “June is almost gone!!!”

Hello everyone!! This week has gone by fast!! It was a good week! It's crazy June is almost over! This next week will be pretty crazy! President and Sister Salisbury leave on Friday and President and Sister Lindhardt arrive the same day. It's crazy that they are leaving so soon, time flies!!

So this last week was pretty good!

Tuesday we were able to see Tim again! We talked with him in his backyard and taught him more about prayer. That was something he hadn't been doing consistently and so we taught him more about it. He admitted he forgot that he could pray anytime and say anything, so he actually prayed at the end of our lesson! It went pretty well! We didn't get to see him anymore the rest of the week because Friday he got caught out of town during the crazy rainstorm that came through.

Wednesday we were able to start teaching someone new who is pretty awesome! His name is Dan. He is the NICEST guy. He had been taught by missionaries in the past, Elder Vai actually, and we stopped by to try and meet him. He ended up in a divorce last year and so that's why he stopped meeting, he just got busy and things were crazy. But we went by and he let us right in and he was really happy to see us. He's been going through some rough times and he said it himself, he thinks God sent us back to him! He wants to come to church really bad as well! He would have come yesterday but something about the paper work with the divorce he wasn't allowed to bring his kids yet. But he said he would be there next week! We are going to go and see him again this evening.

We haven't been able to see David this last week. He's been pretty busy with doctor appointments recently. I think his family may be a little apposed to the church as well, so that's probably making it hard for him. Keep him in your prayers!!!

We got to have dinner with John out in Ravenswood on Friday. He's been reading a lot of the Book of Mormon, it's awesome. Elder Scott and I were on exchanges and we taught him and his wife more about the restoration. She was more interested this time and so that was cool, she was asking us a lot of questions.

Our Family History class in Ravenswood went really well this last week! We had 4 people, other than us, come! It was great! We had a good time helping everyone get started learning about how to use the website, the family tree tool and how to find their ancestors! The only downside was the library’s wifi was pretty slow and so that made it harder. Next time our plan is to change it to the church building.

We also saw Joanne on Thursday with Brother Angus. It went pretty well, she still just asks a lot of questions about the Plan of Salvation. She's definitely heard a lot of crazy teachings from all sorts of different religions haha, but it was pretty good. She was pretty happy to learn about proxy baptisms for the dead and she actually asked us to do the baptism for her daughter if she isn't able to!

Elder Bailey and I went on a hike this morning over at cedar lakes! It was a good time, super pretty! There were tons of spider webs everywhere!! Half of the hike was a game of dodge the spiderwebs, but it was a good time. Pics below!

Something I really liked from this last week was from sacrament meeting. We had one of the Stake Presidency members come and speak. Something he said really made an impression on me. In Doctrine and Covenants we read: "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more."

His message focused on how we can receive strength as well as forgiveness through and because of Jesus Christ. Repentance is to confess our mistakes and shortcomings and then forsake them. The Lord in His goodness promises to forgive all of our sins as we meet these conditions! So, on the other hand, if we meet these conditions, we ARE forgiven! No tricks about it. One of the tools of Satan is he tries to convince us we haven't been forgiven, but if we believe that, we are denying ourselves the power of Christ in our lives. We can be forgiven, I testify of that!!

Hope y'all have a great upcoming week! We've got our last Zone Conference with President Salisbury tomorrow!!

Take luck!!!

Elder Goold