OK... not THAT London, and not actually in London, itself, but that's where his mailing address is. But it makes for a good headline, doesn't it? :-) It sounds like he's doing really well. Well here... I'll let you read for yourself (the e-mail we received from Justin today):
Hey everybody! I'm totally loving my first area! I'm guessing you haven't yet received the letter I sent you on Saturday, so here's my address again:
518 County Road 2731
London, AR 72847
I'm not actually in London though. We live with a member (we actually live with the ward mission leader, which is pretty cool and very convenient) out in the country. It's a pretty nice setup. The only bad thing is that we live about 20 minutes outside town, and so we're for sure going to go over our monthly mileage allotment. At least we have a car, though. Our mission has one of the lowest accident and ticket rates in the church, and so because of that they keep giving us more cars. In our mission we have 77 companionships and 59 vehicles, which is pretty awesome. Regardless though, we would have a car, cuz the area we are in is really rural. We're serving in the Clarksville ward, which was a branch up until a few months ago, and the ward boundaries cover at least half a dozen small towns, the biggest of which is Clarksville. It has about 8,000 people, and it seems huge compared to the rest of them. It's kind of funny because we're a London mailing address (because London is the closest city to where he lives) but London isn't even in the same county and is actually outside our mission boundaries. (we found that out the hard way. Don't tell President Seal...) We're totally out in the Arkansas backwoods though. Totally redneck country. It's crazy. It's nice though because everybody we meet is Christian and has a strong belief in God, even if they don't go to church. All we have to do is let people see that we have the full, restored gospel of the Christ that they love so much, which I think is alot easier than teaching all atheists would be.
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| Elder Johnson |
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| Elder Johnson and I on our first day together, right after we met |
It's kind of scary though, because we're opening a brand new area! Clarksville hasn't had full time missionaries (besides one crazy senior couple a couple years ago) in like 6 years. But Brother Kennelly, the ward mission leader, is awesome. They actually had a baptism yesterday, and they haven't even had missionaries! This area is SO ready though! That's why they shotgunned us in here. (when you open a new area we call it getting shotgunned in) This city is ready to explode. Right off the bat we had a couple of potential investigators to check up on; John, who is from the Martial Islands, and Francis, from Mexico (they both live in the same really really low income apartment complex). They actually turned out to be really cool and ready to receive our message. Francis actually has a good friend who lives in McCall (Idaho) who introduced him to the church, and he's thinking about moving out to the Boise area sometime soon. But we'll baptize him before that happens... As we've gone around tracting and meeting people we've found at least 3 people that the Lord has really been preparing for when missionaries came back to Clarksville. We were able to answer all of their questions and concerns and they seemed really interested in our message. In just two days here we've found like 6 new investigators and several more potential investigators. The Lord really has been preparing Clarksville, and we've seen lots of miracles already. The only bad thing (well not the only bad thing. But one of the worst things) is that EVERYBODY here smokes. Everyone. Alot. We just have to go into one house and we smell like smoke the rest of the day. It sucks. Luckily the gospel can help them all with that too...
My companion, Elder Johnson (from Orem, UT) is awesome. He seemed a little quirky right at first, but I love him now. The more I've gotten to know him I've seen that in alot of ways we are really really similar. He also had lots of the same troubles and trials and concerns when he first came out that I had my first couple days and he was great helping me through those, often times without even knowing it as he just shared his own experiences. He's an amazing teacher and has so much faith and I think that's why we've had so much success. We get along really great too. He's an awesome trainer.
I love being out here so much! I love teaching real people (unlike the MTC) and feeling the spirit so strongly in those environments. Even though we haven't met with anyone more than once or taught anyone anything beyond the 1st lesson, (the restoration of the gospel and the priesthood) it's really great feeling the spirit as we teach and seeing the spirit touch them and help them accept what we're teaching. I keep thinking of the friends I've had that have come into the church and been baptized and how great it felt seeing them come unto Christ and making those changes in their lives and seeing how the gospel has blessed their lives, and I'm so excited to help all these other people experience the same thing! And I'm way excited to be in a new area that is SO ready for the gospel. Love you all!
Love,
Elder Goodale
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| Arkansas River |
OK... not THAT London, and not actually in London, itself, but that's where his mailing address is. But it makes for a good headline, doesn't it? :-) It sounds like he's doing really well. Well here... I'll let you read for yourself (the e-mail we received from Justin today):
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