"Elder Higgins nailed some squirrel, so he wanted Elder Norman to skin it..."

Hey there everyone!

This week has been very quick. The weather here remains completely inconsistent. Last Sunday it was 7 degrees outside and snowy. And just 2 days ago it was 70 degrees rainy and humid. It is very confusing. 

Monday: We didn't really do anything since everything was closed down due to snow. We spent a good 25 minutes driving to Walmart in the snow, in a Corolla. I'll just tell you, it's very difficult. Then we walked to the Church that night to get the snow shovels so we could dig stuff out.

Tuesday: We walked to Genealogical Society and helped them move a bunch of bookcases. Later when we went to see Philippe, we ran into Julia, a lady who requested a Bible, and talked to her for a little while! She is going to be out of town for a little while, but she is super nice and wants us to come and talk to her family in the future!

Wednesday: We talked with the Tucker Family, trying to set up a time when we could do a family home evening activity with them, but they're a very busy family, so we'll have to try back in a few weeks. Mostly normal missionary activities the rest of the day, talking to people, then we got a call from Clifton Forge. Elder Higgins apparently nailed some squirrel who failed his road safety classes, so he wanted Elder Norman to skin it. Hence, graphic pictures. You have been warned. 

Thursday: We did some weekly planning and later we had an appointment set up with Sister Carter. Brother Lockhart was signed up on our splits schedule, so he was coming with us, but Sister Carter had to take her brother to the ER. Instead we ended up going to the Dunihue's with Brother Lockhart since they are really close. The Dunihues are a less active family, but they are such nice people and they have testimonies for sure! It was the first time I got to visit with them and we had an awesome discussion on focusing our lives on the Gospel!

Friday: We had a great district meeting and that night we went over to Jodie's again. She texted us a few days ago and wanted us to come over. We talked and realized that she had never learned about the truth of the Godhead. She didn't know that the Spirit was his own Personage, so we taught her how God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are all separate distinct beings, and that the Spirit is the only one without a physical body. That kind of shook her and we haven't seen her since, but hopefully that made sense to her and she could feel the truth of it!

Saturday: We got to visit with the Gibson's for a short while and Brother Gibson showed us his very impressive woodworking garage. We also got to visit with Robert!! Missionaries met with him a while ago, but he was hard to get a hold of. We talked to him and his two sons and he was super nice and wanted us to come back and teach him! He is seriously the nicest guy I have ever met. We are pumped to go and teach him on Wednesday! 

Sunday: So the Arritt's gave their homecoming talk, since they just got back from their mission in Kansas! So many people came and visited to hear them speak! Definitely the most people I have seen in this Branch in one week! Brother Arritt is actually the new Branch Mission Leader so that is very exciting! I taught Elders Quorum and taught about "Help from on High", which was an awesome topic. Something I re-learned was about progress takes time, sometimes more time than we would like. A quote came from Joseph Smith that said "We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; and that the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin; and like the ancients, arrives at that point of faith where he is wrapped in the power and glory of his Maker, and is caught up to dwell with Him. But we consider that this is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment"  

It was an awesome week and I hope you all feel the same! Pictures on the way! 

Take Luck,

Elder Goold

"...everything shut down except for Walmart."

Hey there everybody!

Well it's probably weird that I am emailing on Tuesday, but yesterday the Library was closed, not because of President's day, but because it snowed like 4 or 5 inches. It's kinda funny, people freaked out and everything shut down except Wal-mart. Oh well.

Monday: Last Monday we went to Jeff’s with Clifton Forge missionaries and played Axis and Allies, which is super fun. British Empire for the win. Elder Norman was America, of course. He loves America, probably more than anything. We tried visiting some other people near Sister Carter’s home, but people gave us funny looks because it was supposed to snow half an inch and they assumed we would be inside. Silly people. 

Tuesday: We visited Philippe and the Thompsons. The Thompsons were especially grateful for having a working bathroom floor, and they are doing really well. We came back and set up an appointment with Mitzi for Friday and Brother and Sister Becktel would be coming with us! We also talked with Fernando at his door about the Book of Mormon very shortly, he said he was still thinking and praying about it.

Wednesday: We didn't get out to do much, Elder Norman was feeling bad so we stayed in. Lately he has been getting really bad headaches, so we were pretty mellow the whole day.

Thursday: We had our Zone Conference!!! This is where President and Sister Salisbury, along with the Assistant missionaries, come and teach and give instruction for a big portion of the day. It was really dang awesome! President Salisbury taught us lots of really helpful things and is just awesome overall. He is also really good at magic tricks, so he showed us a couple of the tricks he could do. Plus, since he went on his mission to Paris, France (not sure if I have mentioned that before) he talked to me in French very briefly and it went right past me. Sorry Mom :) 

Friday: Friday we were supposed to have our lesson with Mitzi, but sadly her work went late and so we had to cancel. We work a lot trying to find people, but it's quite hard in this area. We did talk to a lady, another lady named Jackie actually, who asked us to come by Sunday, so that was pretty nice! We talked with Tonya, a referral from quite a few months ago, and she is really nice and very open to what we do, she just has lots of kids she watches for her friends and family, so she's hard to catch. It was actually quite a blessing to see her and hopefully we will be able to teach her soon! She was also very concerned for us being out in the cold!

Saturday: Elder Norman unfortunately had another bad headache so we had to rest inside. In the mean time, I'll tell you a little bit more about him. He is from Greenriver, Utah, he played football in High School as well as trap. He loves guns, football and America more than anything. He isn't super talkative, but we get along great! He is pretty good with cooking too, which is nice. He actually worked building houses and closing off old Uranium mines before he left on his mission. He loves to work hard and he is awesome to be companions with!

Sunday: Really great day at church! I'll focus mostly on Brother Southall's lesson. He taught about adversity and challenges in our life, and read how President Hunter related our challenges to a boat in water. Just like the boat cannot move forward without the water for the oars or propeller, we cannot improve or move forward in this life with out things that are challenging! Those things are placed in our life so that, if we push forward with faith, we can become more like the Savior and strengthen our own testimonies. In D&C 121:7-8 there is a phrase that sticks out to me.. "then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high" We are expected and we should use these events as ways to grow, not setbacks. I really liked his lesson, if you can't tell!

It was a really good week, despite some obstacles, and we are hoping to find a new investigator this week! We also just grew slightly since Brother and Sister Arritt just returned from their mission in Kansas! Brother Arritt absolutely loves missionary work, so we are totally pumped to have him in the mission! Keep up the good work and I would challenge you to all learn from those things that come your way! They are definitely there for a reason :) I know for a fact that Heavenly Father watches over every single one of us and He gives us exactly what we need, when we need it!

Take Luck,

Elder Goold 

"...I went running...It was glorious."

Hello People!  Great Week!

This last week has been interesting! I am sore today, I'll say that right now.

Monday: We just hung out at our place in Covington and played some board games and cleaned a decent amount. We visited Mitzi and taught her about fasting with a purpose and the strength it gives us. She made it to church and told us she fasted for strength with smoking!

Tuesday: We visited with Philippe and he was doing much better, compared to Sunday. He had been sick for a couple days previous. We also saw the Thompsons and taught them about Helaman 6, how the Lamanites, despite their initial rejection and turning away from the Gospel, were extremely faithful members once converted!

Wednesday: We did our Mormon.org time and tried visiting some people. We were able to teach Fernando and it was very different than we had planned. We talked to him at first about some skepticism he had about change, but we bore testimony of Christ and His power to strengthen us as we do hard things. We invited him to be baptized at the end of the month and he said that he would think about it and talk to us on Friday at the Church! It was an amazing blessing to be there, and I truly felt the Spirit.

Thursday: We had the opportunity to go and visit the Whiting family, members, with Brother Southall. The Whitings are awesome, it really stinks that Sister Whiting is in too bad of health to go anywhere. We had a lesson set up with Jackie and President Edwards, but being the manager of Taco Bell, she had to work late and canceled. She is also just getting back into work after her surgery so she's working extra now. We are going to try and go to see her in a few weeks. We had a dinner with Juan and Patsy as well, and they are both doing very well! We taught them about personal revelation and how by feeling the Spirit daily and establishing habits, we are able to grow and receive revelation. Juan has so many random things. Literally, he has a solid gold Cowboys Football card. Solid. Gold. It's so cool.

Friday: We had Zone Meeting! It was really cool to see our new Zone Leader, Elder Maloy. Then Elder Norman went on exchanges to White Sulfur Springs and Elder Sievers came to Covington with me! He is super cool. He was from a real small town in Idaho and loves basketball. But we have very similar taste in music, which was cool. He is also great at teaching! Speaking of which, we had a lesson at the church with Fernando and Juan came with us! It was a great lesson. Fernando expressed how he still is concerned with change, but he wants to follow the path that God wants for him. He committed to pray about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and whether or not following the Gospel and being baptized is the path for him.

Saturday: Elder Sievers and I went running, despite it being 25 outside. He was up for it, so it was done. It was glorious. Then we went to the Thompsons, and with Brother Whiting and Tucker, we completely fixed their bathroom floor. Their toilet had been leaking and the wood around it was rotted so bad, we could hold the toilet and rock it back and forth. So we removed the toilet, ripped out the 2 layers of rotted wood, removed all the linoleum, cut new wood, put it into place, put new linoleum and glued it down. It took a while, and it made me sore, since their bathroom is tiny. We also taught Mitzi again, and we taught her about Spiritual habits, similar to what we taught Juan and Patsy. She told us how she wants to start writing things down when she reads the Scriptures so she can remember more, which is so awesome!!!

Sunday: We had church and Mitzi came! We were excited to see her because she told us how everything was working against her to make it that morning. Bella, her dog, kept stealing her shoes and her cats were climbing all over her, but she made it anyways! We were supposed to visit Sister Carter, but unfortunately she had to pick her brother up from Roanoke, so she rescheduled for another day this week. But she is very sincere with meeting with us, she says she feels bad about other times she's forgotten us.  

This really was an awesome week! We are so pumped and we have Zone Conference with President this month, so that will be fun! Hope you are all doing awesome!

Take Luck!

Elder Goold

"We got stood up as missionaries"

I am starting to think that the 4 days between Wednesday preparation day and Monday preparation day are actually longer than a week. Anyways..

Thursday: Transfer day! We drove up to White Sulfur Springs and stayed with Elder Holbrook while Elder Higgins and Elder Hill went to the transfer meeting. We didn't do too much while we were there. Later we went up to see Philippe since we missed him Tuesday because of moving. There was also a referral for a bible in Hot Springs that we talked to. She actually works where Philippe is at and wants us to come back once they have calmed down from moving!

Friday: We had a strange day. We talked with this older guy who only wanted to talk because he knows that our church members are fairly conservative and the fact that he just broke up with his girlfriend because she was too liberal. That was weird. Then there was a lady, Patricia, who had requested a Book of Mormon. We knocked on her door and she answered by saying "The house isn't good, I'll meet you at D&J's (a restaurant) in 30 minutes!" So we went there and waited a bit. She didn't show up. We were so confused! 

Saturday: We had a District Meeting with our new District Leader, Elder Seivers. He is pretty awesome, he came out the transfer before me. We also talked with Garland, a potential investigator, who asked us to stop by the next Saturday. He is a pretty nice guy and his wife is super funny! We also got to see the Gibsons. Brother Gibson asked us to come by someday and cut down some trees in his backyard, so that will be very fun! 

Sunday: Church as usual. Well, not really. We got to teach the primary 3rd hour, which is always an adventure. We watched a video about the beginnings of the Book of Mormon and then we "met" prophets from the scriptures. We tied out ties around out heads and wore funky old looking clothes. It was pretty darn fun. We also had a potluck after church, and of course, we got all the leftovers, which is so great. Free food is always great. Afterwards we didn't do too much, Elder Norman was feeling pretty sick, so after seeing Philippe we stayed inside. 

It has been pretty warm here the last few days and now almost all the snow is gone! It is weird how the weather here changes so fast! We are excited for a great new week, hope you are all doing well and staying safe!

Take Luck,

Elder Goold