First E-Mail from Elder Goodale

Justin got his missionary e-mail account set up today, and we received our first e-mail from him. He is only supposed to have VERY limited access to e-mail, so... sorry... I'm not posting his e-mail address. Even Mom 'n Pop 'n the Sibs (sounds like a '70s band name, eh?) will primarily be snail-mailing him for these two years. Here's what he had to say, though (edited to take out some boring stuff that would be irrelevant to most, anyway).

Hey everybody! Thanks so much for your letters! It was so great to hear from everybody! I miss you so much! This week has been great! Tuesday night Elder Holland came and spoke! He was amazing! It was cool because he really loves missionary work and he gets SO passionate when he speaks here. He was yelling and jumping around and pounding the pulpit and getting really into it and it was really cool. He is and amazing speaker though and you could really feel his love for us. It was really cool. There hasn't anything really significant since then. Wednesday the double batch of new missionaries came so it's been really crowded and crazy. We also got our travel schedules! On Wednesday December 3 we fly from Salt Lake to Atlanta (on Delta, of course) at 6:30 am, then from Atlanta to Tulsa. Since it's a 6:30 flight, we have to be at the MTC travel office with all our stuff at 3 am! Yuck... Other than that we're just in class all day. And teaching. It's awesome though. Yesterday Elder Phillips and I were commenting on how Sunday doesn't really feel all that special, just like every other day of the week, but not because it's not spiritual or anything but because all the other days are so spiritual. It's like every day is Sunday. It's pretty cool. I'm learning alot but more than anything I'm growing alot closer to the Spirit and leaning how to recognize and act on His promptings alot better. Our district is really cool. We get along so well and we've never had a single conflict or anything. We have all gotten really close. We have alot of fun. And yesterday they made Elder Phillips and I the new zone leaders! It's just for the next week and a half until we leave obviously, but it's still cool. A ton of pressure though. I didn't think we would have to do all that much, but on the very first night we had some tough issues in one of the other districts in the zone that we had to deal with. The Lord wouldn't have called us to this position if we couldn't do it though, so we'll just rely on Him and we'll be alright. I don't think there's much else to tell you... Thursday is Thanksgiving so we don't have class that day and I may get a chance to write you all then. We will be pretty busy because there will be another General Authority speaking in the morning and then we have a service project but I'm pretty sure they give us letter writing time so I'll try to send out another email or at least a letter then. I love you all and I miss you so much! I can't wait to here from you again!

Maybe we'll hear from him again later this week. And hopefully he's been taking a lot of pictures, and that we will soon get one of his digital camera's memory cards so we can post some pictures, too!