“Small congregations have definitely grown on me”

Well this last week flew by! I can never seem to remember everything that happens throughout the week, so this will probably be lacking in details.

Wednesday was Zone Conference again, it was a good time, the Lindhardts are really awesome. We talked a lot about our purpose as missionaries and how to find people to teach. Oh, at Zone Conferences they've started giving gift cards to people with the cleanest cars. Elder Webb told me we would have won, but we won last time! Oh well, can't win them all I guess 😋

We were able to see Tim. He's doing well but hasn't been reading in the Book of Mormon :( He's been staying busy just hanging out with some of his buddies and hasn't really made it too much of a priority to come to church sadly. We're definitely still trying to work with him though, so hopefully things get better!

So over this last week we were going to have a few appointments with some new people, but I, being myself, lost my planner from last transfer and so we couldn't call any of them. So we did a lot of re-meeting people and re-getting phone numbers haha. But this next week we've got some appointments already planned. We're going to see a new lady named Kim tomorrow with Brother Franklin. She's really nice and actually has some family members that are members of the church, just recently moved to Ripley. Then we're going back to see Susan and Silas on Thursday. Should be a good week!

We were able to see Frank again yesterday! He's been super busy handing out money again (he pays people to use their land for projects). But we had a good discussion with him about prayer and the Atonement of Christ.

The branch had the first Family Home Evening activity last Wednesday. It was cool to see how much everyone liked it at church on Sunday.  Things are going pretty well overall for the branch. Still only a small handful of people every week, but it's great. Small congregations have definitely grown on me:)

So my spiritual thought this week has to do with prayer. Elder Bailey has done something similar and I've started copying what he does somewhat. I've noticed it helps me to pray if I ponder beforehand and write down things to pray about. I've noticed as I have done this, it's really helped me focus my thoughts more and feel the Spirit of what I am praying about. It's always good to be reminded that prayer is supposed to be a strong spiritual experience, not just a list of pleases and thank-you's.

We also got caught in a large rainstorm this last week. Good times! Also got a picture of a super tiny church we found in the middle of no-where. OH!! We also eat some good food this week! A member here gave us money to eat something so we bought the pizza of all pizzas. That's right ladies and gentlemen, in the Ripley corner, weighing in at a whopping 3 pounds, the Sasquatch Pizza. Literally though, it's 3 lbs.  I also made a random attempt at the chicken-broccoli braid my mom made back home at my request and it turned out pretty good actually.

Take Luck!

Elder Goold